Today’s News 16th October 2022

• National Conservatism Is New Deal Liberalism
  National Conservatism Is New Deal Liberalism

  Authored by Verlan Lewis & Hyrum Lewis via RealClear Wire,

  The National Conservatism Conference that took place in Miami last month has generated a lot of attention and hand-wringing, especially from self-identified “anti-Trump conservatives” who don’t like the direction their movement is taking. In their view, this new national conservatism – with its populist rhetoric, advocacy of government regulation of corporations, favorability to the welfare state, and appeals to religious values and the white working class – is apostasy from the “true conservatism” they supported during the Reagan era.

  

  But National Conservatism isn’t a turn away from “true conservatism,” because such a thing doesn’t exist. Lacking any essential core, conservatism has always evolved and always will. A self-conscious movement operating under the label “conservative” began in the 1940s with the single purpose of combatting the New Deal. In the 1950s, it mutated to back domestic anti-communism efforts; in the 1960s, it supported greater military intervention overseas; and in the 1970s, it worked to preserve Christian social values. Conservatism has taken many forms over the past century, and National Conservatism is only the latest iteration.

  Ironically, the mutations of conservatism that have occurred in the 21st century have turned the movement into that which it was born to oppose: New Deal liberalism. In the present day, national conservatives are calling for the government to control, regulate, and break up corporate power. In the 1930s, these policies were central to the New Deal. Currently, national conservatives denounce corporate leaders as “tech oligarchs”; in the 1930s, FDR denounced corporate leaders as “economic royalists.” The belief of national conservatives in an expansive government with a robust welfare state is a decisive move away from the limited government conservatism of the Reagan era – and a decisive move towards the expansive-government liberalism of the New Deal era.

  But the similarities don’t stop there. Like today’s national conservatives, FDR drew heavily on religious rhetoric to justify his policies. His radio fireside chats frequently invoked God, and he often prayed on air, asking Providence for guidance and blessings for America. FDR’s base of support came from white, rural, Christian Americans of the middle or lower class – the same demographic base of national conservatism today. Religious Americans are much more likely to vote Republican today, but in FDR’s time, under the influence of social gospel theology, they were far more likely to vote Democrat. In fact, the most prominent opponents of the New Deal were also some of the most prominent anti-religious voices, including Ayn Rand, Max Eastman, and H.L. Mencken. Religious Americans formed the core of the New Deal coalition just as they form the core of the national conservative coalition today.

  Both today’s national conservatives and the New Dealers of the 1930s share a common enemy: urban, coastal, secular, elites who treat them with contempt. The New Dealers turned to FDR to fight back against these cosmopolitans; national conservatives turned to Trump for the same reason.

  The New Deal was also highly nationalistic. The liberalism FDR inherited and advanced was most powerfully articulated by the progressive-era reformer Herbert Croly in his classic book, “The Promise of American Life.” The book called for a “new nationalism” that would unite Americans behind the Hamiltonian project of greater democratic equality and national greatness. Nationalism and expansions of government power went hand in hand during the New Deal, as is visible in the pamphlets, literature, office photographs, and promotional materials of that era.

  The fact that conservatism has done a complete 180 and turned into what it was born to oppose helps expose the central political misconception of our time: the idea that ideologies precede policies.

  Although it is commonly believed that conservatism is a philosophy or temperament that leads to a coherent set of issue positions, the reality is that conservatism is an ex post story that Republicans tell themselves to justify whatever policies are currently associated with their side. During the 1940s, self-identified “conservatives” such as Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. developed creative ex post stories to explain how a Burkean philosophy led to a set of anti-state policies. Now, self-identified “conservatives” such as Tucker Carlson and Yoram Hozany have developed creative ex post stories to explain how a Burkean philosophy leads to a set of pro-state policies.

  So what is “conservatism” then? It’s a story to justify the policies that tribe red favors at a given moment. And although the story has persisted over the past hundred years, the policies have reversed, meaning that what is considered “conservative” today is exactly what was considered “liberal” at the time of FDR.

  Verlan Lewis the Stirling Professor of Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University. Hyrum Lewis is Professor of History at BYU-Idaho. Their book, “The Myth of Left and Right” is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in January. They are affiliated with the Jack Miller Center.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 23:30

• World's Largest Airplane Prepares For Reported In-Flight Drop Test Of Hypersonic Vehicle
  World’s Largest Airplane Prepares For Reported In-Flight Drop Test Of Hypersonic Vehicle

  The aerospace venture established by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is preparing to fly the world’s largest airplane in an upcoming flight test that is reported to include a separation drop-test of a hypersonic vehicle. 

  Spotters at the Mojave Air and Space Port told TheAviationist Thursday that Stratolaunch’s twin-fuselage “Roc” airplane was outside its massive hanger with engines running. 

  

  Additional sources told the aviation blog, “the aircraft is being prepared for an upcoming test flight that is reported to include the separation drop-test of an unmanned Talon-A hypersonic mock-up that is being referred to as “Talon-0″ for this reported upcoming test.”

  

  Sources familiar with the project said Roc may be ready for flight in “two to three weeks.”

  The reported upcoming flight of Stratolaunch in, “Two to three weeks” was described to TheAviationist as a test of how the reusable Talon-A unmanned hypersonic will separate from the Stratolaunch launch aircraft. The source told us that, “The Talon-0 is an accurate representation of the weight, C.G. [center of gravity] and aerodynamic characteristics of the Talon-1. It even has a system for pumping fluid to simulate fuel flow.”

  This would be the aircraft’s eighth flight and the first with a hypersonic test vehicle though only separation tests will be conducted. 

  

  In the future, the Pentagon could be a top customer of Stratolaunch’s launching services. The company has a contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory to test hypersonic vehicles. 

  As a reminder, America lags in the hypersonic race while Russia and China field these new weapons. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 23:00

• More Foods Will Be Gene-Edited Than You Think
  More Foods Will Be Gene-Edited Than You Think

  Authored by Camille Su via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Gene editing has long been primarily used for research, treatment, and disease prevention. Currently, this technology is increasingly being applied to modify agricultural products to create more “perfect” species. More and more genetically edited foods are appearing on the market, including high-nutrient tomatoes and zero-trans-fat soybean oil.

  Some argue that gene-edited foods are safer than genetically modified (GM) foods (pdf). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) specified in 2018 that most genetically edited foods do not need to be regulated. However, are these foods, which will increasingly appear on the table, really risk-free?

  

  Gene Modification 2.0: Gene-Edited Foods May Become More Available

  In September 2021, the first gene-edited food—Sicilian Rouge tomatoes—made with CRISPR-Cas9 technology were officially on sale.

  This gene-edited tomato contains high levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which helps lower blood pressure and aids relaxation.

  Japanese researchers remove a gene from the genome of the common tomato. After the gene is removed, the activity of an enzyme in tomatoes increases, promoting the production of GABA. The GABA content in this tomato is four to five times higher than that of a regular tomato.

  Warren H. J. Kuo, an emeritus professor of the Department of Agronomy at National Taiwan University, explains that both gene editing and transgenic organisms are genetic modification, also known as genetic engineering.

  The earliest technique was genetic modification, that is, transgenic—in which a plant or animal is being inserted a gene from another species, such as a specific bacterial gene. The purpose of artificially modifying plants and animals is to improve their resistance against diseases and droughts, promote growth rates, increase yields, or improve nutrient content. However, the finished product will exhibit the foreign species’ genes.

  Kuo says that transgenic modification is “genetic modification 1.0,” while gene editing is “genetic modification 2.0.” Gene editing is directly modifies the genes of the organism itself, so most of them do not exhibit foreign genes. However, the most common gene editing technique, CRISPR-Cas9, introduces foreign genes as the editing tool, and then removes the transplanted foreign genes.

  While gene-edited tomatoes were on the market, Japan also approved two types of fish genetically edited with CRISPR—tiger pufferfish and red seabream. These fish are genetically edited to accelerate muscle growth. Among them, the gene-edited tiger pufferfish weighs nearly twice that of the ordinary species.

  Back in 2019, the United States had used another earlier gene-editing technique to create soybean oil with zero trans fat and introduced it into the market.

  Gene-edited foods which have also been approved for sale worldwide by now include soybeans, corn, mushrooms, canola, and rice.

  The number of genetically edited foods on the market is likely to increase. Patent applications relating to CRISPR-edited commercial agricultural products have skyrocketed since the 2014/2015 period.

  

  Gene-Edited Foods May Pose 2 Major Risks

  Proponents of genetic modification believe this is a method to perfect agricultural produce and solve problems such as pests, droughts, and nutritional deficiencies. But the technology is still a double-edged sword.

  “Genetic engineering indeed has its benefits in the short term, but it may bring long-term pitfalls,” said Joe Wang, molecular biologist. Wang is currently a columnist with The Epoch Times.

  Hornless cattle were once the celebrity of the animal kingdom, appearing in news stories one after another.

  Many breeds of dairy cattle have horns, but they are dehorned to prevent them from harming humans and other animals, and to save more feeding trough space. To solve the “problem” of horns, the gene editing company Recombinetics successfully produced hornless cattle with gene-editing techniques many years ago.

  The company simply added a few letters of DNA to the genome of ordinary cattle and their offspring didn’t grow horns, either.

  However, a few years later, an accident happened.

  The FDA found that a modified genetic sequence of a bull contained a stretch of bacterial DNA including a gene conferring antibiotic resistance, which has been one of the global health crises in recent years. Scientists aren’t clear whether this gene in gene-edited cattle will pose a greater risk than expected or not, and the FDA has stressed that it’s hazard-free. However, John Heritage, a retired microbiologist from Leeds University, told MIT Technology Review that the antibiotic resistance gene could be absorbed by gut bacteria in cattle and could create unpredictable opportunities for its spread.

  In fact, this is one of the currently perceived risks of genetically edited foods.

  Genetic Accidents, New Toxins?

  The problem with unexpected accidents in the genetic modification process occurs in GM foods because transgenic techniques cannot control where the foreign gene is embedded in the chromosome.

  Kuo used the example of a study that compared the protein of transgenic soybeans and non-transgenic soybeans. These transgenic soybeans were initially embedded with one foreign gene, and should have had only one protein that didn’t exist before. However, the comparison showed that there was a difference of about 40 proteins between the two: Half of the proteins were originally present, but disappeared after transgenic modification; the other half were not present but were added after the transgenic modification.

  In contrast, emerging gene editing techniques allow for more precise modification of specific genes (pdf). It’s like a tailor modifying a section of a zipper by cutting off a specific segment and replacing it with a new one. However, there may be mistakes and unexpected changes in the process of cutting and repairing, and another similar section of the zipper may also be cut off.

  Kuo says that this process may have unforeseen side effects; for example, if during this, new allergy-causing proteins or new toxins are produced.

  “The genetic engineering procedure, and this includes gene editing, has the potential to damage DNA,” said molecular geneticist Dr. Michael Antoniou, head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King’s College London, in an interview in April 2022. “If you alter gene function, you automatically alter the biochemistry of the plant …  included within that altered biochemistry can be the production of novel toxins and allergens … that is my main concern.”

  More Herbicide Use?

  Another major concern with GM foods is herbicide residue.

  Most crops, whether genetically edited or genetically modified, have herbicide-resistant genes incorporated into them. This is done so that when herbicides are applied to crops for weed control, the crops themselves won’t be harmed.

  When planting herbicide-resistant crops, farmers can use herbicides rather liberally. But, long term, the weeds the farmers are targeting become increasingly herbicide-resistant as well, resulting in a cycle of increased herbicide use and resistance.

  Since the introduction of herbicide-resistant GM crops in 1996, herbicides have experienced a significant growth in application every year. The herbicides residue in the crops grown are increasing as well.

  One of the most widely used herbicides is glyphosate under the trade name Roundup. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies glyphosate as a Group 2A carcinogen that is probably carcinogenic to humans.

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researcher Stephanie Seneff and scientific consultant Anthony Samsel said in their study that 80 percent of GM crops, especially corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, sugar beets, and alfalfa, are specifically introduced with glyphosate resistance genes.

  In addition to carcinogenic concerns, glyphosate may have more harmful effects. They have collected and reviewed 286 studies and indicated that glyphosate inhibits the activity of an enzyme in the mitochondria of liver cells—cytochrome P450—which has the ability to detoxify and decompose foreign toxic substances. Moreover, glyphosate also has adverse effects on the gut microbiota.

  These effects are not immediately apparent, but in the long run may contribute to inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis, cancer, infertility, and developmental abnormalities.

  An animal study published in Environmental Health shows that long-term exposure to ultra-low doses of glyphosate still causes liver and kidney diseases in rats.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 22:30

• KFC Ranks Fastest In Drive-Thru Wait Time
  KFC Ranks Fastest In Drive-Thru Wait Time

  One of the stickiest trends that resulted from the virus pandemic is the consumer shift to restaurant drive-thrus. The surge of drive-thru use in the last two years led many restaurant chains to upgrade their facilities to increase the speed of service.

  Restaurant chains have long competed for drive-thru business. Some fast-food companies have widened ordering lanes to two, while others have added sophisticated technology to smooth the process. 

  Speed and ease of service is the goal of restaurant drive-thrus in a post-pandemic world, and now a new study from Intouch Insight shows out of ten major US restaurant chains and more than 1,500 drive-thrus later, KFC has the fastest average wait time of just 5 minutes. 

  

  Besides KFC, Taco Bell is second at 5 mins 18 seconds, and Hardee’s is third at 5 mins 23 seconds. 

  The slowest was Chick-fil-A at 8 mins 29 seconds. Surprisingly, Burger King, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s were all at the lower end of the list between 6-7 min waits. 

  

  If there’s any indication of where the restaurant industry is headed. Chipotle Mexican Grill is now adding “Chipotlane” to existing restaurants and new stores to increase sales via drive-thrus. The battle between restaurant chain drive-thrus is well underway. Before the pandemic, it was about the inside experience — now it’s outside. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 22:00

• Why Are Student Test Scores Plunging? Look At Politicized Education
  Why Are Student Test Scores Plunging? Look At Politicized Education

  Authored by Lance Izumi & Wenyuan Wu via RealClear Wire (emphasis ours),

  Recent national student test scores showed a massive decline in learning in reading and math. This achievement implosion has several explanations – one is the increasing politicization of classroom instruction, which is reducing rigor and diverting attention from improving students’ foundational knowledge and skills.

  

  From 2020 to 2022, reading scores for nine-year-olds on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as the nation’s report card, registered the largest decline since the 1990s, while math scores declined for the first time ever. These score comparisons were the first nationally representative snapshot of student learning during the pandemic.

  While school closures and ineffective distance-learning efforts were important reasons for the slide in test scores, former North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue, who chairs the board responsible for the NAEP, warned, “We can’t keep blaming COVID.”

  Indeed, other important reasons exist for the nosedive in student performance.

  Many students report that increasing ideological indoctrination in the classroom is leading to weaker standards and lower expectations.

  One California student reported that a teacher at his school told the class that perfectionism and striving for perfection was part of white supremacy culture. Another one of his teachers “made it seem like it was bad to have a good work ethic or to be supportive of meritocracy.” In his school, grades were inflated, low grades were eliminated, late assignments were allowed, and multiple retakes of exams were permitted. Rigor simply disappeared.

  “To not teach hard work and to not teach a work ethic is going to be disastrous for the kids who kind of cruise along in public schools,” the student reflected.

  The ideological instruction that this student experienced is happening across the country. It is pushed by special interests such as teachers’ unions.

  The National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers’ union in the country, pushes the critical race theory-inspired position that systemic racism permeates all American institutions and must be taught in our schools so that kids challenge “the systems of oppression that have harmed people of color.” In 2021, the NEA adopted a resolution that would mandate race-based ideological instruction in public schools across the country.

  According to the resolution, the union intends to disseminate its own study that “critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.” The NEA specifically says that critical race theory is one of the methods that should be used to teach these topics in school districts around the country.

  Unions are also using race to undermine teacher quality in the classroom. In a recent announcement, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers reached an agreement with Minneapolis Public Schools to lay off white teachers regardless of seniority or merit before laying off minority teachers in the name of “anti-bias, anti-racism.”

  As one analyst noted, the Minneapolis agreement seeks “to achieve ‘equity’ by reducing standards and replacing white teachers,” while the “sensible (and legal) goal is to expand the pool and retention rate of all qualified teachers.”

  When confronted with the reality of historically low academic performance, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, attempted to flip the script, blaming conservatives and Trump-era education policies for harming learning.

  Yet, many teachers disagree and are speaking out against politicized classrooms.

  Virginia public school teacher Laura Morris quit her job and told her school board, which had pushed race-based indoctrination, “I quit your policies, I quit your training, and I quit being a cog in a machine that that tells me to push highly politicized agendas to our most vulnerable constituents – children.”

  The politicization of classroom instruction leads not only to indoctrination but also, as the California student noted, to lower student achievement. “It’s not a school’s place to impose on the students any viewpoint,” he observes. “What we need to do is really encourage achievement for all people.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 21:30

• Arctic Blast To Blanket Eastern Half Of US Next Week
  Arctic Blast To Blanket Eastern Half Of US Next Week

  A cold blast will descend on the eastern US early next week, forcing tens of millions of Americans to turn on their heaters or fire up their stoves as the cold season comes early. 

  “It will feel more like November for many next week,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tyler Roys said.

  Unseasonably cold weather begins Monday and could last through the week and extend down to the Gulf of Mexico. There’s also a risk of snow across the Great Lakes, Midwest, and New England.

  AccuWeather’s models expect temperatures to dive 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit below average for the first half of next week for the entire eastern half of the country. 

  

  “Daytime temperatures will be stuck in the 30s and 40s F across the upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes region on Monday. Highs are forecast to generally be in the 40s across the interior Northeast on Tuesday, with 50s from Washington, DC, to Boston,” AccuWeather said. 

  The cold blast would indicate surging demand for power as tens of millions of Americans crank up their thermostats to stay warm. Heating demand will rise next week and may put a bid under natural gas prices. 

  Some good news is US NatGas prices have declined for eight consecutive weeks, with prices down more than 30% from a 14-year high in August. 

  

   But the downturn could be short-lived because US NatGas stockpiles are still below average for this time of year.

  

  “Globally, we’re feeling better about ourselves and about the natural gas storage levels that we have now,” Gary Cunningham, director of market research at risk management firm Tradition Energy, told Bloomberg last week. 

  Cunningham said traders have so far priced in mild temperatures in NatGas markets for the Northern Hemisphere, which helps curb demand but warned, “All of that can change very quickly and dramatically if we have a cold start to winter.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 21:00

• In Overheated Economy, Dems Forced To Cool Climate Messaging
  In Overheated Economy, Dems Forced To Cool Climate Messaging

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,

  Eric Sorensen, a Democrat running for an open seat in a northwest Illinois congressional district that Donald Trump narrowly won twice, concluded recently that his campaign website’s top issues section needed a major reshuffling.

  

  A section entitled “Addressing Climate Change,” which was initially leading the page, was relegated to the no. 4 spot, according to a comparison of the archived version of the website. The revamped website’s top two sections were new: “Addressing Rising Costs” and “Securing Reproductive Rights.”

  Sorensen’s re-tooled website reflects the purple nature of his district and the shifting realities of the 2022 midterms as candidates head into the final stretch. Democrats are facing severe headwinds when it comes to the economy and inflation, and they can’t afford to dodge the issue or ignore the pain it’s causing many low- and middle-income Americans.

  At the same time, Democrats still hope that opposition to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning federal abortion protections continues to resonate enough to hand them wins in tight races around the country.

  In unpredictable, ultra-competitive races like Sorensen’s, Democrats are deliberating over every move in the final weeks. The race for the seat held by retiring Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos pits Sorensen against Republican Esther Joy King, a U.S. Army JAG officer reservist running a campaign focused on combating inflation.

  Yet, for Sorensen’s campaign to follow suit – to re-order his policy priorities and slide climate change down the priority list – is telling. The former TV weatherman’s campaign logo still includes a windmill and a sun. He’s also on the record repeatedly stating that climate change is his top priority while claiming to be the first meteorologist to mention climate change on air 15 years ago.

  “Climate change is top,” Sorensen said at a virtual Democratic candidate forum in late April before the primary. “And I was the communicator for events as they happened so our local communities could understand the implications.”

  Why the sudden shift? Republicans offer a succinct explanation: The climate message is backfiring among voters in Illinois’ 17^th Congressional District, which is split between rural and urban areas and is home to thousands of farms, including 157 dairy farms. (Dairy farms are a frequent target of environmentalists, who argue that the cows and their manure produce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.)

  “Eric Sorensen is completely out of touch with Illinois voters,” National Republican Campaign Committee spokeswoman Courtney Parella said in a statement over the summer. “Sorensen wants Illinois families, already struggling to afford basic necessities thanks to Democrats’ inflation crisis, to pay higher costs for his radical climate agenda.”

  The Sorensen campaign, which is endorsed by the National Resources Defense Council, a strong proponent of the Green New Deal, now offers a more nuanced version of his top policy priorities.

  “Our campaign is built around economic opportunity and making sure that Central and Northwest Illinois is sustainable now and for years to come,” Sorensen campaign spokesman Joseph Goldberg told RealClearPolitics in an emailed statement. “On the ground, we’re talking about lowering costs for working families and making sure we’re able to tackle the generational challenges that pose climate and economic threats to constituents.”

  “We can both protect and expand thriving industries in Illinois and solve the climate crisis,” he added.

  Not long ago, however, Sorensen and many other Democrats were wholeheartedly touting climate change as the transcendent issue of our time – and were busy promoting their party’s record on the subject.

  As recently as mid-September, congressional Democrats and the White House celebrated the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is considered one of the most significant climate measures in U.S. history. Signed by President Biden on Aug. 16, the legislation passed on a nearly straight party-line vote and allocates $369 billion over 10 years to various green investments while seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by some 40% by 2030.

  As Biden and party leaders looked on at the White House signing ceremony, singer-songwriter James Taylor trumpeted the law’s green provisions. “It strikes me that this is a time when the world needs to cooperate … more than ever before,” he said of the climate change provisions.

  Last month, Sorensen sent out a fundraising email focused solely on climate change. It highlighted a new study warning that Illinois will be “squarely within an ‘extreme heat belt,’ where dangerously high temperatures will threaten human health with increasing frequency as the planet warms.”

  Yet, in the weeks since the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage, food and rent prices have continued to climb, with free-market economists and other administration critics blaming the law for exacerbating inflation, not easing it. Recent polls also show that the nation’s economic woes have pushed aside climate change as a top-tier voter concern.

  A national poll conducted in mid-August for NBC by GOP and Democratic pollsters found that only 9% of respondents said “climate change” was an important election issue for them. The survey ranked it fifth behind “threats to democracy” (21%), “cost of living” (16%), “jobs and the economy” (14%), and immigration (13%). “Guns” and “abortion” came in just behind “climate change” at 8% each.

  Those are national numbers, however, and concerns about climate vary state by state – and at the county level, which is a more relevant factor in House races. Last year, even before record inflation became the clear driving issue in the campaign, the green agenda was a tough sell in several agriculture-heavy districts, even in reliably Democratic Illinois. The state is the fourth highest producer of coal in the U.S., and over the last decade coal-fired power plants have been the second largest provider of energy in the state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Illinois also generates more electricity from nuclear power than any other state.

  Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a landmark law this month that will transition the state to 100% clean energy by 2045. Pritzker is up for reelection this year and has a lead in the low-double digits. But GOP challenger Darren Bailey, a state senator and farmer from downstate, has repeatedly hit Pritzker over his “virtue-signaling” green agenda, which he’s called harmful to the state’s agriculture industry.

  Sorensen is already at odds with several national labor unions after opposing a pipeline project in the district that would transport liquified carbon dioxide 1,300 miles across four Midwest states and deposit it in central Illinois. The companies involved say the project would help ethanol refiners offset emissions from roughly 215,469 vehicles each year and create 8,000 jobs.

  Statewide, some 1,200 farmers led by the Illinois Farm Bureau contacted their representatives over the summer, asking them to oppose the Inflation Reduction Act and faulting the measure for increasing taxes and failing to address “record-high input for [farming] costs,” among other reasons.

  Meanwhile, a study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, free-market think tanks, predicted that the Green New Deal would have a devastating impact on Midwest farming. The study points out that the Green New Deal’s emissions reductions offset fees of $230 per metric ton of carbon dioxide released will apply to dairy farms and could cost them up to $2,000 per cow. The same analysis also said the Green New Deal’s organic farming requirements would reduce corn and soybean yields by 11%.

  In Sorensen’s telling, however, climate change and the green agenda would be resonating with voters if only the Democratic Party could get its talking points right. In August, Sorensen sent out a fundraising email criticizing Democratic party leaders for not doing a better job selling climate policies, especially in their infrastructure legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which preceded the Inflation Reduction Act.

  “I believe Democrats need more communicators in Washington – individuals who know how to talk about complex issues in ways that highlight the positives but also address real, daily concerns,” he told supporters.

  “This is a common problem that we see with climate change,” he added. “Often, it’s framed around problems that aren’t tangible to everyday life, like ‘saving the polar bears.’ However, that’s not how voters here experience it.”

  It’s a similar refrain to other Democrats who have blasted party leaders for “out-of-touch” positive economic talking points while hearing from voters experiencing pain at the pump and grocery stores. Rep. Susan Wild, a Pennsylvania Democrat running in another competitive House district, said she still backs the Inflation Reduction Act, even though she concedes its promises were exaggerated.

  “[W]e should be cautious about over-promising,” she recently told the New York Times. “You always have to temper your enthusiasm with a huge dose of reality so that people don’t think that next time they go fill their prescription, it’s going to cost less.”

  Despite the concerns from those campaigning on the ground, the White House this week continued to take credit for an economic turnaround since coming to office – even as the president acknowledged in a CNN interview that a “slight recession” is possible but unlikely.

  “When he walked in, small businesses were closed, schools were not open … and thousands of people were dying from the pandemic a day,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. “[Biden’s] economic policies have been able to get us back on track in a historic fashion.”

  It’s that type of happy talk that leaves Josh Riley cold.

  An attorney and former Capitol Hill staffer running as a Democrat in New York’s 19^th District, Riley didn’t mince words recently when blaming the party’s unrealistic messaging for the economic headwinds they face.

  Riley labeled recent talking points from Democratic Party leadership in Washington as “wildly out of touch,” arguing that he would “lose all credibility” if he repeated such unrealistic views on the economy to voters.

  “Yeah, I got to be honest, folks: A lot of it is really bad right now,” he said at a local campaign event. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that, but it’s … The D.C. Democratic establishment is doing no favors.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 20:30

• DeSantis Slams Light Sentence Given To Nikolas Cruz In Murder Of 17
  DeSantis Slams Light Sentence Given To Nikolas Cruz In Murder Of 17

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) had some sharp words over the life sentence handed down to Nikolas Cruz, the man who pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people in a Florida high school in 2018.

  

  “I think that if you have a death penalty at all, that is a case where you’re massacring those students with premeditation and utter disregard for basic humanity, that you deserve the death penalty,” said DeSantis at an unrelated Cape Coral press conference.

  BREAKING: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reacts to the recommendation of a life sentence for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz — ripping the justice system for “not serving the interest of victims.” pic.twitter.com/lA0AqbA9Ef

  — Newsmax (@newsmax) October 13, 2022

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

  “That means that this killer is going to end up getting the same sentence as people who have committed bad acts but acts that did not rise to this level,” he continued. “I just don’t think anything else is appropriate except the capital sentence in this case. So I was very disappointed to see that. I’m also disappointed that we’re four-and-a-half years after those killings and we’re just now getting this. They used to do this, he would have been executed in six months. He’s guilty. Everybody knew that from the beginning, and yet it takes years and years in this legal system that is not serving the interest of victims.”

  DeSantis’ Democratic opponent for Governor, Charlie Crist, agreed.

  “There are crimes for which the only just penalty is death. The Parkland families and community deserved that degree of justice,” Crist tweeted.

  

  Cruz shot 14 students and three adults to death at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on February 24, 2018, and admitted to attempting to murder 17 others. The jury in the case could not reach a unanimous decision on sentencing Cruz to death, which means he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

  Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. The seven-man, five-woman jury unanimously agreed there were aggravating factors to warrant a possible death sentence, such as agreeing that the murders were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”

  But one or more jurors also found mitigating factors, such as untreated childhood issues. In the end, the jury could not agree that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones, so Cruz will get life without parole. –Epoch Times

  “We went through all the evidence and some of the jurors just felt that was the appropriate sentence,” said Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas, in an interview broadcast on local TV station WPLG – indicating that more than one juror was involved in the ‘no’ decision. “I didn’t vote that way, so I’m not happy with how it worked out, but everyone has the right to decide for themselves.”

  Cruz will formally receive his life sentence on Nov. 1 by Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, when relatives, students and teachers Cruz wounded will be allowed the opportunity to speak.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 20:00

• Truckload Market Loosens Again As Tender Rejections Touch New Low
  Truckload Market Loosens Again As Tender Rejections Touch New Low

  John Hampstead of FreightWaves

  By now, most industry observers and analysts agree that the U.S. truckload market has slowed significantly, part of a broader goods normalization and hangover in our COVID-recovery. Multiple spot rate benchmarks have been falling for months; capacity metrics have loosened. Accepted contract loads (CLAV.USA) peaked in October 2021 and just took a sharper turn downward. 

  

  National outbound tender rejections (OTRI.USA), which measure the percentage of truckload shipments tendered by shippers that are rejected by trucking carriers, fell to a new cycle low of 5.05%. That’s a very low level last seen in May 2020, when the economy was climbing out of its lockdown-induced deep freeze. When freight is plentiful and trucking carriers have options, they reject contract shipments for higher-paying spot loads and tender rejections rise. But when the market softens, carriers worry about filling their trucks and take all the contract freight they can get, lowering tender rejections. 

  Trucking carriers have reacted to the slowing business environment by deploying their assets on power lanes between major markets that are still dense with activity. But that tactic has had the effect of driving tender rejections in the largest U.S. markets even lower than the national average.

  

  Trucking carriers are only rejecting 3% of contract loads outbound from Los Angeles and 4.5% of loads outbound from Chicago. Of the five largest markets, only Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, tender rejections at 6.39% are higher than the national average. That higher floor may be supported by the reefer market out of Harrisburg, which is rejecting 7.5% of outbound loads, and may tighten further as temperature-controlled food imports into Philadelphia peak during the Northeast winter. 

  Spot rates fell hard in the first half of 2022, but national averages have been somewhat range-bound since mid-August. The National Truckload Index, Daily Report – Linehaul rate is now at $1.90 per mile, well below the Van Contract Rate Per Mile, Initial Report at $2.70, which itself has fallen about 25 cents from its mid-June peak.

  There are cleavages in the contract truckload market, though, that national benchmarks may sometimes obscure. 

  “I think there is a big gap between live/live contract and drop/drop contract that nobody is talking about,” said William Kerr, president at Edge Logistics, a tech-enabled freight brokerage based in Chicago projected to generate $150 million in gross revenues this year. “When you look at big data rates, you have to take the contract with a grain of salt because 70% of the data is drop/drop.”

  Kerr referred to the distinction between truckload shipments that are loaded and unloaded live, as the driver in his or her truck waits at the dock, and drop shipments in which the driver picks up and drops off preloaded trailers without having to wait for loading and unloading. 

  Setting up a drop trailer pool with a shipper customer requires a higher level of commitment from the carrier and a closer, more collaborative relationship with the shipper customer to manage the assets, and Kerr suggested that the contract rates for that kind of service were holding up better than those for live/live shipments. On the other hand, live/live shipments can be handled by carriers hired the day of, so non-asset freight brokerages have typically concentrated on that kind of business. 

  “I think the correction has been long underway in the live/live market,” Kerr added. “Once we get to February and March and the drop/drop market rolls over, live/live spot will come roaring back.”

  

  The spread between spot and contract rates blew out into negative territory as spot fell hard but has been closing back up toward zero as spot rates stabilized and contract rates started to react to downward pressure. Kerr confirmed that contract volumes were lower than projected, revenue per load was down and net revenue dollars per load were down but that gross margins were holding steady. That implies that in the freight brokerages’ share of the truckload market, both contract and spot rates are actually lower than market averages with heavy exposure to asset-based carriers’ transactions and drop/drop shipments.

  Like other freight brokerage executives who have spoken to FreightWaves in the past month — including Doug Waggoner, CEO of Echo Global Logistics — Kerr seemed to sense pockets of instability and unsound capacity that were primed for the next upcycle. Last month, Waggoner warned that lower truck orders portended an equipment-driven capacity crunch, perhaps catalyzed by an unforeseeable external event sometime in the next year. Kerr’s hunch has more to do with the internal dynamics of the market and the sequence in which capacity and volume enter and exit different market segments. 

  David Spencer, director of business intelligence at Arrive Logistics, a large Austin, Texas-based freight brokerage that will record approximately $2.5 billion in gross revenue this year, agreed that contract rates for drop trailer shipments tend to be stickier because those carriers staging drop trailers at customer locations are harder to replace. So when contract rates are falling, drop/drop rates will be more stable and lag behind any price move. 

  But Spencer cautioned that the economics of drop/drop loads for carriers can be complex: Although they have to provide equipment, they gain efficiencies from quick drop-and-hook freight, allowing them to run more miles. In other words, even if rates for drop/drop loads move more slowly, they aren’t necessarily higher than live/live rates—usually only for multi-day transits, Spencer said.

  That said, there’s a plausible way that a capacity-driven turnup could materialize in 2023. If shippers rapidly shift strategies from focusing on maintaining service to managing spend because capacity seems abundant, they might well de-emphasize drop trailer networks and other contracted and semi-dedicated arrangements in favor of cheap spot capacity. Enterprise carriers, many of which have already paused growing their fleets because of difficulty recruiting and retaining drivers, could find new equipment harder to procure next year. More freight could be pushed into the spot market that way and rates could turn up again, especially if enough time has passed for significant spot capacity to exit the market.

  Time will tell, but for now, with August real goods spending down 0.2% year over year, most parts of the truckload market are on a clear downward glide.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 19:30

• Dems Move To Transfer Air Defense Systems From Saudis To Ukraine As Punishment
  Dems Move To Transfer Air Defense Systems From Saudis To Ukraine As Punishment

  A group of leading Congressional Democrats are seeking to punish longtime US ally Saudi Arabia for the latest “shock” oil output cuts recently announced by OPEC, which was taken by the Biden administration as a direct slap in the face and shot across the bow.

  Senator Chris Murphy and Rep. Ro Khanna are leading the charge to get advanced anti-air missile systems which the Pentagon has stationed in Saudi Arabia removed and transferred to Ukraine. The systems were sent there over the past several years following an uptick in missile and drone attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebel attacks on Saudi cities and energy infrastructure coming from the south.

  

  Murphy announced in a Thursday statement, “For several years, the US military has deployed Patriot missile defense batteries to Saudi Arabia to help defend oil infrastructure against missile and drone attacks. These advanced air and missile defense systems should be re-deployed to bolster the defenses of eastern flank NATO allies like Poland and Romania — or transferred to our Ukrainian partners.”

  As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Murphy also lent his voice to ongoing calls to “freeze new military aid to Saudi Arabia” – which would possibly impact the pending sale and transfer of Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to Riyadh based on a previously approved contract of $650 million

  “Policy decisions have consequences, and these steps would right-size [the] relationship with Saudi Arabia and help Ukraine,” he said this week. The Congressional movement to drastically reevaluate and change the US-Saudi arms relationship has gained traction ever since the October 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as growing alarm over Saudi massacres in Yemen and the dire humanitarian situation.

  On Saudi Arabia, Sen. @ChrisMurphyCT gets specific — he says the U.S. should remove its advanced missile defense systems from Saudi Arabia & send them to Ukraine or Poland/Romania.

  This would have one-two punch of punishing the Saudis & directly helping Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/xJGrXYnBfe

  — Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) October 14, 2022

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  Rep. Khanna too grew more vocal this week following Riyadh not playing ball with Washington on desired levels of near-term oil output. “At the very least, the Patriot missiles will be suspended,” Khanna forewarned. 

  “The reality is that there is no economic case for what they are doing. This was punitive for Americans and it is aiding [Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin,” the representative from California added.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 19:00

• Alaska Snow Crab Season Canceled For First Time After Population Crash In Bering Sea
  Alaska Snow Crab Season Canceled For First Time After Population Crash In Bering Sea

  One year ago to this week, we pointed out, “Alaska Snow Crab Harvest Cut By 88% After Population Crash In Bering Sea.” Back then, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game set catch limits for fishermen. Now the agency has canceled the season altogether because of a continued population collapse. 

  ADF&G published an advisory notice this week titled “2022/23 Bering Sea Snow Crab Season Closed,” which outlines the snow crab season in the Bering Sea will be closed for the first time. 

  

  CBS News spoke with state officials who said a whooping billion crabs have mysteriously disappeared in the past few years, resulting in a devastating population collapse in the region. 

  “Did they run up north to get that colder water?” asked Gabriel Prout, whose Kodiak Island fishing company depends heavily on snow crabs. “Did they completely cross the border? Did they walk off the continental shelf on the edge there, over the Bering Sea?” 

  

  Ben Daly, a researcher with ADF&G, is investigating the catastrophic population crash of the large crustacean. He believes disease could be one of the possibilities. His agency monitors the health of the state’s fisheries, which produce 60% of all US seafood. 

  

  Scientists who study snow crabs have been trying to figure out what happened. Some have said a great migration could have pushed the crabs farther to the northwest and deeper waters due to warmer waters.

  “Environmental conditions are changing rapidly.

  “We’ve seen warm conditions in the Bering Sea the last couple of years, and we’re seeing a response in a cold adapted species, so it’s pretty obvious this is connected. It is a canary in a coal mine for other species that need cold water,” Daly said. 

  The cancelation of the season will be a significant blow to America’s seafood industry. 

  “It’s going to be life-changing, if not career-ending, for people,” Dean Gribble, a crab boat captain who has fished in the Alaskan waters since the 1970s, told NBC News. 

  “A lot of these guys with families and kids, there’s no option other than getting out. That’s where the hammer is going to fall — on the crew,” he continued. 

  The snow crab population collapse might have a ripple effect across restaurant menus, as prices for Alaskan snow crabs could soon jump. Some restaurants might come across shortages of the crab due to supply woes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 18:00

• Democratic Party Moved From Uncomfortable To Intolerable For Members: #WalkAway Founder
  Democratic Party Moved From Uncomfortable To Intolerable For Members: #WalkAway Founder

  Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  While Democrat voters have been leaving the party for years, their reasons have become more urgent.

  “When people were feeling pushed away years ago, to the point where they were starting to walk away, there was more of a casual tone about it,” former liberal Democrat Brandon Straka, founder of #WalkAway told The Epoch Times.

  “People were beginning to feel the effects of leftist, communism, Marxism infiltration into our society, our culture, and our politics.”

  

  Straka founded #WalkAway in 2018 after making his personal decision to leave the party public while inviting others to join him. Since then, thousands of exiting Democrats made social media videos explaining why they were choosing to #WalkAway, giving Straka a window into the minds of these voters.

  At that time, people were just noticing changes in the party, he said. They weren’t always identifying what it meant, but they knew they didn’t like how it felt, and quietly left.

  “But now, it’s akin to cancer. Cancer doesn’t stop growing and spreading just because people don’t like it. And what’s happening with the left is no different,” Straka said. “Particularly with them getting rid of Trump, installing Biden, and the Democrats taking full control of the government. This is a cancer that’s rapidly growing and spreading now. And it’s becoming not just uncomfortable, but I think intolerable, for a lot of people.”

  Democrats More Extreme

  Voters have shifted beyond concern to fear and worry, he says.

  Under Biden, things have become more extreme, Straka said. “People feel concerned about the amount of overreach they’re seeing in the government, the DOJ, the FBI, and that’s a lot of what Tulsi [Gabbard] talked about; there’s a weaponization now of government agencies and the sort of authoritarian approach to government. It’s not reflective of why she became a Democrat. I think that is resonating with a lot of people.”

  Gabbard, a former U.S. Rep serving Hawaii, released a video this week explaining her decision to leave the Democrat party.

  

  “By weaponizing the security state and federal law enforcement for their own partisan political ambitions, Democrat leaders are undermining the rule of law and turning our democracy into a banana republic,” Gabbard said in the video. She talked about policies that have led to violent criminals being released from prison and surging crime rates.

  “Is it any surprise that firearm purchases for self-defense have skyrocketed over the last couple of years? Under the Obama administration, the IRS was used to target conservative groups,” Gabbard said. “Now Biden’s Department of Justice recently indicted 11 pro-life activists for organizing an event blockading an abortion clinic. They didn’t use physical force. They weren’t dangerous.” But seven of the protesters face 11 years in prison and fines of $250,000 each, she said, then mentioned parents speaking about school curriculum being targeted by the administration.

  Compared to the 2018 stories of why people left the Democrat party, the reasons have become more alarming. Things have not gotten better, Straka said.

  “People are truly scared, and they should be. I’m living proof that you might be sitting home, minding your own business, and the FBI might break your door down and take you to jail.”

  Straka says he was scheduled to be a speaker at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

  “When I got there, the doors to the Capitol were open, and I stood outside the building and shot a video for eight minutes, and then I published my video to Twitter. But while shooting the video, apparently, I had entered a restricted area. And so the FBI raided my house in tactical gear, put me in handcuffs, took me to jail, and charged me with two felonies and a misdemeanor for occupying restricted grounds and for being a part of what they called impeding police officers in the line of duty.”

  His case went on for a year until he took a deal to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct in conjunction with Jan. 6.

  

  Republicans Leaving Too

  Although Straka is now a Republican, when Democrats leave the party, they don’t automatically become Republicans.

  “A lot of people in the Republican Party are also feeling no longer represented or disenchanted with the establishment Republicans,” Straka said.

  As members of the Republican Party become more focused on the America First or MAGA agenda, they are less connected to establishment Republicans or Republicans in Name Only (RINOS), he said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 17:30

• Federal Tax Haul Nears Record-High Share Of GDP
  Federal Tax Haul Nears Record-High Share Of GDP

  Federal tax collections are surging — not only in absolute terms, but also as a share of the nation’s output.  

  According to a Tax Foundation analysis of Congressional Budget Office data, the U.S. government’s confiscation of wealth soared 21% in the 2022 fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30.

  In all, the feds took a record $4.9 trillion — $850 billion more than the $4.05 trillion in 2021, which was itself a record.  

  That represents about 19.6% of GDP, which is close to a previous peak that accompanied the FY 2000 dot-com bubble. It’s also within shouting distance of the all-time high of 20.5% set during World War II.    

  

  What’s most troubling about the record tax haul is that it was accompanied by a $1.4 trillion budget deficit, which helped push the U.S. national debt over $31 trillion this month — not counting the unfunded liabilities associated with Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs. 

  Meanwhile, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, policies enacted by the Biden administration will add more than $4.8 trillion to deficits between 2021 and 2031. As Veronique de Rugy points out at Reason, that’s before counting the impact of Biden’s student-loan forgiveness order, which will cost another $400 billion. 

  And imagine how much bleaker the federal financials are about to look as rising interest rates increase the government’s cost of servicing its enormous pile of IOUs. 

  Overnight the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury hit 4% for the first time since April 2010. When the yield rises above 4.014%, it’ll be the highest since Oct. 2008. At that time the #NationalDebt was still under $10 trillion. Now it’s over $31 trillion. Financial crisis on deck!

  — Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) October 11, 2022

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  The juxtaposition of a record-high tax haul and an enormous deficit validates an axiom attributed to Milton Friedman:

  “History shows that, over a long period of time, government will spend whatever the tax system raises plus as much more as it can get away with.”

  With that in mind, the FY2022 results should galvanize those of us who adhere to a “starve the beast” philosophy — that is, supporting policies that reduce taxes wherever possible, contentedly disregarding objections that tax cuts are “fiscally irresponsible.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 17:00

• Chicago Fifth-Grade Teacher Allegedly Made 'Kill List' Of Students, Teachers: Police
  Chicago Fifth-Grade Teacher Allegedly Made ‘Kill List’ Of Students, Teachers: Police

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A fifth-grade teacher in East Chicago, Indiana, has been detained by police after it was discovered that she had a “kill list,” of individuals which included her own students and school staff members.

  

  Teacher Angelica Carrasquillo-Torres, 25, worked at St. Stanislaus School in East Chicago, the East Chicago Police Department said in a statement published on Thursday.

  On Oct. 12 at approximately 5 p.m., law enforcement officers were called to the school due to a “threatening report” that had allegedly been made.

  Upon arrival at St. Stanislaus, officers spoke with the principal and the assistant principal of the school who claimed that Carrasquillo-Torres allegedly told a fifth-grade student about the list and informed them that he/she was on the bottom of that list.

  Police said the student had originally told their student counselor about Carrasquillo-Torres’s list and that the fifth-grader claimed the teacher had also made comments about killing ” herself, students, and staff ” at the school.

  According to police, Carrasquillo-Torres was immediately taken to the principal’s office to discuss her alleged comments.

  “While discussing the matter in the office the teacher allegedly admitted to the Principal that she did in fact make those statements to the student and confirmed that she did have a ‘kill list,’” the statement read.

  “During the conversation, the teacher named a specific student on her list but did not provide the list. The Principal then advised the teacher to leave and not return to school pending an investigation.”

  Wellbeing of  ‘Students And Staff is Top Priority’

  The East Chicago Police Department said in the statement that they were informed of the situation roughly 4 hours after the teacher was allowed to leave the school and go home. They promptly completed a report on the issue and notified the Criminal Investigation Division who were then able to obtain an emergency detention order for Carrasquillo-Torres.

  She was taken into custody by detectives from her home and “without incident” on Wednesday, police said. “This is still an active investigation and no further statements will be made at this time,” they added.

  In a separate statement on social media, St. Stanislaus School said that Carrasquillo-Torres had been “removed from the classroom and escorted to the principal’s office, where she remained under supervision and had no further contact with students,” following the student’s allegation.

  “The teacher was interviewed to further identify the details of the incident,” the school said.

  “After students were safely dismissed at the end of the school day, the teacher was escorted off campus and the East Chicago police department was notified at approximately 4:45 p.m. When asked, the police assured the principal that the facility was safe and that they could proceed normally with all scheduled learning and school events for the next school day.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 16:30

• Elon Musk Alarmed After Apparent Inclusion On Well-Known Ukrainian 'Kill List'
  Elon Musk Alarmed After Apparent Inclusion On Well-Known Ukrainian ‘Kill List’

  Elon Musk has publicly expressed alarm over his name and profile appearing to have been added to a well-known Ukrainian ‘kill list’, following controversy and outrage from Kiev over his prior “Russia-Ukraine peace poll” and subsequent threats to cut funding for Starlink satellite internet services deployed in the country.

  

  On Friday, the billionaire SpaceX founder responded directly to a viral tweet by independent journalist Eva Bartlett which claimed “Musk added to Ukraine’s Myrotvorets kill list (which includes 327 children!),” in which he asked her “is this list real?“

  Is this list real? What’s the URL?

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022

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  Musk later appeared to answer is own question in the affirmative, tweeting out a link to the ‘kill list’ website’s Wikipedia page. The website within recent weeks fell into the spotlight after Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters highlighted his own inclusion on the list.

  “Concerning,” Musk later wrote.

  

  In the case of Waters, Louder Sound writes;

  The ‘list’ that Waters is referring to is stored on the NSFW website Myrotvorets (‘Peacemaker’), which, in addition to posting graphic photos of dead Russian soldiers, allegedly features around 187,000 names of people critical of the Ukrainian government, alongside their home address, phone numbers and contact details. The left-wing UK website The Canary actually identified Waters’ name on the list in an article published in May, stating that the musician was on the database as he is accused of “Anti-Ukrainian propaganda. An attempt on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Participation in attempts to legalize the annexation of Crimea by Russia.”

  Newsweek, meanwhile, in attempting to identify and verify the Ukrainian website suggested that it is independently-run, but at the same time kept open the question of whether it has direct links to the Ukrainian government:

  As various media reports on Mirotvorets note, it is an NGO that keeps an open-sourced database of persons that it deems to have promoted anti-Ukrainian narratives or acted to destabilize Ukraine’s national security. Since the start of the war, it also keeps count of the Russian soldiers and agents killed on its territory.

  It was founded by a Ukrainian politician and activist Heorhiy/Georgiy Tuka. It has also been closely linked to politician Anton Gerashchenko, whom The Times of London in a recent interview referred to as a co-founder of the project.

  According to Rolling Stone, “There is a list maintained by a far-right Ukrainian organization that contains hundreds of thousands of enemies of Ukraine, from alleged members of the Wagner private military company to journalists accused of cooperating with puppet governments in the Donbas region. The site, which has been roundly internationally condemned — but not taken down by the Ukrainian government itself — claims not to be a kill list but rather “information for law enforcement authorities and special services.“

  Concerning

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022

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  Newsweek highlighted that in some instances names of Ukrainians that had their names and addressed published as “collaborators” were hunted down and prosecuted, and that some turned up dead.

  The Mirotvorets list has no official standing in Ukraine, though Al Jazeera, citing the rights group Uspishna Varta, reported that it had been used as evidence in more than 100 court cases against those suspected of involvement with pro-Russian paramilitaries.

  In April 2015 two pro-Russian Ukrainians, politician Oleg Kalashnikov and publicist Oles Buzina, were shot dead in Kyiv.

  Al Jazeera reported that the attacks took place just days after Mirotvorets published personal details, including addresses, about the two men, but no direct link has been found or proven in court. -Newsweek

  And according to Mirotvorets’ Wikipedia page, the site does maintain an “enemies of Ukraine” list, and has even come under censure from Western allies of Kiev, who find it somewhat of an uncomfortable embarrassment.

  “The site has remained open despite repeated requests from the UN, G7 ambassadors, the EU and human rights groups to close it down, and although it has no official status, it acts to supplement government databases at checkpoints,” the Wikipedia page which Musk refers to cites.

  For those who say Ukraine’s kill list *isn’t* a kill list:

  “…a screenshot from the Ukrainian site Myrotvorets, where the photo of Daria Dugina is crossed out and it says “liquidated”.
  “They are openly flaunting her murder,” the Russian envoy said.”https://t.co/6CkLrIehAz pic.twitter.com/3kyxxyDfVr

  — Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) August 24, 2022

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  Eva Bartlett herself, the journalist and pundit that Musk interacted with on Twitter, is reported to be on the kill list.

  Screenshot of “liquidated persons” on the Myrotvorets site… names that appear were accused of publicly supporting Russia or of being “anti-Ukrainian”, or being collaborators with the occupying Russian army.

  

  While a screenshot of Musk’s profile on the kill list is now being widely circulated, his name may have only briefly appeared on the website, reportedly having been taken down quickly after it became focus of attention on social media.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 16:00

• Central Banks Are "Impotent" – Russell Napier Warns Of "Shift Of Power That Cannot Be Underestimated"
  Central Banks Are “Impotent” – Russell Napier Warns Of “Shift Of Power That Cannot Be Underestimated”

  Authored by Mark Dittli via TheMark.ch,

  Russell Napier has never been one of the eternal inflation warners. On the contrary: The market strategist and historian, who experienced the Asian Financial Crisis 25 years ago at first hand at the brokerage house CLSA in Hong Kong, wrote for years about the deflationary power of the globalised world economy.

  «Many investors today still pretend that we’re in the system that we had from 1980 to 2020. We’re not. We’re going through fundamental, lasting changes on many levels»

  Two years ago, the tide turned and Napier warned of a vicious return of inflation – and he hit the mark. In an in-depth conversation with The Market NZZ, which was lightly edited for clarity, he explains why most developed economies are undergoing a fundamental shift and why the system most investors have become accustomed to over the past 40 years is no longer valid.

  

  According to Napier, financial repression will be the leitmotif for the next 15 to 20 years.

  But this environment will also bring opportunities for investors.

  «We will see a boom in capital investment and a reindustrialisation of Western economies,» says Napier. Many people will like it at first, before years of badly misallocated capital will lead to stagflation.

  In summer of 2020, you predicted that inflation was coming back and that we were looking at a prolonged period of financial repression. We currently experience 8+% inflation in Europe and the US. What’s your assessment today?

  My forecast is unchanged: This is structural in nature, not cyclical. We are experiencing a fundamental shift in the inner workings of most Western economies. In the past four decades, we have become used to the idea that our economies are guided by free markets. But we are in the process of moving to a system where a large part of the allocation of resources is not left to markets anymore. Mind you, I’m not talking about a command economy or about Marxism, but about an economy where the government plays a significant role in the allocation of capital. The French would call this system «dirigiste». This is nothing new, as it was the system that prevailed from 1939 to 1979. We have just forgotten how it works, because most economists are trained in free market economics, not in history.

  Why is this shift happening?

  The main reason is that our debt levels have simply grown too high. Total private and public sector debt in the US is at 290% of GDP. It’s at a whopping 371% in France and above 250% in many other Western economies, including Japan. The Great Recession of 2008 has already made clear to us that this level of debt was way too high.

  How so?

  Back in 2008, the world economy came to the brink of a deflationary debt liquidation, where the entire system was at risk crashing down. We’ve known that for years. We can’t stand normal, necessary recessions anymore without fearing a collapse of the system. So the level of debt – private and public – to GDP has to come down, and the easiest way to do that is by increasing the growth rate of nominal GDP. That was the way it was done in the decades after World War II.

  What has triggered this process now?

  My structural argument is that the power to control the creation of money has moved from central banks to governments. By issuing state guarantees on bank credit during the Covid crisis, governments have effectively taken over the levers to control the creation of money. Of course, the pushback to my prediction was that this was only a temporary emergency measure to combat the effects of the pandemic. But now we have another emergency, with the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that comes with it.

  You mean there is always going to be another emergency?

  Exactly, which means governments won’t retreat from these policies. Just to give you some statistics on bank loans to corporates within the European Union since February 2020: Out of all the new loans in Germany, 40% are guaranteed by the government. In France, it’s 70% of all new loans, and in Italy it’s over 100%, because they migrate old maturing credit to new, government-guaranteed schemes. Just recently, Germany has come up with a huge new guarantee scheme to cover the effects of the energy crisis. This is the new normal. For the government, credit guarantees are like the magic money tree: the closest thing to free money. They don’t have to issue more government debt, they don’t need to raise taxes, they just issue credit guarantees to the commercial banks.

  And by controlling the growth of credit, governments gain an easy way to control and steer the economy?

  It’s easy for them in the way that credit guarantees are only a contingent liability on the balance sheet of the state. By telling banks how and where to grant guaranteed loans, governments can direct investment where they want it to, be it energy, projects aimed at reducing inequality, or general investments to combat climate change. By guiding the growth of credit and therefore the growth of money, they can control the nominal growth of the economy.

  And given that nominal growth consists of real growth plus inflation, the easiest way to do this is through higher inflation?

  Yes. Engineering a higher nominal GDP growth through a higher structural level of inflation is a proven way to get rid of high levels of debt. That’s exactly how many countries, including the US and the UK, got rid of their debt after World War II. Of course nobody will ever say this officially, and most politicians are probably not even aware of this, but pushing nominal growth through a higher dose of inflation is the desired outcome here. Don’t forget that in many Western economies, total debt to GDP is considerably higher today than it was even after World War II.

  What level of inflation would do the trick?

  I think we’ll see consumer price inflation settling into a range between 4 and 6%. Without the energy shock, we would probably be there now. Why 4 to 6%? Because it has to be a level that the government can get away with. Financial repression means stealing money from savers and old people slowly. The slow part is important in order for the pain not to become too apparent. We’re already seeing respected economists and central bankers arguing that inflation should indeed be allowed at a higher level than the 2% target they set in the past. Our frame of reference is already shifting up.

  Yet at the same time, central banks have turned very hawkish in their fight against inflation. How does that square?

  We today have a disconnect between the hawkish rhetorics of central banks and the actions of governments. Monetary policy is trying to hit the brakes hard, while fiscal policy tries to mitigate the effects of rising prices through vast payouts. An example: When the German government introduced a €200 bn scheme to protect households and industry from rising energy prices, they’re creating a fiscal stimulus at the same time as the ECB is trying to rein in their monetary policy.

  Who wins?

  The government. Did Berlin ask the ECB whether they can create a rescue package? Did any other government ask? No. This is considered emergency finance. No government is asking for permission from the central bank to introduce loan guarantees. They just do it.

  You’re saying that central banks are powerless?

  They’re impotent. This is a shift of power that cannot be underestimated. Our whole economic system of the past 40 years was built on the assumption that the growth of credit and therefore broad money in the economy was controlled through the level of interest rates – and that central banks controlled interest rates. But now, when governments take control of private credit creation through the banking system by guaranteeing loans, central banks are pushed out of their role. There’s another way of looking at today’s loud, hawkish rhetoric by central banks: Teddy Roosevelt once said that, in terms of foreign policy, one should speak softly and carry a big stick. What does it tell you when central banks speak loudly? Perhaps that they’re not carrying a big stick anymore.

  Would that apply to all Western central banks?

  Certainly to the ECB and definitely to the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. These countries are already well on their path to financial repression. It will happen in the US, too, but we have a lag there – which is why the dollar is rising so sharply. Investment money flows from Europe and Japan towards America. But there will come a point where it will be too much for the US as well. Watch the level of bond yields. There is a level of bond yields that is just unacceptable for the US, because it would hurt the economy too much. My argument for the past two years was that Europe can’t let rates go up, not even from current levels. The private sector debt service ratio in France is 20%, in Belgium and the Netherlands it’s even higher. It’s 11% in Germany and about 13% in the US. With rising interest rates, it won’t take long until there will be serious pain. So it’s just a matter of time before we all get there, but Europe is at the forefront.

  Walk us through how this will play out.

  First, governments directly interfere in the banking sector. By issuing credit guarantees, they effectively take control of the creation of broad money and steer investment where they want it to. Then, the government would aim for a consistently high growth rate of money, but not too high. Again, history shows us the pattern: The UK had five big banks after World War II, and at the beginning of each year the government would tell them by what percentage rate their balance sheet should grow that year. By doing this, you can set the growth rate of broad money and nominal GDP. And if you know that your economy is capable of, say, 2% real growth, you know the rest would be filled by inflation. As a third prerequisite you need a domestic investor base that is captured by the regulatory framework and has to buy your government bonds, regardless of their yield. This way, you prevent bond yields from rising above the rate of inflation. All this is in place today, as many insurance companies and pension funds have no choice but to buy government bonds.

  You make it sound easy: The government just has to engineer a level of nominal growth and of inflation that is consistently somewhat higher than interest rates in order to shrink the debt to GDP ratio.

  Again, this is how it was done after World War II. The crucial thing is that we are moving from a mechanism where bank credit is controlled by interest rates to a quantitative mechanism that is politicised. This is the politicisation of credit.

  What tells you that this is in fact happening today?

  When I see that we are headed into a significant growth slowdown, even a recession, and bank credit is still growing. The classic definition of a banker used to be that he lends you an umbrella but would take it away at the first sight of rain. Not this time. Banks keep lending, they even reduce their provisions for bad debt. The CFO of Commerzbank was asked about this fact in July, and she said that the government would not allow large debtors to fail. That, to me, was a transformational statement. If you are a banker who believes in private sector credit risk, you stop lending when the economy is headed into a recession. But if you are a banker who believes in government guarantees, you keep lending. This is happening today. Banks keep lending, and nominal GDP will keep growing. That’s why, in nominal terms, we won’t see an economic contraction.

  Won’t there come a point where the famed bond market vigilantes would step in and demand significantly higher yields on government bonds?

  I doubt it. First, we already have a captured investor base that just has to buy government bonds. And if push comes to shove, the central bank would step in and prevent yields from rising higher, with the ultimate policy being overt or covert yield curve control.

  What if central banks don’t want to play along and try to regain control over the creation of money?

  They could, but in order to do that, they would really have to go to war with their own government. This will be very hard, because the politicians in government will say they are elected to pursue these policies. They are elected to keep energy prices down, elected to fight climate change, elected to invest in defence and to reduce inequality. Arthur Burns, who was the Fed chairman during the Seventies, explained in a speech in 1979 why he lost control of inflation. There was an elected government, he said, elected to fight a war in Vietnam, elected to reduce inequality through Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs. Burns said it wasn’t his job to stop the war or the Great Society programs. These were political choices.

  And you say it’s similar today?

  Yes. People are screaming for energy relief, they want defence from Putin, they want to do something against climate change. People want that, and elected governments claim to follow the will of the people. No central banker will oppose that. After all, many of the things that are associated with financial repression will be quite popular.

  How do you mean that?

  Remember I said that financial repression means engineering an inflation rate in the area of 4 to 6% and thereby achieving a nominal GDP growth rate of, say, 6 to 8%, while interest rates are kept at a lower level. Savers won’t like it, but debtors and young people will. People’s wages will rise. Financial repression moves wealth from savers to debtors, and from old to young people. It will allow a lot of investment directed into things that people care about. Just imagine what will happen when we decide to break free from our one-sided addiction of having pretty much everything we consume produced in China. This will mean a huge homeshoring or friendshoring boom, capital investment on a massive scale into the reindustrialisation of our own economies. Well, maybe not so much in Switzerland, but a lot of production could move back to Europe, to Mexico, to the US, even to the UK. We have not had a capex boom since 1994, when China devalued its currency.

  So we’re only at the start of this process?

  Absolutely. I think we’ll need at least 15 years of government-directed investment and financial repression. Average total debt to GDP is at 300% today. You’ll want to see it down to 200% or less.

  What’s the endgame of this process, then?

  We saw the endgame before, and that was the stagflation of the 1970s, when we had high inflation in combination with high unemployment.

  People are already talking about stagflation today.

  That’s utter nonsense. They see high inflation and a slowing economy and think that’s stagflation. This is wrong. Stagflation is the combination of high inflation and high unemployment. That’s not what we have today, as we have record low unemployment. You get stagflation after years of badly misallocated capital, which tends to happen when the government interferes for too long in the allocation of capital. When the UK government did this in the 1950s and 60s, they allocated a lot of capital into coal mining, automobile production and the Concorde. It turned out that the UK didn’t have a future in any of those industries, so it was wasted and we ended up with high unemployment.

  So the endgame will be a 1970s style stagflation, but we’re not there yet?

  No, not by a long shot. First comes the seemingly benign part, which is driven by a boom in capital investment and high growth in nominal GDP. Many people will like that. Only much later, when we get high inflation and high unemployment, when the scale of misallocated capital manifests itself in a high misery index, will people vote to change the system again. In 1979 and 1980 they voted for Thatcher and Reagan, and they accepted the hard monetary policy of Paul Volcker. But there is a journey to be travelled to get to that point. And don’t forget, by the time Thatcher and Reagan came in, debt to GDP had already come down to new lows. That enabled them to introduce their free market policies, which would probably not have been possible if debt to GDP were much higher. So that’s why we’re in for a long social and political journey. What you have learned in market economics in the past forty years will be useless in the new world. For the next twenty years, you need to get familiar with the concepts of political economy.

  What would have to happen for you to conclude that we’ll avoid this path?

  If governments went out of interfering with the banking system, reinstated private sector credit risk and handed back control over the growth of money to central bankers. Also, if we had a huge productivity revolution that would make real GDP grow at 4%. This would allow us to keep inflation at 2% in order to get nominal growth of 6%. We can’t forecast productivity, and I never want to underestimate human ingenuity, so we’ll see about that. A third possibility would be voters telling their governments to stop these policies by voting them out of office. But this is not likely because, as mentioned, most people will like this environment at first.

  What will this new world mean for investors?

  First of all: avoid government bonds. Investors in government debt are the ones who will be robbed slowly. Within equities, there are sectors that will do very well. The great problems we have – energy, climate change, defence, inequality, our dependence on production from China – will all be solved by massive investment. This capex boom could last for a long time. Companies that are geared to this renaissance of capital spending will do well. Gold will do well once people realise that inflation won’t come down to pre-2020 levels but will settle between 4 and 6%. The disappointing performance of gold this year is somewhat clouded by the strong dollar. In yen, euro or sterling, gold has done pretty well already.

  What about countries that don’t follow the path of financial repression?

  That’s going to be tricky. Switzerland, for example, will probably stay away from these policies, but it will see continued inflows of capital, creating upward pressure on the franc. Sooner or later, Switzerland will have to bring back some forms of capital controls. That will be a feature worldwide. We have gotten used to sitting in Zurich or London and investing money in the US, in China, in Malaysia or Mexico. There are some emerging markets that are attractive today, as they have low levels of debt. But in a world where large parts of the global economy are in a system of financial repression, there will be all sorts of capital controls. That means that as an investor, you best invest in jurisdictions where you plan to spend your retirement. To me, that means I don’t want to be invested in China at all, for example. The risks of getting stuck there are way too high, as the example of Russia has shown. Many investors today still pretend that we’re in the system that we had from 1980 to 2020. We’re not. We’re going through fundamental, lasting changes on many levels.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 15:30

• Watch: Flying Teardrop-Shaped Air Taxi Makes First Public Debut
  Watch: Flying Teardrop-Shaped Air Taxi Makes First Public Debut

  ​​​​​​A Chinese-manufactured air-taxi made its first public test flight in the United Arab Emirates during the opening day of the GITEX Global technology show at the Dubai World Trade Center.

  According to Reuters, Xpeng’s X2 vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) conducted a successful demonstration flight in the skies of Dubai for 90 seconds on Wednesday. It was noted the aircraft flew an empty cockpit. 

  “This is the first step in achieving the dream,” said Omar Alkhan, Executive Director of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, adding that he expects more eVTOLs like these will be tested soon. 

  Xpeng’s President Brian Gu wrote in a press release that the main reason for testing the eVTOL in Dubai is because it’s a ‘city of innovation.’ 

  “Today’s flight is a major step in XPENG’s exploration of future mobility,” Gu said. 

  Xpeng’s teardrop-shaped design air taxi is considered a fifth-generation model, but the company is currently working on the sixth-generation version:

  

  XPeng said the two-seater X2 will be available in 2024 and should cost around $157,000. 

  The future of civilian air mobility is coming quickly, though countries and their respective flight regulators have a lot of planning to ensure the skies are ready for eVTOLs by the end of the decade. 

  We’ve pointed out that cities worldwide are beginning to look at the new infrastructure that could one-day support landings and takeoffs for eVTOL aircraft.

  If you don’t want to wait for the future, Sweden’s Jetson is already selling personal eVTOLs. However, Jetson chassis have to be reserved. The ones right now won’t be available until 2024. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 15:00

• Israel Shares Intel With Ukraine On Iranian Drones, But Refuses To Sell Iron Dome
  Israel Shares Intel With Ukraine On Iranian Drones, But Refuses To Sell Iron Dome

  Via The Cradle, 

  A senior Israeli official revealed to the New York Times (NYT) on 12 October that Tel Aviv is providing Ukraine with “basic intelligence” on Iranian drones used by Russia on the battlefield.

  The unnamed official also revealed that a private Israeli firm was giving Ukraine satellite imagery of Russian troop positions. In September, western media reported that Kiev had asked Israel to share intelligence on “any support” Iran has been giving to Russia. “The Israelis gave us some intelligence, but we need much more,” a senior Ukrainian official who spoke with Axios was quoted as saying.

  

  Hebrew media revealed earlier that an Israeli defense contractor is supplying anti-drone systems to the Ukrainian military by way of Poland, in order to circumvent Israel’s official stance of not selling advanced arms to Kiev.

  The unofficial sales are likely a stopgap measure to make up for the refusal of Israeli officials to sell Ukraine their Iron Dome missile defense system, reportedly in a bid to maintain strategic relations with Russia in Syria.

  The Israeli defense and foreign ministries on Wednesday declined to comment on long-standing requests from the government in Kiev and its western backers to acquire the Iron Dome system, including pleas made since this week’s Russian missile barrage.

  “Israel has great experience with air defense and Iron Dome, and we need exactly the same system in our city,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an interview 11 October. “We have been talking with them a long time about it. Those discussions have not been successful,” he added.

  The reluctance by Tel Aviv to aid its US-sponsored analogue has not changed much since the war erupted in February, drawing the ire of Ukrainian officials. “Everybody knows that your missile defense systems are the best,” President Volodomyr Zelensky said while pleading with the Israeli parliament in the spring.

  

  “I don’t know what happened to Israel,” he said in an interview with French TV5 channel on 23 September. “I am in shock, because I don’t understand why they couldn’t give us air defenses.”

  But while unofficial reports attribute Israel’s refusal to a lack of inventory and the system’s shortcomings against long-range missiles, analysts agree Israel cannot arm Ukraine directly without shattering its cooperation with Russia in Syria.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 14:30

• Oregon May Elect First GOP Governor In 35 Years
  Oregon May Elect First GOP Governor In 35 Years

  Believe it or not, Oregon might just elect a Republican governor on Nov 8 — thanks to a three-way race and voters fed up with crime, homelessness and public schools used as progressive indoctrination centers. 

  In recent weeks, Republican Christine Drazan, the former Oregon House minority leader, has opened a 3-point lead over Democrat Tina Kotek, a former state House speaker. If she wins, it would be the first Republican victory in a governor’s race since 1982. 

  

  “I’m very concerned,” Greg Peden, an aide to a previous Democratic governor, tells ABC. “I think this is the tightest race we’ve seen and the most complex race we’ve seen.”

  Kotek’s support is being sapped to some extent by a wave-making independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, a former state senator who held office as a Democrat. A recent Emerson College survey found that 9% of Republicans support Johnson, versus 17% of Democrats. 

  Running as a “pro-choice, pro-jobs” moderate who’s held an A rating from the National Rifle Association, Johnson is currently polling at around 16%. That’s well off her peak in the high twenties. However, as the independent’s showing has waned, it’s Republican Drazen who’s moved into the overall lead, according to a polling average maintained by FiveThirtyEight.  

  

   

   

  Drazan and Johnson have both hammered Democrat Kotek on festering crime and homelessness. 

  “Public safety has become the top issue in a way it didn’t used to be,” GOP strategist Rebecca Tweed tells NBC News. “It really is a problem here in Oregon. It’s not just talking points.”

  Drazan has also worked to tie Kotek to term-limited incumbent Democratic Governor Kate Brown, who has the highest disapproval rating of any American governor. Kotek’s campaign, in turn, links Drazan to Donald Trump.  

  Oregon’s wealthiest man, Nike co-founder Phil Knight, recently chipped in $1 million to Drazan’s campaign. That’s after he’d earlier backed independent Johnson with $3.75 million. 

  President Biden, who won Oregon by 16 points, is set to campaign for Kotek on Saturday.

  “They are sending the president in right before the election and that only means one thing — they recognize that they are in trouble,” Oregon state Senator Tim Knopp, who represents the high-desert city of Bend, told KATU-TV.  

  On Tuesday, Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, who pulled off his own blue-state upset last year, will visit the Beaver State to campaign for Drazan. 

  Education factored heavily in Youngkin’s victory, and it’s a theme being emphasized by Drazan and by Johnson, who recently told Fox News that “people are frightened and they’re mad” about what’s happening in Oregon schools. “Let’s not worry about pronouns. Let’s worry about mathematics.”  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 10/15/2022 – 14:00

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