- Escobar: 'Fragmented World' Sleepwalks Into World War III
Escobar: ‘Fragmented World’ Sleepwalks Into World War III
The self-appointed Davos “elites” are afraid. So afraid. At this week’s World Economic Forum meetings, mastermind Klaus Schwab – displaying his trademark Bond villain act – carped over and over again about a categorical imperative: we need “Cooperation in a Fragmented World”.
While his diagnosis of “the most critical fragmentation” the world is now mired in is predictably somber, Herr Schwab maintains that “the spirit of Davos is positive” and in the end we may all live happily in a “green sustainable economy.”
What Davos has been good at this week is showering public opinion with new mantras. There’s “The New System” which, considering the abject failure of the much ballyhooed Great Reset, now looks like a matter of hastily updating the current – rattled – operating system.
Davos needs new hardware, new programming skills, even a new virus. Yet for the moment all that’s available is a “polycrisis”: or, in Davos speak, a “cluster of related global risks with compounding effects.”
In plain English: a perfect storm.
Insufferable bores from that Divide and Rule island in northern Europe have just found out that “geopolitics”, alas, never really entered the tawdry “end of history” tunnel: much to their amazement it’s now centered – again – across the Heartland, as it’s been for most of recorded history.
They complain about “threatening” geopolitics, which is code for Russia-China, with Iran attached.
But the icing on the Alpine cake is arrogance/stupidity actually giving away the game: the City of London and its vassals are livid because the “world Davos made” is fast collapsing.
Davos did not “make” any world apart from its own simulacrum.
Davos never got anything right, because these “elites” were always busy eulogizing the Empire of Chaos and its lethal “adventures” across the Global South.
Davos not only failed to foresee all recent, major economic crises but most of all the current “perfect storm”, linked to the neoliberalism-spawned deindustrialization of the Collective West.
And, of course, Davos is clueless about the real Reset taking place towards multipolarity.
Self-described opinion leaders are busy “re-discovering” that Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain was set in Davos – “against the backdrop of a deadly disease and an impeding world war” – nearly a century ago.
Well, nowadays the “disease” – fully bioweaponized – is not exactly deadly per se. And the “impending World War” is in fact being actively encouraged by a cabal of US Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons: an unelected, unaccountable, bipartisan Deep State not even subject to ideology. Centennary war criminal Henry Kissinger still does not get it.
A Davos panel on de-globalization was rife on non-sequiturs, but at least a dose of reality was provided by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
As for China’s vice-premier Liu He, with his vast knowledge of finance, science and technology, at least he was very helpful to lay down Beijing’s five top guidelines for the foreseeable future – beyond the customary imperial Sinophobia.
China will focus on expanding domestic demand; keeping industrial and supply chains “smooth”; go for the “healthy development of the private sector”; deepen state enterprise reform; and aim for “attractive foreign investment.”
Russian resistance, American precipice
Emmanuel Todd was not at Davos. But it was the French anthropologist, historian, demographer and geopolitical analyst who ended up ruffling all the appropriate feathers across the collective West these past few days with a fascinating anthropological object: a reality-based interview.
Todd spoke to Le Figaro – the newspaper of choice of the French establishment and haute bourgeoisie. The interview was published last Friday on page 22, sandwiched between proverbial Russophobic screeds and with an extremely brief mention on the bottom of the front page. So people really had to work hard to find it.
Todd joked that he has the – absurd – reputation of a “rebel destroy” in France, while in Japan he’s respected, featured in mainstream media, and his books are published with great success, including the latest (over 100,000 copies sold): “The Third World War Has Already Started”.
Significantly, this Japanese best seller does not exist in French, considering the whole Paris-based publishing industry toes the EU/NATO line on Ukraine.
The fact that Todd gets several things right is a minor miracle in the current, abysmally myopic European intellectual landscape (there are other analysts especially in Italy and Germany, but they carry much less weight than Todd).
So here’s Todd’s concise Greatest Hits.
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A new World War is on: By “switching from a limited territorial war to a global economic clash, between the collective West on one side and Russia linked to China on the other side, this became a World War”.
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The Kremlin, says Todd, made a mistake, calculating that a decomposed Ukraine society would collapse right away. Of course he does not get into detail on how Ukraine had been weaponized to the hilt by the NATO military alliance.
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Todd is spot on when he stresses how Germany and France had become minor partners at NATO and were not aware of what was being plotted in Ukraine militarily: “They did not know that the Americans, British and Poles could allow Ukraine to fight an extended war. NATO’s fundamental axis now is Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev.”
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Todd’s major give away is a killer: “The resistance of Russia’s economy is leading the imperial American system to the precipice. Nobody had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold facing NATO’s ‘economic power’”.
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Consequently, “monetary and financial American controls over the world may collapse, and with them the possibility for the US of financing for nothing their enormous trade deficit”.
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And that’s why “we are in an endless war, in a clash where the conclusion is the collapse of one or the other.”
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On China, Todd might sound like a more pugnacious version of Liu He at Davos: “That’s the fundamental dilemma of the American economy: it cannot face Chinese competition without importing qualified Chinese work force.”
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As for the Russian economy, “it does accept market rules, but with an important role for the state, and it keeps the flexibility of forming engineers that allow adaptations, industrial and military.”
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And that bring us, once again, to globalization, in a manner that Davos roundtables were incapable of understanding: “We have delocalized so much of our industrial activity that we don’t know whether our war production may be sustained”.
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On a more erudite interpretation of that “clash of civilizations” fallacy, Todd goes for soft power and comes up with a startling conclusion: “On 75 percent of the planet, the organization of parenthood was patrilineal, and that’s why we may identify a strong understanding of the Russian position. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism.”
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So what Moscow has been able to pull off is to “reposition itself as the archetype of a big power, not only “anti-colonialist” but also patrilineal and conservative in terms of traditional mores.”
Based on all of the above, Todd smashes the myth sold by EU/NATO “elites” – Davos included – that Russia is “isolated”, stressing how votes in the UN and the overall sentiment across the Global South characterizes the war, “described by mainstream media as a conflict over political values, in fact, on a deeper level, as a conflict of anthropological values.”
Between light and darkness
Could it be that Russia – alongside the real Quad, as I defined them (with China, India and Iran) – are prevailing in the anthropological stakes?
The real Quad has all it takes to blossom into a new cross-cultural focus of hope in a “fragmented world”.
Mix Confucian China (non-dualistic, no transcendental deity, but with the Tao flowing through everything) with Russia (Orthodox Christian, reverencing the divine Sophia); polytheistic India (wheel of rebirth, law of karma); and Shi’ite Iran (Islam preceded by Zoroastrianism, the eternal cosmic battle between Light and Darkness).
This unity in diversity is certainly more appealing, and uplifting, than the Forever War axis.
Will the world learn from it? Or, to quote Hegel – “what we learn from history is that nobody learns from history” – are we hopelessly doomed?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 01/19/2023 – 00:15 -
- How Many Cups Of Coffee Do Americans Drink Each Day?
How Many Cups Of Coffee Do Americans Drink Each Day?
According to a survey by Statista Consumer Insights, coffee drinkers in the U.S. rarely stick to just one cup a day.
Among those drinking coffee daily, almost 80 percent drank two or more cups while at home on a weekday. More than half consumed three or more cups on average on such a day.
You will find more infographics at Statista
While on the go, U.S. coffee drinkers hold back a little more, with just 20 percent consuming take-away coffee daily and another 24 percent doing so several times a week. More than half of respondents consume coffee to go only once a week or less often, with 13 percent between the ages of 18 and 74 even saying the never did so.
However, in the latest installment of another Statista survey, only 57 percent of Americans listed coffee as a beverage they regularly consumed.
America’s favorite type of coffee is good old drip coffee, with 36 percent saying it was their favorite, followed by 11 percent who prefer cappuccino and 10 percent who root for iced coffees.
Instant coffee was not far behind at 9 percent, however.
51 percent of American adults agreed with the statement “coffee is pure pleasure to me”.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 23:55 - The Elite's Obsession With Achieving Total Financial Control
The Elite’s Obsession With Achieving Total Financial Control
Authored by Clint Siegner via Money Metals,
Federal bureaucrats use proxies to stifle all kinds of activities they don’t like. The “Twitter Files” are revealing this tactic to a new wave of Americans, but it has been around a long time.
The bureaucratic assault on the First Amendment is part of a larger movement to end personal liberty. The ultimate goal may be to assume financial control over the populace through implementation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
If officials can replace the existing currencies with digital, programmable money, they will claim the power to dictate if, when, and where individuals can spend money as well as what they can spend it on.
Those who question whether forces inside the federal government are actually pursuing such power may wish to review recent history around the Federal Reserve note “dollar.”
The effort to control people by targeting their money escalated in 1970 with the Bank Secrecy Act. It targeted cash specifically by requiring banks to report transactions involving more than $10,000.
Shortly afterward came the end of sound money. Nixon slammed shut the gold window in 1971, severing the last link between the Federal Reserve note and physical gold. That maneuver launched an era of perpetual government deficits, unlimited borrowing, and interventionist central banking.
Officials seized the opportunity to demand even more reporting in the aftermath of 9/11. The misnamed “Patriot Act” required all merchants (not just banks) to file a Form 8300 on transactions of $10,000 or more. They also required merchants to file an Orwellian “Suspicious Activity Report” on any transaction the merchant judged to be “suspicious.”
Then the Obama Department of Justice launched Operation Choke Point in 2013.
Regulators threatened banks with increased scrutiny, controls, and penalties if they did business with certain companies deemed by the Department to be at higher risk for money laundering and fraud.
Banks responded by closing accounts and/or reducing services to firearms dealers, payday lenders, coin dealers, and businesses in other targeted industries.
Frank Keating, CEO of the American Bankers Association, didn’t think regulators should be hassling banks about clients “simply doing something government officials don’t like.”
In 2017, the FDIC settled a series of lawsuits by promising to cease making informal and unwritten “suggestions” about who banks should be doing business with.
However, banks and financial services providers continue to cancel clients with the audacity to operate disfavored businesses or voice unapproved views.
JP Morgan Chase sent a letter to Trump supporter and election fraud activist general Michael Flynn in August 2021.
Chase said, “We decided to close your credit cards on September 18, 2021 because continuing the relationship creates possible reputational risk to our company.“
The bank later reversed the decision amidst a backlash from conservatives.
PayPal recently went so far as to insert a provision in their terms of service which allowed the company to charge clients up to $2,500 if, at PayPal’s sole discretion, they were spreading “misinformation.” The company also reversed course after the story went viral and many clients decided to dump the woke company.
Couple these sorts of stories with the release of the Twitter files, and one should expect to find that bureaucrats are using backchannel communications with banks to push their anti-liberty agenda.
Stopping “misinformation” and controlling the narrative certainly isn’t all the administrative state hopes to achieve. It is one means to an even more ominous end.
The Federal Reserve is openly developing a digital currency. It’s part of a long-running globalist agenda to curtail financial privacy and increase control over people.
Those who accumulate, tangible non-government money like gold and silver are sidestepping the elite’s growing obsession with achieving total financial control.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 23:35 - "Game-Changer:" High-Powered Laser Steers Lightning Bolts For First Time
“Game-Changer:” High-Powered Laser Steers Lightning Bolts For First Time
Scientists on top of a Swiss mountain shot laser pulses into a stormy sky to guide lightning for the first time. This might pave the way for laser-based lightning protection systems for rocket launchpads, military bases, airports, and supertall buildings. There hasn’t been an advance like this in lightning technology since Benjamin Franklin installed the first lightning rod in the 1750s, following an experiment flying a kite with a large metal key during a thunderstorm.
A team led by Aurélien Houard, a physicist at École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, experimented on the Säntis mountain in north-eastern Switzerland in the summer of 2021 with a high-repetition-rate terawatt laser.
The results were published Monday in the journal Nature Photonics. They showed how a terawatt-level laser pulse could steer lighting toward a 26-foot rod.
“This work paves the way for new atmospheric applications of ultrashort lasers and represents an important step forward in the development of a laser-based lightning protection for airports, launchpads or large infrastructures,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Matteo Clerici, a University of Glasgow physicist who wasn’t involved in the research, told WSJ the successful experiment is something “we’ve been dreaming of for decades … and the fact that they managed to do it in an outdoor environment is a very big step.”
Clerici called the experiment a “game-changer” but noted the technology is in early development and that commercialization could be years away.
WSJ showed how the technology works. A laser beam is blasted into the stormy sky and directs lightning toward the intended target, which happens to be a tall tower.
Source: WSJ Houard disclosed to WSJ that the prototype laser costs about $2.17 billion. The cost is very high versus a traditional lightning rod, but over time, the technology will improve and become cheaper.
Laser lightning protection could one day guard critical ground-based systems. Franklin’s 18th-century innovation has now met 21st-century technology.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 23:15 - Biden Administration Urges Judges To Lift Stay On CDC’s Airplane Mask Mandate
Biden Administration Urges Judges To Lift Stay On CDC’s Airplane Mask Mandate
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
President Joe Biden’s administration in a court hearing on Jan. 17 urged judges on a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling from a lower court that struck down the administration’s airplane mask mandate.
Travelers walk through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on April 19, 2022. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had “good cause” to impose the mandate and bypass the notice- and comment period required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Brian Springer, an attorney for the government, told judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
At the time the mandate was imposed, in early 2021, “there were variants that had just been detected that showed signs of increased transmissibility, and people were starting to travel again,” Springer said. “In those circumstances, the CDC had good cause to issue this order, particularly when the CDC detailed the reasons why in this particular environment, namely in the transportation sector and in transportation settings, COVID had a specific tendency to spread among people who are traveling together because they’re standing together in lines and sitting together on conveyances.”
One of the judges expressed skepticism with the line of thinking, accusing the CDC of issuing “boilerplate” language to impose the mandate without a notice and comment period. Under a ruling in a separate case, boilerplate statements that COVID-19 exists and that there’s a public emergency aren’t sufficient to satisfy the “good cause” exception to the APA. Springer disagreed, saying the CDC’s statement provided rationale that met the standard.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump appointee, said in her 2022 ruling that the CDC violated the APA by only issuing a single conclusory sentence to support ducking the notice requirements.
She noted that at the time the order was issued, around a year had passed since the beginning of the pandemic, and COVID-19 cases in America were on the decline.
Brent Hardaway, arguing for Health Freedom Defense Fund, which brought the case, said that the mandate was “very strange” given that airplanes and many airports already had mandates in place, in addition to the decline in cases.
Does the CDC Have Authority to Mandate Masks?
Other portions of the hearing went over arguments as to whether the CDC has the authority to mandate masks.
U.S. code gives the federal government the power to enforce regulations judged as “necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.”
The government, to enforce such measures, “may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary,” the statute says.
In striking down the CDC’s moratorium on evictions, the Supreme Court found that the agency overstepped the authority outlined in the law. But the court also said the law empowered the CDC to impose measures that “directly relate to preventing the interstate spread of disease by identifying, isolating, and destroying the disease itself.”
The decision “recognized that conventional measures to identify, isolate and destroy communicable diseases fall within the statute,” Springer said. “The CDC’s mask order was a very modest way to, and a traditional way to, prevent this interstate spread of disease that falls directly within the heartland of what the Supreme Court told us that this statute covers.”
Springer asked the court to narrow the district court’s decision from applying to all travelers to just the five individuals that brought the case. If the court agrees, it would enable the mask mandate to take effect again for virtually all Americans inside airports, airplanes, and some other transportation settings.
Mizelle has ruled that mask mandates don’t fall under sanitation and that the “other measures” were limited, based on a reading of the history of the law and court rulings.
“The mask mandate is best understood not as sanitation, but as an exercise of the CDC’s power to conditionally release individuals to travel despite concerns that they may spread a communicable disease (and to detain or partially quarantine those who refuse). But the power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals entering the United States from a foreign country,” Mizelle wrote, noting that a part of the law only allows for the detention of a person traveling between the states if that person is “reasonably believed to be infected” and is actually found “upon examination” to be infected.
That means the CDC exceeded its authority in issuing the mandate, the judge said.
Hardaway, in court on Tuesday, said that the law does not give the CDC the ability to impose mask mandates, though one of the judges questioned whether that was true.
“It just seems strange to me that an agency like the Center for Disease Control doesn’t have the authority to require travelers to wear a mask when they travel as a way to prevent the spread of communicable disease in the context of a global pandemic,” the judge said. “If they don’t have that authority, what authority do they have?”
Hardaway said the eviction ruling showed why it was not odd and urged the judges to look at the law, which has been used by the government to impose various measures.
“Their reading of sanitation is basically any measure that may promote sanitation,” he said. “It’s basically going to have the same kind of sweeping implications of the rule that the Supreme Court rejected.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 22:55 - Hunter Biden Lived In Classified Doc House While Raking In Millions Through Chinese Intelligence Ties
Hunter Biden Lived In Classified Doc House While Raking In Millions Through Chinese Intelligence Ties
National security concerns over Joe Biden’s classified document scandal just got worse, as two reports have emerged which place Hunter Biden at the Bidens’ Wilmington, Delaware residence while he was raking in millions of dollars from CCP-linked business dealings.
First, Seamus Bruner (researcher for legendary bombshell-dropper Peter Schweizer), reports via Breitbart News, that “While addicted to drugs, cavorting with prostitutes, and making deals with businessmen tied to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence, Hunter Biden lived in the house where Joe Biden stored classified documents.”
While filling out a background check, Hunter made a crackhead error and listed his ‘rent’ as $49,910 – when in fact that’s the amount of the security deposit and 6 months of rent for prime office space at the prestigious House of Sweden in Washington DC. What’s most interesting, however, is that the dates Hunter listed as living at the Wilmington, DE residence – as claimed on other documents and financial statements – overlap with the period in which multiple Biden family members were taking money from foreign businessmen with connections at the highest levels of Chinese state intelligence services through energy company CEFC. As Bruner further notes, CNN described CEFC as a state-directed entity in 2018.
CEFC, and at least four of its executives and associates – Ye Jianming, Patrick Ho, Gongwen Dong and Jiaqi Bao, have been linked to the CCP and its military intelligence apparatus. In one case, Hunter described Patrick Ho as “the fucking spy chief of China.”
CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming (Photo: CEFC) More via Breitbart,
By early 2017, Hunter was directly corresponding with CEFC personnel and flew to Miami in February of that year to meet with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming. During this trip, Ye Jianming gave Hunter a 3.16 carat diamond valued at approximately $80,000..
When Hunter’s ex-wife discovered that he had obtained something of such immense value, she had her divorce attorney send an “Urgent” email seeking to determine the whereabouts of the diamond and secure the asset before Hunter could “dissipate” it. Hunter’s attorney offered a shady denial:
“There is no diamond in Hunter’s possession. I don’t know where Kathleen is getting access to this information, but on this score, what your email purports below is inaccurate.”
Metadata gleaned from photos of the diamond on the abandoned laptop indicate that Hunter lied about not having the diamond and he in fact had the diamond with him in Wilmington. The current location of the 3.16 carat diamond remains unknown
After the fateful February 2017 meeting with Ye, and around the time Hunter claimed to have moved into the Wilmington house where classified documents were found, the Bidens’ business with CEFC exploded.
Nine days after Miami meeting, Hunter received two separate wire transfers of $3 million which the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network flagged as suspicious.
We encourage you to read the rest of the Breitbart report here, as it goes into extensive detail.
Second, the Washington Free Beacon reports that photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop place him at the Wilmington House in July, 2017. Of note, the classified documents were reportedly brought to the house in January of that year.
The photos ‘are the most concrete evidence to date’ that Hunter – who was actively negotiating a deal with a CCP-linked Chinese energy company – had access to areas of his father’s home where classified documents were stored.
A Washington Free Beacon review of the laptop found four 2017 photographs of Hunter Biden, clad in a white collared shirt and a camouflage baseball cap, behind the wheel of his father’s 1967 Corvette Stingray. GPS metadata embedded in the photos indicate they were taken within a minute of each other at 6:49 p.m. on July 30 of that year, just outside the president’s Wilmington, Del., residence. The photos show Hunter Biden posing in the vehicle beside two young girls. One appears to be his then-12-year-old niece, Natalie Biden. The other could not be identified.
Former Secret Service agent and certified cyber forensics expert, Konstantinos Gus Dimitrelos, analyzed the photos and confirmed their authenticity.
“If requested, I will testify the photographs are genuine and were taken on July 30, 2017,” he told the Free Beacon.
And as the Beacon further reports – corroborating Breitbart‘s reporting, “At the time the photos were taken, Hunter Biden was negotiating a lucrative business deal with the now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, which was closely tied to the Chinese government. Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski claimed to have met with Joe Biden in person in early May 2017—less than three months before Hunter Biden was pictured taking the wheel of his father’s prized vehicle—to discuss the Biden family’s Chinese business dealings.”
In total, CEFC paid Hunter Biden $6 million in legal and consulting fees in 2017 and 2018.
And of course, the same media which suggested the Trumps were Russian operatives based on a hoax – are virtually silent at actual risks to national security posed by the Biden family.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 22:35 - The Fed's Jay Powell Is Trying To Have It Both Ways On Climate Change
The Fed’s Jay Powell Is Trying To Have It Both Ways On Climate Change
Authored by Rupert Darwall via RealClear Wire,
Fed-speak, Alan Greenspan once explained, was about practicing the art of constructive ambiguity. Testifying to Congress as Fed chairman, Greenspan would resolve a sentence in a deliberately obscure way that made it incomprehensible, “but nobody was quite sure I wasn’t saying something profound when I wasn’t.”
Speaking on Tuesday at a symposium on central bank independence in Sweden, Greenspan’s latest successor avoided ambiguity as he spoke about the Fed’s need to stick to its assigned policy goals of maximizing employment and price stability and not getting diverted to pursuing other objectives. “In a well-functioning democracy, important public policy decisions should be made, in almost all cases, by the elected branches of government,” Chair Jerome Powell declared. “It is essential that we stick to our statutory goals and authorities, and that we resist the temptation to broaden our scope to address other important social issues of the day.”
If that wasn’t clear enough, the current Fed chair noted that climate policies could have significant effects on companies, industries, regions, and nations: “Decisions about policies to directly address climate change should be made by the elected branches of government and thus reflect the public’s will as expressed through elections.” Without explicit congressional authorization, it would not be appropriate for the Fed to use monetary policy or its supervisory tools to promote a greener economy, Powell suggested. “We are not, and will not be a ‘climate policymaker.’”
But before supporters of limited government, separation of powers, and rolling back the administrative state stand up to applaud, they should remember that Powell has an indirect climate-policy tool: as part of its supervisory responsibilities, the Fed will require banks to understand and manage the financial risks of climate change. Yet at the same time, Powell would have us believe that the Fed’s supervisory decisions are “not influenced by political considerations.”
Climate “stress tests” are one of the principal tools used by the European Central Bank in furtherance of what its president Christine Lagarde openly proclaims as part of its mandate. “Our planet is burning and we central bankers could look on our mandate and pretend that it is for others to act and that we should simply be followers. I don’t think so,” Lagarde said at a June 2021 Green Swan conference of central bankers and regulators.
For its climate stress tests, the Bank of England uses the most extreme climate scenario developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It then takes this projection about climate at the end of this century and telescopes eighty years of extreme climate change into three decades. The result is a physical impossibility. That a central bank believes it necessary to engage in such behavior demonstrates two things: that climate change does notrepresent a genuine threat to financial stability—if it did, the Bank would have used a plausible climate scenario—and that climate stress tests are indeed a tool of climate policy. Unlike the Fed, the Bank of England does have an explicit climate policy mandate. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak expanded the Bank’s remit to support the government’s goal of achieving “balanced growth that is also environmentally sustainable and consistent with the transition to a net zero economy.”
The Fed’s lack of a similar climate mandate proved no obstacle to Powell, however, when he spoke at the same Green Swan conference as Lagarde. The conference had been convened by the Network for the Greening of the Financial System (NGFS) to develop proposals for a more sustainable economy, financial sector, and society. “There’s a lot to like about climate stress tests,” Powell told the meeting. Not much constructive ambiguity there.
The NGFS is a club of central banks and financial regulators formed by the Banque de France in December 2017 on the second anniversary of the Paris climate agreement. Its aim is to strengthen “the global response required to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and to enhance the role of the financial system.” It also seeks “to manage risks and to mobilize capital for green and low-carbon investments in the broader context of environmentally sustainable development.” These objectives have no place in the Fed’s formal mandate.
Powell’s notion of an apolitical Fed tightly hewing to its congressional mandate is belied by the central bank’s decisionto join the NGFS. Even more devastating to Powell’s claim of the Fed eschewing political considerations is the timing of that move: December 15, 2020, six weeks after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. The Fed cannot have it both ways. It cannot truthfully claim that its supervisory decisions are untainted by political considerations and remain a member of the NGFS. It was a mistake for the Fed to have joined the NGFS in the first place. If Powell wants to be believed, the Fed should quit the club.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 22:15 - Pro Hockey Player Takes Rare Stand Against Woke NHL
Pro Hockey Player Takes Rare Stand Against Woke NHL
Over the past year or more, hockey fans have been scratching their heads as the National Hockey League continues down its path of seeking to become the wokest of the woke in professional sports.
After all, one wonders what any of this actually has do with hockey…
Education is celebration.#Pride | @GiantFood pic.twitter.com/Grqtg03x1L
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 17, 2023
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Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov has stirred controversy and received severe backlash among LGBTQIA++ activists for apparently having enough, and taking a stance against the climate of fear and intimidation meant to impose conformity.
He refused to participate in the team’s annual “Pride night” celebration on Tuesday before playing the Anaheim Ducks.
“Provorov didn’t participate in pregame warmups when the team wore Pride-themed jerseys and used sticks wrapped in rainbow Pride tape,” Fox News reports. The longtime professional player cited “his Russian Orthodox religion as the reason why he didn’t participate.”
Ivan Provorov, Getty composite “I respect everybody and I respect everybody’s choices,” he said when asked about his stance by reporters after the game. “My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Now under fire for allowing Provorov to play in the game that night, Flyers coach John Tortorella explained he thought it would be unfair to bench him merely for his beliefs. “I think the organization has sent out a release regarding the beliefs that we have,” Tortorella said.
“It was really a great night. With Provy, he is being true to himself and to his religion. This has to do with his beliefs and his religion. That is one thing I respect about Provy, he is always true to himself, so that’s where we’re at with that.” As expected, the activists pounced…
Let me get this straight, you have a player that OPENLY declines to participate in an inclusive initiative for a community I am proud to be a part of. And you still dress him in the game? Be better @NHLFlyers https://t.co/rSyV6D35Oo
— Erin Ambrose (@ambrose_13) January 18, 2023
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Olympic gold medalist Erin Ambrose said Provorov shouldn’t be allowed to “OPENLY” dissent and still be able to play. This was followed by an avalanche of online and media criticism directed at Provorov and the Flyers decision-making generally.
The incident is yet more confirmation that in the land of the woke, nothing is ever enough, and total conformity and obedience is expected. A person cannot so much as “stay true to oneself” or have “choice” in the matter. Here’s the NHL lecturing the public on what they must believe in terms of language, biology, and “reality”:
Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Nonbinary identity is real.
— NHL (@NHL) November 22, 2022
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* * *
And here’s Provorov addressing the controversy after the game, with this epic quote underscoring the sad state of woke professional sports:
“If you have any hockey questions I would answer those…”
#Flyers Ivan Provorov on his Pride Night pregame boycott :
“My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion.” pic.twitter.com/YSFKvkyEJC— Dan Gelston (@APgelston) January 18, 2023
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 21:55 - Sulzberger: Disinformation Is The "Most Existential Problem" Facing The Planet Today
Sulzberger: Disinformation Is The “Most Existential Problem” Facing The Planet Today
There has been much coverage over the resurfacing of former CNN host Brian Stelter as the host for a panel at the World Economic Forum on alleged disinformation and “hate speech.” Stelter previously called for censorship under a “harm reduction model” and led a panel at a conference where Democrats discussed how to shape the news.
He was confronted over his own dissemination for false stories targeting Republicans on CNN.
Yet, I was most struck by a statement from New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger who described “disinformation” as the “most existential” problem the world is facing today. Sulzberger insisted that disinformation is the reason why there is a loss of “trust” today. He ignores his own history in eroding that trust in the media through flagrantly biased decisions at the New York Times.
Former NYT editor Jill Abramson also slammed the participation of Sulzberger and the New York Times at Davos, denouncing it as a “corrupt circle-jerk” between media and business. She said that “the coverage was a sweetener to flatter the CEOs by seeing their names in the NYT.”
The panel was titled, “Clear & Present Danger of Disinformation” included panelists: New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, Vice-President of the European Commission Vera Jourová, CEO of Internews Jeanne Bourgault, and Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.
The entire conference was notable in its omission of free speech advocates while inviting long advocates for censorship like Stelter.
Stelter asked his panel, “How does this discussion of disinformation relate to everything else happening today in Davos?”
Sulzberger responded:
“Well, first, thanks for having me is as part of this conversation. As you can imagine, this is something I really care deeply about. So, I think if you look at this question of disinformation, I think it maps basically to every other major challenge that we are grappling with as a society, and particularly the most existential among them. So, disinformation and in the broader set of misinformation, conspiracy, propaganda, clickbait, you know, the broader mix of bad information that’s corrupting information ecosystem, what it attacks is trust.
And once you see, trust decline, what you then see is a society start to fracture, and so you see people fracture along tribal lines and, you know, that immediately undermines pluralism.
And the undermining of pluralism is probably the most dangerous thing that can happen to a democracy. So I really — I think if if you’re spending this week thinking about the health of democracies and democratic erosion, I think it’s really import to work your way back up to where this starts.”
It was a telling statement. Sulzberger suggested that allowing some opposing views undermines “trust.” Indeed, allowing opposing views on Covid or election or global warming does erode trust in the media and the government. Society would be so less “fractured” if information is controlled and consistent.
There is a perfectly Orwellian element to Sulzberger’s words.
Democracy is being threatened because there is too much “disinformation,” “misinformation,” “bad information,” and other harmful views being expressed.
After all, without such views, there was be less “fracture” and most “trust.”
That was precisely the point of the earlier conference.
What is striking about the comment, however, was the date. This is after many of those censored and blacklisted in the media and social media have been vindicated in the questions over masks or vaccines.
Those who questioned the efficacy of masks were suspended or banned but now have been seemingly vindicated. Among the suspended were the doctors who co-authored of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdown as well as the real value of masks or the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination. Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a year ago. Some found themselves censored on social media for challenging claims of Dr. Fauci and others.
Likewise, the New York Times was one of those newspapers suppressing stories like the Hunter Biden laptop. It only admitted that the laptop was authentic roughly two years after the election.
Some of us have been raising concerns the emergence of a “shadow state” where corporations carry out censorship the Constitution bars the government from doing.
What’s striking is leading Democrats have been open about precisely this type of corporate manipulation of political speech on social media. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called upon these companies to use enlightened algorithms to protect users from their own bad reading choices.
Even President Joe Biden called for such regulation of speech and discussions by wise editors. Without such censorship and manipulation, Biden asked, “How do people know the truth?”
The last year has shown how media censorship resisted scientific debate and buried legitimate stories. Yet, Sulzberger is still unrepentant and views disinformation rather than censorship as the problem…Indeed the world’s most existential problem.
Sulzberger’s position is nothing if not consistent. He was involved in one of the lowest moments in modern media when the newspaper turned not only on a U.S. senator but its own editor to yield to the mob.
Former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet recently said Sulzberger “set me on fire and threw me in the garbage” in the Cotton column controversy.
The treatment of the Cotton column shocked many of us. It was one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism. During the week of June 6, 2020, the Times forced out Bennet and apologized for publishing Cotton’s column calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House.
While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists denounced the column as historically inaccurate and politically inciteful. The column was in fact historically accurate, even if you disagreed with the underlying proposal (as I did).
Reporters insisted that Cotton was endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper should not feature people who advocate political violence. Writers Taylor Lorenz, Caity Weaver, Sheera Frankel, Jacey Fortin, and others also said that such columns put black reporters in danger and condemned publishing Cotton’s viewpoint.
Critics never explained what was historically false (or outside the range of permissible interpretation) in the column.
In a breathtaking surrender, the newspaper apologized and not only promised an investigation into how such an opposing view could find itself on its pages but promised to reduce the number of editorials in the future:
“We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication. This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short term and long term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reduction the number of op-eds we publish.”
Bennet reportedly made an apology to the staff. That however was not enough. He was later compelled to resign for publishing a column that advocates an option used previously in history with rioting.
Bennet recently told the new media outlet Semafor that Sulzberger
“blew the opportunity to make clear that the New York Times doesn’t exist just to tell progressives how progressives should view reality. That was a huge mistake and a missed opportunity for him to show real strength. He still could have fired me…I actually knew what it meant to have a target on your back when you’re reporting for the New York Times.
None of that mattered, and none of it mattered to AG. When push came to shove at the end, he set me on fire and threw me in the garbage and used my reverence for the institution against me,. This is why I was so bewildered for so long after I had what felt like all my colleagues treating me like an incompetent fascist.”
These controversies are the reason why trust in the media is at an all-time low. However, figures like Sulzberger still blame too much free speech as opposed to his own role in biased coverage that has undermined that trust.
That is why, in 2023, it is so glaring to see Sulzberger is being interviewed by Stelter on how disinformation is the greatest existential threat to the planet. Not nuclear proliferation, over-population, war, famine. It is the danger of allowing too much free speech that undermines “trust.”
The key however is that there was no “fracturing” at the World Economic Forum. It was the same figures voicing the same criticism of free speech as the scourge of our time. The problem is the vast global unwashed who fail to put their trust in the right people and sources. Fortunately, all the right people are gathered at Davos to show the way.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 21:35 - Visualizing The World's Top 25 Fleets Of Combat Tanks
Visualizing The World’s Top 25 Fleets Of Combat Tanks
The tank, an armored all-terrain fighting vehicle, revolutionized the way we fight when introduced during the First World War. Since then, despite some commentators predicting the end of the tank era, they remain a cornerstone of 21st century armies.
Global Firepower has released their ranking of combat tank fleet sizes for 2023, which Visual Capitalist’s Chris Dickert has visualized in this infographic.
The ranking includes main battle tanks, like the U.S. M1A2 Abrams or the German Leopard 2, but also more lightly-armed medium and light tanks, like Thailand’s Stingray. The numbers do not include armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles.
Russia
Numbering 12,556 tanks, the Russian Federation has the largest fleet in their arsenal by far, from the workhorse T-72 series to the ultra-advanced T-14 Armata. This is more than the combined total of the number two and three spots, North Korea (6,645) and the U.S. (5,500).
But the headline number misses nuances in the composition of the Russian tank fleet.
Of Russia’s nearly 13,000 active combat tanks, only a fraction are main battle tanks. A 2021 Russian source estimated that their operational main battle fleet was closer to 2,600 tanks, made up of T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s, with another 400 T-72 variants used as range tanks.
On top of that, only one-quarter of those are considered modern tanks—T-72B3/B3M, T-80-BVM, and T-90A/M—that is, fitted with up-to-date fire control systems and sighting. That’s why, on top of poor morale, inadequate logistics, and inflexible tactics, Russia has struggled to perform on the Ukrainian battlefield despite having more than six times the number of tanks (12,556 vs. 1,890).
According to a Pentagon official speaking in early November 2022, Russia has lost half of their tanks since their “special military operation” began on February 24, 2022. The conflict has also injured or killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions, and upended the post-Cold War security architecture.
North Korea
The world’s second-largest tank fleet belongs to North Korea, with a combat fleet of 6,645 tanks.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has maintained armored capabilities since the Korean War (1950-1953) when their first armored unit, the 105th Armored Brigade, participated in the invasion of South Korea armed with 120 Soviet-made T-34/85 tanks.
After the war, the North Korean army rearmed with Soviet T-34/85s, and later with T-55s and Chinese-variant Type 59 tanks. Despite now being decades-old, these are likely still in service, alongside indigenous designs such as the Chonma-ho “Flying Horse” and the Pokpung-ho “Storm.”
Ultimately, these tank forces are considered to be no match for modern main battle tanks despite their numbers. One military blogger called them “weak and pathetic”—especially when compared to South Korea’s fourth-generation K2 Black Panther, considered one of the most advanced tanks in the world.
China
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently accelerated fleet modernization plans at the 20th Party Congress, in anticipation of the army’s centenary in 2027, but they still have a ways to go.
Their fourth-place 4,950 combat tank fleet contains a mix of modern and obsolete tanks.
China’s most modern main battle tank, the third-generation Type 99, is a domestic design. Armed with a 125mm diameter main gun—slightly larger than the NATO standard 120mm—and 1,500hp diesel engine, it is tough and maneuverable. An upgraded variant, the Type 99A, debuted in the mid-2000s.
There is some speculation that the Type 99/99A could rival the U.S. M1 Abrams. However, it still falls short of fourth-generation designs, such as Russia’s T-14 Armata, South Korea’s K2 Black Panther, or Japan’s Type 10.
But thanks to a whopping $293 billion military budget, and significant industrial espionage, China’s defense industry is capable of producing military equipment at or near world-class standards, including tanks. The country even began testing unmanned tanks, including the Type 59 in 2018 and lightweight Type 15 in 2019.
Ukraine
Despite coming in at #13 with 1,890 tanks and initial predictions of a quick victory for Russian invaders, Ukrainian forces have successfully halted and then turned back their numerically superior foes.
Originally armed with upgraded Soviet-era T-64s, as well as donations of T-72s from Poland and Czechia, Ukraine’s tank forces have swelled thanks to captured military equipment left behind by fleeing Russian soldiers.
Oryx, a Dutch defense analysis website that has been tracking battlefield progress in Ukraine using open-source intelligence, estimates that 533 tanks, including several top-of-the-line T-90s, have been captured as of early 2023. According to a U.S. defense official, Ukraine may now have “more tanks in the battlefield than the Russians do.”
Arsenal of Democracy?
Looking ahead, Ukraine is asking for advanced Western main battle tanks, as it seeks to liberate the rest of its territory from Russia, including the Donbas and Crimea. NATO nations had been reluctant to take that step, as they were wary of further antagonizing Russia, but resistance seems to be diminishing.
On January 4, 2023, France agreed to deliver AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine, the first Western country to do so. On January 6, the U.S. and Germany each agreed to deliver armored vehicles of their own, the Bradley and Marder, respectively.
And as another possible sign that sentiment has shifted, the UK has also said that it plans to donate a small number of Challenger 2 main battle tanks, while Poland has signaled their intention to donate Leopard 2 tanks (though the latter will need Germany’s permission to export).
As the spring campaign season approaches, we will see how these new weapons affect the balance of tank fleets both on and off the battlefield.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 21:15 - The Rise Of The Single Woke (And Young, Democratic) Female
The Rise Of The Single Woke (And Young, Democratic) Female
Authored by Joel Kotkin and Samuel J. Abrams via RealClear Wire,
Soccer Moms are giving way to Single Woke Females – the new “SWFs” – as one of the most potent voting blocs in American politics.
Unmarried women without children have been moving toward the Democratic Party for several years, but the 2022 midterms may have been their electoral coming-out party as they proved the chief break on the predicted Republican wave. While married men and women as well as unmarried men broke for the GOP, CNN exit polls found that 68% of unmarried women voted for Democrats.
The Supreme Court’s August decision overturning Roe v. Wade was certainly a special factor in the midterms, but longer-term trends show that single, childless women are joining African Americans as the Democrats’ most reliable supporters.
Their power is growing thanks to the demographic winds. The number of never married women has grown from about 20% in 1950 to over 30% in 2022, while the percentage of married women has declined from almost 70% in 1950 to under 50% today. Overall, the percentage of married households with children has declined from 37% in 1976 to 21% today.
The Single Wave
A new Institute for Family Studies analysis  of 2020 Census data found that one in six women do not have children by the time they reach the end of their childbearing years, up from one in ten in 1990. Single adult women now total some 42 million, comparable to the key African American voting bloc (46 million), while vastly larger than key groups like labor union members (14 million) or college students (20 million).
The Pew Research Center notes that since 1960, single-person households in the United States have grown from 13% to 27% (2019). Many, particularly women, are not all that keen on finding a partner. Pew recently found that “men are far more likely than women to be on the dating market: 61% of single men say they are currently looking for a relationship or dates, compared with 38% of single women.”
There’s clearly far less stigma attached to being single and unpartnered. Single women today have many impressive role models of unattached, childless women who have succeeded on their own – like Taylor Swift and much of the U.S. women’s soccer team. This phenomenon is not confined to the United States. Marriage and birthrates have fallen in much of the world, including Europe and Japan. Writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, columnist Emma John observed that, “Singleness is no longer to be sneered at. Never marrying or taking a long-term partner is increasingly seen as a valid choice.”
Rise of Identity Politics
The rise of SWFs – a twist on the personal ad abbreviation for single white female – is one of the great untold stories of American politics. Distinct from divorced women or widows, these largely Gen Z and Millennial voters share a sense of collective identity and progressive ideology that sets them apart from older women. More likely to live in urban centers and to support progressive policies, they are a driving force in the Democratic party’s and the nation’s shift to the left. One paradox, however: Democrats depend ever more on women defined in the strict biological sense while much of the party’s progressive wing embraces the blurred and flexible gender boundaries of its identity politics.
Attitudes are what most distinguish single women from other voters. An American Enterprise Institute survey shows that married men and women are far more likely than unmarried females to think women are well-treated or equally treated. As they grow in numbers, these discontented younger single women are developing something of a group consciousness. Nearly two-thirds of women under 30, for example, see what happens to other women as critical to their own lives; among women over 50, this mindset shrinks to less than half.
This perception of linked fate stands in contrast to survey results regarding single men, who report that they are increasingly disconnected from each other while women bond more closely. This is not a temporary phenomenon, and it is much bigger than the bohemian movements of the past. There is even a sense in which women are redefining families, and themselves, by choosing to neither get married nor have offspring. And social observers such as Bella DePaulo, a University of California, Santa Barbara professor and singles advocate, are all in favor. As she told Nautilus magazine:
“[It’s] a tremendously positive thing! Once upon a time, just about everyone in the United States thought that they needed to squeeze themselves into the heterosexual nuclear family box, even if they weren’t heterosexual or weren’t interested in getting married or had no interest in raising kids. Now, people can create the lives and the families that allow them to live their best, most authentic, and most meaningful lives. They can choose to put friends at the center of their lives. Or they can assemble their very own combination of friends and family to be the social convoys that sail beside them as they navigate their lives. They can have kids in their lives without having children of their own.”
The key driver of these attitudes may be universities, where feminist ideology often holds powerful sway. Women now predominate on college campuses. In the late 1960s they were about 39% of college graduates; now they are about 59%. The percentage of full-time female professors has risen dramatically; at the full professor level the percentage has grown by roughly one-third.
Women now earn more than half of advanced degrees, not only in education but health and medical sciences, and are making great strides in engineering and law. With this growth, a feminist agenda has become increasingly de rigueur in colleges. According to theNational Center for Education Statistics, the number of women’s and gender studies degrees in the United States has increased by more than 300% since 1990, and in 2015, there were more than 2,000 degrees conferred. There are widespread movements to establish women’s centers almost everywhere, even as men are abandoning college and university life in record numbers, and those who remain are hit with messaging about behavior and status from diversity, equity, and inclusion offices along with various student life offices that regularly call them toxic, aggressive, and born misogynists.
More recently, anti-family attitudes have become more pronounced. “Queer studies” often advocate replacing the “nuclear family” with some form of collectivized childrearing. Progressive groups like Black Lives Matter made their opposition to the nuclear family a part of their basic original platform, even though evidence shows family breakdown has hurt African American boys most of all.
The Economics of Singleness
While both married and unmarried women have made impressive gains in the workplace, family status appears to be driving a big cleavage in politics among women. Research shows that having children tends to make one more conservative – critically, divorce does not change this calculus decisively, although it moderates leftism. The AEI 2022 data shows that divorced women – of all age cohorts – tend to be more conservative than liberal. In aggregate, 23% of divorced women are liberal while 31% are conservative – the plurality (38%) are somewhere in the moderate middle. The fault lines, however, run deeper and appear to be generational. The data show that 40% of Millennial women – those born between 1981-1996 – identify as liberal and 20% identify as conservative. For single women of the baby boom generation (born between 1946-1963) the number of liberals drops to 25% and the number of conservative women increases to almost 30%.
We are witnessing, as sociologist Daniel Bell noted a half century ago in “The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society,” a new type of individualism, unmoored from religion and family, something fundamentally transforming the foundations of middle-class culture. This echoes what the popular futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970 described as a growing immersion in work at the expense of family life. He envisioned a revolution in marriage that would result in a “streamlined family,” and, if children are in the picture, relying on professional child-raisers. The ideal of long-term marriage would give way, he expected, to more transient relationships and numerous partners at different stages of life.
There is a clear economic divergence between married and unmarried women, if for no other reason than that two incomes provide more resources and children present different demands. There are plenty of renting couples and home-owning singles, but married people account for 77% of all homeowners, according to the Center for Politics. Married women tend also to do far better professionally and economically, and their rate of marriage has remained constant while those without spouses have declined by 15% over the past four decades, notes the Brookings Institution. Single-parent households, they find, do far worse.
This economic reality impacts political choices. Not part of an economic familial unit, they tend to look to government for help, whether for rent subsidies or direct transfers. The pitch of Democratic presidents as reflected in Barack Obama’s “Life of Julia” and Joe Biden’s “Life of Linda” – narratives that advertised the government’s cradle-to-grave assistance for women – is geared toward women who never marry, with the occasional child-raising addressed not by family resources but government transfers.
Critically, unmarried women also tend to be employed heavily in “helping professions” like medical care and teaching, an expanding field even as many traditional male jobs, particularly in manufacturing, construction, and transportation, have disappeared. Whereas high taxes and regulation pose problems in the general economy, women predominate in fields that actually benefit from more government spending. This now includes the once GOP-leaning medical profession, nurses as well as doctors who now lean Democratic. In contrast, heavily male professions like engineers, masons, and police officers tend toward the GOP.
These differences are also showing up in backlashes against leftwing education policy, epitomized by such programs as Drag Queen Story Hour for K-12 students. Parents have been at the forefront of movements to replace progressive school board members from Virginia to California.
Geography Is Destiny
The divisions between married and unmarried women are reenforced and amplified by the geographic divisions in the country – what some call “the big sort”– as Americans increasingly settle into distinct communities of likeminded individuals. Urban centers, for example, are particularly friendly to singles. In virtually all high-income societies, high density today almost always translates into low fertility rates, led by San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Boston. In urban cores like Manhattan, single households constituted nearly 50% of households, according to American Community Survey 2019 data. And with many businesses and cultural opportunities moving away from cities and diffusing and becoming more diverse and family friendly with varied amenities, the polarization between cities and their narrowly left residents and the rest of the nation may increase.
According to the recent AEI data, even married women in the Northeast are conservative. This gap, unsurprisingly, widens in the South and Midwest. But the major divides are in terms of type of community. Married women who live in urban settings are evenly split between conservative and liberal, but among single women, just 18% are conservative with 44% liberal (the rest identify as moderate or refused to say). In the suburbs, the key political battleground, 35% of married women are conservative and 22% liberal. For unmarried women, 23% are conservative and 34% are liberal. In rural areas, 42% of married women are conservative compared to 14% liberal while single women divide evenly.
Unlike the wave of immigrants or rural migrants who flooded the American metropolises of the early 20th century, urbanites today generally avoid raising large families in cramped and exceedingly expensive spaces. According to analysis by demographer Wendell Cox, households in suburbs and exurbs are roughly four times more likely to have children in their household than residents of the urban core.
The lowest birthrates are found in ultra-blue cities and states, magnets largely for singles and the childless. Six years ago the New York Times ran a story headlined “San Francisco Asks: Where Have All the Children Gone?” and stories abound about the Golden Gate City having the fewest children of all major American cities. Many other major cities lost families with children during the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, Manhattan saw a whopping 9.5% decline in the number of children under 5 – and many families are not returning.
Some of this reflects policies associated with driving housing prices up more than elsewhere. Like other blue states, California has adopted policies that discourage single family housing favored by married couples with children in favor of dense, usually small urban apartments. Given the political orientation of single women, urban areas can be expected to go further left, while the suburbs, and particularly the exurbs, with their concentrations of married families, will likely shift towards the center and right.
The Great Demographic Race
In the near future, American politics, both national and local, may turn on the degree to which people remain single, and also whether they decide to have children. Right now, the short run demography favors the Democrats. People are getting married at the lowest rate in American history and the birth rate remains depressed. The longer people stay single, and perhaps never marry, the better things will be for the Democrats.
The wild card may be age – specifically whether historic patterns hold and women, like men, tend to become conservative as they get older. This is hard to gauge as the evolution has usually taken in place of the context of marriage and motherhood. Unmarried women, in particular, may hold onto their youthful ideology far longer than those whose lives are transformed by marriage and parenting.
In many places, particularly on the coasts, single women have become a politically rising force. Twelve women were elected governor in 2022, a record. Maura Healey’s election as the nation’s first openly lesbian chief executive shows that in states like Massachusetts, once a Catholic conservative bastion culturally, there is enough support for single women in politics to overcome traditional reluctance to elect childless and non-heterosexual candidates. “It’s thrilling to see Maura break down historical obstacles to both women and LGBTQ candidates to lead Massachusetts,” says Janson Wu, executive director of the Boston-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. “It really shows the progress we’ve made as a society, in understanding that what counts is really the quality of the leader and not who they are.”
Future Policy Conflicts
Public policy may have a strong influence on this dynamic. The single, the unattached, and the unmarried are already demanding state provisions to guarantee “affordable” urban housing, more money for transit, and steps toward a guaranteed income for individuals – all of which will, in turn, provide incentives to remain unattached. In contrast, the demands of family-oriented voters may be more focused on economic growth, safety, improving basic education, and ways to save money for their offspring.
If the policy preferences of singles become more significant, the United States may have to brace for the kind of long-term demographic decline already evident in Japan and parts of Europe. Some suggest that one possible solution, attractive to some on the left, would be to adopt the “Nordic way” which encourages reproduction (if not marriage) by transferring much of the burden of child-raising from families to the state. Other countries have also adopted pro-birth policies – like free or low-cost childcare, or even cash payments. These schemes have been applied in places as dissimilar as Poland and South Korea, as well as Quebec. But according to United Nations data, all of them, including the Scandinavian states, still suffer well below replacement rate fertility rates.
Some women in particular embrace singleness not just as a lifestyle, but a chance to redefine the role of women in society. Author Rebecca Traister, herself married with children, has followed this movement, calling it a “a radical upheaval, a national reckoning with massive social and political implications … a wholesale revision of what female life might entail.”
“We are living through the invention of independent female adulthood as a norm, not an aberration,” she adds, “and the creation of an entirely new population: adult women who are no longer economically, socially, sexually, or reproductively dependent on or defined by the men they marry.”
The likely best way to overcome the demographic decline may lie instead in boosting the economic prospects of the next generation. This includes steps that could allow for easier purchase of homes or lower cost apartments suitable for families. As Richard Florida, among others, has suggested: Efforts should be made to lower housing prices, which correlates to higher rates of fertility.
Reforms that encourage home-based businesses could spark greater fertility rates, as historian Alan Carlson suggested almost two decades ago. The rise of home-based businesses and work, now taking off, offers a unique opportunity for increased family formation. Indeed a recent study by the Federal Reserve of Kansas City suggests that the current rise in remote work could spark a family friendly housing boom, as people can live further away, and spend more time being parents. For that to occur, however, it would require that such housing can be constructed, which would require loosening of regulations that seek to restrain construction both in cities and suburban areas.
Ultimately the question remains what kind of society Americans want to have. Historically, here in the U.S. and elsewhere, the family perspective has generally been prevalent and tied intimately to the sense of a common polity. But as the country changes and becomes ever more single and female-influenced, the historical pattern is likely to be challenged and significantly modified.
Joel Kotkin is Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 20:55 - Ardern Out: Tearful New Zealand Prime Minister Unexpectedly Announced Resignation
Ardern Out: Tearful New Zealand Prime Minister Unexpectedly Announced Resignation
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, one of the best known and longest faces of the globalist menace that steamrolled all personal rights and liberties during the period of world history known as “covid fascism” while arresting countless non conformists just so she could impose universal lockdowns and to enable the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna to become stinking rich, said she would step down by Feb. 7 after more than five years as leader because she “lacks the energy” to do the job ahead of an election later this year.
“I believe that leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have, but also one of the more challenging,” a tearful Ardern said. “You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.”
“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice,” the now former prime minister said. “But I absolutely believe and know there are others around me who do.”
🚨BREAKING: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern has resigned.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
She added: “This has been the most fulfilling five and a half years of my life. I am leaving because with such a privileged job comes a big responsibility.”
Opinion polls have shown Ardern’s center-left Labour Party trailing the opposition National party, although her own standing with voters was higher than other political leaders. Results of one survey released last month by 1 News Kantar showed support for Labour had fallen to 33%, from 41% around a year earlier. National topped that poll with 38%.
Translation: some huge scandal is about to emerge.
She said she is proud of what she has accomplished during her time as leader, citing progress on responding to climate change, addressing child poverty, easing access to education, improving worker conditions and dealing with issues of national identity
Labour lawmakers will elect a new leader of the party — and the country — in three days’ time, Ardern said.
Ardern said she had informed party members of her decision earlier in the day. She said would remain a member of Parliament for her electorate in the city of Auckland until April, in order to avoid the need for a by-election.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 20:35 - Classified Docs Were At Biden House While Hunter Took Millions For "Representing F**king Spy Chief Of China"
Classified Docs Were At Biden House While Hunter Took Millions For “Representing F**king Spy Chief Of China”
Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Public,
For the last week and a half, defenders of President Joe Biden have said that the way he allegedly mishandled classified documents was not as dangerous, illegal, or inappropriate as the way former President Donald Trump allegedly mishandled classified documents.
But we now know that Hunter Biden was taking millions of dollars from businessmen tied to Chinese military intelligence while living at the home of his father, President Joe Biden, where classified documents, including ones relating to foreign nations, were recently found.
We additionally know that Hunter Biden was in the grip of a debilitating addiction to cocaine and alcohol and that he experienced frequent blackouts and loss of memory.
There is no evidence that Hunter Biden, willingly or unwillingly, sober or intoxicated, took classified documents from his father’s residence in Delaware and gave them to his client, a Chinese businessman named Patrick Ho.
“There’s no evidence that Hunter Biden accessed the documents, but — God-forbid — the opportunity existed for him to do so,” said investigative journalist Peter Schweitzer, who has tracked the Biden family’s business ties to the Chinese government, including military intelligence, over the last five years.
During the time that Hunter lived in his father’s residence, between 2017 and 2018, Hunter and the entities he and his uncle, James Biden, President Biden’s brother, controlled received at least $4.8 million from a Chinese energy conglomerate called CEFC, which is tied to the Chinese military. Hunter Biden received an additional $1 million from Patrick Ho, a CEFC official.
“After Ho is arrested in late 2017, the first phone call he makes is to James Biden, the president’s brother, because he’s looking for Hunter,” said Schweitzer.
Why is that? What was going on between the Bidens and the Chinese government, exactly? And what does it all mean?
…
Hunter’s former client Patrick Ho is a criminal convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Ho was sentenced for his role in a multimillion-dollar effort to bribe leaders from Chad and Uganda. That appears to be what Ho was attempting to do with Hunter: bribe him in order to buy protection from his powerful father. A CEFC intermediary reached out to Hunter Biden in December 2015 to set up a meeting between Hunter and Ye Jianming, the founder and chairman of CEFC, according to emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive. Hunter Biden at one point said he was working for Ye. Hunter, in a voicemail found on his laptop, tells a colleague, “I’m representing the f**king spy chief of China.”
…
What does it all mean? The evidence strongly suggests that the Chinese government was seeking to bribe the Biden family to gain advantages both in terms of energy and also to protect its sources.
…
Subscribers to Public can read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 20:15 - Why A Shocking Number Of Crazy-Sounding Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories Turned Out To Be True
Why A Shocking Number Of Crazy-Sounding Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories Turned Out To Be True
Authored by Michael Shellenberger via ‘Public’ Substack,
“Theory” doesn’t mean what you think it means…
The World Economic Forum, governments around the world, and the mainstream news media are sounding the alarm in Davos about crazy-sounding, right-wing conspiracy theories. And it’s easy to see why: conspiracy theories are prima facie silly. The boring truth is that people and institutions are terrible at keeping secrets.
And yet, a shocking number of crazy-sounding right-wing conspiracy theories have, recently, turned out to be true:
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The World Economic Forum really does exercise a creepy influence over world leaders and it really does want “A Great Reset” whereby we’ll collectively move to living in low-energy, high-density, and low-privacy environments, having less physical wealth and, yes, eating insects for protein instead of meat.
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The FBI really did spy on Donald Trump’s campaign, run brief-and-leak operations, and spread misinformation about the extent of Russian election interference in ways that led nearly all of the media, media platforms, and Democrats to believe that Hunter Biden’s laptop was fake and anyone who talked about it is a conspiracy theorist, and in a way that may have constituted election interference.
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Facebook and Twitter really did censor accurate covid information at the behest of the White House and Twitter, and operate secret blacklists to censor and deplatform disfavored voices and opinions, even when their own internal teams said the people being censored had not actually broken any of the platform’s rules.
The people who allege that the above were, and remain, “conspiracy theories,” say that World Economic Forum is just a gabfest, the FBI was simply doing what bipartisan majorities in Congress and the President agreed was necessary after Russian election interference on the 2016 elections, and government officials and social media executives were doing the best they could with the information they had during a fast-moving pandemic where millions of lives were at stake.
But if the World Economic Forum is a gabfest, it is also, including in its own opinion, enormously powerful, with its founder, Klaus Schwab, playing a mysteriously large role within the G-20 organization of world leaders.
Russian influence over the 2016 election was massively overstated, and the FBI went far beyond what Congress and the President asked and appears to have carried out an orchestrated campaign to deliberately misinform the media and social media platforms about the Hunter Biden laptop, which it had in its possession.
And while Monday morning quarterbacking on covid often goes too far, it’s also the case that Twitter and Facebook censored qualified people who were expressing a reasonable point of view about the vaccines and suppressed factually-accurate vaccine information.
What’s more, all of the above raise significant concerns about the current state of Western democracy.
A rich, secretive, and unelected person, Klaus Schwab, is exercising a weirdly large influence over world leaders on the Left and Right, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The FBI, the most important law enforcement organization in the world, is under the control of people who have shown great comfort in abusing the warrant process, leaking to the press, and influencing journalists and social media executives in what appears to be deliberate influence operations, known as IOs, and which used to be known as psyops.
And everybody from Davos to the White House to the mainstream corporate news media are using claims of “disinformation” and “misinformation” whether coming from Russians, 4chan, or Harvard professors, as excuses to censor social media platforms.
Why is that, exactly? Why did so many crazy-sounding right-wing conspiracy theories turn out to be true? And why are the elites behaving so undemocratically?
…
The control of publicly-available information over the last 10 years by WEF, the White House, and intelligence agencies including the FBI has been remarkable. Cushy gabfests like the ones in Aspen and Davos are effective in making journalists subservient to elites. The ability of government agencies like the White House and FBI to abuse their power is particularly strong when they have the support of the majority of the public, as was the case with Covid and with Trump, whose support hovered between just 35 and 45 percent. And the centralization of power in a small number of social media sites — mostly Facebook and Twitter — created an opportunity to bully politicians and government officials to deprive hundreds of millions of people of true information and feed them false information.
But all of the above are retrograde attempts to put the Internet genie back in the bottle and thus doomed to fail. The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk showed how fragile the control of social media platforms was. Musk not only made public just how much control the FBI exercised over Twitter, he also has destroyed the older blue checkmark verification system that biased the whole system toward woke-WEF ideology, or what Martin Gurri calls the “one-sided politics of identity and ecology.”
…
Change is coming. A growing number of people understand that they must pay for news and information from trustworthy and independent sources, ones without financials conflict of interest, and who make their values and beliefs explicit, rather than hide them…
* * *
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 20:15 -
- China Outpacing US In AI Research Production
China Outpacing US In AI Research Production
In 2012, the United States dominated China in the field of AI research.
Of the 25,000 or so papers published that year, the US led with 629 of the most-cited (top 10%) of citations by other papers. China was in second place at 425.
In 2021, China produced approximately 43,000 of the 135,000 research papers on AI – roughly twice as many as the United states. The same year, China accounted for 7,401 of the most-cited papers, beating the American tally by around 70%, according to a study by Japan’s Nikkei in conjunction with Dutch scientific publisher Elsevier.
The study, which used AI-associated keywords to scan for academic and conference papers focusing on AI, found that Chinese companies Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei Technologies are among the top 10 companies producing AI research. Baidu, China’s leading search engine, came in 11th in both the quantity and quality of AI research.
What’s more, China will likely keep up the momentum, as a 2017 government plan set a goal to become the world’s primary AI innovation center by 2030.
The government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Sciences, the nation’s top scientific institution, possesses vast research capabilities. Tsinghua University, a public research university in Beijing, is also an AI hot spot.
The need to accelerate research, development and application of cutting-edge technologies, including AI, was stressed in 2023 economic priorities outlined at this December’s closely watched Central Economic Work Conference, where President Xi Jinping spoke.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said last Wednesday that growing AI and other emerging industries is a key priority for 2023. –Nikkei
US tech giants have traditionally dominated the field of AI – with Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and IBM constituting the largest three producers over the 10-year period the study noted. In 2021, six US companies were in the top-10 for most-cited research, while the remaining four were Chinese firms, Tencent, Alibaba, Huawei and State Grid Corp.
Interestingly – government-owned operator State Grid is considered one of the best AI research institutions among Chinese corporations, because “the big data collected from hundreds of millions of smart meters.” The company is attempting to create the ability to predict power demand and identify problems throughout the electrical grid.
Japan, meanwhile, has fallen behind in AI research – dropping from 6th place in 2019 to 18th in 2021.
That said, META is building the world’s largest AI supercomputer in conjunction with NVIDIA, which could train models with more than a trillion parameters. For comparison, AI research tool ChatGPT has 175 billion parameters.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 19:55 - McCarthy Rejects White House Demand For "Clean" Debt-Ceiling Hike
McCarthy Rejects White House Demand For “Clean” Debt-Ceiling Hike
Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) rejected President Joe Biden’s demand that Congress increase the nation’s debt ceiling without attaching any conditions such as the spending cuts that virtually all congressional Republicans are demanding.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks at a news conference in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 12, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) In an informal news conference with reporters just outside the Capitol, McCarthy said “we’re six months away, approximately, and what I would like to do is sit down with all the leaders, especially the President, and start having the discussion.”
The Speaker said Biden’s refusal to discuss anything other than a “clean” increase in the debt ceiling, which limits federal borrowing, is “a sign of arrogance that he would say he wouldn’t even discuss it. I mean think about what the Democrats have done just in four years, they’ve increased discretionary spending by 30 percent. When Republicans were in control for eight years, discretionary spending didn’t go up one dollar.”
Noting the national debt is nearly $32 trillion, McCarthy asked “why would you do this to any future generation in anything we do? Why wouldn’t you sit down and talk, especially with something as serious as a debt limit; why would you want to wait until the end? Who wants to put the nation through some type of threat at the last minute with the debt ceiling? Nobody wants to do that.”
A Peterson Foundation billboard displaying the national debt is pictured on K Street in downtown Washington on Feb. 8, 2022. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Peter G. Peterson Foundation) McCarthy added that “any household that was mis-spending, the first thing they would do is sit down and set a budget. Why wouldn’t we request the House and Senate to do a budget … why wouldn’t we now set a budget, set a path that will get us to a balanced budget? And let’s start paying this debt off and make sure future generations have as many opportunities as we do.”
Medicare, Social Security and the military would not be subject to spending cuts, according to McCarthy, who said Biden’s demand for a debt ceiling increase without strings is “off the table.”
Biden Responds to Demand for Cuts
McCarthy’s comment follows Biden’s Jan. 16 remark describing Republican demands that the debt ceiling increase be combined with significant cuts in federal spending as “fiscally demented.” The interest costs of servicing the national debt are in excess of $500 billion annually.
Congress approved and Biden signed into law a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in late December that keeps the government funded through September. The immediate problem is that federal borrowing to pay for the omnibus bill technically will hit the debt ceiling Jan. 19, according to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.
As a practical matter, the Treasury department has ways of avoiding a default on the debt interest payments that would give Biden and the Congress several months in which to work out a deal involving a boost in the ceiling combined with some level of specific spending cuts sought by House Republicans.
President Joe Biden speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on Jan. 11, 2023, as he accompanies First Lady Jill Biden to Walter Reed hospital. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) House Republicans are backing McCarthy’s demand for spending cuts. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) issued a Jan. 17 statement in which he says “every major piece of financial legislation ought to come with some incremental, responsible spending cuts to keep us moving along a trajectory towards a balanced budget.
“That’ll take time and effort of course, but whether it’s a normal appropriations bill or something like a debt ceiling increase, every step along the way represents another opportunity to cut a little more spending to help balance the budget within 10 years.”
Concerns Over National Debt
Similarly, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) issued a warning to her GOP colleagues and an unexpected vow, saying, “Our national debt is approaching a level not just harmful to economic growth and irresponsible to future generations, but dangerous to our national security today. We are entering treacherous waters and must couple any debt ceiling increases with real reforms.”
The Indiana Republican continued, saying “huge amounts of politically directed spending and crony capitalism have created a significant oligopoly problem in nearly every market sector—not much different from oligarchs ruling in post-socialist countries. Health care monopolies lobbied by special interest groups, like hospitals, is one of the major examples.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 19:35 - Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar Back On Committee Assignments
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar Back On Committee Assignments
Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Two Republican House lawmakers landed committee assignments after having been stripped of them in the previous Democrat-controlled Congress on separate occasions in 2021.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) smiles at Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, on Dec. 7, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) had both been stripped of their committee seats in 2021 over social media posts they had made.
Their reinstatement to various committees fulfills a promise by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who said back in November 2021 they would regain their committee posts for the 118th Congress if Republicans win the House.
Both Greene and Gosar are now assigned to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, where Gosar had previously served.
Greene is also assigned to the House Committee on Homeland Security, and Gosar will also hold a seat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, where he previously served.
The Oversight committee is expected to be the forefront of investigating the Biden administration. Most recently, committee Republicans began a probe into President Joe Biden’s handling classified documents that were found at his office and Delaware home.
The Homeland Security committee makes decisions on laws pertinent to U.S. national security, including on border security, counterterrorism, and cybersecurity, among others. It also conducts Congressional oversight of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Natural Resources committee looks at legislation regarding energy, mineral and water resources, and national parks and public lands. It also conducts Congressional oversight of the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Agriculture.
Greene Vows to Investigate Federal Government
Greene issued statements late Tuesday upon her new assignments. She said the Oversight Committee is arguably “the most important committee [in] this Congress.”
“We will return the role of the Oversight Committee to investigating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of the federal government, which is exactly what the American people are fed up with,” she wrote.
“Joe Biden, be prepared. We are going to uncover every corrupt business dealing, every foreign entanglement, every abuse of power, and every check cut for The Big Guy.”
She added that Republicans will also “investigate every bit of government being used to abuse the American people, which includes “every three and four letter agency.”
On her appointment to the Homeland Security Committee, Green highlighted security issues including a surge in illegal immigration across the southern border, Chinese fentanyl entering the United States via Mexican cartels, and cyber attacks.
“We will investigate the Biden administration’s violations of our laws and fund (and defund) programs to defend our border and American sovereignty,” Greene said.
Gosar, in an interview with The Epoch Times back in January 2021, had said several Democrats should be stripped of their committee assignments if Republicans win the House. At the time, he singled out Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) should be ejected from their committees, citing potential conflicts of interest and other concerns he has with the lawmakers.
McCarthy has previously pledged to oust Schiff, Swalwell, and Omar. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced on Twitter Tuesday: “Speaker McCarthy confirms that Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar are getting kicked off the Intel and Foreign Affairs Committees. Promises made. Promises kept!”
How Greene, Gosar Were Removed from Committee Seats
Greene had been stripped of her committee assignments in February 2021 on a vote of 230–199, largely on party lines—just a month after she was sworn into Congress for the first time. At the time, Greene had been assigned to the House Budget Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee.
Democrats cited social media posts she made before she entered office as grounds to remove her. At the time, McCarthy had denounced Greene’s past comments but called on House Republicans to vote against the Democratic resolution to take away her committee assignments.
Of concern were posts where Greene had speculated that the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks were a false flag and alleged that deadly U.S. school shootings were staged, among other theories. Reports also claimed that Greene had “liked” a Facebook comment suggesting that “a bullet to the head” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “would be quicker.”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 18:55 - Tesla Video Depicting Self-Driving Car Was Staged, Engineer Testifies
Tesla Video Depicting Self-Driving Car Was Staged, Engineer Testifies
An October 2016 video that purported to showcase Tesla’s self-driving technology in action was actually staged, according to July 2022 testimony from a senior engineer at the company reviewed by Reuters, which was first to report the development.
As a result, the video depicted capabilities that Tesla’s technology had not yet attained, such as accelerating at a green light or stopping at red one, the engineer said.
The promotional video, posted on a tesla.com page titled “Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Teslas,” began with an explanatory screen that read, “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”
This language from the October 2016 video seems to unambiguously make a claim that’s now been refuted by testimony Likewise, when he promoted the video on Twitter, Elon Musk implied the car was driving itself with “no human input at all.”
Tesla drives itself (no human input at all) thru urban streets to highway to streets, then finds a parking spot https://t.co/V2T7KGMPBo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2016
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
However, in the deposition transcript reviewed by Reuters, Tesla director of autopilot software Ashok Elluswamy said human drivers intervened on the test runs — and when they tried showing the Tesla parking without a driver, the car crashed into a fence in the company’s parking lot.
The testimony from Elluswamy was submitted as evidence in a lawsuit against Tesla over a deadly 2018 crash that killed Apple engineer Walter Huang in Mountain View, California.
“[It was] obviously misleading to feature that video without any disclaimer or asterisk,” Andrew McDevitt, an attorney for Huang’s widow, told Reuters.
In addition to civil action, Tesla is also the focus of a U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation over the company’s statements about its vehicle’s self-driving capabilities.
“The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016,” said Elluswamy. “It was to portray what was possible to build into the system.” However, the language in the video and from CEO Musk seems at odds with that goal.
Some eyebrow-raising facets of the video’s production were reported in 2021 by The New York Times, including that the car’s route had been charted ahead of time by software that wasn’t available to customers, and that the car hit a barrier on Tesla’s property, necessitating repairs.
According to that same Times report, when Tesla debuted Autopilot 2.0 in October 2016, Musk described it in terms that seemed to overstate the vehicle’s capabilities, taking his engineers by surprise.
The video in controversy is still posted on Tesla’s website, and we’ve embedded a YouTube copy below:
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 18:35 - Texas Brewery Cancels Kyle Rittenhouse Fundraiser Against Censorship
Texas Brewery Cancels Kyle Rittenhouse Fundraiser Against Censorship
Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A Texas-based brewery recently decided to cancel a fundraising event featuring Kyle Rittenhouse, a man who rose to national media attention after he shot and killed two people during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, and who was found not guilty of murder after he argued he acted in self-defense.
Kyle Rittenhouse waits for the jury to enter the room to continue testifying during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Nov. 10, 2021. (Sean Krajacic-Pool/Getty Images) The Southern Star Brewing Company in Conroe, Texas, had previously planned to host a fundraising event on Jan. 26. Rittenhouse was set to be the featured speaker at the planned event, a “Rally Against Censorship.”
Rittenhouse was present at a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 with an AR-15-style rifle. During the riot, the then-17-year-old Rittenhouse was with a group of other armed individuals protecting business properties in the area. At one point in the evening, Rittenhouse was separated from the rest of the group and was shot at and chased by people in the crowd. In the initial chase, Rittenhouse fled and then turned and fatally shot the man chasing him. As Rittenhouse then ran toward police, additional individuals continued to chase him. During the chase, Rittenhouse fell to the ground and fatally shot a second individual who swung a skateboard at his head and grabbed at his gun. Rittenhouse also shot a man who pointed a handgun at him, striking that individual in the same limb with which the individual held his gun.
Prosecutors charged Rittenhouse with murder but a jury found him not guilty after he testified that he had acted in self-defense.
Defiance Press & Publishing, the organizers of the “Rally Against Censorship,” promoted Rittenhouse’s headline appearance.
“Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges in a trial where he received sharply negative coverage from mainstream media; he was called a white supremacist, and numerous outlets repeated the falsehood that he illegally transported the rifle he used in the fatal shootings across state lines,” the publishing company said. “With the support of countless patriotic and freedom-loving Americans, Kyle beat the odds, won his freedom, and proved to a nation that justice is possible, even in the face of overwhelming political and societal pressures.”
Despite renting out the venue, Southern Star Brewing Company announced its decision to cancel the event in a post on Twitter on Friday.
“No more,” the brewery’s statement began. “Southern Star Brewery is an apolitical organization, but we feel that this event doesn’t reflect our own values and we could not in good faith continue to rent our space for the event on 1/26. We don’t do rallies, we make beer for people who like beer.”
A message from us at Southern Star: pic.twitter.com/v10pHCai2l
— Southern Star Brewing Co. (@SouthernStarBC) January 13, 2023
While the brewery did not directly specify which event it canceled, Defiance Press & Publishing stated directly that the “Rally Against Censorship” was the event the brewery had canceled.
Rittenhouse Responds
Following the brewing company’s decision to pull out of the event, Rittenhouse wrote in a Twitter post: “It’s really disappointing to see that places continue to censor me and not allow my voice and many other voices to be heard because they bend to the woke crowd. I’ll keep you guys updated on the event on the 26th that I was supposed to speak at.”
It’s really disappointing to see that places continue to censor me and not allow my voice and many other voices to be heard because they bend to the woke crowd. I’ll keep you guys updated on the event on the 26th that I was supposed to speak at. https://t.co/bKOyvZQyb2
— Kyle Rittenhouse (@ThisIsKyleR) January 13, 2023
Defiance Press & Publishing said it is working to find a new venue to host its rally with Rittenhouse.
Grocery Store Allegedly Pressured Brewery to Cancel
Defiance Press & Publishing alleged the brewery pulled out of the event under pressure from a Texas grocery store chain, H-E-B.
“This sudden decision is nothing other than an outrageous display of censorship. Up until now, Southern Star Brewery had agreed to host this event with full knowledge that Kyle Rittenhouse would be invited and had no problem whatsoever. It was not until H-E-B threatened to end their business with them that they decided to pull our event. Clearly, money talks and values walk for Southern Star,” Defiance Press founder David Roberts said.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/18/2023 – 18:15
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