- NATO Suggests For First Time Ukraine Could Cede Territory
NATO Suggests For First Time Ukraine Could Cede Territory
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
A NATO official has suggested Ukraine could cede some territory to Russia in exchange for joining the Western military alliance.
The comments were made on Tuesday by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff for NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and reported by the Norwegian newspaper VG. “I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory, and get NATO membership in return,” he said, adding that it should be up to Ukraine when and on what terms to negotiate.
Stian Jenssen (right), chief of staff for NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Jenssen said the issue of Ukraine’s status after the war is being discussed within the alliance and that some countries have raised the possibility of Kyiv ceding some territory. The comments come as the Ukrainian counteroffensive is stalling, and Western officials are admitting it’s very unlikely to succeed.
The comments mark the first time that a high-level NATO official suggested Ukraine might have to cede territory to Russia.
The US and NATO have backed Ukraine’s demands for peace, which include Russia withdrawing from all the territory it has captured since invading, as well as giving up Crimea, which has been Russian-controlled since 2014.
Jenssen’s suggestion drew a sharp rebuke from Ukraine:
“Trading territory for a NATO umbrella? It is ridiculous,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on X. “That means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations.”
Podolyak said the war could only end if Russian President Vladimir Putin is defeated. “Obviously, if Putin does not suffer a crushing defeat, the political regime in Russia does not change, and war criminals are not punished, the war will definitely return with Russia’s appetite for more,” he said.
Is NATO finally coming to its senses?
NATO chief of staff says Ukraine may have to cede territory to end the war.https://t.co/yadPfVMIbt #Ukraine #NATO
— Dimitri Lascaris (@dimitrilascaris) August 16, 2023
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Russia would likely not go for any post-war settlement that involves Ukraine joining NATO as long as it can keep fueling the war since one of its main motives for invading was Kyiv’s alignment with NATO.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/17/2023 – 02:00 - Escobar: From Bukhara To BRICS, Searching For Light In The Darkness Of Insanity
Escobar: From Bukhara To BRICS, Searching For Light In The Darkness Of Insanity
On the SCO, Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan sit at the same table…
Bukhara The Noble, the “Dome of Islam”, with a history stretching back 2.500 years, bears too many marvels to mention: from the two-millennia-old Ark, a fortress around which the city developed, to the 48-meter high Kalon minaret, built in 1127, which so impressed Genghis Khan that he ordered it not to be razed.
The elegant, single turquoise band near the top of the minaret is the earliest example of glazed tilework all across the Heartland.
According to the Shanameh, the Persian epic, the hero Siyavush founded the city after marrying the daughter of neighboring Afrasiab. Even before the Ancient Silk Roads were in business, Bukhara thrived as a caravan crossroads – its city gates pointing to Merv (in today’s Turkmenistan), Herat (in western Afghanistan), Khiva and Samarkand.
Bukhara’s apex was in the 9th-10th centuries under the Samanid dynasty, as it turned into a Mecca of Persian culture and science. That was the time of al-Biruni, the poet Rudaki and of course Avicenna: they all had access to the legendary Treasure of Wisdom, a library that in the Islamic world would only be rivalled by the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.
Bukhara was largely razed by Genghis Khan and the Mongols in 1220 (yes: only the minaret was spared). When the great Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited in 1333, most of the city was still in ruins.
But then, in 1318, someone very special had been born in Kasri Orifon, a village outside of Bukhara. At first he was simply known as Muhammad, after his father and grandfather, whose origins reached Hazrat Ali. But History ruled that Muhammad would eventually become famous all over the lands of Islam as the Sufi saint Bahauddin Naqshbandi.
What’s in a name? Everything. Bahauddin means “the light of religion” and Naqshbandi means “chaser”. His upbringing was enriched by several pirs (“saints”) and sheikhs living in and around Bukhara. He spent almost all his life in these oases, very poor and always relying on his own manual labor, with no slaves or servants.
Bahauddin Naqshbandi ended up founding a highly influential tariqa – Islamic school – based on a very simple concept: “Occupy your heart with Allah and your hands with work”. The concept was developed in other 11 rules, or rashas (“drops”).
What’s coming out of those “five fingers”
A visit to the Bahauddin Naqshbandi complex outside of Bukhara, centered around the tomb of the 14th century Sufi saint who is in fact the city’s spiritual protector, is an illuminating experience: such a peaceful atmosphere enveloping an appeasing network of holy stones, “wishing trees” and the odd sacrificial offering.
This is the essence of what could be defined as a parallel Islam infusing so many latitudes across the Heartland, combining an animist past with formal Islamic teachings.
At the complex, we meet scores of lovely, colorfully dressed Uzbek women from all regions and pilgrims from all over Central Asia but also from West and South Asia. Uzbek President Mirzoyoyev, extremely popular, was here late last week, and he came straight from the nearby, brand new, airport.
This oasis of peace and meditation offers not only a sharp contrast to the toxic turbulence of the times but also inspires us to search for sanity among the madness. After all, one of Naqshbandi’s rashas states, “our way is conversation, good deeds are found only in mutual communication, but not in seclusion.”
So let’s apply Sufi wisdom to the upcoming, possibly ground-breaking moment that should solidify the path of the Global Majority towards a more equitable, less deranged pattern of international relations: the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa next week.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has coined a concise definition that embodies a fascinating mix of Confucianism and Sufism:
“The BRICS countries are like five fingers: short and long if extended, but a powerful fist if clenched together.”
How to clench these fingers into a powerful fist has been the work of quite a few sherpas in preparation for the summit.
But soon this will not be a matter related to a fist, but to fists, arms, legs and in fact, a whole body. That’s where BRICS+ comes in.
Among the network of new multilateral organizations involved in preparing and acting out a new system of international relations, BRICS is now seen as the premier Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright Lukashenko) platform.
We are still far away from the transition towards a new “world system” – to quote Wallerstein – but without BRICS even baby steps would be impossible.
South Africa will seal the first coordinates for the BRICS+ expansion – which may go on indefinitely. After all, large swathes of the “Global Globe” already have stated, formally (23 nations) and informally (countless “expressions of interest”, according to the South African Foreign Ministry) they want in.
The official list – subject to change – of those nations who want to be part of BRICS+ as soon as possible is a Global South’s who’s who:
Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, the State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, UAE, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Then there’s Africa: the “five fingers”, via South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, invited no less than 67 leaders from Africa and the Global South to follow the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS+ Dialogues.
This all spells out what would be the key BRICS rasha, to evoke Naqshbandi: total Africa and Global South inclusion – all nations engaged in profitable conversations and equally respected in affirming their sovereignty.
The Persians strike back
A case can be made that Iran is in a privileged position to become one of the first BRICS+ members. It helps that Tehran already enjoys strategic partnership status with both Russia and China and also is a key partner of India in the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already stated, on the record that, “the partnership between Iran and BRICS has in fact already started in some areas. In the field of transport, the North-South transport corridor connecting India to Russia via Iran is actually part of BRICS’ transport project.”
In parallel to breakthroughs on BRICS+, the “five fingers” will be relatively cautious on the de-dollarization front. Sherpas have already confirmed, off the record, there will be no official announcement of a new currency, but of more bilateral trade and multilateral trade using the members’ own currencies: for the moment the notorious R5 (renminbi, ruble, real, rupee and rand).
Belarussian leader Lukashenko, who coined “Global Globe” as a motto as strong, if not even more seductive than Global South, was the first to evoke a crucial policy coup that may take place further on down the road, with BRICS+ in effect: the merger of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Now Lukashenko is being echoed in public by former South African ambassador Kingsley Makhubela – as well as scores of “Global Globe” diplomats and analysts off the record: “In the future, BRICS and the SCO would match to form one entity (…) Because having the BRICS and the SCO running in parallel with the same members would not make sense.”
No question about that. The key BRICS drivers are Russia and China, with India slightly less influential for a number of complex reasons. On the SCO, Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan sit at the same table. The Eurasia focus of the SCO can easily be transplanted into BRICS+. Both organizations are “Global Globe”-centered; driving towards multipolarity; and most of all, committed to de-dollarization on all fronts.
It is indeed possible to have a Sufi reading of all these geopolitical and geoeconomic tectonic plates in motion. As much as the promoters of Divide and Rule as well as assorted dogs of war would be clueless visiting the Naqshbandi complex outside of Bukhara, the “Global Globe” may find all the answers it seeks as it engages in a process of conversation and mutual respect.
Bless these global souls – and may they find knowledge as if they were revisiting the Treasure of Wisdom of 10th century Bukhara.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 23:40 - Americans More Likely To Turn To Religion For Meaning
Americans More Likely To Turn To Religion For Meaning
“What makes life meaningful?”
This is an open-ended question asked in a 2021 survey by Pew Research Center to 17 advanced economies. Analysts found that while many people find meaning in their surroundings, both in terms of society and nature, some also mentioned religion.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following graphic, religion and spirituality was mentioned more frequently among US adults, compared to those living in other advanced economies.
Pew analysts also ranked the most frequently mentioned topics, finding that in the US religion came up as the fifth most highly mentioned topic.
By contrast, only one percent of French respondents mentioned spirituality, faith and religion when describing what gives them meaning in life.
Even for this one percent, the topic was less front of mind than it was for their US counterparts, ranking in 15th place.
You will find more infographics at Statista
These figures may seem low due to the open-ended nature of the question, which increases the range of different possible responses. Respondents who answered with reference to God or to religious communities, church attendance and general mention of spirituality or a higher power were counted for these results.
According to the Pew Research Center, mention of religion was fairly similar across age, income, education or gender categories.
That is, apart from in the US, where older adults and Republicans or Republican-leaning independents were more likely to mention the topic than Democrats.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 23:20 - Argentina's Leading Presidential Candidate Vows To Shut Down "Thieving" Central Bank
Argentina’s Leading Presidential Candidate Vows To Shut Down “Thieving” Central Bank
After sending local capital markets into a tailspin and triggering a currency devaluation with his shock win in Sunday’s country’s presidential primary, Argentina’s leading presidential candidate Javier Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist – added to the shock factor on Wednesday when he pledged to close the nation’s central bank while saying he would make every effort to avoid a default on the country’s sovereign debt if he wins the October vote.
Milei, a radical libertarian, told Bloomberg News his bold fiscal adjustment would boost Argentina’s reputation and credit profile, making a default unnecessary.
His plan includes slashing spending by at least 13% of GDP before mid-2025 by dramatically downsizing public works, reducing the number of ministries, removing subsidies and capital restrictions that would allow businesses to transact in US dollars. More drastically, he also plans to shutter the central bank which he said has “no reason to exist”, and dollarize the $640 billion economy.
“I will make every effort to avoid a default, obviously,” Milei said in a two-hour-long interview in Buenos Aires Wednesday. “If you do the fiscal adjustment that’s needed, the financing will be there.”
Milei triggered a market shock when the presidential candidate – largely viewed as an outsider without serious chances for the position until now – came out ahead in the primary, seen as a barometer for presidential elections in a country where polls are notoriously unreliable. The slump forced the government to devalue its tightly controlled official exchange rate by 18% when markets opened Monday.
In the first interview to foreign media after his unexpected win, Milei spoke to Bloomberg and detailed his plan to scrap the Argentine peso for the US dollar as a way to bring down inflation that’s running at 113%, and upped his criticism of the central bank, which he called “the worst garbage that exists on this Earth.”
Argentina’s leading presidential candidate Javier Milei pledged to close the nation’s central bank, calling it “one of the greatest thieves in the history of mankind” https://t.co/IWKrXf3cwM pic.twitter.com/yRau0nlC3e
— Bloomberg (@business) August 16, 2023
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“Central banks are divided in four categories: the bad ones, like the Federal Reserve, the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America, the horribly bad ones, and the Central Bank of Argentina,” he said.
If Milei wins the presidency, he plans to hand over the keys to the central bank to economist Emilio Ocampo, his informal adviser on the dollarization program, so that he can shut it down. Ocampo will also help in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which has a $44 billion program with the South American nation. The candidate says he has no plans to ask the IMF for more money.
“A fiscal deficit is immoral,” Milei said.
“If you live continually with a fiscal deficit, you’re going to be insolvent.”
Just don’t tell that to the US which has had like four annual surpluses in the past 50 years.
Milei said he’s already developed a plan to dollarize the economy, a move he vows would be among his first in case he wins the Oct. 22 election. Argentina would follow El Salvador’s model, allowing people voluntarily choose between currencies.
Once two-thirds of the monetary base is converted, the economy would become fully dollarized, he said.
“If nobody wants to have pesos in Argentina, the question is how much are pesos worth in real terms? Nobody wants them, we’re not talking about water in the middle of the desert. We’re talking about something nobody wants,” Milei said.
Manuel Garcia Gojon writes, at The Mises Institute, that Milei’s full plan – which he laid out in some detail on August 2nd, is nothing if not pragmatic from an anarchist point of view.
The first measure consists of an organizational reform of the government, going from 18 to 8 ministries. The ministries to be included are interior, foreign relations, defense, economy, justice, security, infrastructure, and human capital. No career bureaucrats are to be fired initially, but they will be reassigned. The political appointees will not be renewed and will be kept to a minimum. All government employee privileges, such as bodyguards and drivers, will be eliminated, except in the cases in which they are absolutely necessary for security reasons. This measure also includes initiating the privatization or closure process of all state-owned companies.
The second measure consists of a significant reduction in public spending. For the first budget, they seek to eliminate expenditure items amounting to 15 percent of GDP, taking it from a deficit to a surplus. On the revenue side, they seek to eliminate 90 percent of taxes, which only raise an amount equal to 2 percent of GDP but have a distortive effect. There is also an intention of lowering the taxes that remain.
The third measure consists of a flexibilization of labor regulations. Firing an employee is currently very costly in Argentina between litigation and compensation. This measure is geared toward reducing those costs by making it easier for companies to fire new employees. The balancing side of this measure is the implementation of a private unemployment insurance scheme. With this measure they seek to take formal employment in the private sector from 6 million positions to 14 million positions.
The fourth measure consists of a liberalization of trade. The goal of this measure is unilateral free trade in the style of Chile. This includes the elimination of all import and export tariffs and the reduction of regulatory restrictions.
The fifth measure consists of a monetary reform. This measure includes allowing the use of any commodity or foreign currency as legal tender and the liquidation of the central bank, which would result in the elimination of the Argentine Peso. There are alternative plans for the implementation of this measure, but the leading one is the one developed by Emilio Ocampo and Nicolas Cachanosky. In terms of timing, it would take between nine and 24 months. The conversion would be made at the market exchange rate. Once two thirds of the monetary base has been converted, a countdown for the last date to convert would be triggered.
An additional challenge for this measure is that the central bank has remunerated liabilities three times the size of the monetary base. These are like the Federal Reserve’s program of paying interest on reserves in order to sterilize increases in the quantity of money. The central bank does have some commodities and foreign currencies in reserves but most of the assets consist of government bonds that currently trade at a third of their face value. To access the necessary liquidity to liquidate the central bank, the bonds would be transferred to a fund which would acquire the necessary line of credit using the bonds as collateral. The line of credit has already been confidentially agreed upon. The bonds are guaranteed to increase in price if the budget deficit is eliminated as specified in the second measure.
The sixth measure consists of an energy reform. This measure intends to eliminate all subsidies to energy providers through a recalibration of the financial equilibrium to lower costs to keep the companies profitable and minimize the impact on the cost to the consumers. This measure opens a door to subsidies on the demand side for vulnerable households. They also seek to improve the energy infrastructure through a scheme of public interest declarations for projects which would be financed and executed by the private sector, but for which the government might provide a minimum revenue guarantee.
The seventh measure consists of fostering investment. This will be done through a special legal arrangement for long term investment with a focus on mining, fossil fuels, renewable energy, forestry, and other sectors. In order to foster investment, they will also aim to eliminate foreign exchange restrictions and export fees.
The eighth measure consists of an agrarian reform. This includes the elimination of the foreign exchange spread between the official exchange rate and the market exchange rate through the liquidation of the central bank, the elimination of all export fees and retentions, the elimination of the gross revenue tax, the elimination of all restrictions to foreign trade including quotas and the need for authorization, the promulgation of a new seeds law, and the improvement to road infrastructure through private enterprise.
The ninth measure consists of a judicial reform. This measure includes the designation of a Minister of Justice with the consensus of the judicial branch, as well as the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice without political affiliations to fill the present vacancy, prohibiting members of the judicial branch from engaging in partisan politics, and promoting the budgetary independence of the judicial branch. Furthermore, they will seek to implement jury trials and oral proceedings throughout the country.
The tenth measure consists of a welfare reform. Current welfare benefits will be initially maintained. They aim to move in the long term towards a private system in which users pay for the health and education services they consume. In the short term they aim to provide income protection programs to mitigate extreme poverty, nutritional programs, parental educational programs about cognitive stimulation, greater coverage for preschool, incentives for graduation, programs for the integration of people with disabilities, the promotion of access to private credit, and the elimination of all middlemen in the provision of welfare.
The eleventh measure consists of an educational reform. They aim to move towards a greater degree of freedom to choose the curricula, methods, and educators. The measure also includes launching a school voucher pilot program. They will also establish an evaluation criterion for schools so that they may compete for incentives.
The twelfth measure consists of a health reform. They aim to transfer the subsidization of healthcare from supply to demand to allow for greater freedom of choice and competition. This measure includes providing the existing healthcare benefits as vouchers so that there is no restriction to a specific provider.
The thirteenth measure consists of a security reform. This measure includes reforms to the homeland security, national defense, and intelligence laws, as well as a reform to the penitentiary system to incorporate public private hybrids and intensifying the prosecution of drug trafficking.
The one-time congressman obtained more votes than the pro business coalition led by Patricia Bullrich and the ruling Peronist bloc of Economy Minister Sergio Massa, surprising pollsters who expected him to come in third.
Investors are now worried the country is headed for its fourth debt workout in the past two decades.
Among chief concerns for markets is that Milei, a political outsider, wouldn’t be able to get backing for his plans.
The 52 year-old, who doesn’t shy away from criticizing politicians he says have been robbing Argentines for decades, said he would call referendums if he can’t get legislative consensus to approve his measures.
“If I lower the currency risk, and I lower the credit risk, that means country risk will plummet. It means that bonds are literally going to fly,” he said.
“The truth is its a pretty simple trade. Or, if you buy and hold, for example, returns in a year would be above 200%.”
In the wide-ranging Bloomberg interview, Milei also criticized China and Latin America leftist leaders he considers “socialists,” said he would seek to leave the Mercosur trade bloc and would quickly move to deregulate commodity markets.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 23:00 - Over 40% Of Japanese Women May Never Have Kids
Over 40% Of Japanese Women May Never Have Kids
Some 42% of adult Japanese women may never reproduce, according to a report by Nikkei, citing a not-yet published estimate by a government research group.
An unusually high percentage of Japanese women choosing not to have children could hurt the financial health of the nation’s social security program. © Reuters According to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the medium scenario projects that 33.4% of women born in 2005 will go through their childbearing years without having children, while the most optimistic case is that 24.6% won’t reproduce.
The percentage is even higher for men – with as many as half of 18-year-old males projected to never have children.
Mysteries abound… It’s not just Japan, either:
The share of people without children is rising in such other developed economies as the U.S. and Europe. This has been attributed to a shift in values as more people focus on self-fulfillment rather than having kids.
In these countries, around 10% to 20% of women born in 1970 never had children. The share in Japan is significantly higher at 27% and could end up at more than double Western levels if American and European rates stay around their current levels. –Nikkei
That said, the number of childless adults has begun to drop in the US, UK and Germany, as efforts to encourage people to balance work with raising a family have encouraged many to have at least one child.
Japan, meanwhile, has begun efforts to create a better environment for prospective parents with similar work-style reforms.
You can lead a horse to water…
Despite attempts at government ‘stimulation’ to reproduce, many young people are simply less interested in marriage and children right now, with stagnant wages and uncertainty about the future are cited as reasons.
The Japanese institute’s 2021 National Fertility Survey found a surge in the number of unmarried young people who are fine with the concept of remaining single for life.
“There needs to be an urgent discussion on building a social safety net in every area — including pensions, medical care, nursing care and living assistance — that does not disadvantage people without family, along with funding,” said social security expert Takashi Oshio, a professor at Hitotsubashi University’s Institute of Economic Research.
China and South Korea have also seen plunging birthrates over the past several years – which began years later than Japan’s.
What’s going on?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 22:40 - Fruit With Potentially Deadly Bacteria Recalled In A Dozen States
Fruit With Potentially Deadly Bacteria Recalled In A Dozen States
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Green organic kiwifruit is now under recall in 14 states due to a potentially deadly listeria contamination, according to an announcement posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website.
David Oppenheimer and Company said it is voluntarily recalling some of its clamshell packages of kiwi after testing found Listeria monocytogenes in some of the products, according to the notice. The bacteria can cause listeriosis, a sometimes severe and fatal infection.
The company traced the contamination back to two grower lots in New Zealand. The recalled kiwi, repackaged locally for sale in 1-pound clear plastic clamshells has the Zespri brand and UPC code 8 18849 02009 3, and it has fruit with a sticker featuring a GTIN bar code of 9400 9552.
The recalled products were shipped between June 14, 2023, and July 7, 2023, and were sold in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
No illnesses have been reported to date in connection to the products, according to the notice. No other products from David Oppenheimer and Company are subject to the recall.
What Is Listeria?
Federal health officials say that listeria is a bacteria that can cause severe or fatal illness in children, the elderly, or individuals with compromised immune systems. Healthy people can suffer short-term problems including a high fever, nausea, stiffness, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headaches. Among pregnant women, the organism can cause stillbirths and miscarriages.
Individuals who are infected with the bacteria may see symptoms within a few hours to three days after eating contaminated food, according to the FDA’s website. More severe forms can take three days to three months to develop.
“L. monocytogenes is generally transmitted when food is harvested, processed, prepared, packed, transported or stored in environments contaminated with L. monocytogenes. Environments can be contaminated by raw materials, water, soil, and incoming air. Pets can also spread the bacteria in the home environment if they eat food contaminated with L. monocytogenes,” says the FDA’s website.
Despite the warnings, the bacteria appears to be rare. An estimated 1,600 Americans develop listeriosis each year, while about 260 die, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data.
“Listeria bacteria can survive refrigeration and even freezing. So people who are at higher risk of serious infections should avoid eating the types of food most likely to contain listeria bacteria,” according to the Mayo Clinic’s website. That includes “improperly processed” deli meat products and unpasteurized milk products, it says, while also listing raw vegetables that have been contaminated from manure or soil as a source of infection.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 22:20 - "Doom Loop Walking Tour" Of San Francisco Sells Out
“Doom Loop Walking Tour” Of San Francisco Sells Out
There’s a new entertainment option for people morbidly fascinated with San Francisco’s relentless decline: a “Downtown Doom Loop Walking Tour.”
The, anonymous, dry-witted host invites tourists to “discover the policy choices that made America’s wealthiest city the nation’s innovative leader of housing crisis, addiction crisis, mental-health crisis, & unrepentant crime crisis.” It’s not clear if this will be an ongoing offering, but the maiden tour — set for Saturday, August 26 — is already sold out.
More liberal perks in San Francisco Bay Area. Crime in California is at highest level ever!!! pic.twitter.com/Hg6OuUBiK2
— Dhruven Patel 🇮🇳🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@dhruven_patel) August 14, 2023
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“You will find no better expert,” reads the tour’s promotional page. “Your guide is an urban policy professional, card-carrying City Commissioner overseeing a municipal department with an annual budget over $500m, and cofounder of San Francisco’s largest neighborhood association. He has spent hundreds of hours on both sides of the government dais, shouting into the opposite abyss.”
Due to rampant crime and uncontrollable drug addiction & homelessness, Downtown San Francisco is a ghost town pic.twitter.com/gM5bpAiDIR
— Doochebag (@everyone_fights) August 14, 2023
“The tour will start at City Hall, and continue through Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, and Union Square. We will view the open-air drug markets, the abandoned tech offices, the outposts of the non-profit industrial complex, and the deserted department stores.“
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This is what the people of San Francisco voted for.
A Crime wave and homelessness wave.
Their liberal laws are now backfiring on them, and they are seeing why law and order is needed. pic.twitter.com/59GtaN4c9S
— Akinola A. Raymond (@AkinolaARaymond) August 9, 2023
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San Francisco has deteriorated so much that federal officials are now advising hundreds of Health and Human Services employees to work remotely for the foreseeable future, rather than wade through “one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets” that’s just outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street.
🚨🇺🇸 San Francisco – Federal Offices
Government Bureaucrats instructed to work from home where Federal Office is now unsafe to access.
Homelessness, Crime & Fentanyl usage are simply out of control in many US Democratic run cities that they are now unsafe for civilians to even… pic.twitter.com/PNYie16VWl
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) August 15, 2023
Instead of profit, the tour guide is apparently seeking an outlet for his policy frustrations. He says the tour “is the result of his own mental-health crisis,” and that he’ll donate proceeds to “a non-profit that does not actively degrade its community.”
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Just a common everyday occurrence in San Francisco. The police do nothing. The city does nothing. Crime is just out of control. pic.twitter.com/adWuZMDra4
— HumanDilemma (@HumanDilemma_) August 8, 2023
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The 90-minute,1.5 mile tour promises to tackle a number of questions:
“How can a city with a $14.6 billion annual budget be a model of urban decay? How can it spend $776.8 million per year on police and have no rule of law to show for it? How can it spend $690 million on homeless services and receive an official United Nations condemnation for its treatment of the homeless (‘cruel and inhuman’; ‘violation of multiple human rights’)?”
This woman might be close to figuring it out:
💥 Biden voters now complaining about rising crime in cities like San Francisco.
Where Democrats lead crime follows.pic.twitter.com/SaswP3g1EC
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) August 7, 2023
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Let’s just hope the tour doesn’t get too good a look at the crime situation.
#SanFrancisco : Jogger confronts thieves & has a weapon pointed at him before dropping, tucking & rolling out of the way. Close call. ⬇️ #StaySafe #Crime #CrimeNews #California #TrueCrime pic.twitter.com/FwZR4Ge2J5
— True Crime with Laura🕵🏼♀️⚖️ (@Lauraonthecase) August 15, 2023
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 22:00 - Medical Board Suspends License Of Doctor Critical Of COVID-19 Vaccines
Medical Board Suspends License Of Doctor Critical Of COVID-19 Vaccines
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The State Medical Board of Ohio has suspended the license of a doctor who has offered criticism of COVID-19 vaccines.
A health care worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine in a file photo. (Bay Ismoyo/AFP via Getty Images) The board suspended Dr. Sherri Tenpenny’s license and fined her $3,000 because she allegedly refused to respond properly to complaints that poured in after she testified to state lawmakers.
The suspension is for an indefinite period.
“In short, Dr. Tenpenny did not simply fail to cooperate with a Board investigation, she refused to cooperate. And that refusal was based on her unsupported and subjective belief regarding the Board’s motive for the investigation,” Kimberly Lee, a state official, said in the suspension order.
“Licensees of the Board cannot simply refuse to cooperate in investigations because they decide they do not like what they assume is the reason for the investigation,” Ms. Lee said.
State law enables the board to discipline medical professionals for “failure to cooperate in an investigation conducted by the board.”
Dr. Tenpenny said in a video after the suspension that she had cooperated with the board.
“We cooperated at every level. We looked at the letters; we responded appropriately and legally,” Dr. Tenpenny said.
“My lawyers … drafted responses appropriately and sent it back, and they go, ‘nope, you didn’t cooperate with us.’ Well, I guess that just simply means that they didn’t like the answers. But it didn’t mean that I failed to cooperate.”
Dr. Tenpenny graduated from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1984 and has been practicing medicine since then. The Ohio license is for osteopathic medicine and surgery.
Testimony
The board said that it began investigating Dr. Tenpenny after receiving approximately 350 complaints following her June 2021 testimony to the Ohio House of Representatives Health Committee. The testimony included claims that the COVID-19 vaccines were causing people to become magnetized.
“They can put a key on their forehead, and it sticks,” Dr. Tenpenny said at the time.
The doctor also raised concerns about side effects, including heart inflammation, that U.S. officials have since acknowledged are caused by the shots.
The board said it was investigating whether Dr. Tenpenny violated the state’s Medical Practices Act.
The law says that the board “shall investigate evidence that appears to show that a person has violated any provision of this chapter,” including making a false or misleading statement in relation to the practice of medicine.
Marcie Pastrick, a board attorney, said the complaints included allegations that, if true, would be violations of the law.
However, the suspension was because of Dr. Tenpenny’s alleged refusal to cooperate as opposed to the allegations in those complaints.
Thomas Renz, a lawyer representing Dr. Tenpenny, was cited as telling the board that Dr. Tenpenny was declining to cooperate with what he described as “the board’s bad faith and unjustified assault on her licensure, livelihood, and constitutional rights.” He said that Dr. Tenpenny’s testimony was based on “factual reports by third parties,” including peer-reviewed studies.
Dr. Tenpenny later told the board that it was investigating without any evidence that she violated state law, but the board noted the volume of complaints and how the law says that the “board shall investigate evidence that appears to show that a person has violated any provision of this chapter.”
Dr. Tenpenny must submit an application for reinstatement, pay the fine, and cooperate with the board if she wants it to consider lifting the suspension.
Mr. Renz said that Dr. Tenpenny and her lawyers will fight the suspension in court.
“The board was mad because when they sent her things, we did what they said,” he said in a video. “So if, for example, when the board sends out a questionnaire, and it says, ‘you can either answer this or you can object, and if you object we can compel’—which means going to court to compel—we objected. Well, they didn’t want to go to court to compel, because that would be very inconvenient.”
Mr. Renz noted that the Ohio Attorney General’s Office said that the process for such investigations would “break down” if authorities had to go to the courts each time to compel.
“This is one of the most shocking things I have ever heard,” he said. “We need reform. We need political reform. We need to pass laws now.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 21:40 - 'Zero Applicants, Zero Prospects': Entire Police Force Quits In Minnesota Town
‘Zero Applicants, Zero Prospects’: Entire Police Force Quits In Minnesota Town
The town of Goodhue, Minnesota will be without police in 8 days after the chief and every member of the force resigned.
photo via Goodhue Police Department (Facebook) “I think we’re all a little bit blindsided by it, but we’re resilient and we’re going to move forward,” said Ellen Anderson, mayor of the small town located in the southeastern part of the state.
“I want to reiterate that we will have police coverage in the city of Goodhue,” Anderson promised, adding “That is not an issue.”
Police Chief Josh Smith, who will continue to serve until Aug. 24, told city officials he’s been unable to find anyone to join the force.
“This has been three weeks now, we have zero applicants, and I have zero prospects,” he said on July 26, adding “I’ve called every PD around for the youngest guys out there, getting into the game. There’s nobody getting into the game.”
“If you want to keep the PD, and this is something we want to continue going with, something needs to change dramatically and drastically, and it’s got to happen now,” he continued.
Smith told the Goodhue city council that the dismal recruitment numbers was due to low pay and competition from larger cities, the NY Post reports.
The largest city in Minnesota, Minneapolis, is the site of one of the most important policing stories of the last decade.
The last ex-Minneapolis police officer to be convicted following the death of George Floyd received a sentence of 4 years and 9 months on Aug. 7.
Who wouldn’t want to be an underpaid public servant that’s hated by half the population?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 21:20 - House GOP Investigates State Department Atheism Grants
House GOP Investigates State Department Atheism Grants
Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,
The Biden administration, which came under fire earlier this year for an internal FBI memo targeting anti-abortion Catholic activists as “potential” domestic terrorists, is facing new questions from top House Republicans over its decision to fund a program promoting atheism overseas.
Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panel’s human rights subcommittee, are reviving a nearly year-long inquiry into a 2021 State Department grant they say is designed to expand the influence of atheists and humanists in the Middle East and North Africa.
The GOP House members argue that the program could be violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which bars the use of tax dollars to promote theocracy or a specific religion.
McCaul, Smith, and Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, last week sent a letter to Erin Barclay, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs, and Rashad Hussain, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The letter accuses both officials of “continued noncompliance” with their document requests regarding the atheism program.
“We write once again to ask why it is in America’s interest to promote atheism overseas and why the department refuses to provide certain documents that shed light on that misguided decision,” they wrote.
The trio specifically took issue with the State Department’s April 2021 decision to solicit bids for a $500,000 grant titled “Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals.” The funding notification states that the recipients’ programs should be designed to impact two to three countries across South and Central Asia or the Middle East and North Africa.
“By not adhering to a predominant religious tradition, many individuals face discrimination in employment, housing, in civil and criminal proceedings, and other areas, especially in the context of intersectional identities,” the funding opportunity states. The notice also outlines the program’s objective as an effort “to combat discrimination, harassment, and abuses against atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities by strengthening networks among these communities and providing organizational training and resources.”
In several countries across those regions, blasphemy and anti-conversion laws prohibit insults to the prevailing religion and are often abused when allegations are made against religious minorities, atheists, and other non-believers.
While the State Department grant is designed to assist persecuted religious minorities and those who choose not to believe in a higher power, McCaul, Smith, and Mast are concerned that the program promotes the interest of one specific religious tradition – humanism – as opposed to those of all faith-based minorities. The grant eventually went to Humanists International, or HI, an organization aimed at promoting humanism, an outlook and system of thought attaching prime importance to human effort rather than divine or supernatural powers.
In early June, the State Department told McCaul, Smith, and Mast that its Office of Religious Freedom and the human rights bureau “do not provide funds to any organization with the aim of using such funds to promote or advance specific religious ideologies or beliefs.”
In their most recent letter to the Department, the House critics assert that “even a cursory look into the operations and mantra of Humanists International calls the agency’s claim into question.” On HI’s website, the organization requires all of its member organizations to pay dues and support its five objectives, the first of which is “the advancement of humanism,” the Republicans point out. In HI’s grant application, it specifically states that it will award sub-grants for “organizing events and seminars to promote the positive aspects of humanism and other ethical non-religious worldviews,” including atheism, added McCaul, Smith, and Mast.
The State Department, which announced a shift away from prioritizing religious freedom over other human rights concerns at the beginning of the Biden administration, defended its grant solicitations.
“This [funding opportunity] solicited programs to promote respect for freedom of conscience and the human rights of nonbelievers and others to live without repression and in their societies on account of their beliefs or non-beliefs,” a State Department spokesperson told RealClearPolitics.
“We welcome Congressional interest in our efforts to ensure that all people around the world are free to live their lives in accordance with their conscience and beliefs and will continue to engage with the committee – having already turned over hundreds of pages of documents, hosted two briefings for the committee, one as recently as today, and had the ambassador-at-large testify before the committee in July,” added the spokesperson, who requested anonymity.
Besides promoting humanism and atheism overseas, HI has close ties to member organizations that engage in U.S. litigation to promote humanism domestically, the GOP trio pointed out. These organizations include the American Humanist Association, or AHA, which shares a Washington, D.C. office with HI and American Atheists.
“Far from advancing religious freedom, AHA often takes actions that are antithetical to the idea of religious freedom,” the Republicans argued in their letter to Barclay and Hussain. “HI’s close association with AHA speaks volumes about the true objectives of HI and should be of grave concern to the department.”
The inquiry includes a series of questions and requests for transcribed, sit-down interviews with agency officials. If the agency continues to stonewall these specific requests, McCaul threatened to use his panel’s subpoena power to compel the interviews and responses.
The clash between the House Republicans and State Department officials over the atheism program underscores a deeper conflict over the Biden administration’s decision to shift priority away from helping overseas populations persecuted for their religious beliefs to a broader human rights focus.
In late March, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that shift, which includes a focus on the rights of immigrants and refugees, victims of human trafficking, LGBTQ individuals, and women’s access to abortion, birth control, and other reproductive options. Blinken faulted the Trump administration for what he characterized as an “unbalanced” emphasis on religious liberty over other concerns.
“Human rights are also co-equal. There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken said during remarks at the State Department’s release of its 45th annual report on the status of human rights around the world. “At my confirmation hearing, I promised that the Biden-Harris administration would repudiate those unbalanced views. We do so decisively today.”
Even before Blinken’s statement, administration policies were reflecting the impact of this shift in priorities. Two days into the Biden administration, USAID rejected a project planned in Nigeria dedicated to providing a detailed accounting of Christian and Muslim persecution by jihadist terrorists Boko Haram and militant Fulani herdsmen and others. Thousands of Christians, as well as some Muslims opposed to Islamic extremism, have been killed in Nigeria over the last several years in what some leading human rights activists have labeled a “slow-motion genocide.”
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian, even though Christians make up nearly half of Nigeria’s population of 200 million. According to the religious freedom watchdog Open Doors International, more than 5,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria last year alone, accounting for nearly 90% of Christian deaths worldwide.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 21:00 - Harvard University Shows Students How To Milk Welfare System
Harvard University Shows Students How To Milk Welfare System
Earlier this year, Harvard University organized an event for graduate students, informing them how to milk the welfare system typically used by low-income families, not college students.
The Ivy League university’s endowment is upwards of $50 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world; sent a flier to graduate students, urging them to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in March, according to Vice.
The flier reads: “Fuel your body & stock your pantry. Did you know that grad students may qualify for assistance paying for food & groceries?“
The university’s welfare advice comes as graduate students have demanded that Harvard increase all graduate student workers’ yearly wage to $60,000 from the current $40,000. These workers have gone on strike twice in recent years over low pay. Much of the distress is because the progressive city of Boston has out-of-control living expenses, including shelter and food.
A Harvard spokesperson told Vice in an email earlier this year that the flier would help students sign up for welfare.
… and it appears Harvard isn’t the only university encouraging grads to utilize welfare.
Are you a WVU graduate worker struggling to make ends meet due to meager wages and crippling fees?
This Monday WVCW will be hosting a SNAP benefits sign-up party in the Mountainlair from 11-2PM!
If WVU signs your paycheck, come through! #snapoutofit pic.twitter.com/KjsdKZhPcr
— West Virginia Campus Workers (@WVCampusWorkers) February 19, 2023
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 20:40 - Emails Show Hunter Biden Hired Specialists To Quietly Airbrush Wikipedia: Fang
Emails Show Hunter Biden Hired Specialists To Quietly Airbrush Wikipedia: Fang
Authored by Lee Fang via leefang.com (highly recommend subscribing),
Powerful individuals and corporations routinely tap specialized consultants to edit Wikipedia for more favorable entries, often through anonymous accounts designed to appear organic.
Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop show that he made continuous efforts to airbrush his image and the Wikipedia articles associated with his Ukrainian benefactors.
The outreach by high-priced consultants making stealth edits to Wikipedia, for a period, paid off.
In 2014, working at the time with FTI Consulting, a major public relations and lobbying firm, Hunter sought changes to his personal Wikipedia entry.
“Ryan- below is a start. Eric is my partner and cc’d- he’s going to make additional edits,” wrote Hunter to FTI’s Ryan Toohey in May 2014, referring him to Eric Schwerin, the president of Hunter’s firm Rosemont Seneca. Hunter forwarded along edits seeking the deletion of unflattering lines in his Wikipedia biography, such as his ties to disgraced Ponzi scheme financier Allen Stanford.
Toohey, emails from Hunter’s laptop show, confirmed that his company would get to work.
Wikipedia maintains a semi-transparent system to show the edit history of any article on the website. The history shows that shortly after Hunter’s request, several anonymous Wikipedia accounts began a series of edits to his page, adding changes requested by Hunter and deleting embarrassing lines.
Hunter, the emails show, sought to delete a line explaining that the National Endowment for Democracy, which he previously worked with, had ties to the CIA. He also pushed to include more official titles from his various NGO board memberships.
On May 28, 2014, an account called “AmeliaChevalier” edited Hunter’s Wikipedia to delete any reference to “disgraced financier Allen Stanford.” Over the next few weeks, more anonymous Wikipedia accounts began rapidly editing Hunter’s page, records show. Archives of Wikipedia show that a month after engaging with FTI, Hunter’s Wikipedia page had dramatically changed, with negative references scrubbed, and lengthy passages added to discuss his volunteer work, service in government, and appointments to various boards and political committees.
“This is back in good shape,” Toohey wrote to Hunter and Schwerin, dropping a link to the Wikipedia page. “We’ll be keeping an eye on it for changes.”
Toohey, now a partner at the law-lobbying firm Dentons Global Advisors, did not respond to a request for comment.
One of the more prolific and anonymous Wikipedia accounts making edits to Hunter’s page was a user called “Earflaps,” which made a number of edits, including the deletion of criticism of Hunter’s work for Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm. That account was later identified as a “sock puppet,” a term of art used for the illicit pay-for-play editing by fake accounts, to airbrush negative information off of Wikipedia. An investigation found that Earflaps was one of nearly a dozen fake accounts tied to PR firms hired to carefully manage the image of Russian businessmen.
Subscribers to leefeng.com can read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 20:20 - Socialist Scholar Cornel West Owes $500,000 In Taxes
Socialist Scholar Cornel West Owes $500,000 In Taxes
By Matt Lamb of The College Fix
Socialist professor and presidential candidate Cornel West wants “massive investments” including “free college tuition” and “Medicare for All” as part of his presidential campaign.
Just don’t expect him to chip in on the bill.
According to the Daily Beast, and confirmed by West, the Union Theological Seminary professor owes over half a million dollars in taxes.
The Green Party candidate has “more than $500,000 in outstanding federal tax liens lodged against him in two states” dating back to 2005, according to the liberal news outlet.
He explained, when asked on Monday by commentator Charlamagne Tha God, that not paying taxes is part of his “gangster proclivities.”
“They’re not wasting no time attacking you because now they’re saying you owe a half a million dollars in taxes and they’re trying to say it’s hypocrisy on your part,” the commentator said.
“Because you spent so much of your life advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy. I’m like ‘I ain’t never heard any of this about Dr. Cornel West before but now all of a sudden he’s running for president,’” he said. “Everything’s coming out the woodwork,” another host said.
“Absolutely, absolutely, and the thing is, I mean, I told you before, I got so much gangster in me, I was a gangster before I met Jesus. I ain’t nothing but a reformed sinner with gangster proclivities,” West said on the show.
“Partly it’s because I do like to give to loved ones and others too,” he said. “But I take responsibility for it too. But it don’t make no difference to me.”
“They want to use it as a distraction. Why don’t you keep the focus on the suffering that I’m highlighting?” he told Charlamagne Tha God recently.
Instead of focusing on West’s legal obligation to pay all his taxes, the obligation that all Americans share, the media should instead focus on “the suffering” people in Appalachia, Chicago and Harlem.
“This is just a matter of trying to hit you below the belt and keep the distraction,” he added.”
He appeared to deny a report from the Daily Beast that he also owes $45,000 in child support, saying the outlet was “lying about his kids.”
West first announced he would run for president on the People’s Party ticket, but that organization only has ballot access in Florida. He then switched to the Green Party.
While West is a socialist leftist professor, he has a good relationship with prominent conservatives, appeared throughout the years on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. He also has been supportive of teaching the classics and is on the board of academic advisors for the Classical Learning Test, an alternative to the SAT and ACT.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 20:00 - Will We Sacrifice DC And New York For Taiwan?
Will We Sacrifice DC And New York For Taiwan?
Authored by Francis P. Sempa via RealClear Wire,
Last month, National Defense University professor Donald Stoker wrote a thought-provoking article for Real Clear Defense that examined China’s actions in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and concluded that it will be “exceedingly difficult to deter China in regard to Taiwan,” and that a successful American strategy of deterrence “requires strength, capability, credibility, and will.” A grand strategy of deterrence affects the mind of the enemy–in this case, the mind of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the minds of Xi’s top advisers. The United States and its allies, Stoker writes, must “produce overwhelming doubt in the minds of China’s leaders” that they can take control of Taiwan “at an acceptable cost.”
China under Mao Zedong in the early 1950s in Korea was not deterred from fighting U.S. forces there even though the United States possessed atomic weapons and China did not, and even though America had a much stronger and technologically advanced military than China did at the time. China, Stoker explains, was willing to “endure the risks of escalation, and pay enormous costs in blood and treasure” to protect what its leaders perceived as threats to their security. China also had the advantage of geographical proximity to the conflict. In short, China was willing to risk atomic attack and to expend countless lives and treasure to ensure that the northern half of the Korean peninsula was ruled by a regime friendly to China’s interests.
Stoker notes that China was much less involved in the fighting in Vietnam than in Korea, but attributes that to the U.S. decision not to invade North Vietnam. Stoker writes that Mao told Hanoi’s leaders that his armies would fight the Americans if they invaded northern territory. If Mao was serious–and we have no reason to doubt that–Chinese forces would have intervened in North Vietnam, just as they did in Korea, had American forces crossed into northern territory with the express purpose (as in Korea) of uniting the country under non-communist, pro-American rule.
In both Korea and Vietnam, China had the same political goal–to maintain a friendly regime on its southern border. America’s atomic weapons and its superior military power were insufficient to deter China from achieving its political aims. China’s political goal with regard to Taiwan is to reunify the island under communist party rule. It is the unfinished business of the Chinese Civil War. China’s leaders have been unambiguous about that goal. What will it take, Stoker asks, to deter China from achieving that political goal?
Stoker is not confident that China can be deterred regarding Taiwan. China views Taiwan as a “lost province.” Its value to China’s leaders, Stoker writes, “is exceedingly high,” higher in fact than the independence of North Korea and North Vietnam. The only object that China values more than Taiwan, Stoker writes, is “regime survival.” Which means that to deter China from taking Taiwan the United States must hold at risk the survival of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule on the mainland. We must convince Chinese leaders that if they attempt to conquer Taiwan, we will not only successfully defend Taiwan but will force the CCP from power in China–regime change.
One aspect of U.S.-China history that Stoker did not examine was the two Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s. In the first crisis in 1954-55, China took control of offshore islands, shelled Quemoy and Matsu, and publicly called for the “liberation” of Formosa (Taiwan). President Eisenhower persuaded Congress to pass a resolution authorizing him to employ the armed forces to protect Taiwan–the so-called Formosa Resolution. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warned China that the U.S. was prepared to use atomic weapons to defend Taiwan. By mid-1955, the crisis was over. Deterrence had worked.
Three years later, China again shelled Quemoy and Matsu, sent warplanes to bomb the islands, and imposed a naval blockade. Eisenhower dispatched the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, increased the number of aircraft carriers and warplanes in the region, and let Chinese leaders know that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Taiwan. Once again, deterrence worked.
Why did deterrence work in the mid-to-late 1950s, but not in Korea and Vietnam? The answer is provided by Stoker at the end of his article: “a deterrent strategy requires strength, capability, credibility, and will.” Under President Eisenhower, the United States exuded “strength, capability, credibility, and will.” We had overwhelming nuclear dominance over China (which had no nuclear weapons then) and significant nuclear superiority over China’s Soviet ally. We also had naval predominance in the western Pacific and a huge technological edge vis-a-vis China. In Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, we had two statesmen whose will was unquestioned.
The situation today is much different. We no longer have significant nuclear superiority over China, especially in theater nuclear weapons. We no longer have naval predominance in the western Pacific. Unlike the 1950s when we projected strategic clarity on defending Taiwan, today we continue to adhere to a policy of “strategic ambiguity” that has long since outlived its purposes. Finally, one suspects that even partisan Democrats will acknowledge that when it comes to assessing credibility and will, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken are no match for Eisenhower and Dulles, and Biden and Blinken are playing with a much weaker hand than Eisenhower and Dulles had in the 1950s.
China’s top leaders have not hidden their belief that China will replace the United States as the word’s leading power in the not so distant future. This is part of Xi’s “China Dream” that will put the final nail in the coffin of China’s century of humiliation. China, unlike in the 1950s, is a peer competitor of the United States both economically and militarily. China is modernizing the PLA Navy and its nuclear weapons force. It has also formed a “strategic partnership” with a Russia that deploys a nuclear force that is at least equal to that of the United States. President Xi exudes confidence, while an aging President Biden exudes confusion.
Perhaps a better historical analogy than the Korean or Vietnam Wars is West Berlin during the Cold War. West Berlin was an “island” of freedom surrounded by the East German state and Soviet forces. The United States and its European allies could not have defended West Berlin in the event of a Soviet conventional assault. Yet West Berlin survived. It survived because Soviet leaders believed that the United States would sacrifice Washington and New York for West Berlin. Presidents from Truman through Reagan projected strategic clarity about that, and in Reagan’s case added to that clarity by the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons and cruise missiles in West Germany in the 1980s in the face of massive protests in the U.S. and the West, and a significant propaganda effort on the part of the Soviets to cancel the deployment of the missiles.
China will be successfully deterred from attacking Taiwan only if it believes that U.S. leaders are willing to sacrifice Washington and New York for Taiwan. Strategic ambiguity must give way to strategic clarity. But strategic clarity must include more than words. Which brings us back to Stoker’s requirements: strength, capability, credibility, and will.
Francis P. Sempa writes on foreign policy and geopolitics. His Best Defense columns appear at the beginning of each month.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 19:40 - Cash Crunch Strikes Vornado? Considers Selling Manhattan's Farley Building Amid CRE Turmoil
Cash Crunch Strikes Vornado? Considers Selling Manhattan’s Farley Building Amid CRE Turmoil
In April, Vornado Realty Trust, an office, retail, and residential building owner, suspended its dividend and authorized a stock buyback while shares plunged to levels not seen since 1996. The billionaire head of Vornado in May warned the company was “going to take a breath” in the redevelopment around Manhattan’s Penn Station amid CRE turmoil. Now reports suggest Vornado is exploring options to sell a massive office building to raise cash.
Bloomberg spoke with people familiar with Vornado’s move to “explore options” for the Farley Building, an iconic civic building that features 740,000 square feet of office and 120,000 square feet of retail. Sources said Vornado could sell the building or mortgage the asset to “shore up liquidity during a commercial-property downturn.”
They said the billionaire head of Vornado, Steven Roth, has contacted Newmark Group Inc.’s co-heads of US capital markets, Adam Spies and Douglas Harmon, to review the best strategic options. They added discussions are still ongoing.
What’s alarming is that Roth said the Farley Building is “arguably one of the best buildings of its type and kind in the city.” He then noted: The Farley Building “could be an important source of liquidity.”
This leaves us to believe that Vornado might be experiencing liquidity issues after it has been battered by high borrowing costs and falling office tower prices.
“The Manhattan-based company has been active in selling assets in a bid to boost liquidity. Earlier this year, the firm announced deals to offload four retail properties in Manhattan and the Armory Show,” Bloomberg said.
CRE pains come as the Federal Reserve has aggressively hiked interest rates to 22-year highs.
Vornado shares crashed below GFC levels.
And the overall office REIT space is at GFC crash levels.
Remember last month, Starwood Capital Group’s Barry Sternlicht warned CRE is in a “Category 5 hurricane.” And John Fish, who heads construction firm Suffolk, chair of the Real Estate Roundtable think tank, and former chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, warned in a recent What Goes Up podcast: “Nobody understands where the bottom is” for CRE markets.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 19:20 - The Long Reach Of COVID-19: Unraveling The Cognitive Puzzle Of Recovery
The Long Reach Of COVID-19: Unraveling The Cognitive Puzzle Of Recovery
Authored by Sheramy Tsai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)
Brain fog, the struggle to recall words, and forgetting why you entered a room may be more than mere annoyances. They could be lingering symptoms of COVID-19.
(Pavlova Yuliia/Shutterstock) Researchers in the UK found that individuals reporting long-lasting COVID-19 symptoms—persisting for at least three months post-infection—exhibited diminished capabilities in areas such as memory, reasoning, and motor control. The findings were recently published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine journal.
“The fact remains that two years on from their first infection, some people don’t feel fully recovered, and their lives continue to be impacted by the long-term effects of the coronavirus,” Claire Steves, co-author of the study and a professor at King’s College London, wrote.
The study engaged 3,335 individuals from the United Kingdom COVID Symptom Study Biobank for a two-round evaluation spanning July 2021 to June 2022.
The participants, including both those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and and those who tested negative, were assessed across 12 different tasks. These tasks were designed to test cognitive functions such as working memory, attention, reasoning, processing speed, and motor control.
The analysis specifically examined the effects of COVID-19 exposure on cognitive accuracy and reaction time. It also looked into the role of ongoing symptoms after infection with the aim to provide valuable insights into the impact of the virus on mental functions.
Researchers found notable cognitive deficits in individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and experienced symptoms for 12 weeks or more. These deficits—detected in areas such as visual memory and attention—were comparable in scale to the effect of aging by 10 years or being hospitalized during the illness. Notably, the deficits persisted almost two years after the infection in some cases, which raised concerns about the lasting impact of COVID-19 on cognitive function.
When asked about the daily implications of cognitive deficits as compared with approximately 10 years of aging, Ms. Steves offered a sobering perspective to The Epoch Times.
“The effects are tangible, and although they are relatively small, they are probably noticeable in everyday life,” she explained.
Ms. Steves said that the data represent an average across varying cases. “The changes we report are average changes across groups of people, and some people will experience more or less,” she said.
Self-Perception of Illness and Recovery
The study also sheds new light on how people’s self-perception of their recovery from COVID-19 correlates with their actual ongoing symptoms. The research divided individuals who had developed COVID-19 into groups based on their responses to the question, “Thinking about the last or only episode of COVID-19 you have had, have you now recovered and are back to normal?”
Those who answered “Yes, I am back to normal” didn’t show cognitive deficits. “Importantly, we found no detectable impairment among people who reported as feeling recovered and ‘back to normal’ after their COVID-19 illness, even among individuals who experience long-term symptoms [for as long as or longer than] 12 weeks,” the authors noted.
On the other hand, those who answered “No, I still have some or all of my symptoms” revealed an increase in cognitive impairment. The study found that psychological distress and fatigue partially mediated these deficits.
According to the study’s authors, self-perceived recovery was “highly correlated with symptom duration.” This discovery aligns with smaller studies that have examined recovery self-assessment.
However, caution in interpretation is advised. Dr. Armen Nikogosian, a medical and functional physician treating long-COVID-19 patients, spoke about the complexity of the issue.
“Patients who suffer from the effects of long COVID are typically sidelined in conventional medicine,” he told Epoch Times. “It’s entirely possible that these patients continue to have symptoms not identified or validated by their healthcare providers.”
The relationship between self-perception, symptoms, and recovery appears multifaceted, and this study illuminates some aspects of that complexity.
Cognitive Decline Following COVID-19
Cognitive impairments following infections with viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 are well documented, but the experience of living with the resulting “brain fog” is a complex and distressing reality for many.
Dr. Katherine Pannel, a psychiatrist and medical director of Right Track Medical Group in Oxford, Mississippi, experienced brain fog after contracting COVID-19 and describes the frustration of the condition. “I was hesitant to do any kind of public speaking because I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not find the words. It was so frustrating,” she shared on AMA’s What Doctors Wish Patients Knew.
In January 2021, Jill, a respiratory therapist from Boston, experienced a mild case of COVID-19, marked only by a loss of smell and taste. As the year progressed, symptoms such as fatigue, forgetfulness, and getting lost while driving emerged. Jill’s physician husband helped her to investigate, leading to a diagnosis of mild cognitive decline, believed to be related to COVID-19. They embarked on a regimen of supplements, anticoagulants, red-light therapy, dietary changes, and at-home rehabilitation.
Despite facing setbacks that included microclotting and cognitive impairment, Jill’s continual efforts in rehabilitation—guided by medical professionals—have yielded improvement. Through perseverance and a regimented daily routine focused on diet, exercise, and cognitive training, she has seen progress in her recovery, although challenges remain.
The frustration extends beyond the symptoms themselves, as many sufferers face skepticism and disbelief about their condition, Dr. Pannel said.
“As a psychiatrist, I’m used to stigma surrounding mental health with depression and anxiety, but I’m even starting to see stigma surrounding long-COVID brain fog where a lot of people aren’t believing that it exists,” she said. “And patients are frustrated because they have all these symptoms, but there’s not a lab test or imaging to prove this is what’s going on.”
Solid data backs this anecdotal evidence. A 2022 meta-analysis published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia analyzed 27 studies and found that adults recovering from COVID-19 displayed noticeable deficits in executive functions, attention, and memory up to seven months after infection.
This systematic review, including 2,049 people, shed light on a marked decrease in cognitive scores among those with no prior history of impairment. Determining the underlying causes of cognitive decline following COVID-19 remains a complex and unfolding area of study.
“Often underlying their cognitive decline is chronic inflammatory response syndrome, a complex illness in which individuals process biotoxins differently,” Dr. Nikogosian said.
“Biotoxins from a variety of sources, like mold, pathological gut microbes, Lyme disease, and chronic infections, can lead to chronic inflammation for some individuals.”
This presents a challenge, he said, “when these individuals contract COVID, they struggle to clear the virus, resulting in symptoms such as brain fog.”
Dr. Nikogosian said that treating long COVID isn’t as simple as finding a quick-fix solution. Instead, the underlying health issues must be addressed with care and consideration, reflecting the multifaceted nature of the disease.
Cognitive Decline: Virus or Vaccine?
The intersection of cognitive decline and COVID-19 extends beyond the virus, touching on a growing concern: the potential relationship between cognitive decline and COVID-19 vaccinations. Multiple case studies have identified cognitive decline in individuals following receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine. This phenomenon, labeled functional neurological disorder, has created a parallel dialogue about the cognitive impacts of both the virus and the vaccine.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 19:00 - Russia Destroys Grain Silos Along Danube As US Pushes For 'Alternative' Ukraine Shipping Routes
Russia Destroys Grain Silos Along Danube As US Pushes For ‘Alternative’ Ukraine Shipping Routes
The United States is actively pursuing ways for Ukraine to boost its grain exports via alternative routes after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal this summer. This involves NATO-member Romania, and presents the increasingly dangerous prospect of Russia and a NATO country entering potential clashes.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the US has been holding talks with Turkey, Ukraine, and its neighbors about exporting up to four million tons of grain a month by October, using the Danube River route.
Aftermath of Russian attack in grain storage facility in Odesa region,Source: Ukraine’s South Command “Much of the grain would be sent down the river and via the Black Sea to nearby ports in Romania and shipped onward to other destinations,” wrote the WSJ. “Though slower and more expensive, the route would work as an alternative to a Black Sea shipping corridor established last year under an agreement with Russia, Turkey and the United Nations.”
Ukraine has also been having to rely on slower and much more expensive, logistically challenging overland routes for more and more of its foodstuff exports, while some 50% of its exports must still flow through Black Sea routes.
But any attempt to ramp up sea routes is more dangerous, given Russia has over several weeks increased its attacks on Ukrainian ports and event sent commandos to board a shipping vessel in the Black Sea which was headed toward Romania…
🇷🇺Russians fire warning shots and board cargo ship MV Sukra Okan heading for Romanian port in the Black Sea.
Video shows the boarding party being recovered by Ka-29 helicopter (based on OPV RFS Vasily Bykov)
Via @WarMonitors https://t.co/TlOMqzMYJ3 pic.twitter.com/SXQJ5eZWhT
— Navy Lookout (@NavyLookout) August 14, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
An unnamed US official said the Biden administration “is considering all potential options, including military solutions” to ensure the safety of ships entering Ukraine’s ports on the Danube. As part of the mulled plan, vessels would leave Ukrainian ports and enter Romanian ones and from there be shipped to outside destinations.
However, the Russian naval intercept incident of an allegedly ‘unauthorized’ Turkish vessel bound for Romania and Ukraine highlights that Moscow’s readiness to crackdown on any ‘alternate’ routes for Ukrainian grain. Its forces have even bombed grain silos on the Danube, provocatively close to NATO-member Romania’s territory.
There has been yet another attack Wednesday, per the AP: “Russian drones pounded grain storage facilities and ports along the Danube River that Ukraine has increasingly relied on as an alternative transport route to Europe, after Moscow broke off a key wartime shipping agreement using the Black Sea,” the report says.
“At the same time, a loaded container ship stranded at the Black Sea port of Odesa since Russia’s full-scale invasion more than 17 months ago set sail along a temporary corridor established by Ukraine for merchant shipping,” it added. Thus it appears there are some early attempts in motion at freeing up an alternate corridor. But Russia’s military is continuing to bring the pressure.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 18:40 - Thanks To Government, Maui's Lahaina Fire Became A Deadly Conflagration
Thanks To Government, Maui’s Lahaina Fire Became A Deadly Conflagration
Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,
The most destructive natural disasters are never 100 percent natural. Human choices, land use, and government policies play a big role in how harmful hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, and wildfires are to the affected communities.
And after catastrophes like the wildfire that destroyed much of the historic Hawaiian city of Lahaina last week, it’s worth taking stock of how much of the disaster was the result not of natural or accidental factors, but of policies and institutions that can be changed.
Though details are still emerging, it’s becoming clear that government failure did much to make this disaster worse – and possibly even started it.
While the so-called experts are blaming climate change—and in the process demanding that government grab even more power and authority ostensibly to someday give us better weather—the destructiveness this fire was the product of an all-powerful and all-incompetent régime.
The specific origins of the fire are still being investigated, but there is much we already know. The city of Lahaina sits on the west coast of Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. It is surrounded by grassland, much of which the state owns.
Nearly a decade ago the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a research nonprofit, warned the Hawaiian government that the area around Lahaina was extremely fire-prone due to frequent downslope winds, steep terrain, and dry grass. Little was done to address these risks. A subsequent report in 2020 added that an invasive species of exceptionally flammable grass was prevalent in the surrounding fields and that passing hurricanes created strong winds known to fuel wildfires on the islands.
Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii. By early Tuesday morning, August 8, winds as fast as sixty miles per hour were blowing down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains into Lahaina. Around sunrise, a large fault was detected in the power grid, indicating a downed power line. Twenty minutes later, the first reports of fire came in from the area around Lahainaluna Road, uphill and upwind from the city.
The area where flames were first spotted is full of electrical infrastructure, mostly operated by Hawaiian Electric, the state’s monopoly electricity supplier. This included a substation and a multitude of power lines. Most of the land in the area is owned by the State of Hawaii except for a parcel belonging to the estate of one of Hawaii’s last princesses. This parcel housed a solar farm supplying electricity to the Hawaiian Electric substation. Early last year, NPR published a glowing article about the solar project, praising it the direct result of government regulation crafted to help transition Hawaii to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.
But on the morning of August 8, as winds hammered the old wooden utility poles, this highly electrified area in the dry grasses above Lahaina was quickly becoming dangerous. Yet no formal procedure was in place to shut off sections of the grid in the face of severe fire risks. As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.
But even with downed poles in the way, the first firefighters on the scene met with some early success. Around 9 a.m., the county fire department declared the fire “100 percent contained.” But the message to residents included an ominous request. The county’s water pumps were powered by electricity, much of which was frantically being turned off to deactivate the downed lines. Officials asked the public to conserve water to preserve water pressure.
But by midafternoon, a flare-up brought the fire back to life on the Lahaina Bypass, a major road that heads straight into town.
The flames moved swiftly into Lahaina at 4:46 p.m., one minute after the county government finally sent out an alert to warn the city’s population, largely without power, about the flare-up that had occurred over an hour before.
To make matters worse, county officials failed to activate emergency sirens, leaving residents unaware of the danger bearing down on them.
And as firefighters heroically rushed toward the flames to try and save their community, they found that there was little to no water pressure in the fire hydrants, which quickly ran dry.
With a single backed-up highway leading out of the city, many residents of Lahaina had nowhere to go. Some scrambled into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames. But in the end, many couldn’t get out. At least ninety-nine people have been confirmed dead at this writing, making this the deadliest American wildfire in over a century. In addition, 2,207 buildings were destroyed, with property damages expected to reach $5.5 billion.
To review, a power company shielded from competition by the state placed electrical infrastructure among highly flammable state-owned grass fields above the historic city of Lahaina, which the government was twice warned were highly susceptible to fire. And once a fire broke out, a combination of defective water infrastructure, terrible communication by government officials, and only one escape route doomed the people of Lahaina to the worst wildfire experienced in this country in over a hundred years.
This was government failure through and through. In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises explains that on the market, the ultimate source of profits is foresight—the ability to anticipate future conditions. And economic loss occurs when market actors fail to anticipate the future. This possibility of riches if one succeeds, and the guarantee of painful failures if one doesn’t, forces producers and service providers on the market to constantly weigh risks and opportunities.
Government immunizes itself from the profit and loss system, and therefore from much of the need to weigh risk. Sure, some county officials may resign because of this. And the share price of Hawaiian Electric may dip. But the people of Maui will be forced to keep compensating the very organizations that have failed them. And there’s nothing natural about that disaster.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 18:20 - World's Largest Investor Starts Cutting Tech Exposure, Blames Global Warming For People Not Working In "The Middle Of The Day"
World’s Largest Investor Starts Cutting Tech Exposure, Blames Global Warming For People Not Working In “The Middle Of The Day”
Over the years we have heard and read a lot of very, very stupid things when it comes to “global cooling” pardon “global warming”, climate change, ESG, and so on, but this may be the dumbest.
First the good news: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund – the world’s single largest stock market investor with $1.4 trillion in assets under management – made a mindblowing profit of $143 billion for the first half of the year, thanks to the growth of U.S tech companies (read the AI craze).
It helps that tech is the largest sector among the fund’s equity investments, representing 11.9% of the its total value at end-2022; it also helps that the fund’s holdings in tech companies jumped by nearly 39% in the period, with Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia as the stocks contributing the most, and helping to drive the fund’s 10% overall return.
Now the not so good news: even the Norwegians were shocked by this performance. CEO Nicolai Tangen told Reuters the strong return came as a surprise for such a large fund given “a pretty worrisome backdrop”, with high inflation and geopolitical tensions. It was partly due to AI becoming mainstream from previously being seen as “something with potential”, said deputy CEO Trond Grande. “Now we are seeing that potential being realized and that is being priced in the stock markets of these companies,” Grande told Reuters.
Asked whether he was concerned about a possible crash in tech stocks, Tangen said: “We are always conscious and worried about the biggest exposures of the fund. Now they are in the tech sector. Therefore we monitor that very thoroughly.”
And realizing that the gains won’t last indefinitely, CEO Tangen told a press conference on Wednesday that the world’s largest sovereign wealth has recently reduced its overweight investment position in the abovementioned major tech firm, something which the market has clearly not noticed yet judging by the continued meltup in the likes of Nvidia.
There is another reason why Norway is starting to offload tech exposure: looking ahead, the CEO said the fund expects it will be difficult to reduce inflation worldwide, not least due to a new phenomenon – inflation fueled by climate change.
Which brings us to the really dumb news: the CEO said that global warming is lowering food harvests, and thus increasing food prices, and – wait for it – reducing productivity since some workers are unable to work in the middle of the day in some countries.
“The new thing here is the link between climate (change) and inflation and therefore between climate and financial markets,” Tangen said.
That’s right: the Nordic folks finally discovered… siesta.
But hey, if that’s the black swan that it will take to spook markets which will now rush to frontrun the fund which owns on average 1.5% of all listed stocks worldwide, so be it.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/16/2023 – 18:00
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