Today’s News 16th June 2023

• Stoltenberg Says 'Too Early' For Bloc To Decide On F-16 Delivery Amid Ukrainian Impatience
  Stoltenberg Says ‘Too Early’ For Bloc To Decide On F-16 Delivery Amid Ukrainian Impatience

  Starting in May the Biden administration began signaling to European allies that it won’t block their export of F-16 jets to Kiev, in what many saw as the next big escalation which could see things spiral toward direct Russia-NATO conflict. But it remains widely understood that it will take a significant amount of time before Ukrainian pilots are actually in Western advanced fighters in the skies of Ukraine, also given training alone will likely take at least a year or more.

  At a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it’s still too early to put an exact timetable on delivery of F-16s. Yet he still hinted the whole process could be expedited. 

  “I welcome the decision by several NATO Allies to provide a training of fighter pilots. This is important and it will enable us to, at a later stage, also make decisions to deliver fourth generation fighter aircraft like, for instance, the F-16s,” he said.

  

  “Exactly when a decision will be taken [to deliver F-16s to Ukraine] it’s too early to say, but the fact that training has started provides us with the option to also decide to deliver planes, and then the pilots will be ready to fly them.”

  Stoltenberg’s remarks came on the heels of the Netherlands confirming it is fast moving forward with US-backed plans to establish a training center for Ukrainian pilots in Eastern Europe. Breaking Defense reported Wednesday: 

  The Netherlands will begin to train Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet pilots “as soon as possible” as part of a three-step plan backed by the US Department of Defense and has stepped up military aid to Kyiv by way of a new €40 million ($43.3 million) air defense package, set to be announced at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Germany Thursday.

  Both the training and spending plans were revealed by Kajsa Ollongren, Dutch minister of defense, in a letter to the country’s House of Representatives today.

  But it’s been widely acknowledged that even the language barrier is among key difficulties which must be overcome:

  Though no details of air defense equipment to be supplied to Ukraine were shared, the training plan comprises conversion training, followed by language proficiency and initial flight training, and then the establishment of a training center in an unidentified “Eastern NATO member” country.

  Likely Poland will be involved, given that Warsaw has long been vocal on sending Western fighter jets to Ukraine. The Netherlands as Europe’s F-16 training coordinator has said initially a “limited number” of pilots will be admitted to the program and that it will expand over time. 

  Ukraine has long expressed its impatience over obtaining advanced Western fighter jets. And now Ukraine is reportedly further eyeing dozens of US-made F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets which have been retired by the Australian Royal Air Force, according to the AFP,

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/16/2023 – 02:45

• UN Secretary-General Proposes 'Global Digital Compact' To Push Laws Against Online 'Hate'
  UN Secretary-General Proposes ‘Global Digital Compact’ To Push Laws Against Online ‘Hate’

  Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, proposed a “Global Digital Compact,” (GDC) to push sweeping international laws against “hate and lies” online.

  

  “The proliferation of hate & lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm. This clear & present global threat demands clear and coordinated global action. We don’t have a moment to lose,” he wrote in a tweet announcing the compact.

  The UN policy brief, which was released on June 12, called for handing control of the internet to international bodies, as part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda.

  Guterres also referred to another UN brief, “Information and Integrity on Digital Platforms” (IIDP), which he said will be used as a guide to coordinate global efforts against “hate.”

  The IIDP warned about what it calls, the “darker side of the digital ecosystem,” which could enable “the rapid spread of lies and hate, causing real harm on a global scale.”

  Guterres said that the internet is being misused to deny science and spread disinformation and hate to billions of people, in a veiled reference to vaccine skeptics and growing populist movements.

  “The proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm. This clear and present global threat demands clear and coordinated global action. We don’t have a moment to lose,” he declared in his call for global censorship.

  UN Calls for Nations to Suppress Online Disinformation

  The GDC is focused on eliminating the “divide across regions, gender, income, language, and age groups” regarding internet access and decries the fact that “some 89 percent of people in Europe are online, but only 21 percent of women in low-income countries use the internet.”

  “Inequality is rising,” it claimed, adding that “enormous investments in technology have not been accompanied by spending on public education and infrastructure.”

  “Digital technology has led to massive gains in productivity and value, but these benefits are not resulting in shared prosperity,” said the brief.

  The GDC blamed “hate speech” and “disinformation,” on malicious hackers, criminal activity, authoritarian state controls, and “predatory business models,” calling them “serious risks to human rights.”

  It believes that the only solution is to develop “robust accountability criteria and standards for digital platforms and users to address disinformation, hate speech, and other harmful online content.”

  IIDP expanded on that point by claiming that “social media-enabled hate speech and disinformation can lead to violence and death. The ability to disseminate large-scale disinformation to undermine scientifically established facts poses an existential risk to humanity.”

  However, the writers of the UN report admitted that “the distinction between mis- and disinformation can be subtle and difficult to determine,” without providing any further details.

  These statements raised alarm for those concerned with freedom of speech and in countries that have long traditions of free debate and expression.

  Some countries with state-controlled media, like communist China, could utilize the international body’s panel on online censorship to crush overseas opposition to its views and policies worldwide.

  Climate and Vaccine Skeptics to Be Targeted

  The UN policy brief condemned any criticism of international climate change policy, which the international body sees as a settled science.

  Skeptics of green policy were accused of being guilty of “greenwashing,” which was defined as “misleading the public into believing that a company or entity is doing more to protect the environment, and less to harm it, than it is.”

  The report also called for banning online “disinformation” during key elections, where “the spread of mis- and disinformation can undermine public trust in electoral institutions and the electoral process itself.”

  This proposal would definitely interfere with the internal politics of sovereign states, at a time when election disputes are still being hotly debated, such as with the 2020 and 2022 U.S. elections.

  The UN further proposed a digital code of conduct, which laid out some of the proposed rules, but provided little detail on how they would be enforced or how violators would be judged.

  The code of conduct only suggested that member states “ensure that responses to mis- and disinformation and hate speech are consistent with international law, including international human rights law, and are not misused to block any legitimate expression of views of opinion.”

  The paper also called on major tech companies to “invest in human and artificial intelligence content moderation systems,” which could be programmed to block any views in opposition to the globalist agenda.

  “Digital platforms should move away from business models that prioritize engagement above human rights, privacy, and safety,” it added.

  “From health and gender equality to peace, justice, education, and climate action, measures that limit the impact of mis- and disinformation and hate speech will boost efforts to achieve a sustainable future and leave no one behind,” the report concluded.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/16/2023 – 02:00

• Traitor To The Constitution: The US Government Is The Real Criminal
  Traitor To The Constitution: The US Government Is The Real Criminal

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.”

  – H.L. Mencken

  And so it continues.

  This entire fiasco—indicting Donald Trump for allegedly violating both the Espionage Act and obstructing justice by improperly handling classified records—is merely the latest in a never-ending series of distractions, distortions, and political theater aimed at diverting the public’s attention from the sinister advances of the American Deep State.

  

  Don’t allow yourselves to be distracted, diverted or mesmerized by the cheap theater tricks.

  This indictment spectacle is Shakespearean in its scope: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  Nothing is the key word here.

  Despite the wall-to-wall media coverage, this is all just smoke and mirrors.

  Mark my words: the government is as corrupt and self-serving as ever, dominated by two political factions that pretend to be at odds with each other all the while moving in lockstep to maintain the status quo.

  If you really want to talk about who’s guilty of treason, set your sights higher: indict the government for overstepping its authority, abusing its power, disregarding the rule of law, and betraying the American people.

  When we refer to the “rule of law,” that’s constitutional shorthand for the idea that everyone is treated the same under the law, everyone is held equally accountable to abiding by the law, and no one is given a free pass based on their politics, their connections, their wealth, their status or any other bright line test used to confer special treatment on the elite.

  When the government and its agents no longer respect the rule of law—the Constitution—or believe that it applies to them, then the very contract on which this relationship is based becomes invalid.

  This abuse of power has been going on for so long that it has become the norm, the Constitution be damned.

  There are hundreds—make that thousands—of government bureaucrats who are getting away with murder (in many cases, literally) simply because the legislatures, courts and the citizenry can’t be bothered to make them play by the rules of the Constitution.

  Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

  For too long now, the American people have played politics with their principles and turned a blind eye to all manner of wrongdoing when it was politically expedient, allowing the government to wreak havoc with their freedoms and act in violation of the rule of law.

  “We the people” are paying the price for it now.

  We are paying the price every day that we allow the government to continue to wage its war on the American People, a war that is being fought on many fronts: with bullets and tasers, with surveillance cameras and license readers, with intimidation and propaganda, with court rulings and legislation, with the collusion of every bureaucrat who dances to the tune of corporate handouts while on the government’s payroll, and most effectively of all, with the complicity of the American people, who continue to allow themselves to be easily manipulated by their politics, distracted by their pastimes, and acclimated to a world in which government corruption is the norm.

  It’s the nature of the beast: power corrupts.

  Worse, as 19th-century historian Lord Acton concluded, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

  The republic has fallen.

  The Deep State’s plot to take over America has succeeded.

  The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic, corporate oligarchy bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad.

  Even now, we are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war, not because the American people are so divided but because that’s how corrupt governments control a populace (i.e., divide and conquer).

  These are dangerous times.

  These are indeed dangerous times but not because of violent crime or terrorism or illegal immigration.

  No, the real danger that we face comes from none other than the U.S. government and the powers it has granted to its standing armies to rob, steal, cheat, harass, detain, brutalize, terrorize, torture and kill American citizens with immunity.

  The danger “we the people” face comes from masked invaders on the government payroll who crash through our doors in the dark of night, shoot our dogs, and terrorize our families.

  This danger comes from militarized henchmen on the government payroll who demand absolute obedience, instill abject fear, and shoot first and ask questions later.

  This danger comes from greedy, power-hungry bureaucrats on the government payroll who have little to no understanding of their constitutional limits.

  This danger comes from greedy politicians and corporations for whom profit trumps principle.

  Consider, if you will, all of the dastardly, devious, diabolical, dangerous, debilitating, deceitful, dehumanizing, demonic, depraved, dishonorable, disillusioning, discriminatory, dictatorial schemes inflicted on “we the people” by a bureaucratic, totalitarian regime that has long since ceased to be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

  • Americans have no protection against police abuse.

  • Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state.

  • Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty.

  • Americans no longer have a right to private property.

  • Americans no longer have a say about what their children are exposed to in school.

  • Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police.

  • Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity.

  • Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy.

  • Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

  • Americans no longer have a representative government.

  I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

  Indictments, impeachments and elections will not save us.

  History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a totalitarian state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.

  Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

  From Clinton to Bush, then Obama to Trump and now Biden, it’s as if we’re caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

  There can be no denying that the world is indeed a dangerous place, but it’s the government that poses the gravest threat to our freedoms and way of life, and no amount of politicking, parsing or pandering will change that.

  It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by political circuses and entertainment spectacles.

  What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where “we the people” are at a distinct disadvantage in the face of the government elite’s power grabs, greed and firepower.

  The Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.

  That is the real betrayal.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 23:30

• Tijuana Mayor Flees To Army Base As Crime Chaos At Border City Worsens
  Tijuana Mayor Flees To Army Base As Crime Chaos At Border City Worsens

  The ongoing bloodshed in Tijuana, resulting from cartels battling for control over drug smuggling routes into the US, has transformed the border city into one of the most dangerous places in the world. After receiving multiple threats, things escalated recently when the mayor was forced to seek protection at a military base on the edge of town. 

  On Tuesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Mayor Montserrat Caballero has been “protected since about two weeks ago. We agreed to help protect her and will continue to do so.”

  

  Caballero publicly announced her decision to seek protection at a local army base on the southern edge of Tijuana, about 5 miles from the city, after a pickup truck of seven dead bodies was found on Monday. 

  “I have received threats, so I am going to live at the base,” she said. 

  Threats directed at the mayor by cartels are in response to her administration’s weapon seizure of 1,700 guns plus the arrest of 56 people. 

  “They are angry,” she said. “And that’s why I’ve been receiving threats.”

  Lopez Obrador said the threats were also directed at the governor of the border state of Baja California. 

  The fight over drug smuggling routes by cartels comes as Biden’s border crisis persists. Killings in Tijuana, just miles from San Diego, are up 9% over the last 12 months. Tijuana has more homicides than any other city in Mexico and is one of the most dangerous places in the world. 

  The mayor has made the right decision. As for all those San Diegan who cross the border for cheap beer and tequila and the occasional inexpensive Airbnb rental in Mexican beach towns, considering the wartorn conditions, saving a couple of bucks is probably not worth risking your life. 

  Perhaps this all means violence is set to erupt in the summer months. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 23:00

• A Win For Gun Rights: House Strikes Down Pistol Brace Rule
  A Win For Gun Rights: House Strikes Down Pistol Brace Rule

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  On June 13th, 2023, the House of Representatives passed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to block the Biden Pistol Brace Rule. The final vote was 219-210, with two Democrats joining the Republicans in the effort. 

  🚨BREAKING🚨

  After months of fighting for the Second Amendment, @Rep_Clyde‘s bill — H.J. Res 44 — has PASSED out of the U.S. House and is headed to the U.S. Senate. pic.twitter.com/trlWuVGZ8U

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 13, 2023

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

  H.J. Res 44 now heads to the Senate for a vote. Due to the nature of this particular resolution, it is not subject to filibuster and, therefore, could likely pass the Senate in a very timely manner.

  Of course, many of you smart readers know that once the resolution passes through the Senate, it lands on the President’s desk. 

  You might be saying to yourself: “Joe Biden will never sign that.” And you’d be correct.

  In fact, the President has already made an official statement about his plan to veto the resolution if it reaches the resolute desk.

  So why is this a win for gun rights? Because an act of Congress makes it clear that Biden’s pistol brace rule is government by executive fiat.

  To create the Pistol Brace Rule, Biden used his “regulatory authority,” aka an executive order, directing the ATF to ban pistol braces. The ATF then made a rule that classified pistol braced firearms as SBRs or Short Barrel Rifles, subjecting them to taxation and registration via the NFA. 

  The rule took effect June 1st, and it is estimated that up to 40 million pistols are outlawed by the change. 

  Keep in mind ATF is a federal agency. It’s part of the Department of Justice and, therefore, part of the executive branch. The executive branch does not have the power to make law.

  But the Biden administration feels that the separation of powers are just barriers to taking away your 2nd Amendment right. So, they’ve ignored the rule of law and used administrative rulemaking to pass “regulations,” subverting the system and effectively creating new laws for ATF to enforce. 

  If Congress puts the resolution on the President’s desk and he vetoes it, it’s evident that the executive branch needs to be checked and balanced. It then falls to the courts. 

  That’s a good thing for firearms activists. Federal courts have granted preliminary injunctions to the lawsuits focused on the pistol brace rule, like our case GOA & Texas v. ATF. This act of Congress completely disproves ATF’s argument that they’re simply enforcing the will of Congress by regulating pistol brace equipped firearms, using the almost 100-year-old 1934 National Firearms Act as proof.

  This resolution sends a strong message to the courts that ATF is wrongfully assuming Congress’s intent. 

  Courts would have no choice but to refute ATF’s argument and strike down the pistol brace rule permanently. 

  Gun Owners of America has been working diligently with our allies in Congress to make sure H.J. Res. 44 passed. We’re excited to celebrate victory with our members and supporters. 

  Aidan Johnston, GOA’s Director of Federal Affairs, had this to say: 

  We applaud the House for doing their part to block this rule and to send a message to the Administration and Courts that the ATF went well beyond its statutory authority with this rule. 

  Many of these representatives deserve praise, but especially Congressman Clyde for championing the issue, and the House Democrats who joined their Republican colleagues in voting to block this rogue administration from making their constituents felons. 

  Now we turn our attention to the Senate, where a discharge petition has already been filed and this resolution can be fast-tracked to the floor without the ability for anti-gunners to filibuster. We urge Senate Democrats to join Republicans in blocking this rule, and we will do everything in our power to ensure this resolution passes as soon as possible.

  But the fight is not over yet. While the resolution only needs a simple majority of 51 votes, many weak Republican Senators will be pressured not to vote yes. We’re calling on all gun owners, especially those in Maine, Arizona, Montana, West Viriginia, Alaska, and other states with potential key votes to make their voices heard by letting their Senators know to vote to overturn the pistol brace rule.

  *   *   *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 22:30

• Texas To Deploy Chain Of Buoys Across Rio Grande To Deter Illegal Immigrant Crossings
  Texas To Deploy Chain Of Buoys Across Rio Grande To Deter Illegal Immigrant Crossings

  Authored by Jana Pruet via The Epoch Times,

  Texas will soon deploy a long chain of large buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande to deter illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border.

  

  Gov. Greg Abbott said the first 1,000-foot floating barrier would be placed in the river at one of the crossing hot spots near Eagle Pass in Maverick County. Eagle Pass is about 145 miles southwest of San Antonio.

  “We’re securing the border at the border,” Abbott said during a press conference at the state Capitol in Austin on June 8.

  “What these buoys will allow us to do is prevent people from getting to the border.”

  The initial floating barrier is expected to be installed on July 7, the governor’s office confirmed in an email to The Epoch Times.

  The Republican governor’s announcement followed the signing of several bills to strengthen security at the border.

  “Even though we’ve done a lot, we recognize that more must be done. Importantly, the Legislature has recognized that also, and they stepped up to begin with $5.1 billion for Texas to do even more to secure our border,” Abbott told reporters.

  During the previous session, the state allocated $4.5 billion for border security, bringing the biennial budgeted total to $9.6 billion.

  “Texas is spending close to $10 billion to deal with the crisis and chaos caused by the Biden administration,” Abbott said.

  The first installation of the water-based barrier will cost “under $1 million,” said Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

  How the Barriers Work

  The floating barrier is made up of interconnected rotating buoys that range in height from 4 to 6 feet, depending on the depth of the water where they are deployed.

  “This is the deterrent for even coming in the water,” McCraw said.

  “This has been tested a number of times, a number of ways by special operators, tactical operators, specialists with Border Patrol.”

  McCraw said that because of the water and buoyancy, it’s very difficult to get through the buoys.

  “There’s ways to overcome it, but it takes great effort. It takes specialized skills and equipment to do it,” he said.

  McCraw explained that in the same way that the razor wire can be moved to various areas, the buoys are also mobile and can be gathered and moved to another part of the river as needed.

  “It’s something we can do quickly,” he said. “We can put it there, and it deters the large groups of people from moving in that area.”

  There is also webbing that will be anchored to the bottom of the river to prevent people from swimming under the barrier to the other side.

  Images of the large buoys—created by the perimeter security company Cochrane USA—were on display during the press conference.

  Safety Concerns

  McCraw said safety was one of the biggest concerns when border patrol was testing the efficacy of the barriers.

  “We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” the DPS chief told reporters. “In fact, we want to prevent people from getting hurt and prevent people from drowning.”

  McCraw said that any time migrants decide to cross the river between the ports of entry, they are putting themselves and their family members in harm’s way.

  “The only one that benefits, the only one that is enabled and empowered, is the Mexican cartels when that happens,” he continued.

  The governor signed into law six bills passed by lawmakers during the 88th legislative session, which ended May 29.

  “Thanks to the leadership and hard work of Director McCraw, General [Thomas] Suelzer, and their teams, Texas has pushed back against the swell of migrants and held the line to keep people out of Texas—but there’s more to be done,” Abbott said in a press release.

  Abbott signed the following bills into law:

  • Senate Bill 423 authorizes the Texas military to use drones for search and rescue missions after natural disasters and for monitoring the Texas-Mexico border (pdf).

  • Senate Bill 602 expands the authority of border patrol agents to include arrest, search, and seizure at border checkpoints and points of entry for felony offenses under Texas law. Agents are only allowed to detain certain individuals under current law (pdf).

  • Senate Bill 1122 creates a grant program to compensate agriculture landowners up to $75,000 for damage caused to their property by border crimes (pdf).

  • Senate Bill 1403 allows the governor to coordinate and execute an interstate compact with other states without seeking congressional approval (pdf).

  • Senate Bill 1484 creates a collaboration between DPS and local law enforcement agencies to share expertise in the fight against transnational criminal activities (pdf).

  • Senate Bill 1900 designates Mexican drug cartels and criminal organizations as foreign terrorists. It increases the penalties for the distribution of illegal drugs and those operating stash houses. And it adds foreign terrorist organizations to intelligence databases (pdf).

  Crisis at the border

  In March 2021, the governor launched Operation Lone Star, a multi-agency effort to stop illegal crossings, drug smuggling, and human smuggling at the Texas-Mexico border.

  Since its inception, Operation Lone Star has apprehended more than 381,000 illegal immigrants entering the country. Nearly 30,000 people have been arrested, with more than 26,000 felony charges reported, the governor’s office said.

  “Washington D.C. has failed to do its job to secure our border,” Abbott told reporters. “As a result, Texas has had to take unprecedented steps in responding to the border.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 21:30

• Harvard Morgue Manager Accused Of Selling Stolen Body Parts In 'Unlawful Interstate Transport' Scheme
  Harvard Morgue Manager Accused Of Selling Stolen Body Parts In ‘Unlawful Interstate Transport’ Scheme

  A former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School was indicted on federal charges for stealing body parts of donated cadavers and reselling them to individuals in a nationwide human-remains trafficking scheme. 

  Cedric Lodge worked at the medical school’s morgue in Boston. He allowed buyers into the school’s morgue to create a shopping list of body parts, able to choose from skin, brains, heads, and bones, according to the five-count indictment filed Tuesday in US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

  

  Lodge “stole dissected portions of donated cadavers, including…heads, brains, skin, bones, and other human remains, without the knowledge or permission of (the school) and removed those remains from the morgue in Massachusetts and transported them to his residence in New Hampshire,” the indictment said. 

  “Some crimes defy understanding,” United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam wrote in a statement. 

  Karam continued: “The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human. It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing. For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling. With these charges, we are seeking to secure some measure of justice for all these victims.” 

  The indictment alleges Lodge and his wife, Denise, sold body parts to others, including Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor. 

  Maclean owns Kat’s Creepy Creations, a store in Peabody, Massachusetts, where the indictment says she sold the stolen body parts to others. 

  Investigators claim Maclean asked Lodge for human skin so a mortuary and crematorium employee in Little Rock, Arkansas, could tan the skin to create leather.  

  Harvard University officials said: 

  “We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus — a community dedicated to healing and serving others.” 

  The medical school said they’re working with federal authorities “to attempt to identify victims and contact as many of the victims’ families affected by this case as possible.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 21:00

• Wyoming Sorority Sisters Sue Fraternity For Inducting Biological Male As First 'Trans' Member
  Wyoming Sorority Sisters Sue Fraternity For Inducting Biological Male As First ‘Trans’ Member

  Authored by Michael Wing via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The younger woman spoke through tears, telling Patsy Levang how a biological male had been admitted into Kappa Kappa Gamma, the on-campus women’s sorority house where she lives at the University of Wyoming. The newly-minted male member has free access to areas where men are strictly banned: that includes hallways, lockless bathrooms, and changing areas. “I don’t think anyone cares,” Hannah Holtmeier told Levang, the former Kappa Foundation president who bid the organization farewell in 2012.

  

  The women were “shocked” and “caught off guard” by the 6-foot, 2-inch, 260-pound individual, Artemis Langford, 21, who identifies as female and gained unfettered access to the girls-only quarters of the second floor. Witnesses reported seeing him couched in the common area, not studying, for hours; sidling in and standing silently in the corner of the room while the women changed; becoming visibly aroused—mind and body reacting as a man—while watching them. His distinctly male response was visible through his leggings, they allege. Other times he kept a pillow on his lap.

  The women spoke of more awkward moments: his allegedly photographing them during a sorority slumber party; repeatedly questioning them about female body parts; refusing to leave said slumber party until “after you fall asleep.” It felt “weird” and “gut-wrenching” being around him, they said, and “quite a few” Kappa Kappa Gamma members, particularly from Langford’s batch, had left.

  

  Having heard similar complaints from other women’s Greek and sport groups, Levang has since decreed the trans movement “the women’s rights issue of our time.” If headquarters pushed Kappa Kappa Gamma to become co-ed, breaking with 151 years of tradition, they would surely see the organization “go down the drain,” she told The Epoch Times. “We had to step up and do something.”

  Levang listened, and shortly thereafter joined Holtmeier and half a dozen other Kappa women to launch a lawsuit against the sorority’s national leadership. They claim they were promised a sisterhood and a haven where they would feel safe in their own homes while forging lifelong female friendships. By inducting a male member, they added, the sorority not only violated its own guidelines, but the bylaws.

  The University of Wyoming newspaper, Branding Iron, previously quoted Langford saying, “I feel so glad to be in a place that I think not only shares my values but to be in a sisterhood of awesome women who want to make history” and, “They want to break the glass ceiling, trailblazing you know, and I certainly feel that as their first trans member, at least in the chapter in Wyoming history.” Plaintiff Allison Coghan would tell Fox News’ Laura Ingram, “No, we certainly did not [sign up for trailblazing]” when they joined Kappa Kappa Gamma.

  In March 2023, the women filed a legal complaint in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, which reads:

  An adult human male does not become a woman just because he tells others that he has a female ‘gender identity’ and behaves in what he believes to be a stereotypically female manner.

  The Fraternity Council has betrayed the central purpose and mission of Kappa Kappa Gamma by conflating the experience of being a woman with the experience of men engaging in behavior generally associated with women.

  Pushing for Kappa’s First Trans Sorority ‘Sister’

  Levang alleges Langford didn’t measure up to join the sisterhood, yet was given preferential treatment by national headquarters. Since its founding in 1870, Kappa Kappa Gamma has aimed to level the playing field for young women competing in academics against men, yet there are checks at the gate; not just any woman can enter. Like a job interview, a formal recruitment process seeks quality applicants. “He was non-communicative, he didn’t engage,” Levang said. “The women found him not to be a fit; he just didn’t mesh in well, so … he was removed from the formal recruitment process.” Langford entered through a loophole and pressuring from the sorority’s national leadership, but it was done improperly.

  The girls were supposed to have a closed-ballot vote whether to accept Langford, but that wasn’t followed. “They were forced to have their ballot open on email and then they were told that if they didn’t have their vote open, or if they voted no, that they would be visited with,” Levang said. “I would say it was bullying, intimidation, kind of a threat against them if they didn’t vote yes.”

  

  Ordinarily, the sisters have to live at the fraternity house they belong to. Langford was granted a special exemption allowing him to join while living off-campus. “It’s quite costly to pay for your living at Kappa house because you’re paying for food; you’re paying for a place to sleep at night; you’re paying for the living room; a place to do your studying,” Levang said. “He’s getting exemptions that nobody else is getting; they’re giving him partial treatment.” Now there are plans for him to move in with the women before fall 2023.

  Langford received other exemptions. Despite his 1.9 GPA falling well below the requisite 2.7 GPA to join Kappa, he was given a pass.

  Mary Pat Rooney, the fraternity’s council president, and the members of Kappa council in 2018 reportedly issued a memorandum titled, “Guide for Supporting our LGBTQIA+ Members,” requiring sorority chapters to admit “individuals who identify as women.”

  The complainants now allege the University of Wyoming chapter was pressured to induct its first transgender member to raise its prominence and curry favor with the national sorority leaders.

  

  Incensed by all this, the sisters and several witnesses turned to Long Horn Legal. Arguing that said guide alters neither the bylaws nor other governing documents, such as Title IX, they accuse the sorority of breaching its fiduciary duty to its female members. The women are suing for the court to ban Langford’s membership and declare that men cannot join. The Epoch Times contacted the defendants for comment. In a response, the sorority told Fox that the lawsuit “contains numerous false allegations” and that “Kappa Kappa Gamma values diversity and does not discriminate based on classes protected by state, local or federal law.” The hearing is expected to be held this fall, Levang says.

  More Women Fighting the Left for Women’s Rights 

  A traditionally progressivist domain, women’s rights have become a battleground, again, with transgenderism encroaching on women’s sports, and now, it would seem, academics. Yet more women have started pushing back. Last month, 12-time All-American female swimmer for the University of Kentucky Riley Gaines broke silence about a race where she tied with trans swimmer Lia Thomas in 2022 where the judges decided in his favor for the sake of a “photo op;” while female swimmers have been chilled from criticizing Thomas, Gaines has spoken out loudly and, recently, has inspired female swimmer Paula Scanlon, a teammate of Thomas’s at Penn State, to follow suit; in June Scanlon revealed that the NCAA wrote her team in an email “you will regret it” if they dared to raise objections to Thomas. The trans swimmer, they stated, was to be accepted in the name of inclusivity.

  Levang understands how employing words like “inclusivity” or “diversity” aims to control nomenclature—harnessing the power meaning has—to dominate conversations about transgenderism. The former head of a woman’s sorority foundation, Levang offers her take on that particular word, inclusivity, and how it pertains to the present conversation.

  “We have always, as an organization, been very diverse. We’ve had lots of women from all different kinds of backgrounds,” she said. “If you look at inclusion, that’s one of our pillars. To be inclusive and kind and caring.” Langford being someone having both X and Y chromosomes—a man, that is—he would have been welcomed inclusively to stay as a guest on the main floor like everyone else, she added, “but to come and live with them and be part of the group? No, that’s not appropriate.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 20:35

• Modelo Dethrones Anheuser-Busch InBev's Bud Light As Top-Selling Beer
  Modelo Dethrones Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light As Top-Selling Beer

  (Tr)anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light brand has lost its spot as the number one selling beer in America. The historic, unprecedented self-sabotage at the beermaker by an underqualified, woke, virtue-signaling idiot marketing executive has sparked ten weeks of crashing demand as beer drinkers ditch Bud for Mexican lager Modelo Especial.

  According to NielsenIQ data from consulting firm Bump Williams, Constellation Brands’ Modelo represented 8.4% of US retail-store beer sales in the four weeks that ended June 3, compared with 7.3% for Bud Light. The Wall Street Journal first reported these findings. 

  

  Dave Williams, vice president of consumer insights and analytics at Bump Williams, told USA Today that Modelo dethroning Bud Light is “a pretty big deal.” However, he pointed out that Bud Light continues to surpass Modelo in volume sales and remains the top-ranking beer brand based on dollar sales year-to-date. 

  “There’s a lot of volume from Bud Light still moving out there. The number of cases being moved surpasses any other brand,” Williams said, adding that he expects Bud Light will face further declines this summer as Modelo and other domestic lagers continue to gain market share. 

   “Our year is screwed,” one Anheuser-Busch distributor told WSJ. That person said they don’t carry Modelo. 

  The sudden shift comes as Bud Light faces a consumer boycott after the brewer embraced ‘trans’ influencer Dylan Mulvaney in early April. 

  And it appears the brewer has yet to learn its lesson, as we noted days ago, “Bud Light Appears In Promotional Material For “All Ages Drag Show Party” In Flagstaff.”

  In what’s become a remarkable cautionary tale for businesses keen on embracing woke ideology, Harvard-educated Bud Light marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid thought it would be a great idea to use a clownish, male-to-female trans TikTok star as a brand ambassador for what’s long been seen as a manly beer for hard-working, blue-collar people. 

  Her idea was bad enough on its face, but the particular means of executing it was even more absurd, as Dylan Mulvaney’s coming-out as a Bud Light ambassador was tied to the beer’s position as a major sponsor of NCAA March Madness.

  Note that Mulvaney doesn’t act like a woman — he instead performs a demeaning caricature of one. In the now-infamous video, Mulvaney displayed a Bud Light can with his image on it and said:

  “I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness, and I thought we were all just having a hectic month, but it turns out it has something to do with sports, and I’m not sure exactly which sport, but either way, it’s a cause to celebrate. This month I’ve celebrated my Day 365 of womanhood, and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever — a can with my face on it!” 

  Bud Light and Mulvaney weren’t just making a mockery of women, but of an immensely popular sports event that Bud Light was paying an enormous sum to associate its name with, and one they should want real women to embrace alongside men. It was so multi-dimensionally stupid that many understandably concluded it had to be some kind of a joke:

  Dylan Mulvaney has become the new brand ambassador for Bud Light. 🍺

  The beer brand even made a special edition Dylan Mulvaney Can 🥤celebrating his 365 days of girlhood.

  (This is not April Fools, it’s actually real)

  🍺🍻🍺😒🍻🍺🍻 #dylanmulvaney #trans #transgender pic.twitter.com/xuu87WxrvZ

  — Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 1, 2023

  Months later, the backlash has proved as enduring as it was swift. For the week ending June 3, Bud Light sales were still down 24%, while Modelo Especial was up 12%. The latest numbers follow Memorial Day weekend images shared on social media showing desperate retailers marking 18-packs of Bud Light all the way down to just $2.99. 

  The new numbers don’t include bars and restaurants, where Bud Light’s results are almost certainly even worse, given consumer wariness that ordering and drinking the beer may be interpreted by others as an endorsement of the company’s LGBTQ push. 

  Joe Rogan recently marveled at consumers’ power to deliver an crushingly-punitive “no” vote against brands force-feeding them LGBTQ culture:

  “People are tired of this woke agenda, they’re tired of it being shoved in their faces by corporations and BOOM…Bud Light loses $27 billion by sending a can with a face on it of an attention whore…to that attention whore. And all of a sudden everybody is like…’hey, ENOUGH.” 

  “Enough. What are you doing?”

  Joe Rogan on the public’s response to the Woke corporate marketing failures at Bud Light and Target. pic.twitter.com/Lu5fXHXOuT

  — Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) June 9, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 20:10

• Suspended For Providing Balanced News On Ukraine
  Suspended For Providing Balanced News On Ukraine

  Authored by Tony Kevin via Consortium News,

  Last Friday The Guardian Australia website carried a news report, with a follow-up piece on Monday, whose implications for free speech are profoundly disturbing.

  They concern a Radio New Zealand, or RNZ, broadcasting employee — unnamed, but everyone in the small New Zealand broadcasting world will soon know who it is — who has been placed on leave while their professional conduct is investigated. Obviously, a career hangs in the balance. 

  The malign ghosts of Orwell’s 1984 stalk this story.

  ‘Russian Garbage’

  This unnamed person in RNZ committed the cardinal sin of “inappropriate editing” of incoming Reuters news feeds on the war in Ukraine to insert “Russian garbage” in the contemptuous words of Paul Thompson, chief executive of RNZ. That is to say, they drew on Russian news sources to insert balancing pro-Russian material to the incoming Western news agency feeds. The Guardian tells us that in fact accurate information about Ukraine was added to the Reuters copy:

  “The articles in question made a range of amendments: adding the word ‘coup’ to describe the Maidan revolution; changing a description of Ukraine’s former ‘pro-Russian president’ to read ‘pro-Russian elected government’; adding references to a ‘pro-western government’ that had ‘suppressed ethnic Russians’; and on several occasions adding references to Russian concerns about ‘neo-Nazi elements’ in Ukraine.” 

  And more truth was added to the story, The Guardian says:

  “In one article, a paragraph was added reading: ‘The Kremlin also said its invasion was sparked by a failure to implement the Minsk agreement peace accords, designed to give Russia speakers autonomy and protection, and the rise of a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine since a coup ousted a Russian-friendly Ukrainian government in 2014.’

  Another added that Russia launched its invasion ‘claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.’”

  

  This, it seems, is an offence not to be countenanced any longer in New Zealand. “An RNZ spokesperson, John Barr, said in a statement after the first article came to public attention that ‘RNZ is taking the issue extremely seriously and is investigating how the situation arose,’” the newspaper wrote.

  The Guardian, in its effort to “correct” the story, says: “Ukraine says these claims are discredited Kremlin propaganda … The anti-corruption movement was peaceful and had widespread public support. Yanukovych fled to Russia months later after his security forces shot dead more than 100 unarmed protesters.”  

  [Consortium News has published numerous stories laying out the facts of the events of 2014, including these two exhaustively corroborated accounts: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine and Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev]

  ‘Gutted’

  The RNZ executive Thompson was “gutted” to learn what has been going on under his watch. We read that 250 past published articles have been gone through “with a finetooth comb” to investigate and counter such offensive inserted material, and thousands more are being reviewed.

  Sixteen such offending  articles have been found and warning commentaries added to them. Investigations continue while the staffer remains indefinitely suspended. The responsible minister is being briefed. Clearly these editors have not delved very deeply into the Ukraine story.

  Luke Harding’s Involvement 

  Both Guardian articles carry a tagline that says “Additional reporting by Luke Harding.” This should be a key warning to everyone in New Zealand’s and Australia’s broadcasting world, indeed in the entire English-speaking world.

  Harding carries a formidable reputation as an inveterate anti-Russian British journalist with alleged strong links to the U.K. anti-Russian disinformation system and even to MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service.

  He was heavily involved in the Julian Assange affair and in the now discredited campaign to label former U.S. President Donald Trump as under Russian control. He is known as a leading Western disinformation warrior.

  Normal Editorial Practice

  Australian Broadcasting Company journalists edit incoming feeds from Reuters and other wire services all the time. They add context, link to previous stories, add Australian-relevant material. 

  The problem is, this person in RNZ was adding such context from the “wrong ‘side.’”

  The ABC has long been exposed as an obedient servant of the U.S.-dominated Five Eyes intelligence network and runs along approved anti-Russian and anti-Chinese editorial lines. RNZ, by contrast, is still widely respected in New Zealand. But it committed the sin of allowing counter-perspectives to be heard on the responsibility for the present tragic war in Ukraine.

  

  Read the two Guardian articles to see what exactly Harding in London and his colleagues in U.K. disinformation appear to be objecting to. It sends a strong message across the Tasman Sea, from New Zealand to the Australian media world: We watch every word you say and every word you write.

  Cancelled for the Same Thought Crimes  

  The examples of journalistic misconduct identified in the two articles match exactly research and opinions on the historical context and causes of the war in Ukraine and mounting Russia-West tensions that I have been trying to express publicly in Australia as an expert former senior diplomat since publication of my book Return to Moscow in 2017.

  As a result I have been cancelled, unpersoned, silenced — dropped down the Australia Broadcasting Company memory hole, never to be allowed on its airwaves again. 

  An innocuous interview I conducted from Moscow with Paul Barclay for the respected ABC program “Big Ideas” in February 2022 was “disarchived” — yes, you read it right — a few weeks later, under pressure from unidentified critics.

  Ukraine is Losing

  The war in Ukraine now winds steadily towards its inevitable pro-Russian denouement. Russia clearly has the military edge and this will not change now. Billions of dollars’ worth of supplied U.S./NATO equipment continues to be destroyed in combat.

  In suicidal offensives ordered by the doomed Zelensky regime in Kiev, an estimated half a million Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or crippled since February 2022. [Exact casualty figures are very hard to come by]. Many more proxy warriors will die in coming weeks as this brutal war of attrition demanded by the U.S. and NATO continues to destroy what is left of poor Ukraine. 

  Australians and New Zealanders with naïve faith in the professional integrity of their national broadcasters will continue to be insulated from these tragic truths. 

  Fortunately, for those who dare to read them, there are now plenty of accessible reliable sources of alternative perspectives on Russia-West relations and the pivotal importance of the war in Ukraine in transforming the world. This world now looks very different from outside the Western laager. We are in the midst of huge global changes.

  But, thanks to the likes of Harding and his Anglo-American friends, we won’t find such information anywhere on the ABC or RNZ. We Antipodeans in the colonies will be the last to know. 

  * * *

  Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, having served as ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, as well as being posted to Australia’s embassy in Moscow. He is the author of six published books on public policy and international relations.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 19:45

• Several US Agencies Hit In Global Cyberattack Alongside Universities, Hospitals
  Several US Agencies Hit In Global Cyberattack Alongside Universities, Hospitals

  On Thursday the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced that “several” US federal government agencies were hit in what’s being acknowledged as a global cyberattack.

  The attack utilized a vulnerability in widely used software, with the agencies have “experienced intrusions affecting their MOVEit applications,” according to a US government statement. “We are working urgently to understand impacts and ensure timely remediation,” Eric Goldstein, a top US cybersecurity official, said.

  

  Initial suspicion has fallen on a Russian-speaking ransomware group, known as CLOP, which has claimed responsibility for a similar ongoing hacking campaign which targeted entities ranging from BBC to British Airways to Shell oil, to schools and hospitals, as well as some US state governments in the Midwest.

  CNN reviews of a recent and ongoing hacking campaign as follows: 

  But the news adds to a growing tally of victims of a sprawling hacking campaign that began two weeks ago and has hit major US universities and state governments. The hacking spree mounts pressure on federal officials who have pledged to put a dent in the scourge of ransomware attacks that have hobbled schools, hospitals and local governments across the US.

  As part of this, the famous Johns Hopkins University and Health System has also been deeply impacted.

  Officials in a letter to the Hopkins community said that an early and ongoing investigation found that the attack “may have impacted the information of Johns Hopkins employees, students and/or patients.”

  The Johns Hopkins attack came to light on May 31 and also had exploited the vulnerability in the MOVEit software. It’s not believed at this time that individual patient medical records were compromised.

  A cybersecurity expert, Bill Sieglein, has been cited in local media to explain…

  “This was called a ‘zero-day attack,’ meaning the attackers, who are out of Russia, a group known as CLOP, they discovered a vulnerability in this piece of software called MOVEit. MOVEit is a piece of software that allows you to move large data files between networks and between systems. They found a vulnerability before anybody knew about it and, all at once, launched an attack worldwide,” Sieglein said.

  CNN has noted that at this point the persistent attacks may be the work of multiple bad actors. “The Russian hackers were the first to exploit the vulnerability, but experts say other groups may now have access to software code needed to conduct attacks,” the report notes.

  “The ransomware group had given victims until Wednesday to contact them about paying a ransom, after which they began listing more alleged victims from the hack on their extortion site on the dark web,” CNN explains. “As of Thursday morning, the dark website did not list any US federal agencies.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 19:20

• Tucker Carlson Takes Aim At "Wannabe Dictator" Joe Biden
  Tucker Carlson Takes Aim At “Wannabe Dictator” Joe Biden

  After delivering an epic condemnation of the Deep State (‘permanent Washington’) in his previous episode – which has now been view over 90 million times – Tucker Carlson turns his acerbic eye first to his former employer – Fox News – and then to the “wannabe dictator” in The White House.

  On Tuesday this week, shortly after former President Trump’s arrest, Fox News ran two video feeds (of Biden and Trump) simultaneously with the following chyron: “wannabe dictator speaks at The White House after having his political rival arrested.”

  

  The words were on the screen less than 30 seconds but the effect was immediate inside Fox as Carlson notes “the women who run the network panicked… first they scolded the producer… less than 24 hours after that, he resigned (he’d been at Fox for more than a decade, considered one of the most capable people in the building.”

  Then, the company issued a public apology: “the chyron was taken down immediately,” adding ominously that the situation was “addressed.”

  The rest of the media were ‘outraged’ – “suggesting Biden is a dictator crossed the line” remarked The Washington Post.

  Several members of the liberati called for the banning of any criticism of the President, laughingly demanding an action that only dictators would do, demanding actions against Fox News, such as banning it from military bases or revoking its broadcasting license.

  But here’s the former Fox News host’s first point:

  “Democrats were very very angry… but why were they angry? If the banner was false, why the hysteria? Lies don’t seem to bother anyone anymore… if some cable news producer had called Biden a genius, or secretly Sudanese, would anyone be yallin gabout it?”

  So, calling Joe Biden a ‘wannabe dictator’ apparently crossed the line:

  “So, if you’re being honest with yourself, you have to wonder if Joe Biden is a wannabe dictator?”

  The White House spokesperson’s response was akin to ‘of course, Joe Biden is not a dictator, just because he wants to put his political opponent in jail for a crime that he himself committed…doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse’.

  Carlson sarcastically questions whether Biden is actually a dictator by highlighting characteristics of dictators, such as enriching themselves, suppressing protests, censoring dissent, and surveillance.

  “It is not an easy thing to be a dictator” Carlson remarks, “there are a lot of steps.”

  “…there’s nothing the population can do about it in a dictatorship, it’s no longer possible to fight injustice.”

  None of that sounds like anything Biden would do right?

  Not-dictator-y at all…

  

  Watch the latest Tucker on Twitter episode below:

  Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator pic.twitter.com/MDcs5g0gxB

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 15, 2023

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  Full transcript below:

  (00:00) Hey it’s Tucker Carlson. On Tuesday afternoon the Biden administration had Donald Trump arrested it was a pretty big news story you may have seen it. Just before 9 pm that night as part of its coverage Fox News ran two live video feeds next to one another on the right Donald Trump addressed his supporters in New Jersey on the left Joe Biden spoke at an event for the Secretary General of NATO in Washington beneath those videos at the bottom of the screen Fox’s Banner read this way “wannabe dictator speaks at the (00:32) White House after having his political rival arrested.”

  Those words are up for less than 30 seconds but the effect was immediate. Inside Fox the women who run the network panicked first they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen. Less than 24 hours after that he resigned. He’d been at Fox for more than a decade he was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately

  Then the company issued a public apology (01:02) for the 27 second long wannabe dictator Line “the Chiron was taken down immediately” Fox’s PR department said and then added ominously it was “addressed”

  That was all true but it was not enough to save Fox News from the ensuing scandal.

  For a time in the rest of the media Fox’s assessment of Donald Trump’s arrest seemed to overshadow Trump’s arrest itself.

  “Suggesting that Biden is a dictator” declared the Washington Post quote “crossed the line”.

  Alexander Vindman agreed strongly. Vindman is the perennial MSNBC (01:38) guest, and full-time Ukraine promoter you may remember from Russia gate. On Twitter he demanded that the Pentagon pulled Fox News from all military bases it is “absolutely unacceptable for American forces Network to carry programming that directly spuriously attacks the commander-in-chief of American armed forces”.

  Vindman wrote in other words Joe Biden must ban all criticism of himself because that’s what non-dictators do.

  John Cusack went further still “for the crime of calling Biden a dictator Fox should be shut down” wrote (02:12) the 80s era movie star. “The government has to take away their broadcasting license” and so on was all over the Internet.

  Democrats were very very angry but why were they angry if the banner on Fox was false why the hysteria lies don’t seem to bother anyone anymore.

  If some cable news producer had called Joe Biden a genius or accused him of being secretly Sudanese would anyone be yelling about it would Fox News have apologized for it probably not but calling Joe Biden a wannabe dictator that stung.

  So you’ve got to wonder if you’re being (02:50) honest with yourself is Joe Biden a wannabe dictator.

  That question came up yesterday at the White House briefing here’s how it went “last night Fox News ran a Chiron that referred to the president as a wannabe dictator and I’m wondering if White House has any comment on so look there are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this that was wrong about what we saw last night but I don’t think I’m gonna get into it there’s no comments on White House I think I just commented.”

  Oh no comment necessary of course Joe Biden is not a wannabe dictator just because he’s trying to put the other candidate in prison for the rest of his life for a crime he himself committed doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse come on that’s absurd.

  It takes a lot more than jailing your political Rivals to earn the title wannabe dictator that’s the consensus in Washington tonight and in some ways for once the consensus may be right.

  It is not a small thing to be a wannabe dictator it’s quite a (03:51) process there are a lot of steps.

  First off there is the money – the one thing that all dictators have in common is they enrich themselves and their families their tribe even as the countries they govern grow steadily poorer and more desperate.They take kickbacks from businesses and from other dictators they use the official functions of their government to funnel cash to themselves they don’t bother to hide the fruits of this they live in garish mansions with big Lawns far from the teeming cities even as their own citizens languish in growing (04:25) poverty in some cases literally living in tents on the street.

  So they don’t really hide it – it’s all pretty blatant and Ordinary People resent it of course they do and want to be dictators know they resent it but they don’t care there’s nothing the population can do about it in a dictatorship it’s no longer possible to fight Injustice in a system like that.

  People can’t gather in large numbers to protest the rule of the dictator.

  If they try that they’ll be arrested by a state Security Services even years after the (04:55) fact a visit for men in body armor at The Breakfast Table that happens and if citizens persist in believing they can gather in groups to protest they may be shot to death a bullet to the throat and then just to make the humiliation complete to make the lesson gin clear to everyone else watching their relatives can be arrested for daring to complain that their children were killed for complaining.

  That actually happens in some places ask Ashley Babbitt’s mother. Here she is in handcuffs foreign ‘s mother much less like poor Ashley (05:45) Babbitt she’s dead now that’s the message you’ll want to be dictator would send and by the way it’s not just public protest that would be banned in a dictatorship you wouldn’t be allowed to complain from your own home.

  Unauthorized opinions expressed on the internet would be censored. Go too far press too deep tell too much truth and they’ll just erase your opinions. They have no choice really it’s a matter as they say of trust and safety, you must trust the leader or else you will jeopardize his safety, not that you (06:15) really can jeopardize his safety at this point the leader has nuclear weapons and you don’t he’ll remind you of that from time to time

  In any case you’re in the process of being disarmed anyway along with everyone else who has shown questionable loyalty to the leader those who support the regime can keep their weapons and use them freely including on public transportation. That’s a core Civil Right for them but for those who dissent from the program self-defense is an unaffordable privilege turn in your (06:43) guns.

  Mr & Mrs peaceful opposition you’re a danger to society and We Know Who You Are and in fact the wannabe dictator does know who they are because he knows everything technology has made him All-Seeing.

  A report in Wired Magazine just this week revealed that the highly non-dictatorial by demonstration is busy tracking the phones of millions of Americans without their knowledge and without bothering to get a warrant and at the same time the same non-dictatorial Administration is stockpiling a massive Trove of damaging (07:14) information about these same Americans to be used at some point we are sure for entirely Noble purposes.

  So the administration now knows everything: where you spend your days, who you talk to, what you think, your porn habits. Not a big deal the administration already knows what you buy of course because they’ve leaned on the big Banks to turn over your confidential credit card information not because anyone here is a wannabe dictator to be clear but just because it’s nice to have that information just in case in the words of (07:45) the Fox News PR department a situation arises that needs to be quote addressed.

  It’s all totally normal it’s not a dictatorship okay.

  But in the end the main reason you know Joe Biden is not a wannabe dictator is because he just does not fit the profile.

  As a man dictators have that look you know one when you see one. Dictators build Cults of personality around themselves and they use those called to deny the glaringly obvious.

  In his later years named just one example North Korean dictator Kim il-sung developed an enormous (08:19) baseball-sized tumor on the back of his neck it was huge it was grotesque it was right there you couldn’t ignore it you couldn’t possibly not see it but in North Korea State media did ignore it – they pretended it didn’t exist and so in some important sense it didn’t if a tumor grows on a neck but no one acknowledges it is it really there.

  Thankfully nothing like that is happening in our country or ever will .

  If Joe Biden never developed some profound physical or medical problem that was obvious to everybody journalists would (08:51) say something, this is not North Korea.

  We don’t have state media here if Joe Biden was say incapable of completing a full sentence or mistook his sister for his wife or suddenly started falling down in public for no reason the New York Times would report on that and then get to the bottom of what was actually happening.

  That would be its Duty in a free country like ours. It’s not like they would cover it up the very idea of a cover-up sounds like a conspiracy theory a dangerous one actually so stop it and by the way if Joe Biden was a (09:22) wannabe dictator he’d have the family to match – all dictators do.

  Saddam Hussein had Uday and kuse they were princelings who lived Above the Law indulging their most decadent fantasies with total confidence they would be never held to account by the police. As the sons of a dictator they knew they could do exactly what they wanted and so that’s what they did.

  There’s no one like that around Joe Biden – he doesn’t have weird sex scandals at the heart of his family that no one in the media will ever talk about; he doesn’t have a near (09:52) do well former nightclub owning brother who’s made a living for 30 years by being related to him.

  Not at all that’s dictator stuff.

  Joe Biden doesn’t award ridiculous inflated titles to his relatives that the media are then required to take seriously; he doesn’t call people Doctor who didn’t go to medical school and then force you to nod along like it’s real when everyone knows it isn’t – Nikolai chesco did that with his wife Elena.

  Joe Biden would never do that.

  Notice Joe Biden dressed like a dictator (10:19) he doesn’t do photo ops and mirrored sunglasses driving a sports car to convince you that he isn’t frail and senile; but instead powerful viral and wise, that’s just not his style.

  If Joe Biden was a dictator he’d be wearing epaulettes and carrying a tasseled riding crop and he isn’t yet so calm down if he was a dictator Biden’s speeches would look like Nuremberg rallies a blood red backdrop armed Soldiers by his side screaming about crushing his eternal enemies honestly Biden did come close to that (10:50) one time last September at a speech in Philadelphia but it wasn’t in any sense dictatory dictatory.

  It was necessary as MSNBC assures at the time quote Biden aimed to Showcase his faith in the military apparatus – in its ability to back the Democratic order see it was about democracy not dictatorship, no cause for alarm, he is not a dictator.

  A dictator would stockpile ammunition for his own bureaucrats including his tax collectors; he’d redefine the legal code to make disloyalty to the regime the most serious crime.

  He claimed dominion over (11:24) the most intimate parts of his citizens lives – he defined what attitudes they were allowed to have about sex and religion and how to raise their families.

  He would even in his final grandiose stage of dictatorship claim ownership of their children and Joe Biden wouldn’t do that and to prove he would never do that Biden just this week released this video: “these are our kids these are our neighbors not somebody else’s kids they’re all our kids and our children are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions (11:56) aloft. – it matters a great deal how we treat everyone in this country, lgbtq Americans, especially children you’re loved you’re heard and this Administration has your back.”

  See Joe Biden isn’t saying your children belong to him like a dictator would he’s saying something very different from that he’s saying America’s children are quote our children not his alone ours. You share your children with Joe Biden evenly right down the middle with alternating weekends you’ve got joint custody with Joe Biden and you can thank (12:30) heaven that you do.

  A nation is like a family every family has a head a father that’s Joe Biden our nation’s father and this ladies and gentlemen is now his Fatherland just don’t call it a dictatorship or we’ll have to issue a statement disavowing you know the death of Jeffrey.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 18:54

• 'If You Love Your Children, Flee The State': California GOP Lawmaker
  ‘If You Love Your Children, Flee The State’: California GOP Lawmaker

  A California state senator has urged parents to “flee” the state if they “love their children” in response to what he calls alarming language in a new gender identity bill.

  

  Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita) is one of two lone Republicans on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee , and has served in the state legislature for 11 years, according to the Daily Signal, who notes that he was the lone voice warning against language in the bill, AB 957, which was amended on June 5 by a Democratic senator to rewrite the state’s Family Code to list “gender affirmation” alongside a child’s need for “health, safety and welfare.”

  

  Under AB 957, introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D) and co-authored by Sen. Scott Weiner (D), a parent could lose custody of their child for not “affirming” their claims about gender identity.

  “I’m now in year 11 in the state legislature, and all the time we’re proposing policies to protect children. After 11 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to start protecting parents.

  That’s just not happening.

  I’ve been here and witnessed a full frontal assault on charter schools, taking away parents’ choice in how their children are going to be educated to the detriment particularly of children of color.

  In recent years, we have put government bureaucrats between parents, children, and doctors when it comes to medical care—and now we have [AB 957] where if a parent does not support the ideology of the government, [children are] going to be taken away from the home…” -Scott Wilk

  “I  was born and raised in this state. I love this state, but I’m not going to stay in this state. It’s just too oppressive and I believe in freedom and so I’m going to move to America when I leave the legislature,” Wilk continued.

  Watch:

  NEW: Sen. @ScottWilkCA warns parents to flee his own state.

  “In the past when we’ve had these discussions and I’ve seen parental rights atrophied—I’ve encouraged people to keep fighting—I’ve changed my mind on that.

  If you love your children, you need to flee California.” pic.twitter.com/9HGLiUFBsw

  — Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) June 14, 2023

  In response to the outrage, a spokesperson for Sen. Wilson tried to downplay concerns, saying “It’s not saying [affirmation] is the most important factor or determining factor. It’s one of many factors that the judge should consider while working out a custody agreement.”

  Sure…

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 18:35

• Bidens 'Coerced' Burisma Founder To Pay $10 Million In Bribes: FBI Source
  Bidens ‘Coerced’ Burisma Founder To Pay $10 Million In Bribes: FBI Source

  According to sources close to The Federalist, the Bidens allegedly ‘coerced’ a foreign national – identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky – to pay them $10 million in bribes.

  

  Whether or not the FBI investigated this explosive claim is unknown, however.

  On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.

  The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting. -The Federalist

  According to the FBI’s Confidential Human Source behind the controversial FD-1023 document that the agency had been stonewalling until last week, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS warned Zlochevsky to stay away from the Bidens.

  Then, after Donald Trump won the 2016 US election, Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was ‘dismayed,’ and feared that an investigation would reveal the $10 million payments – which consisted of $5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to Joe Biden.

  

  After the CHS told Zlochevsky he hoped he’d taken precautions to protect himself, the Burisma founder allegedly detailed the steps he’d taken to avoid detection – including never directly paying the “Big Guy,’ while claiming that it would take a decade to unravel the various money trails. Zlochevsky then mentioned the 17 audio recordings of conversations with the Bidens that he kept for insurance.

  The broader context of this conversation adds to the plausibility of Zlochevsky’s claims that he possessed recordings implicating the Bidens. And we already know from Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the FBI considered the CHS, who relayed Zlochevsky’s claims to the FBI, a “highly credible” source.

  Further, according to individuals familiar with the investigation, the FBI admitted the CHS’s intel was unrelated to the information Rudy Giuliani had provided the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney’s office — the office then-Attorney General William Barr had tasked with reviewing any new information related to Ukraine. -The Federalist

  According to the Federalist‘s sources, investigators out of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office found an earlier FD-1023 related to the same CHS, which led agents to question him or her again on June 30, 2020, uncovering the details regarding Burisma’s alleged bribery.

  And Donald Trump was impeached for having the audacity to ask Ukraine to investigate.

  In May, the House Oversight Committee released banking records which congressional investigators have been poring through to unravel the complex web behind the Biden family’s financial arrangements, which House Republicans claim provide concrete evidence of public corruption involving foreign nationals.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 18:30

• West Coast Port Labor Deal Reached: Peak Season Chaos Averted
  West Coast Port Labor Deal Reached: Peak Season Chaos Averted

  By Greg Miller of FreightWaves,

  Negotiations on the West Coast port labor contract dragged on for months longer than expected, with tempers flaring along the way. Work disruptions began affecting ship schedules and container dwell times over the past two weeks. It now appears that more that significant fallout to the supply chain has been averted: A deal has been reached.

  

  Late Wednesday night, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), representing the terminals, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), representing workers, announced a tentative agreement on a new six-year contract.

  No details were released and the agreement is still subject to ratification by both parties.

  Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su had flown to San Francisco to meet with the parties on Monday and “played a key role” in the reaching the agreement, according to the ILWU and PMA.

  PMA President James McKenna said the new contract agreement “recognizes the heroic efforts and personal sacrifices of the ILWU workforce in keeping our ports operating [during the pandemic and supply chain crisis].”

  ILWU President Willie Adams said the union will now “turn our full attention back to the operation of the West Coast ports.”

  Deal averts peak season disruptions

  Reaching an agreement prior to peak season was crucial for all parties. Doing so avoided political fallout to the Biden administration from pre-holiday congestion headlines. The ILWU avoided reputational fallout from holding up Christmas cargoes to increase wages that were already relatively high. And the PMA averted losses to port productivity during peak season, which translates into more terminal profits.

  Volumes to the West Coast have been seasonally rising, in line with pre-pandemic patterns. The Port of Los Angeles handled 409,150 twenty-foot equivalent units of imports in May, up 19% from April and up 64% from the recent low in March.

  As of Monday, there were 58 container ships en route to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach from Asia, compared to 46 a month before and 47 two months prior.

  Port of Los Angeles Executive Gene Seroka said his port is operating at about 70% of capacity. Of the 30% shortfall, he said half was due to macroeconomic issues and half was due to cargo switched to East Coast and Gulf Coast ports as a result of labor concerns at West Coast ports.

  “If we can get a labor deal soon and the economy doesn’t falter, we’ll have a strong second half,” Seroka said on Tuesday.

  They got the labor deal. Now it’s up to the economy.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 18:05

• North Korea Launches Pair Of Missiles In Protest Of US Drills On Peninsula
  North Korea Launches Pair Of Missiles In Protest Of US Drills On Peninsula

  North Korea is once again flexing its muscles with an unannounced missile launch, but this time in direct response to military drills being conducted by South Korea and the United States.

  South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday said that the north launched two short-range missiles into the sea, which both traveled some 480 miles from the capital region. The missiles fell into the water somewhere between Japan and the Korean peninsula.

  

  Washington and Seoul have at this point been engaged in multiple rounds of joint military drills which have stretched back a couple months. 

  The exercises this week are the fifth such round of drills, conducted not far from the border between the two Koreas, which Pyongyang slammed as “provocative and irresponsible”.

  Given the missile launch came directly after Thursday’s drills were initiated, Pyongyang’s actions were clearly a direct response to the US drills: 

  “Our army strongly denounces the provocative and irresponsible moves of the puppet military authorities escalating the military tension in the region despite its repeated warnings, and warns them solemnly,” a spokesperson for the North Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement published by North Korea state media KCNA.

  The statement added: “Our armed forces will fully counter any form of demonstrative moves and provocation of the enemies.”

  Japanese and US officials issued a joint statement condemning the new launches. “These launches are clear violations of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, and demonstrate the threat the DPRK’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs pose to the region, international peace and security, and the global non-proliferation regime,” the joint statement said.

  Lately the US and Japan have been deepening their military ties to the degree that they are now in discussions over a US nuclear umbrella if Japan ever comes under existential threat.

  It was also widely reported in April that the US was sending nuclear-armed submarines to dock in South Korea for the first time in four decades.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 17:40

• Biggest Lie In Crypto? How SEC, US Dems Conduct A Psyop Vs. Coinbase And Binance
  Biggest Lie In Crypto? How SEC, US Dems Conduct A Psyop Vs. Coinbase And Binance

  Via Bitcoinist.com,

  It’s probably the most bizarre crypto story since FTX collapsed and Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) entanglements with politics and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were revealed. In any case, the Prometheum story is the strangest thing to happen in this industry in a long time. Strangely, the story is flying under the radar so far and has received little attention.

  So, what is it about? Last month, just two weeks before the SEC’s actions against Coinbase and Binance US, Prometheum received approval to become the first special purpose broker-dealer (SPBD) of its kind for securities with digital assets. In doing so, Prometheum became the first company to receive approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to provide custody of digital securities as a broker-dealer.

  Commenting on the announcement, Prometheum co-CEO Dr. Aaron Kaplan said that cryptocurrencies, which are securities, are currently traded on platforms that do not offer the same customer protections required by U.S. federal securities laws.

  

  Kaplan Receives Invitation To US Congress

  Yesterday, Prometheum CEO Dr. Aaron Kaplan somehow managed to get a seat before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services hearing on digital assets. And this is where the weirdness begins, as Matt Walsh, general partner at Castle Island Ventures notes in a lengthy Twitter thread.

  As Walsh discusses, Kaplan apparently read off prepared notes during his hearing that were apparently coordinated with Democratic members of Congress and the SEC. The Prometheum CEO argued that he represents the “compliant path for crypto” and that there is no need for updated rules for cryptocurrencies because existing securities laws are sufficient.

  Emblematic of Kaplan’s hearing is the end, when Republican Mike Flood hit the nail on the head. Flood explicitly laid out why Prometheum’s claims that their SPBD approval is evidence of regulatory ambiguity are complete nonsense.

  Related Reading: Regulators Turn Up The Heat On Crypto: Binance Asks To Exit Cyprus

  Kaplan, meanwhile, claimed that the SEC has resolved all outstanding regulatory issues through enforcement actions since 2021 (when Prometheum itself was still demanding clarity) — while SEC chief Genser would not even testify under oath to the same committee a few weeks ago about whether Ethereum (ETH) is a security.

  #MUSTWATCH: @RepMikeFlood‘s expert take down of @PrometheumInc‘s Co-CEO, who has become the latest mouthpiece for @GaryGensler.

  If almost all digital assets are “unregistered securities,” as Chair Gensler claims—how can you operate a broker-dealer for them? https://t.co/o4LjkR8AAb

  — Financial Services GOP (@FinancialCmte) June 14, 2023

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

  As Walsh writes, the Prometheum people argue that all L1s are securities and must be traded on Prometheum. What is curious, however, is that they have their own chain and their own token. They have already sold some of this token, among others to the Wanxiang Blockchain company … and here the oddities continue.

  Connections To Buterin And Ethereum?

  According to a Wall Street Journal article referenced by Walsh, Wanxiang is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) affiliate. The story gets even more surprising when one ponders the similarity of the names Ethereum and Prometheum and looks for connections. Seán Murray writes via Twitter:

  Everyone’s drawing the connection Prometheum had to Wanxiang as if it’s some rogue CCP entity but Wanxiang’s most famous employee is Vitalik Buterin, according to Wanxiang’s homepage.

  Another interesting background story is one that Buterin himself once told. The Ethereum co-founder met Feng Xiao, the CEO of Wanxiang Blockchain and general partner at Fenbushi, in 2015. As an early crypto supporter, he bought $500,000 worth of Ethereum in September 2015, saving Ethereum from an “early death,” according to Buterin.

  How Did Prometheum Get Its Crypto-Securities Licence?

  Another interesting story to tell is how Prometheum obtained its crypto-securities license from FINRA despite not yet offering a single token (neither Bitcoin or Ethereum), as Kaplan also disclosed during the hearing before US Congress.

  According to Adam Cochran, partner at CEHV, the answer is to be found with the team behind Prometheum. In late 2021 to early 2022, Prometheum hired former FINRA and SEC employees. After that, they suddenly received approvals. Still without operations, as Cochran remarks.

  Also curious is the following about Prometheum: According to Pitchbook, they raised $48.19 million. Of that, they paid more than $1.5 million in sales commissions to a New Jersey-based firm called Network 1 Financial Securities.

  The company, according to Cochran, is a “shady” broker with a Chinese subsidiary and a terrible compliance record of more than 20 regulatory or civil cases against them. Like Prometheum, Network 1 Financial is also a China-linked company. “But it gets better,” says Cochran:

  That broker was the one behind the Ice Tea company that pivoted to a blockchain project in 2017 as a scam. As well as another offering that was a blockchain pivot that the SEC charged for fraud.

  A PSYOP By The SEC Against Crypto Exchanges?

  According to Matt Walsh, there is clear evidence that Prometheum and yesterday’s hearing of CEO Kaplan is a PSYOP by US Democrats and the SEC. A PSYOP is an operation designed to convey selected information to the masses in order to achieve specific goals and influence objective deliberations. Apparently the SEC intends to do just that, as Walsh explains:

  Bizarre that this fringe player with no biz model is being held up as an example of compliance by the SEC when the actual businesses in the United States can’t get a fair shot. An SEC PSYOP to have the Dems oppose McHenry-Thompson market structure bill?

  According to Cochran, there is definitely something fishy about the Prometheum story. While established US crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken have undertaken massive efforts to be compliant, “this sketchy agency” got the green light and suddenly appeared out of nowhere as a congressional witness.

  According to the expert, there are three possible explanations for this: first, Prometheum could have received “a sweet regulatory deal” in exchange for engaging as the SEC wants (just like with SBF). Second, the broker could use its connections with the SEC and FINRA to push through an agenda to have certain assets classified as securities.

  Third, the Prometheum people could be “grifters” who have raised a lot of money from shady sources and have been twisting the worst and progressing for years to continue the scam.

  “I don’t know which one it is, but something is rotten here. […] Plants, patsies, or opportunists – its unclear, but the fact Gensler is letting them run around with SEC approval is a red flag,” Cochran concludes.

  The final cherry on top for the night.

  When it sounded like the Prometheus guys were giving canned responses during testimony… they were passing notes…

  Which totally fine and fair to do, unless the question at hand is are you being fed answers as a plant… https://t.co/a6E4RgJpSa

  — Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) June 15, 2023

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

  At press time, the entire crypto market has suffered another setback after yesterday’s interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve, falling below $1 trillion.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 17:15

• Fed Emergency Bank Bailout Facility Usage Hits New Record High; Money Market Funds See Small Outflow
  Fed Emergency Bank Bailout Facility Usage Hits New Record High; Money Market Funds See Small Outflow

  For the first time since the week of April 19th (related to tax payments), money market funds saw net outflows last week ($4.66 billion)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Ignoring the usual tax-related outflow in April, this is the first money-market outflow since February… presumably all flowing into NVDA?

  Notably, the outflow was all institutional (-$8.46 billion) while retail MM funds saw $3.8 billion in inflows (the 8th straight week)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Despite this small fund outflow, money-market assets remain dramatically decoupled from deposit flows in recent weeks (which as a reminder showed a shocking $186.5 billion deposit inflow (NSA))…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  After the prior week’s small ($3.47 billion) growth in The Fed’s balance sheet, last week saw it rise… barely… by $1 billion… remaining above the SVB lows…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  As far as QT is concerned, The Fed sold a tiny $1.64 billion to its lowest since August 2021…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Most notably, the US central bank had $106 billion of loans outstanding to financial institutions through its two backstop lending facilities, up $2.26 billion from last week…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  With banks’ usage of The Fed’s emergency Bank Term Funding Program rising once again to a new record at $102 billion (up $1.8 billion from last week)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The breakdown from The Fed’s H4…

  • QT no impact this week

  • Discount window usage up $0.4BN from $3.2BN to $3.6BN

  • Other credit extensions (FDIC loans, which are then loans to JPM) down $5BN to $180.5BN

  • Other Fed assets +$3.4BN to $39.5BN

  

  The US equity market continues to charge ahead, even as bank reserves at The Fed contracted modestly…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Finally, as a reminder, banks have 9 months left under the original 12-month BTFP Fed bailout program to find a way to stabilize their balance sheets.

  Not only have they failed to do so, usage of the BTFP facility is at a new all time high, and yields are rising even more (great MTM losses).

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 16:43

• Dershowitz: Why Donald Trump Cannot Get A Top-Tier Lawyer
  Dershowitz: Why Donald Trump Cannot Get A Top-Tier Lawyer

  Authored by Alan Dershowitz  via the Gatestone Institute,

  Former President Donald Trump has now been arraigned and pleaded not guilty. He was represented by two lawyers, neither of whom he apparently wants to lead his defense at trial. He has been interviewing Florida lawyers, and several top ones have declined. I know, because I have spoken to them. There are disturbing suggestions that among the reasons lawyers are declining the case is because they fear legal and career reprisals.

  

  There is a nefarious group that calls itself The 65 Project that has as its goal to intimidate lawyers into not representing Trump or anyone associated with him.

  They have threatened to file bar charges against any such lawyers.

  When these threats first emerged, I wrote an op-ed offering to defend pro bono any lawyers that The 65 Project goes after. So The 65 Project immediately went after me, and contrived a charge based on a case in which I was a constitutional consultant, but designed to send a message to potential Trump lawyers: if you defend Trump or anyone associated with him, we will target you and find something to charge you with. The lawyers to whom I spoke are fully aware of this threat — and they are taking it seriously.

  There may be other reasons as well for why lawyers are reluctant to defend Trump. He is not the easiest client, and he has turned against some of his previous lawyers, as some of his previous lawyers have turned against him. This will be a difficult case to defend and an unpopular one with many in the legal profession and in general population.

  Good lawyers, however, generally welcome challenges, especially in high-profile cases. This case is different: the threats to the lawyers are greater than at any time since McCarthyism. Nor is the comparison to McCarthyism a stretch. I recall during the 1950s how civil liberties lawyers, many of whom despised communism, were cancelled, and attacked if they dared to represent people accused of being communists. Even civil liberties organizations stayed away from such cases, for fear that it would affect their fundraising and general standing in the community. It may even be worse today, as I can attest from my own personal experiences, having defended Trump against an unconstitutional impeachment in 2020. I was cancelled by my local library, community center and synagogue. Old friends refused to speak to me and threatened others who did. My wife, who disagreed with my decision to defend Trump, was also ostracized. There were physical threats to my safety.

  Our system of justice is based on the John Adams standard: he too was attacked for defending the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, but his representation of these accused killers now serves as a symbol of the 6th Amendment right to counsel. That symbol has now been endangered by The 65 Project and others who are participating in its McCarthyite chilling of lawyers who have been asked to represent Trump and those associated with him.

  Trump’s lawyers have now alleged that one of the prosecutors has suggested to Stanley Woodard, the lawyer for Waltine Nauta, Trump’s co-defendant, that his application for judgeship may be negatively affected if he persists in defending Nauta vigorously rather than encouraging him to cooperate against Trump. If that is true – I have not seen the evidence to support it – then it represents a direct attack on the 6th Amendment.

  Whatever one may think of Trump or the charges against him, all Americans must stand united against efforts to intimidate lawyers and chill them from defending unpopular clients pursuant to the 6th Amendment. Bar associations must look into the threats and actions of The 65 Project and of prosecutors who try, by subtle or other means, to influence the representation of clients by threats to their careers or other means.

  Hard cases may make bad law, but partisan cases endanger constitutional rights. We must do everything to assure that all defendants, including Donald Trump, get the zealous representation to which the Constitution entitled all Americans.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/15/2023 – 16:25

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