- 'Belt And Road' Western Hemisphere Investments Has China Firmly Rooted In America's Backyard
‘Belt And Road’ Western Hemisphere Investments Has China Firmly Rooted In America’s Backyard
Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,
The United States has been so focused on global security concerns that it has overlooked investing in its own backyard’s economic and military needs for decades.
But China hasn’t. With its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”), China has become South America’s largest source of infrastructure investment and second-largest trading partner, increasing trade from $18 billion in 2002 to $450 billion in 2022.
Twenty-five of 31 Central and South American countries have negotiated infrastructure investments from China, and 22 of those nations, most recently Honduras, have formally signed onto the BRI program.
Chinese companies, either owned or subsidized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), operate mines in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela, electrical grids in Peru and Chile, 5G wireless systems in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Brazil, and Mexico—80 percent of Mexico’s telecommunications equipment is provided by Chinese companies—space launch and satellite tracking facilities in Argentina, and the world’s largest embassy in the Bahamas.
The U.S. State Department estimates China’s trade with Latin American nations and investments in sea, space, telecommunication, critical minerals, and energy will match the United States by 2035 in the region. China’s military ties with Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, and Chile—which now include port visits by Chinese warships and technical advisers—will mature into base agreements within a decade.
China has, or plans to build or improve, 40 ports across 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries without restrictions on military use, including on both ends of the Panama Canal, where CCP-sponsored companies are bidding with Panama to work on the U.S.-built canal.
Next fall, Chinese leader Xi Jinping will be in Peru to commemorate the completion of “a $3.6 billion ‘mega port’ that was financed by China, built by Chinese workers, and it will be owned and operated by a CCP-backed company,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said.
“It will be used to ship South American copper, lithium, and other critical materials to China to further their military modernization,” he said during a House Armed Services Committee March 12 hearing on Western Hemisphere national security challenges.
Mr. Rogers called it “the latest effort of China’s efforts to displace American influence and build a strategic footprint in our backyard.”
‘Debt Traps’ and CCP Espionage
However, U.S. Southern Command Commander Army Gen. Laura Richardson said China’s increasing presence is a double-edged sword for countries that accept financing and other assistance from the CCP.
“The world is at an inflection point,” she said at the committee hearing.
“Our partners in the Western Hemisphere, with whom we are bonded by trade, shared values, democratic traditions, and family ties, are increasingly impacted by interference and coercion from [China.]
“The People’s Republic of China [PRC] has exploited the trust of democracies in this hemisphere, using that trust to steal national secrets, intellectual property, and research related to academia, agriculture, and health care,” she continued.
“The scope and scale of this espionage is unprecedented. Through the Belt and Road initiative, the PRC aims to amass power and influence at the expense of the world’s democracies,” she added.
Ms. Richardson said that while it’s true that Central and South America have not received the economic and national security attention other areas have, that is changing.
“I’ve learned that our presence absolutely matters,” she said, noting after nearly 20 years of “receiving less than 50 percent” of its Western Hemisphere security cooperation needs, the U.S. Southern Command was fully funded and received additional supplemental funding in the fiscal year 2024 defense budget.
Ms. Richardson said while the boost “was very, very helpful, we can’t just get one year of additional funding to meet the requirement, and I would say that our presence absolutely matters” and needs to be fully funded again in the fiscal year 2025 defense budget.
With the additional funding, she said, the United States has stepped up joint military and emergency response exercises with Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay with “more engagement other than just a visit once a year.”
“This has really made a huge difference in terms of the partnering, but we have to be there. We have to have good security cooperation programs; we have to have flexible authorities that [respond to] opportunities [as they] open because they’re only open for a short period of time,” she added.
(L-R) Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles, U.S. President Joe Biden, Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou, and other leaders attend the plenary session of the inaugural Americas Partnership For Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Nov. 3, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
‘Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is’
That money will be there, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs Rebecca Zimmerman said at the committee hearing.
“We’re putting homeland defense and other interests across the hemisphere front and center,” she said.
“The department’s top priority is defense of the homeland [and countering] the growing multi-domain threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.”
Ms. Zimmerman said the United States is “deepening partnerships with Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile while reinforcing democratic institutions civilian control of the military and respect for human rights and the rule of law” across the hemisphere.
In February, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin participated in the North American Defense Ministerial with his counterparts from Mexico, Canada, and Latin American countries.
In November 2023, President Joe Biden welcomed leaders from the Western Hemisphere to the White House for the inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit to discuss migration, supply chains, and infrastructure investment.
Prime ministers, presidents, and foreign ministers from Canada, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, and Panama attended.
The United States is developing a program with the Inter-American Development Bank to expand financing for infrastructure with the launch of an investment platform through the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. to invest billions in improving critical supply chains, modern ports, clean energy grids, and digital infrastructure.
The “Americas Partnership Accelerator” will assist entrepreneurs in developing and funding their business ideas and mobilize venture capital from around the world for startups in the region, the Biden administration maintains.
Rep. Jan Kiggins (R-Va.) said while “the defense budget is always inadequate” in addressing all needs, it is good “that we are again prioritizing that funding because it is so important that we can put our money where our mouth is.”
“The good news,” Ms. Richardson said, “is working with our very willing partners leads to the best defense.”
“We must use all available levers to strengthen our partnerships with the 28 like-minded democracies in this hemisphere who understand the power of working together to counter these shared threats,” she continued.
“The United States remains the preferred and most trusted security partner in the region.
“We build trust through investment and security cooperation programs that train and equip our partner militaries and security forces, a robust joint exercise program to build interoperability, and the development and employment of emerging technologies,” she added.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 23:40 - How Much Does The US Depend On Russian Uranium?
How Much Does The US Depend On Russian Uranium?
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti visualizes how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).
U.S. Suppliers of Enriched Uranium
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.
Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.
SWU stands for “Separative Work Unit” in the uranium industry. It is a measure of the amount of work required to separate isotopes of uranium during the enrichment process. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.
Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.
In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.
It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.
The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.
As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 23:20 - The War Between Knowledge And Stupidity
The War Between Knowledge And Stupidity
Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,
Bernard Stiegler was, until his premature death, probably the most important philosopher of technology of the present. His work on technology has shown us that, far from being exclusively a danger to human existence, it is a pharmakon – a poison as well as a cure – and that, as long as we approach technology as a means to ‘critical intensification,’ it could assist us in promoting the causes of enlightenment and freedom.
It is no exaggeration to say that making believable information and credible analysis available to citizens at present is probably indispensable for resisting the behemoth of lies and betrayal confronting us. This has never been more necessary than it is today, given that we face what is probably the greatest crisis in the history of humanity, with nothing less than our freedom, let alone our lives, at stake.
To be able to secure this freedom against the inhuman forces threatening to shackle it today, one could do no better than to take heed of what Stiegler argues in States of Shock: Stupidity and Knowledge in the 21st Century (2015). Considering what he writes here it is hard to believe that it was not written today (p. 15):
The impression that humanity has fallen under the domination of unreason or madness [déraison] overwhelms our spirit, confronted as we are with systemic collapses, major technological accidents, medical or pharmaceutical scandals, shocking revelations, the unleashing of the drives, and acts of madness of every kind and in every social milieu – not to mention the extreme misery and poverty that now afflict citizens and neighbours both near and far.
While these words are certainly as applicable to our current situation as it was almost 10 years ago, Stiegler was in fact engaged in an interpretive analysis of the role of banks and other institutions – aided and abetted by certain academics – in the establishment of what he terms a ‘literally suicidal financial system’ (p. 1). (Anyone who doubts this can merely view the award-winning documentary film of 2010, Inside Job, by Charles Ferguson, which Stiegler also mentions on p.1.) He explains further as follows (p. 2):
Western universities are in the grip of a deep malaise, and a number of them have found themselves, through some of their faculty, giving consent to – and sometimes considerably compromised by – the implementation of a financial system that, with the establishment of hyper-consumerist, drive-based and ‘addictogenic’ society, leads to economic and political ruin on a global scale. If this has occurred, it is because their goals, their organizations and their means have been put entirely at the service of the destruction of sovereignty. That is, they have been placed in the service of the destruction of sovereignty as conceived by the philosophers of what we call the Enlightenment…
In short, Stiegler was writing about the way in which the world was being prepared, across the board – including the highest levels of education – for what has become far more conspicuous since the advent of the so-called ‘pandemic’ in 2020, namely an all-out attempt to cause the collapse of civilisation as we knew it, at all levels, with the thinly disguised goal in mind of installing a neo-fascist, technocratic, global regime which would exercise power through AI-controlled regimes of obedience. The latter would centre on ubiquitous facial recognition technology, digital identification, and CBDCs (which would replace money in the usual sense).
Given the fact that all of this is happening around us, albeit in a disguised fashion, it is astonishing that relatively few people are conscious of the unfolding catastrophe, let alone being critically engaged in disclosing it to others who still inhabit the land where ignorance is bliss. Not that this is easy. Some of my relatives are still resistant to the idea that the ‘democratic carpet’ is about to be pulled from under their feet. Is this merely a matter of ‘stupidity?’ Stiegler writes about stupidity (p.33):
…knowledge cannot be separated from stupidity. But in my view: (1) this is a pharmacological situation; (2) stupidity is the law of the pharmakon; and (3) the pharmakon is the law of knowledge, and hence a pharmacology for our age must think the pharmakon that I am also calling, today, the shadow.
In my previous post I wrote about the media as pharmaka (plural of pharmakon), showing how, on the one hand, there are (mainstream) media which function as ‘poison,’ while on the other there are (alternative) media that play the role of ‘cure.’ Here, by linking the pharmakon with stupidity, Stiegler alerts one to the (metaphorically speaking) ‘pharmacological’ situation, that knowledge is inseparable from stupidity: where there is knowledge, the possibility of stupidity always asserts itself, and vice versa. Or in terms of what he calls ‘the shadow,’ knowledge always casts a shadow, that of stupidity.
Anyone who doubts this may only cast their glance at those ‘stupid’ people who still believe that the Covid ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective,’ or that wearing a mask would protect them against infection by ‘the virus.’ Or, more currently, think of those – the vast majority in America – who routinely fall for the Biden administration’s (lack of an) explanation of its reasons for allowing thousands of people to cross the southern – and more recently also the northern – border. Several alternative sources of news and analysis have lifted the veil on this, revealing that the influx is not only a way of destabilising the fabric of society, but possibly a preparation for civil war in the United States.
There is a different way of explaining this widespread ‘stupidity,’ of course – one that I have used before to explain why most philosophers have failed humanity miserably, by failing to notice the unfolding attempt at a global coup d’etat, or at least, assuming that they did notice it, to speak up against it. These ‘philosophers’ include all the other members of the philosophy department where I work, with the honourable exception of the departmental assistant, who is, to her credit, wide awake to what has been occurring in the world. They also include someone who used to be among my philosophical heroes, to wit, Slavoj Žižek, who fell for the hoax hook, line, and sinker.
In brief, this explanation of philosophers’ stupidity – and by extension that of other people – is twofold. First there is ‘repression’ in the psychoanalytic sense of the term (explained at length in both the papers linked in the previous paragraph), and secondly there is something I did not elaborate on in those papers, namely what is known as ‘cognitive dissonance.’ The latter phenomenon manifests itself in the unease that people exhibit when they are confronted by information and arguments that are not commensurate, or conflict, with what they believe, or which explicitly challenge those beliefs. The usual response is to find standard, or mainstream-approved responses to this disruptive information, brush it under the carpet, and life goes on as usual.
‘Cognitive dissonance’ is actually related to something more fundamental, which is not mentioned in the usual psychological accounts of this unsettling experience. Not many psychologists deign to adduce repression in their explanation of disruptive psychological conditions or problems encountered by their clients these days, and yet it is as relevant as when Freud first employed the concept to account for phenomena such as hysteria or neurosis, recognising, however, that it plays a role in normal psychology too. What is repression?
In The Language of Psychoanalysis (p. 390), Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis describe ‘repression’ as follows:
Strictly speaking, an operation whereby the subject attempts to repel, or to confine to the unconscious, representations (thoughts, images, memories) which are bound to an instinct. Repression occurs when to satisfy an instinct – though likely to be pleasurable in itself – would incur the risk of provoking unpleasure because of other requirements.
…It may be looked upon as a universal mental process to so far as it lies at the root of the constitution of the unconscious as a domain separate from the rest of the psyche.
In the case of the majority of philosophers, referred to earlier, who have studiously avoided engaging critically with others on the subject of the (non-)‘pandemic’ and related matters, it is more than likely that repression occurred to satisfy the instinct of self-preservation, regarded by Freud as being equally fundamental as the sexual instinct. Here, the representations (linked to self-preservation) that are confined to the unconscious through repression are those of death and suffering associated with the coronavirus that supposedly causes Covid-19, which are repressed because of being intolerable. The repression of (the satisfaction of) an instinct, mentioned in the second sentence of the first quoted paragraph, above, obviously applies to the sexual instinct, which is subject to certain societal prohibitions. Cognitive dissonance is therefore symptomatic of repression, which is primary.
Returning to Stiegler’s thesis concerning stupidity, it is noteworthy that the manifestations of such inanity are not merely noticeable among the upper echelons of society; worse – there seems to be, by and large, a correlation between those in the upper classes, with college degrees, and stupidity.
In other words, it is not related to intelligence per se. This is apparent, not only in light of the initially surprising phenomenon pertaining to philosophers’ failure to speak up in the face of the evidence, that humanity is under attack, discussed above in terms of repression.
Dr Reiner Fuellmich, one of the first individuals to realise that this was the case, and subsequently brought together a large group of international lawyers and scientists to testify in the ‘court of public opinion’ (see 29 min. 30 sec. into the video) on various aspects of the currently perpetrated ‘crime against humanity,’ has drawn attention to the difference between the taxi drivers he talks to about the globalists’ brazen attempt to enslave humanity, and his learned legal colleagues as far as awareness of this ongoing attempt is concerned. In contrast with the former, who are wide awake in this respect, the latter – ostensibly more intellectually qualified and ‘informed’ – individuals are blissfully unaware that their freedom is slipping away by the day, probably because of cognitive dissonance, and behind that, repression of this scarcely digestible truth.
This is stupidity, or the ‘shadow’ of knowledge, which is recognisable in the sustained effort by those afflicted with it, when confronted with the shocking truth of what is occurring worldwide, to ‘rationalise’ their denial by repeating spurious assurances issued by agencies such as the CDC, that the Covid ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective,’ and that this is backed up by ‘the science.’
Here a lesson from discourse theory is called for. Whether one refers to natural science or to social science in the context of some particular scientific claim – for example, Einstein’s familiar theory of special relativity (e=mc2) under the umbrella of the former, or David Riesman’s sociological theory of ‘inner-’ as opposed to ‘other-directedness’ in social science – one never talks about ‘the science,’ and for good reason. Science is science. The moment one appeals to ‘the science,’ a discourse theorist would smell the proverbial rat.
Why? Because the definite article, ‘the,’ singles out a specific, probably dubious, version of science compared to science as such, which does not need being elevated to special status. In fact, when this is done through the use of ‘the,’ you can bet your bottom dollar it is no longer science in the humble, hard-working, ‘belonging-to-every-person’ sense. If one’s sceptical antennae do not immediately start buzzing when one of the commissars of the CDC starts pontificating about ‘the science,’ one is probably similarly smitten by the stupidity that’s in the air.
Earlier I mentioned the sociologist David Riesman and his distinction between ‘inner-directed’ and ‘other-directed’ people. It takes no genius to realise that, to navigate one’s course through life relatively unscathed by peddlers of corruption, it is preferable to take one’s bearings from ‘inner direction’ by a set of values which promotes honesty and eschews mendacity, than from the ‘direction by others.’ Under present circumstances such other-directedness applies to the maze of lies and misinformation emanating from various government agencies as well as from certain peer groups, which today mostly comprise the vociferously self-righteous purveyors of the mainstream version of events. Inner-directness in the above sense, when constantly renewed, could be an effective guardian against stupidity.
Recall that Stiegler warned against the ‘deep malaise’ at contemporary universities in the context of what he called an ‘addictogenic’ society – that is, a society that engenders addictions of various kinds. Judging by the popularity of the video platform TikTok at schools and colleges, its use had already reached addiction levels by 2019, which raises the question, whether it should be appropriated by teachers as a ‘teaching tool,’ or whether it should, as some people think, be outlawed completely in the classroom.
Recall that, as an instance of video technology, TikTok is an exemplary embodiment of the pharmakon, and that, as Stiegler has emphasised, stupidity is the law of the pharmakon, which is, in turn, the law of knowledge. This is a somewhat confusing way of saying that knowledge and stupidity cannot be separated; where knowledge is encountered, its other, stupidity, lurks in the shadows.
Reflecting on the last sentence, above, it is not difficult to realise that, parallel to Freud’s insight concerning Eros and Thanatos, it is humanly impossible for knowledge to overcome stupidity once and for all. At certain times the one will appear to be dominant, while on different occasions the reverse will apply. Judging by the fight between knowledge and stupidity today, the latter ostensibly still has the upper hand, but as more people are awakening to the titanic struggle between the two, knowledge is in the ascendant. It is up to us to tip the scales in its favour – as long as we realise that it is a never-ending battle.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 23:00 - Anti-Trump Neocons Raising $50 Million To Keep Open-Border Democrats In Power
Anti-Trump Neocons Raising $50 Million To Keep Open-Border Democrats In Power
An anti-Trump neoconservative cabal is raising $50 million in a campaign to keep open-border, spendthrift Democrats in power this November.
Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), headed by Bill Kristol ally and GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, will use the money to deploy a series of anti-Trump ads on streaming platforms, billboards, radio and digital media, The Hill reports.
The ads will run in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Longwell believes the anti-Trump coalition built up in 2020 was one of the determining factors in that contest, and that expanding the demographic in 2024 could be a determining factor in whether Trump returns to the White House.
“Former Republicans and Republican-leaning voters hold the key to 2024, and reaching them with credible, relatable messengers is essential to re-creating the anti-Trump coalition that made the difference in 2020,” Longwell, the president of the group’s Republican Accountability PAC, said in a Tuesday statement. -The Hill
“It establishes a permission structure that says that — whatever their complaints about Joe Biden — Donald Trump is too dangerous and too unhinged to ever be president again. Who better to make this case than the voters who used to support him?” Longwell continued.
The rubenesque Longwell and Kristol are behind “Republicans for Ukraine,” which was launched last August and exists to convince congressional Republicans to protect Ukraine’s borders, as opposed to America’s.
In order to sell the Ukraine support, the group planned to similarly launch ads online, on billboards, and on nationwide television.
“It was alarming in the focus groups to see so many Republican voters talk about Ukraine or [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky in disparaging terms,” said Longwell. “But we also knew, running focus groups, that there were plenty of people who still kind of had the belief that we should be supporting Ukraine, that it was important to stand up against invading forces.“
Important to stand up against invading forces? On which border?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 22:40 - US Supreme Court Denies Request By Group To Host Drag Show At Texas University
US Supreme Court Denies Request By Group To Host Drag Show At Texas University
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday denied a request by a student group that asked to host a drag show at West Texas A&M University and sought to lift a school ban on the performance.
In a one-sentence order, the high court wrote that Justice Samuel Alito denied the emergency request from the LGBT group, Spectrum WT, and two student leaders. There were no dissenting votes issued, and the court did not explain the decision—the usual practice with cases on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.
The Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t finally decide the issue but means Spectrum WT won’t be able to schedule its performance until the matter is resolved in the courts. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the case in April.
Spectrum WT called on the court to stop the school’s president, Walter Wendler, from prohibiting the show that he deemed disparaging of women. The student group has argued that the school violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech.
Spectrum WT in March 2023 sued officials at the university, located in Canyon, Texas, after Mr. Wendler barred the drag show planned for that month, which typically feature men dressed as women.
The group later held the charity event off campus, but it continued to seek an injunction barring Mr. Wendler from prohibiting future events including a planned drag show on March 22. The group is represented by the non-profit free-speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in an interim ruling last September denied the group’s request for a preliminary injunction, casting doubt on their First Amendment claims because “it is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”
The group appealed to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to fast-track the case, scheduling arguments for late April. Spectrum WT responded by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the drag show ban while the case plays out.
Some states including Texas have pursued Republican-backed measures targeting drag shows, with lawmakers arguing that the shows can expose children to deviant sexual imagery and behavior.
In November, the Supreme Court declined to revive a Republican-backed Florida law banning the performance of certain drag shows in the presence of children after the measure was blocked by lower courts.
In their petition to the high court, lawyers for the student group argued that the ban is merely the “president of one small public university in the Texas Panhandle defy what he knows to be the First Amendment’s command” but stressed the issue goes much further.
“Public university and college officials nationwide from across the political spectrum are appointing themselves censors-in-chief, separating what they consider ‘good’ from ‘bad’ expression on their campuses,” they claimed.
In an opinion penned in March 2023, Mr. Wendler argued that a ban is necessary because he believes drag shows are demeaning and beneath human dignity.
“I believe every human being is created in the image of God and, therefore, a person of dignity,” he wrote, adding that “James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, prisoners of the culture of their time as are we, declared the Creator’s origin as the foundational fiber in the fabric of our nation as they breathed life into it.”
Conservative Texans protest a drag queen event held at a church in Katy, Texas, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times)
“Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not,” he added, arguing that such performances “stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against” women. “Drag shows are derisive, divisive, and demoralizing,” the school president continued, adding that “such conduct runs counter to the purpose of WT.”
He also disagreed with largely left-wing notions that drag shows are “harmless,” adding: “Not possible. I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it.”
A university campus, charged by the state of Texas to treat each individual fairly, should elevate students based on achievement and capability, performance in a word, without regard to group membership—an implacable and exacting standard based on educational mission and service to all, sanctioned by the legislature, the governor and numerous elected and appointed officials,” Mr. Wendler added.
And Texas officials including state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, told the nine justices the order doesn’t prevent the group from holding a show off the university’s campus.
“They simply may not use the university’s resources to put on a ‘drag show’ that the president has determined could be demeaning to others who must live, work, and learn on the same campus,” the state officials had argued.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 22:20 - Boeing 737 With 139 Passengers Loses External Panel Mid-Air
Boeing 737 With 139 Passengers Loses External Panel Mid-Air
Literally, not a day goes by without Boeing suffering some major incident, whether it is doors and tires falling off, runway excursions, engine fires, hydraulic leaks, pilot seats flailing around the cockpit and slamming the yoke and, OH YEAH, a “suicided” whistleblower who told a close friend if anything happened to him, it most certainly wasn’t suicide. Well, we can now add one more: a United Airlines flight – because it’s never American or Delta… always United – that took off from San Francisco International Airport Friday morning landed in Oregon with a missing external panel, abc7 reported citing to officials.
As the NY Post notes, United Airlines Flight 433 departed from San Francisco around 10:20 a.m. local time and landed safely at its intended destination, Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport, about 70 minutes later, according to airport officials and flight data.
Once the plane reached the gate, an external panel was found to be missing, halting operations at the airport while a runway safety check was conducted, airport director Amber Judd told The NY Post.
Amazingly, there was no indication of a problem and no emergency was ever declared during the flight, which had 139 passengers and 6 crew members on board, according to United.
Airport staff searched for the missing panel on the airport premises, but were unable to locate it.
“After finding no debris on the airfield, normal operations at MFR resumed a few minutes later,” she said.
United Airlines said it plans a “thorough examination” of the 25-year-old plane and will “perform all the needed repairs before it returns to service.” Who knows, maybe another whistleblower will “commit suicide” too.
“We’ll also conduct an investigation to better understand how this damage occurred,” the airline added.
The Federal Aviation Administration will also investigate the incident, a spokesperson said.
Incidents have plagued Boeing airplane in the past few weeks: on Monday, a United Airlines Flight heading from Sydney to San Francisco, was forced to turn around mid-flight due to a hydraulic leak. The Boeing 777-300 plane, which was carrying 167 passengers and 16 crew member, landed safely back in Sydney.
Hours earlier, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner en route Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand experienced a technical issue that resulted in injuries to 50 passengers. Then, a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Japan diverted to Los Angeles International Airport on March 7 after a tire on the Boeing 777-20 fell off after takeoff, damaging cars in a parking lot on the ground.
Boeing told its employees in a memo Tuesday that the company is implementing weekly compliance checks for every 737 work area and additional equipment audits to reduce quality problems.
It isn’t quite clear what is behind the recent surge in incidents which are just too many to keep track of at this point…
… but one thing is certain: more are coming, which one can only hope won’t be fatal.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 21:59 - Doha Hunts For Whistleblowers Who Revealed Qatar's Funding Of ISIS
Doha Hunts For Whistleblowers Who Revealed Qatar’s Funding Of ISIS
Qatar National Bank (QNB) and Qatar Charity (QC) are attempting to uncover the identities of confidential sources that supplied documents to lawyers representing the family of murdered US journalist Steven Sotloff, which allege the financial institutions – acting at the behest of Qatar’s royal family – wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to the ISIS judge who ordered Sotloff’s execution.
QNB and QC filed an application on March 12 in the US to obtain “limited discovery” of the law firm representing Sotloff’s family, specifically regarding the names of those who provided the bank records linking Doha to the murder. In an email to Bloomberg, the general counsel for QNB confirmed the filing and said the bank “is the victim of an effort to tarnish its reputation” and plans to hold the individuals “to account to the fullest extent of the law.” Sotloff and another US journalist, James Foley, were beheaded in 2014 by ISIS in Syria. The terrorist group published videos of its executions online directed at US government officials.
In a May 2022 lawsuit filed in Florida, Sotloff’s family accused the Qatari institutions of wiring $800,000 to ISIS judge Fadhel al-Salim before he ordered Sotloff’s execution. The family also says Qatar “knowingly funded extremist insurgents” to destabilize the Syrian government and named both QNB and QC as co-conspirators in the murder.
“The amount of assistance – $800,000 – was substantial as evidenced by Salim’s ability to cross over into Syria the very next day to begin raising his ISIS brigade,” Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks from the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida said in May 2023 when he ruled against dismissing the case.
“The allegations plausibly show that Defendants, in participating in a terrorism financing conspiracy, held a culpable state of mind in relation to the transaction and the foreseeable acts of terror to follow,” the US judge highlighted.
“Perhaps the most outstanding allegation in support of a conspiracy is that [former Qatari Prime Minister] Hammad bin Jassim funded several terrorist organizations at a September 2011 meeting attended by the apparent ‘who’s who’ of terrorism financing,” Middlebrooks added. “Simultaneously, Hammad bin Jassim was a member of the Royal Family who served as prime minister, foreign minister, and head of the Qatar Investment Authority, which held a 50 percent stake in QNB.”
Following years of improved relations between Doha and Damascus in the early 2000s, the 2011 outbreak of unrest in Syria quickly showed signs of a Qatari campaign to destabilize the country, starting with Al-Jazeera – Doha’s most prominent media outlet – and its biased, often inciteful coverage of events in the Levantine nation.
Qatar became one of the first foreign entrants into the Syrian conflict, bank-rolling armed factions in coordination with the CIA, including the precursor to Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Jabhat al-Nusra. Doha’s role was even acknowledged by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which stated in 2016 that the Nusra Front “probably received logistical, financial and material assistance from the elements of the Turkish and Qatari governments.”
“It turned out that all the steps of Qatari and Turkish rapprochement before the war were part of a US plan to contain Syria and pass the Qatari gas pipeline through its territory to Turkiye and then Europe, which is what President Assad was aware of. After the US discovered the difficulty of containing Syria, the decision was taken to overthrow the regime and divide the country, and this is one of the reasons for the war. Unfortunately, Qatar, with its money, media, and support for terrorist groups, spearheaded this conspiracy, and still is,” Bassam Abu Abdallah, former cultural attache at Syria’s embassy in Ankara and current Al-Watan columnist, told The Cradle in October 2022.
Hillary Clinton email reveals she knew of Saudi & Qatar government funding for ISIL (ISIS) by August 2014 https://t.co/tlWxkEZ8FN pic.twitter.com/RmaFi9lQQP
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 5, 2017
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At the height of the Syrian war in October 2014, then-US vice president Joe Biden candidly spoke about how Washington’s Sunni Muslim allies have been responsible for funding and arming Al-Qaeda-type extremist militants in Syria.
“Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends – and I have the greatest relationship with Erdogan, which I just spent a lot of time with – the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni–Shia war; what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world” the current US president said during a discussion at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.
“Now you think I’m exaggerating – take a look. Where did all of this go? So now what’s happening? All of a sudden, everybody’s awakened because this outfit called ISIL [ISIS], which was Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which, when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space in territory in eastern Syria, working with Al-Nusra, who we declared a terrorist group early on and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them,” Biden added.
In 2016, WikiLeaks released an email from former US State Secretary Hillary Clinton about Saudi and Qatari funding for ISIS. “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” Clinton’s email reads.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 21:40 - McDonald's Stores Hit By Multi-Nation "Technology Outage"
McDonald’s Stores Hit By Multi-Nation “Technology Outage”
A major technology outage forced McDonald’s stores in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom to either shutter operations or suspend online ordering on Friday, CNN reported.
“Many stores across the country have temporarily suspended operations,” McDonald’s Japan wrote in an X post, adding, “There is currently a system failure.”
“We are aware of a technology outage currently impacting our restaurants nationwide and are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible,” a McDonald’s Australia spokesperson told CNN.
McDonald’s Hong Kong wrote on Facebook: “Due to a computer system failure, the mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks are not functioning. Please order directly at the restaurant counter.”
McDonald’s told BBC News the issue is unrelated to cyber-security but wouldn’t provide further details.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 21:20 - Bitcoin Has No Top Because Fiat Has No Bottom: Understanding Monetary Debasement
Bitcoin Has No Top Because Fiat Has No Bottom: Understanding Monetary Debasement
Bitcoin has been touted as the solution to monetary debasement, but what is debasement really, and where does it come from?
MONETARY DEBASEMENT
Debasement refers to the action or process of reducing the quality or value of something. When talking about fiat currencies, debasement traditionally refers to the practice of reducing the precious metal content in coins while keeping their nominal value the same, thereby diluting the coin’s intrinsic worth. In a modern context, debasement has evolved to mean the reduction in the value or purchasing power of a currency — such as when central banks increase the supply of money, in the process lowering the nominal value of each unit.
UNDERSTANDING DEBASEMENT
Before paper money and coins made of cheap metals like nickel, currency consisted of coins made of precious metals like gold and silver. These were the most sought after metals of the time, giving them value beyond government decree. Debasement was a common practice to save on precious metals and use them in a mix of lower-value metals instead.
This practice of mixing the precious metals with a lower-quality metal means authorities could create additional coins with the same face value, expanding the money supply for a fraction of the cost compared to coins with more gold and silver content.
Today, coins and notes don’t have inherent worth, they are simply tokens that represent value. This means debasement relies on supply: i.e. how many coins or notes the issuing body allows to circulate. Debasement went through different processes and methods over time; therefore, we can define old and new methods.
TRADITIONAL METHOD
Coin clipping, sweating, and plugging were the most common debasement processes used until the introduction of paper money. Such methods were employed both by malicious actors that counterfeited coins and by authorities that increased the number of coins in circulation.
Clipping involves “shaving” the coins’ edges to remove some of the metal. As with sweating, the resulting clipped bits would be collected and used to make new counterfeit coins.
Sweating involves shaking coins vigorously in a bag until the edges of the coins come off and lay at the bottom. The pieces are then collected and used to create new coins.
Plugging was a way of punching a hole out of the coin’s middle area with the rest of the coin hammered together to close the gap. It could also be sawn in half with a plug of metal extracted from the interior. After filling the hole with a cheaper metal, the two halves would be fused again.
MODERN-DAY METHODS
Money supply increase is the modern method used by governments to debase the currency. By printing more money, governments get more funds to spend but it results in inflation for its citizens. Currency can be debased by increasing the money supply, lowering interest rates, or implementing other measures that encourage inflation; they’re all “good” ways of reducing the value of a currency.
WHY IS MONEY DEBASED?
Governments debase their currency so that they can spend without raising further taxes. Debasing money to fund wars was an effective way of increasing the money supply to engage in expensive conflicts without affecting people’s finances — or so it is believed.
Whether by traditional debasement or modern money printing, money supply increases have short-sighted benefits in boosting the economy. But in the long term, it leads to inflation and financial crises. The effects of this are felt most acutely by those in society who do not own hard assets that might counter the loss in the currency’s value.
Currency debasement could also occur by malicious actors who introduce counterfeit coins to an economy, but the consequence of being caught can in some countries lead to a death sentence.
“Inflation is legal counterfeiting, Counterfeiting is illegal inflation.” – Robert Breedlove
Governments can take some measures to mitigate risks associated with money debasement and prevent unstable and weak economies, for example by controlling the money supply and interest rates within a specific range, managing spending, and avoiding excessive borrowing.
Any economic reform that promotes productivity and attracts foreign investments helps maintain confidence in the currency and prevent money debasement.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES
THE ROMAN EMPIRE
The first example of currency debasement dates back to the Roman Empire under emperor Nero around 60 A.D. Nero reduced the silver content in the denarius coins from 100% to 90% during his tenure.
Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus had enormous expenditures via post-civil war reconstruction projects like the building of the Colosseum, compensation to the victims of the Vesuvius eruption, and the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. The chosen means to survive the financial crisis was to reduce the silver content of the “denarius” from 94% to 90%.
Titus’ brother and successor, Domitian, saw enough value in “hard money” and the stability of a credible money supply that he increased the silver content of the denarius back to 98% — a decision he had to revert when another war broke out, and inflation was looming again across the empire.
This process gradually continued until the silver content measured just 5% in the following centuries. The Empire began to experience severe financial crises and inflation as the money continued to be devalued — particularly during the 3rd century A.D., sometimes referred to as the “Crisis of the Third Century.” During this period, spanning from about A.D. 235 to A.D. 284, Romans demanded higher wages and an increase in the price of the goods they were selling to face currency depreciation. The era was marked by political instability, external pressures from barbarian invasions, and internal issues such as economic decline and plague.
It was only when Emperor Diocletian and later Constantine took various measures, including introducing new coinage and implementing price controls, that the Roman economy began to stabilize. However, these events highlighted the vulnerabilities of the once-mighty Roman economic system.
Read More >> Hard To Soft Money: The Hyperinflation Of The Roman Empire
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
During the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman official monetary unit, the akçe, was a silver coin that went through consistent debasement from 0.85 grams contained in a coin in the 15th century down to 0.048 grams in the 19th century. The measure to lower the intrinsic value of the coinage was taken to make more coins and increase the money supply. New currencies, the kuruş in 1688 and then the lira in 1844, gradually replaced the original official akçe due to its continuous debasement.
HENRY VIII
Under Henry VIII, England needed more money, so his chancellor started to debase the coins using cheaper metals like copper in the mix to make more coins for a more affordable cost. At the end of his reign, the silver content of the coins went down from 92.5% to only 25% as a way to make more money and fund the heavy military expenses the current European war was demanding.
WEIMAR REPUBLIC
During the Weimar Republic of the 1920s, the German government met its war and post-war financial obligations by printing more money. The measure reduced the mark’s value from around eight marks per dollar to 184. By 1922, the mark had depreciated to 7,350, eventually collapsing in a painful hyperinflation when it reached 4.2 trillion marks per USD.
History offers us poignant reminders of the perils of monetary expansion. These once-powerful empires all serve as cautionary tales for the modern fiat system. As these empires expanded their money supply, devaluing their currencies, they were, in many ways, like the proverbial lobster in boiling water. The temperature — or in this case, the rate of monetary debasement — increased so gradually that they failed to recognize the impending danger until it was too late. Just as a lobster doesn’t appear to realize it’s being boiled alive if the water’s temperature rises slowly, these empires didn’t grasp the full extent of their economic vulnerabilities until their systems became untenable.
The gradual erosion of their monetary value was not just an economic issue; it was a symptom of deeper systemic problems, signaling the waning strength of once-mighty empires.
DEBASEMENT IN THE MODERN ERA
The dissolution of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s marked a pivotal moment in global economic history. Established in the mid-20th century, the Bretton Woods system had loosely tethered major world currencies to the U.S. dollar, which itself was backed by gold, ensuring a degree of economic stability and predictability.
However, its dissolution effectively untethered money from its golden roots. This shift granted central bankers and politicians greater flexibility and discretion in monetary policy, allowing for more aggressive interventions in economies. While this newfound freedom offered tools to address short-term economic challenges, it also opened the door to misuse and a gradual weakening of the economy.
In the wake of this monumental change, the US has experienced significant alterations in its monetary policy and money supply. By 2023, the monetary base had surged to 5.6 trillion dollars, representing an approximate 69-fold growth from its level of 81.2 billion dollars in 1971.
As we reflect on the modern era and the significant changes in U.S. monetary policy, it’s crucial to heed these historical lessons. Continuous debasement and unchecked monetary expansion can only go on for so long before the system reaches a breaking point.
EFFECTS OF DEBASEMENT
Currency debasement can have several significant effects on an economy, varying in magnitude depending on the extent of debasement and the underlying economic conditions.
Here are some of the most impactful consequences that currency debasement can generate over the long term.
HIGHER INFLATION RATES
Higher inflation rates are the most immediate and impactful effects of currency debasement. As the currency’s value decreases, it takes more units to purchase the same goods and services, eroding the purchasing power of money.
INCREASING INTEREST RATES
Central banks may respond to currency debasement and rising inflation by increasing interest rates, which can impact borrowing costs, business investments, and consumer spending patterns.
DETERIORATING THE VALUE OF SAVINGS
Currency debasement can deteriorate the value of savings held in the domestic currency. This is particularly detrimental to individuals with fixed-income assets, such as retirees who rely on pensions or interest income.
MORE EXPENSIVE IMPORTS
A debased currency can make imports more expensive, potentially leading to higher costs for businesses and consumers reliant on foreign goods. However, it may also make exports more competitive internationally, as foreign buyers can purchase domestic goods at a lower price.
UNDERMINING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN THE ECONOMY
Continuous currency debasement can undermine public confidence in the domestic currency and the government’s ability to manage the economy effectively. This loss of trust may further exacerbate economic instability and even hyperinflation.
SOLUTION TO DEBASEMENT
The solution to debasement lies in the reintroduction of sound money — money whose supply cannot be easily manipulated. While many nostalgically yearn for a return to the gold standard, which was arguably superior to contemporary systems, it is not the ultimate solution. The reason lies in the centralization of gold by central banks. Should we revert to a gold standard, history would likely repeat itself, leading to confiscation and the debasement of currencies once again. Put simply, if a currency can be debased, it will be.
HOW BITCOIN AVOIDS DEBASEMENT
Bitcoin offers a permanent solution to this issue. Its supply is capped at 21 million, a number that is hard-coded and safeguarded by proof-of-work mining and a decentralized network of nodes. Thanks to its decentralized nature, no single entity or government can control Bitcoin’s issuance or governance. Furthermore, its inherent scarcity makes it resilient to the inflationary pressures that are typically seen with traditional fiat currencies.
As a distributed system, Bitcoin users can ensure that the supply never deviates from the predetermined supply cap by running the software that downloads and validates the entire transactional ledger. By verifying every transaction in Bitcoin’s history, where every coin came from and where it went, users can be absolutely sure that the supply has not been debased and no coins were created that should not have been.
Full node software like this for Bitcoin is essentially a counterfeiting detection machine that anyone can run. It guarantees the supply is intact, that coins being spent were properly authorized, and no funny business is happening. Any Bitcoin wallet software can also ensure that no one can restrict your access to your own money.
In times of economic uncertainty, or when central banks engage in extensive money printing, investors often turn to assets like gold and bitcoin for their store-of-value properties. As time progresses, there’s potential for people to recognize Bitcoin not just as a store of value, but as the next evolution of money.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 21:00 - Realtor Group Settles Lawsuits By Slashing Commissions, Risks Mass Exodus Of Agents
Realtor Group Settles Lawsuits By Slashing Commissions, Risks Mass Exodus Of Agents
For those bartenders who became realtors over the past decade, attracted to the fast and easy money during multiple real estate booms fueled by historically low mortgage rates, there’s concerning news out on Friday: Commissions are expected to drop following the National Association of Realtors’ decision to settle a lawsuit regarding its commission rules.
On Friday, the National Association of Realtors announced an agreement to end litigation of claims brought on behalf of home sellers related to broker commissions. This means the group would pay $418 million in damages and amend the rules that housing experts say will drive down the cost of homeownership. In other words, the standard 6 percent sales commission is gone.
“The settlement, which is subject to court approval, makes clear that NAR continues to deny any wrongdoing in connection with the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) cooperative compensation model rule (MLS Model Rule) that was introduced in the 1990s in response to calls from consumer protection advocates for buyer representation. Under the terms of the agreement, NAR would pay $418 million over approximately four years,” NAR wrote in a press release.
“NAR has worked hard for years to resolve this litigation in a manner that benefits our members and American consumers. It has always been our goal to preserve consumer choice and protect our members to the greatest extent possible. This settlement achieves both of those goals,” said Nykia Wright, Interim CEO of NAR.
NAR, the trade group that represents real estate agents and has more than 1.5 million members, agreed to introduce a new MLS rule that will prohibit offers of broker compensation on MLS. Another new rule would require MLS users to enter into written agreements with their buyers.
“We believe the potential changes would likely accelerate commission pressure on buyer agents and could support overall commission rates around a home transaction trending lower in the near term,” William Blair analyst Stephen Sheldon wrote in a note.
Recently, analysts at Keefe Bruyette & Woods said the change to the compensation structure could result in a 30% reduction in the annual commission pool. Analysts further said this would result in a 60% to 80% reduction in the number of real estate agents.
Here are other analyst commentaries on NAR’s deal to resolve litigation:
JPMorgan, Anthony Paolone
- “This is incrementally negative in terms of the potential impact on the residential brokerage names like HOUS and RMAX as it potentially puts top-line pressure on the names, on top of the already muted level of housing activity right now”
William Blair, Stephen Sheldon
- Sees the potential changes raising questions about the role of the MLS system, which primarily serves to broadly distribute listings of homes for sale
- “If agents are no longer required to subscribe to the MLS to distribute listings or accept commissions, then we could see some agents bypassing the system, more brokerages using pocket listings (i.e., listings that are not broadly distributed) to attract consumers, and the need arising over time for a national home listing service”
- This could be an opportunity for CoStar and Zillow, though he notes CoStar has the advantage after its success building out the leading listing distribution in both multifamily and broader commercial real estate
- Overall, he calls the settlement a “modest negative” for the brokerage models he covers, and a positive for CoStar since its Homes.com business caters more to seller agents, “which could become even more important in the home transaction with these changes”
Stephens, John Campbell
- Views CoStar as the biggest beneficiary of the potential changes, though he also sees Zillow as likely to benefit eventually
RBC, Brad Erickson
- “The key debate from here will be can agents navigate this change with only modest changes to buyer commissions or will they be more meaningful”
The news triggered panic dumps in Zillow Group, plunging 14%, and Redfin, down 6%.
For all the unseasoned realtors, you’d better start looking for another job.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 20:40 - Democrat-Darling Rachael Rollins Disbarred After Justice Refuses To Prosecute One Of Its Own
Democrat-Darling Rachael Rollins Disbarred After Justice Refuses To Prosecute One Of Its Own
We previously discussed the controversy surrounding Rachael Rollins, the former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts nominated by President Biden who was implicated in alleged criminal and unethical conduct. The case presented a glaring contrast to how the Justice Department treats its own officials accused of crimes in comparison to less favored individuals. Now, Rollins has been stripped of her bar license based on the same conduct.
Rollins was a figure lionized by the media and many Democrats in Congress. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) heralded Rollins as the ideal U.S. Attorney. Despite her position in Massachusetts, Los Angeles Times’ editorial board dedicated a long editorial to proclaiming Rollins as
“among President Biden’s smartest appointments, and if her nomination is finally approved in the Senate she would become the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, handling cases involving national security, white-collar crime, public corruption, cybercrime, gang violence and civil rights violations. Biden’s nomination of Rollins, while hardly radical, represents a threat to the Republican narrative about Democrats and crime, as do Boston’s enviable crime stats … The point is that when GOP senators claim that Rollins’ policies increase crime, they’re just making things up to justify blocking one of the nation’s most successful criminal justice leaders.”
Rollins later resigned from office after investigators uncovered evidence that she had lied to them, a federal crime commonly charged against others.
The OIG released detailed findings against Rollins for allegedly seeking to influence a Suffolk County, Mass., district attorney election last year. She also was accused by the OIG of lying under oath during an investigation into the matter. The report states that “on December 16, 2022, pursuant to the Inspector General Act, 5 U.S.C. § 404(d), the OIG referred the false statements allegation to the Department for a prosecutive decision. On January 6, 2023, the Department informed the OIG that it declined prosecution.”
According to the OIG, Rollins sought to help Boston City Councilman Ricardo Arroyo in the Democratic primary for Suffolk’s district attorney by providing derogatory information to the Boston Globe and Boston Herald regarding his opponent, then-interim D.A. Kevin Hayden. The OIG said the information included “non-public, sensitive” DOJ material that Rollins acquired as a result of her federal position. The material suggested that Hayden was being investigated for public corruption.
The OIG further found that Rollins leaked more material after Arroyo lost to Hayden.
The OIG accused Rollins of violating a host of Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, including Section 2635.702 (the use “of public office for private gain”) and Section 2635.703 (the use “of nonpublic information”).
The most serious charge was that Rollins “falsely testified under oath … when she denied” providing the non-public information to the Herald reporter.
The investigation also found an array of other violations, including disregarding ethical warnings on political activities and soliciting expensive sports tickets.
What is most striking about the OIG report is that Rollins took some of these steps after barely being confirmed by the U.S. Senate because questions were raised over her judgment and partisanship.
Rollins was confirmed in 2021 after Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote due to all 50 Republican senators opposing her nomination.
Every Democratic senator voted for her despite the concerns, including a video from January 2021 in which she threatened the arrest of reporters.
The DOJ’s declination of charges follows a similar pattern that suggests a higher threshold standard applied by prosecutors in charging one of their own.
Conversely, this is the same department that pursued figures like Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for false or misleading comments made to agents about a meeting with Russian diplomats. The media heralded that case, and legal experts clamored for prosecution.
With Rollins, after an investigation found that she lied to investigators, the DOJ refused to file any charges at all. It is unclear what the DOJ felt was lacking in those findings or the underlying evidence. However, as shown by prior declinations — in cases like the contempt referral against former Attorney General Eric Holder, or the determination that former FBI Director James Comey removed FBI material and, through a friend, leaked it to the media — the Justice Department often seems to find insurmountable problems when asked to charge a fellow prosecutor or investigator
The Rollins case showed a sense of total license to ignore criminal and ethical rules. She even was accused of giving Arroyo advice on how to handle the sexual assault allegations brought against him during his campaign and also provided media outlets with “negative information” about his challenger, Kevin Hayden. She was overtly political and used her office to advance favored candidates.
If the past is any indication, most of the media would not delve too deeply into such contradictions if Trump is charged. And selective prosecution complaints are notoriously difficult to litigate. Even if the Justice Department did not secure a favorable judge for such a case, most judges are leery of adjudicating claims of motivation and bias.
With the recent pass given President Joe Biden on his serial violation of mishandling classified material, the Rollins case reinforces the view of many that the Justice Department continues to apply our laws in strikingly different ways for similarly situated defendants. Ironically, the sense of license displayed by Rollins proved correct. When it comes to favored individuals, the blindfolds appear off at Justice.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 20:20 - "Time To Bud Light Them": Tyson Foods Firing Blue-Collar Workers & Replacing Them With Illegals
“Time To Bud Light Them”: Tyson Foods Firing Blue-Collar Workers & Replacing Them With Illegals
Calls for a boycott are intensifying on X following Tyson Foods’ announcement earlier this week to shutter a pork processing facility in Perry, Iowa. This move will eliminate 1,276 blue-collar jobs. At the same time, the mega food processor has expressed interest in hiring tens of thousands of illegals.
“While this decision was not easy, it emphasizes our focus to optimize the efficiency of our operations to best serve our customers,” a Tyson spokesperson said in a statement to Food Dive.
Perhaps the optimization part of the supply chain is better explained by Garrett Dolan, who leads Tyson’s efforts to eliminate employment barriers such as immigration status, told Bloomberg, “We would like to employ another 42,000 [migrants] if we could find them.”
Or explained by Charlie Kirk…
The Great Replacement in action.
Tyson Foods is firing American workers and replacing them with illegals.
Adding insult to injury, Tyson Foods will also provide lawyers to help with “immigration” hearings.
Disgraceful. Boycott Tyson Foods!! pic.twitter.com/wlnB7vch0t
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 15, 2024
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The idea that Tyson is firing hardworking Americans while attempting to exploit cheap labor from illegals enraged X users. Many of them called for a boycott of all Tyson’s brands.
Tyson is closing its facility in Perry, Iowa and laying off its 1,200 workers.
Instead, they plan to hire thousands of new illegals in states like New York.#BoycottTyson. Pass it on. pic.twitter.com/CTweuRbAMU
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 15, 2024
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Tyson Foods is closing its Perry, Iowa pork plant.
This will cost the town 1,200 jobs.
The current population in Perry is 7,928.
Tyson Foods is currently looking to fill 52,000 factory jobs and it’s planning on doing so by hiring illegal aliens in NYC over the next 2 years.
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) March 15, 2024
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Time to Bud Light them. https://t.co/fI52k4gZ8H
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) March 15, 2024
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Shouldn’t be hard for my family. Don’t buy any of their frozen crap, we only buy blue and gold bacon and sausage. Will make sure to not buy Sara Lee. If they do have something to do with McDonald’s, my kids don’t even like eating there
Don’t forget about General Mills starting… pic.twitter.com/bkTsU8SK02
— Amy Strong 🇺🇸 (@strong10080) March 15, 2024
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And it begins.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 20:00 - Japan To Restart World's Largest Nuclear Power Plant
Japan To Restart World’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant
By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com
Japan is stepping up efforts to have local authorities approve the restart of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility north of Tokyo, Japanese newspaper Niigata Nippo reported on Friday.
Next week, Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ken Saito, is expected to ask the local governor of the Niigata prefecture to approve the restart of the power plant, according to the newspaper report.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan closed all its nuclear power plants that underwent rigorous safety checks and inspections.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has been offline since 2012, while the Nuclear Regulation Authority in 2021 barred the plant’s operator, utility Tepco, from operating the facility due to safety breaches.
The regulator lifted the operational ban on Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in December 2023, paving the way for the restart, which needs the approvals of the Niigata prefecture, the city of Kashiwazaki, and the village of Kariwa to resume operations.
Tepco’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility north of Tokyo Japan is bringing back nuclear power as a key energy source, looking to protect its energy security in the wake of the energy crisis that led to surging fossil fuel prices. The resource-poor country which needs to import about 90% of its energy requirements, made a U-turn in its nuclear energy policy at the end of 2022, as its energy import bill soared amid the energy crisis and surging costs to import LNG at record-high prices.
The Japanese government confirmed in December 2022 a new policy for nuclear energy, which the country had mostly abandoned since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. A panel of experts under the Japanese Ministry of Industry has also decided that Japan would allow the development of new nuclear reactors and allow available reactors to operate after the current limit of 60 years.
Restarts of nuclear reactors, high natural gas inventories, and increased renewable power generation have dragged Japan’s LNG imports to multi-year lows in recent months.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 19:40 - Riley Gaines, 15 Other Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over Transgender Madness
Riley Gaines, 15 Other Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over Transgender Madness
In the latest attack on transgender madness in women’s sports, former University of Kentucky Wildcats swimmer Riley Gaines and 15 other female athletes have filed suit against the NCAA alleging violations of federal Title IX law arising from its insertion of man-to-woman transgender athletes into women’s competition.
“The NCAA’s most basic job is to protect the fairness and safety of competition, but instead the NCAA…continues to openly discriminate against women,” Gaines told The Free Press.
Eight of the 16 plaintiffs who are trying to put an end to male intrusion into women’s athletics (via The Free Press) Much of the complaint centers on what women experienced at the 2022 national swimming championships. Infamously, man-to-woman transgender Penn Quaker Lia Thomas was not only allowed to compete against women, but was also given use of the women’s locker room — as described in this excerpt from the 156-page complaint:
The first time most of the Plaintiffs became aware of Thomas’ access to the women’s locker rooms and restrooms…was: (1) when Thomas walked in on them while they were fully naked or in a state of substantial undress….(2) when they unwittingly walked in on Thomas and observed Thomas undressed with male genitalia exposed…or (3) when Thomas undressed in front of them
NC State Wolfpack swimmer Kylee Alons chose to change in a “dimly lit storage and utility closet” behind a set of bleachers, rather than risk being caught naked by Thomas or having to see him stand around naked, displaying his manhood. “I was literally racing U.S. and Olympic gold medalists and I was changing in a storage closet at this elite-level meet. I just felt that my privacy and safety were being violated in the locker room,” Alons told the Free Press.
Women’s racing suits are so tight they “require 15 to 20 minutes to put on,” notes the complaint. “While you’re doing this, you’re exposed,” said Kaitlynn Wheeler, another Kentucky swimmer, to the Free Press. “You can’t stand there and hold a towel around you while putting the suit on at the same time.”
Thomas, who wasn’t a noteworthy athlete when competing against fellow men, won the women’s national championship in the 500m freestyle by a huge margin, beating three female Olympic medalists in the spectacle.
1 year ago today we watched Lia Thomas become the first male to win a D1 national title in the women’s category. Notice how Thomas beats the fastest females in the entire country by body lengths…. @NCAA you’re responsible. pic.twitter.com/ocNHaoViDJ
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) March 17, 2023
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Among the plaintiffs is Tylor Mathieu of the University of Florida Gators, who didn’t make it to the final of the 500 free because Thomas took the slot. The inclusion of Thomas also cost Mathieu first-team All-American honors.
Gaines noted that the NCAA swimming championship environment was even more Orwellian due to Title IX fanfare that accompanied it:
“The NCAA was passing around shirts that said ‘50 years of Title IX’ and ‘50 years of creating opportunities for women,’ but these were the same people who were actively taking our opportunities away and telling us we weren’t worthy to be called champions, and instead this man, who merely says he is a woman, is.”
Hammering home the irrationality of the NCAA’s approach, the plaintiffs says the NCAA allows “men to compete on women’s teams with a testosterone level that is five times higher than the highest recorded testosterone level for elite female athletes.” It asserts that, regardless of having taken hormone suppressing drugs, post-pubescent men have a biological edge “which no woman can achieve without doping.”
The plaintiffs want to force the NCAA to retract Lia Thomas’s 2022 championship title and give it to then-Virginia Cavalier Emma Weyant The lawsuit was organized by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, a group that exists to “promote and protect women’s sports.” The plaintiffs, who also include track, tennis and volleyball athletes, are demanding that the NCAA make rule changes to bar biological males from women’s competition, revoke awards previously given to men who beat women, and also pay “damages for pain and suffering, mental and emotional distress, suffering and anxiety, expense costs and other damages due to defendants’ wrongful conduct.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 19:20 - Bankruptcy Laws Plus Inflation Equals Scam
Bankruptcy Laws Plus Inflation Equals Scam
At the end of 2022, investors all around the world who had bet big on cryptocurrency and had their cryptocurrency stored by the crypto exchange, FTX, received bad news. Sam Bankman-Fried and other leaders of the exchange had been using cryptocurrency that was supposedly stored by the exchange to make bets on financial markets. And the FTX leadership was bad at trading and racked up huge losses. FTX declared bankruptcy and many of FTX leaders were convicted of financial crimes. For the investors of FTX, it was a painful experience that came from betting on cryptocurrency and the viability of crypto institutions that managed such assets. Expected losses were claimed to be in the billions.
But as of 2024, FTX’s bankruptcy lawyers began claiming that FTX creditors would be repaid in full. This claim is based on a technicality of bankruptcy law and is a feature that screws over investors and hides the reality of inflation.
When FTX went bankrupt, the debts it owed the people who deposited their cryptocurrency with FTX were recorded based on the US dollar value at the time. Of course, cryptocurrency is a wildly volatile asset, primarily used for speculation rather than as a store of value or for actual transactions. This volatility contributed to the FTX bankruptcy as the value of assets it held at any time, changed over time.
Currently, crypto prices are generally higher than at the time FTX went bankrupt, but it’s unclear how long this will last given crypto’s volatility. The US dollar is worth less than ever given two more years of the high inflation experienced during the Biden administration. This means that the cryptocurrency held by FTX can be exchanged for a relatively large amount of 2024 US dollars to repay debts that were measured in 2022 dollars. This is what FTX means by claiming it can now repay its creditors.
Imagine if a similar thing happened with a gold storage company. A company promises to store gold bars for its customers, secretly loses many of them in bad bets, and declares bankruptcy. The company records how much it owes its customers- not in the amount of gold lost- but in what bankruptcy lawyers claim it was worth in US dollars. Then years later, as the dollar continues to inflate away its value relative to gold, the gold investors are repaid in devalued dollars. This is how bankruptcy and inflation combine to hurt investors.
This is not the only area where ordinary people face a dynamic like this.
When an employer withholds taxes from your paycheck, and you have to wait for your tax return to get it back, you are giving an interest-free loan to the government. This would be true no matter the currency that the United States used. But the United States uses a fiat currency that’s losing value over time.
Not only does tax withholding mean that taxpayers are losing out on the interest they could have earned, they’re paid back in their refund in a currency that loses value month by month. Taxpayers pay into Social Security, pay for unemployment insurance, and all kinds of government programs. But even if we get our money back, each dollar in benefits is less than each dollar of tax that was paid.
Bankruptcy law makes this scheme obvious, but it affects every American taxpayer.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 19:00 - Putin Vows Ukraine Will Pay For Election Day Attacks On Civilians
Putin Vows Ukraine Will Pay For Election Day Attacks On Civilians
Today is election day in Russia, and it is quite obvious who will emerge victorious as the country’s next president. However, Ukraine has chosen the eve of election day and into Friday to send a ‘message’ – while apparently losing a lot of men in the process.
There have been repeat significant cross-border ground and shelling attacks from Ukraine in the past 48 hours. Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) announced Friday morning that it “repelled” the latest major attempted incursion in the Belgorod region on the border.
AFP/Getty Images The MoD claimed its forces, including border security services, took out some 50 invaders in the assault. Russian media summarized of the military’s statements: “The team was then targeted by Russian artillery and military aviation. The territory through which other Ukrainian troops could reach Kozinka to prop up the advance force was remotely mined.”
The statement continued, “The Ukrainians were then forced out of the village, with survivors running into the freshly placed minefield and getting killed, according to the statement. An attempted evacuation was stopped by rocket artillery.”
Russian media has further published videos and images which purport to confirm that attempted major cross-border incursion. The same groups from a similar Tuesday raid appear to have been behind the newest attack – mostly made up what have been described as anti-Putin Russian nationals collaborating with Kiev.
President Putin on Friday addressed the string of cross-border attacks, describing there had been “four attacks on the Belgorod region and one attack on the Kursk region by armed Ukrainian proxies numbering about 2,500.”
🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺 Northern Front, Belgorod: The Ukraine-backed Russian opposition continues to shell the city relentlessly. According to enemy reports, over 140 strikes have been recorded since the beginning of the day. pic.twitter.com/Udp3U5IMtf
— Astraia Intel (@astraiaintel) March 15, 2024
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Putin additionally said the invading militants had 35 tanks and 40 armored vehicles, as cited in Reuters. He estimated that about 60% of the invading force was killed.
But it was fresh drone attack and shelling on Belgorod city Friday that resulted in Russian civilian casualties. Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that during the attack air defenses shot down ten inbound “aerial targets”.
“According to preliminary information, one civilian was killed. At the moment of the shelling attack, the man was working at a store,” Gladkov stated on Telegram. “Paramedics did their best to save his life, but he died from his injuries at the scene,” the governor added.
Somewhat unexpectedly, or perhaps due to the security situation, President Putin is widely reported to have cast his vote online…
‼️🇷🇺 Vladimir #Putin has cast an online vote for the 2024 #Russian Presidential Elections.
🐻 Who do you think he voted for? pic.twitter.com/SzkSa5fmOH
— Maimunka News (@MaimunkaNews) March 15, 2024
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Putin spoke of the civilian death on election day, saying, “I am sure that our people, the people of Russia, will respond to this with even greater solidarity. Who did they decide to intimidate? The Russian people?“
Russia unleashed its own large-scale strikes on the southern Ukraine city of Odesa on Friday. The NY Times describes, “A Russian missile attack on Odesa killed at least 17 people and injured 73 others, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday, the latest in a series of deadly air assaults on the southern Ukrainian port city.”
“Ukraine’s state emergency services said a first missile hit several houses late in the morning, prompting rescuers to rush to the scene,” the report continues. “A second missile then landed on the same site, causing many fatalities, including at least one paramedic and a rescue worker. The reports could not be independently verified.”
Meanwhile, there were various other reports of local election disruptions on Friday…
🇷🇺 RUSSIAN ELECTIONS: BALLOT BOXES ON FIRE, VANDALISM, TERRORIST PLOTS
It’s been quite the first day for Russia’s elections – from alleged disappearing ink pens at polling stations to multiple arrests across the country for lighting ballot boxes on fire or dumping into them.… pic.twitter.com/zLfGwW2ZCU
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 15, 2024
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 18:40 - US To Back Nevada Lithium Project With $2.26 Billion Loan
US To Back Nevada Lithium Project With $2.26 Billion Loan
By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com
Lithium Americas Corp has received a conditional commitment for a $2.26-billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to help it build lithium processing facilities in Nevada, as the Biden Administration looks to support America-produced lithium and reduce dependence on Chinese supply.
Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass project in Humboldt County, Nevada, is located next to a mine site that contains the largest-proven lithium reserves in North America, DOE said.
The U.S. Administration plans to extend the $2.26 billion loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. The government funding is intended to help finance the construction of Thacker Pass, targeted to produce an initial 40,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium carbonate, Vancouver-based Lithium Americas Corp said in a statement.
Lithium Americas targets mechanical completion of Thacker Pass Phase 1 for 2027. Major construction is expected to start in the second half of this year, following the anticipated closing of the DOE Loan and issuance of full notice to proceed (FNTP), which is expected in the second half of 2024.
“The United States has an incredible opportunity to lead the next chapter of global electrification in a way that both strengthens our battery supply chains and ensures that the economic benefits are directed toward American workers, companies and communities,” Lithium Americas’ president and CEO Jonathan Evans said.
The lithium price crash over the past year is holding back reinvestment in new supply, the world’s top lithium producer Albemarle has said recently.
While major lithium suppliers continue to see a surge in long-term demand as the energy transition gathers momentum, the current low price environment is “unstainable,” Kent Masters, Albemarle’s chairman, president, and CEO, said on the company’s earnings call last month.
The current lithium prices are not in a range allowing projects, especially in the West, to get off the ground, Masters added.
The deferral of new supply developments amid the low prices is setting the stage for the next lithium supply crunch later this decade, executives and analysts say.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 18:20 - "I Can't Even Save": Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load
“I Can’t Even Save”: Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load
While Joe Biden insists that Americans are doing great – suggesting in his State of the Union Address last week that “our economy is the envy of the world,” Americans are being absolutely crushed by inflation (which the Biden admin blames on ‘shrinkflation’ and ‘corporate greed’), and of course – crippling debt.
The signs are obvious. Last week we noted that banks’ charge-offs are accelerating, and are now above pre-pandemic levels.
…and leading this increase are credit card loans – with delinquencies that haven’t been this high since Q3 2011.
On top of that, while credit cards and nonfarm, nonresidential commercial real estate loans drove the quarterly increase in the noncurrent rate, residential mortgages drove the quarterly increase in the share of loans 30-89 days past due.
And while Biden and crew can spin all they want, an average of polls from RealClear Politics shows that just 40% of people approve of Biden’s handling of the economy.
Crushed
On Friday, Bloomberg dug deeper into the effects of Biden’s “envious” economy on Americans – specifically, how massive debt loads (credit cards and auto loans especially) are absolutely crushing people.
Two years after the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tame prices, delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are the highest in more than a decade. For the first time on record, interest payments on those and other non-mortgage debts are as big a financial burden for US households as mortgage interest payments.
According to the report, this presents a difficult reality for millions of consumers who drive the US economy – “The era of high borrowing costs — however necessary to slow price increases — has a sting of its own that many families may feel for years to come, especially the ones that haven’t locked in cheap home loans.”
The Fed, meanwhile, doesn’t appear poised to cut rates until later this year.
According to a February paper from IMF and Harvard, the recent high cost of borrowing – something which isn’t reflected in inflation figures, is at the heart of lackluster consumer sentiment despite inflation having moderated and a job market which has recovered (thanks to job gains almost entirely enjoyed by immigrants).
In short, the debt burden has made life under President Biden a constant struggle throughout America.
“I’m making the most money I’ve ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck,” 40-year-old Denver resident Nikki Cimino told Bloomberg. Cimino is carrying a monthly mortgage of $1,650, and has $4,000 in credit card debt following a 2020 divorce.
Nikki CiminoPhotographer: Rachel Woolf/Bloomberg “There’s this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing.“
CBS: Do you attribute the inflation crisis to the pandemic or Biden?
WISCONSIN VOTER: “It’s been YEARS now since the pandemic — I’m not buying that anymore. At first I did; I’m not buying that anymore because yogurt is STILL going up in price!” pic.twitter.com/apahb65scB
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 15, 2024
What’s more, according to Wells Fargo, families have taken on debt at a comparatively fast rate – no doubt to sustain the same lifestyle as low rates and pandemic-era stimmies provided. In fact, it only took four years for households to set a record new debt level after paying down borrowings in 2021 when interest rates were near zero.
Meanwhile, that increased debt load is exacerbated by credit card interest rates that have climbed to a record 22%, according to the Fed.
[P]art of the reason some Americans were able to take on a substantial load of non-mortgage debt is because they’d locked in home loans at ultra-low rates, leaving room on their balance sheets for other types of borrowing. The effective rate of interest on US mortgage debt was just 3.8% at the end of last year.
Yet the loans and interest payments can be a significant strain that shapes families’ spending choices. -Bloomberg
And of course, the highest-interest debt (credit cards) is hurting lower-income households the most, as tends to be the case.
The lowest earners also understandably had the biggest increase in credit card delinquencies.
“Many consumers are levered to the hilt — maxed out on debt and barely keeping their heads above water,” Allan Schweitzer, a portfolio manager at credit-focused investment firm Beach Point Capital Management told Bloomberg. “They can dog paddle, if you will, but any uptick in unemployment or worsening of the economy could drive a pretty significant spike in defaults.“
“We had more money when Trump was president,” said Denise Nierzwicki, 69. She and her 72-year-old husband Paul have around $20,000 in debt spread across multiple cards – all of which have interest rates above 20%.
Denise and Paul Nierzwicki blame Biden for what they see as a gloomy economy and plan to vote for the Republican candidate in November.
Photographer: Jon Cherry/BloombergDuring the pandemic, Denise lost her job and a business deal for a bar they owned in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. While they applied for Social Security to ease the pain, Denise is now working 50 hours a week at a restaurant. Despite this, they’re barely scraping enough money together to service their debt.
The couple blames Biden for what they see as a gloomy economy and plans to vote for the Republican candidate in November. Denise routinely voted for Democrats up until about 2010, when she grew dissatisfied with Barack Obama’s economic stances, she said. Now, she supports Donald Trump because he lowered taxes and because of his policies on immigration. -Bloomberg
Meanwhile there’s student loans – which are not able to be discharged in bankruptcy.
“I can’t even save, I don’t have a savings account,” said 29-year-old in Columbus, Ohio resident Brittany Walling – who has around $80,000 in federal student loans, $20,000 in private debt from her undergraduate and graduate degrees, and $6,000 in credit card debt she accumulated over a six-month stretch in 2022 while she was unemployed.
“I just know that a lot of people are struggling, and things need to change,” she told the outlet.
The only silver lining of note, according to Bloomberg, is that broad wage gains resulting in large paychecks has made it easier for people to throw money at credit card bills.
Yet, according to Wells Fargo economist Shannon Grein, “As rates rose in 2023, we avoided a slowdown due to spending that was very much tied to easy access to credit … Now, credit has become harder to come by and more expensive.”
According to Grein, the change has posed “a significant headwind to consumption.”
Then there’s the election
“Maybe the Fed is done hiking, but as long as rates stay on hold, you still have a passive tightening effect flowing down to the consumer and being exerted on the economy,” she continued. “Those household dynamics are going to be a factor in the election this year.”
Meanwhile, swing-state voters in a February Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll said they trust Trump more than Biden on interest rates and personal debt.
Reverberations
These ‘headwinds’ have M3 Partners’ Moshin Meghji concerned.
“Any tightening there immediately hits the top line of companies,” he said, noting that for heavily indebted companies that took on debt during years of easy borrowing, “there’s no easy fix.“
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 18:00 - The 10 Senate Seats Most Likely To Flip
The 10 Senate Seats Most Likely To Flip
Authored by Sean Trende via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The 2024 presidential election has grabbed most of the headlines recently, but the Senate races are taking shape under the radar. Here is a preview of the 10 most likely to flip.
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West Virginia – Open (D): It’s not that often that every elections analyst in the country concurs on something, but I suspect you will get unanimous agreement that this seat is far and away the most likely Senate seat to flip. Joe Manchin is a Democrat who has basically been swimming against a Republican tide since he won the seat in a 2010 special election. Two years prior, John McCain carried the state by 12 points over Barack Obama. Donald Trump won it by almost 40 points in 2020. It’s unlikely that even the popular Manchin, who won narrowly in the good Democratic year of 2018, could emerge victorious, but with his retirement, the seat is just gone.
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Montana – Jon Tester (D): Reasonable minds can disagree about whether Montana or Ohio is the more vulnerable seat. Tester is probably a better ideological match for his state than Sen. Sherrod Brown is for Ohio, but Montana will probably go for Donald Trump by 20 points rather than the 10 or so points by which he seems likely to carry Ohio. Tester’s preferred opponent, Matt Rosendale, dropped out of the race, giving Tester a more mainstream opponent. Even Rosendale had made a race out of it in the bad GOP year of 2018, but this time, Tester will likely have to convince one out of every six Trump voters to cross over for him. That’s no easy task.
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Ohio – Sherrod Brown (D): Brown is probably too liberal for the modern Buckeye State, and he’ll have to convince around one in 10 Trump voters to split their tickets. This is within tolerance – Susan Collins pulled this off in reverse in 2020 – but it is still rare. Brown only won by seven points against an underfunded opponent in 2018, but whoever the GOP candidate is will probably not have to worry about money. Trump endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno, much to the state GOP’s dismay, but this is a state that voted for a similarly untested, controversial candidate in 2022 over Brown’s political heir. Brown can win, but he’s in trouble.
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Michigan – Open (D): I have to make at least one controversial call, so why not here? To be clear, all of the remaining races at least lean toward the party that currently holds them. Why put this above more popular picks like Nevada, Arizona, or Wisconsin? The reason has less to do with this race than with the dynamics of the other races (discussed below). The Democratic Party has coalesced around Rep. Elissa Slotkin, which is good for the party. But there is a bit of schism within the Democratic Party right now over the Biden administration’s support of Israel in its war in Gaza. Trump has also been polling well in the state. A lot will depend on who emerges from the state’s crowded GOP primary, but remember, Trump nearly pulled now-Rep. John James across the finish line in 2020.
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Texas – Ted Cruz (R): Another controversial call, I suspect. I’ve gone into this in greater detail elsewhere, but this is a state that is swinging leftward, and it wouldn’t take a particularly bad showing by Donald Trump nationally for it to flip. Not only that, but Cruz is, well, Cruz, and is not particularly well-liked. He almost lost in 2018, and while the environment is better for him this year, the state is worse. Again, this isn’t a tossup, but his edge is less pronounced than the remaining Democrats on this list.
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Arizona – Open (D): Given Kari Lake’s post-election behavior and the presence of an abortion-rights referendum on the ballot, I’m skeptical that she is well-positioned to make this race competitive. It’s also why I’m somewhat skeptical about Donald Trump’s current polling lead against President Biden.
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Nevada – Jacky Rosen (D): It’s not that the incumbent is particularly weak. Nor is the GOP field particularly strong. And the presence of an abortion-rights referendum will probably help Rosen. We’re starting to get into genuine long-shot territory here, but this is a state Donald Trump really might carry handily. We’ll see what comes out of the GOP primary.
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Wisconsin – Baldwin (D): I don’t really think Tammy Baldwin is likely to lose. The danger to her comes if Donald Trump breaks out in the state and turns out to have coattails. But I promised 10 seats, and I aim to deliver 10.
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Pennsylvania – Bob Casey (D): The GOP has its preferred candidate here, Dave McCormick (which it didn’t in 2022 when Oz Mehmet edged McCormick out in the primary), and Casey has never really had a tough challenge before. But he’s got a famous last name, and I think Trump has less chance of winning here than in Wisconsin. If Trump does pull ahead strongly, however, he probably has a better chance of bringing McCormick with him than he does in Wisconsin – whomever Republicans nominate in the Badger State.
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Maryland – Open (D): I had to pick a race here. It was either this or New Jersey or Florida. I chose this one because GOP candidate Larry Hogan was a popular governor, is still well regarded in the state, and is probably the strongest challenger in the bunch. But Maryland is exceedingly blue and is really, really unlikely to flip.
Sean Trende is senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics. He is a co-author of the 2014 Almanac of American Politics and author of The Lost Majority. He can be reached at strende@realclearpolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter @SeanTrende.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/15/2024 – 17:40 -
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