Today’s News 18th October 2024

• The US Fears An Uncontrollable Escalation Sequence With Russia Much More Than With Iran
  The US Fears An Uncontrollable Escalation Sequence With Russia Much More Than With Iran

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

  Politico cited a senior Senate aid and two sources in the Biden Administration to report on Wednesday that the US is much more afraid of an uncontrollable escalation sequence with Russia than with Iran due to the first’s nuclear capabilities.

  

  As proof of this, the US has no qualms about shooting down Iranian missiles launched against Israel but won’t consider shooting down Russian ones launched against Ukraine, which has upset Zelensky and some of his compatriots who thus feel like second-class allies.

  The difference between Russia/Ukraine and Iran/Israel in this regard accounts for the US’ different approach towards each pair.

  As was explained last month in this analysis about why “Putin Explicitly Confirmed What Was Already Self-Evident About Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine”, the comparatively more pragmatic policymakers who still have the final say in Russia and the US have thus far managed to avoid the uncontrollable escalation sequence that their respective hawkish rivals want.

  Here’s how they did it:

  “[The US hawks’] comparatively more pragmatic rivals who still call the shots always signal their escalatory intentions far in advance so that Russia could prepare itself and thus be less likely to ‘overreact’ in some way that risks World War III. Likewise, Russia continues restraining itself from replicating the US’ ‘shock-and-awe’ campaign in order to reduce the likelihood of the West ‘overreacting’ by directly intervening in the conflict to salvage their geopolitical project and thus risking World War III.

  It can only be speculated whether this interplay is due to each’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (‘deep state’) behaving responsibly on their own considering the enormity of what’s at stake or if it’s the result of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. Whatever the truth may be, the aforesaid model accounts for the unexpected moves or lack thereof from each, which are the US correspondingly telegraphing its escalatory intentions and Russia never seriously escalating in kind.”

  There’s no equivalent balance of nuclear power between the US and Iran, with the most that Iran can do is launch saturation strikes against American bases in the region, not existentially threaten it like Russia can.

  If Iran’s potential retaliation to Israel’s expected strike harms or kills some of the nearly 100-member team operating the US’ THAAD in the self-professed Jewish State, then the US could either take the hit, retaliate against Iranian-aligned Resistance groups in the region, or strike the Islamic Republic.

  Regardless of whatever might happen, non-nuclear Iran is incapable of existentially threatening the US like nuclear-armed Russia could if the latter retaliated to the interception of its missiles by hitting targets inside of NATO, which could easily catalyze a possibly apocalyptic escalation sequence.

  To be sure, there are indeed some US hawks who want to risk that scenario and the abovementioned comparatively less consequential one in West Asia, but their more pragmatic rivals are still able to stop them for now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 23:25

• China Macro Data Dump "Unexpectedly" Beats Across The Board
  China Macro Data Dump “Unexpectedly” Beats Across The Board

  On the day the Biden admin decided to flagrantly misrepresent the last retail sales report before the election, and used the biggest ever September seasonal adjustment on record to make an unadjusted retail sales decline into a blazing hot print, once again misleading the Fed that the economy is doing much better than it is, something Powell lamented after the BLS recently “revised out” some 818K jobs …

  

  … China decided to out BS the BLS, and moments ago reported economic “data” that was fake, goalseeked and, well, BS from top to bottom.

  In its Friday morning data dump when Beijing reported all the key economic metrics for the month, as one would expect from the only country eager to outmanipulate the US when it comes to rigging econ data, every single data point beat estimates but only ever so slightly, you know… to make it realistic:

  • Q3 GDP 4.6%, beating estimates of 4.5% (but down from 4.7$ in Q2).
  • Retail Sales Sept 3.2%, beating estimates of 2.5%, and up from 2.1%
  • Industrial Output 5.4%, beating estimates of 4.5%, and up from 4.5%
  • Fixed Investment Jan-Sept 3.4%, beating estimates of 3.3%, and unch sequentially
  • Urban jobless rate dropped to 5.1% from 5.3% in August

  

  Why this miraculous “beat” across the board? Simple: to instill confidence that the fake bazooka which Beijing pretended to fire in late September, yet which appears to be just another major dud where Xi Jinping hopes to sent stocks and home prices surging without actually massively expanding credit into the economy, is already succeeding. The better-than-expected retail sales figures in September also received a boost from government subsidies for buying home appliances, which saw a 21% surge in sales from a year ago, picking up from a 3% gain in the previous month.

  Alas, as we discussed earlier, it is doing anything but and investors are already fleeing from Chinese markets just days after mainland stocks soared as much as 30% on what in retrospect appears to have been hollow promises, lies and David Tepper dumping his bags while using gullible CNBC viewers as exit liquidity telling them to buy China no questions asked.

  Yet not even the fake data could cover up that China’s economy continues to sink: yes, the numbers may have beat, but the Q3 GDP – the slowest since Q1 2023 – remains well below the government’s target for full-year growth of 5% and less than the 4.7% recorded in the previous quarter as sluggish consumption and a property slump weighed on household sentiment.

  “It makes the official growth target of 5% difficult to achieve if this trend continues to year end,” said Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management. “This may be why the government decided in the Politburo meeting to change policy stance and boost growth.”

  The National Bureau of Statistics said there’s reason for caution despite improvements in the main indicators as the stimulus measures are rolled out. “We also need to see that the external environment is increasingly complex and grim, and the economy’s foundation for rebound and improvement needs to be further solidified,” a spokesperson said in a statement accompanying the release, pretending it is somehow everyone else’s fault Beijing has completely lost its ability to reflate the economy.

  Data released before Friday painted a mixed picture for growth in September. Exports slowed sharply, curbing a trade rebound that has been a bright spot for the economy. Deflationary pressures continued to build, with consumer prices still weak and factory gate prices falling for 24 straight months.

  The softer growth will underscore the need for more support for the economy from Beijing, which in late September announced its biggest monetary stimulus since the pandemic and followed up with promises of heavy fiscal spending, yet which have yet to materialize.

  As noted earlier, China’s markets reacted exuberantly to the news of monetary stimulus but – once Jim Cramer said to rush into Chinese stocks – have slumped as desperate investors await confirmation of the coming fiscal stimulus. The CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng benchmark are down in October, although they remain up for the year to date.

  

  Efforts by the country’s economic planner, finance ministry and housing ministry to boost confidence have been consistent duds, falling far short of investor expectations. The Hang Seng Mainland Properties index fell 6.7% on Thursday after the housing ministry’s support for the real estate sector disappointed markets. Authorities have yet to quantify the extra fiscal spending, but analysts have said this might be announced at a standing committee meeting of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, in the coming weeks.

  And amusingly, just as Chinese and Hong Kong stocks slumped after the strong Chinese data (because they were not misses, taking away from the urgency to stimulate more), with the CSI 300 already into negative territory, the central bank stepped in yet again with what has now become a daily market-boosting gimmick, which today came in the form of a slew of headlines to show that more easing and support for markets lie ahead.

  • *PBOC SAYS FIRST BATCH OF SFISF QUOTAS EXCEEDED 200 BILLION YUAN
  • *PAN REITERATES PBOC MAY FURTHER LOWER RRR YEAR-END: CAILIAN

  As a result, the CSI 300 is now up nearly 1%, although not even the algos buying Chinese stocks will be fooled for long and having seen this same old song and dance day after day, the selling will resume momentarily as traders indicate they no longer want words but demand actions.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 23:06

• The Kids Aren't Alright: Local Washington Police Report 350% Increase In Juvenile Fights
  The Kids Aren’t Alright: Local Washington Police Report 350% Increase In Juvenile Fights

  New data coming out of the Issaquah Police Department in Washington have revealed a 350% increase in fights among juveniles since the start of August this year, compared to last year. 

  The data, highlighted by KOMO News, was driven by “juveniles in middle school”, according to the report. 

  Between August 1 and October 15, Issaquah police received 18 reports of juvenile fights, up from 4 during the same period in 2023.

  Officers noted these incidents occurred in public settings and reported a pattern of increased fights at the start of the school year, with most reports coming from adult witnesses, parents, or students.

  Police reported that 72% of juvenile fights occurred between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., often near school properties or within a few blocks of Issaquah schools. 

  

  The KOMO News report obtained an Oct. 3 memo from Issaquah Middle School Principal Mark Jergens-Zmuda, addressing the rise in student fights, some recorded by bystanders.

  “School safety is paramount, and some measures have been put in place. Ensuring a safe and supportive school environment is our top priority,” the memo said. 

  To address the issue, the school held assemblies on expectations, safety, and conflict resolution. Jergens-Zmuda also reminded parents of school rules, including requiring students to stay seated for the first 15 minutes of lunch and banning gatherings on a nearby hill after school, where several fights had occurred.

  The school district responded in a statement:

  “Schools across the country have student altercations, and our district does as well… we take every instance of student altercations seriously, and investigate them in accordance with Washington state law as well as Issaquah School District policies and regulations. Student privacy laws do not allow us to share specific information about individual instances of altercations, the students involved, or discipline. As always, we are working with students, staff and families to support our students. We appreciate the partnership of our staff, families and community members.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 23:00

• Raytheon To Pay Over $950 Million In Settlement Over Fraud, Qatari Bribery, And Export Violations
  Raytheon To Pay Over $950 Million In Settlement Over Fraud, Qatari Bribery, And Export Violations

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

  Raytheon, a subsidiary of defense contractor RTX, has agreed to pay more than $950 million to resolve federal investigations into government contract fraud, as well as violations of anti-corruption and export control laws.

  

  The settlement, announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 16, addresses allegations involving defective pricing on military contracts with the U.S. government, as well as illegal bribes to a Qatari official, with the resolution involving both civil and criminal penalties.

  An RTX spokesperson confirmed the settlement, telling The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the company acknowledges responsibility for the misconduct and has cooperated with investigators. The company also emphasized its commitment to bolstering its compliance and ethics programs.

  Raytheon has admitted to two major fraud schemes affecting Department of Defense (DoD) contracts, including the provision of PATRIOT missile systems and radar systems.

  In the first case, Raytheon employees provided defective pricing information, leading the DoD to overpay on two contracts by roughly $111 million between 2012 and 2018.

  In a separate scheme, Raytheon failed to provide accurate cost or pricing data for numerous DoD contracts, including a weapons maintenance agreement, leading to further inflated payments.

  Under the terms of a three-year deferred prosecution agreement, Raytheon will pay a criminal monetary penalty of $146.8 million and $111.2 million in victim compensation and retain an independent compliance monitor for three years.

  The company received a 25 percent reduction in penalties for taking remedial actions, such as firing employees responsible for the misconduct and implementing new controls to prevent future fraud.

  Additionally, Raytheon has agreed to pay $428 million to settle False Claims Act allegations related to providing false data during contract negotiations with the DoD. As part of the settlement, Raytheon admitted it misrepresented labor and material costs for weapon systems and double-billed on a radar station contract.

  “The department is committed to holding accountable those contractors that knowingly misrepresent their cost and pricing data or otherwise violate their legal obligations when negotiating or performing contracts with the United States,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the DOJ’s Civil Division, said in a statement.

  Bribery Scheme in Qatar

  Raytheon also faced charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) for a bribery scheme in Qatar.

  The company was accused of paying nearly $2 million in bribes to Qatari military officials between 2011 and 2017 to secure lucrative defense contracts through sham subcontracts.

  From the early 2000s to 2020, Raytheon also paid more than $30 million to a Qatari agent, a royal family member with no military contracting experience, despite numerous internal warnings about corruption risks.

  In this case, which involved a parallel investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Raytheon was accused of failing to adequately document the agent’s services while continuing to rely on this relationship to obtain defense contracts.

  As part of a settlement with the SEC, Raytheon agreed to pay $124 million in penalties, with $22.5 million of that amount offset by a parallel DOJ fine.

  In addition, Raytheon entered into a separate deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ for the bribery violations, which includes a $230.4 million criminal fine and a $37 million forfeiture. The company will also retain an independent compliance monitor for three years.

  “Raytheon willfully failed to disclose bribes made in connection with contracts that required export licenses,“ Matthew Olsen, Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s National Security Division, said in a statement. ”Today’s resolution should serve as a stark warning to companies that violate the law when selling sensitive military technology overseas.”

  RTX has expressed its commitment to taking responsibility for the violations and implementing reforms.

  “We have worked diligently during the investigations to remediate that misconduct and continue to do so,” an RTX spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “We are committed to working closely with the incoming independent monitor to improve and further enhance our ethics and compliance program.”

  The spokesperson also reaffirmed the company’s commitment to maintaining a robust compliance program that adheres to global laws and regulations “while upholding integrity and serving our customers in an ethical matter.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 22:35

• How Many Years Does It Take To Save For A Condo?
  How Many Years Does It Take To Save For A Condo?

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist, shows the average number of years that a skilled worker must work in order to afford a 650 square foot condo near the city center across select markets, based on data from the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2024.

  

  In Hong Kong, the most unaffordable city worldwide for 14 consecutive years, it takes more than two decades for an average skilled worker to buy a condo.

  Paris stands as the most unaffordable city in Europe, despite real home prices falling more than 20% from post-pandemic highs.

  The median sale price of a condo or co-op in Manhattan stood at nearly $1.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, with prices per square foot up 44% in a decade.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 22:10

• The Shifting Media Landscape
  The Shifting Media Landscape

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  Listening to an interview with journalist Megyn Kelly, I was startled to learn that her private media company beats the mainstream legacy networks in traffic and influence. She has six employees. When she was fired by NBC in 2018, she believed it was the end of her career. She went to dark places in her mind. But she bounced back with her own broadcasting company and has never been happier or more influential.

  

  The same story has been told by Tucker Carlson, whose network is gigantic and whose influence is far beyond even the heights he obtained at Fox in the old days. I have no direct knowledge of how many people work for his personal channel but it is a reasonable guess that it is no more than a dozen.

  Everyone knows about the success and reach of Joe Rogan’s show. Apart from that, there are many thousands more with influence in their own sectors of reach. The share of influence dominated by legacy seems to be falling dramatically. You can detect their influence in this election season in which candidates are working the podcast circuit.

  You might chalk this up to technology: everyone has the capacity now to make content and distribute it. Therefore, of course, people do it.

  The real story, however, is more complicated.

  A new poll from Gallup offers an intriguing look.

  The latest polls show trust in major media is at an all-time low. It’s fallen from a post-Watergate high in 1976 of 72 percent to 31 percent today. That is an enormous slide, impossible to dismiss as mere technological change. Along with that, the poll documents dramatic losses of trust in government and essentially all official institutions.

  

  The loss of trust has hit all age groups but more profoundly affects people under 40 years of age. These are folks who have grown up with alternatives and developed a sophisticated understanding of information flows and are deeply suspicious of any institution that seeks control over public culture.

  Comments Gallup: “The news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process. The legislative branch of the federal government, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is rated about as poorly as the media, with 34 percent trusting it.”

  In contrast, “majorities of U.S. adults express at least a fair amount of trust in their local government to handle local problems (67 percent), their state government to address state problems (55 percent), and the American people as a whole when it comes to making judgments under our democratic system about the issues facing the country (54 percent).”

  It seems based on this poll that, in people’s hearts and minds, we are defaulting back to the America of Alexis de Tocqueville, a network of self-governing communities of friends and neighbors rather than a centrally managed and controlled monolith. The farther the institutions get from people’s direct experiences, the less they are trusted. That is how it should be, even aside from other considerations.

  In this case, the causal factors are not only the distance and not only the technology that allows for alternatives. Legacy media has been so aggressively partisan for at least nine years that it has alienated vast swaths of the viewing audience. Top executives have known about this problem for a very long time and worked to fix it but they face tremendous pressure from within, from reporters and technicians with Ivy educations and a dedication to woke ideology.

  The New York Times (NYT) after 2016 attempted to repair the damage from having so completely mishandled and miscalled the election. They hired new editors and writers but it was only a matter of time before they were driven out in a reminder to the top brass that there was a cultural revolution afoot, and that the personal is the political and visa-versa.

  The NYT defaulted back to extreme partisanship, leaving owners and managers to figure out other paths to sustaining profitability.

  As a result, it appears that an entire industry is in the process of a long meltdown with no available fixes. Huge audiences have turned away from them toward alternatives that are not necessarily partisan on the other side but simply display a dedication to telling facts and truths about which actual readers care.

  A question has long mystified me: Is this loss of trust entirely due to a change in media bias or is it that new technological options have fully revealed what might always have been there but was not widely known? I don’t have the answer to that but it is worth some reflection.

  When I was a kid, there were exactly three channels on television and one local newspaper. There was never a chance to see the New York Times except perhaps at the public library. The nightly news came on at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. It lasted 30 minutes. It opened with international news, moved to national news, turned to sports, and then the local affiliate took over with local news and weather.

  There was perhaps 10 minutes per day of national news on three separate channels, each reporting more-or-less the same thing. That was it. People in those days chose their station based on whether they liked the voice and personality of the broadcaster. News media was highly trusted. But was that trust based on reliable and excellent reporting or simply a reflection of all that people did not know?

  In those days, my own father was deeply distrustful of what he saw on television. Somehow he intuited that Richard Nixon was being railroaded by the Watergate scandal. He theorized that someone was out to get him not for bad things he had done, but for the good he had done and had planned to do. He preached this opinion constantly and it set him apart from all conventional wisdom. Indeed, as a young man I knew for sure that my father was the outlier: none of my friend’s parents agreed and none of my teachers did either.

  Since then, much has come out that seems to reinforce my father’s views.

  If Watergate happened in today’s world, there would be a huge explosion of opinions in all directions, with motives of all actors pushed out on every channel and there would be widespread competition to find the real story. We certainly would not be relying on two relatively inexperienced reporters at the Washington Post.

  I happen to believe that this is a good thing, even though it has come with a loss of trust. Maybe the old trust was not nearly as merited as people thought, simply because there were so few options. As the years went on, there were even more sources, starting with PBS but moving to CNN and C-SPAN. After the web came online and social media took off, that’s when the veil was really pulled back and media wholly transformed.

  People on all sides of the political spectrum today express profound regret for this change. Former presidential candidate John Kerry has said that today’s media environment makes governing impossible, and Hillary Clinton has floated the idea of criminal penalties for misinformation, a word tossed around so frequently these days but rarely defined as anything other than speech that some people do not like.

  All told, the rise of alternative media has surely contributed to the decline in public trust in the mainstream media. This might not reflect a fundamental change in the bias of media sources but simply the reality that we are only now fully aware of what has always been true. In that case, we are better off seeing these trends as good news all around, provided we have an attachment to seeing reality as it is. In any case, we all should.

  Returning to the Kelly/Carlson business model: they are doing far more with fewer staff people than was ever thought possible. It’s a solid prediction that many legacy media companies will be downsizing in terms of personnel in the future. They can do more with less.

  And they can do it with more fairness and less bias. Economic realities will likely make it so.

  The entire landscape of information and media economies is dramatically shifting. That is precisely why we are hearing ever more calls for censorship. Many elites long for the old days of canned and constructed narratives with no other options. But the well-documented loss of trust makes that little more than a pipe dream. It cannot and will not happen.

  The only viable path to earning audience loyalty in our times is to write and speak with fact-based integrity. Trust has to be earned.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 21:45

• "She's Not As Strong As Me": Lip Reader Deciphers Biden-Obama Grumpy Old Men Chat
  “She’s Not As Strong As Me”: Lip Reader Deciphers Biden-Obama Grumpy Old Men Chat

  On Wednesday afternoon, cameras caught President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama having a ‘vigorous’ discussion while attending Ethel Kennedy’s funeral. Kennedy died last Thursday at the age of 96 after having a stroke the previous week.

  

  Because their voices weren’t picked up by the camera, the internet got creative and made a few suggestions:

  Here it is. pic.twitter.com/Gkh1aUHHP6

  — 1MANTHRILLRIDE 🇺🇸 (@1MANTHRILLRIDE_) October 16, 2024

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

  On Thursday, the NY Post reported that they hired a professional lip reader to decipher what was said. Hilariously, the parodies weren’t too far off!

  President Biden griped to former President Barack Obama that “she” is “not as strong as me” — with Obama agreeing “that’s true” — in a stunning off-mic conversation deciphered for The Post by a professional lip reader.

  The apparent candid assessment of Vice President Kamala Harris’ standing going into the Nov. 5 election occurred Wednesday afternoon as America’s two most recent Democratic presidents conversed at Ethel Kennedy’s memorial service in Washington.

  “She’s not as strong as me,” said Biden, 81, according to the translation, which was produced by analyzing the on-video lip movements during the discussion.

  “I know … that’s true,” the popular former president agreed, adding, “We have time.”

  “Yeah, we’ll get it in time,” said Biden, who was forced by fellow Democrats to relinquish the party’s nomination in favor of Harris on July 21 in a mutiny that Obama was believed to support.

  The Post hired London-based forensic lip reader Jeremy Freeman, who was born deaf and has served as a University College London-certified expert witness for litigants, police, and journalists for 16 years, according to the report.

  That said, Freema also says he detected “no tension” between Obama and Biden.

  Biden spokesman Andrew Bates laughed in the Post‘s face, saying “A ‘lip reading expert’? Did your usual right-wing soothsayer have their out-of-office up? Only President Biden and President Obama know what they discussed, but this certainly wasn’t it.”

  An Obama source told the outlet: “Only President Obama and President Biden know what they discussed yesterday. Any assertion otherwise is ridiculous.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 21:20

• North Carolina County Democratic Chair Resigns After Removing Trump Campaign Signs
  North Carolina County Democratic Chair Resigns After Removing Trump Campaign Signs

  Authored by Stephen Katte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The chair of the Moore County Democratic Party in North Carolina has resigned after being arrested for removing 2024 campaign signs supporting Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump.

  

  In an Oct. 11 statement, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said that a deputy working in the West End area observed Lowell Evan Simon removing campaign signs from the roadside along Seven Lakes Drive in the West End area.

  “The deputy, who was responding to an unrelated call at the time, later followed up at Simon’s residence, where the signs were found in his vehicle,” the sheriff’s office said. “Simon admitted to removing the signs, which were then recovered and returned to their original owner.”

  A warrant for Simon’s arrest was issued for two counts of misdemeanor larceny of political signs. He was later released under a written promise to appear in Moore County District Court on Oct. 30.

  Removal or theft of campaign signs violates North Carolina law protecting the lawful placement of political signs during an election cycle. Violating this law is a Class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, $500 in fines, and up to a year of probation.

  In an Oct. 15 statement, the Moore County Democratic Party said Simon, 68, “offered an apology for his actions, as well as his resignation,” both of which were accepted.

  “While we appreciate the hard work and dedication he has shown to the Democratic Party and the community, the Moore County Democratic Party cannot and will not condone the tampering of political signs or any other illegal activity,” the party said in a statement. “We believe in the importance of freedom of expression and speech, and hope that local law enforcement will continue to enforce such laws that protect those freedoms fairly and without bias across party lines.”

  Simon, also a candidate for the state House of Representatives, told local radio station WRL that he removed the signs because they were placed in front of his own, obscuring them to passersby. He said the ongoing issue caused him to act out in a moment of weakness.

  “My worse angels got the better of me and I removed the signs,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t do it in the stealth of night or anything. I did it when it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 20:55

• US CBP Agents Halt Some DJI Drone Imports Over 'Forced Labor' Concerns 
  US CBP Agents Halt Some DJI Drone Imports Over ‘Forced Labor’ Concerns 

  Chinese drone manufacturer SZ DJI TECHNOLOGY CO LTD., commonly known by many pilots as “DJI,” is the world’s largest drone maker. It produces billions of dollars worth of drones each year, which end up in the hands of US consumers, government agencies, and/or on the modern battlefield in Eastern Europe. 

  DJI is a privately held company. It has received funding from state-owned enterprises in China and is classified as a “Chinese military company” by the US Department of Defense, according to the think tank Uyghur Human Rights Project, adding it supplies more than half of all drones in the US and is the most recognizable drone brand among consumers. 

  

  However, a new report from Reuters says the popular drone brand has faced difficulties importing various drone models into the US after the US Customs and Border Protection used the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). 

  DJI notified US importers via a letter that the CBP stopped some drone imports from entering the US because CBP agents were verifying documentation that the drones were in good standing with UFLPA. In other words, border agents were making sure the drones were not produced by forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. 

  The letter told importers that the action appeared to be “part of a broader initiative by the Department of Homeland Security to scrutinize the origins of products, particularly in the case of Chinese-made drones,” adding that the US government’s claims are “unsubstantiated and categorically false, but the law gives them the authority to withhold goods without any tangible evidence.”

  Data from Sayari, a top counterparty and supply chain risk intelligence provider, shows DJI has seven major risk factors. It has exposure to a Xinjiang-based entity with forced labor concerns. 

  

  “The entity possibly owns (minority, majority, or wholly) a Xinjiang-based entity up to 3 hops away via direct shareholding relationships with 10% or more controlling interest, including beneficial owner, owner, shareholder, partner, subsidiary, or branch. Applicable to entities globally,” Sayari noted in the DJI profile. 

  

  DJI products are also widely used by US government agencies. US lawmakers have sounded the alarm (read: Senators Introduce Bill To Blacklist Chinese Drones In The US) on the widespread use of these drones by consumers and government agencies, warning these unmanned systems are national security threats.  

  Meanwhile, state-run Chinese media outlet Global Times spoke with Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, about the incident first reported by Reuters, criticizing Washington for “adopting the ridiculous and discriminatory UFLPA to crack down on the drone maker.” 

  Xiang told GT, “By doing so, the Biden government may aim to protect the US dronemaking industry. However, the unreasonable move by the US could spark further concerns worldwide over future China-US relations.” 

  What drone industry is the Biden admin protecting for consumers? We can’t name one affordable US-based drone company that is as good or exceeds DJI in performance. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 20:30

• Election 2024: Those Who Lecture Versus Those Tired Of Being Lectured
  Election 2024: Those Who Lecture Versus Those Tired Of Being Lectured

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  The election is finally shaping up to be not only liberal Democrat Harris versus conservative Republican Trump.

  

  Instead, it has become a larger contest between those who talk down to their fellow Americans and those who are increasingly sick and tired of being lectured.

  How smart is it, for example, for Harris supporters to claim nonstop that ex-president Trump is a fascist dictator—and thus, by extension, those also who vote for him?

  Women voters poll about 53-5 percent for Kamala Harris. Trump enjoys a similar, although likely somewhat smaller, majority margin of male voters.

  Yet Harris – along with campaign surrogates Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – has been lecturing both black and white male voters nonstop that they are misled.

  Or they supposedly suffer from false consciousness – as if they have no clue that Harris and her progressive agenda are really in their own self-interest.

  Such haughtiness reached a zenith when Harris ran ads of actors costumed as supposedly working-class men. They voiced scripted talking points to prove that “real” men are progressive Harris supporters.

  But the actors were so patently ridiculous, their canned lines so unreal, that most viewers likely thought the ads were run by Trump himself—to show how arrogant, out-of-touch elites must imagine how the so-called “clingers” and “deplorables” think and talk.

  The Trump campaign also tries all sorts of strategies to win over women voters, from promising to rectify the Biden-Harris hyperinflation to reducing spiraling crime in towns and cities.

  But one method they avoid is claiming women are ignorant of their real self-interest and deluded by Harris—accurately assuming that a candidate does not win voters by belittling their intelligence.

  Harris and Obama both dressed down black men, claiming they are especially culpable for not voting en masse for Harris—even though a far higher percentage of black males will vote for Harris than for Trump.

  This hectoring the electorate on its supposed ignorance or moral shortcomings has become a Harris campaign trademark.

  To Harris, objecting to 10-12 million foreign nationals entering the company illegally without background checks during the Biden-Harris administration is supposedly a sign of a lack of compassion.

  And claiming that a current declining rate of illegal immigration should allay voters’ supposed paranoias utterly ignores the millions of illegal aliens who were all but welcomed in by Biden-Harris before the 2024 election cycle.

  Voters are also talked down to ad nauseam that they do not appreciate the Biden-Harris economy given the rate of inflation is falling.

  True. But most voters go shopping in a manner politicians do not.

  So, they resent such top-down sermons. They know best that prices for staple foods, fuel, insurance, and housing have spiked by some 20-30 percent since 2021—and stayed astronomically high.

  Currently, the auto industry is in crisis. Its huge inventory of electric voters sits unwanted and unsold. Harris and the left, remember, mandated all sorts of EV standards in their war against the internal combustion engine.

  Then the proverbial people revolted against the comparatively limited range of EVs and the difficulty in finding accessible and quick-charging stations.

  So, the free market and consumer demand ignored the increasingly strident lectures.

  Likewise, Harris pontificated that crime that had spiked in 2021-2023 is now not all that bad.

  But voters know all too well that their major cities are now unsafe. They sense one reason this year that crime is not soaring as it was two years ago is because it had gotten so bad that any further commensurate increases would have made life utterly unlivable.

  The Harris campaign was further hurt by past videos that keep popping up of Harris lecturing voters about how they either must think correctly or remain cluelessly selfish or ignorant.

  So, a recent clip surfaced on Columbus Day 2021 of a Vice President Harris lecturing America about Western civilization’s “shameful” sins in discovering the new world.

  Another video reveals Harris warning the country in 2020 on national television that the massive post-George Floyd demonstrations—that had turned violent and deadly—were not and should not stop, as if the country had to pay collective penance for its sins.

  This 2024 race may be becoming analogous to an October 1980 teachable moment.

  Then a preachy and sanctimonious incumbent Jimmy Carter—ahead in the final October polls over challenger Ronald Reagan—finally turned off voters for good.

  The previous underdog Reagan won in a landslide for a variety of reasons. But certainly, one explanation was that the electorate had finally collectively shrugged their weariness. They were sick and tired of Carter’s downer lectures about how they were wrong and culpable.

  Reagan, however, reminded voters that America was better than all the alternatives, needed not be perfect to be good, and had nothing to apologize for.

  The same contrast will likely determine the election of 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 20:05

• Yemen Overtakes Afghanistan As The World's "Least Peaceful" Nation
  Yemen Overtakes Afghanistan As The World’s “Least Peaceful” Nation

  The Global Peace Index is a scoring system adopted by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

  It identifies and measures 23 different metrics that drive peace in a country.

  Every year the non-partisan group ranks 163 countries based on factors such as military expenditure, weapons imports and exports, political terror scale, deaths from internal and external conflict, nuclear and heavy weapons, perceptions of criminality, homicide rate, political instability, violent crime, and demonstrations, among others.

  Yemen is the least peaceful country in the world in the 2024 GPI, followed by Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. This is the first year that Yemen has been ranked as the least peaceful country in the world, with the country having fallen 24 places in the rankings since the inception of the index.

  

  Source: @JuliePeasley

  The gap between the most and least peaceful countries in the world is now wider than it has been at any point in the last 16 years.

  Compared to 2008, the 25 most peaceful countries were one per cent more peaceful in 2024, while the 25 least peaceful countries were 7.5 per cent less peaceful.

  The report finds that many of the conditions that precede major conflicts are higher than they have been since the end of the Second World War.

  There are currently 56 active conflicts, the most since the end of Second World War, and with fewer conflicts being resolved, either militarily or through peace agreements.

  The number of conflicts that ended in a decisive victory fell from 49 per cent in the 1970s to nine per cent in the 2010s, while conflicts that ended through peace agreements fell from 23 per cent to four per cent over the same period.

  Conflicts are also becoming more internationalised, with 92 countries now engaged in a conflict beyond their borders, the most since the inception of the GPI in 2008.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 19:40

• Grand Jury Indicts New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Over Allegations Of Case Interference
  Grand Jury Indicts New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Over Allegations Of Case Interference

  Authored by Stephen Katte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A New Hampshire Supreme Court Associate has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly trying to interfere in an open investigation of her husband.

  

  In an Oct. 16 statement from the New Hampshire Department of Justice, Attorney General John Formella said the Merrimack County Grand Jury had indicted Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi for two felonies and five misdemeanors.

  All the charges relate to her alleged attempts to interfere with the criminal investigation into her husband, Geno Marconi.

  “The decision to charge a sitting Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court was not made lightly, and it comes after careful and thoughtful deliberation,” Formella said.

  “No person is above the law, and the evidence in this case required investigation and presentation to the grand jury.”

  According to the New Hampshire Department of Justice, Hantz Marconi has been charged with two Class B felonies, one count of attempt to commit improper influence, and one count of criminal solicitation of improper influence.

  She is also charged with five Class A misdemeanors, two counts of criminal solicitation of misuse of position, one count of criminal solicitation of official oppression, one count of official oppression, and one count of obstructing government administration.

  One of the indictments accuses Hantz Marconi of trying to solicit New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to “improperly influence a member and/or members” of the New Hampshire Department of Justice while they were investigating her husband, who served as director for the New Hampshire Division of Ports and Harbors.

  She allegedly told the governor that the investigation was the result of “personal, petty and/or political biases.” She also allegedly said to Sununu that the investigation into her husband “needed to wrap up quickly because she was recused from important cases pending or imminently pending before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.”

  A conviction for a Class B felony is punishable by three to seven years in prison and a fine of up to $4,000. A Class A misdemeanor carries a sentence of up to 12 months behind bars and a fine of up to $2,000.

  At this stage, the New Hampshire Department of Justice said the investigation is complete and no one else has been accused of wrongdoing.

  The State Department of Justice also said that “the charges in these indictments are only allegations, and Justice Hantz Marconi is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”

  Hantz Marconi has been on paid leave from the Supreme Court since July. Her husband has been on leave since April and is the subject of an investigation by Attorney General John Formella. The exact nature of the investigation has not been shared publically, and Geno Marconi has not been charged with any crime.

  Attorneys for Hantz Marconi have said their client is innocent and hasn’t violated any rules or laws. In a court filing, they plan to push for the charges to be dismissed.

  “We will fight the charges to the fullest extent permitted by the law, starting with motions to dismiss the case which we anticipate filing soon,” Hantz Marconi’s attorneys said.

  “We intend to fight these wrongful accusations in court, where the fight should occur, and not in the media.”

  The Epoch Times contacted the New Hampshire Department of Justice and Hantz Marconi for comment but received no replies by publication time.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 19:15

• Billionaires' Row Developer Buys Madison Ave. Office Tower For Condo Conversion
  Billionaires’ Row Developer Buys Madison Ave. Office Tower For Condo Conversion

  Whether to tear down old office towers or convert them into multi-family residential structures involves a lot of consideration—including real estate values and zoning codes—and it’s important to note that some towers are not structurally supportive for conversion. 

  Developers have hired engineers to examine old towers across Manhattan and other boroughs to carefully determine which ones are the least expensive to convert office floors into apartments.

  A 24-story office tower at 655 Madison Ave. was slated for demolition months ago as Manhattan’s skyline was about to lose another historic mid-century building. This was halted after one of Manhattan’s top developers, Extell, known for kickstarting the “Billionaires’ Row” towers near Central Park, bought the 310-foot-tall, 200,000-square-foot structure for $160 million, according to Bloomberg, citing public records documents. 

  People familiar with the matter told the financial publication that Tyko Capital, which Elliott Investment Management backs, provided Extell with financing for the acquisition of the tower. 

  

  Other developers are moving in on NYC towers for conversions:

  Last week, developer Vanbarton Group agreed to buy the Archdiocese of New York’s headquarters building on First Avenue, with plans to convert it into rental housing. That followed a deal in September to purchase a financial district tower for a similar office-to-housing project. -BBG

  Hybrid and remote working options have changed the landscape of work forever. This has left parts of the borough with massive gluts of towers – some of which are half abandoned.

  The Kastle ‘Back to Work Barometer’ index of NYC shows that the office tower vacancy rate has been hovering at 50% since the end of 2022. 

  

  The glut of towers sent the price of a one-million-square-foot Manhattan tower, once owned by UBS, crashing 97% from the $332.5 million valuation when the bank bought the building in 2006. 

  At the start of the year, Goldman analyst Jan Hatzius told clients that office tower prices had to move much lower to make financial sense for conversions.

  We spoke with the head of one notable property management firm in the Baltimore-DC metro area on Monday, who pointed out that some towers can’t even be given away due to high conversion costs. Let’s not forget that regional banks hold the bulk of tower debt. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 18:50

• Kamala Harris Celebrates Hamas Chief's Killing, After Loudly Opposing Operation That Got Him
  Kamala Harris Celebrates Hamas Chief’s Killing, After Loudly Opposing Operation That Got Him

  Update(1600): Kamala Harris is hailing Israel’s killing of Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar. But last spring as the IDF was poised to expand its operations further south into Rafah, she was firmly against it. She had even warned of “consequences” (which of course never came). Throughout the more than year-long conflict the Biden-Harris administration has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth. The contradictions abound. Of course, the first and foremost contradiction is that the administration has admitted that large-scale massacres of civilians have taken place in Gaza, yet continues to arm America’s “closest Mideast ally” to the teeth and to the tune of billions.

  And now for the latest glaring contradiction, here’s Harris back in March:

  Israel could face “consequences” if it launches a ground assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, the US vice president has warned.

  Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview that aired on Sunday that it would be a “huge mistake” for the Israeli military to move on the city. The comments appear to underscore the continued strain in relations between Washington and Israel as the latter’s war in Gaza continues.

  Below: But here she is today, offering a celebratory congratulations to Israel on the Hamas chief’s death, while trying to appear ‘presidential’ as a potential future commander-in-chief…

  “Justice has been served, and the United States, Israel and the entire world are better off…”

  It takes real chutzpah for Kamala to celebrate the killing of Hamas’ leader Sinwar after opposing the Rafah mission. pic.twitter.com/dSJWyFP1Iq

  — Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) October 17, 2024

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  One online commenter noted, “All she ever did was shout for a ceasefire, now she’s practically giving the US credit for defeating Hamas.”

  She during the remarks underscored that this “moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza.” So far it appears that Netanyahu sees it differently, having stated that he’ll pursue the return of the hostages by any means possible (while appearing to rule out negotiations or ceasefire).

  The IDF says this is video of Sinwar’s final moments alive, possibly after a fire-fight or his position was shelled:

  Raw footage of Yahya Sinwar’s last moments: pic.twitter.com/GJGDlu7bie

  — LTC Nadav Shoshani (@LTC_Shoshani) October 17, 2024

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  * * *

  Update(1250ET): Official confirmation is trickling in, ahead of a planned evening Netanyahu speech – where he’s expected to issue an official declaration of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death during fighting in southern Gaza:

  ISRAEL FOREIGN MINISTER KATZ: HAMAS CHIEF SINWAR WAS KILLED IN GAZA

  Katz’s message to foreign leaders likely means a DNA match was made:

  In a message to dozens of foreign ministers around the world, Foreign Minister Israel Katz confirms that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed, becoming the first Israeli official to do so on the record.

  “The mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, who is responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7, was killed today by IDF soldiers,” says Katz, according to his office. “This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the evil axis of radical Islam led by Iran,” he continues.

  Katz says the killing “creates a possibility” for getting the hostages out immediately and for creating a Gaza free of Hamas and Iranian control.

  The top diplomat concluded, “Israel needs your support and assistance now more than ever to advance these important goals together.” US Congressional leaders are hailing news of the Hamas chief’s death, as he was considered the mastermind of the Oct.7 terror attacks.

  Axios correspondent Barak Ravid writes that “The IDF and Shin Bet confirm Sinwar’s body has been identified.”

  Below: graphic image issued by the IDF of Israeli troops standing over Sinwar’s body in Rafah…

  

  * * *

  In a huge breaking development, Israeli officials believe that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead. His alleged death may have been the result of an Israeli army attack on a building in Rafah, in southern Gaza. He oversaw the terror attacks of October 7 of last year and has remained Israel’s target #1.

  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) which were operating in south Gaza were not specifically seeking to target him, but a body recovered at the scene suggests he may have been killed. Israeli sources and media are saying there is a “high likelihood” Sinwar has been killed.

  

  “At this stage, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed,” the Israeli army and air force said in a joint statement as speculation mounts, also as gruesome photographs of a badly mangled body circulate widely online.

  The Washington Post writes that “A body, believed to be Sinwar’s, is being brought to Israel for DNA analysis, according to an Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.” According to more details:

  “We have his DNA from when he was in jail,” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said in an interview in September, at a previous moment when Israeli authorities believed they might have killed the Hamas leader. Danon said at the time that DNA analysis had been run on previous bodies, but that the testing had not been a match.

  According to Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal, “A reserve IDF force operating near Rafah spotted three armed men in a building, which was then hit by a drone/tank shell.”

  He describes that “A man resembling Sinwar and a Hamas regiment commander were found dead with a substantial amount of cash and weapons. This was part of the ongoing IDF operation, not a targeted assassination. No hostages are believed to have been present, but the ground is being inspected to confirm.”

  The Israeli police says its forensics team has identified Sinwar’s body according to pictures of his teeth that were taken by soldiers on the ground and compared to photos of his teeth Israel has. DNA test is still ongoing https://t.co/XNx5DlJ6Lk

  — Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 17, 2024

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  While Israel’s military is urging caution and patience amid all the rumors, if confirmed it would be a huge win for Israel, and major setback for Hamas:

  Army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi vowed to “find him (Sinwar), attack him” and force Hamas to find another leader.

  Sinwar — Hamas’s leader in Gaza since 2017 — has not been seen since the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history.

  It would certainly mark the biggest development of the conflict since the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31st of this year.

  Israeli army publishes footage of what it says is the operation that “led to the assassination of Yahya Sinwar”…

  الجيش الإسرائيلي ينشر صورا لما قال إنها للعملية التي “أدت لاغتيال يحيى السنوار” #غزة #قناة_العربية #فلسطين pic.twitter.com/XDlh3gjILp

  — العربية عاجل (@AlArabiya_Brk) October 17, 2024

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  A prominent open source analysis X account, OSINTdefender, writes that “One of the Images claimed to show the Body of Yahya Sinwar, following an Israeli Strike earlier today on Southern Gaza. With Facial Features as well as his Watch appearing to be an Exact Match to the Leader of Hamas.”

  Strong rumors of his death have been circulating in Arabic media as well.

  UPDATE: Israel is “close” to confirming Yahya Sinwar DNA, but “NOT FINAL” a source tells @AlMonitor . 2 Sources told Kan Sinwar has been killed. No comment from Hamas yet https://t.co/B5cMpTXFEr

  — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) October 17, 2024

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  Below is a quick review of his bio, via Al Jazeera:

  • Yahya Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza in 1962.
  • His family were refugees from Majdal Askalan, or what became Ashkelon, after the creation of Israel in 1948.
  • Sinwar spent 22 years of his life in Israeli prisons, for allegedly planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1988. He was freed in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal.
  • An Israeli government assessment of his years in detention described him as “ruthless” and “powerful”.
  • He used his time in jail to become fluent in Hebrew.
  • Sinwar succeeded Ismail Haniyeh as Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017. He became the group’s leader after Israel assassinated Haniyeh in July.
  • After the October 7 attack in southern Israel, which he is accused of masterminding, the Israeli military described him as a “dead man walking”.

  developing…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 18:45

• Deep Dive: The Election Will Decide President Trump's Legal Fate
  Deep Dive: The Election Will Decide President Trump’s Legal Fate

  Authored by Mike Davis via Unfazed and Determined (emphasis ours),

  For years, the Biden-Harris Justice Department, partisan Democrat state and local prosecutors, and private citizens—often funded by wealthy anti-Trump donors—have waged an unprecedented lawfare campaign against President Trump. We set out to provide a detailed update on the mind-boggling number of cases. We focus on the four absurd criminal indictments because, of course, they could mean a lifetime of imprisonment for President Trump. We also detail important civil litigation Trump faces.

  

  Indictment No. 1: New York Nonsense

  In April 2023, Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who campaigned on getting Trump, obtained an indictment against Trump on 34 felony counts related to supposed business records violations. In late 2022, Bragg plucked Matthew Colangelo—the acting No. 3 political appointee in the Biden-Harris Justice Department—to become a key lieutenant in Manhattan to get Trump. Colangelo, in other words, left one of the most prestigious legal jobs in the country to become a local prosecutor. In the indictment, Bragg claimed that, just before the 2016 election, Trump—through attorney Michael Cohen—had agreed to pay a common nuisance complaint to two litigants, a common business practice. Then, Bragg claimed, Trump had falsified his personal business records to conceal the payments. Business records violations of this type are normally misdemeanors in New York for which the statute of limitations is only two years, but Bragg alleged that Trump had violated federal campaign finance laws. According to Bragg, Trump had been required to disclose these payments. His falsifying business records in furtherance of campaign finance violations was thus a felony—or, in Bragg’s absurd view, 34 felonies—because business records falsified to further a felony themselves constitute felony violations.

  Bragg’s case makes no sense. The payment occurred in late October 2016. Trump would not have had to disclose it to the Federal Election Commission (FEC)—assuming, of course, that he even would have had to disclose it at all—until weeks after the election. In other words, the failure to disclose it could not have impacted the election. As former FEC Commissioner Brad Smith (more on him in a bit) has articulated, payments like this—so-called hush-money or nondisclosure payments—are personal and not campaign expenses. The Justice Department indicted former North Carolina Senator John Edwards on the same theory, and the jury deadlocked. The Justice Department could not make the case that Edwards’ payment to his former lover, made while he was running in the 2008 presidential election, was a campaign matter rather than a personal one.

  Acting Manhattan Supreme Court (New York’s lowest state court) Justice Juan Merchan presided over Trump’s trial in April and May 2024. The judge had no business on the case. First off, he had donated in 2020 to President Biden—Trump’s 2020 and, at the time, 2024 opponent—in violation of New York’s judicial ethics guidelines. More importantly, Judge Merchan should have recused because of his daughter, Loren Merchan. Ms. Merchan is the president of Authentic Campaigns Inc. (Authentic), a Chicago-based firm that does digital consulting and marketing for Democrat candidates. One of Authentic’s clients during the 2024 cycle was Adam Schiff, the deranged anti-Trump U.S. House representative who is running for a vacant U.S. Senate seat from California. When Bragg announced his indictment of Trump, Schiff—while working with Authentic—sent out a fundraising email touting the indictment. The Senate Majority PAC, another Authentic client that works to elect Democrats to the Senate, sent out a similar fundraising email based on the indictment. Schiff and the Senate Majority PAC combined have raised well over $100 million since the emails. It is impossible to say how much the emails themselves generated, but the point is that Judge Merchan’s daughter Loren’s clients have used the case to fundraise. The more donations come in, the more chance there is for Authentic to profit.

  Judge Merchan should have dismissed the case; instead, he let it go to trial. He refused to allow Brad Smith, the former FEC commissioner, to testify about the intricacies of campaign finance laws. Smith would have explained why the campaign finance claim makes no sense. Judge Merchan did, however, allow the testimony of two of President Trump’s former White House aides—Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout—regarding communications with Trump while he was President over the payments. The prosecution referred to this testimony as “devastating” in its closing argument because, the prosecutor claimed, it corroborated Cohen’s testimony that Trump had ordered the payments. The jury found Trump guilty on the 34 counts; Bragg had charged each entry as a separate felony. Trump faces up to 136 years in prison. Judge Merchan scheduled sentencing for July 11, 2024, but a dramatic development changed the game.

  On July 1, 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled that presidents are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for core official acts and at least presumptively immune for other official acts. This ruling stemmed from Trump’s indictment in the District of Columbia (more details on that later). While the alleged payments in Bragg’s case may not be official acts, the Supreme Court crucially held that a president’s internal deliberations with aides—even about unofficial acts—are inadmissible in a criminal case concerning those unofficial acts. As such, the testimony of Hicks and Westerhout—the “devastating” testimony, according to the prosecution—never should have happened.

  Trump’s team immediately moved for a mistrial. Judge Merchan stated that he would rule by September 6 on the motion and go ahead with the sentencing, if necessary, on September 18. On September 6, however, Judge Merchan postponed a ruling on the mistrial motion until November 12 and the sentencing, if necessary, until November 26. Under this schedule, both will occur after the November 5 election. Based on old and new evidence, however, Judge Merchan should not rule on the case. On August 20, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris filed her first FEC report as the presumptive Democrat candidate for the presidency. On Form 3P, line 23, a little-noticed but explosive disbursement appears: a $468 payment to Authentic for website hosting services. The Biden campaign had used Amazon to host its website prior to his leaving the race on July 21. Within days, the Harris campaign hired Authentic; the disbursement date is July 30. This means that Judge Merchan’s daughter, Authentic’s president, has a direct business relationship with Trump’s main opponent for the presidency while Judge Merchan is making rulings that could profoundly impact the election.

  Indictment No. 2: Madness at Mar-a-Lago

  When he was about to leave office, President Trump declassified many records and kept personal copies. This is similar to what former President Bill Clinton did when he retained copies of audiotapes of material, including classified information, related to the presidency. When a group sought these tapes as presidential records, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia held that President Clinton had exercised his discretion to retain the records as personal records. This suit arose from the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA). Under the PRA, presidents must turn over presidential records to the National Archives. The Archives usually returns many of these records for use in presidential libraries. Presidents also have the inherent power to declassify anything they wish in any manner they wish. While the government owns presidential records, the PRA gives a former President access to his presidential records anytime he wants.

  Trump and the National Archives battled for months over the custody of certain presidential records. During this time, the presidential records were at Trump’s Office of the Former President in Mar-a-Lago and under Secret Service protection. Trump, as a former president, is entitled to this protection for life. The DOJ intervened in the dispute and subpoenaed the records. In August 2022, FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago in an early morning operation. The agents, heavily armed, seized truckloads of boxes of documents. Attorney General Merrick Garland signed off on the raid, as did U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. Six weeks prior,  Judge Reinhart had recused himself from a lawsuit involving Trump and Hillary Clinton. The reason was obvious. In 2017, while a private lawyer, Reinhart had disparaged Trump in a Facebook post; in other words, Judge Reinhart had expressed animus against one of the parties in a case over which he was presiding. Yet, he signed the Mar-a-Lago raid warrant.

  Fast forward to November 18, 2022, when Garland plucked Jack Smith from The Hague to serve as Special Counsel in Trump’s federal cases. Smith had served as the head of DOJ’s Public Integrity Section and had secured a conviction against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a likely 2016 Republican candidate for the presidency or vice presidency. The 2014 conviction was based on the theory that, while in office, McDonnell had obtained gifts in exchange for holding meetings with people. DOJ never claimed that McDonnell had, say, signed a law in exchange for gifts. In 2016, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected this laughable theory. What McDonnell had done may have been tawdry, but it was not a crime. The damage had been done, however, as McDonnell was out of commission as a political force.

  The Senate never confirmed Smith; Garland simply picked him, claiming that Smith would serve independently since Trump had announced his candidacy for the presidency earlier that month. In June 2023, Smith secured an indictment against Trump and two others on charges of willfully retaining and mishandling classified information, as well as obstruction of justice. Smith claimed that Trump and his aides had tried to hide documents after the subpoena. Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida received the random case assignment immediately after the indictment. Smith never sought her recusal during her 13 months on the case.

  One of these motions concerned the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment. Smith, Trump argued, had power equivalent to a U.S. Attorney. These officials require Senate confirmation, which Smith never obtained. Judge Cannon agreed, holding that Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments and Appropriations Clauses of the Constitution. She cited a concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas in the presidential immunity decision. The Supreme Court has never determined whether a special counsel like Smith is constitutional. In 1974, Leon Jaworski served as the special prosecutor in the investigation of President Richard Nixon. While that case wound up at the Supreme Court, neither party briefed nor argued the constitutionality of Jaworski’s appointment.

  Smith has appealed Judge Cannon’s decision to the Eleventh Circuit. Briefing should be finished by mid-October, and oral argument likely will occur after the election. Smith has not sought Judge Cannon’s recusal; however, a Soros-funded leftist group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has. In its friend-of-the-court brief, CREW—a nonparty who has no standing to seek recusal—claimed that Judge Cannon has been biased in favor of Trump. CREW never filed such a brief with respect to Judge Reinhart. CREW whined about the “sluggish” pretrial pace, but CREW does not have the right to a speedy trial. That right belongs exclusively to the defendant under the Sixth Amendment. It is unclear if the court will accept CREW’s brief, and we have urged the three-judge panel to decline to do so.

  CREW’s brief was the culmination of a pattern of absurd attacks against Judge Cannon. Leftist legal pundits are angry that she has not jumped whenever Smith has barked. In a New York Times story, for instance, anonymous sources claimed that Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga had suggested that Judge Cannon step aside so that the case could be moved to Miami where there was a secure facility to view classified documents. One since has been built at the courthouse where Judge Cannon sits in Fort Pierce. Another judge supposedly made the absurd suggestion that Judge Cannon should let a more experienced judge handle the case. There is no experience requirement for a judge to preside over a case, and were Judge Cannon to step aside and be replaced by, say, a less experienced Biden appointee, the experience complaints would evaporate in no time.

  The most egregious campaign against Judge Cannon came from Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor and terminal sufferer of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Kirschner posted on his YouTube channel a guide for his followers to file ethics complaints against Judge Cannon with the Eleventh Circuit. Over a thousand of these pests deluged the court, and it got so bad that Chief Judge William Pryor directed the court clerk to stop accepting these complaints because the limited court staff were overwhelmed. This unprecedented campaign against Judge Cannon, based on absurd arguments, is a grave threat to judicial independence that so far has failed and must never succeed.

  Indictment No. 3: D.C. Derangement

  Smith, who has no business serving because his appointment was unconstitutional, was not remotely finished with Trump after the Florida indictment. In August 2023, he obtained an unprecedented separate indictment against Trump in the District of Columbia over the events surrounding the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Notably, even rabid partisan Smith did not charge Trump with having incited an insurrection, the absurd claim used to attempt to disqualify Trump from the ballot, as detailed later. Instead, Smith charged Trump with conspiracy to violate the rights of voters by depriving them of their lawfully cast votes. Smith also claimed that Trump had defrauded the United States because, Smith alleged, Trump knew he had lost the election but spread the lie that he had won in order to stay in power. Smith also charged Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding, the counting of the electoral votes in Congress. Smith intruded upon internal DOJ deliberations, inserting their contents into the indictment. Trump had asked the DOJ to investigate election fraud, and Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark had suggested sending an advisory to state legislatures–a draft never sent–that they should conduct their own investigations and, if appropriate, appoint alternate electors. Pundits have called these “fake electors,” but they in reality were alternatives who could have voted for Trump were the Biden electors rejected if fraud had emerged.

  D.C. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, received the case assignment in August 2023 and set a March 4, 2024, trial date. This scheduling was absurd. There were millions of pages of discovery and thousands of hours of video to pour over. The goal was obvious: get Trump before a virulently anti-Trump D.C. jury and secure a quick conviction before the election. At prior sentencings, Judge Chutkan had made critical comments regarding Trump, though she referred to him as one person who had not been charged; she did not utter his name. Smith had proposed an even more ridiculous trial date: January 2, 2024. Judge Chutkan ruled against Trump in pretrial motion after pretrial motion, culminating in her December denial of his motion to dismiss the case on the basis of presidential immunity. Trump claimed that he had taken official acts that constituted the basis of Smith’s indictment. Those acts were immune from prosecution, and the indictment must fail. Judge Chutkan categorically rejected this claim, holding that presidents are not entitled to immunity for official acts.

  At this point, Trump appealed to the D.C. Circuit, and Smith’s train began to derail. Since the issue involved immunity, Trump’s appeal halted all pretrial proceedings before Judge Chutkan. Smith, desperate to obtain his conviction before the election, sought review by the Supreme Court even before the D.C. Circuit had ruled. His justification was insulting. He claimed that the nation had a compelling interest in resolving this issue. The nation is not entitled to a speedy trial; the defendant is. It would make no difference legally whether the issue of immunity was resolved in 2024 or 2025. The justices rejected Smith’s pathetic political ploy and allowed the appeal to proceed as it otherwise would have.

  Without justification, the D.C. Circuit expedited briefing and oral argument on Trump’s appeal. In February 2024, a three-judge panel rejected Trump’s immunity claim, holding that, while presidents might have immunity for some acts, Trump did not for his. The judges, in other words, created a Trump-only immunity rule. The panel also rejected concerns that prosecutors would abuse power to indict a former president, reasoning that Trump’s being prosecuted in the normal course of the criminal justice system showed that the prosecution was proper. This reasoning makes no sense, as Chief Justice John Roberts later pointed out at oral argument. After the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, Trump sought Supreme Court review, which the justices granted in March. Oral arguments occurred on April 25, and the Court ruled on July 1.

  This timeline infuriated leftist pundits, who whined that the Court was not moving fast enough. To put this in perspective, Trump was indicted in August 2023, and a pretrial appeal wound its way through the federal system and was resolved in 11 months. That timing is extraordinarily fast. For example, Joseph Fischer, a former police officer, was indicted on November 10, 2021, for, among other things, obstruction of an official proceeding concerning the Capitol riot. Judge Carl Nichols dismissed that count, the DOJ appealed and won at the D.C. Circuit, and the Supreme Court granted Fischer’s petition for review. In June 2024, the justices ruled in Fischer’s favor, holding that the obstruction statute did not apply. More than two and a half years had elapsed between the time of Fischer’s indictment until the Supreme Court’s decision, more than double the time it took to resolve Trump’s pretrial appeal. The only reason for complaints about timing was an improper one: the election. Like Smith, leftist pundits wanted Trump convicted and locked away in a cage during the campaign.

  The Supreme Court gave Trump (and the presidency) a significant victory in the immunity decision. Core official acts like pardons or bill vetoes are, the justices held, absolutely immune. Other official acts are at least presumptively immune. For instance, the Court cited Trump’s conversations with Vice President Mike Pence concerning the certification of electors. As President of the Senate, Pence presided over the certification, and President Trump wanted him to reject several slates of electors. Pence refused, and Congress certified the election results. The justices also struck portions of Smith’s indictment concerning Trump’s communications with the DOJ, holding that those deliberations between the president and DOJ constituted core presidential acts. The Court also ruled that a president’s motives cannot be considered in determining whether acts are entitled to immunity. Presidents also have broad leeway in communicating with the American people. As such, many public statements of a president constitute official acts. In the indictment, Smith cited many of Trump’s social media posts concerning the election as evidence of criminality.

  The Court remanded the case to Judge Chutkan to apply its immunity test. Judge Chutkan had made no findings of fact; rather, she had rejected Trump’s immunity claim on its face. Even though Fischer’s case, which we referenced earlier, did not directly involve Trump, the Court’s ruling well could. The obstruction statute on which Trump and Fischer were indicted was a post-Enron law dealing with the destruction of evidence in cases. Its 20-year maximum sentence has been a powerful weapon for the DOJ to induce January 6 defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges. All but one district judge in D.C., Judge Carl Nichols, allowed the DOJ to get away with this statutory abuse and political persecution. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, however, many defendants will need to be resentenced without the obstruction charge. Judge Chutkan will also need to decide if those two counts must be dismissed as to Trump–two of four of Jack Smith’s bogus charges.

  On September 5, 2024, Judge Chutkan held the first status hearing on Trump’s case since the pause in proceedings last December. Smith made an extraordinary proposal. He wanted to file an opening brief on the issue of immunity, after which the defense could respond and Smith could reply. Even more astoundingly, Judge Chutkan agreed to this. Instead of permitting the defense to file a motion to dismiss the superseding indictment that Smith had obtained last month, the normal procedure in such a case, Judge Chutkan permitted prosecutors to have the first and last word on the immunity dismissal issue. All briefing should be complete by October 29, a week before the election. Smith has indicated that he will submit evidence that has not yet become public. This submission will occur while voters are casting ballots in mail and early voting. It is a blatant effort to influence the election.

  Judge Chutkan has stated that she will not take the election into account in her scheduling decisions. Her rulings themselves cast doubt on that assertion, however. She rushed to schedule a trial and made no findings of fact concerning immunity. This lack of fact finding elicited justified criticism from the Supreme Court. She then, in what is essentially a motion to dismiss an indictment, allowed the prosecution to fire the first shot. It is plain that she is solidly against Trump.

  Because it is impossible for the D.C. case to go to trial before the election, Smith has tried to dent Trump through the filing of evidence presented to the grand jury in obtaining the superseding indictment. Judge Chutkan, who has discretion in managing a pretrial schedule, decided to allow this. The result was a bizarre 180-page long brief that was filed before the Trump team even had the chance to file a motion to dismiss. This is totally bizarre – and if the goal were to ultimately convict Trump at trial, Smith would never put all this information on the public record right now, due to the risks of tainting the jury pool. But it seems clear that Smith has decided that his prosecution is doomed, and so he will use this prosecution to provide fodder for hit pieces against President Trump in the run-up to the election. This is a totally improper use of the judicial system, but Judge Chutkan was happy to allow it.

  Smith has indicated that, even if Trump wins, he will continue to pursue the case. Trump’s acting attorney general must fire Jack Smith immediately, shutdown his office, and dismiss with prejudice all these bogus federal indictments against Trump. It is crucial to remember that these cases should not be proceeding and never should have begun. They are not the result of earnest prosecutors who desire to uphold the law regardless of politics; rather, they are the product of politically motivated lawfare designed to take out an opposing party’s presidential candidate.

  Indictment No. 4: The Fulton Fani Fiasco

  In August 2023, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis obtained an indictment against Trump similar to Smith’s D.C. indictment–but even more bizarre. Willis alleged that Trump had violated Georgia’s racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations (RICO) statute. According to Willis, Trump had sought to overturn a valid election in Georgia through illegal means. She cited a recorded call on which Trump had told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,000 votes, the approximate margin of Trump’s deficit at the time. According to Willis, Trump wanted votes fabricated. Willis also charged that Trump had engaged in a fake electors scheme to replace Biden’s slate of Georgia electors with an alternate Trump slate.

  Willis did not just indict Trump. She indicted 18 defendants, including Trump attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. These lawyers, Willis claimed, had submitted fraudulent court filings in furtherance of the RICO conspiracy. Willis did not stop there, however, indicting David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. She even went so far as to indict Jeffrey Clark, the former U.S. Assistant Attorney General, and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

  Willis’s case seemed to be humming along nicely until January 2024. At that point, one of Trump’s codefendants filed a motion seeking the recusals of Willis and Nathan Wade, her top special prosecutor. Willis paid Wade nearly $700,000 for his services on Trump’s case. The motion alleged that the two had been having a secret affair while the case was pending and while Wade was married. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee held a lengthy evidentiary hearing on the motion, over the vehement protests of Willis’s underlings, who demanded that the lawyer who had filed the motion be sanctioned.

  Instead of a garden-variety evidentiary hearing, what occurred was the courtroom version of Jerry Springer. In a nationally broadcast proceeding, Wade and Willis testified and admitted to the affair. While Wade was relatively calm, Willis melted down. She was so out of control that Judge McAfee admonished her to stop her antics. Willis and Wade admitted that Wade had paid for lavish vacations, including a Caribbean excursion. They also claimed that Willis had reimbursed Wade, but they provided no documents to support this assertion. Instead, they told the judge, Willis had given Wade cash. Willis claimed that she keeps massive piles of cash at her house, including leftover campaign contributions, that she uses to pay expenses. It is unclear why Willis did not just use the cash to pay for the trips themselves.

  Judge McAfee split the baby. He ruled that Willis could remain on the case, but only if Wade resigned. Wade resigned the afternoon of the ruling. The judge criticized Willis for her conduct, highlighting her speech at a predominantly African American church in which she had claimed that the charges against her were racially motivated. Judge McAfee characterized Willis’s and Wade’s testimony as having “the odor of mendacity.” Trump and many of his codefendants immediately appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which will hear oral arguments in December. The court must rule by next March, but the losing side can appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. That court has discretion to hear the appeal. If it chooses to hear the case, a decision may not occur until 2026. If Willis and her office are disqualified, a committee will assign the case to another district attorney in a different county, who might elect to drop it.

  Even if Willis is not ultimately disqualified, the case is a long way from trial. The reason concerns presidential immunity. Like he did with respect to the D.C. indictment, President Trump has moved to dismiss the Georgia case on the theory that the indicted acts are immune from criminal prosecution. Judge McAfee has not touched that issue. The immunity ruling came in July; by that time, proceedings before Judge McAfee were on hold because of the Willis disqualification appeal. When and if Judge McAfee rules, that decision can be appealed through the Georgia courts and ultimately up to the United States Supreme Court. Also, if Trump wins the presidency, the case surely will be paused while he serves his term. Meadows also has sought to remove his case to federal court, claiming that his acts were official and thus subject to the removal statute. The district judge and Eleventh Circuit ruled against him, and he has sought Supreme Court review. The issue would become moot if Willis is disqualified and a new prosecutor drops the case.

  The case should be dropped, but the case never should have begun. Willis and Wade used it as a trough to finance their luxurious lifestyle, costing the taxpayers of Fulton County nearly $700,000 in the process. Wade’s billing for his services was outrageous. On one day, he billed 24 hours at $250 an hour. If true, Wade did not stop to eat. Take a shower. Go for a walk for a few minutes to stretch his legs after sitting at a desk and working his fingers to the bone. Catch some sleep. He just worked nonstop, he claimed. This assertion is insulting to the intelligence of any reasonable person. Wade also billed Fulton County taxpayers $4,000 for two meetings with Biden-Harris White House officials before bringing the unprecedented indictment against Trump, their political opponent. The first occurred in Athens, Georgia, with the White House Counsel. The second occurred in Washington, where Wade apparently went to the White House. We have no idea what discussions occurred between Wade and White House officials, but it is plain that there was coordination between the Biden-Harris White House and state prosecutors. Since Wade billed Fulton County, whatever he was doing pertained to Trump’s case. Wade also never should have been hired to prosecute a RICO conspiracy, one of the most complicated indictments a prosecutor can pursue. Willis cited Wade’s service as a municipal court judge, but that in no way qualified him to prosecute a case of this complexity or magnitude. He had never even tried a felony case. Wade also laughably claimed that, even if Trump is President, he can be tried criminally in Georgia during his term. This assertion alone illustrates just how unqualified Wade was to serve on the case. Thanks to their astonishing foolishness and arrogance, Wade and Willis might well find themselves as criminal defendants either in Georgia or a federal court in some other venue while Trump goes free and serves four more years in the White House.

  * * *

  The criminal lawfare that President Trump has had to face is, by itself, shocking, but it does not come close to capturing the magnitude of the lawfare campaign. Civil actions have sought to bankrupt Trump, prevent him from doing business, and even remove him from the presidential ballot. The last effort not only was an attack on Trump; it amounted to an attempt to disenfranchise the tens of millions of Americans who wish to vote for him. Below is a history and update on several of these civil actions.

  Lawsuit No. 1: The Insurrection Rejection

  The National Park Service approved a permit for the so-called “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021. The purpose of this event was to protest the electoral certification of Biden’s victory that day in Congress, and President Trump spoke at the rally. In his speech, President Trump urged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” march to the Capitol.

  What happened at the Capitol that day was a riot. As Justice Alito pointed out at oral argument in Fischer v. United States, the case that stopped the Biden-Harris Justice Department from using the obstruction statute against January 6 defendants, “January 6 was very serious.” Police officers were assaulted, and the Capitol sustained damage. Some rioters even stole government property like computers from the offices of members of Congress. An officer died from natural causes; Trump was not, contrary to some delusional leftist claims, responsible for his death.

  January 6 was not, however, an insurrection. Shortly after the riot had subsided, leftists began plotting to end Trump’s potential 2024 presidential campaign early. Voters would not decide if he should resume the presidency; judges would. This plan centered around Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Insurrection Clause. This provision holds that those who have previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and then engage in rebellion or insurrection against it shall be disqualified from holding further office, unless Congress removes the disability by a two-thirds vote. The Insurrection Clause was designed to keep former confederates from assuming office, such as being elected to the House of Representatives.

  Leftists claimed that Trump’s January 6 speech, which called for a peaceful march to the Capitol, constituted an insurrection. These authoritarians claimed that Trump had used violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Were this view accepted, it would gut the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Phrases such as “fight like hell” would transform someone into an insurrectionist. When Trump announced his candidacy, leftists began filing lawsuits to strike him from ballots. Most failed, but Denver, Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace decided to hold a trial on the issue. The judge then ruled that Trump had engaged in an insurrection but that he was not an officer of the United States and that the oath he had taken was not the same as the one articulated in the Insurrection Clause.

  On appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed that Trump had engaged in an insurrection but reversed the trial court’s rulings with respect to the oath and Trump’s being an officer of the United States. The 4-3 majority on the all-Democrat-appointed court, including now-Chief Justice Monica Márquez, ordered Trump removed from the presidential primary ballot. This ruling, issued just before Christmas, sent shockwaves through the nation. Within a short time, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a radical Democrat who had not even been elected, decreed that Trump was an insurrectionist and removed him from the ballot. Soon after, Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter in Chicago followed suit based on the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court. The leftist lawfare was working to perfection. Trump was almost gone; there was just one more hurdle to overcome.

  Trump appealed the Colorado decision to the Supreme Court of the United States. On March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday—the day on which many states have primaries and caucuses—the justices issued their decision. The Court unanimously–9-to-0–held that states have no authority to bar federal candidates from running for office based on the Insurrection Clause. A majority of the justices also held, as Chief Justice Salmon Chase had in Griffin’s Case (1869), that Congress must pass a statute for the Insurrection Clause to be enforceable; in other words, the Insurrection Clause is not self-executing. House Democrats have proposed such a law, but there is no chance that it will pass the Republican-controlled House. If Trump wins and Democrats take control of the House and Senate, however, such a law could pass next January before Trump’s inauguration. Otherwise, if Trump prevails, leftists cannot thwart his assuming the presidency by branding him as an insurrectionist.

  The events of the insurrection saga were unfathomable. Trump has never been convicted of insurrection. He has never even been charged with that offense. Jack Smith, as aggressive a prosecutor as there is and a rabid partisan to boot, has not even gone down that road, and Smith has indicted Trump for seemingly everything under the sun. Yet, a group of leftist lawyers and so-called scholars led by J. Michael Luttig, a retired judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, who was passed over by President George W. Bush for elevation to the Supreme Court, cooked up a scheme based on a constitutional provision designed to guard against a return to power by members of the Confederacy. With the vigorous support of leftist groups like CREW, this cabal convinced a trial judge and a state supreme court to throw a major party’s candidate off the ballot. An unelected secretary of state snapped her fingers and declared this candidate an insurrectionist. It is highly likely that some leftist lower court federal judges would have gone along with this plan. While they have failed in many areas, President Biden and Vice President Harris have excelled at stocking several appellate courts with hardcore leftists. Only the Supreme Court of the United States saved democracy by stopping the audacious effort to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters. This shameful episode illustrates in the most stark way how the Supreme Court is the last safeguard against the unspeakable lawfare that President Trump has had to endure.

  Lawsuit No. 2: New York Nonsense, Big-Tish Style

  Alvin Bragg is not the only leftist New York prosecutor who has it out for Trump. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School wrote a book, Get Trump, in which he detailed the extraordinary efforts of the anti-Trump lawfare. The title was easy. Dershowitz did not make it up; it came from New York Attorney General Leticia James, a partisan Democrat who vowed to do just that in her campaign. She followed through, suing Trump for hundreds of millions of dollars. James claimed that Trump had defrauded many banks. James’s theory was that Trump had inflated the value of his assets to procure bank loans. A clause in the lending agreement instructed banks to do their own due diligence. These banks were some of the largest in the world, the most sophisticated of actors. One executive testified that Trump was “a whale,” meaning someone with whom banks wanted to deal because of his enormous brand. The banks reasoned that Trump was good for the money, and the banks received payment for the loans on schedule, in-full, on-time, and with interest. In other words, there was no victim of this supposed fraud.

  There was a trial in this case, but much of the deciding had already occurred. Democrat Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron ruled, based on briefing, that Trump had somehow committed fraud. The statute in question, which deprives defendants of a jury trial, never had been used like this in its history. The trial was for the sole purpose of determining damages. In the end, Judge Engoron imposed approximately $455 million, including interest. He ordered Trump to pay the entire amount as a bond prior to appealing; otherwise, James could begin seizing his assets. The order also banned Trump and his sons from serving as officers of a New York corporation for several years. Trump appealed, and the New York Appellate Division lowered the bond to $175 million, still a gargantuan amount.

  Throughout the trial, Judge Engoron made it plain that he detested Trump, referring to him as “a bad guy” and repeatedly smirking during the proceedings. He imposed an unconstitutional gag order to prevent Trump from criticizing him. Judge Merchan imposed a similarly illegal order in the criminal trial that precludes Trump from mentioning the ties that Loren Merchan has to Biden, Harris and other Democrats. Judge Engoron’s clerk also made political donations in violation of New York judicial ethics guidelines, just like Judge Merchan. The case is currently awaiting a ruling by the Appellate Division, after which the losing side will surely seek review by the New York Court of Appeals. The oral argument strongly indicates the appellate judges see this case as legal lunacy.

  As prominent investor and Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary pointed out, what Trump did was no different than what businesspeople do every day. No other businessperson has faced legal repercussions for such conduct. Recognizing that the decision against Trump may have inspired fear among other members of the business community that could cause a massive exodus from New York, Democrat New York Governor Kathy Hochul sought to quell fears by claiming that they did not need to worry; this was only about Trump. This assertion proves Trump’s point; he has been a target of lawfare. Members of the business community do indeed need to worry, however, for if New York can do this to Trump because of James’s vendetta, New York can do the same to any of them.

  Lawsuit No. 3: More January 6

  In June 2021, two officers with the Capitol Police—James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby—sued Trump for damages based on physical and emotional suffering as a result of the Capitol riot. The officers claimed that Trump’s words, including his plea to take back the country with strength and to “fight like hell” had incited the riot, even though he had urged supporters to march “peacefully” to the Capitol. Trump moved to dismiss the suit on the grounds that the actions alleged were official. Blassingame and Hemby claimed that the actions were not those of a president but rather those of a candidate seeking to advance his personal interests, mainly the goal of remaining in power. In February 2022, D.C. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, denied the motion. Trump appealed, and the D.C. Circuit issued its ruling in December 2023. There was neither expedited briefing nor oral argument.  Unlike the D.C. criminal case, the civil matter proceeded in the normal course. The appeals court held that there should be a discovery phase after which the district court should determine which of Trump’s acts were official and thus entitled to immunity versus which acts were personal and thus not so entitled.

  The concept of civil presidential immunity from private suits goes back to Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982). There, the Supreme Court held that presidents are absolutely immune for civil actions based upon acts that concern even the outer perimeter of presidential duties. At oral argument in Trump’s D.C. criminal case, Justice Gorsuch spoke favorably of remanding for a test like that adopted by the D.C. Circuit in the suit by the Capitol officers. Trump’s counsel, D. John Sauer, agreed that such a remand would be proper. Judge Mehta has been undertaking that analysis since the D.C. Circuit’s remand, and the case will not go to trial before the election. Judge Mehta also denied a motion to dismiss the case on free speech grounds. If it goes to trial, Trump likely will lose in front of a D.C. jury. His only hope for salvation will come from appellate review. The D.C. Circuit did not review Judge Mehta’s First Amendment ruling.  Those kinds of decisions receive review after the conclusion of a trial. Immunity is different because, if a defendant is immune from civil or criminal liability, the defendant should not even face trial. As such, immunity decisions are immediately appealable. We should expect a massive judgment similar to or even greater than the $148 million that a rabid D.C. jury levied against Giuliani in a defamation suit brought over his claims of election fraud.

  When and if the case reaches the appellate phase, either the D.C. Circuit or, more likely, the Supreme Court should throw it out on First Amendment grounds. If Trump’s speech, where he never asked the crowd to be violent but rather urged a “peaceful” march to the Capitol, can constitute the basis for civil liability, the First Amendment would be a nullity. Tens of thousands of people attended the rally, heard the speech, and either went home or followed Trump’s request to march “peacefully” to the Capitol. In the insurrection case, the Supreme Court did not reach the First Amendment issue, but that ground alone should have ended the case. Just as one should not be branded an insurrectionist and disqualified from office based on a speech that never urged violence, one also should not incur a gigantic civil judgment for that speech.

  Lawsuit No. 4:  The Carroll Clown Show

  Author E. Jean Carroll claimed that Donald Trump had raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She did not specify a year, much less a date. In 2022, in a lawsuit financed in part by Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman, Carroll sued Trump, first for defamation and then for the alleged sexual assault. Trump had called Carroll’s claim “a hoax” and denied having met her. While the defamation suit came first, the sexual-assault suit was the first to go to trial.

  This trial never should have occurred. In 2022, New York enacted a law called the Adult Survivors Act (ASA). The ASA revived all adult claims of sexual abuse for one year, regardless of whether the statute of limitations had expired. Suppose that a 75-year-old claims that another 75-year-old abused her in 1970, 54 years ago. According to the ASA, even though the civil statute of limitations expired half a century ago, that 75-year-old would have a year to bring this claim. Such a scheme is horrifying. People rely on statutes of limitations. After a certain number of years, a matter is no longer ripe for legal review. There are crimes like murder with no statute of limitations, but this lack of a limitation period has been in law for centuries. The ASA retroactively revived long-since dormant cases, and that is a whole different kettle of fish.

  The trial on the sexual assault fell into the hands of U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee. The relationship between the hyperpartisan judge and Alina Habba, Trump’s lead lawyer, got so bad that Habba faced the threat of going to jail for contempt. The jury determined that Trump had not raped Carroll but that he had sexually abused her. The defamation case then went to trial before Judge Kaplan. This jury also found in favor of Carroll. The combined damages, including punitive damages, totaled over $90 million. Trump has appealed both verdicts. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument on the sexual assault verdict on September 6, the same day that Judge Merchan delayed the sentencing. The appeal dealt with many issues, including Judge Kaplan’s decision to permit the introduction of the so-called “Access Hollywood tape” and his having allowed testimony from a woman who claimed that Trump had groped her on an airplane in 1979. The defamation appeal is awaiting oral argument.

  Like the other lawfare episodes against Trump, this one is extraordinary in a horrifying way. Trump could not be expected to be able to provide a defense to a charge with no date and not even a year. There was no physical evidence like DNA or photographs of bruising to indicate the occurrence of a sexual assault, and no other witnesses could testify about the events of an unknown day or year. If a legislature can retroactively revive claims long barred by a statute of limitations, and if a jury believes an alleged victim’s testimony, a defendant could be out tens of millions of dollars. And if a defendant dares to defend himself by calling the charges, for instance, a hoax, he could be out tens of millions more thanks to a defamation suit. This scheme is so unjust that it offends basic notions of constitutional due process.

  The Stakes of the Election

  President Trump’s fate depends in large part on the election result. If Vice President Harris prevails, it is certain that Jack Smith will continue to prosecute Trump, unless the Supreme Court determines that his appointment is unconstitutional. At that point, however, the other political appointees in the Kamala-Walz Justice Department could resume control of the prosecution. Trump might prevail at trial before a reasonable jury in Florida, but his conviction before a highly biased D.C. jury would be a virtual certainty. There is also no reasonable doubt that Judge Chutkan would hammer him at sentencing. She has shown how ardently anti-Trump she is, and she also has been one of the most harsh sentencers of January 6 defendants. If she gets the chance, she will make sure that Trump rots in a cage for the rest of his life.

  A Trump victory in November would ensure that he would not go to prison based on Bragg’s case at least until 2029 if at all, if the appellate courts fail to stop this clearly illegal political persecution. Even though Trump does not have a criminal record, it is likely that, if given the chance, Judge Merchan would send him to Rikers Island, the notorious jail where prisoners await trial and those convicted serve short sentences. Judge Merchan’s daughter Loren would certainly raise a lot of money off that republic-ending travesty. If Trump prevails, it is doubtful that Judge Merchan would try to throw Trump in prison in the month and a half between the potential sentencing and the inauguration. If he were to act rashly, however, either a higher court in New York or the United States Supreme Court would almost certainly put a stop to his shenanigans.

  The Georgia appellate courts should end Fani Willis’ lawfare against Trump. If Trump wins the White House again, even if the case is not dismissed, Trump would not face trial until at least 2029. By that point, a new district attorney might decide to drop the case. The Georgia Court of Appeals hopefully will put an end to this and disqualify Willis, a decision that should be affirmed in short order by the Georgia Supreme Court. Given her disgraceful conduct, Willis has more than earned that remedy.

  If Vice President Harris prevails, the Supreme Court almost certainly will no longer be a safeguard against the anti-Trump lawfare. The Vice President has indicated that she is open to packing the Court with hardcore leftists who undoubtedly will be clones of Judges Merchan, Engoron and Chutkan. They will serve as rubber stamps for Smith, Bragg, James and Willis. Trump thus will spend the rest of his life in prison based on charges that never should have been brought. He also might face the lesser consequence of bankruptcy if a Supreme Court packed with leftists gives its blessing to the nearly half a billion dollars in judgments against him from New York courts.

  This election will decide whether the lawfare waged against President Trump for so many years and on so many fronts will be rewarded or punished. Several juries have rendered verdicts, and President Trump has appealed. In mere weeks, voters will deliver the most crucial verdict, and it is unappealable. President Trump’s fate is now in the hands of one more jury: the American people.

  Mike Davis is the Founder and President of Article III Project.

  You can subscribe to Unfazed and Determined here, and be sure to follow Mike Davis and the Article3Project here and here.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 18:25

• Canada's Trudeau Slammed Over "Black Justice" Proposal That Would Decriminalize Drugs, Empty Jails
  Canada’s Trudeau Slammed Over “Black Justice” Proposal That Would Decriminalize Drugs, Empty Jails

  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being slammed by conservatives over recommendations he seeks to implement from a standing committee on “black justice” in Canada.

  The proposal will make crime worse in Canada, conservatives led by MP Jamil Jivani have argued. 

  Jivani challenged Liberal Diversity Minister Kamal Khera at a heritage committee meeting over the recommendations in “A Roadmap for Transformative Change: Canada’s Black Justice Strategy”, according to True North.

  Jivani criticized the proposals as “radical,” citing calls for a 30% reduction in incarceration over 10 years, decriminalizing a 30-day supply of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, and meth, and cutting 25% of federal grants to police departments.

  Jivani accused Khera of being the “DEI Minister” and asked if she supported such “radical criminal justice policies”.

  

  Khera responded: “It would only be a Conservative that would be making a joke out of systemic racism (which as a result) have seen an over incarceration of black and Indigenous people in our criminal justice system. To be making a joke about that is disgraceful.”

  The True North report says that in December 2021, Justice Minister Arif Virani was tasked with addressing systemic discrimination contributing to the overrepresentation of Black Canadians in the justice system. A 2020/21 Justice Canada report found that 9% of federal offenders were Black, though they make up only 4% of the population.

  The Black Justice Strategy report, released in June and developed with input from 12 Black-led organizations, proposes measures like reducing Black and Indigenous incarceration by 50% by 2034, easing bail restrictions, repealing mandatory minimums, and providing a taxpayer-funded “safe supply” of drugs.

  It also advocates for decriminalizing possession of a 30-day supply of controlled substances, including heroin, meth, and cocaine, and reallocating 25% of federal police grants to non-police organizations.

  Virani called the report “historic” and essential for building a fairer justice system, but Jivani warned that its recommendations would lead to more crime and disorder, calling the strategy “appalling” in a July social media post.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 18:05

• Albert Einstein & The Folly Of Marxist Sympathies
  Albert Einstein & The Folly Of Marxist Sympathies

  Authored by Kgatlhiso Darius Leshaba via The Mises Institute,

  In the year 1949, the first issue of the socialist publication Monthly Review was released. Within the collection of essays, one stood out in particular. Notably, its author was none other than Albert Einstein. Somewhat misleadingly titled “Why Socialism?” the essay reads more like a critique of capitalism than a justification of socialism. In it, the brilliant physicist lays out his reasons for rejecting private property and briefly sketches out his vision for a moral and just society.

  Now, 75 years after the first appearance of the essay, I believe a critical analysis is in order.

  

  Einstein begins his essay by justifying his (and other non-economists) right to chime in on the debate about socialism. While I agree with the broad sentiment, the specific points strike me as worryingly naive. The first is that, due to the fact that since the history of most states is one of violence and coercion, conventional economic theory, as a product of the past “predatory phase” of human development, is ill-equipped to “throw…light on the socialist society of the future.”

  This seems to imply that not only should non-economists’ opinions be considered just as valid as professional economists, but that the opinions of economists are tainted by the context of their formation, and thus not adequate to comment on the nature of the future socialist paradise. At some point or another, socialists must come to realize that the nature of their envisioned society must be investigated if they are going to avoid repeating the catastrophes of the 20th-century experiments. An analysis of the incentives of such a system is crucial for evaluating if such a system would indeed serve as an improvement to the current state of affairs. The only field of study with the tools for this is economics, in all its depth and breadth.

  The second point made is one I wholly agree with, that economics as a science cannot choose ends, but can only inform the means for the attainment of desired ends. Thus, the question of what ends should be chosen lies outside the field of economic analysis, but the analysis of the means chosen for the attainment of desired ends is fair game.

  Einstein then goes on to lay out a brief theory of the relationship between the individual and her society. The main point in what he terms the “crisis of our time” is that the willful dissociation of individuals from their group identities leads to a nihilistic isolation for which capitalist societies are to be blamed. Einstein seems to fail in recognizing society as an abstract concept representing numerous individuals and their various interactions, direct and indirect, across time.

  Einstein then goes on to state that the modern individual depends wholly on “society,” however, this isn’t the entire picture. Since society is an abstract sum of individuals, it’s better to (at least partially) disaggregate the concept of society and understand that an individual’s interaction with society is ultimately just an interaction between individuals. One is not in a parasitic relationship with the society they belong to, the relationship is mutualistic. Man does not simply receive “food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language,” man must also provide something of value to society. It may, therefore, be true that the dependence of the individual on other people’s efforts is a fact of nature, but the opposite—that the relative success of other people’s efforts relies on the efforts of the individual—is true as well.

  Einstein fails to realize that the pushback against the desires of the group often arises from coercive attempts to enforce those desires, rather than from a rejection of interdependence altogether. Einstein even makes the claim that the way people find meaning is by serving the desires of the group. There is an important qualification that is missing here—that if they do decide to serve the desires of the group, it must be voluntary and not coerced.

  Here is where we begin to run into Einstein’s “Marxist” critiques of capitalism.

  We start off with the Marxist exploitation theory, built on the back of the labor theory of value. Einstein says, “…what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces…”

  The first problem we run into is the concept of value. It has been firmly established that economic value isn’t intrinsic, that, “The measure of value is entirely subjective in nature.” Value is not transferred somehow from labor to product. In fact, the direction of the imputation of value is exactly the other way around. The economic value of labor is determined by the value of the final product it aids in producing. Therefore, I agree with Einstein, worker pay isn’t determined by the “real value” of what they produce but only because it cannot be determined by something that doesn’t exist. Einstein also seems to believe in the outdated subsistence theory of wages which had long since been disproven by the time Einstein’s essay was published. 

  Einstein then goes on to cite wealth inequality and the resulting distortion of the political landscape by private special interests. He is correct in that the market economy does not make people equal as there is no reason to expect it to do so. People are different, masters of different skills and trades (trades that are valued differently by consumers), leaving little reason to expect remuneration for their various services to be remotely equal. Rent-seeking doesn’t stop, however, just because resources are centrally controlled. Inequality isn’t unique to capitalism.

  Einstein voices displeasure with the fact that most sources of information (media, education, etc.) are privately owned and sees this a limiting factor in individuals’ ability to make objective decisions and their ability to make effective use of their political rights. One would think that, having had to flee from a state which had taken total control of the media, Einstein would know that the criticisms he levies against private ownership of media and education are more effective against these institutions being centrally controlled. Absent a monopoly, private ownership of the media and schools allows for a pluralistic society, where people are more likely to encounter competing viewpoints, and thus does better in the quest for mitigating misinformation. This makes coming to objective conclusions more likely than if there was a single, centrally-owned and -controlled source of information.

  Einstein then goes on to criticize the profit motive. “Production is carried on for profit, not for use” he says, not understanding the emptiness of his statement. Entrepreneurs produce goods that they believe consumers will find useful in satisfying their desires. If consumers judge the goods produced as useful, they patronize the business and the entrepreneur enjoys a profit. Thus, profit represents the entrepreneur’s success in providing goods and services that consumers find useful and valuable. Saying “production is carried on for profit” is just another way of saying production is carried on for the use of the consumers. I prefer not to comment on the faults of the Marxist theory of business cycles and simply let the record of history prove that there isn’t much of a relationship between the passage of time and the severity of depressions.

  Einstein ends by saying that the only way he sees for eliminating these “evils” is through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an education system that is oriented towards “social goals.” With little discussion of the mechanisms of such a system, one gets the idea that Einstein hasn’t thought this matter through much. The ownership of the factors of production by “society” and their utilization in a “planned fashion” isn’t even demonstrated to be plausible. We are to take him by his word that such a system would improve our standard of living without any critical analysis. Einstein relegates the possibility of repression at the hands of the state to the final few sentences of his essay, ending with sentiments which echo the claim that state ownership of the means of production is not “real socialism.” Although he raises some pertinent questions, he provides no answers.

  It is telling that many of these same arguments raised by Einstein are raised by disgruntled Zoomers with socialist sympathies.

  It would almost seem as though, as brilliant a thinker as Albert Einstein was, he was unfamiliar with economic theory and evidence that ran counter to the Marxist narrative, much like modern-day naive college socialists. Even where we agree, such as the hand inequality plays in distorting politics, he fails to show that it’s uniquely under capitalism that power dynamics can be skewed.

  This is because none of the criticisms levied can be laid down at the feet of capitalism, merely removing the market economy will not solve the great “evils” but only change the way these evils manifest themselves in society.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 17:45

• We're Told This Is Progress, But It's Actually Anti-Progress
  We’re Told This Is Progress, But It’s Actually Anti-Progress

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  We need a new definition of Progress, and a reset of the mythology guiding our descent into “Anti-Progress”.

  There’s a curious disconnect between our glorification of Technological Progress and our real-world experience. If we step outside the tent of relentless propaganda touting science-fiction fantasies come to life–permanent bases on the Moon, limitless energy from fusion, etc.–we find that rather than everyday life getting better–the core meaning of Progress–we find that everyday life is getting harder. I call this Anti-Progress–the opposite of Progress.

  Buried beneath the thrills of science-fiction fantasies come to life, real life is characterized by the accelerating descent into Anti-Progress.

  Consider a raw carrot. In the current system of Progress, the most important feature of a raw carrot is its low profitability. There is little that promotion, branding or “innovation” can do to persuade consumers to pay more for a raw carrot.

  The most important feature of a raw carrot to the human body is that it is a natural food packed with nutrients and fiber. It is easy to store and transport and can be eaten raw or cooked. It can be eaten alone or mixed into stews, soups, salads and casseroles. A raw carrot is a healthy snack.

  None of this overcomes its terrible, unfixable flaw: it doesn’t lend itself to Progress, i.e. boosting profits. The Progress solution to this inherent flaw is to process the carrot into a product that can be marketed as an advance (i.e. Progress) in convenience, novelty, status and engagement (i.e. dopamine rush / addiction), attributes the consumer will pay more for.

  A few shreds of the carrot are cooked into mush and added to a concoction of potato starch, sugar and low-quality fat that is dyed with artificial colors to match a carrot’s color and marketed as a “veggie snack” (“contains real carrots!”).

  The nutritional value of the product is nil and the health consequences of consuming what is basically a greasy sugary confection are negative. The list of chronic diseases incurred by a diet of such highly processed food is long.

  This engineered snack, deceptively marketed as “veggie” to deceive parents into assuming it is a “healthy snack,” is immensely profitable, and so the system cheers the soaring sales and profits.

  The engagement/addiction aspect of this product is especially pernicious, as it is specifically designed to hijack the human brain’s reward centers much like a powerful drug. Its mouthfeel and heavy doses of sugar, salt and fat activate our hard-wired predilection for what is scarce in the hunter-gatherer diet: salt, fats and sweets. Eating this snack generates an immediate reward: a pleasurable dopamine rush. Bet you can’t just have one.

  Not only is this confection devoid of nutrition, it’s designed to be addictive. As every drug dealer knows, there’s nothing more profitable than an addiction that generates reliable demand.

  This describes not just addictive drugs and processed foods; it describes the whole of consumerism, which carefully cultivates addiction as the defining dynamic not just of Progress but of every-day life.

  Should any consumers lodge a complaint about the deceptively advertised “veggie snack” with the agencies tasked with protecting public health, they will find the corporate lobbyists have neutered public influence by spending whatever sums of money are needed to buy the compliance of regulators, what’s known as regulatory capture.

  The product is declared safe and anyone complaining about the deceptive packaging is told that it’s up to consumers to choose what to buy or not buy: caveat emptor, buyer beware.

  This process of boosting profits by masking the negative consequences is not just rational in the system of Progress, it’s the only path: any CEO who chooses not to maximize profits and buy political influence is fired for incompetence.

  This reveals the pathological nature of organizing an economy and society around promoting a mythology that equates expanding consumption with Progress.

  Anyone who describes the system as it truly is must be marginalized with an accusation of violating the American taboo against negativity. Not finding a silver lining is an unforgiveable sin: just as you must cheer technological Progress, you must be relentlessly positive. An entire library of cheery slogans is at the ready to ensure the proper dose of positive spirit has been administered, no matter how insincerely. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

  So when we move to the response to the diseases generated by a diet of addictive processed foods–the immensely profitable market for pharmaceuticals that alleviate the symptoms of the diseases caused by consuming processed foods–we find a happy marriage of profits reaped by generating lifestyle diseases and an equally profitable alleviation of symptoms.

  There are numerous subsidiary winners in this Anti-Progress profit bonanza: university research funded by corporate interests, lobbying firms handsomely paid to dig regulatory moats, politicians harvesting campaign contributions, think-tanks paid to distribute the apologists’ favorite cover-story, “the free market,” speculators scheming to cash in on a heavily hyped initial public offering (IPO), and so on.

  Once we tune in to the siren songs of Progress, we hear them everywhere. The smart phone is a wonder, for what could be better than having shopping, hyper-addictive games and social media at our fingertips, an addictive device that enables access to a wealth of other addictions?

  Just as the consequences of consuming the “veggie snack” are hidden, so are the consequences of glorifying addictive technologies as Progress.

  Healthy human life is constructed of relationships between individuals, families, communities, the natural world and the moral universe.

  Our economic system of Progress severs all these links as impediments to expanding consumption and profits via addiction, obsolescence, insecurity and narcissism. From the perspective of a healthy human life, these are the perfection of Anti-Progress.

  How can soaring rates of diabetes and prediabetes be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

  

  How can soaring rates of disability be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

  

  How can soaring rates of metabolic disorders be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

  

  How can soaring costs of basic healthcare insurance be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

  

  How can soaring rates of teen depression be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

  

  How can increasing loneliness be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

  

  While returning to the Moon and AI apps are touted as “proof” of Progress, real-world life is most accurately described as snowballing Anti-Progress. We need a new definition of Progress, and a reset of the mythology guiding our descent into Anti-Progress. That’s the topic of my new book, The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century.

  *  *  *

  Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  Subscribe to my Substack for free

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 17:05

• "The Case Is More Serious": NYT Hid Extent Of Kamala Harris Plagiarism From Their Own Expert
  “The Case Is More Serious”: NYT Hid Extent Of Kamala Harris Plagiarism From Their Own Expert

  Earlier this week journalist Chris Rufo revealed that Kamala Harris plagiarized giant sections of her book on crime, after famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Dr. Stefan Weber found that “Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book.”

  

  In response, the New York Times bent over backwards (and forwards) to downplay their preferred candidate’s cut-n-pastery – first casting it as ‘conservative activist seizes on passages‘ from Harris’ book, then totally lying about Rufo’s reporting – which Rufo quickly debunked.

  As part of their propaganda, the Times wheeled out plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey, who said “his initial reaction to Mr. Rufo’s claims was that the errors were not serious, given the size of the document.“

  Except, the Times concealed the extent of the claims from Bailey – who writes in his Plagiarism Today blog: “At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my “initial reaction” to those allegations, not a complete analysis.

  ABC does fake fact-checks to help Kamala. CBS stealth-edits an interview to help Kamala. New York Times withholds evidence to help Kamala. This is endemic—and only visible now because we have X.

  — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 17, 2024

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  From Bailey’s blog:

  Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018.

  With this new information, while I believe the case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times, the overarching points remain. While there are problems with this work, the pattern points to sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud.

  Bailey still refers to the plagiarism as nothing more than “sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud.”

  

  Much like it’s not “malicious intent to defraud” when a college student copies Wikipedia word-for-word, then gets expelled?

  What’s more, Rufo implored the Times to look at the entire claim – which they refused to do.

  When the Times published its piece, I called the reporter and the editor to protest that they withheld evidence from their supposed “expert.” The editor, Mary Suh, gave me the excuse that it wasn’t their job to review the whole report. I hung up on her. pic.twitter.com/D7sQDpJS6P

  — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 17, 2024

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  Here is the full 47-page dossier, prepared by famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber. Anyone can read it and come to the conclusion that Kamala Harris plagiarized her book, Smart on Crime. https://t.co/7KvwbzqTOS

  — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024

  Meanwhile, the plagiarism is even worse than reported!

  SHE KEEPS GOING: This is a ninth instance of significant plagiarism by Kamala Harris. Although she cited the source, she copied long passages of language verbatim, without paraphrasing or putting it in quotations. It’s textbook “verbatim plagiarism”—and not an isolated incident. pic.twitter.com/5uwWwRDxkt

  — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/17/2024 – 16:45

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