Jul 19

Today’s News 19th July 2023

  • "Most Of The World Is Tired Of War" – PM Orbán Touts Hungary And Latin America's Pro-Peace Stance At EU-CELAC Summit
    “Most Of The World Is Tired Of War” – PM Orbán Touts Hungary And Latin America’s Pro-Peace Stance At EU-CELAC Summit

    Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took to Facebook on Tuesday to proclaim that Hungary and Latin America both have a pro-peace stance regarding the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and want the war to end as soon as possible.

    “Most of the world is tired of war. Today, we argued for an immediate ceasefire and peace, and this time the leaders of Latin America joined us!” wrote Orbán on Facebook following the meeting of the leaders of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (EU-CELAC) summit in Brussels. 

    Although Orbán’s pro-peace stance is a minority position in Europe, he has found broad support from nations with a similar outlook toward the war elsewhere in the world, including India, China, and countries in Latin America.

    China, for example, has put forward a peace plan that Hungary has backed.

    Within Latin America, there are a number of nations directly aligned with Russia, including Venezuela and Cuba, but more broadly speaking, there are many more nations skeptical of the Western war effort in Ukraine that have called for an immediate ceasefire.

    Countries like Brazil and Mexico have also refused to back sanctions against Russia, arguing it is not in their economic interest.

    Last year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador criticized the European Parliament’s nomination of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    “Regardless of whether we support one or the other (contender), how come one of the participants in a military conflict may receive the Nobel Peace Prize?” said the Mexican leader.

    “Are there no others who are fighting for peace? Why not Pope Francis, the head of the UN?”

    This year, Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said: “It’s necessary that the U.S. stops encouraging the war and talks about peace. It’s necessary that the European Union talks about peace so we can convince Putin and Zelensky that peace is in the interests of everybody and war only serves their two countries.”

    EU, Latin American and Caribbean leaders are using the EU-CELAC conference to meet for the first time in eight years.

    At the top of the agenda are the issues of climate change and free trade, especially the EU-Mercosur free trade deal, which environmental groups have criticized and which Brazil and other Latin American countries have refused to ratify.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/19/2023 – 02:00

  • Michigan Charges 16 Elderly 'Fake Electors' With Felonies
    Michigan Charges 16 Elderly ‘Fake Electors’ With Felonies

    The state of Michigan has charged 16 Trump supporters with an average age of 69 in a so-called ‘fake electors’ scheme following the 2020 US presidential election.

    The defendants allegedly met on Dec 14, 2020 in order to sign several official documents certifying that they were the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan,” per Michigan officials.

    Those false documents were then “transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan,” according to a statement from officials.

    In total, Trump allies pushed to organize slates of fake electors in seven swing states, whose votes would supplant the original electors’, before members of Congress and then-VP Mike Pence would certify their slates.

    The defendants are each charged with;

    • One count of Conspiracy to Commit Forgery, a 14-year felony,
    • Two counts of Forgery, a 14-year felony,
    • One count of Conspiracy to Commit Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony,
    • One count of Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony,
    • One count of Conspiracy to Commit Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony, and,
    • Two counts of Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.

    Among those charged was Meshawn Maddock, a Trump ally and former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

    Michigan AG Dana Nessel

    Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says she’s “prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election.”

    “The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents,” her statement continues. “Every serious challenge to the election had been denied, dismissed, or otherwise rejected by the time the false electors convened. There was no legitimate legal avenue or plausible use of such a document or an alternative slate of electors. There was only the desperate effort of these defendants, who we have charged with deliberately attempting to interfere with and overturn our free and fair election process, and along with it, the will of millions of Michigan voters. That the effort failed and democracy prevailed does not erase the crimes of those who enacted the false electors plot.“

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/19/2023 – 00:05

  • US Finally Cancels Funding To Wuhan Lab
    US Finally Cancels Funding To Wuhan Lab

    The US government has finally pulled funding from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the Obama administration offshored banned gain-of-function research, including projects to make bat covid more transmissible to humans, before a highly evolved, human-infecting bat coronavirus broke out in the same town and killed millions of people worldwide.

    Then the US put the same guy involved in said research, Peter Daszak, in charge of a highly conflicted lab-leak denial.

    Peter Daszak (L) and Anthony Fauci

    The stated reason for the funding halt? The lab failed to provide documents concerning safety and security measures, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg.

    The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday notified the WIV of the suspension, and told the lab that it’s looking to cut it off permanently following a review which began last September that concluded that the Wuhan lab isn’t compliant with federal regulations.

    This means that the WIV won’t receive further federal funding.

    Penalizing the lab is the most drastic action the US has taken so far over its failure to share documentation on biosafety practices amid ongoing investigations into Covid-19’s origins. The institute has became become a flashpoint in discussions of how the pandemic, which has killed some 7 million people, started, with some, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, suspecting it could have originated at the facility. -Bloomberg

    In 2014, the NIH awarded EcoHealth Alliance and its president Peter Daszak an grant for “understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.” The WIV received a subaward of that grant.

    The first $666,442 installment of EcoHealth’s $3.7 million NIH grant was paid in June 2014, with similar annual payments through May 2019 under the “Understanding The Risk Of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” project.

    Notably, the WIV “had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions” for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli, according to the Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin.

    EcoHealth also funneled funds from the US Agency for International Development to the WIV.

    Earlier this year, HHS’s Office of Inspector General conducted an audit that determined that the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance didn’t effectively monitor awards and subawards, limiting their ability to understand the nature of research conducted and identify problem areas.

    …

    The lab won’t be able to conduct any business with US as an agent or representative of others, and its affiliation with any organization that does business with the federal government will also be carefully examined. -Bloomberg

    That said, the Wuhan lab can contest the suspension and proposed disbarment – a relatively rare event. The decision to defund the lab was done independently of the US intelligence community, Bloomberg further reports.

    In June, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report which identified several safety and security issues at the WIV that could have contributed to a lab leak.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 23:45

  • Top Republicans Jump To Trump's Defense Over Imminent 'Arrest And Indictment'
    Top Republicans Jump To Trump’s Defense Over Imminent ‘Arrest And Indictment’

    (Update 1555ET): Top Republicans have rushed to the defense of former President Trump – their current best hope of defeating Joe Biden in a 2024 match-up.

    “Recently President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for reelection. So what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their No. 1 opponent,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters on Tuesday, following Trump’s announcement that her would likely be “indicted and arrested” soon over his alleged role in January 6th.

    “This is not equal justice. They treat people differently and they go after their adversaries,” McCarthy continued.

    House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) also came to Trump’s defense, noting that the news comes as the House Oversight Committee is slated to hear testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who alleged that an investigation into Hunter Biden was stonewalled by prosecutors.

    “Now you see the Biden administration going after President Trump once again, it begs that question — is there a double standard? Is justice being administered equally?” asked Scalise at the House GOP conference presser.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also chimed in, saying that the charges are “ridiculous,” and that special counsel Jack Smith is “weaponizing” the DOJ against Trump.

    “If this is the direction America is going — we are worse than Russia, we are worse than China. We are worse than some of the most corrupt third world countries, and this needs to end,” she said, adding “It’s an absolute lie.”

    Greene also called Smith a “weak little bitch” on Twitter.

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    Meanwhile, GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH) and Mary Miller (IL) also had words for the Biden administration.

    “Joe Biden’s DOJ: Attack the Portland Federal Courthouse? No problem. Intimidate #SCOTUS justices to influence a court decision? No big deal. But if you’re President Trump and do nothing wrong? PROSECUTE. Americans are tired of the double standard!” Jordan tweeted.

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    “The DOJ has become a political agency, targeting Joe Biden’s political opponents while covering up Joe Biden’s crimes. The DOJ is attacking our democracy by actively interfering in the 2024 Election,” tweeted Miller.

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    *  *  *

    Former President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he expects to be arrested and indicted by special counsel Jack Smith in connection with the January 6th Grand Jury investigation.

    “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

    President Biden’s DOJ have cast a wide net in their investigation into President Trump, Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 US election. Trump is expected to travel to Iowa on Tuesday, where he will tape a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

    Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a separate investigation into efforts by Trump to reverse his election law in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signaling that she expects to announce charging decisions in the first several weeks since Sunday. –AP

    While the charges Smith is considering are unknown, several lawyers – ranging from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot to outsiders writing “model prosecution memos” (per the NYT) have focused on the ‘the attempted corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding’ under Section 1512(c) of Title 18, and conspiracy to defraud the government under Section 371 of Title 18.

    Charges of obstructing an official proceeding (Congress’s session to count electoral college votes and certify Biden’s victory) have been brought against some Jan. 6 rioters. Charges of defrauding the government could get into broader actions before Jan. 6, like the scheme to have Trump supporters pretend to be alternative slates of official electors from contested states. –NYT

    Read Trump’s entire message below (emphasis ours):

    WOW! On Sunday night, while I was with my family, having just arrived from the Turning Point event in Florida, where I won the Straw Poll against all other Republican candidates with 85.7%, with all polls showing me leading in the Republican Primary by very substantial numbers, almost everyone predicting that I will be the Republican Nominee for President, and as I am leading Democrat Joe Biden in the polls by a lot, HORRIFYING NEWS for our Country was given to me by my attorneys.

    Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.

    So now, Joe Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who I turned down for the United States Supreme Court (in retrospect, based on his corrupt and unethical actions, a very wise decision!), together with Joe Biden’s Department of Injustice, have effectively issued a third Indictment and Arrest of Joe Biden’s NUMBER ONE POLITICAL OPPONENT, who is largely dominating him in the race for the Presidency. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before, or even close. They illegally spied on my Campaign, attacked me with a totally Fake “Dossier” that was funded by Hillary Clinton’s Campaign and the DNC, Impeached me twice (I won!), they failed on the Mueller Witch Hunt (No Collusion!), they failed on the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, the 51 “Intelligence” Agents fraud, the FBI/Twitter files, the DOJ/Facebook censorship, and every other scam imaginable. But on top of all of that, they have now effectively indicted me three times (the DOJ staffed and runs the D.A.’s Office in Manhattan), with a probable fourth coming from Atlanta, where the DOJ are in strict, and possibly illegal, coordination with the District Attorney, whose record on murder and other violent crime is abysmal. THIS WITCH HUNT IS ALL ABOUT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND A COMPLETE AND TOTAL POLITICAL WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT! It is a very sad and dark period for our Nation!

    Under the United States Constitution, I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen, just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016. and many others have done over the ages. But the Democrats have gone much further than has ever happened before – they cheated on the elections. Rather than looking at the CHEATERS, the WEAPONI2ED DOJ AND FBI target and harass those who complain about the cheaters, and the massive fraud that took place. The prosecutor involved in this case, and likewise the Boxes Hoax, the Manhattan and Atlanta District Attorneys, the New York A.G., etc., has been overturned unanimously in the Supreme Court, headed and caused the Lois Lerner IRS scandal, and failed miserably in his prosecution of John Edwards, where the case was forced to be dropped, along with numerous other catastrophes. He has had a vicious but disastrous career, and is a known biased and obsessed Trump Hater (as is his family). Whether it’s their failure to mention the Presidential Records Act (Prosecutorial Misconduct), their dominance of the Manhattan D.A., including the fact that a Hillary Clinton lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, left a top Democrat law firm (run by Chuck Schumer’s brother) to join the D.A.’s Office and become a prosecutor against me, and then quit, against all rules, regulations, and laws when the Office would not prosecute (he wrongfully wrote a book while working at the Office and is now under scrutiny!), or a perfect phone call made to many lawyers and a Secretary of State, without any protestation of my call, because nothing that was said was wrong, (it was clearly a complaint about an election), these are all Hoaxes and Scams made up to stop me from fighting for the American People – BUT I WILL NEVER STOP!

    This has been a neverending fight from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, many years ago. So interesting that in this case the information was delivered to me on a Sunday night, less than 24 hours after I suggested during a major speech that the Federal Government ASSUME CONTROL of a filthy, unsanitary, neglected, and crimendden Washington. D.C., where murder and violent crime are rampant and people no longer want to go to our Nation’s Capital… and yet. that is where Biden’s DOJ actually wants my trial to take place, all because they think, especially after my strong words of a Federal takeover at the speech, a D.C jury will do whatever they want. VERY UNFAIR!

    As journalist Julie Kelly notes:

    Smith knows this case is small potatoes compared to what he’s about to inflict on Trump and several associates for January 6. It’s very likely Smith will use the “classified docs” prosecution as leverage to seek pretrial detention for Trump when the special counsel indicts Trump for several J6-related offenses, which could include seditious conspiracy.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 23:05

  • How Do Chinese Citizens Feel About Other Countries?
    How Do Chinese Citizens Feel About Other Countries?

    Tensions over Taiwan, the COVID-19 pandemic, trade, and the war in Ukraine have impacted Chinese sentiment towards other countries.

    This visualization by Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop, uses data from the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University to rank survey responses from the Chinese public on their attitudes towards countries and regions around the world.

    Chinese Sentiment Towards Other Countries in 2023

    In the Center’s opinion polls, which surveyed a random sample of more than 2,500 Chinese mainland adults in November 2022, Russia came out significantly ahead.

    Just under 60% of respondents held Russia in a favorable view, with 19% seeing the country as “very favorable.” Contrast that to the mere 12% that viewed the U.S. in a positive light.

    Here’s a closer look at the data. The percentages refer to the share of respondents that voted for said category.

    Japan ranked just below the U.S. in terms of overall unfavorability, though a slightly higher share of respondents saw Japan as “very unfavorable” compared to America. This is likely due to both modern tensions in the East China Sea over mutually claimed islands and historical tensions over the Sino-Japanese Wars.

    Chinese sentiment towards India was also unfavorable at just over 50%, though notably the country also received the lowest favorability rating at just 8%.

    Additional Survey Findings

    The survey also found that 39% of Chinese people get their information on international security from Chinese state-run media (mainly through TV), with an additional 19% getting information from government websites and official social accounts. Conversely, only 1.7% get their news from foreign websites and foreign social media, partially due to the Great Firewall.

    When asked about different international security issues, the biggest shares of Chinese citizens ranked the following as their top three:

    1. Pandemics (12.9%)

    2. Disputes over territory and territorial waters (12.9%)

    3. China-U.S. relations (12.0%)

    The pandemic’s high score reflects the harsher impact COVID-19 had on China. Chinese borders were shut for years and the public faced intense measures to reduce spread.

    In terms of other world events, the majority of Chinese people align with a more “Eastern” viewpoint. For example, in regards to the war in Ukraine, the report found that:

    “About 80 percent of the respondents believe the U.S. and Western countries should be held most accountable [for the war], while less than ten percent of the respondents argue that Russia is mainly responsible.”

    – CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND STRATEGY, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY

    Overall, the views of the Chinese public reflect the opposite of those found in many Western countries. They provide an important insight that it is not just the Chinese government holding particular views about the world, but the Chinese public as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 23:05

  • Wuhan Lab Leak "So Friggin' Likely" – New Slack Messages Reveal Massive Media Deception By Fauci & 'Scientists'
    Wuhan Lab Leak “So Friggin’ Likely” – New Slack Messages Reveal Massive Media Deception By Fauci & ‘Scientists’

    Even credentialed scientists began to be disciplined by sites like Facebook, which took direction from government health authorities and prohibited statements about the virus being “man-made or manufactured.”

    There was also an impact on the press, especially after the popular site Zero Hedge was removed from Twitter after an article suggesting a scientist in Wuhan was behind the outbreak.

    It later turned out that Farrar referenced the Zero Hedge article in a letter to Fauci not long after the site was suspended.

    *  *  *

    Authored by Matt Taibbi, Leighton Woodhouse, Alex Gutentag, Michael Shellenberger via Racket News (truncated, read the full version at Racket).

    illustration by Daniel Medina

    On February 5th, 2020, as a small group of scientists were crafting a Nature magazine paper that would become the basis of years of reports insisting Covid-19 had natural origins, one of the co-authors, Tulane’s Dr. Robert Garry, wrote in group email:

    Accidental release is a scenario many will not be comfortable with, but cannot be dismissed out of hand.

    As detailed in an explosive Public story today, Garry’s thinking changed suddenly when then-New York Times reporter Donald McNeil asked the next day: “Is there any possibility that it could be from the Wuhan lab?”

    Garry warned McNeil was “credible,” but “like any reporter can be mislead [sic],” cheering colleague Dr. Andrew Rambaut’s scientific version of a non-denial denial as a “good honest response.”

    Last week, House members investigating origins of Covid-19 accidentally released a trove of Slack chats and emails between the authors of Nature’s seminal paper from March 17, 2020, The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2. The Proximal Origin paper delivered a single line that for years helped authorities slam a lid on theories of human intervention in Covid-19: “It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation.”

    Chats showing Proximal Origins authors saying things like “The truth will never come out (if lab escape is the truth)” were published first by independent researcher Francisco Del Asis of the independent investigatory group DRASTIC, after which the story was picked up by Ryan Grim of The Intercept. From there, health officials did their best to ignore the material — “Many of them remained silent with this revelation,” is how De Asis puts it — almost as if they were waiting for another shoe to drop.

    That other shoe is dropping. Public and Racket last week obtained a full complement of the “Proximal Origins” communications examined by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, revealing a story far worse than previously believed. While today’s Public story details the unprecedented scientific cover-up, the letters and chats examined here at Racket show how health officials and scientists constructed perhaps the most impactful media deception of modern times, exceeding even the WMD fiasco both in scale and brazen intentionality. Because House investigators uncovered such a wealth of material, some of the Proximal Origin communications — which shed light on other Covid-related controversies — will be addressed in a second part of this series later this week. For now, however, the degree to which these communications blow up years of news stories stands out.

    The released communications mainly center around four of the five Proximal Origin authors: the aforementioned Dr. Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh, Tulane’s Dr. Garry, Scripps Research Professor Dr. Kristian Andersen, and University of Sydney Virologist Edward “Eddie” Holmes. There are also email communications with the fifth author, Columbia’s Dr. Ian Lipkin, who is not on the Slack chats but does figure in the story.

    The core four on the Slack chat — Andersen, Garry, Rambaut, and Holmes — never appear far from thoughts about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and famed scientist Shi Zhengli. Affectionately dubbed “Bat Woman” by Chinese colleagues, Shi received grants to research bat viruses, including a recent one called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” in which she partnered with Peter Daszak of the U.S-based EcoHealth Alliance on so-called gain-of-function experimentation.

    At one point, Andersen complains about containment procedures at the WIV, noting, as biosafety expert James Le Duc would write in an email later that year, that the facility was conducting very dangerous experiments as Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3), while the higher BSL-4 would normally be considered necessary. “I’m all for GOF experiments, I think they’re really important,” Andersen writes. “However performing these in BSL-3 (or less) is just completely nuts!”

    Andersen goes on to say he’s “evolved” on the question of gain-of-function research, saying he’s not sure if such knowledge is “actionable,” while “of course being exceptionally dangerous. It only takes one mistake.”

    It later came out that WIV was performing some of its experiments at an even lower level. “Keep in mind that WIV actually performed a lot of their coronavirus work at BSL2, which is what ultimately prompted Ian Lipkin to change his mind,” says DRASTIC founder, referring to comments by Lipkin to McNeil in May of 2021, saying “My view has changed.”

    The core four also repeatedly pored over the problem posed by the “furin cleavage site,” a distinctive feature of the Covid-19 genetic sequence. As is now known to the general public thanks again to the digging of the DRASTIC group, which leaked the material in the fall of 2021, researchers at the University of North Carolina led by Dr. Ralph Baric had sent a proposal to the Pentagon seeking to introduce “human-specific cleavage sites” into bat coronaviruses, for a program called DEFUSE. Baric and Shi had worked together on more than one occasion, and even co-authored a paper in 2015 demonstrating that a coronavirus spike protein can infect human cells.

    In any case, with these and other issues in mind, all five scientists express belief that escape from the Wuhan lab was at least possible, if not probable:

    • Andersen: “The lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely because they were already doing this work…

    • Garry: “The major hangup I have is the polybasic cleavahe [sic] site… it’s not really a natural process.” Also: “It’s not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the GoF research we know is happening.” 

    • Lipkin: “[A draft of the paper] does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan. Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there… we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.”

    • Holmes (replying to Lipkin): “I agree… Seems to have been pre-adapted for human spread since the get go. It’s the epidemiology that I find most worrying.”

    • Rambaut: “I am quite convinced it has been put there by evolution (whether natural selection or artificial).”

    *  *  *

    As detailed in Public, the Proximal Origin authors who initially discussed lab escape in such a casual manner appeared to have a change of heart after a February 3rd conference call that included the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-NIH Head Francis Collins, and Dr. Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust (and now the WHO). Though he was CDC chief at the time, Redfield was excluded. “I should have been invited,” he said, but “I didn’t find out about these phone calls until the Freedom of Information came out,” referencing a FOIA-based report released by Buzzfeed over a year later.

    From that point forward, references by scientists to “lab escape” became less frequent, with some of the Proximal Origin authors claiming to be impressed by various developments, including data sets about mutations in pangolins. However, scientists were clearly more moved by internal politics in correspondence with figures like Farrar, who complained questions about pandemic origin had “gathered considerable momentum not in social media, but increasingly among some scientists, in mainstream media, and among politicians.”

    Anxious to please, Holmes at one point went as far as to say about a draft of the paper, “Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins are very happy. Works for me.” This feels significant among other things because Andersen testified that when Republicans claimed the Proximal Origins authors “sent a draft to Drs. Fauci and Collins” and that “prior to final publication… the paper was sent to Dr. Fauci for editing and approval,” Andersen said, “These statements are false.”

    Andersen supported the idea of writing the final Nature draft so as not to leave any room for speculation about lab origin. “I believe that publishing something that is open-ended could backfire at this stage,” he wrote, conceding also at another point that “Our main work over the last couple weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory.” On February 8th, Andersen said, “We should all just stay on Slack, that’s what we should do — and not use email.” In a February 12th letter to Nature virology editor Clare Thomas, he went so far as to describe their proposed paper as having been “prompted by Jeremy Farrar, Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins,” only after which did he list the actual authors:

    By February 27, 2020, Andersen told Nature editors the virus “does have natural origin,” and by the next day, Rambaut was referring in Slack to “lab origin conspiracy loons.”

    In one key email early in the process, Andersen complained about attention from the press, saying the “idea of engineering and bioweapon is definitely not going away.” While “there might be a time where we need to tackle that more directly,” he said, “I’ll let the likes of Jeremy and Tony figure out how to do that.”

    *  *  *

    The list of instances in these chats and emails in which the key authorities on Covid’s origins express doubts about theories that would go on to be embraced by officialdom for years is too long to fully catalog here, but for example: the authors seemed unanimous in their assessment that the so-called “wet market” was an unlikely crime scene. “No way the selection could occur in the market,” says Holmes at one point. Garry agrees and says, “Where would you get intense enough transmission… to generate and pass on the furin site insertion?” Rambaut says, “That’s the million dollar question,” and goes on to suggest not “raccoon dogs” or “palm civets,” but ferrets. “I could believe ferrets,” quips Andersen.

    It’s with the publication of The Proximal Origin of SARS CoV-2 on March 17th that the unprecedented campaign of media deception really begins. The primary authorities on the question of whether or not the virus was the result of “laboratory manipulation” now turtled, saying little, while other media figures and politicians on a near-constant basis referred to the paper as the authority on the matter, suppressing questions about the pandemic’s origin.

    The “lab leak theory” became infamous in mainstream circles among other things because Donald Trump seemed to blame China for the mess, using terms like “Kung Flu,” and secondarily because it appeared to implicate a neoliberal hero, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who stepped into the shoes of Robert Mueller as the favored leading man of the mainstream press. Fauci too had votive candles made with his image, enjoyed Nicolle Wallace gushing she was a “Fauci groupie,” and got to watch SNL do regular “Fauci cold opens,” in which the slight bureaucrat was depicted swatting away bras thrown at him by adoring fans, or being asked by morons if girls can get pregnant in the sky. The attention clearly got to Fauci’s head, because he soon began to write his own satirical material, telling Chuck Todd that attacks on him were “attacks on science”:

    *  *  *

    The first major coverage development after the March 17, 2020 publication was subtle. While the Nature team merely said they found no evidence of lab escape, headlines soon flowed suggesting something far more affirmative. “COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin,” declared Science Daily, the same day Proximal Origin was published.

    Moreover, while the Proximal Origin authors could only say lab origin was “improbable,” legacy media outlets soon after began using the report to assert something far stronger that the report explicitly didn’t exactly say. “No, the new coronavirus wasn’t created in a lab, scientists say,” announced the CBC on March 26, 2020.

    Crucially also, fact-checking authorities like Politifact began denouncing the concept as “conspiracy theory” and rating people who suggested the virus was “man-made” using absolute terms like “false” or “debunked.” It wasn’t until over a year later, as federal agencies like the Department of Energy and the FBI began concluding lab origin was at least possible if not likely, that PolitiFact began to correct itself.

    Left: Politifact in May, 2020. Right: Politifact in May, 2021

    Particularly in 2020, scientists all over the world were rebuked, removed from the Internet, and in some cases fired for spreading the “conspiracy theory” that parts of the Covid-19 genetic sequence suggested laboratory origin.

    For a certain type of grant-dependent intellectual, a message was sent not only by the Nature paper published in March, but by an open letter put out weeks before and signed by 27 prominent scientists in the prominent journal Lancet. The message got even louder when Andersen and Garry were two of seven researchers to receive an $8.9 million grant from Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

    *  *  *

    Even credentialed scientists began to be disciplined by sites like Facebook, which took direction from government health authorities and prohibited statements about the virus being “man-made or manufactured.” There was also an impact on the press, especially after the popular site Zero Hedge was removed from Twitter after an article suggesting a scientist in Wuhan was behind the outbreak. It later turned out that Farrar referenced the Zero Hedge article in a letter to Fauci not long after the site was suspended.

    With a few notable exceptions, nearly everyone in the mainstream press community steered clear of any investigation of the possibility of lab origin for Covid-19, for several reasons. One key one was that such theories were coded early on as “right-wing” or even racist. “I was publicly libeled as a racist sinophobe,” says Deigin of DRASTIC, “and of course ridiculed as a crackpot conspiracist by countless virologists and their fanboys.” Prominent figures on channels like MSNBC hammered the idea that “lab leak” was right-wing lunacy, with Nicolle Wallace calling it “one of Trumpworld’s most favorite conspiracy theories,” while Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post announced, “The far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory.”

    However, in 2021, both the FBI and the Department of Energy issued reports within government that either pointed toward lab escape or allowed it as a strong possibility. The public was not told of these developments, and instead had to watch in confusion as fact-checking authorities and politicians began reversing themselves on this question, with no obvious reason. In May, 2021, Fauci in particular shocked many when he appeared at, of all places, a “fact-checking conference” sponsored by the Poynter Institute, one of the sponsors of Politifact, and suddenly said he was “not convinced” Covid-19 developed naturally:

    Now, two years later, we’re finding that the authors of the Proximal Origin paper (all of whom refused comment to Racket and Public, by the way, as did Farrar and Collins) were having many of the same thoughts as academics and pundits dismissed for years as crackpots, racists, and traitors. I asked Deigin if he felt vindicated. “I do somewhat,” he said. “The Slack messages confirm what we long suspected.”

    It has to be reiterated that these documents still don’t prove that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute, or that American scientists were implicated in the episode. What the documents do show, however, is that both scientists and journalists abandoned their traditional mission to keep their minds open and consider all reasonable evidence without fear of political considerations, in favor of a new discipline that openly admitted political factors and sought a “single message” over free-ranging inquiry. The few mainstream journalists who continued to push this story, like Josh Rogin at the Washington Post, should be commended, but as a whole, both the media business and the scientific profession are taking a big hit after the release of these documents.

    “How does the public ever trust science again?” asked Bhattacharya.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 23:00

  • "Work Stoppage As Soon As July 24": Strike Risk Rises As Yellow Punts On More Than $50M In Required Contributions
    “Work Stoppage As Soon As July 24”: Strike Risk Rises As Yellow Punts On More Than $50M In Required Contributions

    By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

    A delinquency notice was issued Monday showing less-than-truckload carrier Yellow Corp. failed to make required contributions to health and welfare and pension funds for the month of June and that it is planning to withhold payments for July. The two periods total more than $50 million, according to a letter from Central States board of trustees.

    Teamsters at Yellow operating companies YRC Freight and Holland that are covered under plans managed by Central States will be impacted.

    The letter said health care claims incurred after Saturday would not be paid unless employees choose to “remit self-payments.” The company’s participation in the pension plan would be terminated effective Sunday if payment is not made, meaning no further accruals of pension benefits.

    The letter showed Yellow was making the move “to avoid running out of cash.”

    “If in the future Yellow fully pays the required contributions, pension benefits and health coverage will be reinstated retroactive to July 23, 2023,” the letter read.

    A separate letter from John Murphy, co-chair of the Teamsters negotiating committee, to local unions invoked a more dire tone. In the notice he cited language from the collective bargaining agreement, outlining a potential work stoppage.

    “In the event an Employer is delinquent in its health & welfare or pension payments in the manner required by the applicable Supplemental Agreement, the Local Union shall have the right to take whatever action it deems necessary until such delinquent payments are made.”

    The document referenced the union’s requirement to give an employer 72 hours’ notice of a strike authorization. Murphy advised the local unions to send notice to YRC Freight and Holland demanding payment by Friday or risk a work stoppage on or after July 24.

    Yellow previously asked the funds for contribution deferrals for the months of July and August, but the company never indicated whether or not those requests had been approved.

    Roughly half of Yellow’s Teamster employees are covered by Central States.

    Last week, Yellow was granted a covenant waiver from lenders. The company’s lending agreements require it to maintain a level of $200 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the prior 12 months. Yellow had generated just $89 million in the fourth and first quarters.

    That filing also showed the company had in excess of $100 million in cash and equivalents as of June 30.

    “Even if these payments are cured, it would significantly reduce the company’s cash balance,” Deutsche Bank analyst Amit Mehrotra told clients in an email late Monday evening. “This is perhaps the most tangible example of why we think it’s more likely than not YELL will go out of business, as we’ve said before.”

    “We are aware of the decision of Central States Health Fund and Pension Funds to decline our request to defer contributions (with interest) for July and August,” a spokesperson with Yellow told FreightWaves. “We regret that the funds have rejected our request.

    “Even today, we remain committed to negotiating a new contract with the IBT [International Brotherhood of Teamsters], which would provide everyone, especially our employees, with a clear path forward. We are not giving up. We will work with all parties involved to come to a speedy resolution.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 22:45

  • FAA Prepares US For Flying Taxi Operations By 2028
    FAA Prepares US For Flying Taxi Operations By 2028

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Implementation Plan, establishing a framework for nationwide flying taxi operations by 2028. 

    The FAA said the purpose of this Implementation Plan is “limited to those engaging in passenger-carrying or cargo operations with a pilot on board.” AAM is referred to as a transportation system by the agency that moves people and property by air between two points using electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace.

    FAA said “Innovate28” is a joint government and industry initiative allowing AAM operations “at one or more key site locations” by 2028. Those locations have yet to be determined. 

    “This plan shows how all the pieces will come together, allowing the industry to scale with safety as the north star,” Deputy FAA Administrator Katie Thomson said in a statement. 

    The plan is a blueprint for making flying taxi operations “routine and predictable by maximizing the use of existing procedures and infrastructure,” the FAA said. It also addresses how the agency and partners will certify aircraft and pilots, ensure pilot training, manage airspace access, develop infrastructure, and maintain security.

    New eVTOL aircraft are expected to offer capabilities from multi-passenger short-range aircraft to recreational aircraft to cargo aircraft. 

    The FAA notes that each eVTOL will be operated by a “pilot in command” in Class B and C airspace. This means constant contact with air traffic control while complying with Visual Flight Rules and visual meteorological conditions. 

    Here are the highlights of the new plan to ensure flying taxis hit the skies by 2028:

    Operations

    • Pilots will be able to fly the new advanced mobility aircraft to and from multiple locations at the sites, using predetermined flight schedules with pilots aboard. 
    • Advanced air mobility aircraft likely will operate up to 4,000 feet altitude in urban and metropolitan areas, using existing or modified low altitude visual flight rules (VFR) routes where possible within controlled Class B and C airspace around major airports. 

    Infrastructure

    • Operators, manufacturers, state and local governments, and other stakeholders will be responsible for planning, developing and enabling heliport/vertiport infrastructure. 
    • Advanced air mobility will initially operate at existing heliports, commercial service airports and general aviation airports. Modifications may be necessary to install charging stations, parking zones and taxiing space.

    Power Grid

    • The electrical power grid may require upgrades to serve advanced air mobility operations. 
    • The FAA has an interagency agreement with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab to determine how aircraft electrification affects a vertiport, heliport or airport’s electrical grid. 

    Security

    • The Department of Homeland Security will determine what type of security is necessary.
    • The TSA and FAA are evaluating the need for expanded cybersecurity requirements due to the use of advanced technology and operational protocols. 

    Environment

    • The FAA will consider the environmental impacts of advanced air mobility operations, including factors such as noise, air quality, visual disturbances, and disruption to wildlife. 

    Community Engagement

    • The FAA will engage with airports, and local, state, and tribal communities to better understand community concerns about advanced air mobility operations, including noise and mitigations.
    • Many other stakeholders, such as advanced air mobility operators and airport and vertiport operators will have important roles in community engagement

    We gather from the report that eVTOLs will be operating in Class B & C airspace. A pilot’s license will be needed. The airspace under 4,000 feet is about to get a lot crowded by the end of the decade. 

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

    For those pre-ordering flying cars, perhaps now is the time to start researching how to obtain a private pilot’s license. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 22:25

  • Jan. 6 Prisoner Takes His Obstruction Charge To The Supreme Court
    Jan. 6 Prisoner Takes His Obstruction Charge To The Supreme Court

    Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    In a historic move, a Jan. 6 prisoner has taken his challenge of the infamous obstruction charge, levied against him and hundreds of other Jan. 6 prisoners and defendants, all the way to the Supreme Court.

    The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, on June 7, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    On July 7, attorneys for Jan. 6 prisoner Edward Jacob (Jake) Lang filed a document with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) challenging the government’s obstruction of Congress charge—one of the most common felony charges used against Jan. 6 defendants—which carries a 20-year prison sentence.

    “We filed what’s called a writ of certiorari, or a request to the Supreme Court to hear an issue,” Norm Pattis, lead attorney for Mr. Lang, told The Epoch Times. Mr. Pattis explained that the legal team is asking the high court to review the details behind Mr. Lang’s alleged violation of Title 18 U.S. Code Section 1512(c)(2), one of the 11 charges against him, according to court documents (pdf).

    According to the writ, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times (pdf), “Mr. Lang filed a motion to dismiss the Section 1512 count prior to trial. The District Court granted his motion.”

    However, “on a consolidated interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit joined by two similarly situated codefendants, the Court, in a split decision, reversed the District Court. A motion for rehearing was denied.”

    The “question presented for review” is “Whether the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that application of 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c)(2), a statute crafted to prevent tampering with evidence in ‘official proceedings,’ can be used to prosecute acts of violence against police officers in the context of a public demonstration that turned into a riot, resulting in so ‘breathtaking’ an application of the statute as to run afoul of Van Buren v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1648 (2021).”

    The document warns the high court that “dozens of convictions” on this same obstruction charge are “headed to this Court,” all arising from Jan. 6, and “Resolution of the question is imperative to prevent the use of this statute to prosecute folks who protested in a good faith belief that their actions were necessary to prevent an election from being stolen, an event tantamount to an internal coup d’état.”

    “Refusal to resolve this question,” the document predicts, “will chill others inclined to petition and assemble for the redress of grievances, for fear that those opposed to their views might prosecute them for possessing a ‘corrupt’ intent.”

    ‘Really Far Afield’

    Obstruction under Section 1512(c) is among the 37 charges for which the federal government indicted the current GOP frontrunner for the 2024 election, Donald Trump (pdf). A favorable ruling by the Supreme Court could have a significant impact on the former president’s legal future as well.

    This is not the first time the obstruction charge has been called into question.

    Politico reported that, during a two-hour hearing on Nov. 19, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich argued in the case of Jan. 6 prisoner Guy Reffitt—also charged with hindering communications through physical force, civil disorder, and bringing a firearm onto the grounds (pdf)—that the government’s effort to apply the obstruction charge appeared to run “really far afield” from what Congress intended.

    Mr. Friedrich ultimately allowed the charge to stand.

    On June 7, 2022, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols granted Mr. Lang’s motion to dismiss (pdf) the obstruction charge.

    It was the third time Mr. Nichols granted a Jan. 6 prisoner’s motion to dismiss. On March 8, 2022, he had granted the motion to dismiss of Jan. 6 prisoner Garret Miller.

    “Upon review of the Defendant’s [Motion to Dismiss], and for the reasons discussed in the Court’s [opinions] in United States v. Miller, it is ordered that the Motion is granted,” Mr. Nichols wrote. “It is further ordered that Count Nine is dismissed without prejudice Superseding Indictment [citations omitted].”

    Mr. Nichols then granted the motion to dismiss of Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer on March 15, 2022.

    Mr. Nichols believes that the statute “must be interpreted” in such a way that “requires that the defendant have taken some action with respect to a document, record, or other object in order to corruptly obstruct, impede or influence an official proceeding.”

    In other words, if someone hasn’t been accused of taking such an action, they cannot be charged with this particular violation.

    In all, federal prosecutors have charged more than 300 Jan. 6 defendants with obstructing congressional proceedings. The obstruction charge has been frequently used by the Justice Department during plea negotiations and as a means to coerce some Jan. 6 protesters into providing information to incriminate fellow protesters.

    ‘Reworking the Penal Code’

    Mr. Pattis and fellow Lang attorney Steven Metcalf are asking the United States Supreme Court to review their client’s case and determine “whether the federal government is misusing the statute designed to prohibit or deter tampering with evidence or evidentiary proceedings” to inflict “extra heavy punishment on those involved in the January 6 events.”

    Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1512 (pdf) provides in part:

    (c) Whoever corruptly –

    (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or
    conceals a record, document, or
    other object, or attempts to do so,
    with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for
    the use in an official proceeding;
    or
    (2) otherwise obstructs, influences
    or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
    shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
    not more than 20 years, or both.

    “The statute says if you obstruct or impede an official proceeding, by screwing around with records or documents, you’re guilty of a felony,” Mr. Pattis said.

    He added, “Congress amended that to include a second section that says if you interfere with an official proceeding you are guilty as well. That statute has been used to punish Jan. 6 protesters who broke the law by trespassing or, in some cases, engaging in acts of violence against police officers, even when that act was in defense of themselves.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 22:05

  • China's Economy Is Facing Its Biggest Challenge In Decades
    China’s Economy Is Facing Its Biggest Challenge In Decades

    Authored by Terri Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    China’s economy is facing its biggest challenge in decades, and the authorities are running out of tools in their toolbox to address the issues, according to experts.

    A worker prepares steel bars on the construction site of the Zhangjinggao Yangtze River Bridge on Mazhou Island in Jingjiang, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on July 14, 2023. (STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

    The country’s latest macroeconomic data point to an economy on the verge of deflation.

    The June consumer price index was flat year on year and down by 0.2 percent compared with May. The producer price index, which reflects wholesale costs, declined by 5.4 percent compared to June 2022, showing a bigger drop than May’s 4.6 percent.

    June’s trade data continued to show a downward trend. The dollar value of China’s exports decreased by over 12 percent year on year, a bigger drop than May’s 7.5 percent. Its imports also declined by nearly 7 percent from June 2022, compared to 4.5 percent in May.

    Gary Jefferson, an economics professor at Brandeis University and a specialist in the Chinese economy, said the troubles facing the world’s second-largest economy are multifaceted, including heavy debts in the property sector and local governments, the weakening of return to investments, low household confidence, and geopolitical tensions with the United States and the European Union.

    And it’s the result of the regime’s policies over the past 30 to 40 years, he said.

    While many have pointed to the massive disruptions brought about by the pandemic and the regime’s zero-COVID policies as the source of China’s current woes, Mr. Jefferson believes that structural issues are likely to blame.

    “As evidence of the systematic nature of the problem, it appears that the decline in economic confidence and social confidence are mutually reinforcing,” Mr. Jefferson told The Epoch Times.

    “The reluctance to partner and marry and have children likely results in part from and feeds into the economic downturn. Fewer families augur a decline in the demand for larger or upscaled housing units, further contributing to weakness in the property sector, leading to less demand for land leases and local government revenue.”

    China is grappling with a declining birth rate despite the regime’s dropping its one-child policy in 2016, and allowing families to have up to three children in recent years. Many couples have refused to have more kids citing the high costs involved.

    A Chinese “one-child” policy billboard saying, “Have fewer children, have a better life” greets residents on the main street of Shuangwang, southern China’s Guangxi region on May 25, 2007. (Goh Chai Hin/AFP via Getty Images)

    ‘Deepest Difficulty’ Since 1989

    “The government is really in sort of the deepest difficulty it’s been in, at least since 1989, June 4th,” he added, referring to the Tiananmen Square massacre of Chinese students seeking democratic reforms and the resulting international isolation. After that, China’s economic growth took three years to get back on track.

    While a southern tour by then-Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping in 1992 helped reignite economic growth, China is now not in the same situation having significantly developed since then, Mr. Jefferson pointed out.

    With decades of savings by Chinese families and enterprises and abundant investment opportunities, economic recovery is not likely to readily happen, he said, adding that authorities are running out of tools in their toolbox to fix the economy.

    In response to the 2008 global financial crisis, Chinese authorities released an enormous stimulus package— 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion at the time)—that significantly increased government spending on infrastructure, and debt in the property sector and local government.

    Today, the return on physical and human capital investment is low compared to 10 years ago due to the enormous volume of infrastructure investment already undertaken, and the increase in higher education enrollment the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initiated in 1999, said Mr. Jefferson. China’s youth unemployment rate was over 20 percent in May and June, partly due to the oversupply of college graduates that grew from 1 million to 10 million in two decades.

    In his view, a stimulus would require enormous funding from the central and local governments, which would mean even more debt accumulation—and that’s very problematic. And when people have more money, they may choose to bank it or use it to pay off their debts. Therefore, getting more money into people’s hands may not stimulate spending, he added.

    The professor gave an analogy of a car speeding along a hill and suddenly facing a cliff. “Often when this happened, there’s been a cliff maybe 50 or 100 feet away that the car could land upon and then resume its journey,” he said.

    But in the current circumstances, “more than any other situation in the last 40 years, the distance to the other side of the cliff is substantially greater than that has been, making a safe landing more problematic.”

    A key distinction between China and Western economies, according to Mr. Jefferson, is that Western governments have procedural legitimacy from elections and legislative processes, but the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) legitimacy depends entirely on its economic performance. Because of this, “it makes it very, very difficult for the Party to be able to manage a recession or accept a recession,” he added.

    “It’s a rather difficult, embarrassing situation for the leadership.”

    Shipping containers stack at Zhoushan port in Ningbo, in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, on Apr. 19, 2023. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

    ‘I Don’t See Hope Now’

    Mike, 27, works at a polymer additives factory in a city in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, one of the country’s private sector hubs. Mike spoke to The Epoch Times using an alias for fear of CCP reprisals.

    He graduated from college in 2017 with a major in urban underground space engineering. In July 2020, after his two-year contract with a subway project in southern China’s Hunan Province ended, he moved to his current city to join the factory that had just opened. The factory specializes in higher quality products tailored to the overseas market.

    In May 2022, a big Western European company didn’t renew its annual order of 15,000 pounds of products due to the geopolitical tensions between China and Europe, he said. Since then, the factory hasn’t been able to secure any replacement orders to make up for this shortfall. It has now stopped production and is selling its inventories.

    The business, he said, is looking for ways to adjust the product line to cater to the domestic market, but “securing orders will be very difficult” because demand is low.

    Mike’s small factory wasn’t alone. According to him, a nearby auto parts factory has cut 3,000 workers or 30 percent of its workforce. In addition, he said workers at that factory no longer have overtime opportunities, a main source for them to earn above the minimum line to make ends meet.

    When Mike first moved to Zhejiang, he thought his life was going somewhere. So he bought an apartment in the city in October 2020. However, the economy took a downturn and the three-year pandemic lockdowns exhausted many, he said.

    “I don’t see hope now,” he told The Epoch Times. “Everyone is dealing with much stress in life.”

    As a factory supervisor, Mike makes about 9,000 yuan a month, or $1,260. His mortgage is 6,000 yuan, or two-thirds of his monthly income. After paying for all necessities, he could hardly save anything, he said. And he still needs to save for a car. Even though his girlfriend, unlike many Chinese women, doesn’t require Mike to have a car and an apartment to marry, he considers it “a man’s obligation” to achieve those before marriage.

    Mike’s hope is to have some savings to take care of his parents, at least to cover their medical expenses when they get older. He wants a child but would rather wait until he’s financially able to provide the baby with a good life. As to having more than one child now that the one-child policy has ended, Mike said “no” without hesitation. “I wouldn’t be able to afford that!”

    When asked about Chinese state media reports that the economy has been steadily recovering, Mike replied, “That’s propaganda! It’s exactly the opposite of how we feel among the people.”

    “As far as my life goes, I’m in a recession,” he added.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 21:25

  • Farmland In California Could Be Underwater For Years
    Farmland In California Could Be Underwater For Years

    A conveyor belt of atmospheric river storms has refilled a once-dormant California lake, putting some of the nation’s most important farmland at risk as it is now underwater. 

    Central California’s Tulare Lake is refilled for the first time in four decades. Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of California, told NBC News it could take at least a year for the water in the lakebed to evaporate.

    “We are still going to have a Tulare Lake next year,” Mount said. 

    An onslaught of snow and rain from dozens of storms that battered California early this year has caused upwards of $5 billion in damage between December 2022 and March 2023, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

    As cropland remains underwater, there are increasing risks of significant agricultural losses.

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

    NASA’s Aqua satellite shows the progression of flooding in the Tulare Lake basin over the last several months. 

    “Flooding in the lakebed is likely to continue into 2024, which will affect residents and farmers in the area, as well as some of the most productive cropland in the Central Valley. The lakebed contains farms that produced cotton, tomatoes, dairy, safflower, pistachios, wheat, and almonds,” the space agency said. 

    United States Department of Agriculture meteorologist Brad Rippey told Bussiness Insider earlier this month, “While it’s unclear how deep Tulare Lake is now, if it’s similar to its former average depth of about 30 feet, that would translate to more than one trillion gallons of water that have flooded the region so far this year.” 

    The bad news is that a lot of the nation’s produce is sourced from the Tulare Lake Basin. Any disruption to supply will mean higher produce prices. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 21:05

  • House Republicans Reject Democratic Pressure To Disinvite RFK Jr. From Testifying On Censorship
    House Republicans Reject Democratic Pressure To Disinvite RFK Jr. From Testifying On Censorship

    Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are moving ahead with plans to hear testimony from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, after House Democrats and their supporters raised accusations Mr. Kennedy had made anti-Semitic remarks.

    Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during a SiriusXM Town Hall live broadcast at The Centre Theater in Philadelphia on June 5, 2023. (Lisa Lake/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

    At a July 11 campaign event, Mr. Kennedy described research indicating that the genetic structure of SARS‑CoV‑2 had differing impacts on individuals of different races and ethnicities, including a lesser impact on ethnic Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews. Mr. Kennedy also discussed how bioweapons could potentially be designed with the intent to harm certain ethnic groups over others. The New York Post published an article based on Mr. Kennedy’s remarks, with the headline “RFK Jr. says COVID may have been ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jews.”

    Mr. Kennedy has insisted he was not claiming SARS‑CoV‑2 was deliberately modified to “spare Jews,” as the New York Post put it. The controversy over his remarks comes as he’s scheduled to testify before the House Government Weaponization Subcommittee on July 20, where he will discuss government collusion with big tech companies to censor free speech.

    The Congressional Integrity Project (CIP), an activist group with the stated goal of defending President Joe Biden and Democrats against Republican congressional investigations, sent a letter (pdf) to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Sunday, accusing him and other House Republicans of an “antisemitic pattern” of behavior and calling for them to disinvite Mr. Kennedy. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also issued a statement on Sunday, similarly accusing Mr. Kennedy of repeating a “vile antisemitic trope” and calling for his remarks to be “uniformly condemned.” Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), who sit on the House Government Weaponization Subcommittee, also spoke out against Mr. Kennedy’s remarks.

    Mr. Jordan rebuffed the Democratic pressure campaign to disinvite Mr. Kennedy on Monday. The Republican lawmaker distanced himself from Mr. Kennedy’s remarks about COVID-19 but insisted the House Government Weaponization Subcommittee would still have him on to talk about coordinated efforts between government offices and social media companies to throttle speech.

    “I totally disagree with what he said, but he’s a Democrat. I disagree with other things he said, too. But we’re having him because of censorship,” Mr. Jordan told Politico on Monday.

    NTD News reached out to Mr. Jordan for additional comment but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), similarly distanced himself from Mr. Kennedy’s remarks, but pushed back on the calls to disinvite the Democratic presidential candidate.

    Mr. McCarthy said, “I disagree with everything [Mr. Kennedy] said,” but contended that the hearing’s focus is censorship. “I don’t think censoring somebody is actually the answer here.”

    What RFK Jr. Said

    In a video clip captured at his July 11 campaign event, Mr. Kennedy said with “COVID-19, there’s an argument that it is ethnically targeted.”

    “COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” he added before describing how different ethnic groups have differences in the structure of their ACE2 receptors, which are the receptors that bind with SARS‑CoV‑2 and lead to COVID-19 infections.

    “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact of that. We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we [the United States] are developing ethnic bioweapons.”

    In his article titled “RFK Jr. says COVID may have been ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jews,” New York Post wrote that Mr. Kennedy’s remark “echoes well-worn anti-Semitic literature blaming Jews for the emergence and spread of coronavirus which began circulating online shortly after the pandemic broke out, according to The Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at the University of Tel Aviv’s 2021 Antisemitism Worldwide Report.”

    Mr. Kennedy pushed back on the New York Post’s characterization of his comments in a July 15 tweet, saying the Post’s story is mistaken.

    “I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews. I accurately pointed out—during an off-the-record conversation—that the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews,” Mr. Kennedy wrote. “In that sense, it serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons. I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”

    Mr. Kennedy shared a link to the 2021 study he was describing, which was published on the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed site.

    Kennedy Has Sued Biden Over Censorship

    While Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Biden are both running as Democrats, they’ve demonstrated differing views on a number of issues, including COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates and the war in Ukraine.

    Mr. Kennedy founded the non-profit organization Children’s Health Defense (CHD), which has been critical of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine mandates. Mr. Kennedy and CHD filed a federal lawsuit in March accusing the Biden administration of working with big tech companies to induce those companies to censor Mr. Kennedy’s constitutionally-protected speech.

    A federal judge just issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration in a similar case, finding that a number of plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.” That case, which was brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, described an instance in January of 2021 in which a White House official flagged a tweet by Mr. Kennedy and sent an email to Twitter officials stating, “Hey folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”

    Last week, the Biden administration won an appeal from a three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, staying the lower court’s preliminary injunction while the lawsuit proceeds. The two-page appeals court decision did not specify the reasoning for staying the lower court’s injunction. The three judges on the panel were Circuit Judge Carl E. Stewart, an appointee of President Bill Clinton; Circuit Judge James Earl Graves Jr., an appointee of President Barack Obama; and Circuit Judge Andrew Stephen Oldham, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 20:45

  • Montana State Library Exits National Group Over 'Marxist Lesbian' President
    Montana State Library Exits National Group Over ‘Marxist Lesbian’ President

    The Montana State Library Commission has abandoned the American Library Association because the group’s newly-installed president described herself as a “Marxist Lesbian” in a since-deleted Twitter post. 

    “Our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist,” Montana’s commission voted to declare in a letter informing the ALA of its exit. That Marxist, Emily Drabinski took her post this month, after being elected in April 2022. At the time, she celebrated her ascendancy to the helm of the world’s largest and oldest library association with a tweet dripping with socialist buzzwords: 

    “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is president elect of ALA. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!“

    Emily Drabinski, in a screenshot from a video promoting her ALA candidacy (YouTube) 

    In a 2022 interview, Drabinski told socialist Jacobin magazine, “I believe the way to get people to understand why libraries are important is by engaging people in a struggle for the fair share of the social wage…because we are all suffering from the maldistribution of wealth.” She openly embraced the idea that the ALA is a platform for political reorganization of American society, saying “I think what the ALA could do is teach people to have an organizing conversation.” 

    In 2021, she gave a presentation titled “Teaching the Radical Catalog,” asserting that “when we teach students how to retrieve information, we are also teaching about structures of power and how to navigate them.” That talk was also heavy on gender-spectrum blather. Her own scholarship includes a paper titled “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction.” 

    Montana’s library commission voted for the ALA exit by a 5-1 margin, following an hour-long public-comment session that was likewise lopsided in opposition to the ALA. Speakers included members of Moms for Liberty, a group that challenges “woke” culture and supports policies that “defend against government overreach and secure parental rights.” 

    “The fact that the ALA is led by a Marxist is absolutely important, because the ALA is using tenets of Marxism and the sexualization and radicalization of children, thus breaking down America’s families,” said one speaker. Another, a Soviet ex-patriate, spoke of the devastation inflicted by Stalinism. 

    Libraries have been a major flash point in the ongoing culture wars, with clashes erupting over the hosting of drag queen story hours for children and the promotion of highly sexualized books for juveniles. 

    Negligently-parented pre-schoolers surround a drag queen at one of the Brooklyn Public Library’s monthly drag queen story hour sessions (CBS58)

    In a lengthy statement, the ALA didn’t address the criticism of electing an activist Marxist to its presidency, instead saying it’s focused on “serving people of all demographic backgrounds and ideologies.” The group also listed various ALA grants that have benefitted Montana libraries. The Montana Library Association issued its own statement saying it “deeply regrets” the Montana State Library Commission’s decision. 

    As the interim chief librarian at City University of New York, Drabinski ran for the ALA presidency on a platform that included “collective organizing for collective power” and a “Green New Deal for libraries,” which she claimed were threatened by floods, hurricanes and wildfires resulting from climate change. 

    While disassociation from a now-Marxist-led organization is laudable, the Montana commission’s reference to their constitutional oath is somewhat off-target. As socialist Jacobin magazine noted, the Constitution doesn’t reference Marxism, having been ratified about 30 years before Marx’s birth.

    Of course, socialism is certainly antithetical to America’s founding ideals: Benjamin Franklin — who founded the country’s first library in Philadelphia — is rolling in his grave.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 20:25

  • Biden Abolishes Popular Tax Break For Many Retirement Savers
    Biden Abolishes Popular Tax Break For Many Retirement Savers

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A popular tax break in the form of being able to make so-called catch-up contributions to 401(k) retirement savings plans is set to vanish for many higher-earning Americans at the end of this year.

    Catch-up contributions refer to a provision in 401(k) plans that allows individuals aged 50 and older to contribute extra money to their retirement savings accounts. The aim of catch-up contributions is to enable older workers to accelerate their retirement savings in the years leading up to their retirement.

    This year, eligible workers aged 50 and older can put an extra $7,500 into their 401(k) accounts, for a total of $30,000.

    But starting next year, changes will limit that eligibility for higher earners.

    Changes to Catch-Up Contributions

    The SECURE 2.0 Act, which cleared Congress late last year and was signed into law by President Joe Biden, changed the rules.

    Specifically, people who earned more than $145,000 the previous year will no longer be able to make catch-up contributions to their 401(k) accounts. Instead, they’ll only be able to funnel those funds into after-tax Roth IRA accounts.

    The significance of this change is that those higher-earning Americans will end up having to pay taxes on their catch-up contributions up front, in years when they’re typically in a higher tax bracket than when they have retired.

    Traditional 401(k) accounts are funded with pretax earnings, and withdrawals are taxed once savers enter retirement. Roth IRA accounts, by contrast, are funded by after-tax dollars, with subsequent withdrawals being tax-free.

    Request for Delay

    A number of employers, retirement plan providers, and others have asked Congress to delay the implementation of the new rule that limits eligibility for 401(k) catch-up contributions for higher earners.

    In a June 29 letter (pdf) to the House Ways and Means Committee, a coalition of more than 100 signatories—including Charles Schwab, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, and Verizon—has called for a two-year delay in implementing the new Roth IRA catch-up rule.

    The letter cites an inability on the part of many signatories to adapt their systems to ensure that catch-up contributions will be made on a Roth IRA basis for those earning more than $145,000 in the preceding year.

    “Unless transition relief is granted as soon as possible, many retirement plan participants will lose the ability to make catch-up contributions at the end of this year,” the signatories wrote.

    “For many of these plans, unless this requirement is delayed very quickly (i.e., this summer), their only means of compliance will be to eliminate all catch-up contributions for 2024.”

    The reason is that, for the most part, the signatories lack arrangements that coordinate retirement plan recordkeeping with payroll systems (which determine who earned more than $145,000 in the prior year).

    “These circumstances pose a long list of other obstacles including, for many plans, the challenges of adding a Roth feature and communicating that feature to participants, as well as special challenges for state and local governments and collectively bargained plans,” the signatories wrote.

    The call is for Congress to pass legislation to provide a two-year delay to allow employers and plan providers to adapt their systems. However, failing congressional action, the signatories said that the IRS and the Department of the Treasury have the authority to provide the requested relief unilaterally.

    For example, the IRS could announce that it won’t seek any penalties or sanctions for noncompliance with the Roth catch-up rule prior to Jan. 1, 2026.

    The Treasury Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether it’s considering unilateral action to grant a two-year delay, as requested by the groups.

    Other Changes Under SECURE 2.0

    The SECURE 2.0 legislation introduced a number of other changes, as well.

    The legislation changed the age at which people are required to start taking minimum distributions from their retirement accounts. Under the SECURE 2.0 Act, the new minimum distribution age is 73 for those who turn 72 after Dec. 31, 2022, and 75 for those who turn 74 after Dec. 31, 2033.

    However, if someone is already qualified to take their first distribution by April 1, 2023, these changes won’t affect them. The act also reduced the penalty for not taking the required distribution to 25 percent from 50 percent, starting Dec. 29, 2022.

    The SECURE 2.0 Act also permits employers to count qualified student loan repayments as employee contributions to retirement plans, even if the employee isn’t making regular contributions. This allows employers to match these repayments with contributions to the retirement plan.

    Under the SECURE 2.0 Act, individuals can now withdraw up to $1,000 from their retirement accounts for unforeseeable and immediate personal emergency expenses. The plan administrator relies on the employee’s certification that the emergency meets the required criteria for the withdrawal.

    Another change is that, starting in 2025, part-time employees will be able to participate in workplace retirement plans sooner. Previously, they had to work at least 500 hours for three consecutive years in order to be eligible; now they need to work only 500 hours for two consecutive years to qualify.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 20:05

  • Beginning Of CRE Firesale? Baltimore Office Tower Dumped At 63% Discount
    Beginning Of CRE Firesale? Baltimore Office Tower Dumped At 63% Discount

    Following the failures of several regional banks earlier this year, we’ve been closely monitoring the commercial real estate (CRE) sector, noticing increasing risks in the office space market. CRE lending standards have tightened considerably in response to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes over the past sixteen months to combat inflation. Furthermore, depressed office-badge swipes and other occupancy metrics indicate a downshift in demand for office space.

    The latest alarm bell of sliding CRE prices in downtown areas across major US cities is the sale of an office tower at One South Street in downtown Baltimore. The 30-story building was sold in June for $24 million, a 63.6% discount versus the tower’s 2015 sale of $66 million, according to The Baltimore Sun. 

    Opened in 1992, the tower has 479,000 square feet and is the first sale of its kind in the post-pandemic era. The Sun confirmed that Virginia-based American Real Estate Partners sold the building in a short sale to New York-based BHN Associates. 

    “Occupancy drives value and many buildings downtown are struggling to maintain that occupancy,” said Terri Harrington, a commercial real estate broker. The latest firesale could indicate more panic selling is ahead. 

    Some argue remote or hybrid work has forced a downward shift in office demand — but that’s not entirely the case, well, not at least in crime-ridden Baltimore. The depressed office building demand is a vote of confidence that Democrats in City Hall have failed to enforce law and order as progressive policies backfire. 

    According to Luis Quintero, an economics professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, if office space goes vacant and property values plunge, the city could see a massive reduction in property and income tax revenue. 

    Several high-profile tenants have already left downtown Baltimore, including T. Rowe Price and Pandora.

    Harrington warned this could be the start of firesales across other towers in the downtown area: 

    “I also believe you are going to see other buildings in the same boat.”

    None of this should surprise readers because we’ve already penned a note titled “Entire Downtown Is Effectively Dead:” Baltimore City Descends Further Into Turmoil. 

    Don’t blame remote work for the collapse of Baltimore — blame Democrats and six decades of terrible policies that have transformed the once-thriving metro area into a ‘rat-infested hellhole.’

    As for office building values in other metro areas, Goldman recently told clients to expect a 25% drop. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 19:45

  • Some EVs Are "Dirtier" Than Conventional Vehicles; New Study Finds
    Some EVs Are “Dirtier” Than Conventional Vehicles; New Study Finds

    Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

    • A new study from the Manhattan Institute concluded that certain EVs emit more greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetime than certain ICE vehicles.

    • According to the report, the possibilities of GHG emissions for EVs is much wider than for ICEs.

    • In base case scenarios, EVs start off as having more emissions mainly due to the energy intensity of the EV and battery metals used in their manufacture but eventually catch up to ICEs around the 60,000 driven miles mark.

    Electric vehicle skeptics have frequently argued that the manufacturing and disposal of battery-electric vehicles like Teslas as well as reliance on coal to generate the electricity that powers them leaves EVs with a larger carbon footprint than nonelectric vehicles. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of studies that have tried to approve or disapprove this notion. But finally, the Manhattan Institute has compiled a comprehensive report that compares lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of EVs vs. ICEs by looking at dozens of parameters and data points.

    According to the report, the possibilities of GHG emissions for EVs is much wider than for ICEs mainly due to the much wider variances in upstream (mining+ manufacturing) emissions by EVs. The differences are such that the dirtiest EVs can have more than double the emissions of the cleanest internal combustion engines.

    Source: Manhattan Institute

    However, you will note that in base-case scenarios, EVs start off as having more emissions mainly due to the energy intensity of the EV and battery metals used in their manufacture but eventually catch up to EVs around the 60,000 driven miles mark.

    Several universities and trade organizations have previously conducted life cycle analyses that compare the amount of greenhouse gasses created from the production, use and disposal of a B.E.V. vs. gasoline-powered vehicles of comparable size.

    Vehicle emissions are divided into two general categories: air pollutants, which contribute to health problems and greenhouse gasses (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide and methane. Both categories of emissions are frequently evaluated on a tailpipe basis, a well-to-wheel basis, and a cradle-to-grave basis. Well-to-wheel emissions are emissions related to fuel production, processing, distribution and use while cradle-to-grave emissions include well-to-wheel emissions as well as vehicle-cycle emissions associated with vehicle and battery manufacturing, recycling, and disposal.

    The good news: whereas these studies have arrived at varying emission figures, they have invariably found that the greenhouse-gas emission difference caused by the carbon-intensive production of BEVs vs. ICE vehicles is virtually erased in the first few years of an EVs life. 

    In one such study conducted by the University of Michigan, it takes 1.4 to 1.5 years for EV sedans to erase the pollution advantage of ICE vehicles due to the manufacturing process; 1.6 to 1.9 years for S.U.V.s and about 1.6 years for pickup trucks. These numbers are based on the average number of vehicle miles driven in the United States. 

    According to the study, on average, emissions from B.E.V. sedans are ~35% of the emissions from an internal-combustion sedan; electric S.U.V.s produce ~37% of the emissions of a gasoline-powered vehicle while B.E.V. pickups create ~34% of the emissions of an internal combustion model. All-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs, which operate as EVs for limited distances), produce lower tailpipe emissions than ICE vehicles, and zero tailpipe emissions when they run only on electricity. 

    Electricity Generation

    Even though all-electric vehicles as well as PHEVs running only on electricity produce zero tailpipe emissions, electricity production may generate emissions depending on how the electricity is generated. 

    According to Greg Keoleian, director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, 78 of the 3,143 counties in the United States actually have more emissions from electric sedans than from internal combustion vehicles because they generate most of their electricity by burning coal.

    But overall, electric vehicles are much kinder on the environment than ICEs. 

    According to the U.S. Department Of Energy, the average all-electric vehicle in the U.S. produces 2,817 pounds of CO2 equivalent per year; plug-in hybrids emit 4,824 pounds of CO2 equivalent, hybrid vehicles generate 6,898 pounds while gasoline-powered vehicles produce 12,594 pounds of CO2 equivalent per year. 

    Source: U.S. Department Of Energy

    Direct Lithium Extraction

    The Manhattan Institute report points at the high upstream emissions of EVs as a key reason why EVs could end up doing more harm to the environment. But an upcoming technology could rapidly improve the score for EVs: direct lithium extraction.

    Over the past few years, the lithium markets exploded as the electrification drive went into overdrive. EV makers like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) have been scrambling to secure supplies amid rapid EV growth and tight lithium supplies, sending lithium carbonate prices up more than six-fold and spodumene up nearly tenfold in the space of a few years. 

    But a new lithium extraction technology could change the lithium industry forever and significantly increase the supply of lithium from brine projects, much like shale technology did for oil.

    A fleet of direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies are getting ready to tap salty brine deposits across North America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere, with the U.S. Geological Survey estimating the technology could unlock 70% of global reserves of the metal. Whereas DLE technologies vary, they are generally comparable to common household water softeners, and aim to extract ~90% of lithium in brine water vs. 50% using conventional ponds. 

    Their biggest draw:  they can supply lithium for EV batteries literally in a matter of hours or days, way faster than 12-18 months needed to be filtered through in order to be able to extract lithium carbonate from water-intensive evaporation ponds and open-pit mines.

    DLE also comes with the added bonus of offering ESG/sustainability benefits: DLE technologies are portable, able to recycle much of their fresh water and limit hydrochloric acid use.

    “The world needs abundant, low-cost lithium to have an energy transition, and DLE has the potential to meet that goal,” Ken Hoffman, co-head of the EV Battery Materials Research group at McKinsey & Co., has told Reuters.

    “The industry is so close to a major leap forward,” John Burba, who helped invent a prominent DLE technology and is IBAT’s executive chairman, has told Reuters.

    The DLE industry is expected to grow to more than $10 billion in annual revenue within the next decade.

    Source: Morgan Stanley

    Commercial scale DLE projects are expected to start coming online in 2025, and could supply 13% of global lithium supply by 2030, as per projections by Fastmarkets.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 19:25

  • Israeli Fighter Pilots, Commandos Threaten To Resign If Judicial Reform Proceeds
    Israeli Fighter Pilots, Commandos Threaten To Resign If Judicial Reform Proceeds

    More than a thousand Israeli military reservists have threatened to stop reporting for duty — or resign altogether — if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government proceeds with a plan to overhaul the country’s judicial system this month. Among those threatening to withhold their service are hundreds of elite fighter pilots and commandos. 

    Given reservists are an essential part of Israel’s military, and especially its air force, the country’s military leaders say such a mass walkout could have a significant impact on the country’s military operational capacity. They also fear a scenario where activism by reservists could inspire absenteeism among the country’s full-time service members. 

    Israeli reservists and veterans are among those protesting planned judicial reforms (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 via +972 Magazine)

    In a letter sent to the commander of Sayeret Matkal, a highly secretive commando unit, more than 300 reservists declared:  

    “In the face of recent legislative procedures that the government is advancing…while completely ignoring that this legislation is destroying the shared basis of Israeli society and tearing apart the nation, our conscience does not permit us to stand aside.”

    Other reservists are drafting group resignation letters with the intent of submitting them in the coming days, reports The New York Times. In contrast to American reservists, who typically drill for just a weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, Israeli pilots are required to participate in multiple training exercises per month, and routinely participate in warfare.  

    The threat of a weakening of Israeli’s military capacity comes during a year of heightened hostilities, with the Israeli Defense Forces targeting adversaries in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon and Syria. 

    Political turmoil has steadily boiled across Israel since Netanyahu re-ascended to the prime minister’s office by assembling a ruling coalition that is dominated to an unprecedented extent by ultra-nationalist and religious extremists. Inside Israel, the most controversial item on the government’s agenda is a scheme to overhaul the country’s judicial system. 

    This enormous protest against proposed judicial reforms took place in Tel Aviv in March (Tomer Appelbaum via Haaretz)  

    Over much of the year, the country has witnessed massive protests against the plan. In March, Netanyahu bowed to the pressure and put the legislative initiative on pause, saying, “When there’s an option to avoid civil war through dialogue, I take a time-out for dialogue.”

    Now, however, seeking to more incrementally effect change, the ruling coalition is pushing to enact a law by month’s end that would remove the supreme court’s ability to block government action or policy via an evaluation of its “reasonableness” — a standard that Netanyahu and allies say is so flexible that it gives the high court undue power. 

    Netanyahu pushed back against the newest wave of resistance to the judicial reform, saying concerns over negating the reasonableness standard are “removed from reality and intended to scare people over nothing.” He also admonished service members threatening not to show up for duty, saying, “In a democracy, the military is subordinate to the elected government and not the opposite.”

    However, 63-year-old Gal Nufar, a colonel in an airborne unit, tells the Journal, “Originally I thought doing something like this would be really like betraying the army. But over the past months, I see that they are bringing us to the point that I’m most fearful of…a regime coup that won’t allow for any balance or any checks on the government.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 19:05

  • RFK Jr. And The Tantalizing Echoes Of 1968
    RFK Jr. And The Tantalizing Echoes Of 1968

    Authored by Frank Miele via RealClear Wire,

    It is awkward but necessary to draw comparisons between Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign for president today with the 1968 Democratic campaign in which his own father was slain.

    But it is not Sen. Kennedy to whom we should be comparing RFK Jr., but rather Sen. Eugene McCarthy, the quixotic anti-war candidate who was able to expose the vulnerability of President Lyndon Johnson.

    President Biden’s handlers may be acting as though they don’t consider RFK Jr. a credible threat, but that’s exactly what it is – acting. They know that their octogenarian candidate has dangerously low favorability numbers, an arrogance perhaps not seen in Washington since LBJ retired to his Texas ranch, and as many putative supporters in his party as Julius Caesar had assassins.

    Meanwhile, Kennedy comes from a beloved political family, yet at the same time is a fierce outsider. That is a combination rarely seen in a candidate and gives him at least the potential to achieve enough success to demonstrate to Democrat donors and primary voters that Biden is the emperor with no clothes.

    So far, Kennedy has barely edged into the low 20s in polling, and currently he lags even lower in the RealClearPolitics average. But it’s still early. At this point in 1968, LBJ seemed untouchable to the establishment media and the political class. Gene McCarthy, however, recognized that the nation was at a tipping point. And though he failed to capitalize, his campaign was the beginning of a new era of grassroots politics.

    As described by PBS in an article for “The American Experience”:

    He didn’t win the White House. He didn’t even win his own party’s nomination. But in 1968 Eugene McCarthy revealed major divisions among Democrats, changing the political landscape in a way few American politicians ever have.

    McCarthy was an unlikely national candidate. An aloof intellectual from Minnesota, he reluctantly challenged LBJ mainly over Vietnam. But McCarthy also represented a much more radical approach to politics than the Democratic establishment at the time. McCarthy’s platform included a smorgasbord of liberal policies, some of which have since been accomplished and some of which are still being sought: guaranteed jobs, guaranteed minimum income, a federally subsidized health insurance program, affirmative action in education (although based on poverty, not race), and guaranteed quality housing.

    What made McCarthy a viable candidate wasn’t his domestic agenda, however; it was his promise to end the unpopular war in Vietnam, which had already cost nearly 20,000 American lives by the time McCarthy announced his candidacy. And at a philosophical level, McCarthy was boosted by his pledge to unite the country at a time when riots and protests were televised on the nightly news with regularity:

    The role of the presidency – at all times, but particularly in 1968 – must be one of uniting this nation, not by adding it up in some way, not by putting it together as a kind of jigsaw puzzle. To unify this nation means to inspire it, to encourage the development of common purposes and shared ideals, and to move toward establishing an order of justice in America.

    It is widely agreed that the divisiveness of America in 1968 was as great as at any time since the Civil War. Confidence in the institutions of government was at an all-time low, partly as a result of doubts surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK Jr.’s uncle and President John F. Kennedy’s killing five years earlier. And partly because of the war itself.

    These two great themes – polarization and war – are at the center of RFK Jr.’s campaign. As in 1968, we are seeing an unbridgeable gap between those who trust the institutions of government and those who don’t. Much of that doubt has been brought about by the government’s heavy-handed response to the COVID pandemic, including the mask mandates, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates. Kennedy Jr. has cornered the market among Democrats who still treasure civil rights and fear an oppressive government.

    Our administration will make it a top priority to protect and restore the fundamental civil liberties, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that hold the essence of what America can be. These liberties have endured constant assault for over twenty years, starting with the Bush/Cheney War on Terror, and accelerating in the era of COVID lockdowns.

    But it should not be discounted that, just as in 1968, we are also fighting an increasingly unpopular war, not with our soldiers but with our national treasure, and as the Biden administration sends billions of dollars to Ukraine with no end in sight, RFK promises to put an end to that spending, and much more:

    As president, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will start the process of unwinding empire. We will bring the troops home. We will stop racking up unpayable debt to fight one war after another. The military will return to its proper role of defending our country. We will end the proxy wars, bombing campaigns, covert operations, coups, paramilitaries, and everything else that has become so normal most people don’t know it’s happening. But it is happening, a constant drain on our strength. It’s time to come home and restore this country.

    As for Ukraine itself, Kennedy said he “will find a diplomatic solution that brings peace … and brings our resources back where they belong. We will offer to withdraw our troops and nuclear-capable missiles from Russia’s borders. Russia will withdraw its troops from Ukraine and guarantee its freedom and independence.”

    Kennedy, like McCarthy, has also made uniting the country one of his primary goals. His campaign website states:

    America is more polarized and divided now than at any time in living memory. Both sides seem to agree that the basic problem is the horrible people on the other side. Both sides are wrong. The basic problem is the division itself. A divided public lacks the strength to resist exploitation or to overcome the inertia of the status quo. The classic American can-do spirit exhausts itself in endless battles. So let’s heal the divide.

    Like McCarthy, RFK Jr. is given no chance to win the nomination, but also like his predecessor, Kennedy has the capacity to be the unexpected giant-slayer. Should RFK Jr. break 30% percent in New Hampshire, where he has a natural constituency, Biden’s handlers may panic.

    Biden’s dirty little secret is that he doesn’t even have much of a reelection campaign. As Politico reported, “The president has hired fewer than 20 campaign aides. His team hasn’t yet announced a 2024 headquarters. His first political rally this year was paid for by other organizations.”

    This has some in Biden’s camp nervous, but only in regard to an anticipated rematch with Donald Trump. But the real Achilles’ heel of the Biden campaign is that it is overlooking RFK Jr.’s potential impact.

    Although Biden was able to muscle the Democratic Party into accepting his revised schedule of primary and caucus states, he may live to rue the day he tried to jimmy the system. The goal was to put South Carolina’s primary ahead of New Hampshire and Iowa because Biden owed his 2020 nomination victory to South Carolina dealing a death blow to most of his serious opponents.

    The logic of 2023 suggested that it would be a good thing for Biden to start off with a healthy win, but New Hampshire refuses to play second fiddle. Despite being threatened by the Democratic National Committee with losing their delegates, the state’s officials intend to leapfrog ahead of South Carolina to stay first in the nation. At least one writer has speculated that this will force Biden to stay off the ballot in New Hampshire, providing a huge window of opportunity for Kennedy and the other second-tier candidate, Marianne Williamson.

    Either way, RFK Jr., like Gene McCarthy did, is pinning his hopes on New Hampshire. Kennedy grew up in neighboring Massachusetts, and his family’s mystique is still strong throughout the region. With six months left to campaign before the January primary, Kennedy has plenty of time to energize his voters, but with this caveat: If Kennedy peaks too early, he will invite other ambitious Democrats to enter the race against Biden just as Sen. Bobby Kennedy jumped into the race against LBJ four days after McCarthy came in a close second in New Hampshire in 1968.

    RFK Jr. is walking a tightrope. Unlike the process when his father ran, which was largely governed by party bosses, the filing deadlines for most states and caucuses would severely restrict ballot access for latecomers. Should Kennedy manage to surge in the week or two just before the New Hampshire primary, he might have the field to himself to challenge Biden the rest of the way.

    And even if RFK Jr. falls short in the Democratic primary, he may not be entirely out of the picture in presidential politics. There has been speculation that Donald Trump is considering asking the Democratic gadfly to join him in a unity ticket. Although Kennedy has tweeted that “under no circumstances” would he run with Trump, it might be an opportunity he could not resist should he fall short in the Democratic race. He also could be tempted by a third party run on either the Green Party ticket or the new No Labels ticket.

    In other words, don’t count him out.

    Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His newest book, “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends,” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter or Gettr @HeartlandDiary.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 18:45

  • China's Evergrande Reports $113 Billion Loss Over Two Years
    China’s Evergrande Reports $113 Billion Loss Over Two Years

    Two years after it was halted, left for dead, and effectively bankrupted in a controlled demolition, China’s one-time property giant, Evergrande, reported long-delayed results and boy were they a whopper: they showed that in 2021 and 2022, the company generated mindblowing losses of $113 billion, on $340 billion in liabilities.

    The losses – The company’s first since its 2009 listing, and a sharp reversal from the 8 billion yuan profit in 2020 – showed “the existence of material uncertainties that may cast significant doubt on the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern”, Evergrande said in a stock exchange filing, which of course is irrelevant since much of the defaulted company’s capital structure has been in some state of restructuring ever since 2021.

    Once China’s largest real estate company, Evergrande was the match that lit China’s property crisis in 2021 when it was found to be drowning in more than $300 billion in liabilities, sparking a nationwide property crisis that had global ramifications and sent the world’s largest asset class (according to Goldman) reeling and plunging China’s economy into a brutal slowdown from which it has been unable to recover to this day.

    Trading in the company’s Hong Kong-listed shares has been suspended since March 2022.

    Back then, Evergrande said that it would not be able to publish its 2021 audited results within the timeframe required by Hong Kong’s listing rules, blaming the delay on “a large number of additional audit procedures” and the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The company said on Monday it had suffered a net loss of 686.22 billion yuan in 2021 and 125.81 billion yuan in 2022, in long-delayed Hong Kong stock exchange filings that could bring Evergrande closer to a resumption of trading.

    Evergrande saw its sales plummet during the crisis: according to Bloomberg, revenue plunged by half in 2021 to about 250 billion yuan, before falling further last year to 230 billion yuan, missing the average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

    The developer’s debt pile meanwhile continued to balloon, with total liabilities reaching 2.58 trillion yuan at the end of 2021, or almost $360 billion, on soaring undelivered projects. That figure fell slightly to 2.44 trillion yuan as of December last year.

    The biggest liabilities last year were from trade and other payables, which stood at around 1 trillion yuan as of December. Current borrowings fell slightly from a year earlier to 587 billion yuan.

    “The results are not encouraging at all,” said Ting Meng, a senior credit strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. While not a game changer, they confirm how the company has been in deep distress and struggling with operations and repayments, Meng said.

    Still, Evergrande could be closer to resuming trading of its shares after reporting the delayed statements. Trading of the shares was suspended since March 2022, risking a delisting if there’s no resumption within 18 months.

    “Evergrande’s successful publication would help to avert a forced delisting and advance the company’s debt restructuring,” said Leonard Law, senior credit analyst with Lucror Analytics Pte. “That said, the results do not really matter ultimately, as we believe the business is already broken.”

    The defaulted real estate giant asked to convene meetings for offshore creditors to approve its credit overhaul plan, after reporting long-delayed financial statements for 2021 and 2022. Court hearings are scheduled to take place next week, exchange filings showed late Monday.

    “There’s potential for approval of its debt-restructuring plan,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Daniel Fan and Adrian Sim. “China Evergrande might act fast to avoid possible breakdown due to offshore litigation for its defaults.”

    Others remain unconvinced that the shares can resume trading after Evergrande’s auditor, Prism, said it was unable to obtain sufficient audit evidence to give an opinion on the statements. It remains “highly uncertain” given that the auditor signaled skepticism over the company’s ability to continue as a going concern, said Zerlina Zeng, senior credit analyst at CreditSights, Bloomberg reported.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/18/2023 – 18:25

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