Today’s News 17th October 2023

• Germany: AfD Reaches New Record High, Gains Unprecedented 8-Point Lead Over Ruling SPD
  Germany: AfD Reaches New Record High, Gains Unprecedented 8-Point Lead Over Ruling SPD

  Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

  At the same time the governing left-liberal coalition crashes in the polls, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is surging ahead, reaching a new record high in a major state-run poll.

  

  AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla.

  According to the most recent ARD Deutschlandtrend poll, all parties of the ruling traffic light coalition only have 33 percent of the vote, while the AfD is now stronger than the SPD and the Free Democrats (FDP) combined, reaching 23 percent of the vote.

  According to Infratest dimap, the three-party ruling coalition has reached a new low among Germans. Only 15 percent back the SPD, while 13 percent would vote for the Greens and 5 percent for the FDP. Given that 5 percent is needed to enter parliament, the FDP is under threat of being removed entirely, which is putting the coalition on increasingly shaky ground.

  AfD party co-leader Alice Weidel celebrated the new record high, writing: “New record also in the ARD Germany trend: The AfD is now at 23% here too! In addition, 50% of citizens would like the AfD to be in government where it has performed strongly. A great confirmation of our work!”

  Neuer Rekord auch im #ARD-Deutschlandtrend: die #AfD liegt nun auch hier bei 23 %! Außerdem wünschen sich 50 % der Bürger die AfD dort in der Regierung, wo sie stark abgeschnitten hat. Eine tolle Bestätigung unserer Arbeit! #DeshalbAfD #BereitfuerMehr pic.twitter.com/mDFfvv8v69

  — Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) October 13, 2023

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

  The poll showed all three governing parties dropping one point compared to polling from a week ago. For the Social Democrats, this is the worst result during this legislative period; in the federal election approximately two years ago, SPD had 25.7 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, FDP has seen its vote cut in half since 2021, when it received 11.5 percent of the electoral vote.

  The AfD is enjoying a record lead over the SPD, coming in at an unprecedented eight points. Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists (CDU/CSU) continue their run on top of the polls, coming in at 29 percent, a bump of one point compared to last week. The Free Voters and the Left Party would each have 4 percent.

  Voters’ top concern is immigration, while climate change becomes a non-issue

  Voters also say their top concern is mass immigration, with 44 percent of voters naming this as the most important political problem that politicians should address. This issue towers over the other problems facing the country, with armed conflicts/peace/foreign policy only coming in at 18 percent, while the economy comes in at 11 percent and inflation and taxes at 10 percent.

  Regarding the environment and climate change, only 1 percent of Germans list this as the most pressing issue.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/17/2023 – 02:00

• The Greatest Hoax Of All Time
  The Greatest Hoax Of All Time

  Authored by ‘Mr. E’ via bombthrower.com,

  

  Follow Mr. E on Substack and Twitter!

  It should come as no surprise to anyone following my work when I say that both mainstream and alternative media are, to a very large extent, part of the controlled dialectic put forth by the ruling class. It helps to maintain a division of society, promulgated by useful idiots and true believers of either side’s dogma.

  Malcolm X’s famous quote applies:

  The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.

  It behooves everyone to have a healthy skepticism of whatever they hear no matter the outlet. But even more concerning to you is when they all begin to push the same narrative. In this report you’re going to see just how much effort some are willing to exert in the maintenance of a popular scapegoat – the Freemasons.

  In the days following the breakout of violence in Israel and Gaza Greg Reese, producer of the popular Reese Report, published a video outlining the contents of a letter allegedly written by Freemason Albert Pike on August 15, 1871. The very same letter was reported on in rapid succession by mainstream outlets The Daily Star, Daily Mail, News.com.au, and Express.co.uk in 2016. A South African newspaper also reported on it in 2013.

  All these reports make mention that this letter “allegedly” exists, but none went so far as to even attempt to confirm this. They didn’t investigate the sources, and merely uncritically repeated something that appeared too good to be true.

  The Devil in the Nineteenth Century

  We must go back over 130 years to get to the bottom of this story, and it all begins in France with a man named Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès, better known as Léo Taxil. Born in 1854 he was placed in Jesuit seminary school, where he came to be disillusioned with the Catholic faith and religion in general.

  

  Eventually becoming a writer, he targeted Christianity with scathing critiques such as The Holy Pornographers: Confession and Confessors and The Pope’s Mistresses. He even ventured into satirical pieces like The Life of Jesus, making a mockery of the immaculate conception, and The Amusing Bible. In 1884 he wrote The Secret Loves of Pope Pius IX, which is exactly what the salacious title suggests and eventually led to accusations of libel.

  

  Also in 1884, Pope Leo XIII published an encyclical on Freemasonry where he declared:

  The race of man, after its miserable fall from God … separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth … The other is the kingdom of Satan … At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other, with a variety and multiplicity of weapons and of warfare, although not always with equal ardour and assault. At this period, however, the partisans of evil seems to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons. No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God Himself. They are planning the destruction of holy Church publicly and openly, and this with the set purpose of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom, if it were possible, of the blessings obtained for us through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

  Perhaps swayed by this polemic, Taxil announced he had converted back to Catholicism in 1885 and set to work on an entirely different literary endeavor with a new target, the Freemasons. Over the next several years he published Les Mystères de la Franc-Maçonnerie, a four-volume history of Freemasonry containing curious-but-unsourced accounts of eyewitness’s participation in strange rites. The books were sensational and Taxil even had an audience with Pope Leo XIII himself to congratulate him on all his good works exposing the dastardly plans of the Freemasons.

  

  The best was yet to come, however, when he teamed up with Dr. Karl Hacks to write the two-volume Le Diable au XIXe Siècle, published in 1892 and 1894, telling the insider tale of one Diana Vaughan in the words of Doctor Bataille. The lurid details of her account boggle the mind. She was a member of the Palladium Rite, under the command of Albert Pike, where she was involved in ritual orgies and blood sacrifices. They would summon demons in physical form, and she was even betrothed to one of them.

  

  Chapter 25 of the second volume is entitled “Plan of the Secret Chiefs,” and it purportedly contains the text of a plan written on August 15, 1871, by Albert Pike and the leadership of the Palladium Rite, detailing their plan for the destruction of Roman Catholicism. The description of the final coup-de-grace contains a paragraph that has gone on to be legend:

  Therefore, when the autocratic Empire of Russia will become the citadel of papist adonaism, we shall unleash the revolutionary nihilists and atheists, and provoke a formidable social cataclysm, which will demonstrate clearly to the nations, in all its horror, the effect of absolute unbelief, mother of savagery and of the bloodiest disorder. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the mad minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate these destroyers of civilization; and the countless disillusioned adonaites, whose deist soul have up until that time remained without a compass, thirsting for an ideal, but not knowing which God is worthy of tribute, will receive the True Light, by the universal manifestation of the pure Luciferian doctrine, at last made public, an event that will arise from a reactionary movement following the destruction of atheism and adonaism, together at the same time vanquished and exterminated.

  Catholics fell in love with Taxil’s work, and a Catholic journalist by the name of Abel Clarin de la Rive became friends with Taxil, believing unreservedly in his revelations about the Masonic threat the Church faced. Taxil authorized de la Rive to publish a quote by Albert Pike alleged by Diana Vaughan, Taxil’s whistleblower, in his 1894 book La Femme et l’Enfant Dans la Franc-Maçonnerie Universelle:

  That which we must say to the world is that we worship a god, but it is the god that one adores without superstition. To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees: The masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the higher degrees, maintained in the Purity of the Luciferian doctrine. If Lucifer were not God, would Adonay and his priests calumniate him?

  Yes, Lucifer is God, and unfortunately Adonay is also god. For the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black, for the absolute can only exist as two gods; darkness being necessary for light to serve as its foil as the pedestal is necessary to the statue, and the brake to the locomotive.

  Thus, the doctrine of Satanism is a heresy, and the true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonay; but Lucifer, God of Light and God of Good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the God of Darkness and Evil.

  

  The assault upon Freemasonry drew intense criticism from their ranks, as well as from other esoteric societies. In 1896 Arthur Edward Waite, a British poet and mystic who wrote extensively on the occult, published Devil Worship in France, a comprehensive refutation of Taxil’s allegations.

  By 1897 everyone was becoming impatient with Taxil, whose stories had been growing ever more radical and grotesque. They wanted to meet Diana Vaughan, in person, and Taxil eventually obliged.

  The Confession

  On the evening of April 19, 1897, Taxil held a press conference at the Hall of the Geographic Society in Paris. Many reporters, Catholic priests, Freemasons, monks, and other illustrious figures from around the world were in attendance. After raffling off a typewriter used by Diana Vaughan (the winner being M. Ali Kental, Editor of Ikdam, at Constantinople), Léo Taxil finally addresses his audience.

  He reveals there is no Dr. Karl Hacks, there is no Dr. Bataille, there is no Diana Vaughan, there is no Palladium Rite.

  “There wasn’t the least masonic plot in this story,” he says, and denies that his conversion to Catholicism was in earnest – all part of the prank, to win the Church’s trust and approbation. Diana Vaughan was a real person, but she was only his typist and collaborator in this colossal fraud designed to deeply embarrass the Catholic Church and become the crown jewel of his anti-clerical work.

  Slandering Freemasons was the best way to establish the foundations of the colossal prank of which I savored all the suave happiness in advance. – Léo Taxil

  After explaining in immense detail how everything he published on Freemasonry over the last 12 years was a monumental hoax, Taxil concludes his press conference saying, “You were told that Palladism would be knocked down today, better still, it is annihilated, it is no more,” and that “Palladism is now dead for good. Its father just murdered it.” The audience erupts calumniously, with Catholics hissing and screaming, a priest mounts a chair to try and maintain order, and it becomes obvious why Taxil had the attendees check their walking sticks at the door – some would certainly have beaten him to death on the spot.

  

  They ought to have known better, though, as Taxil’s extensive use of the Baphomet throughout the entirety of his hoax was a dead giveaway that not all was as it seemed. Created several decades prior by another Frenchman, Éliphas Lévi, it was clearly stated in the book in which it first appeared that it was not a representation of a demon or the devil, but something far more complex and esoteric. Ultimately, it was Lévi’s attempt at rehabilitating the image of the extinct Knights Templar, who were massacred by the Catholic Church in the year 1312 after a campaign of blood libel, and false confessions obtained by gruesome tortures. Nevertheless, it found great use being circulated by others like Taxil and de la Rive as a demonic idol.

  The shock of Taxil’s confession, the entirety of which was published in Parisian newspaper Le Frondeur on April 25, 1897, rocked the world. The same day Le Père Peinard, a weekly Parisian journal for anarchists, published a detailed recounting of the event.

  

  Here is but a sampling of other stories published about Taxil’s infamous confession:

  • “Personal,” The New York Times, April 30, 1897, Page 6.
  • “The Hoax of the Century,” Dunstan Times, Issue 1819, 18 June 1897, Page 3.
  • “The Hoax of the Century,” Evening Star, Issue 10332, 4 June 1897, Page 1.
  • “The Finest Hoax of the Century,” New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10461, 5 June 1897, Page 2 (Supplement).
  • “The Hoax of the Century,” Oamaru Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 6909, 7 June 1897, Page 1.
  • “The Hoax of the Century,” Hawke’s Bay Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10630, 8 June 1897, Page 2.
  • “Freemasons and the Devil,” Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 136, 12 June 1897, Page 1 (Supplement).
  • “A Great Scandal Exploded,” North Otago Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 8918, 15 June 1897, Page 1.
  • “The Diana Vaughan Case,” Grey River Argus, Volume LVII, Issue 9733, 26 July 1897, Page 4.
  • “Curious Fraud in France,” Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXI, Issue 178, 29 July 1897, Page 4.

  Taxil further elaborated on the intentions behind his grand hoax in a 1906 interview in Volume XXIV of The National Magazine:

  The public made me what I am; the arch-liar of the period, for when I first commenced to write against the Masons my object was amusement pure and simple. The crimes I laid at their door were so grotesque, so impossible, so widely exaggerated, I thought everybody would see the joke and give me credit for originating a new line of humor. But my readers wouldn’t have it so; they accepted my fables as gospel truth, and the more I lied for the purpose of showing that I lied, the more convinced became they that I was a paragon of veracity.

  Then it dawned upon me that there was lots of money in being a Munchausen of the right kind, and for twelve years I gave it to them hot and strong, but never too hot. When inditing such slush as the story of the devil snake who wrote prophecies on Diana’s back with the end of his tail, I sometimes said to myself: “Hold on, you are going too far,” but I didn’t. My readers even took kindly to the yarn of the devil who, in order to marry a Mason, transformed himself into a crocodile, and, despite the masquerade, played the piano wonderfully well.

  One day when lecturing at Lille, I told my audience that I had just had an apparition of Nautilus, the most daring affront on human credulity I had so far risked. But my hearers never turned a hair. “Hear ye, the doctor has seen Nautulius,” they said with admiring glances. Of course no one had a clear idea of who Nautilus was, I didn’t myself, but they assumed that he was a devil.

  Ah, the jolly evenings I spent with my fellow authors hatching out new plots, new, unheard of perversions of truth and logic, each trying to outdo the other in organized mystification. I thought I would kill myself laughing at some of the things proposed, but everything went; there is no limit to human stupidity.

  Taxil would die ten months later in March 1907. In November of the same year the Sydney-based Catholic Press published an anonymous letter eulogizing Taxil as “The World’s Worst Liar,” and that he had “died despised by those who had known him and by the great world he had cheated,” while calling him a “horrible buffoon,” whose “thrilling fairy tale under the guise of fact took the Catholic world by storm.” More accurately, however, they also called his hoax “the most successful fraud of the nineteenth century,” something Taxil certainly would have taken as a compliment.

  

  It was Taxil’s intent to exploit people’s tendency towards confirmation bias in his hoax, which had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. However, what he didn’t foresee was that the egos of his victims were so big that they would carry on pushing his fabrications as if nothing had happened. Confession or not, it had to be true.

  The World in Chaos

  With World War I kicking off in 1914, followed by the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, people were scrambling for a coherent explanation of why so much chaos was being sown around the world. In 1920 a book called The Cause of World Unrest emerged attempting to explain it all. It was an anonymous compilation of essays originally published in the London Morning Post in July of the same year.

  In one of the essays we find Taxil’s magisterial hoax cited as truth, describing the chapter already mentioned above from Le Diable au XIXe Siècle about the written plan drawn up on August 15, 1871 by the fictitious Palladian Rite for global destruction. A familiar paragraph from the so-called plan is reproduced in The Cause:

  That is why, when the autocratic Empire of Russia will have become the citadel of Papal Christianity (adonaisme papiste), we shall unchain the revolutionary Nihilists and Atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm, which will demonstrate clearly to the nations, in all its horror, the effect of absolute unbelief, mother of savagery and of the most bloody disorder. Then, everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the mad minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate these destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned of Christianity, whose deist soul will up to that moment be without compass, thirsting for an ideal, but not knowing where to bestow their worship, will receive the True Light, by the universal manifestation of the pure Luciferian doctrine, at last made public, a manifestation which will arise from the general movement of reaction following the destruction of Atheism and Christianity, both at the same time vanquished and exterminated.

  There is no mention of Taxil’s sensational confession in the pages preceding or following the reproduction of this part of the hoax. It does say in The Cause that this quote and the document it allegedly comes from could be a hoax, but that it nevertheless is quite prophetic.

  But was it really? The rising tide of revolutionary socialism in the late 19^th century was surely no stranger to Taxil. Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto had been in circulation for decades prior to Taxil creating the hoax, and bloody revolution was already being openly discussed. It was only a matter of where it would first emerge, and popular locations for that had already been determined to be Russia or Germany.

  The Cause would go on to be used in the 1925 book called The Mystery of Freemasonry Unveiled, published by Cardinal Caro y Rodriguez of Chile. In it, the Cardinal uncritically repeats what he found in The Cause, reproducing verbatim the same paragraph from Taxil’s hoax. How a Catholic Cardinal would not know this was a fabrication is surprising seeing that he would have been nearly thirty years old at the time of Taxil’s confession and by then already an ordained priest.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 23:55

• Strategists Sound Alarm On Dimmer Profit Outlook
  Strategists Sound Alarm On Dimmer Profit Outlook

  Earlier today we excerpted from two recent reports, one from BofA and another from Goldman, both of which were rather optimistic when it comes to both Q3 earnings season and corporate profits beyond. Not everyone, however, shares their enthusiasm. According to a duo of far more bearish strategists from Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, the outlook for earnings is weakening and could remain subdued.

  As the reporting season kicks off, in his latest weekly note (available to pro subscribers) Morgan Stanley’s resident permabear Michael Wilson said the earnings revisions breadth – referring to the number of stocks seeing upgrades versus downgrades – for the S&P 500 has fallen sharply over the past couple of weeks.

  

  And since this is a time of year when earnings revisions tend to see an upward inflection in breadth…

  

  … further underperformance “would be a sign that other cyclical risks including macro headwinds are driving the earnings revisions backdrop,” Wilson wrote in the note.

  Meanwhile, as Bloomberg’s Sagarika Jaisinghani observes, JPMorgan’s equally bearish strategist Mislav Matejka points to Citigroup’s index of earnings revisions which shows that downgrades have outpaced upgrades for four straight weeks ahead of the reporting season, and expects this trend to continue.

  

  “Most recently, EPS revisions appear to be weakening again in the US and Eurozone,” Matejka wrote in a note. “We think this downtrend could continue.”

  The bearish views are in contrast to a more optimistic tone from analysts ahead of the season, which kicked off Friday with banking giants including JPMorgan. Upcoming results will further reveal how companies have managed headwinds such as higher interest rates and slowing consumer demand.

  The prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates has unnerved markets this month, with the 10-year Treasury yield hitting the highest in more than a decade. Investors are bracing for the Federal Reserve to keep policy tight, rekindling recession concerns that have been heightened by conflict in the Middle East.

  Still, RBC Capital Markets strategist Lori Calvasina said that the reporting season is off to a good start in terms of stock price reactions, even though earnings-per-share revisions have turned slightly negative and commentary suggests the uncertain macroeconomic backdrop is taking a toll on companies. Out of the few S&P 500 companies which reported so far, 88% have beaten estimates according to Bloomberg data.

  Calvasina slightly lifted her S&P 500 earnings-per-share forecast for 2023 and 2024. “Our 2024 forecast assumes a significant moderation in inflation, easing of interest rate pressures in the back half of the year, and sluggish GDP and industrial production forecasts,” she wrote in a note.

  To be sure, early results show a “strong start” to the quarter, according to BofA’s Savita Subramanian, who said the S&P 500 companies that have reported so far are tracking a 1% beat led by Banks, with reported results coming in 9% above consensus (+2% ex-Financials).

  

  And while analysts predict S&P 500 companies will report a 0.8% drop in third-quarter earnings from a year ago before a 6.2% rebound in the final three months of the year, we are likely to see a sharp hockeystick during earnings season due to the usual sandbagging and expectation cuts ahead of earnings to make beats more likely.

  

  “We look for company guidance to provide more clarity on 4Q expectations, which should in turn set the tone for the 2024 revisions,” Wilson wrote.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 23:35

• Are You Prepared?
  Are You Prepared?

  Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

  I’ve had an unsettled feeling about what is going on in this country and around the world for the last month. More unsettled than normal.

  I know that is what has spurred me to write multiple short articles over the last couple weeks as my outlet for dealing with my increasing feeling of dread.

  But I’ve also begun to take some action steps to be better prepared for whatever is coming.

  

  I’m not a true doomstead prepper. I would say I’m more prepped than the average person, less prepped than many of the people who read TBP, and certainly not prepped enough to survive what could be headed our way. During the time frame from 2009 through 2012 I bought a significant amount of equipment, firearms, and food for what I thought was an imminent SHTF moment coming our way. As usual, my timing was off by a mile. But still, the supplies are in my storage area, awaiting the day that will come.

  My location isn’t ideal, but it isn’t terrible. It is basically a suburban community nestled among numerous farms, far from any urban ghetto shithole. Most of my neighborhood is occupied by liberals, Karens, and vaccine supporters. I know of three or four neighbors who I could count on as support, if things go sideways. Two of them are engineers who have skills I do not have. I would trust them in a crisis situation.

  I had a backup natural gas generator installed a couple years ago, which came in handy a few weeks ago when a transformer blew up the road.

  Over the last few weeks I’ve been methodically taking small steps to get better prepared.

  I’ve been withdrawing cash from my credit union.

  My old propane grill has rusted away and ignition has been iffy for a while. I bought a new one last week.

  In the near future, I’ll be getting rid of our 13 year old Honda Insight with 250,000 miles and replacing it with a used Honda HRV with under 40,000 miles. Converting fiat into useful things seems like a good idea at this point.

  Yesterday we bought a new firearm and ammo. What a fascinating process. It is pretty clear to me that all gun dealer employees and their customers are of the same mindset as TBPers. We got to know the gentleman helping us select the gun pretty well because the goddamn state of PA makes it as difficult as possible to legally purchase a firearm. After filling out pages of paperwork and answering questions online, it took the state drones about an hour and half to approve the purchase, even though I’ve never had anything more than a speeding ticket in my entire life.

  Not only did the guy selling us the gun have to triple check the paperwork, he had to get the owner’s wife to double check all of his work. I asked why they had to go through such a tedious process. They said the ATF is crawling up their butts and will shut them down in a split second if any paperwork is slightly off. He said they have been harassing every gun dealer in Bucks and Montgomery County with surprise audits, trying to put them out of business. So, Philly and every other urban shithole is experiencing massive gun violence from illegal guns used by black men, but the ATF harasses legal gun shops selling legal guns to white people for protection. This is how it rolls in Biden’s America.

  

  I’m a little more prepared than I was a month ago, but surely not enough…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 23:15

• China's "National Team" Is Quiet After August ETF Buying Spree
  China’s “National Team” Is Quiet After August ETF Buying Spree

  By Ye Xie and Amy Li, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategists

  On Oct. 16, 2007, the Shanghai Composite Index hit a record high of 6,092. Exactly 16 years later, the benchmark closed 50% below that record. On Chinese social media, ridiculing the poor stock-market performance has become a national pastime.

  Even the recent arrival of the National Team – state-backed entities such as a sovereign wealth fund and pension funds — did little to shore up sentiment. To be fair, though, their support has been half-hearted, at best.

  Despite data showing the economy is stabilizing, the stock market has continued to trade poorly. The announcement that a sovereign wealth fund was buying bank stocks and reports that Beijing is considering a gigantic stabilization fund barely made any difference.

  One headwind has been the relentless selling by foreign investors. They are on track to pull out from the northbound stock connect for a third consecutive month, which would mark the longest outflows since the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock connection debuted in 2016. In August, a record 90 billion yuan ($12 billion) of funds flew out the door.

  Coincidentally, August also saw a record inflow of 143 billion yuan into Chinese equity ETFs trading on the mainland. That was quite an unusual splurge, almost double the previous record.

  

  According to Goldman Sachs, the National Team — which collectively owns about 3.5% of the market value of local stocks — was largely behind the ETF purchases. The net inflows to the National Team’s top-five “favorite” ETFs surged by more than 90 billion yuan that month.

  

  If that was the case, they have since become dormant. Investors added 23 billion yuan to ETFs in September, before withdrawing 6.5 billion yuan this month. If sustained, October would be only the second time on record when both ETFs and northbound connect registered net outflows.

  It seems to suggest that support from the National Team was rather opportunistic and lukewarm. It steps in only when foreign outflows become sizable.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 22:55

• Independent Investigators Net Hundreds Of Child Predator Suspects, Arrests Made
  Independent Investigators Net Hundreds Of Child Predator Suspects, Arrests Made

  Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Over the past three years, Predator Poachers, a Texas-based group founded in 2020 by now-23-year-old Alex Rosen aimed at preventing child sexual abuse, has identified approximately 500 online child predators, resulting in nearly 300 arrests in 43 states.

  

  Many cases are still pending and there have been convictions in more than half of the country—including a decades-long prison sentence for a former Virginia firefighter announced Sept. 20 by the Department of Justice.

  A 2022 sting operation conducted by the group of independent journalists targeting Virginia-based Christopher Scott Jones, led law enforcement to uncover a trail of his underage victims.

  Using a decoy pretending to be an 11-year-old girl, the group communicated with Mr. Jones for several months via social media platforms, text messaging, and phone and video calls before the discussion turned criminal, and the 40-year-old firefighter suggested meeting in person for nefarious reasons.

  “It took months for him to get sexual … he’s very careful about the targets he’s choosing,” Mr. Rosen told The Epoch Times. “Our decoy Ashley did a tremendous job to convince him,” that she was real.

  Instead of a young child, Mr. Jones was met by 6-foot, 4-inch tall, 300-pound Mr. Rosen and his crew of photographers ready to document the encounter.

  After initially trying to avoid a conversation, the suspect eventually allowed Mr. Rosen and a cameraman into his truck, where he spent more than two hours denying the evidence before relenting and admitting why he was there.

  “He was lawyer-speaking to me the whole time,” Mr. Rosen said. “It wasn’t until the end that he admitted that he wanted to have sex with the 11-year-old.”

  Ultimately, Mr. Jones was arrested and charged with attempted rape of a child, upon which authorities discovered evidence of additional crimes.

  After turning the information over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Norfolk, Virginia, three minors the suspect had previously sexually assaulted were identified, leading to further charges.

  

  The defendant pleaded guilty in May “to using a communication facility to knowingly persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in sexual activity … [and] to receiving child pornography of his victim.” He is now serving a 33-year prison sentence, according to a justice department press release.

  A spokesperson for the James City County Police Department told The Epoch Times by email Oct. 3 that the case was initiated due to the work of the Predator Poachers.

  Before launching the group, Mr. Rosen played Division 1 college football for Texas Southern University. During summer break in 2019, he discovered the world of catching online child predators by watching videos on YouTube.

  At the time, he was thinking about joining the police academy in Houston, but at 19, his age prevented him.

  “Since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a cop going after the bad guys,” Mr. Rosen said. “To learn that within 30 minutes of meeting online, these adults wanted to meet 15-year-olds in person was just jaw-dropping, and now we’re catching them into as young as infants—it’s just beyond my imagination.”

  Initially, the team worked to expose child predators but did not involve law enforcement, as they were not aware it was an option, until a trip to another state opened their eyes to the possibility of sending pedophiles to prison.

  In that instance, Jamie Lee Daniels, 48, was ultimately arrested in Nebraska, convicted of four felony crimes, and sentenced to a five-to-10-year prison sentence after the group caught him sending lewd photos and soliciting sex from a decoy pretending to be an eight-year-old girl.

  “At first, I didn’t even know these guys could get arrested,” Mr. Rosen said. “But then, going to Nebraska in late 2020, that really just changed everything, because I realized they could be arrested, and we started focusing on prosecutions.”

  Sporting a bushy red beard, with incriminating text messages printed out in hand, and readily firing off witty criticisms that often go unnoticed by those being interrogated, Mr. Rosen—who tells the suspects his name is Gordon Flowers—uses a combination of compassionate conversation, so-called mirroring techniques that interrogators use to instill trust—and hard evidence to convince child predators to admit to felony criminal activity.

  After the suspect has confessed enough on camera to help prosecutors secure a conviction, Mr. Rosen then typically says he’s starving and asks his crew to order some “fried pickles”—a code to call the police.

  When officers arrive, the rapport Mr. Rosen built with suspects generally pays off, with the individuals often admitting their crimes and incriminating themselves while in police presence and with body cameras rolling—thus providing further proof of their guilt.

  “There’s nothing more fun for me than catching predators,” he said.

  

  Not all catches go according to plan, though. In one situation where an individual was attempting to flee, Mr. Rosen faked a medical emergency that stalled the suspect until police arrived.

  Some tense moments have occurred—with one man cutting his wrists in a futile suicide attempt in September, another pulling a machete out of his vehicle, and a predator becoming enraged in Medford, Oregon, after being confronted and pointing a gun at the crew and several passersby.

  The latter is the most dangerous situation the team has encountered, according to Mr. Rosen—though nerves are on edge following the murder of fellow child predator investigator Robert Wayne Lee, better known by his internet alias Boopac Shakur in Pontiac, Michigan on Sept. 29.

  Mr. Lee approached an individual—the second such time he had caught the same person—in a restaurant in Pontiac around 10:30 p.m. to confront him about soliciting a 15-year-old girl on the internet for sex. The argument escalated quickly, with the individual pulling a knife and his companion drawing a firearm—which he used to fatally shoot Mr. Lee three times in the chest.

  Two suspects, aged 17 and 18, were arrested Sept. 30 and are facing murder charges, according to Michigan’s Oakland County Sheriff’s Department.

  In a statement released Sept. 30, Sheriff Michael Bouchard spoke about the work Mr. Lee had done to help protect the community, saying that his efforts resulted in multiple arrests and convictions. But he warned others about attempting to do the same, as criminals tend to react violently when approached.

  “While we certainly understand his desire to hold child predators accountable, many times well-intentioned individuals … often underestimate the potential for violence confronting a suspected predator,” Mr. Bouchard said in a press release. “They feel trapped and often lash out violently. When we have arrested predators in such circumstances, they have rammed police cars and exhibited other violent behavior in attempts to escape.”

  While both Mr. Lee and Mr. Rosen’s work includes exposing child predators, Mr. Lee took a different, much more aggressive approach. He liked to slash the tires of those he caught preying on children.

  Aware of the dangers inherent in his unique line of work, Mr. Rosen said the killing of Mr. Lee might make him more cautious, but he’s even more dedicated to stopping criminals.

  His genre of crime-stopping was made famous by Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator” series on NBC’s Dateline, which featured similar decoy ploys to catch adults preying on children online.

  The show ended following an encounter with Bill Conradt—an assistant district attorney in Dallas, Texas—who committed suicide in 2007 after being caught by the crew. His family sued for $105 million the same year, and an undisclosed settlement was agreed to in 2008.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 22:35

• MENA Region Faces Another Threat: Water Wars
  MENA Region Faces Another Threat: Water Wars

  Agricultural water withdrawal way beyond the limit of renewable freshwater resources is most common today in countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

  Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that, according to the FAO Aquastat database where the latest available year for the data is 2020, several other nations, with Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Pakistan and India all sticking out for using up a higher share of their freshwater resources in agriculture than their neighbors.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Desert climates like on the Arabian peninsular make countries there overextend their annual water budgets by agriculture alone.

  This has led to studies concluding that the United Arab Emirates, for example, could run out of groundwater by 2030. In Pakistan and Iran, between 63 and 70 percent of renewable freshwater resources were dedicated to agriculture in 2020, rising to 68 and 77 percent including all freshwater uses. Extensive and water-intensive agriculture, including cotton crops, is also driving up freshwater use in the semi-arid climates of Central Asia. Here, Uzbekistan used 111 percent of renewable water resources per year, followed by Turkmenistan at 65 percent (106 percent when counting all freshwater use). The only other country extending its freshwater budget only when combining agriculture and other freshwater uses was Jordan.

  Agriculture accounts for 72 percent of all freshwater withdrawals globally, including a lot of overuse. According to the FAO, global freshwater resources per person have declined by 20 percent in the past decades, while water availability and quality have also deteriorated. Additional factors playing a role in this are pollution and climate change, stretching the precious resource even thinner.

  October 16 marks World Food Day, which this year has the motto: Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 22:15

• Biden Admin Orders Banks Not To Reject Illegal Immigrants' Loan Applications
  Biden Admin Orders Banks Not To Reject Illegal Immigrants’ Loan Applications

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration has warned U.S. banks and other financial institutions that they can’t reject illegal immigrants’ credit applications based solely or predominantly on their immigration status.

  

  The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a recent statement that rejecting illegal immigrants for credit cards and various types of loans just because they are noncitizens is unlawful.

  The two agencies stated that they were issuing the warning “because consumers have reported being rejected for credit cards as well as for auto, student, personal and equipment loans because of their immigration status, even when they have strong credit histories and ties to the United States and are otherwise qualified to receive the loans.”

  Specifically, the agencies cited the provisions of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which protects credit applicants from discrimination based on such characteristics as race, religion, sexual orientation, and national origin.

  The agencies argue that protections afforded by ECOA and other laws extend to alienage, so banks that have blanket policies to deny loans to illegal immigrants may be breaking the law.

  “Lenders should not deny people the opportunity to take out a loan to buy a home, build their businesses or otherwise pursue their financial goals because of unlawful bias and without regard to their actual ability to repay,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

  “Fair access to credit is crucially important for building wealth and strengthening household financial stability,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “The CFPB will not allow companies to use immigration status as an excuse for illegal discrimination.”

  

  Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney, objected to the agencies’ warning to banks and other financial institutions.

  “DOJ and CFPB tell banks it might be illegal to refuse to loan money to people [who] broke federal law to reach the bank. You gotta be kidding me. The invasion of illegal immigrants is intentional and must be stopped,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there were roughly 11.35 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States as of January 2022.

  More Details

  The agencies said that ECOA protections extend to alienage, although in a joint statement, they acknowledged some gray area, namely that the act “does not expressly prohibit consideration of immigration status.”

  Some financial institutions have maintained blanket policies denying people credit based on their immigration status, without regard for their ability to repay, interpreting ECOA in a way that they believe shields them from liability, according to the agencies, which added that this is incorrect.

  “A creditor may consider an applicant’s immigration status when necessary to ascertain the creditor’s rights regarding repayment,” the agencies said, explaining that Regulation B, a rule that implements ECOA, expressly states that the only conditions under which immigration status may be considered is only to determine creditors’ “rights and remedies regarding repayment” of a loan.

  If financial institutions consider immigration status for any other reason, the agencies said they’re probably breaking the law.

  “Creditors should be aware that unnecessary or overbroad reliance on immigration status in the credit decisioning process, including when that reliance is based on bias, may run afoul of ECOA’s antidiscrimination provisions and could also violate other laws,” the agencies said.

  The “other laws” mentioned could refer to the 1866 Civil Rights Act, also known as Section 1981, which the agencies said in their joint statement “has long been construed to prohibit discrimination based on alienage.”

  They said that courts have found that “ECOA’s prohibition of national origin discrimination and Section 1981’s prohibitions complement one another and that discrimination that arises from overbroad restrictions on lending to noncitizens may violate either or both statutes.”

  It’s unclear whether any banks or financial institutions intend to challenge the DOJ and CFPB’s interpretation of the law regarding the provision of loans to illegal immigrants.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 21:55

• New York Supreme Court Upholds Ban On COVID Vaccine Mandate For Health Workers
  New York Supreme Court Upholds Ban On COVID Vaccine Mandate For Health Workers

  Authored by Benjamin Kew via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  New York’s Supreme Court has upheld its previous ruling invalidating the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, a decision that will have ramifications on the power of the state’s executive.

  

  The ruling came from the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department, which dismissed the state’s appeal to have the mandate reinstated.

  “4th Dept dismissed state’s appeal as moot, and declined to vacate lower court win,” attorney Sujata Gibson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

  “The mandate is over and declared unconstitutional,” she continued. “[Thank you] [Children’s Health Defense], [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], and [Medical Professionals For Informed Consent], and everyone who helped in this fight.

  “Doesn’t make up for the harm [New York] Inflicted, but will help protect us from more.”

  The health care worker vaccine mandate was first implemented in September 2021, resulting in the departure or termination of about 34,000 medical professionals from their positions.

  That mandate was originally struck down by the state’s Supreme Court in January, although the state’s executive branch chose to appeal the decision.

  In his opinion in Medical Professionals for Informed Consent vs. Bassett, Justice Gerard Neri wrote that the state’s Department of Health was “clearly prohibited from mandating any vaccination outside of those specifically authorized by the legislature” and that it had “blatantly violated the boundaries of its authority as set forth by the legislature.”

  Justice Neri added that the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious” given that the COVID-19 vaccines failed to prevent transmission of the virus, meaning the policy had no rational basis.

  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, had previously explained her opposition to rehiring health care workers who lost their jobs as a result of the vaccine, saying that this was “not the right answer.”

  “I think everybody who goes into a health care facility or a nursing home should have the assurance and their family member should know that we have taken all steps to protect the public health,” she said at the time. “And that includes making sure those who come in contact with them at their time of most vulnerability, when they are sick or elderly, will not pass on the virus.”

  In April, the state agreed to unilaterally drop the mandate of its own accord, although it still contested the decision for the sake of maintaining executive authority.

  “Due to the changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and evolving vaccine recommendations, the New York State Department of Health has begun the process of repealing the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for workers at regulated health care facilities,” the state health department stated.

  Last October, the New York Supreme Court also struck down a mandate enforced specifically by New York City on all public employees, with Justice Ralph Porzio arguing there was no evidence to “support the rationality of keeping a vaccination mandate for public employees, while vacating the mandate for private sector employees or creating a carveout for certain professions, like athletes, artists, and performers.”

  In January 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court similarly blocked an attempt by President Joe Biden to enforce a mandate on large private companies that their employees either get the vaccine or face regular testing. However, it did allow the mandate to continue in medical facilities that took funding from Medicare and Medicaid.

  “Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly,” the court wrote in its unsigned opinion. “Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category.”

  Margaret Florini, a spokesperson for Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, told The Defender that the latest decision was a “historic” win that would help prevent such abuses of power in the future.

  “I think we will see many new lawsuits come about because of this historic win,” Ms. Florini said. “There is still plenty of work to be done. We lost so much, not just money but relationships, marriages, friends, and homes. We cannot forget what was done to us, and we must continue to shed light on it and make impactful changes that will truly prevent this from happening again.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 21:15

• Supreme Court Orders 'Ghost Gun' Makers To Comply With Biden's Rule 
  Supreme Court Orders ‘Ghost Gun’ Makers To Comply With Biden’s Rule 

  On Monday evening, the Supreme Court directed two “ghost gun” manufacturers, BlackHawk Manufacturing Group and Defense Distributed, to comply with a Biden administration rule that mandates the serialization of unfinished gun parts, like a lower receiver for an AR-15 or the frame of a handgun. 

  • SUPREME COURT BOLSTERS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION `GHOST GUN’ RULE
  • TOP COURT BLOCKS EXEMPTIONS FOR TWO `GHOST GUN’ MANUFACTURERS

  “The justices, without any public dissents, granted a request from the administration, which said two lower courts had “effectively countermanded” an Aug. 8 Supreme Court order that allowed the regulations for the time being,” according to Bloomberg. 

  After the Supreme Court’s first ruling on Aug. 8, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas permitted both manufacturers to sell ghost gun kits. The court asserted that the justices had left open the option of any relief for individual businesses. 

  The regulation does not ban ghost gun kits. Instead, manufacturers and sellers must obtain licenses, serialize each kit, and require background checks. 

  Biden administration alleges that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s ghost gun rule will counter the flood of untraceable firearms pouring into cities. 

  

  The rule will be effective while the administration appeals the judge’s ruling to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans – and potentially the Supreme Court. 

  However, Defense Distributed saw this day coming and pivoted from 80% frames and receivers to 0% kits (read: here & here).

  

  That means DD’s Ghost Gunner 3, a 3-axis CNC machine, can take a metal block and create a lower receiver or frame. 

  

  DD is years ahead of Biden’s rogue ATF. The recent Supreme Court decision shows the government’s discomfort with at-home gun kits, which have been available for many years.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 20:55

• Europe "Shaken" By "Islamist Terrorist Attack" In Brussels; Shooter Still At Large
  Europe “Shaken” By “Islamist Terrorist Attack” In Brussels; Shooter Still At Large

  Update (1730ET): French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Europe had been “shaken” by a “terrorist attack” in Brussels, after two Swedes were killed in a shooting.

  “A few minutes ago, Brussels was hit again by an Islamist terrorist attack which apparently, as I speak to you, took the lives of at least two other Europeans, two Swedes,” Macron said during a visit to Tirana, according to AFP.

  Perhaps most ironically, given the comments from various world l;aders about this “terrorist” attack by a muslim man, who recorded a video of himself explaining this was to “avenge the Muslims that have died for their religion”, the Belgian prosecuor has issues a statement that there is ‘no immediate link to Israel-Hamas’.

  “So there has been a claim via social media where someone says he is the perpetrator, that he has sympathies for IS, and what is also important, he mentions the Swedish nationality of those victims,” Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, told the Belgian broadcaster VTM.

  “For now, at the current stage of the investigation, there would be no relationship to the conflict in Gaza,” he added.

  Hmm…

  Belgium’s government crisis center confirmed reports of the killings and asked the public not to share images or videos that might be related to the incident.

  As a reminder, Brussels was hit by major Islamic State terrorist attacks in 2016, which left more than 30 people dead and hundreds injured.

  *  *  *

  Update (1630): Belgium’s crisis center has raised Brussels’ terror alert status to its highest level, and France was tightening controls at its border with Belgium, France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said.

  “Horrified by the terrorist attack which left two victims in the heart of Brussels,” Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said in a post on the X social media network.

  “All necessary means must be mobilized to combat radicalism.”

  “We are monitoring the situation and ask the people of Brussels to be vigilant,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a post on X, but appeared to confirm the link to terrorism:

  “I have just offered my sincere condolences to the Swedish prime minister following tonight’s harrowing attack on Swedish citizens in Brussels.

  “Our thoughts are with the families and friends who lost their loved ones. As close partners, the fight against terrorism is a joint one.”

  Additionally, the Euro 2024 soccer qualifier between Belgium and Sweden (taking place in Belgium’s national stadium in Brussels) has been abandoned at half-time after the attack, with fans locked in the stadium.

  No suspect has yet been arrested.

  *  *  *

  As Remix News’ Thomas Brooke reported, two people have been shot dead and others injured in central Brussels on Monday evening and the perpetrator remains at large, Belgian police have said.

  

  Authorities have confirmed a shooting took place in Ieperlaan at around 7:15 p.m. local time and two people of Swedish nationality were killed.

  The victims are understood to have been supporters of the Swedish national football team and were visiting the Belgian capital to attend the European Championship qualifying fixture between the two nations at the Heysel Stadium on Monday evening.

  Amateur footage circulating outline showed the perpetrator, dressed in a fluorescent orange jacket and wearing a white helmet, equipped with an assault rifle on the rampage in the city. The suspect arrived at the scene on a scooter before opening fire in the street causing pedestrians to flee into a nearby apartment building.

  Ce n’est pas une blague, s’il vous plaît faites attention à vous pic.twitter.com/9tP4Us1iUG

  — Votre Nom Ici (@momoblf) October 16, 2023

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

  The man followed those fleeing the scene into the lobby of the residential building before firing several more shots, before returning to his scooter and taking off at speed.

  Belgian media reported eyewitness testimony which stated the shooter shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire.

  Additional footage circulating online purports to be a video message recorded in Arabic by the shooter who is wearing the same identifiable clothing following the attack. According to the Sudinfo news outlet, the attacker said his motivation for the mass shooting was to avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world and boasted about killing “infidels.”

  “In his very violent speech, he said he had shot two people to ‘avenge the Muslims and that we live and die for our religion,’” the news site stated.

  The tweet is viewable here but not embeddable…

  

  Crisis meetings have taken place between the Belgian federal police, the Brussels local police, the security services, and Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden and Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne.

  Authorities have not yet made an arrest and the suspect remains at large.

  This is a developing story…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 20:44

• Victor Davis Hanson Surveys Our Post-Hamas Wreckage
  Victor Davis Hanson Surveys Our Post-Hamas Wreckage

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  As Hamas goes, so with it go many of the following related Western pretensions.

  

  The Passions of 9/11, Redux

  It has been 22 years since we saw crowds throughout the Middle East celebrating the murder of 3,000 civilians—and since newspapers had daily “idiot watch” notices of American intellectuals defending radical Islamist mass murderers. And now the madness is back again, and we are witnessing the recrudescence of normalizing radical Islamic terrorists abroad.

  I suppose the theory is that no one in America cares much about radical Islamists foaming at the mouth, whether abroad or here. And the result is that they are empowered and their defense of murder is growing—yet its hubris will earn an almost-certain response, an anger slowly but insidiously growing at radical Islam.

  A Middle East Policy in Ruins 

  The current Biden appeasement of Iran and gift of billions of dollars in aggregate to the West Bank and Gaza are now, by bipartisan consensus, unsustainable. The only supporters of that lethal madness left are the embarrassments of BLM, the Squad, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the campus crowd.

  Their collective hatred of Jews and Israelis was manifested in their delight over the post mortem mutilations of murdered women and children. And why—even before Israel had responded with air attacks—were leftists and Islamists suddenly celebrating the news of the executions of more than 1,200 Jews? It was instinctual, a Pavlovian response.

  Even some leftist Democrats were shocked by their own constituents, whom they had created. Biden still might cling to his past destructive Middle East policies (and I expect him to restrict the Israelis within days after they begin to go in full force into Gaza), but the idea of continuing aid to the West Bank and Gaza or of “normalizing” relations with theocratic Iran will now be rightly seen as a suicidal delusion.

  Ukraine and Gaza

  Most Americans support arms for Ukraine to repel Russian aggressors.

  But something is becoming strange about these two respective wars.

  Why did the State Department more or less put no restrictions on Ukrainian retaliation, including operations against the Russian Black Sea Fleet—but the Secretary of State almost immediately called for a “ceasefire” to prevent Israeli retaliation, a mortal sin if he had dared say that about Ukraine’s similar response to aggression? Would an American diplomat lecture Ukraine about ending the “cycle of violence?”

  Why does the U.S. discount any possibility of a strategic response from Russia—which reportedly has some 6,000-7,000 nuclear weapons—to attacks on its homeland, but seems almost terrified about calling Iran to account for its central role in arming and funding terrorists to start a war with Israel by slaughtering 1,200 civilians?

  Is the U.S., as professed, really able to fund a $120 billion—and counting—war in Ukraine, and to replenish Israeli stocks (300,000 artillery shells shipped from U.S. depots in Israel to Ukraine, a reportedly mere one-month supply for Kyiv), and to restore depleted existing U.S. munitions (note the billions of dollars of equipment abandoned in Kabul), and to ramp up our forces to deter China (while allowing 8 million illegal aliens to flow across an open border and $33 trillion in national debt) without going on a massive war footing?

  There are likely somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 total wounded and dead in Ukraine, in the most lethal conflict in Europe since 1945. Why is the U.S. so eager to call for a ceasefire after a fraction of those casualties in Gaza, but it is near-taboo to mention a breather amid the historical carnage, with no end in sight, in Ukraine?

  The administration always says we can do everything simultaneously, but then we never do. Rhetoric is not the same thing as trebling our arms supply chain, and cutting the budget elsewhere to pay for it, and closing our border.

  The Biden Open Border

  Given the common denominator of Russian and Gazan invading forces crossing poorly fortified borders, why would we not secure our own—far longer and less secure than either?

  The Biden border nihilism is now a losing proposition even for the leftists who helped promote it. Biden is eroding the very base of the Democratic Party, by alienating inner-city and border-district minorities. They are irate at the hordes of people stampeding into the country with the assumption that breaking our laws is their birthright.

  Even the daily mendacity of Alejandro Mayorkas and Karine Jean-Pierre cannot hide the brazen contempt for the law. Every day that the border remains open and thousands more pour in unaudited, illegally, without skills, in non-diverse fashion, and with cartel fentanyl—to the cheers of the corrupt socialist President Obrador of Mexico—the more Joe Biden is destroying his own party.

  The ruin in Gaza only reminds Americans that under present policies we will soon see thousands of America-hating, anti-Semitic Gazans seeking to pour into the United States illegally, eager to join the mass demonstrations cheering on Hamas death squads. It seems to take about a month for a radical Middle Eastern refugee, having arrived with gratitude toward his new American hosts, to take to the street on a “Day of Jihad” calling for the end of Israel (and often damning America).

  Allies as Enemies

  Abroad, we are finally accepting the long-suppressed reality that many of our “allies” are not neutrals but enemies. The U.S. bases in Qatar and Turkey, and our indifference to the pro-Hamas sentiments, if not outright aid, of both, have empowered terrorism.

  Ever so slowly, the two anti-American nations are reminding Americans that we need to draw down our forces from these hostile landscapes, which in any global crisis would likely be hostile territory for our own troops.

  Everyone knows Erdogan’s Turkey has no business in NATO—and everyone has no idea how to get them out. And so everyone puts an asterisk over Turkey as a NATO member. For now, the alliance’s only Islamist, non-democratic, and anti-Western nation is best simply avoided, since expelling Turkey appears to be more trouble than tolerating its toxic presence.

  The Palestinian State Solution 

  The Left’s shrill demand for a “two-state” solution, and tolerance of Palestinian tired and serial threats to drive Israel into the sea, are for now over. The glee with which Gazans and West Bankers met the news of mass murder, mutilation, hostage-taking, rape, and the desecration of bodies is proof enough that these dictatorial governments probably do represent the majority of their citizens.

  Most Gazans were giddy on hearing of the macabre methods of Hamas, and only wished that there had been more opportunity to spit on hostages, poke captive women, kick corpses, and torment the child and female trophies brought back from Israel. The Gazan delight in the grotesque was reminiscent of some medieval pogrom, or the Roman triumphs of old with their files of enslaved captives. And perhaps the desire to take captives and pass them back through the killing fields to Gaza reminds of the Aztec practice of seeking to capture rather than just kill their enemies, in order to have plenty of bodies for the human sacrifices on Templo Major.

  The old idea of Gaza—self-governed since 2005-2006 by “one man, one vote, once” Hamas—as a possible “Singapore” with Hyatt and Four Seasons beaches, flush with hundreds of billions of dollars from the Gulf, Europe, the U.S. and the UN, is finally revealed as the farce it always was. That fantasy was simply antithetical to the Hamas nihilist charter, the logical manifestation of which was the slaughter inside Israel of hundreds of civilians.

  BLM

  BLM was always a corrupt, disingenuous operation—the craftier successor to the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton 1980s corporate shake-downs. But it is has finally jumped the shark with its sick support for Hamas murderers (note its recent posters glorifying Hamas’s hang-gliding butchery).

  Its pro-death advocacy of Hamas is the pièce de résistance to the corruption and abdication of its leadership, the Kendi-con, and the lethal crime wave it helped spawn in major cities. Its racist agendas may linger for a while. But BLM is going the way of the 1960s Black Panthers—that is, one leading to general disgust, then to irrelevance, and finally to nothingness.

  The still-remaining BLM murals in our major downtowns are already embarrassments and eroding reminders of the insanity that swept the country from 2020 to the present.

  Campuses

  Universities have now crossed the Rubicon in de facto condoning their crazed students cheering on mass death. They made the argument after George Floyd that the country must listen to their pseudo-moral lectures, and now they unashamedly broadcast what they have become—traitors to the idea of an enlightened free society, and kindred spirits to the anti-Semitism, intolerance, and fascism of 1930s German universities.

  Degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford will soon become, not resume badges, but either embarrassments or certifications of a mediocre education. Or both.

  Universities all rushed to embrace “decolonization”, starting with empty and ahistorical virtue signals and ending up paralyzed, as thousands of their own students showed the world how ecstatic they were over news that babies were murdered and women raped.

  In response, their invertebrate administrators and faculty sat frozen for days, calculating how best to issue “on the one hand…on the other hand” mush. The first serious politician who calls for the taxing of the huge incomes of their endowments, for yanking the government out of the student loan business and returning the moral hazard to the universities who impoverish their own students, will win overwhelming support.

  The Gaza of Hamas is going down, but so are a lot of corrupt institutions and ideas that threw in with its lot.

  I would recommend against the Nazi reference: the Nazis didn’t deny knowledge of atrocities until *after the war*, making them a bad contrast to current Palestinians.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 20:35

• IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump, Griffin Tax Returns Used Private Website To Foil IRS
  IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump, Griffin Tax Returns Used Private Website To Foil IRS

  A former IRS contractor who leaked the the tax returns of Donald Trump, Ken Griffin and others and leaked them to the media used a private website.

  

  Charles Littlejohn, 38, who worked for a contractor rumored to be Booz Allen Hamilton (of Edward Snowden fame), stole tax return information on thousands of wealthy Americans, including Trump, Griffin, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and then leaked them to ProPublica.

  In a Sunday court filing, his methods were revealed, Bloomberg Tax reports.

  To avoid detection, Littlejohn accessed Trump’s tax return and other information in late 2018 by querying an IRS database using more “generalized parameters” rather than directly searching for the former president’s data, according to the filing. 

  He then uploaded the data to a personal, private website he controlled rather than downloading it to a physical storage device or using a remote storage website. That allowed him to “avoid IRS protocols designed to detect and prevent large downloads or uploads” from agency devices or systems, according to the filing, which lays out the factual basis for his guilty plea. 

  That day, he used a personal computer to download the data from the private website, storing in multiple locations, including personal data storage devices like his Apple iPod. In May 2019, he contacted the Times about leaking Trump’s tax data, disclosing it between August and October of that year. 

  Weeks before then-President Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, the NY Times published the first of several stories revealing that Trump paid $750 in taxes between 2016 and 2017, and no taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.

  Trump also lost millions of dollars from his golf courses, “vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due” and that Trump earned $73 million abroad.

  Combined, Trump initially paid almost $95 million in federal income taxes over the 18 years. He later managed to recoup most of that money, with interest, by applying for and receiving a $72.9 million tax refund, starting in 2010.

  

  Littlejohn used a similar method to store data he stole on Griffin, Bezos and Musk – with ProPublica reporting that the tax data spanned more than 15 years.

  In uploading the data, he used two “virtual machines,” or “essentially simulated version of physical computers,” the filing said. He “promptly destroyed these machines” after using them to steal the data. 

  In September 2020, he contacted ProPublica to discuss the possibility of sharing the data on wealthy taxpayers. He then anonymously mailed the data to ProPublica on a password-protected storage device. 

  Two months later, he gave a journalist there the password. ProPublica has published nearly 50 stories based on that data. 

  ProPublica reported that billionaires including Bezos and Musk had in some years paid minimal or no income tax even as their fortunes soared. It outlined the tax strategies available to Americans in the top 0.1% of wealth. Michael Bloomberg, majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, was among those included in the reporting.

  Littlejohn pleaded guilty to a single charge that carries a prison term of up to five years, however he’ll likely only face eight to 14 months, according to his plea deal. He will be sentenced on Jan. 29. Trump attorney Alina Habba called the leak an “atrocity” and an “egregious breach,” and asked US District Judge Ana Reyes to impose the maximum prison term if the plea deal went forward.

  Reyes agreed with Habba that it was “unacceptable” for people to take the law into their own hands, and vowed to impose “severe consequences.” (ha).

  As Bloomberg notes, “Littlejohn worked as a contractor for the same consulting firm from 2008 to 2010, 2012 to 2013, and 2017 to 2021, according to the filing. The firm wasn’t identified.“

  Looks like Jesse Watters has some idea.

  IRS Agent “LittleJohn” & the CIA Involved in Leaking Trumps Taxes via BOOZ ALLEN (A Spy Hub)

  An old college newsletter shows “LittleJohn” raving about working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest government contractors in the US— a company everybody knows hires spies.… pic.twitter.com/Vrrl08Clzx

  — UltraMJTruth (@MJTruthUltra) October 8, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 20:15

• Financial Free Speech
  Financial Free Speech

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  At no other point in history has discussion and free speech in the world of economics and finance been as necessary as it is now.

  For those of you cut from the same financial-outlook cloth as I am, I’m sure you’ve made peace with being called a fear monger by now.

  Because apparently, pointing out the basic laws of economics that seem to stand at stark odds with our current, unprecedented Keynesian experiment makes you some type of conspiracy theorist.

  As those pushing modern monetary theory are quick to remind us, it is our brains that are broken, not the monetary system or their academic take on the economy. Take it from the woman who authored a book advocating for MMT that was published right before the country found itself mired in 7% inflation:

  “The debt isn’t the reason we can’t have nice things. Our broken thinking is. To fix our broken thinking, we need to overcome more than just an aversion to big numbers with the word debt attached. We need to beat back every destructive myth that hobbles our thinking.

  —Stephanie Kelton, The Deficit Myth

  Remember, we’re the idiots. It’s our brains that are broken. Higher rates no longer means there will be a slowdown in spending, contracting GDP no longer means recession, dollars can be printed without any consequence to anyone at any point and the war against inflation has already been won…that is, as long as you subtract food, energy, shelter and used cars from equation.

  

  This inane idiocy will continue, Nobel Prizes and all, until our “conspiracy” (read: math) is eventually proven true.

  Free speech is our First Amendment right for a reason: it is of grave importance. Even more important is a reminder we need more and more as the days go by: it is the speech you disagree with the most that is the most important to protect.

  In the financial world, this means those of us from the Austrian school (i.e. we can actually balance a budget, believe cash flow is vitally important to a business and understand that productivity and efficiency in an economy doesn’t come from printing dollars) are widely seen as “broken clocks” that are right “only twice a day”. In some respects, I’m fine with this.

  After all, it’s tough to argue the point that we are on a treacherous, long-term path that will result in catastrophe at an unknown point in the future because everything that every academic, analyst and media personality is saying and doing is wrong, without looking like a broken clock. Those that read me consistently know that I constantly struggle with whether or not my analysis will wind up being on the right side of history.

  But at the very least, you can’t have “rock solid” financial rules, like the ones academics swear by (and the ones that have driven us $33 trillion in debt) without having discourse that tests it regularly. This is a growing discussion we are having on a daily basis the more and more our vision of the stock and bond market, to quote Vincent Laguardia Gambini, gets “out of whack”.

  

  Over the last three years, under the guise of doing what is best for the collective good during a pandemic, we saw people’s right to free speech trampled on. People were kicked off social media and ostracized simply for stating their opinion if, in any way, it didn’t gel with the mainstream narrative on Covid. You couldn’t raise critical questions about vaccine safety (which are now becoming commonplace), you couldn’t suggest efficacious alternative treatments for Covid (which are now being widely accepted) and you couldn’t suggest Covid came from a lab (which is now the leading explanation for the virus).

  And it wasn’t just a ban from social media: many who expressed the above thoughts were hastily relegated to second class citizens by the same lot who walks around all day screeching about the importance of equality. Some were even fired from their jobs.

  

  As I pointed out in my article about the World Economic Forum earlier this year, the powers that be continue to wage a fight against “misinformation” all of kinds, which — to the best of my understanding — appears to be viewpoints that are at odds with the mainstream media, the government and big tech, regardless of whether or not they are objectively true.

  Now take that same rabid willingness to crucify those who don’t agree with the mainstream narrative and move it over to the financial world.

  The “official” stance right now — that of the Fed and its disciples — is that the war on inflation has already been won and that we are in for a “soft landing”.

  

  If you look closely you can actually hear her making the “baaaaa” sheep noise.

  The objective reality, as we saw by Friday’s trading (gold up 3%, oil up 5%, VIX over 20), is likely nowhere near as rosy as those expectations.

  The objective math of 5% rates on the largest debt bubble in history tells even the most lobotomized analysts who hate math, like myself, that we are probably in for a catastrophic economic slowdown. When rates rise and discretionary income dries up, spending stops, as does economic growth.

  The geopolitical outlook, given the emerging war in the Middle East, looks as bad as it has been in decades. As I wrote about days ago, for all intents and purposes, it looks as though the stock market is sitting on the edge of the end of the world.

  My guess is that as the days go by, the markets will continue to swing wildly. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe Japan will lose control of their bond market. Maybe U.S. equities will have a circuit breaker day lower. Maybe commercial real estate will plunge all at once when people start marking their books for Q3. Maybe the U.S. bond market vigilantes will take rates to 7%? Maybe commodities will explode to new all time highs.

  But make no mistake about it, something’s going to break — and it’ll be something that doesn’t fit in the “mainstream narrative” of “running this unprecedented monetary policy absolutely has to result in prosperity only, at all times, because us PhDs said so”. And when that moment comes and the public is guided to the only logical conclusion of pointing their fingers at the powers that be for decades of poor monetary and fiscal policy, the establishment will be forced to look for a villain — somewhere they can deflect blame.

  And it’ll be then that those adhering to the Austrian school – and those with just plain old common sense who have been “broken clocks” predicting this catch-22 for years – are likely going to be next to be written off no longer as just plain ole’ conspiracy theorists, but as disinformation artists and the reason for the crash.

  I implore people to watch closely as the days march on: it feels as though aggressive actions — like were taken with dissenters during Covid — could come around in the financial world next.

  As I’ve said before, I hope I’m wrong about everything and we do have a soft landing. But my common sense simply won’t let me justify that argument in my head. I feel the seeds have already been sown and, with each passing day, the importance of financial free speech rises exponentially.

  So, in the words of Big D and the Kids Table, “try out your voice”.

  

  QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 19:55

• Ministry Of Bulls**t Tries To Cancel Orwell As The Telegraph Follows 'Orwellian' Formula
  Ministry Of Bulls**t Tries To Cancel Orwell As The Telegraph Follows ‘Orwellian’ Formula

  There aren’t many ‘chef’s kiss’ moments these days, but The Telegraph just came close.

  In a widely panned article, The Telegraph, which is owned by British elites, just tried to cancel George Orwell for being a “sadistic, misogynistic, homophobic and sometimes violent” person whose life was “at odds with the “decency” of his writing.”

  George Orwell was ‘sadistic, misogynistic, homophobic and sometimes violent’ https://t.co/GAps4MA8pM

  — The Telegraph (@Telegraph) October 15, 2023

  The claims come from the biographer of Orwell’s wife, Anna Funder, who took some serious liberties in drawing her conclusions.

  Funder includes in her book letters that O’Shaughnessy wrote to a friend, Norah, discussing her marriage.

  In one, she said that she wanted to visit Norah but found it difficult because Orwell would either claim to be ill, requiring her to stay at home and tend him, or contact her while she was away, requesting that she come home again.

  Funder cited it as evidence that O’Shaughnessy was being kept in a “controlling environment”.

  There’s no other evidence presented for any of the claims in the headline, but hey – we guess you’ll just have to buy her book.

  Reactions to The Telegraph‘s attempt to cancel Orwell were severe and warranted, and the outlet’s original post on “X” received a blistering ‘ratio’ (more comments than ‘likes’).

  Step 1. Identify behaviors that were once accepted but no longer.

  Step 2. Find some figure from the past that is inconvenient and you want to erase

  Step 3. Identify now-problematic behaviors the figure may have been engaging in

  Step 4. Tar figure’s reputation

  Truly Orwellian https://t.co/nviji1OxQM

  — Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ (@alexandrosM) October 16, 2023

  You are the bad guys

  — George Alexopoulos (@GPrime85) October 16, 2023

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

  Would you like a free T-shirt? pic.twitter.com/x0hRnn7zQP

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 16, 2023

  Delete yourselves.

  — 2VNews (@2VNews) October 16, 2023

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

  Brought to you by the… pic.twitter.com/J8n5iUDzAs

  — TimOnPoint (@TimOnPoint) October 15, 2023

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

  No irony at all in cancelling 1984… pic.twitter.com/nuYfUMYwBW

  — Xill (@Xil_llix) October 16, 2023

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

  pic.twitter.com/SOzDRAC6ZL

  — BrunoNation (@TonyBrunoNation) October 16, 2023

  Clickbait or an open admission that the MSM is thinly veiled propaganda? pic.twitter.com/TFfLh59aQU

  — Steve Stevenson (@AverageSteveS) October 16, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 19:35

• Controversy Erupts Over Calls For US To Accept Gaza Refugees Amid Israel–Hamas War
  Controversy Erupts Over Calls For US To Accept Gaza Refugees Amid Israel–Hamas War

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  U.S. lawmakers appear split over calls for the United States to accept refugees from Gaza displaced by the Israel–Hamas war, as experts are predicting that a million individuals might flee the region.

  

  Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a member of the left-wing “Squad” in Congress, was cited by the New York Post as calling for the United States to “welcome refugees from Palestine,” while Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) has introduced legislation that would block people with Palestinian passports from being admitted into the country.

  “We can’t let President Biden abuse our parole and visa rules to bring unvetted Palestinians into American communities the way he did with thousands of unvetted Afghans,” Mr. Tiffany said in a statement posted on X, referring to the Biden administration’s decision to let 76,000 unvetted Afghan refugees come to the United States following the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover of the country.

  “I introduced the GAZA Act to protect America’s national security.”

  He also shared the contents of the Guaranteeing Aggressors Zero Admission (GAZA) Act exclusively with Breitbart.

  The proposal would block the Biden administration’s use of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) parole mechanism from letting Palestinians settle in the United States, according to the text of the measure, as cited by Breitbart.

  

  While Mr. Bowman has called for the admission of Gaza refugees to the United States, he said they should be vetted prior to being allowed in.

  “Fifty percent of the population in Gaza are children,” he said. “The international community as well as the United States should be prepared to welcome refugees from Palestine while being very careful to vet and not allow members of Hamas.”

  Like Mr. Tiffany, other Republicans have expressed opposition to opening the door to Gaza refugees.

  “The U.S. is the most generous nation in the world, but we are in no position to accept additional refugees, especially from a region with as high a risk of terrorism, given our nation’s inability to secure our own border or vet those who are already here,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told the NY Post.

  Likewise, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said on Oct. 14 that the United States “cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” saying that neighboring Arab nations should “open their borders” and take them in.

  Israel has called for a mass evacuation of Gaza ahead of a planned offensive to destroy Hamas and rescue hostages—if they’re still alive.

  

  ‘Wide Range of Offensive Operating Plans’

  The Israeli military said on Oct. 14 that it had seen a “significant movement” of Palestinian civilians to the south, a day after ordering Gaza City residents to flee and later said that it was “preparing to implement a wide range of offensive operative plans” that would include coordinated strikes from the air, land, and sea.

  That came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised further actions in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis, in which terrorists killed at least 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians, and seized hostages.

  The Hamas terror group, which is known for its reckless disregard for civilian lives and using human shields, has told people to ignore Israeli calls to evacuate from northern Gaza, according to the Associated Press.

  

  The United Nations has estimated that roughly 423,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, while U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it would be impossible to stage such a large evacuation without “devastating humanitarian consequences.”

  Mariana Dahan, founder of the World Identity Network (WIN) Foundation, told the NY Post that the Israel–Hamas conflict “may add over 1 million people to the already staggering number of 6 million Palestinian refugees in the world.”

  The Israeli military stated that Hamas has set up roadblocks and is “forcefully preventing their civilians from relocating to southern Gaza for their own safety.”

  With the rhetoric heating up around the fate of the people evacuating Gaza, the issue of Palestinian refugees has become a hot topic in Washington.

  Discussions on Capitol Hill

  President Joe Biden said consultations were underway with regional governments on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as Palestinians endured a power blackout and shortages of food and water.

  Progressive Democrats in the House on Oct. 13 called on the Biden administration to take steps to limit civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.

  In a letter addressed to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, signed by 55 House members, the lawmakers expressed their concerns about the “unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as Israel responds to the terrorist attack by Hamas.

  “As President Biden has previously stated, Israel has the right to defend its people and respond to these vicious attacks,” they wrote.

  “We strongly believe that Israel’s response must take into account the millions of innocent civilians in Gaza who themselves are victims of Hamas and are suffering the consequences of their terror campaign.”

  The Israeli military, for its part, has said it’ll “make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians” while it carries out operations in Gaza in the coming days.

  Caden Pearson contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 19:15

• US Taps 2,000 Troops for Potential Deployment To Support Israel
  US Taps 2,000 Troops for Potential Deployment To Support Israel

  The Pentagon says it has selected 2,000 troops it is readying for potential deployment in support of Israel as it battles Hamas in Gaza and potentially Hezbollah across its northern border.

  Based on US officials speaking to The Wall Street Journal, American troops are not expected to serve in any combat roles, but only in advisory capacities or missions like medical support. 

  

  “The troops are currently stationed both inside the Middle East and outside, including Europe, the officials said,” WSJ writes. “It isn’t clear under what circumstances the U.S. could deploy the troops or to where, but the Pentagon decision signaled it is preparing to support Israeli troops should Israel launch a ground incursion into Gaza.”

  Already US Marines have been moved from Kuwait in preparation for potential greater support roles related to Israel. The Biden administration has dispatched two carrier strike groups to the general region, likely expected to enter the eastern Mediterranean at some point soon.

  Separately, a defense official told the AP that the troops would “not be sent to Israel but could be sent to countries in the region.”

  The situation remains highly fluid and unpredictable, as there have been reports that Israel’s ground invasion is “imminent” for the past three days. There are signs Israeli leaders could be delaying not only out of concern for the some 200 hostages Hamas has, but due to the threat of Hezbollah opening all-out war in the north. Iran’s threats have also been increasing. 

  The US is also assisting Israel with intelligence, particularly related to the captives, among them Americans. However, so far the Pentagon has ruled out the idea of sending US commandos as part of rescue efforts. 

  Of course, given the population density of Gaza, and given the difficult urban warfare environment, any military rescue mission might be a ‘mission impossible’ kind of scenario – even if intelligence could pinpoint their exact locations, which is unlikely.

  If Israel does go into the strip with full force, but without knowing the exact locations of the hostages, it could be highly dangerous for the captives.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 18:55

• Oh, SNAP!
  Oh, SNAP!

  Authored by Anthony Davies via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed an experiment in which it will provide additional benefits to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients who purchase more fruits and vegetables.

  

  Named the Electronic Healthy Incentive Projects (eHip), the well-meaning programs are intended to encourage people on low-incomes to eat more healthy foods (MHFs).

  (No, I made that last one up.)

  As almost every endeavor undertaken by the government will demonstrate, well-meaning intentions that are funded via the force of law often go amiss — at best, achieving less than hoped, and at worst, achieving the opposite of what was intended.

  One of the major forces that perverts well-intended government programs is regulatory capture. Once the government commits taxpayer money to an endeavor, entrepreneurs and established businesses come out of the woodwork to grab a piece of the pie. eHip will cause food producers to throw a token amount of fruits or vegetables into their existing products, thus qualifying their products for the “fruit and vegetable” subsidy. Bet on it.

  To many this may seem like a good idea.

  After all, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is essential for maintaining good health. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that this proposal is a classic example of government overreach and is likely to do more harm than good.

  The first problem with the USDA’s proposal is that it is based on the faulty assumption that people will make healthier food choices if they are paid to do so. But this is not how human behavior works. People make food choices based on a variety of factors, including taste, convenience, and price. Simply paying people to eat more fruits and vegetables is unlikely to change these underlying factors.

  But on whose behalf is the government overreaching, anyway? This seems like yet another version of the government’s “helping people to make healthy decisions” story, but the USDA is tasked with promoting the interests of American farmers. Could we be seeing yet another vested interest manifest in government?

  It’s also important to consider the USDA’s track record when it comes to providing dietary advice. The food pyramid is a perfect example of how the USDA’s dietary advice can be influenced by special interests.

  The food pyramid recommended a diet that was high in carbohydrates, you might recall.

  Cue the obesity and diabetes.

  Beyond all this, the USDA’s proposal is self-contradictory.

  The USDA’s mission statement is to “provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management.”

  Paying people to eat more fruits and vegetables is well out of line with this. It is not sound public policy, it is not based on the best available science, and it is not efficient management.

  And it’s stupid, but let’s not quibble.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 18:35

• Trump Might Win And Have Dems To Thank
  Trump Might Win And Have Dems To Thank

  Authored by Andy Puzder via RealClear Wire,

  Former President Trump has held a slight lead in the RealClearPolitics Average of the polls since around September 11. While his lead is well within the margin of error, Democrats find it disconcerting that Biden is struggling against Trump. They have unceasingly berated, twice impeached, and four times indicted Trump, yet his support has grown. But Democrats shouldn’t be surprised. In important respects, Trump has them to thank for the strength of his support.  

  

  There are always a lot of moving pieces in an election and it’s early, but Trump’s current support basically comes from three groups: Those who know, love, and miss him; those who may not miss him but miss 2019’s peace and prosperity; and those who believe Democrats are corrupting our justice system to persecute a political opponent. Since 2020, Democrats have solidified support for Trump with the first two groups to the point where you have to wonder whether it was intentional – and then they literally created the third group.

  Democrats have made no effort to convert the Trump diehards – flyover country conservatives who hold traditional views of God, country, and family. Among other derogatory references, Biden has berated these voters as “an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the MAGA movement.” That would be all those flag-waving Americans at Trump rallies.

  After deriding Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables” in 2016, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently doubled down, calling them “cult members” who may require “a formal deprogramming.”

  Suffice it to say, these voters aren’t going anywhere. They have nowhere to go.

  And who doesn’t miss 2019’s low inflation, low interest rates, low unemployment, secure border, urban calm, peace breaking out in the Middle East, and no one seriously contemplating World War III. You get nostalgic just thinking about it. The pandemic paused the momentum, but we could have returned to pre-pandemic levels of peace and prosperity when it ended. In fact, at the end of Trump’s term in office, the economy was poised for a major recovery.

  But the Biden administration’s excessive spending, anti-U.S. energy policies, lax border security, and utterly incompetent foreign policy rapidly put an end to all that. You can’t really blame people for wanting a return to the days when lower taxes, reduced regulation, a focus on domestic energy production, and a strong – and competent – foreign policy led to both peace and prosperity. The Democrats have made it patently obvious that those are not their policies – they were Trump’s.

  While Democrats deserve significant credit for Trump’s strength with the first two groups of voters, they deserve all the credit for the third. This group only exists because Democrats are prosecuting a political opponent for blatantly political reasons.

  No president or former president was ever indicted until this pre-election year when four separate Democrat prosecutors targeted and brought charges of questionable validity against a former president – who also ­­­­­happens to be the leading Republican candidate for president. While experts from both parties have questioned the legal gymnastics employed to pursue these charges, polling indicates that the American people can see through this thin veneer of legitimacy on their own. They know no Democrat would have been criminally charged for what the Democrats claim Trump did. In fact, none have been.

  There’s a 24-minute YouTube video of Democrats denying election results without fear of prosecution.

  President Biden had top secret documents from his time as VP – which he had no right to possess – sitting in his garage (and elsewhere) without fear of prosecution.

  Hillary Clinton’s staff used a software program called “BleachBit,” to wipe data from her computer server containing thousands of government emails she had no right to possess – including top secret emails. FBI Director James Comey said at the time that “[w]hile there is evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” Voters may well wonder whether the rules of reason have changed.

  In perhaps the most absurd case, a Trump-hating New York prosecutor, who ran on a promise to target him, is threatening to destroy Trump’s family business for allegedly overstating the value of assets to obtain loans. It is undisputed that the loans were never in default, were paid off in full, and that no lenders have complained they were misled.

  Of course they haven’t. Any American who has purchased a home knows it doesn’t matter what you tell the lender you think the home is worth. Banks don’t lend based on the borrower’s assessment of an asset’s value. Banks do an independent appraisal and lend based on their own appraisal.

  You don’t have to find Trump a sympathetic figure to know that sacrificing the legitimacy of our judicial system to destroy a political opponent threatens what Biden called “the basic beliefs of our democracy.”

  This obvious abuse has also solidified support among Trump’s other supporters, dissuading them from switching to other primary candidate. Some see this as the Democrats’ plan to strengthen Trump in the primaries because they believe he is the candidate they can beat. Personally, I believe the Democrats are driven more by blind hatred at this point than reason. But, if that is their plan, it’s a risky one.

  Keep in mind that we elect presidents through the electoral college, not by popular vote. Democrat voters are concentrated in heavily populated urban areas in blue states, driving up the percentage of Democrat votes in those states. But winning 51% of a state’s popular vote produces no more electoral college votes than winning 100%, as losing presidential candidates – but popular vote victors – Al Gore and Hillary Clinton can attest.

  So, a tie in the popular vote (as reflected in the current polling) augurs well for Trump’s chances. Combining Trump diehards and those nostalgic for 2019 with voters repulsed by political persecution just might be enough to reelect our 45th president as our 47th. If so, we’ll have some overreaching Democrat prosecutors to thank.

  Andrew F. Puzder is the former CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc. and a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 10/16/2023 – 17:55

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