Jan 16

Today’s News 16th January 2024

  • Dissecting A Modern Vaccine Propaganda Piece
    Dissecting A Modern Vaccine Propaganda Piece

    Authored by ‘A Midwestern Doctor’ via ‘The Forgotten Side Of Medicien’ Substack,

    Recently, I published an article which discussed how science been hijacked by corporate interests and turned into a dogma no one is allowed to question. After Pierre Kory shared it, it ended up going viral on Twitter.

    It got enough traction that even Hotez himself “responded” to it (normally he hides from every chance to debate) by retweeting a zealous adherent of his narrative.

    Note: one of the most remarkable things about these tweets is that they disprove themselves, as they deny Hotez believes any of that, but simultaneously states that he does indeed believe it. As this article will show, that type of “logic” is a recurring theme with Peter Hotez.

    Based on the feedback I received, I realized a lot of people were interested in knowing what was inside the book and why Hotez is such a frequent target of criticisms. Additionally, given Hotez’s “response,” I felt it was important to share exactly what he proposed doing to those who disagree with him and how the WHO is working behind the scenes to make that happen.

    Why Is Peter Hotez Dangerous?

    Hotez has long drawn the ire of the vaccine safety community because he will relentlessly defend the narrative and attack anyone who questions vaccine safety.

    For example, many parents believe vaccines cause autism because they had a child who was completely normal who then received their vaccines, had a bad reaction to them and then rapidly regressed into permanent autism. Conversely, I do not know of any cases of a child rapidly regressing into autism immediately before their vaccination appointment (which one would expect to happen if the autistic regression “happened by chance”).

    Note: I personally believe vaccines cause autism because I and colleagues have seen countless children who:

    • Have similar adverse reactions to vaccination (e.g., high fevers or a non-stop piercing cry) which is then followed by rapid autistic regression.

    • Have numerous signs that microstrokes occurred (e.g., impaired function of the nerves that innervate the face) along with a variety of biomarkers indicating they are trapped in the cell danger response or a hyper inflammatory state—all of which has also been observed by many other clinicians and are a common side effect of vaccination.

    • Improve once the blood flow to the brain is restored, the cell danger response is resolved, or the inflammation in their system is reduced. While this rarely results in a 100% recovery (due to the brain tissue that is permanently lost), we have many cases where we’ve observed remarkable improvements, even in cases that were treated decades after the initial injury.

    Peter Hotez (a pediatrician) in turn has spent years speaking on the mainstream media to debunk any link between autism and vaccines, which eventually led him to write a book about his autistic daughter to “definitively” prove vaccines don’t cause autism that he then brandished around each time he spoke in public.

    Note: Hotez’s book doesn’t actually disprove the link between vaccines and autism. Rather, it shares his own subjective trains of logic which predictably led him to conclude that it doesn’t make any sense vaccines could cause autism. Conversely, he reveals the limits of his pediatric knowledge (as he had to take his autistically regressing daughter to a specialist to get a diagnosis) and reveals that his daughter had numerous signs of a debilitating vaccine injury (e.g., the piercing cry) that Hotez to this day has not recognized.

    While many things in it were quite cruel, some of the most noteworthy included:

    • Denouncing parents who wanted to consider the possibility vaccines caused autism because…it diverts some of the funding away from the social support offered to autistic individuals (which cannot come close to meeting the demand for it as caring for autistic individuals is expensive and more and more people are developing autism).

    • Insisting the only reason parents consider the autism vaccine link was because of a retracted paper Andrew Wakefield wrote (rather than because a lot of people witnessed severe injuries immediately following vaccination). This brief clip illustrates why I don’t support this gaslighting:

    Note: for context, Wakefield’s infamous 1998 Lancet paper was simply a case study where 12 children who had experienced both neurological regression (i.e., autism) and gastrointestinal issues (e.g., abdominal pain) shortly after MMR vaccination then had their bowels examined where it was shown they did indeed have bowel inflammation. I have often thought the reason why this paper is still viciously attacked decades later is to both to dismiss the idea people might have a legitimate reason for believing vaccines cause autism and to send a harsh warning to the medical journals to never publish anything which threatens the narrative. I am mentioning that here because Hotez frequently utilizes a similar tactic to dismiss any notion severely injured patients might have that the COVID vaccine was responsible for their illness.

    Due to his experience in “combatting vaccine misinformation” as public resistance grew towards the slew of mandates that were enacted across the nation during Obama’s presidency, Hotez became much more vocal in both denouncing the antivaccine movement. In turn, Hotez went on a speaking tour across the country calling for Silicon Valley to censor all criticisms of vaccination online.

    During Trump’s presidency, Hotez began actively denouncing each science related policy Trump put forward, but once the Pandemic began, Hotez (an avowed left-wing partisan) became a constant cheerleader for Biden’s vaccine program.

    In May of 2020, he published an article about COVID-19 and the antivaccine movement which concluded:

    To mitigate the consequences of a reinvigorated antivaccine movement in America it will be essential for the White House, together with the NIH and other elements of our science infrastructure, to shape a well-crafted vaccine communication plan. They must also designate a trusted spokesperson who can articulate and carry the message.

    While Hotez repeatedly criticized the coronavirus vaccination development efforts during Trump’s presidency (including doing so before Congress), once the administrations transitioned, Hotez quickly worked to become that spokesman and before long was seen on every network zealously promoting whatever the current vaccine messaging was.

    Note: After George W. Bush won the nomination, he assigned Dick Cheney to determine who his vice president should be, who as we know was ultimately chosen for that role. I have often wondered if Cheney inspired Hotez to assume the role Hotez worked to create.

    Remarkably (as shown later in this article), in addition to contradicting his previous warning against the vaccines, he quickly began contradicting what he had previous said on television (as the vaccines continually failed to meet their promise and the goal posts had to be moved again and again).

    During his previous vaccine tour, like many, I erroneously assumed Hotez was a clown (as much of what he said was so absurd I didn’t see how anyone could take it seriously) and the best thing that could be done was to ignore him. This was a big mistake as Hotez’s speaking tour paved the way for the deadly mass censorship of lifesaving COVID-19 treatments and reports severe vaccine injuries we saw throughout the pandemic.

    In his current tour, Hotez has continually advanced the idea that anyone who disagrees with the narrative (e.g., by questioning the safety or efficacy of the vaccines) is a danger to society and must be censored. Before long, that turned into for calls for the government to be mobilized against anyone who challenged the corporate “scientific” narrative):

    Many of us recognized how dangerous Hotez’s message was and a successful grassroots campaign was conducted which took the wind out of this PR campaign.

    Unfortunately, they haven’t given up. Hotez has been given a lot of media time to relentlessly promote a new book which argues “not trusting the science” will bring catastrophic death and the destruction, while the WHO in tandem is pushing for a treaty which will give them the ability to outlaw any dissent against their next pandemic response: (fwd to around 26:00)

    Note: this video is really important to watch and it cuts to the heart of why Hotez’s book (which represents the tip of the spear to push the WHO’s provisions forward) is so important to expose.

    From reviewing Hotez’s book, it’s quite clear it was targeted to an uninformed audience who are not aware of the broader context which immediately refutes most of his points. For this reason, I believe it’s important to provide that context.

    Note: the degree of gaslighting in this book is astounding, and I would in turn advise against reading it if you were seriously harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic policies and are sensitive to someone saying all of that was in your head (this is also why so many parents of autistic children hold great disdain for Peter Hotez).

    First Order Thinking

    In medical education, one of the primary metrics everyone (e.g., both the students and schools) are judged on is their performance on board examinations, so a “subculture” exists which revolves around the intricacies of those examinations.

    One of its foundational concepts are first order vs. second order vs. third order questions. In first order questions, you simply have to recall a testable factoid (e.g., which of the following is a side effect of ciprofloxacin), while in second order questions, you need to be able to link two memorized facts together (which of the following would be an expected side effect of the first line antibiotic to treat this infection), while in third order questions, you need to link three chains of memorized facts together (e.g., based on the patients symptoms, for the condition those symptoms suggest [with the condition not being stated in the question], what is the most common side effect of the drug that would be used to treat it).

    Initially medical students receive more first order questions. Then, later in their training as they have more medical knowledge (e.g., they can instantly identify the infection being described by the question stem) their examinations test a great proportion of second or third order questions (you have to pass quite a few to get a medical license).

    In the previous article, I argued that the main reason the vaccine propagandists won’t ever agree to public debate is because much of what they espouse has a high enough discordance with reality that it instantly falls apart under cross examination and second order thinking.

    Note: in another article I provided numerous examples where the press allowed an open debate on a national vaccination campaign program and in each case public opinion rapidly turned agains the campaign. This predictably led to all discussions which did not wholeheartedly endorse the mantra “safe and effective,” being phased out of the media after Clinton enacted regulations in 1997 that allowed the pharmaceutical industry to buy out the press.

    More than anyone else in America, Peter Hotez exemplifies this strategy as he constantly is brought on by compliant news hosts who echo everything Hotez says, but simultaneously, Hotez will never even go in front of a neutral audience who exposes his statements to a basic degree of scrutiny.

    After I read his book, I had a realization; the majority of Hotez’s “arguments” are first order statements which immediately are invalidated if you know the related context. Furthermore, Hotez often provided the context that disproves his first order argument in another part of his book. This is remarkable and something I very rarely see authors do.

    For example, he justifies the need for everyone to get a polio vaccination by…the fact people are catching polio from the polio vaccine.

    Poliovirus strains continue to circulate in the environment primarily because gaps in vaccination facilitate ongoing transmission. In the US and UK cases, the poliovirus discovered was derived from a strain that originated from the live oral vaccine (vaccine-derived poliovirus, or VDPV) but mutated until it acquired characteristics that resembled a wild-type poliovirus. It can then propagate among the unvaccinated. Therefore, the presence of VDPV is a biomarker for “significant numbers of unvaccinated people.

    Likewise, Hotez denounces RFK Jr. for falsely claiming that Hotez pushed to make criticizing Anthony Fauci a felony “I never said criticizing Dr. Fauci should constitute a felony.” Beyond failing to mention that RFK Jr. was simply referencing Hotez’s recent publication which called for criticizing scientists to become a hate crime, Hotez actually repeats that call that later in his book.

    Note: this duplicity is analogous to how Hotez frequently says public statements which are disproven by previous public statements he’s made.

    When this ridiculous style of rhetoric is used, it’s very easy to pick it apart. As a result, it can only work on an audience if they are put placed into a tunnel which emotionally hammers that narrative to the viewer (which sadly aptly describes much of the mainstream media), and likewise illustrates why those venues can never host a scientific debate.

    Note: many medical students have shared with me how frustrating they find it that many of their supervising doctors will tell them something they are expected to perfectly memorize and fully believe, but simultaneously those doctors never do the work to provide the full context to their medical factoid and share the nuances behind it. Remarkably, those doctors often feel they “did an excellent job ‘teaching’ the material,” despite them having done nothing except repeat their own soundbites. This is very similar to Dr. Hotez’s method of “educating the public,” as he frequently refers to it as a heroic effort to educate the public, but all he actually does is repeat and repeat the first-order statements which conform to the current narrative.

    Remarkably, in many cases, what Hotez proposes is so absurd, both sides of the political spectrum oppose it. For example, this is what an LGBTQ organization said in response to Hotez’s hate crime proposal (which Hotez of course refused to comment on):

    Why the Hypocrisy?

    No one is perfect, so to some extent everyone is hypocritical and because of this I frequently try to avoid having hypocrisy be a basis for attacking someone’s position.

    In general, I find that subtle hypocrisy can only be recognized with second or third order thinking, whereas blatant hypocrisy is often evident to a first order thinker. For this reason, I typically only critique the most egregious examples.

    In turn, one of the remarkable themes throughout the book is how often Hotez accuses the other side of doing what he is doing. For example he:

    • Laments the fact people are “persecuting” him by challenging or mocking his less than truthful statements, yet Hotez simultaneously calls for those he disagrees with to be silenced, cancelled and punished and omits to mention the professional, economic or criminal consequences those who oppose the narrative have faced (e.g., consider what Washington’s medical board just did to Ryan Cole because he saved people’s lives by prescribing ivermectin to them).

    • Falsely accuses the vaccine safety community of using the default approach he and the mass media use to defend the narrative:

    Its propaganda campaigns employ multiple channels and media approaches in a blitz that is sometimes referred to as a “firehose of falsehood.” The messaging is described as high volume, multichannel, repetitive, and without consistency or even reality”

    • Attributes many of the well-known side effects of the vaccines to not enough people vaccinating:

    Especially worrisome are the findings from Oxford University researchers showing gray matter brain degeneration from long COVID, with associated cognitive impairments. Such neurologic damage across large segments of the US population might also have been prevented if vaccines were accepted. There is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccinations not only keep individuals out of hospitals and ICUs and prevent deaths but also reduce the frequency and impact of long COVID. The bottom line: We have not even begun to imagine the scope and scale of the mental health devastation that will result from long COVID, loss of parents and other caregivers, and heightened levels of anxiety from a traumatized American public. This occurred in no small measure because a critical mass of Americans refused COVID-19 vaccinations.

    This conduct has of course led many to question what is motivating Hotez to do this. Presently, I believe three plausible explanations exist.

    First, Hotez has fallen into such a deep hypnosis around his ideology (i.e., a “mass formation”) that he has lost the capacity to recognize how hypocritical and discordant with reality many of his positions are.

    Second, Hotez’s business model revolves around branding himself as a champion of “science” and “neglected tropical diseases” (he even wrote a paper bragging about this) so he can get grants to develop vaccines for those diseases of poverty. This in turn requires him to get as much free advertising as possible (e.g., being brought on every day to speak about the COVID vaccines while simultaneously always being sure to mention his grift). His grift in turn has been remarkably successful as over the decades, he has diverted at least 100 million of grant money to his projects—much of which went into funding the creation of his hookworm vaccine which has still gone nowhere.

    Note: I have often wondered if Hotez’s left-wing leanings have been influenced by the fact rapidly partisan liberal news networks were happy to give a platform to anyone who criticized Trump during his presidency.

    Third, he (and likely the WHO) are aware that the public is waking up to what they pulled throughout COVID-19, and as a result, has realized the only option Hotez has is to double down on his audacious lies.

    Note: it was repeatedly observed in the USSR that as their governments began to collapse (e.g., due to the communist economy imploding), the propaganda used to sustain the government became increasingly absurd and at odds with reality.

    While I disagree with the overall message of Hotez’s book, I think many of the individual points he makes are valid. One of those is that there have been many previous periods in history where the public (or the government) eventually turned against its doctors or scientists. Hotez understandably pleads for this not to happen, but simultaneously fails to recognize that the dishonesty from many members of his profession is what’s actually causing that to happen and that if wants to prevent the public from rebuking his profession, honesty and humility rather than hypocrisy and manipulation is what’s needed to restore the public’s trust in science. People don’t like being gaslighted and no amount of propaganda can change that.

    Demonizing the Opposition

    One of the most frequent tactics used to defend an argument you can’t defend is to attack the other side’s character rather than their argument (which is known as an ad-hominem attack).

    This tactic is the most common approach in Hotez’s book, and continually reminded of a well-known internet meme:

    Hotez’s primary approach has been to associate much of the modern conservative movement with the term “far right,” a term that has become so broad it has become nothing more than a meaningless slander (e.g., I used to be “liberal” but now I’m “far right” because I always opposed catastrophic wars occurring overseas which squander our national budget to enrich war profiteers). Hotez in turn tries to make the “far right” sound as evil as possible while simultaneously associating “not trusting the science” with belonging to the “far right.” For example:

    • He continually tries to associate “anti-semitism” with any criticism of the COVID science.

    • He continually tries to associate individuals opposed to the January 6th protests with anti-vaccine sentiments, and hence argues that individuals with anti-vaccine views are also dangerous insurrectionists.

    • He continually emphasizes that certain Conservative groups like the Proud Boys (which have been labeled as being “far right”) are sometimes seen protesting in concert with anti-vaccine groups, and hence tries to juxtapose all the nasty labels the media has given to those groups onto everyone else there too.

    Note: my own experience was that the only groups I saw behave in a fascist manner throughout the last 8 years were left-wing ones. However, since the media selectively focused on the right-wing ones, those without the complete context (e.g., first-order thinkers) were left with a very negative impression of the immense danger these right wing groups represented.

    • He chose to depict Canada’s trucker convey as a horrible act on the people of Canada (which I would argue was quite misleading). Additionally, Hotez emphasized that Swastikas were there in order to argue the protest was infested with Nazis, while neglecting to mention (which even Snopes acknowledged) that a small number on Nazi symbols were there and were clearly directed at protesting Canada’s Nazi-like behavior, not to be an endorsement of Nazism.

    • He continually repeats the trope that anti-vaccination content is Russian propaganda being flooded to destabilize the United States and implies anyone who doesn’t support the vaccine narrative is a traitor to the country (likewise Hotez repeatedly claims he and his fellow scientists are the “true patriots”).

    Likewise, he used many other made-up slanders, which are non-sensical, but leave an uninformed reader with a very bad impression of what’s happening:

    Berenson and other prominent vaccine skeptics, including those connected to the “Intellectual Dark Web,” who challenge liberal ideologies while in some cases openly espousing anti-vaccine viewpoints, have appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts around the world, with more than 100 million downloads per month.

    Note: one of my favorite Hotez-isms was how he “addressed” the fact that people who hold opposing views to him have a much better case for their position by saying the following:

    Oftentimes, the arguments of the contrarian intellectuals are extremely clever, using real facts woven together in devious ways to spin false narratives about the ineffectiveness or harmful outcomes of COVID-19 vaccinations and other prevention measures.

    In parallel to this, Hotez repeatedly asserts that many people died as a result of their choice not to follow the COVID-19 mitigation policies (e.g., he repeatedly cites the claim 200,000 people died because they weren’t vaccinated during the Delta Wave), and in turn uses this relentlessly argue that “antiscience” can’t be ignored because it’s killing a lot of people.

    The problem with this argument is that there’s a great deal of data showing the exact opposite of everything Hotez claims (additionally, keep in mind how many times Hotez stopped claiming much of what he previously said about the vaccines when he tried to sell them to America over the News Networks—and in many cases then denied ever having said his original statements).

    For example, across the world, after the vaccines were introduced, deaths significantly increased, which was the opposite of what had been expected to transpire with the virus over time (as we’d already developed a degree natural herd immunity to the virus, the most vulnerable members of society had already died, more was known about treating it, and over time viruses typically mutate to less deadly variants). Yet, instead COVID became much more deadly once the COVID-19 vaccines hit the market (something quite a few people had sadly predicted would happen).

    Note: to some extent Hotez acknowledges this by stating—”In 2021, the third year of the pandemic [and the year the vaccines hit the market], the deaths from COVID-19 really began to climb. Initially it was a terrible wave from the Alpha variant in the winter, followed by a summer–fall Delta wave.”

    Furthermore, in each case where it was possible to track the change in excess deaths once the vaccines was received by a large group of people, the same pattern was seen:

    Note: current estimates are that the vaccine has killed around 1 in 800 people, or around 17 million people world wide. Tragically, this does not even account for the far more common debilitating but not life threatening injuries many have experienced after vaccination (e.g., one large survey found 34% of Americans believed they experienced a minor side effect from the vaccines while 7% believed they’d experienced a major one).

    Additionally, in the one case where it was studied in a large group over time, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found that vaccination made you more likely to catch COVID not less likely (which may explain why repeatedly boosted individuals are now getting COVID far more than the unvaccinated):

    Hotez’s 200,000 deaths estimate was based on the assumption that the unvaccinated were 16.3 times as likely to die from COVID as the vaccinated and that at least 80% of the 245,000 deaths which were attributed to COVID during the Delta Wave [May 1 2021-Dec 31 2021] occurred in the unvaccinated. There are a variety of issues with these assumptions (e.g. what I mentioned above and the fact that many hospitalized vaccinated individuals were mislabeled as “unvaccinated” in the official statistics). Of the sources I’ve seen refuting his claims however, I believe they are best shown by this graph:

    From looking at this, it should be quite clear it’s intellectually dishonest to say the vaccine almost completely eliminates your risk of dying of COVID and hence that 80% of all COVID deaths must be attributed to vaccine refusal.

    However, Hotez of course does not do that, and then proceeds to argue again and again that this “200,000” death toll proves the far-right activity which gave rise to “antiscientism” and hence must be stopped at any cost. Additionally, he made a point to use every opportunity available to slander anything associated with conservatism while claiming the high ground for doing so:

    Moreover, I felt that many politicians who endorsed an anti-vaccine agenda did so not out of ignorance but for reasons of partisan expediency. When I began expressing my disgust and anger toward those willing to sacrifice American lives for political gain, that too caused many viewers (judging by the e-mails and notes on social media I received) and journalists (judging by the interview requests following a cable news appearance) to take notice.

    A meme I saw shared after the previous article aptly describes the new normal Hotez has pushed for:

    Gaslighting

    Since Hotez has a very weak case for his narrative, like many gaslighters before him, he has to continually:

    • Completely rewrite the history of what happened.

    • Cite the opinions of rapid partisans as proof of his points.

    • Claim he is a faultless victim everyone is just being mean to.

    Note: many internet memes exist to describe individuals who continually poke at hornet’s nest and then complain about getting stung.

    This aptly describes Hotez, who is happy to fling very dangerous accusations against anyone who does not support his narrative and simultaneously laments how terrible and unjustified it is that people then tell him they don’t like him.

    Indeed, during our calls, Peter [another individual directly involved in creating COVID-19] confirmed his distress and expressed concerns for the safety of his family. What also came through in our conversations was his righteous indignation. He became a scientist to help humankind, only to be vilified as an enemy of the state. For me as well, this aspect of the situation is especially demoralizing. We became scientists to help the nation and the world; as I have explained to Peter on several occasions, we are the true patriots, not the phony ones who attack us.

    Some of these same groups even tried to draw me into GOF or lab leak accusations by falsely asserting that our coronavirus vaccine development efforts somehow supported GOF-related work.

    Note: this tweet, seen by over a million people concisely describes how Hotez, did in fact do just that and then worked tirelessly to cover it up.

    More remarkably, he frequently equated these “unfounded” criticisms against him and Fauci to being treated as an enemy of the state by the totalitarian regimes of the past (e.g., the USSR)—even though most of the press bends over backwards to defend Hotez and his colleagues.

    As I explained earlier, attacking science itself rarely suffices in a rising authoritarian regime, whose leaders soon find it necessary to go after individual scientists. We had become enemies of the state.

    In parallel to repeatedly dramatizing the suffering he’s experienced from people disagreeing with him, Hotez also makes numerous absurd arguments to support his contention that the pushback he’s gotten (for being the national vaccine spokesman) are completely unfair and unjustified.

    For example, Hotez continually claims the animosity he’s received was simply because of the terrible scourge of anti-semitism.

    On many occasions I lost my concentration at work or woke up in the middle of the night because I was so upset by these unfounded accusations. In addition to sadness, my other emotion was righteous indignation. After all, I obtained my MD and PhD and worked all my life to develop lifesaving interventions for diseases of the poor. Now a segment of American society sought my public execution in a manner befitting a Nazi doctor. The fact that I am Jewish and had family members suffer in the Holocaust made this period especially demoralizing. Increasingly, I began to notice a connection between anti-science and anti-Semitism. I was targeted in this manner in part because I am a Jewish scientist, and many elements of the far-right embrace attacks on and harassment of the Jewish people.

    Yet, Fauci (who is not Jewish) has received far more pushback than Hotez (which Hotez even admits). This hence suggests the pushback they received is the result of something besides bigotry, such as the immensely harmful policies Fauci and Hotez relentlessly promoted and shoved down the public’s throat throughout the pandemic.

    Note: like Hotez I am Jewish. One of the major issues I and many in my circle hold towards Hotez is that whenever someone uses “anti-semitism” an excuse to dismiss criticisms of their egregious conduct, it creates genuine animosity towards Jewish people, especially if the individual continually does so on a large public platform.

    Similarly, Hotez continually says science should not be politicized and constantly laments that the “far right” is persecuting America’s scientists, but simultaneously, Hotez continually attacks conservatives (and comes up with a variety of rationales to support him politicizing science).

    In my case, it is not so much that I care to enter into political disputes, but rather, what I desperately seek is to find ways to convince far-right groups to shun the anti-science element. Because anti-science is such a killer and destroyer of lives in America, my message is to say: This is not ”“your fight. You are entitled to your conservative political views, even extremist views in many cases, but please distance yourself from the anti-science. Too often, however, my efforts to uncouple the anti-science from political extremism are interpreted as something other than my best efforts to save lives. Particularly if I say this on CNN or MSNBC, considered by the mainstream GOP and far-right groups to represent liberal views, my efforts to defeat anti-science are misinterpreted as political theater.

    Note: If you explore Hotez’s twitter feed, there are countless examples of him demonstratig that he is very left wing and committed to his political ideology.

    Much of this partisan divide emerged during Obama’s presidency, after he made the choice to ally his party with the pharmaceutical industry and support a WHO plan to push childhood vaccine mandates across the country (which at the time Sherri Tenpenny told us was being done to pave the way for adult vaccines in the future). Since much of the public opposed these mandates (e.g., because there were many parents with vaccine injured children), they were met with significant protest. In turn, in each state where it was debated, Democratic legislators voted in unison for the mandates while the Republican legislators (who were not bought out) were eventually persuaded by their constituents to veto the mandates.

    This caused vaccination to become a political issue (previously almost everyone in both parties agreed with it). At the time, the pharmaceutical industry was very worried about the issue becoming politicized and turned into a debate. In turn, numerous articles came out (e.g., see this one and this one) that chastised anyone politicizing vaccination and cautioning against legislative actions which could further politicize the issue. Remarkably, it seems that this position was abandoned during COVID-19, which I suspect was the result of the industry concluding the mRNA vaccines were so dangerous the only way they could be pushed on the public was through blind partisan loyalty.

    Silencing the Opposition

    As health freedom propaganda accelerated in the United States during the previous decade, it became clear that the counteroffensive to halt its progress was insufficient. Private nonprofit and government-led vaccine advocacy groups made heroic efforts to promote positive vaccine messages and provide timely and accurate vaccine information to the public. However, such pro-vaccine advocacy needed parallel efforts to confront anti-vaccine and anti-science aggression and its political ties to conservative politicians, news outlets, and other far-right elements. Health freedom politics proceeded mostly without strong opposition. Then there was the community of professional scientists. While the biomedical scientific community was not exactly invisible, it often lacked the drive and capacity to work aggressively and strategically to dismantle anti-vaccine and anti-science activities.

    After arguing “antiscience” was a grave threat to society, Hotez proposed a predictable solution to this “problem”—silence everyone who challenges the scientific narrative, which he quantified through this diagram.

    Note: leaked documents recently revealed the Federal Government has begun working with private contractors to censor all dissent online (e.g., by destroying the character of people who speak out so there is an excuse to overtly censor them and by removing their access to the financial system). This approach is done so that the government can bypass the constitutional restrictions prohibiting it from directly censoring speech (e.g., Biden vs. Missouri, the largest government censorship case in modern history, resulted in an injunction being placed against the government working behind the scenes to censor content on social media). When you review Hotez’s suggestions, you’ll notice much of what he is calling for the government to do is what those contractors are already doing behind the scenes and the WHO is trying to publicly enact across the world.

    Some of Hotez’s (and presumably the WHO’s) suggestions included:

    The fact that the DHHS and US surgeon general have responded at all and that they now work with the major social media platforms is a positive development and one that should continue to be encouraged. However, these actions do not address those generating the content from the far-right, the role of the disinformation dozen in monetizing the Internet, or the Russian government’s weaponized health communication. Given the 20 years of relative neglect by the US government in tackling anti-science aggression [anti-vaccine content], I believe we must realize that this issue goes way beyond the health sector. We need input from other branches of the federal government such as the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, Justice—and even State, given the Russian involvement.

    Until now, such agencies have been employed to combat more conventional and globalizing threats [e.g., terrorism]. Anti-science aggression now warrants this level of engagement and a counterresponse.

    We must seek ways to demonetize the use of the Internet by the disinformation dozen or halt the anti-science aggression emanating from Fox News and elected officials, but in ways that do not violate the Bill of Rights or the US Constitution.

    The type of risk-management help should range from legal advice to managing online threats and even assistance with law enforcement. Another opportunity might be to expand the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, adopted in 2021 to protect Asian-Americans against political violence, to protect American scientists as well.”

    Along those lines, the White House should consider establishing an interagency task force to examine such possibilities and to make recommendations for action to slow the progression of anti-science.

    In the meantime, the US government response to anti-science aggression remains modest. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) focuses its energies on Facebook and the social media companies, encouraging them to adjust their computer algorithms to reduce the tidal wave of disinformation. While helpful, this approach by itself does very little to stop the far-right from generating dangerous Internet content or the elected officials who campaign on their successes in attacking science and scientists. The Biden administration is concerned, but so far it has not tapped expertise outside the health sector and sought advice from cabinet departments ranging from Homeland Security to Justice and State. Similarly, the UN agencies wring their hands about the “infodemic” but do not raise this issue with authoritarian leaders in the UN Security Council or General Assembly. Halting anti-science aggression both within their borders or internationally remains a second-tier priority. Regarding GOP extremism, an umbrella under which falls this new anti-science, the Nobel laureate in economics, Paul Krugman, writes, “it cannot be appeased or compromised with. It can only be defeated.” He may be correct.

    Finding strategies to slow the spread of anti-science by authoritarian regimes or entities has become one of our great challenges. While the US government and Office of the Surgeon General focus on Facebook or the other social media companies in spreading misinformation, few governments or United Nations agencies wish to confront the source. Therefore, anti-vaccine or health disinformation generated by Russia and other authoritarian governments now proceeds without significant interference…As the State Department and major US intelligence agencies work to diffuse Russian bots and trolls, there is still no national plan to confront anti-science aggression from the far-right and authoritarian regimes. We now face our own internal authoritarian ecosystem whose leaders portray scientists as threats. Some political scientists express concerns that such activities, especially in the context of the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol, threaten the future of democracy in the country.

    In parallel, I have suggested to the Biden administration the creation of an interdisciplinary task force of experts from departments such as Homeland Security, Commerce, Justice, and others in recognition of the fact that the loss of human life on this scale, as a result of partisan politics and defiance, is far bigger than what can be managed only by the Department of Health and Human Services. To date, there are no efforts planned to hold congressional hearings on the origins of vaccine refusal leading to this American tragedy. Certainly, there is no enthusiasm for creating an entity that resembles a truth-and-reconciliation commission at the national level similar to efforts made in post-Apartheid South Africa during the 1990s, in order to identify those individuals or groups who encouraged vaccine defiance.

    Note: Hotez is effectively saying not only does he want to win, but he wants everyone who disagreed with him to be put through struggle sessions where they are forced to prostrate themselves and apologize for ever not supporting vaccination. That is evil.

    This media and political empire is causing unprecedented losses of human life. The pervasive role of disinformation from this segment of society has not gone unnoticed by the Biden administration. In 2021, they proposed forming a new disinformation advisory board through the Department of Homeland Security to begin tackling issues related to not only COVID-19 prevention but also the 2020 US presidential election and other key issues. However, these efforts met with significant opposition from the Senate GOP. As one former intelligence official in Homeland Security pointed out, “You can’t even use the word ‘disinformation’ today without it having a political connotation.” For now, the advisory board has been tabled, and the anti-science political ecosystem continues largely unchallenged.

    Conclusion

    Now that you have read this entire article, I hope you can appreciate the full context behind the videos I showed at the beginning and I sincerely hope you were able to watch: (fwd to 26:00)

    It is my belief that if Hotez can be seen for the deranged individual he is, that will be the most effective way to show the absurdity of what his book puts forth and halt the much darker plans the WHO has been working on behind the scenes.

    Fortunately, as the last few years have shown, much of what the vaccine zealots push is so absurd that if we simply use humor to show what they are doing, that is enough to destroy their credibility and derail their plans (and arguably the most effective approach).

    Lastly, I need to mention that fellow substacker Maryl Nass MD has been doing a lot of incredible work behind the scenes to stop the totalitarian WHO pandemic treaty. If you would like to know more about her critical work, please consider visiting her non-profit’s website.

    *  *  *

    I sincerely thank each of you for your support of this publication (sharing critical stories really helps) and how much each of you has done to help shift a narrative I originally thought was an insurmountable mountain could never be challenged.

    The Forgotten Side of Medicine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 23:35

  • Global Warming? 142 Million Americans Under Dangerous Wind Chill Alerts
    Global Warming? 142 Million Americans Under Dangerous Wind Chill Alerts

    Legacy media spent last week fearmongering Americans into believing 2023 was the “hottest year” ever on record. 

    Perhaps the eruption in climate doom headlines was to satisfy corporate elites and world leaders attending the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos this week who can point to these news stories to further their radical Marxist climate agenda. 

    But how is it, we ask? Two weeks after the hottest year on record, 142 million Americans are under wind chill alerts, and 100 million are under winter alerts to start the new week. 

    Brr! New record-breaking low temperatures this morning. 

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

    The power grid operator in Texas asks customers to conserve energy. 

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

    A winter storm is set to hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast later today. 

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

    Let’s not forget over the weekend, the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Buffalo Bills playoff game had to be postponed due to bone-chilling weather. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 23:00

  • Catch The Gold-Wagon, Or Lose Your Fortune: Von Greyerz
    Catch The Gold-Wagon, Or Lose Your Fortune: Von Greyerz

    Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

    With the US shooting itself in the foot again, we are now certain that this is the final farewell to the bankrupt dollar based monetary system…

    More about this follows but, in the meantime, an extremely important warning: 

    If you have never been a goldbug, this is the time to become one. 

    I decided 25 years ago that the destiny of the world economy and the financial system necessitated the best form of wealth preservation that money could buy. 

    And physical gold performs that role beautifully just as it has done for several thousands of years as every currency or fiat monetary system has collapsed without fail throughout history. 

    Thus, at the beginning of this century we told our investor friends and ourselves to buy gold for up to 50% of investable liquid asset. 

    So at $300 we acquired important amounts of gold and have never looked back. We have of course never sold any gold but only added since. 

    I have never called myself a goldbug, just someone who wanted to protect assets against the risk of the destruction of the financial system including all currencies. But now is really the time to become a real gold bug. 

    So, today just over 20 years later, gold is up 7 – 8X in most Western currencies and multiples of that in weaker economies like Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey etc.

    The total mismanagement of the US financial system has led to the dollar losing 98% of it’s value since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. Most other currencies have followed the dollar down at varying speeds. 

    But now comes the really exciting phase of this race to the bottom. 

    We have only 2% left for the dollar based currency system goes to ZERO. 

    As Voltaire said in 1728, “Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value – ZERO.”

    What we must remember is that the dollar doesn’t just have a further 2% to fall to reach zero. Because to reach zero, it will next fall 100% from where it is today. 

    I know the sceptics will say that this is not possible. But these sceptics don’t know their history. Since fiat currencies’ record is perfect, no one must believe that because we live today, it is different to a 5,000 year faultless record of success, or shall we call it failure, of currencies always reaching zero. 

    THE US CONTINUES TO SHOOT ITSELF IN THE FOOT

    How many times can you shoot yourself in the foot and still walk upright with pride?

    Well, the US government certainly has wounded itself mortally with both feet being so full of holes that there is hardly any space left for another hole. 

    So, the latest hole in the US dollar foot is a proposal to steal $300 billion of Russian reserves and use the funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

    A deadline has been set for the G7 nations to come up with the detailed proposal by 24 February. 

    The proposal has obviously come from the US backed by its faithful lapdog the UK. 

    Now don’t get me wrong, I really like the US and also the UK and their people but that doesn’t mean that I concur with the idiotic decisions taken by their governments without the consent of their people. 

    So will 2024 be the year which, when all the evils which the West has created, erupt in the most violent chain of events political, civil wars, geopolitical, more war, terrorism, economic collapse including the fall of the monetary system. 

    Well the ingredients are certainly present to create a picture similar to The Triumph of Death painting by Bruegel.  

    We obviously hope that this is not where the world is heading but all the ingredients are sadly in place for the start of a series of events which will be both unpredictable and uncontrollable. “The Financial System has reached the End”

    MOST MAJOR WARS SINCE WWII HAVE BEEN INSTIGATED BY THE US

    As Merkel admitted, since the Minsk agreement in 2014, it was always the intention of the US to push Ukraine into a conflict with Russia. 

    This war is still going on with more than 500,000 having been killed. (Since propaganda from both sides is a major part of a war, we will never know the correct figure.) 

    It will obviously be very tempting for the G7 to use the $ 300 billion funds blocked stolen, for the war since many countries’ parliaments are becoming reluctant to fund this war. 

    So is the US and its allies going to set a precedent that should also apply for other wars?

    Since the US initiated the attacks on Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria and many other countries, should not the US foreign reserves be applied for the reconstruction of all these nations? 

    But as always, it is one rule for the mighty US and another rule for its enemies. 

    As Bush Jr said, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

    THE LAST PHASE OF THE DOLLAR DEBASEMENT NEXT

    This very final phase of the dollar debasement to zero really started on June 29, 2022 when the US decided to seize all Russian financial assets. 

    That action was the nail in the coffin (as well as the shot in the foot) of the Petrodollar system. This has been in place since 1973 to support the dollar with a payment system for black gold since yellow gold was no longer supporting the dollar. 

    To seize a major sovereign state’s (Russia’s) assets can never end well. And then to give those assets to an enemy of that state (Ukraine) is guaranteed to seal the fate of the dollar dominant currency system and its backers. 

    An economically weak EU gave its support with the Brexit UK always obeying its US master’s. 

    A historical post mortem of this total submission to the command of the US will clearly conclude that it was totally disastrous for the German economy as well as the rest of Europe. But sadly weak leaders always make disastrous decisions. 

    And as the West has a massive surplus of weak leaders, it is running from one crisis to the next.

    Is Treasury Secretary Yellen blind to what is happening to her economy or is she just giving the world the propaganda lies that all politicians must do to buy votes?

    This is what Yellen said to House Financial Services Committee in August 2023:

    “The dollar plays the role it does in the world financial system for very good reasons that no other country is able to replicate, including China. We have deep liquid open financial markets, strong rule of law and an absence of capital controls that no country is able to replicate….. But the dollar is far and away the dominant reserve asset.”

    “Deep liquid financial markets” means “we” have until now been able to create unlimited amounts of worthless fiat money. “Strong rule of law” means that whoever totally obeys the US increasingly totalitarian system, like for example the Patriot Act, is protected by the law. And as regards capital controls, FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) that the US forced upon the world’s finical system in 2014 has led to a total US control of the global financial system.  

    And as regards “the dollar is far and away the dominant reserve asset”, not for long Mrs Yellen. 

    Has Janet heard of de-dollarisation, has she heard go the BRICS and has she understood that the runaway debts and deficits are destroying the fabric of the US economy and financial system?

    Yes of course she knows all of this and she also knows that she can’t do anything about it except to print more money. So her principal role is to keep the pretences up and hope that the system will not collapse on her watch. And then hopefully she canunscathed pass the baton to the next treasury secretary so that he/she can get the blame. 

    BRICS

    The BRICS already has 10 members, India, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia. 

    In addition, another 30 countries want to join including for example Venezuela. 

    The BRICS produce just under 50% of global oil. 

    But if we look at oil reserves, the existing BRICS plus aspiring members like Venezuela, have over 20X the oil reserves of the US. 

    PEAK ENERGY

    Another major economic crisis for the world is the contracting energy system.

    The world economy is driven by energy which means fossil fuels. Without sufficient energy the living standards would decline fatally. Currently fossil fuels account for 83% of the world’s energy. The heavy dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to change in the next few decades.

     And as I have always believed, even electric vehicles are no longer the holy grail that world governments are trying to push onto consumers. There are just too many problems such as cost of buying and cost of repairs, range and questionable CO2 benefits. Also environmentally EVs are a disaster since batteries have a short life and cannot be recycled. 

    But that’s not the only problem. For the first 60-70,000 miles an EV produces more CO2 than an ordinary vehicle.

    Stocks are building up of unsold EVs, exacerbated by companies like Hertz selling off 20,000 vehicles. 

    Also, to produce ONE battery takes 250 tons of rock and minerals. The effect is 10-20 tons of CO2 from mining and manufacturing even before the vehicle has been driven 1 metre. 

    In addition, car batteries cannot be recycled but go to landfill which has major environmental implications. 

    And as concerns renewable energy, it is unlikely to replace fossil fuels for a very, very long time even if this is a politically uncomfortable view for the climate control activists. What very few realise is that most renewable energy sources are very costly and also all dependent on fossil fuels whether it is electric cars, wind turbines or solar panels.

    As the graph shows, the energy derived from fossil fuels has declined for the last few years. This trend will accelerate over the next 20+ years as the availability of fossil fuels decline and the cost increases. The economic cost of producing energy has gone up 5X since 1980.

    What very few people realise is that the world’s prosperity does not improve with more debt but with more and cheaper energy.

    But sadly, as the graph above shows, energy production is going to decline for at least 20 years.

    Less energy means lower prosperity for the world. And remember that this is in addition to a major decline in prosperity due to the implosion of the financial system and asset values.

    The graph above shows that energy from fossil fuels will decline by 18% between 2021 and 2040. But although Wind & Solar will proportionally increase, it will in no way compensate for the fall in fossil fuels. For renewable energy to make up the difference, it would need to increase by 900% with an investment exceeding $100 trillion.  This is highly unlikely since the production of Wind & Solar are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

    Another major problem is that there is no efficient method for storing Renewable energy.

    Let’s just take the example of getting enough energy from batteries. The world’s largest battery factory is the Tesla Giga factory. The annual total output from this factory would produce 3 minutes of the annual US electricity demand. Even with 1,000 years of battery production, the batteries from this factory would produce only 2 days of US electricity demand.

    So batteries will most probably not be a viable source of energy for decades especially since they need fossil fuels to be produced and charged.

    Nuclear energy is the best available option today. But the time and cost of producing nuclear means that it will not be a viable alternative for decades. Also, many countries have stopped nuclear energy for political reasons. The graph above shows that nuclear and hydro will only increase very marginally in the next 20 years.

    Of course the world wants to achieve cleaner and more efficient energy. But today we don’t have the means to produce this energy in quantity from anything but fossil fuels.

    So stopping or reducing the production of fossil fuels, which is the desire of many politicians and climate activists, is guaranteed to substantially exacerbate the decline of the world economy.

    We might get cleaner air but many would have to enjoy it in caves with little food or other necessities and conveniences that we have today.

    So what is clear is that the world is not prepared for even the best scenario energy case which entails a major decline in the standard of living in the next 20-30 years at least.

    IMMINENT DECLINE OF THE WORLD ECONOMY

    The above explanation, of the world economy as an energy driven system, is important to grasp in order to understand the effect of the declining energy production. This decline together with the increased energy cost of producing energy will exacerbate the decline of the world economy. 

    To add to this longer term energy crisis which very few people discuss or fathom, the world is facing the end of the current monetary system.

    Yes, the BRICS countries will over time assume the mantle of the waning Western empire. 

    But it won’t happen overnight, especially since the world’s second biggest economy, China, also has a debt problem almost as big as the US one.

    Just look at the growth of China’s money supply in this century. No country has survived such an explosion of money supply without serious consequences.

    The advantage that China has is that their financial and currency system is principally domestic and can therefore be resolved “in-house”.

    JUMP ON THE GOLD WAGON

    No one can forecast with certainty when an event will take place.

    But what we can determine with great certainty is that the risk is imminent for the world economy and the Western monetary system to go through an uncontrollable  reset of proportions never seen before in history. 

    What we also feel certain about is that the gold price very soon will reflect the major problems that the world economy is facing. 

    In this century, gold has performed very strongly against all currencies as the table below shows. 

    All major central banks will do all they can to support the gold price. 

    The BRICS and other Eastern countries will accelerate their already substantial purchases of gold. And the West, led by the US will accelerate the debt creation and spend unfathomable amounts in futile attempts to save their collapsing economies. 

    In June 2016 I advised investors to jump on the Goldwagon when gold was $1,300. https://goldswitzerland.com/get-on-the-goldwagon-to-10000/

    Today with gold at $2,050 gold is still very cheap and anyone with some savings, small to very big, must now jump on the goldwagon and buy as much physical gold (and a bit of silver) as you can afford and then some more. 

    Owning gold will not solve all our problems, but it will at least give us a very important nest egg and protection against the coming financial debacle that will hit the world. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 22:25

  • Ukraine Urges China To Be Involved In Swiss-Hosted Peace Summit
    Ukraine Urges China To Be Involved In Swiss-Hosted Peace Summit

    President Volodymyr Zelensky appears increasingly more serious about pursuing peace negotiations to end the war, and this was on display in comments issued by his top aide headed into the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. 

    Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak on Sunday explained that Kiev now believes it is crucial for China to be at the table for future talks on its peace formula. “China needs to be involved in talks to end the war with Russia,” the Ukrainian top representative said following diplomatic meetings going into the WEF. China remains the most influential Global South country widely viewed as squarely in Russia’s corner, having refused to rebuke Moscow or join Western-led sanctions after two years of the conflict.

    Illustrative: prior WEF, AFP/Getty

    Importantly, Chinese Premier Li Qiang is leading the delegation from Beijing at the WEF this week, which presents a significant opportunity for serious engagement on the question of Ukraine peace. There’s also the potential that Li and President Zelensky could meet, given Yermak said “let’s see” when he was asked by a journalist whether they would directly engage.

    Meanwhile, Zelensky has successfully cobbled together a peace summit proposed within the context of world leaders gathering in Davos, and the Swiss government has agreed to play official host, and yet Russia – the other crucial party capable of ending the war – is not invited…

    Switzerland agreed to host the summit at Zelenskiy’s request, a Swiss government spokesperson said, adding that further details were being worked out.…

    “We would like the Global South to be present…. It is important for us to show that the whole world is against Russia’s aggression, and the whole world is for a just peace,” he said.

    The outcome to the summit, expected to be initiated Tuesday, is likely to be merely be more of the same…

    A high-level meeting to discuss peace in Ukraine ended without a significant resolution, as talks were held on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos with the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion fast approaching.

    Representatives of more than 83 countries were involved in the fourth and final such meeting of national security advisers, but little common ground was found towards ending a conflict that appears stuck in a grinding deadlock.

    Ignazio Cassis, the foreign minister of host nation Switzerland, said the gathering helped clarify certain points for future discussions but that it was clear none of the warring parties were willing to make territorial concessions.

    It remains that there are some key aspects of Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan which Moscow sees as a non-starter. For example, here is Point 6 of Zelensky’s ten point peace plan:

    To cease the hostilities, Russia must withdraw all its troops and armed formations from the territory of Ukraine, plain and simple. Ukraine’s full control over its state border, recognized internationally, needs to be restored.

    Without this, no long-lasting peace can be achieved. Each day Russian soldiers remain on Ukrainian land, Ukrainians have to fight and die to protect their homes and to shield the world from the long-lasting consequences of this aggression. 

    Additionally, Zelensky has issued the following words on X: “I will also discuss the return of Ukrainian children stolen by Russia, sanctions, ways to use frozen Russian assets, humanitarian mine clearing, financial assistance, and recovery,” he wrote.

    China is seen as key to getting Russia to make significant compromise, yet both Xi and Putin know that Russian military success in Ukraine means Kiev has no cards to play. Ultimately, without China being on board with such initiatives to woo Global South countries to take a firmer anti-Russian line, there’s little that will come out of it.

    Still, it seems each side is at least inching toward possible near-future talks. “Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, told an event in the US that Russia has showed enthusiasm to have peace talks with Ukraine, when Chinese officials talked with them,” according to Bloomberg last week.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 21:50

  • Appeals Court Rules The Homeless Have A Right To Camp On Sidewalks
    Appeals Court Rules The Homeless Have A Right To Camp On Sidewalks

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    The 9th circuit court of appeals affirmed the constitutional right of vagrants to sleep on sidewalks, in parks, and even on the steps of court houses.

    Please consider the Coalition on Homeless v. the City of San Francisco, San Francisco Police Department filed January 11. 2024.

    In the ruling, the court sided with the Coalition on Homeless and against the city to “prevent the City and County of San Francisco from enforcing any ordinance that punishes sleeping, lodging, or camping on public property“.

    The ruling was based on an extreme interpretation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution.

    Eighth Amendment

    The 8th amendment says “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

    In a 53-page ruling, the Appeals Court ruled that it is “cruel and unusual punishment” to prevent camping on sidewalks or any public property, presumably even courthouse steps.

    The last 36 pages of the ruling (first link) was a blistering dissent by circuit judge Patrick J. Bumatay. Here are some pertinent snips.

    Today, we let stand an injunction permitting homeless persons to sleep anywhere, anytime in public in the City of San Francisco unless adequate shelter is provided. The district court’s sweeping injunction represents yet another expansion of our court’s cruel and unusual Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. Our decision is cruel because it leaves the citizens of San Francisco powerless to enforce their own health and safety laws without the permission of a federal judge. And it’s unusual because no other court in the country has interpreted the Constitution in this way.

    Based on a misreading of the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the district court now dictates to San Francisco how it may manage its sidewalks, streets, and parks. The result of the district court’s far reaching injunction is that homeless persons now have a choice to sleep, lie, or sit anywhere they want in public at any time until San Francisco can provide them shelter. That ruling is far removed from the original meaning of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause and disregards the long history of anti-vagrancy laws in this country. And the district court goes beyond even our circuit’s extraordinary reading of the Clause.

    The Coalition on Homelessness sued San Francisco seeking to enjoin enforcement of State and local laws barring sleeping on sidewalks at certain times, public lodging and camping, and obstructing streets and parks. See Cal. Penal Code §§ 148(a), 370, 372, 647(e); S.F. Police Code §§ 168, 169. Based on an underdeveloped factual record, and apparently without even considering how these individual laws fit within our Martin/Grants Pass framework, the district court agreed to enjoin enforcement of the laws against “involuntarily homeless individuals.” Worse yet, the district court didn’t even define what it means to be “involuntarily homeless” and gave conflicting signals on the point—an issue we address in our concurrently filed memorandum disposition. To top it off, the district court then set a novel end date for the injunction. It continues “as long as there are more homeless individuals in San Francisco than there are shelter beds available.” Never mind that injunctions usually terminate at the end of litigation, or that the relief here is merely meant to be preliminary. This sweeping injunction has no basis in the Constitution or our precedent. San Francisco should not be treated as an experiment for judicial tinkering.

    Supreme Court Agrees to Hear the Case

    Due to the overwhelming and unprecedented stupidity of the 9th Circuit ruling, the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from local governments in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix.

    The Wall Street Journal noted that California Governor Gavin Newsom argued in a friend-of-court brief that “courts are not well-suited to micromanage such nuanced policy issues based on ill-defined rules.”

    The Journal’s comment is quite the hoot: “We look forward to Mr. Newsom’s constitutional communion with Justice Clarence Thomas.“

    The Hotel California Wealth Tax Advances, You Cannot Leave to Escape It

    On January 10, I commented The Hotel California Wealth Tax Advances, You Cannot Leave to Escape It

    Wealth Tax Details

    • The bill would impose an annual excise tax of 1.5% on the worldwide net worth of every full- and part-year California resident that exceeds $1 billion, starting this tax year.

    • Come Jan. 1, 2026, the state would tax wealth that exceeds $50 million at a rate of 1% each year, with an additional 0.5% tax on assets valued at more than $1 billion.

    • Part-time residents would be taxed on a pro rata share of their wealth based on the number of days they spend annually in California.

    • The tax would also apply to nonresidents who have recently left the state.

    • Democrats exempted real property from the tax as a favor to their high-end real-estate industry and Hollywood donors. 

    • To spread the wealth around to plaintiff-bar donors, the bill would apply the state’s False Claims Act to wealth-tax records and statements. This means plaintiff attorneys could sue affluent individuals on behalf of the state for allegedly under-reporting assets. Plaintiff attorneys would be entitled to a share of the state’s recovery.

    If the wealth tax passes, I look forwards to another mind meld of a different nature with the US Supreme Court.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 21:15

  • Trump Gives Speech After Winning Iowa Caucus; Ramaswamy To End Campaign
    Trump Gives Speech After Winning Iowa Caucus; Ramaswamy To End Campaign

    Update (2323ET): As predicted, Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the Iowa Caucus by the Associated Press. Trump beat both Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley by nearly 30 points and 40 points respectively, in line with the final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll.

    Trump won every county counted.

    According to Bloomberg, Vivek Ramaswamy is ending his 2024 campaign and endorsed Trump.

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

    Trump, likely after finding out that Ramaswamy wouldn’t continue, credited Vivek for doing a ‘hell of a job.’

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

    Here’s what an aggregate of popular betting markets think right now:

    Now all the Republicans need to do is ensure it’s a fair election. Hilarious.

    *  *  *

    In chilly Iowa, Republican candidates are making their final appeals before gathering for a 7 p.m. Caucus – during which party members will plead their case for various candidates they would like to see on the ballot. All times mentioned are local.

    Voters eager to participate in the caucus are expected to face temperatures of -2 degrees, and 35 degrees below zero with wind chill factor, which would break the state’s 1972 record for coldest caucus day by a longshot, per the Des Moines Register.

    Donald Trump – the party’s clear frontrunner by a wide margin, plans to call caucus captains throughout the day, and will release a video message for supporters.

    The former president canceled in-person rallies scheduled over the weekend due to sever weather, but will hold a watch party at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.

    Did we mention the wide margin? The former president is also way ahead in endorsements by fellow Republicans.

    Trump has the backing of well over 100 GOP governors and members of Congress — including more than 20 U.S. senators and top House members like Speaker Mike Johnson — outpacing his rivals for the party’s nomination in all of those categories. On Sunday he added more: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. –NPR

    Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will hold three campaign events today – stopping in Sergeant Bluff, Council Bluffs, and Cedar Rapids.

    He will also attend an evening caucus before proceeding to his campaign watch party in West Des Moines, the Epoch Times reports.

    DeSantis has the backing of key Iowans, including the state’s GOP governor, Kim Reynolds. He is also endorsed by Iowa evangelical leader, Bob Vander Platts.

    Nimrata ‘Nikki’ Haley will appear at a tele-town hall at 5 p.m., while her watch party will be held at 8 p.m. in West Des Moines.

    Haley, while lacking notable endorsements in Iowa, did pick up a key endorsement from the next state on the primary calendar, New Hampshire, where Gov. Chris Sununu (R) has thrown his support behind her.

    Vivek Ramaswamy started the day with a town hall meeting in Urbandale, after which he held a 10:30 a.m. rally in Waterloo. Later, he will appear in Cedar Rapids at 1 p.m., before moving on to the Surety Hotel in Des Moines for a 5 p.m. caucus night party.

    Stay tuned for updates…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 20:48

  • White House 'Swatted' After False Emergency Phoned In
    White House ‘Swatted’ After False Emergency Phoned In

    The White House was ‘swatted’ on Monday, after a person called 911 to falsely claim that there was a fire at the residence and that someone was trapped inside.

    Multiple vehicles from DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded just after 7 a.m. ET, after which officials concluded that it was a false alarm.

    And while no cops were involved, “it’s in the same spirit” of “swatting” incidents that have more recently targeted public officials, according to Noah Gray, communications director for DC fire and EMS, NBC News reports.

    In so-called swatting incidents, someone makes a false report of a crime in progress to draw police to a certain location.

    It’s unclear who made the call or where it came from. A Secret Service spokesperson said any fire at the White House would have been immediately detected — and there clearly wasn’t one.  

    President Joe Biden was at Camp David when the call to 911 was made. He later traveled to Philadelphia to participate in a service event at a food bank to mark the birthday of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

    In recent weeks, politicians from both parties have been ‘swatted’ – including ‘Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, whose home was raided by authorities on Christmas Day following a suicide hotline tip, New York Rep. Brandon Williams and Florida Sen. Rick Scott. on the Republican side,’ (per the NY Post), and on the Democrat side – Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, George Soros, and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who booted Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot last month.

    George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley was also swatted recently, as was the Hunter Biden laptop repair store owner, John Paul Mac Issac.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 20:40

  • Fani Opens Up: Fulton County DA Says 'You Cannot Expect Black Women To Be Perfect And Save The World'
    Fani Opens Up: Fulton County DA Says ‘You Cannot Expect Black Women To Be Perfect And Save The World’

    Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis implied she was guilty of something – telling a Sunday congregation at the Big Bethel AME Church ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day that “you cannot expect black women to be perfect and save the world,” and that “we need to be allowed to stumble.”

    Fulton County DA Fani Willis speaks during a worship service at the Big Bethel AME Church on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024 (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

    Watch:

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

    Willis has come under fire for hiring a man named Nathan Wade (without proper approval), a private attorney in the midst of a divorce who “has little to no experience trying felony cases, much less complex RICO actions,” according to a 127-page filing in former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election trial in Georgia.

    Wade ended up pocketing nearly $700,000 from Fulton county taxpayers – with which he allegedly took Willis on lavish vacations. He also billed taxpayers $2,000 to talk to the Biden White House about prosecuting Biden’s political opponent.

    Allegations surfaced last week from one of Trump’s co-defendants, Mike Roman, a political operative who served as Trump’s director of Election Day operations on his 2020 reelection campaign, who accused Willis and Wade of engaging in an “improper” romantic relationship.

    Citing “sources close” to both Willis and Wade, Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, claimed the pair have been involved in an “ongoing, personal and romantic relationship,” and went on vacations together. The filings argued the alleged relationship, which Merchant claims started before the election interference began, makes the indictment “fatally defective” and requests it be dismissed. –The Hill

    Willis then played the (double-reverse) race card, saying: “I’m a little confused. I appointed three special counselors. It’s my right to do, paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one.”

    “I hired one white woman, a good personal friend and a great lawyer, a superstar, I tell you. I hired one white man — brilliant — my friend and a great lawyer. And I hired one Black man, another superstar, a great friend and a great lawyer,” she continued, without referencing Wade by name.

    “The Black man I chose has been a judge for more than 10 years, run[s] a private practice more than 20 [years],” said Willis. “Represented businesses in civil litigation … served a prosecutor, a criminal defense lawyer, special assistant attorney general.”

    Willis then pretended to talk to God, asking: “God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one?”

    “They’re playing the race card when they constantly think I need someone from some other jurisdiction in some other state to tell me how to do a job I’ve [done] almost 30 years.“

    Did the other two attorneys she hired take her on lavish vacations?

    House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) will get to the bottom of it – after launching an investigation into Wade.

    “According to a recent court filing, you have been paid more than $650,000—at the rate of $250 per hour—to serve as an ‘Attorney Consultant’ and later a ‘Special Assistant District Attorney’ in the unprecedented investigation and prosecution of the former President and other former federal officials,” wrote Jordan in a Friday letter reported by Just the News.

    “This filing also alleges that while receiving a substantial amount of money from Fulton County, you spent extravagantly on lavish vacations with your boss, Ms. Willis.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 20:05

  • Americans Divided On Progress Made Since 'I Have A Dream' Speech
    Americans Divided On Progress Made Since ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech

    Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday in the United States that honors the memory of the influential civil rights activist and baptist minister who called for an end to racial segregation through non-violence.

    The civil rights leader’s assassination in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, caused an international outcry at the time. His campaign of non-violent resistance to further equal rights for all citizens in the United States, no matter the color of their skin, had made him one of the most iconic and popular leaders in American history.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, King was a Baptist minister and drew on his faith for his campaigns. He held his best known and often quoted speech “I Have A Dream” at the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 as part of the March on Washington, with a quarter of a million people attending. The father of four children he had with his wife Coretta Scott King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later, in 1964.

    He was gunned down by convicted criminal James Earl Ray who was apprehended two months after King’s murder and served 29 years in prison until his death. The FBI under its notorious director J. Edgar Hoover tried to brand King a communist and had him observed. King forcefully denied having anything to do with the communist movement, which by default is staunchly atheist.

    Infographic: Facts About Martin Luther King Jr. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    It’s six decades since King delivered the world-changing “I have a dream” speech and U.S. adults have mixed feelings over the progress made towards racial equality in the country.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck points out, according to a poll taken by the Pew Research Center in April, while 52 percent of respondents thought that either a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of progress has been made in the time that lapsed, a third said that there has been “some progress” and 15 percent said that there has been either “not much” or none at all.

    Infographic: Americans Divided on Progress Made Since March on Washington | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Tellingly, when looking at the breakdown by race, wide disparities still exist.

    As the chart above shows, white respondents were twice as likely to say a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of progress had been made than Black respondents, signalling to an imbalance in perceptions between white respondents who think progress has been made, and Black respondents who are more affected by racial inequality and say otherwise.

    There are differences along party lines too. According to Pew Research Center, 67 percent of Republicans or Republican-leaning voters thought that a great deal or a fair amount of progress had been made since the March on Washington, while the share of Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters holding the same opinion stood at 38 percent.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 19:30

  • Pro-Palestinian Rioters Nearly Breach White House Gate In Clash With Police
    Pro-Palestinian Rioters Nearly Breach White House Gate In Clash With Police

    Authored by Kos Temenes via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A pro-Palestinian protest in the nation’s capital on Jan. 13 led to clashes between protesters and riot police, during which an exterior gate of the White House was nearly breached.

    Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in front of the White House during the “March on Washington for Gaza” in Washington on Jan. 13, 2024. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

    Police and federal agents reportedly waited near the White House in anticipation as protesters crashed toward the reinforced gate amid attempts by some rioters to scale it.

    “During the demonstration near the White House complex Jan. 13, a portion of the anti-scale fencing that was erected for the event sustained temporary damage,” the U.S. Secret Service told Fox News in a statement, adding that “the issues were promptly repaired on site by U.S. Secret Service support teams.”

    The gate was placed as an added security measure to the existing primary gate. One rioter could reportedly be heard shouting to tear down the structure, while another could be heard screaming toward the White House, “You support the murdering of children.”

    The riot led to a partial evacuation of staff members from the White House, as rioters threw bottles and other objects, video footage obtained by Fox News shows.

    “As a precaution, some members of the media and staff in proximity to Pennsylvania Avenue were temporarily relocated while the issue was being addressed,” the Secret Service statement reads.

    The White House reported no damage to the main and adjacent buildings, and no arrests were made by Secret Service personnel, Fox News reported.

    In a separate statement to Fox News, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela A. Smith, who oversees police in the District of Columbia, said that any kind of lawless behavior during protests wouldn’t be tolerated.

    “The right to peacefully protest is one of the cornerstones of our democracy, and the Metropolitan Police Department has long supported those who visit our city to demonstrate safely,“ she said in the statement. ”However, violence, destructive behavior, and criminal activities are not tolerated.”

    Rioters on the evening of Jan. 12 were protesting the United States’ recent launch of Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets in a retaliatory move against attacks from Yemen’s Houthi terrorist group on commercial ships in the Red Sea.

    Chants of “Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around” could be heard at the scene of the White House protests.

    The recent drone attacks on commercial shipping have caused multiple casualties as well as disruption of one of the world’s most important trade routes. The United States has since advised U.S. vessels to stay clear of the area pending further risk of air attacks.

    President Joe Biden issued a statement on Jan. 11 calling the strikes a direct response to the Houthi attacks, and will continue as necessary.

    “These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea—including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history. I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary,” the president’s statement reads.

    The Biden administration’s support of Israel has further led to widespread criticism from several advocates and human rights groups, who are denouncing what they refer to as a genocide on the Gazan people.

    Hamas Badge Spotted in Protest

    Some have also called out possible infiltration by affiliates of the Hamas terrorist group in the protests outside the White House.

    According to investigative journalist Sam Shoemate, evidence has surfaced that could indicate involvement by Hamas-affiliated groups.

    “A D.C. cop working the protests outside the White House sent me this picture,” a post by Mr. Shoemate on X says. “This patch is Al Qassim Brigades, a Hamas terror group. He said the guys dressed like this were spotting and assessing (which is done to collect intel).”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    From NTD News

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 18:55

  • "90% Of The Population Will Be Dead Within A Year" – Dennis Quaid Warns Tucker Of Inevitable Major Solar Storm Destroying All Tech
    “90% Of The Population Will Be Dead Within A Year” – Dennis Quaid Warns Tucker Of Inevitable Major Solar Storm Destroying All Tech

    “Basically, there is a 100% probability that our sun, generating what they call a GMD, which is a solar storm, that hits hard, hits our Earth, and the magnetic field we have around the Earth, and can fry everything that is electric above the ground, including our entire grid,” actor Dannis Quaid explained to Tucker Carlson in one of the former Fox anchor’s most surreal yet terrifying interviews yet.

    Scared yet? You should be.

    Accomplished actor and musician Quaid shares insights on his upcoming documentary titled “Grid Down, Power Up”, highlighting the inevitability of a massive solar storm (a Carrington event such as occurred in 1859) impacting Earth in catastrophic ways.

    At the time, Quaid notes, the GMD (geomagnetic disturbance) devastated the then-existing telegraph system, and asks Carlson to consider the potential magnitude of such a disaster in today’s electrically-dependent society. He notes:

    “imagine what that would do now with a very large storm… it would take out not only the electricity but all of our infrastructure,” the actor exclaims, adding that:

    “There wouldn’t be water in your tap. You couldn’t get gas for your car because the whole system is broken down.”

    Quaid hopes that by bringing attention to the potential catastrophe he can nudge politicians into action to harden the grid against such events (natural or terrorist-driven)…

    “It’s something we don’t like to think about but it’s… whether from the Sun or a bad actor this is something that 100% chance it’s going to happen and we are just no nowhere no way prepared for it.” ;

    …although he is not optimistic given the challenges posed by regulatory agencies and the private ownership of power companies.

    “President Trump actually signed an executive order to harden our grid to protect ourselves against an event like this happening. Obama tried to get that going as well and it’s stuck in these Regulatory Agencies.“

    And if we don’t do something about it, basically all the worst bits from the bible…

    “Everything that we rely upon would be gone. The food would melt in our refrigerators…” Quaid states, warning that “within a year, 90% of the world’s population would be dead from starvation, disease, or killing themselves in total and utter social catastrophe.”

    He concludes the interview with thoughts on American democracy and the need for balanced political discourse, advocating for education about the values that make us a nation and urging for cooler heads to prevail in politics.

    Watch the full interview here (from behind a pillow)…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 18:20

  • Iran Launches Ballistic Missiles Against Foreign 'Espionage Centers' In Iraq's Erbil
    Iran Launches Ballistic Missiles Against Foreign ‘Espionage Centers’ In Iraq’s Erbil

    Multiple large explosions have been reported overnight (local) near the US Consulate in Erbil, Iraq, in what appears to be a major escalation from Iran.

    The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has already taken responsibility for the attack against what a statement dubbed foreign “espionage centers” and “anti-Iranian terrorist gatherings in parts of the region” with ballistic missiles.

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

    ABC News is reporting that four people were killed in the fresh missile attack, however, no Americans have been hurt. US officials have told regional media that no American facilities were impacted by the missile strikes in Erbil, even though many initial reports said it took place near the vicinity of the US consulate.

    Very close in time to this attack, possibly within as little as five minutes of the Erbil incident, Israel launched airstrikes against Iran-linked targets outside Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria.

    One regional correspondent, Joyce Karam, pointed out that Monday has been an exceptional day in terms of the number of hugely escalatory events close in time. She wrote that the “Middle East is imploding, in one day”…which has included the following: 

    • Attack on US ship by Yemen Houthis
    • US intercepting 2nd attack in Red Sea
    • Israel strikes in Gaza [and Syria]
    • Stabbing & car ramming near Tel Aviv IRGC attack in Iraq
    • IRGC attack in Syria

    As for the IRGC action in Syria, a statement said it targeted an ISIS site, in retaliation for the twin suicide bombings in Kerman city in southeast Iran on Jan.3. ISIS had taken responsibility for the attack which killed over 100 people who were attending memorial events commemorating the death of Qassem Soleimani.

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

    The IRGC statements made so far include acknowledgement of the following military actions Monday (some of which occurred in the overnight hours Tuesday, local time):

    • Attack on anti-Iranian terrorist sites (i.e. US military sites) in Iraq’s Erbil
    • Attack on ISIS terrorist sites inside Syria
    • Attack on Mossad HQ in Kurdistan, Iraq

    According to more details in Reuters from Iran’s attack on northern Iraq: “Explosions were heard in an area some 40 kilometers northeast of Erbil in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, three security sources said, in an area near the U.S. consulate as well as civilian residences.”

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

    All of this is spillover from the Gaza War, as things continue to slide into a possible broader regional conflagration. 

    More video from the Erbil attack, however which remains unverified…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 18:08

  • Bitcoin Vs Marx: Two Competing Geopolitical Domino-Theories
    Bitcoin Vs Marx: Two Competing Geopolitical Domino-Theories

    Authored by Robert Malka via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    Marxism and Bitcoin have one thing in common, the idea that a radical change in the structure of society will happen in a bottom up decentralized fashion. Which of them, if either, will succeed in that goal?

    Marx tells us the revolution will be decentralized.

    The Have-nots will tire of the great inequity of capitalism, and the few thousand Haves will suffer from the worldwide rebellion they encouraged through their greed.

    Building central banks and controlling the money supply will force the onset of Communism.

    Centralization of wealth leads to decentralized rage; the overthrow is inevitable. Class will be the deciding factor, and people of all stripes and sexes among the most developed nations will rebel first. The dominos will fall until the least developed countries finally industrialize, experience the same inequities, and become communists themselves.

    This is not what happened, of course. Lenin adapted Marxism to suit his needs, and with the help of Communist sympathizers in the United States, Communism was implemented top-down in underdeveloped Russia. The dominoes toppled forcefully. Country after country fell into or out of Communism thanks to top-down or outside interests throughout the Cold War, always at the expense of the citizenry, and rarely at their behest.

    Ironically, we discover, Communism has always been propped up by top-down physical force and moneyed interests, the very people Marx himself despised.

    Versions or elements of Communism now exist in China and the United States. One is an initially poor, now dystopian regime that plays capitalist games, and the other is a regime struggling between political correctness, a limp conservatism, and a central bank barely holding the economy together.

    Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym for the creator(s) of Bitcoin, makes no political statements.

    In his nine-page whitepaper and public postings, we learn how Bitcoin works, and whether it might succeed — by which he meant a high volume of transactions processed and a failure of entities to attack and delegitimize the network.

    It is, however, well-established that Bitcoin’s deflationary monetary policy and peer-to-peer structure have roots in the insights of Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, and others — thinkers who developed their work in direct contrast to Marx and the historical, political bent of his dialectical materialism. It is no surprise then that theories have emerged about the political implications of adopting Bitcoin.

    According to one theory, the most developed countries, particularly the United States, are closest to the fiat money printer. The strongest central bank is the one that runs the world’s reserve currency. The few who run that central bank can print unlimited amounts of money and launder it to suit their interests. Such interests will never align with that of their people’s, and particularly never of the countries forced to tether themselves to today’s global reserve currency, the US dollar. The dollar, not tied to gold or other hard money, will inflate into nothingness. Other central banks also printing money will suffer doubly. Their money is debasing, and the dollar on which their money relies is also debasing.

    The people will figure this out, and tire of it. They will realize that they cannot store the value of their days’ work in a debasing currency, and will pull their money out of the fractional reserve banks that enable this endless printing. They will put this money into a hard asset, initially gold, and eventually Bitcoin.

    Slowly, then suddenly, the revolution will be decentralized. The citizens of developed countries will invest in Bitcoin, but as relative winners in the fiat game, they will use it as a currency last. Similarly, the governments of the most developed countries will fail to take Bitcoin seriously, or be hostile to it. But the citizens of poor countries, and those with debased currencies, will leap to Bitcoin first. The poor will realize Bitcoin’s volatility is not so bad when their country’s currency hyper-inflates far faster. Its monetary policy is at least transparent. Who knows what happens in the offices of the Federal Reserve?

    The citizens of smaller, poorer countries will store their value in bitcoin and transact with it. Smaller, poorer governments will see that Bitcoin gives them a way out of fiat’s approach of debt and debasement, adopting it as legal tender. The dominoes will fall. The Haves of the central banks will be overthrown, replaced by the Have-nots who had bitcoin first. The developed countries will be the last to catch on. And finally, thanks to Bitcoin’s deflationary monetary policy, the poor countries will have a leg up in this Orange New World. Someday we will live in a free-market paradise, where no one is in control of the money supply and economies can grow as The People will.

    In both theories, the economic situation leads to a decentralized emotional/cultural phenomenon, namely a struggle against a corrupt oligopoly.

    But when it comes to Bitcoin, this hasn’t happened as expected either.

    When Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador and head of the party Nuevas Ideas, made his country the first to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, citizen interest in Bitcoin in El Salvador was virtually 0%. Only a few bitcoiners from developed countries, who had made their home in touristy El Zonte beach, knew anything about Bitcoin. Today, the degree of citizen-wide adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador is over 35% and rising, with some of the thanks going to the government’s Chivo wallet, and some to non-profit efforts such as Mi Primer Bitcoin. El Salvador’s domino fell mostly from top-down efforts, and as poor a country as it is, its other legal tender is the US Dollar, the world’s reserve currency. While El Salvador doesn’t have control of the dollar’s monetary policy, it is certainly doing better by adopting it compared to Argentina or Lebanon, whose currencies are terribly debased as of this writing.

    Further, there are obvious falsities here. The United States hasn’t adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, but it sure has a lot of bitcoin. The IRS has holdings. Rumor even has it that other agencies confiscate, keep, and purchase bitcoin from time to time, the latter being particularly easy for a country that’s routinely printing money.

    The list of countries mining bitcoin for free money, some of which is kept, is too long a list to name. So, certainly developed countries, whether or not they acknowledge Bitcoin’s relevance publicly, are invested. So much for a leg up for the poor countries.

    Finally, there is also the geopolitical exercise of using bitcoin.

    Russia is accepting bitcoin for natural gas, and the UAE is warm to the asset. Both are far from poor or underdeveloped countries.

    On the other hand, Nigeria isn’t rich. The Nigerian people transact in bitcoin more than anyone besides Americans. Yet the government is hostile to it, going so far as to push their CBDC, the e-Naira, on the populace. Meanwhile, savvy citizens in Argentina and Lebanon mine and save in bitcoin, while their governments don’t seem to see the urgency in using it.

    So, is Bitcoin, or rather Bitcoin Economic Theory, destined to a history as murky and ubiquitous as Communism’s? Can any theory encompass this asset’s trajectory? Further, given that Bitcoin, by its nature, challenges central banks, and by extension certain normalized tenets of Communism, we should expect to see them challenge one another geopolitically — right?

    Which economic incentive structure wins? Is it a soft win, forcing countries like China to accommodate the network without sacrificing their political structure? Or does it extinguish centralization altogether? Or is Bitcoin snuffed out by some ingenious circumstance none of us yet foresee?

    • As it stands, Bitcoin is certainly the underdog, whose main advantage is its decentralization through its proof-of-work consensus mechanism.

    • Meanwhile, fiat has a hold on every major institution on earth — including the military needed to get its way.

    The geopolitical theories surrounding Bitcoin rely on the assumption that it cannot be stopped. As a computer network, anyone can run a node, anyone can transact with anyone else, and anyone can mine to secure the network and make money. It is, in fact, the most secure computer network ever built, with 99.99999999% uptime and zero successful attacks made against it.

    Laws cannot stop people from using Bitcoin. Though it is possible to track purchases made on the ledger, allowing governments to arrest or harm people who defy such laws, theoretically, people will move out of such places and move to places where they can transact in their money of choice. People who try to attack the network by co-opting hashrate will find they’ll make more money supporting the network rather than investing energy to work against it.

    The fact that it’s hard money means everyone — including those who despise it — will eventually opt into storing their value within the network, preventing them from wanting to sabotage it and lose their wealth. Only the few closest to the money printer have the most to lose in moving to a Bitcoin Standard. They cannot navigate a world in which they lose control of the predominant money. If they can’t beat them, they’ll join them.

    I would be remiss without mentioning Major Jason Lowery’s theory, which, while controversial, makes for a compelling story: As Bitcoin finds its way into every nook and cranny, nation-states will come to adopt Bitcoin and wield it as a geopolitical weapon, sublimating the motivation to go to war. Instead, there will be warring hash rates, and geopolitical divisions along the lines of bitcoin mining. This is a compromise of sorts between both ideas, whereby Bitcoin is co-opted by the present authorities — members of the central bank included — but Bitcoin finds a way to shift their incentives in its favor.

    To the extent that they can hoard the remaining bitcoin, and attempt to dominate the network by conquering hashrate, Major Lowery’s proposed economic ‘game’ may find some reality. While there are several valid critiques of Lowery’s thesis, a version of such an event may occur. Per Limpwar, countries that adopt Bitcoin as legal tender first, attempting to leverage it against other countries, may find themselves trapped. Adversarial countries could sell their bitcoin during a competing country’s recessions, further plummeting the purchasing power of that country in the short term. If a military initiative follows that up, it could be the difference between a win or a loss.

    Similarly, a government could hoard bitcoin for just such a response against its people. As its people commit to revolution, having primarily committed their assets to Bitcoin, the government may sell a substantial sum of bitcoin, weakening its people’s assets. Perhaps other countries or citizens would purchase that bitcoin, once again raising the price. Perhaps it would take longer than expected. As we’ve seen, bear markets can reliably last more than a year, and it only takes a few whales to shift the price of bitcoin dramatically. There is not yet any reason to believe that the Bitcoin economy will behave differently in the future.

    My position is that imposing a framework onto Bitcoin indicates a lack of integrity. The network will thrive where it is needed, and falter where it is not. It is not yet obvious that it will be equally needed everywhere, or have equal value everywhere. Gulf countries, for example, may come to hoard bitcoin, but find no need to spend it, preferring to transact in their fiat currency, grounded in the value of their natural and digital assets. The citizens of such regimes may do the same, feeling no need to transact internationally, and possessing no strong economic incentive to use bitcoin.

    Struggling countries may be similarly slow to adopt Bitcoin, preferring to clamp down on their citizens, who may not be prepared to suffer for transacting with digital assets. The people of China may experience such a fate. Certainly, this seems to Bitcoiners like a geopolitical medium-term stupidity. But many regimes engage in such stupidities.

    And finally: would a Bitcoin economy look dramatically different from the way the economy looks today? It seems very likely that the economy will be similar under a Bitcoin Standard as it is under the fiat system. Any large changes to such a system would take generations, and even such changes might simply be iterations to the current system rather than the radical vision of a few Bitcoiners. There will still be credit. Many people will sill prefer to leave their money with intermediaries. Countries will still have central bodies managing the purchase, sale, and holdings of bitcoin, along with how they legally navigate the network and the transactions that it services. Perhaps countries will spend less than they do today, or focus less on GDP – but is it really so wild to believe that, when push comes to shove, countries won’t continue to spend more than they have? We believed before World War One that spending more money than a country had was impossible – but Europe kept the war going for what was believed to be an impossibly long time. Bitcoin will never be able to eliminate that instinct. Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way.

    So, perhaps Bitcoin will win over centralization, Communism, and the threat of infinite inflation in the long term. In the short- and medium-term, perhaps a societal chiropractic adjustment will be recognizable, to those of us who are watching.

    *  *  *

    Marx believed that all culture and politics was built atop the economic structure of a people. Our economics defines us, and its historical progression, from tribal bartering to feudalism to the free market, to communism and beyond, is inevitable. There are a non-zero number of Bitcoiners who also presume an historical teleology for Bitcoin, in fact only disagreeing with Marx on which inevitability to expect: Communism or Bitcoin. Red or Orange. Many, but not all, of the prominent Maxis are Christians. Hegel, who inspired the dialectical materialism of Marx, undoubtedly (and, given Marx’s atheism, ironically) borrowed from Christian theology to devise The Phenomenology of Spirit. It makes some sense then that in economics both see a kind of savior of history. Both, therefore, believe that only their asset, or approach, will win, and that a new politics will broadly be inspired from it. Whether a new politics is brought about from one or the other is not only possible, but proven. We see how Marxism has inspired virulent political strands of itself. Bitcoin may very well do the same.

    But to believe, as both may, that only their approach will come to dominate — Marx’s because of the fundamental (and necessarily-always-growing) inequity born of the Haves always taking from the Have-nots, and Bitcoin’s because no other asset is a superior storer, transferrer, and protector of energy and value — seems shortsighted. It may also be true that the whole framing of this problem is wrong. Perhaps economics is not the base upon which cultural and political superstructures are built – that, instead, economics merely influences some, but not nearly all, of a society’s functions. Believing otherwise puts us in too narrow a framing, risking the chance we miss the roots of other deep cultural or political issues. Addressing such an issue would require that we address whether, as Marx believed, all philosophical issues fundamentally stem from the material world, and whether new philosophies can only emerge from new material conditions.

    Regardless, we see that both philosophies haven’t played out the way anyone expected. And, for the first time since Marx wrote, we have a real application of Austrian economics. The latter never had a political chance against the zealotry of Marxism until Bitcoin’s emergence. However, given that Marxism is fundamentally a philosophy of ressentiment, and though bitcoin may displace it, it is unrealistic to believe it will eliminate it altogether.

    Fundamentally, the workers of the world who remain resentful, even if Bitcoin wins, will either infect elements of it with their philosophy — technology, too, can be driven in unexpected directions — or they will bide their time until the next opening.

    In another 300 years, who knows what will come of Bitcoin? Who knows whether the integrity of such a system will last, or whether central banks not only remain, but thrive in a new form?

    Maxi fanaticism is not ungrounded. Bitcoin has shifted the economic landscape of whole countries, and saved the wealth of many. It promises to shift the very fabric of money and the way we navigate energy.

    And yet it seems that no clear theory can encapsulate it. Bitcoin is filling up, slowly but surely, a great space where once there was ocean. Will it continue to fill every space until we navigate with it, as fish do water? And who knows if other such economic theories won’t continue to compete. But the way there will be long and bumpy, and undoubtedly the dominos will not fall in any of the ways we can possibly imagine.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 17:45

  • Defense Secretary Austin Finally Leaves Hospital After 2 Weeks, Refuses To Resign
    Defense Secretary Austin Finally Leaves Hospital After 2 Weeks, Refuses To Resign

    Amid a backdrop of scandal and controversy while still rebuffing calls to resign, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has been released from the hospital Monday, following a full two week stint there, with the first four days of that in ICU wherein the White House was kept in the dark.

    Austin had been admitted to Walter Reed hospital on January 1st for complications following prostate cancer surgery. A new Pentagon statement says he is still going to work remotely from home “for a period of time” before returning to his office. The statement sought to assure that he has “full access” to secure communications capabilities.

    Wiki Commons

    “Secretary Austin’s prostate cancer was treated early and effectively, and his prognosis is excellent,” Austin’s doctors have assessed.

    It was on Jan. 5th that the Pentagon first disclosed to the public that he had been hospitalized. For the initial part of that week prior, even the White House didn’t know, and his deputy Kathleen Hicks was also unaware of the full status of his condition while on vacation in Puerto Rico. 

    The Pentagon has since claimed that she was running things from her hotel room. But this is dubious given she appears not to have been fully aware that she was effectively in charge. She merely was tasked with certain duties instead.

    The National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has also asserted that Austin’s overseeing the country’s national security from the hospital while recovering “was no different than it would be on any other given day, except that he was briefing the president on options and engaged in the discussions from the hospital.”

    But bipartisan Congressional leaders have demanded answers, which have not been forthcoming. A letter from Senate armed services committee chair, Jack Reed (D) and Senator Roger Wicker (R) have demanded an explanation for the serious lapse and breach in protocol:

    “We are concerned that critical notification procedures were not followed while you were receiving medical care the past several weeks,” they wrote, adding that their committee “has serious questions about this incident, and members need a full accounting to ensure it never happens again”.

    Essentially there was no one at the helm of the Department of Defense while the nation is embroiled in several hotspots from Ukraine to the Red Sea and Yemen. 

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

    To review, CBS previously compiled a timeline of major events related to Austin’s absence from his post as Pentagon chief:

    • Early December 2023: Medical providers identify prostate cancer, which requires treatment. (Statement from officials at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center officials, Jan. 9) 
    • Dec. 22: Austin undergoes an elective medical procedure while on leave. (Ryder discloses procedure on Jan. 5; Ryder discloses the date of the procedure on Jan. 7)
    • Dec. 23: Austin is discharged and goes home. (Ryder briefing, Jan. 8)
    • Jan. 1, 2024: President Biden holds a call on the situation in the Middle East with Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. (National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby briefing, Jan. 8).
    • Jan. 1: Austin experiences “severe abdominal, leg, and hip pain” and is transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Initial evaluation reveals a urinary tract infection. (Walter Reed Statement, Jan. 9). 
    • Jan. 2: Austin is transferred to the intensive care unit for close monitoring and a higher level of care. (Walter Reed Statement, Jan. 9) 
    • Jan. 2: Some operational responsibilities are transferred to Hicks. (Ryder briefing, Jan. 8)
    • Jan. 2: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown is notified Austin has been hospitalized. (Ryder briefing, Jan. 8)  
    • Jan. 2: Pentagon press secretary, Austin’s chief of staff and Austin’s senior military adviser learn Austin is in the hospital. (Ryder briefing, Jan. 8.)
    • Jan. 4: The U.S. conducts a strike in Baghdad at 12 p.m. local time, according to a defense official. Ryder said on Jan. 8 that Mr. Biden and Austin had approved the strike before Austin was hospitalized. 
    • Jan. 4: Defense Department chief of staff notifies deputy secretary of defense and the White House that Austin is in the hospital. President Biden learns Austin has been hospitalized. (Ryder briefing, Jan. 8; Kirby briefing, Jan. 9)
    • Jan. 5: Senate Armed Services Committee is informed of Austin’s hospitalization. (A Senate Armed Services Committee aide told CBS News). 
    • Jan. 5: Pentagon releases first public statement that says Austin has been hospitalized since Jan. 1. 
    • Jan. 5: Austin resumes full duties from Walter Reed in the evening. (Ryder statement, Jan. 7)
    • Jan. 6: Austin releases a statement taking responsibility for delayed disclosure. 
    • Jan. 6: Mr. Biden and Austin speak; the president says he has full confidence in Austin. (U.S. official, Jan. 8). 
    • Jan. 8: Austin is no longer in ICU and is recovering in a private area of Walter Reed. (Ryder briefing, Jan. 8)
    • Jan. 9: Pentagon releases statement from Walter Reed Military Medical Center disclosing that the procedure Austin had undergone was a prostatectomy “to treat and cure prostate cancer.”
    • Jan. 9: President Biden is informed of Austin’s diagnosis. (Kirby briefing, Jan. 9) 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 17:10

  • FDA Launches Fresh Bid To Toss Out High-Profile Ivermectin Case
    FDA Launches Fresh Bid To Toss Out High-Profile Ivermectin Case

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seeking to persuade a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its repeated advisories against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

    The FDA in a sealed motion asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to dismiss the suit, which was brought by three doctors who allege the FDA’s warnings were illegal.

    The late 2023 motion was sealed because exhibits the government cited “include confidential information” from a separate legal proceeding, according to a government brief.

    Government lawyers said they would file redacted versions of the motion for public perusal but still have not done so.

    Attorneys for the doctors said on Jan. 12 that the court should reject the government’s fresh bid to throw out the case.

    “The FDA exceeded its authority by repeatedly issuing public directives not to use ivermectin for COVID-19, even though the drug remains fully approved for human use,” they wrote.

    One of the directives said: “You are not a horse. Stop it with the #Ivermectin. It’s not authorized for treating #COVID.”

    The government motion came after an appeals court found the FDA likely overstepped its authority with the warnings.

    “FDA can inform, but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers ’stop’ taking medicine,”  U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the ruling.

    The appeals court remanded the case back to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who said in 2022 that the doctors failed to prove their allegations.

    The FDA in the sealed motion asked Judge Brown, another appointee of President Trump, to dismiss the case.

    According to lawyers for the doctors, the FDA’s motion includes arguments that claim the plaintiffs have not suffered injuries that are traceable to the FDA, and that cannot be remedied by a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

    “The FDA is wrong,” the lawyers said. “Plaintiffs have suffered interference with their practice of medicine and the doctor-patient relationship, economic harm, reputational harm, and increased exposure to malpractice liability, and have been subject to disciplinary proceedings and forced resignations, all of which clearly trace to the FDA’s campaign against ivermectin and would be remedied by equitable relief.”

    The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act enables the FDA to authorize or approve drugs for a specific use but doctors are free to prescribe cleared drugs for other purposes, in what’s known as “off-label” prescribing. The law does not grant authority to the FDA to regulate off-label use.

    The plaintiffs include Dr. Robert Apter, who was investigated by medical boards in two states for prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID-19. The referrals to the boards include some of the FDA’s warnings against using the drug as a COVID-19 treatment.

    The FDA’s position in seeking a dismissal stems in part from the negative actions against the plaintiffs being taken by third parties such as pharmacies, according to a description of the sealed motion. It was quoted as saying that the referrals “are not fairly traceable” to the FDA’s statements.

    An exhibit included by the FDA, however, showed one of the referrals came from a pharmacist who cited FDA documents as a reason for “increased scrutiny” with regard to ivermectin prescriptions. The pharmacist wrote that Dr. Apter would not provide a “valid medical reason” for the ivermectin prescription and was thus engaging in “inappropriate prescribing.”

    “The FDA is the common thread through all of [the] plaintiffs’ injuries, which began only after the FDA embarked on its campaign to stop the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 and which often involve explicit invocation of the FDA’s directives and recommendations,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said.

    They are seeking an order that would force the FDA to rescind or amend its warnings. That would remove the justification of the parties that have taken negative actions against the plaintiffs, the lawyers added.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 16:35

  • Lawfare Against Trump Is Running Out Of Gas: VDH
    Lawfare Against Trump Is Running Out Of Gas: VDH

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    Prosecutors are discovering that the more they seek to rush to judgment before the election and gag Trump from speaking publicly about these proceedings, the more he rises in the polls…

    We should dispense with the tired narrative that four conscientious state and federal prosecutors – independently and without contact with the Biden White House or the radical Democrats in Congress – all came to the same disinterested conclusions that Donald Trump should be indicted for various crimes and put on trial during the campaign season of 2024.

    The prosecutors began accelerating their indictments only once Trump started to lead incumbent Joe Biden by sizable margins in head-to-head polls. Moreover, had Trump not run for the presidency, or had he been of the same party as most of the four prosecutors, he would have never been indicted by any of them.

    Yet now they are in a doom loop of discovering that the more they seek to rush to judgment before the election and gag Trump from speaking publicly about these star-chamber proceedings, the more he rises in the polls.

    In truth, each succeeding cycle of corrupt leftwing lawfare that ends in failure—the Russian collusion hoax, the weaponized first impeachment, trying ex-president Trump in the Senate as a private citizen, the laptop disinformation set-up, the Alfa bank ping caper, the pathetic attempt to erase Trump from state ballots, and the unfolding Fani Willis moral debacle—does not return things to zero.

    Rather, they serve as force multipliers for each other. Each overreach geometrically increases the dangers to democracy, ever more turns the public off, and ironically cascades sympathy and poll numbers for the very target of their paranoias.

    Some of the prosecutors have colluded with White House lawyers and congressional liaisons. Some had run for office, offering campaign promises to get Trump convicted for something or other.

    Now, after years of delays and deadends, all four are rushing to synchronize their trial dates to ensure that the front-running Trump is on the docket daily and not out on the 2024 campaign trail.

    Do we recall when leftist legal eagles claimed that of all the iffy Trump indictments, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis had the best case against Trump?

    The phone call, we were told, was proof of “election interference.” It was Willis who got the first Trump “mug shot.” It was Willis, we were assured, who got Trump with the goods on tape, begging election officials to “find” the requisite missing votes that would prove his victory (note that he did not say “invent” the votes but to look for a supposedly existing trove of them).

    And now Willis’s signature case is in shambles.

    We learn, allegedly, that

    1) Willis hired her stealth boyfriend Nathan Wade as a special counsel, the day before he filed for divorce (whose records were then mysteriously sealed by the court);

    2) that Wade so far has received over $650,000 as special counsel, reportedly including a miraculous ability to charge for 24 hours of continuous legal service in a single day;

    3) that Willis and Wade allegedly have used her greenlighted windfall to him to go on a number of pricey junkets and cruises;

    4) that to try an ex-president and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election, Willis picked Wade who had never tried a single felony case and was previously a “personal injury/accident” lawyer;

    5) that the supposedly apolitical Willis had consulted with the January 6 partisan congressional special committee, while Wade had met for marathon meetings with the Biden White House legal counsel (and apparently billed Georgia taxpayers for receiving such federal tutorials).

    The legal community’s initial dismissal of this sordid prosecutor’s office is reminiscent of the immediate efforts to downplay Claudine Gay’s plagiarism. But the charade will eventually end the same way, in this case with the resignation and likely indictment of the prosecutor, along with her boyfriend, who concocted quite a scheme at the expense of the taxpayers. Both have made a mockery of their indictment of an ex-president and, if the allegations are true, will be disbarred and prosecuted.

    The other three indictments are even weaker.

    Alvin Bragg claims that Donald Trump’s efforts a near decade ago to enact nondisclosure agreements and payments to remain silent about embarrassing behavior constituted “campaign finance violations.”

    If so, what then defines campaign violations when Ms. Clinton brazenly destroyed nearly 30,000 subpoenaed campaign-era emails, ordered subpoenaed communication devices smashed, illegally hired a foreign national to find dirt on a campaign rival, and used three paywalls to hide her hush payments to British subject Steele to concoct a smear dossier—with help from Russian sources—to destroy her 2016 rival?

    Letitia James, apparently for the first time in New York history, believes a bank was somehow wronged when its seasoned auditors viewed Trump’s assets, approved a loan to him, profited from his timely payments of interest and principles, and lodged no complaints against Trump or his company.

    James apparently believes that Donald Trump is the first and most egregious real estate baron in New York history who inflated the value of his holdings. Her indictments thus supposedly have nothing to do with a left-wing political activist who ran for attorney general on promises to get Trump.

    As far as Jack Smith, he supposedly was to be focused on Trump’s removal of classified presidential files to an insecure location at his Mar-a-Lago home and Trump’s “insurrectionary” actions on January 6. But he seems way beyond that now and is trying to put a gag order on the presidential frontrunner and to ensure Trump is in court during the 2024 campaign—challenging the very administration that appointed Smith in the first place.

    In truth, Trump was the first ex-president in history to be indicted for a dispute with archivists over the status and security of removed classified files. Such disagreements were historically adjudicated bureaucratically rather than criminally, and certainly not with performance-art FBI swat raids into an ex-presidential residence.

    Moreover, true insurrectionists do not instruct protestors to assemble peacefully and patriotically. Insurrectionists themselves do not try to overthrow governments while unarmed and accompanied by bare-chested buffoons with cow horns and slow-moving septuagenarians draped in American flags. And during an “insurrection,” unarmed “rebels” are usually not invited into the government quarters by supposed government doormen, among them perhaps 150-200 FBI informants. They are usually not shot and killed for the crime of entering a broken window while unarmed. And governments need not lie about the violence of insurrectionaries if they are truly insurrectionists.

    Jack Smith’s problem—aside from his similar previous effort as special counsel to bankrupt and destroy the life and career of former Virginia governor Bob McDonald, a conviction overturned 9-0 by the Supreme Court—is that his indictments are so asymmetrical as to be surreal.

    If the Department of Justice really wishes to prosecute insurrection, then it should concentrate on 120 days of arson, looting, killing, and violent protests that destroyed $2 billion in property, led to over 35 deaths, injured 1,500 law enforcement officers, and saw a federal courthouse, a police precinct, and a historic church torched by protestors, months of violent chaos planned and orchestrated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, and enabled by leftwing inert mayors and governors.

    The future Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, sought to organize bail for violent rioters. She boasted on television that the protests would not stop, should not stop, and would continue beyond the 2020 elections. Could she have at least suggested to the rioters to protest “peacefully and patriotically?” And just last week, President Biden praised that months-long violent summer of looting, violence, arson, and destruction, calling it “the historic movement for justice in the summer of 2020.”

    Or Smith could investigate the well-orchestrated and increasingly violent pro-Hamas rallies. These are “insurrections” that have stormed the California legislature, occupied the Capitol rotunda, defaced and defiled iconic federal monuments and cemeteries, shut down key bridges and freeways, attacked law enforcement, and led to violence and assaults.

    If Trump is guilty of removing files that he had the statutory right as president to formally declassify, then what was senator and subsequent Vice President Joe Biden guilty of when he stealthily and unlawfully removed hundreds of files, kept the removals secret (until his administration went after Trump for the same offense), and sloppily stored them in his insecure garage?

    At each juncture of these extra-legal efforts, past precedents, former customs, and accepted traditions are being destroyed by the Left, whose endless miscarriages of justice are the real threats to constitutional government. And the more impotent these serial and unending gambits become, the more strident and desperate they appear.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 15:30

  • Houthi Militants Attack US Container Ship With Ballistic Missiles Days After Biden Attack On Yemen
    Houthi Militants Attack US Container Ship With Ballistic Missiles Days After Biden Attack On Yemen

    So much for the billions in taxpayer funds spent on Operation “Prosperity Guardian“, the Biden admin’s brilliant plan to “protect” shipping through the Red Sea against Houthi attacks.

    On Monday, Houthi militants struck another US-owned container ship with an anti-ship ballistic missile, underscoring how catastrophic Biden’s attempt to protect one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes has been, and that the world’s most important trade artery remains too risky for navigation despite explicit US guarantees for safe passage.

    The Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, U.S.-owned and operated container ship, was struck at about 4 p.m. local time in the Gulf of Aden, US Central Command said on X. Nobody was injured, the vessel avoided significant damage and was able continue its journey, it said.

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

    Eagle Bulk Shipping, operator of Gibraltar Eagle, confirmed the ship was hit by a projectile and suffered limited damage to a cargo hold before sailing away from the area. It was carrying steel products.

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

    The strike underscores warnings from the US, reported by a top industry trade group, that ships should steer clear of the Red Sea. Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation also issued a warning to US merchant ships Monday telling them to avoid the area until further notice, thus confirming that Prosperity Guardian has been a total multi-billion dollar flop.

     2024-001B-Red Sea and Gulf of Aden-Potential Retaliatory Attacks by Houthi Forces

    There continues to be a high degree of risk to commercial vessels transiting the Southern Red Sea between 12N and 16N. While the decision to transit remains at the discretion of individual vessels and companies, it is recommended that U.S. flag and U.S. owned commercial vessels remain North of 18N in the Red Sea or East of 46E in the Gulf of Aden until further notice. Additional updates will be provided when available. This alert will not automatically expire and will be updated or cancelled as needed. Any questions regarding this alert should be directed to U.S. Naval Forces NCAGS at +973-1785-0033 (Primary/Watch Desk), +973-3940-4523 (Alternate), m-ba-navcent-ncags@us.navy.mil

    The latest attack on a US-owned and operated ship comes just days after US and UK forces had theatrically bombed targets in Yemen following months of attacks on commercial ships by Houthi militants, who had been targeting vessels with any kind of connection with Israel. The Houthis warned of reprisals against US and UK ships for the bombing, and sure enough, they did just that. Meanwhile, the Biden admin is keeping it “retaliatory” attacks to the barest optical minimum as it is terrified that if it strikes too hard at Iranian targets, some or all of Iran’s precious 4mmb/d in oil would be pulled from the market, leading to an explosion in oil prices and devastation for Biden in the Nov elections.

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

    The DOT’s navigation warning, posted on LinkedIn by the world’s largest international shipping association Bimco, cited advice from the US Naval Forces Central Command. It warned the current instability could yet last for “some time.”

    “Coalition forces and Bimco continue to recommend shipping companies to consider avoiding shipping operations in the area,” the trade group said, crushing any credibility the Biden admin may have had of preserving stability in the Red Sea, and making a mockery of US attempts to contain the Houthi rebels.

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

    The maritime industry had already been warned on Friday to stay away from the region, but initial guidance suggested the pause might only last for three days. That was echoed by the Department of Transportation’s own 72-hour warning on Friday, which became on indefinite one on Monday. Unfortunately, due to the sheer incompetence of the US military, which is more concerned with being inclusive and equitably accepting of overweight trannies with blue hair than actually being in fighting shape, what was a 3-day lockdown is now indefinite.

    The attacks are driving up shipping costs as vessels avoiding the area are forced to sail thousands of miles further around Africa instead. That’s raised the specter of a renewed wave of inflation and means delays to the delivery of every thing from commodities to manufactured goods.

    Gas tankers from Qatar are among the latest vessels that have seemingly been forced the long way around but numerous shipowners have heeded the warnings. On Friday, multiple tanker companies said they were pausing transits through a stretch of water that’s vital for the shipment of everything from oil to manufactured goods.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 15:00

  • Death, 'Disease X', & "Rebuilding Trust" With The Denizens Of Davos
    Death, ‘Disease X’, & “Rebuilding Trust” With The Denizens Of Davos

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    “I have decided to unilaterally rebrand Disease X! It is now Disease DIC! Debt Implosion Cover-up”

    – Edward Dowd

    The nabobs and panjandrums of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet up at Davos, Switzerland, the next several days to lay plans for their latest assault on humanity.

    This year’s theme is “Rebuilding Trust.”

    Did you just blow your coffee through your nose?

    The outfit that coordinated the world-wide Covid-19 response (that perhaps birthed the very concept of Covid-19 itself), and especially pushed mRNA vaccines on the credulous global public — this gang of super-wealthy, super-connected, super-important celebrity punks, poohbahs, pricks, and predators wants a cuddle.

    This Davos crowd — moiling around the opening soirée amid drool-worthy trays of crab puffs, asparagus gougères, lobster crostini, waygu morsels, Prosciutto-Fig bites, chickpea panisse, stuffed castelvetrano olives, wild boar and quinoa dolmas, fava bean puree toasts, pigeon pea fritters, and Nürnberger rostbratwurst pigs-in-a-blanket, all washed down by bottomless flutes of Roederer Cristal Millésime Brut— could not stop chattering about the debut of the latest viral confection, “Disease X”, said to be twenty times deadlier than Covid-19.

    Imagine the opportunities this one will provide for the WEF’s Davos prom date, the World Health Organization (WHO). And just in time to create enough hysteria for the May vote on the new WHO treaty binding the world’s governments to its pandemic diktats. In that new disposition of things, whatever Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says, goes! Lockdowns. Quarantine camps. Mandatory (improved) safe-and-effective vaccines. Nevermind what the actual citizens of Countries A, B, or C might otherwise decide for themselves under the obsolete system of national sovereignty. Follow the science, useless eaters of the world! (And please quit carping about it!)

    Any resemblance of “Disease X” to the remaining global free speech platform (Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter), is just another bothersome conspiracy theory. Of course, theories imply the discovery of proofs, and it so happens that the unelected European Commission, under its Digital Services Act (passed in Nov., 2022), has already threatened Mr. Musk’s X to remove so-called hate speech, illegal content, and disinformation or face a fine amounting to 6-percent of its annual global revenue.

    Hate speech and disinfo are whatever the EU says it is, including information that is true but disagreeable to the agenda of all supranational orgs such as the EU, the WEF, and the WHO. 

    Reminds us of something Pete Hogwallop once said to Ulysses E, McGill:

    Last time around, those mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna proved to be super-effective at one thing: disordering all the cells and organs in the human body so as to produce a severe auto-immune reaction resulting in death and disability. The artificial spike protein replication induced by the vaxxes has a special yen for heart tissue, the linings of blood vessels, and the reproductive organs — thus, all those world-class soccer players dropping dead in mid-kick, all the massive clots the size of shipworms discovered by the morticians, and all the spontaneously aborted babies over the past three years.

    By the way, having seen all this, the CDC Director, Mandy Cohen, is still pushing “updated” mRNA shots, down to six-month-old babies. No, I’m not making this up. Read the CDC’s latest recommendations, released five days ago:

    It happens that Dutch virologist Geert Vanden Bossche warned a month ago that — per his earlier warnings about the dangers of vaccinating into the teeth of a pandemic — the world can expect a soon-to-come crisis of 30-to-40 percent mortality in highly vaccinated countries with the emergence of a new Covid variant that won’t be stopped by vaxx-damaged immune systems.

    Let that sink in.

    It means not just a bone-chilling, unprecedented mega-wave of deaths, but the likely dysfunction of every complex system that advanced nations depend on for normal operation as the people who know how to run them succumb. That is, farewell to normal modern life as we have known it. Geert’s just sayin’.

    It’s even possible that some of the things that cease operation will include the WEF, the WHO, the EU, and the CDC, considering their presumably multi-vaxxed and boosted members.

    Enjoy the scrumptious canapés while you. can, ladies and gentlemen of Davos. We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 14:30

  • "It's All Over": Powell's WSJ Mouthpiece And JPMorgan Confirm Imminent End Of QT
    “It’s All Over”: Powell’s WSJ Mouthpiece And JPMorgan Confirm Imminent End Of QT

    On December 13 the financial world was stunned when, just two weeks after Jerome Powell had said he it was “premature” to speculate on rate cuts, the Federal Reserve did a shocking U-turn and pivoted dovishly, ending the Fed’s hiking cycle with inflation still running at double the Fed’s target of 2%, and said that it had in fact discussed the start of rate cuts, contrary to what Powell said just two weeks earlier.

    Or rather, we should say “the financial world that had not read Zero Hedge was stunned” because just one week ahead of the Fed’s December FOMC meeting, we correctly predicted the Fed’s pivot due to one simple reason: as we laid out in “The Canary Just Died: Sudden Spike In SOFR Hints At Mounting Reserve Shortage, Early Restart Of QE“, the Fed no longer had a choice and was forced to pursue a dovish pivot because the liquidity in the all-important systemic and interbank plumbing had hit dangerously low levels, resulting in the highest SOFR print on record, and the biggest spike since the last time there was a repo market crisis in March 2020.

    As we said at the time, “the spike caught almost everyone by surprise, even such Fed-watching luminaries as BofA’s Marc Cabana because it was with “no new UST settlements, lower repo volumes, and lower sponsored bi-lateral volumes.”  And yet, the spike was clearly there and ominously it was consistent “with the slow theme of less cash & more collateral in the system” – i.e., growing reserve scarcity –  and “may have been exacerbated by elevated dealer inventories, bi-lateral borrowing need, and limited excess cash to backstop repo.”

    And the punchline: “If funding pressure persists, it risks Fed re-assessment of ample banking system reserves & potential early end to QT“, and depending on how bad the funding shortage gets, an early restart of QE.

    One week later, the Fed capitulated on tight monetary policy and ushered in the era of rate cuts, just as we said it would. But more importantly, one month later it was Dallas Fed president (and former head of the NY Fed’s plunge protection team) Lorie Logan who said the quiet part out loud when she confirmed our “canary in the coalmine” note, namely that the Fed’s QT is effectively over due to the sudden, unexpected slide in systemic liquidity, primarily due to the rapid drain in the reverse repo facility which now has just $600 million left and is set to be fully drained some time in March…

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

    … and that by extension, another round of QE may be on deck.

    Of course, it’s one thing for a regional Fed president to opine on such things, it’s something entirely different for Powell’s preferred media leak conduit to confirm it, and yet this morning that’s precisely what happened when Nick Timiraos, aka Nikileaks, aka Powell’s favorite media mouthpiece confirmed that QT’s days are now numbered writing that “Fed officials are to start deliberations on slowing, though not ending, that so-called quantitative tightening as soon as their policy meeting this month. It could have important implications for financial markets.“

    If that wasn’t enough, Nikileaks also confirms our suspicion about the driver behind said QT runoff: the financial plumbing is starting to clog up:

    But whereas the Fed expects to cut short-term interest rates this year because inflation has fallen, its rationale for tapering bond runoff is different: to prevent disruption to an obscure yet critical corner of the financial markets.

    Five years ago, balance-sheet runoff sparked upheaval in those markets, forcing a messy U-turn. Officials are determined not to do that again.

    Several officials at the Fed’s policy meeting last month suggested beginning formal conversations soon, so as to communicate their plans to the public well before any changes take effect, according to minutes of the meeting. Officials have indicated that changes aren’t imminent and that they are focusing on slowing—not ending—the program.

    As we first explained almost two months ago, the reason for the Fed’s panic is that the central bank wants to avoid the same repo market cataclysm that market both the liquidity drain in Sept 2019 and the violent eruption in basis trades that sparked bond market contagion in March 2020; here is Timiraos confirming as much:

    … in September 2019, a sharp, unexpected spike in a key overnight lending rate suggested reserves had windled to the point they were either too scarce or difficult to redistribute across the financial system. The Fed began buying Treasury bills to add reserves back to the system and avoid further instability.

    In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic created a huge dash for dollars. To prevent markets from seizing up, the Fed resumed buying huge quantities of securities. It stopped buying in March 2022 and three months later set the process into reverse, once again shrinking the portfolio.

    … which brings us to today, when the Fed did the math and realized that doing $60BN in QT per month once the reverse repo is fully drained will crash the market:

    Policymakers have several reasons to consider slowing runoff. First, the Fed is shrinking its Treasury holdings by $60 billion a month—twice as fast it did five years ago. Continuing to run at this rate raises the risk that the Fed drains reserves so quickly that money-market rates jump as banks struggle to redistribute a dwindling supply of reserves.

    Slowing the pace of the runoff later this year might allow the Fed to continue the program for longer than otherwise by “reducing the likelihood that we’d have to stop prematurely,” Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said in a recent speech.

    And by “stop prematurely” she of course means suffering a market crash in an election year, one which would drag the economy into a recession in days. And we all know by now (thanks to former NY president Bill Dudley) that is unacceptable, especially when the alternative is a Trump presidency.

    Timiraos also confirms that we were right in cautioning that it’s all about the accelerating rate of decline in the reverse repo facility (see “How Treasury Averted A Bond Market “Earthquake” In The Last Second: What Everyone Missed In The TBAC’s Remarkable Refunding Presentation“):

    there are signs that the cash surplus in money markets is rapidly diminishing. The Fed allows money-market firms and others to park extra cash that would otherwise end up in reserves in an overnight reverse repurchase facility. The facility has shrunk by around $1 trillion since late August to around $680 billion. Logan endorsed slowing runoff once that facility is nearly drained of cash because, after that, forecasting demand for bank reserves will be more uncertain.

    This “faster-than-expected decline” in the overnight reverse repurchase facility’s balances is spurring the Fed’s movement toward contingency planning around how to slow runoff:

    “It has been a surprise to everyone that overnight reverse repurchase balances have fallen this quickly and that reserves have actually increased over this period,” said Brian Sack, who managed the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team at the New York Fed from 2009 to 2012.

    Actually Brian, you and others may have been surprised, but it certainly wasn’t “everyone”: we’ve been warning this would happen since the start of the year, and most recently one week before the Fed’s pivot.

    There is another reason why the December SOFR spike freaked out the Fed: whereas previously the central bank was wrong repeatedly in estimating what level of reserves would be seen as “ample” by the market, this time around, officials told TImiraos they are going to rely more on market signals in identifying the right level of reserves.

    “Last time, we had lots of estimates of where we thought that terminal level of reserves was, and our estimates were too low,” Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said in an October interview. “At the end of the day, the market will dictate where we are.”

    Indeed it will, and that’s precisely why our premium subscribers were fully aware that the “canary in the liquidity coalmine” died at the start of December, and the Fed’s dovish pivot, the end of QT, and the coming QE are now logically following just as we said they would.

    And just in case Timiraos’ conveying Powell’s message that QT is effectively done wasn’t enough, here is JPM’s head of fixed income strategy with a note overnight admitting the same

    This is how JPM sees the wind down of QT: “We now expect that the FOMC will have the outline of a timeline at the January meeting, communicated mid-February minutes to that meeting. We expect that this plan will be formally agreed to at the mid-March meeting and will be implemented beginning in April” at which point the monthly cap on the runoff of Treasury securities to be reduced to $30bn/mo, from $60bn/mo (full note available to professional subscribers in the usual place).

    Bottom line: after several years of tightening, 2024 is when the liquidity floodgate reopen and not only does the Fed start to cut rates aggressively, but with QT tapering, we fully expect the next QE to be launched in the near future, sending the dollar into its next, and possibly final, reserve currency death spiral as printer goes BRRRR.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/15/2024 – 14:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest