Oct 19

Today’s News 19th October 2022

  • Europe's Ultimate Choices On Ukraine
    Europe’s Ultimate Choices On Ukraine

    Authored by Oscar Silva-Valladares via OrientalReview.org,

    As the Ukraine conflict continues, a basic question with ethical dimensions has risen and will need to be answered soon by European politicians: how moral it is to support Ukraine “as long as it takes” against the necessity of protecting your own citizens’ welfare and the constitutional duty to follow your people’s mandate which is the basic rule of democracy?

    European unclenched and blind support for US policies in the Ukraine conflict, and the dire economic and political consequences it has unleashed, is bringing the continent’s political architecture to a defining moment which may only be resolved through the end of the European Union (EU) regime and the emergence of a new and still undefined political settlement.

    Betting on Russia’s defeat and Vladimir Putin’s demise, the EU has followed the US-led economic war against Russia via sanctions which now far outnumber those directed against any other country on earth but nevertheless have failed.  On the other hand, beyond the adverse impact on consumers and small/medium businesses caused by rising energy bills, general inflation, and the prospects of serious heating scarcity this winter, EU’s sanctions against Russia are causing irreparable damage to the continent’s economy.  Energy intensive manufacturing companies are going bankrupt or moving overseas attracted by lower energy costs, prompting business closures, a deterioration of trade balances, a severe erosion of the Euro currency,  job losses, the destruction of the continent’s manufacturing competitive advantage built over decades and an inevitable and severe recession in the coming months.  The overall political and social impact of these events on the continent’s future is still unclear as there is no escaping to its lack of natural resources.

    EU’s decisions in support of Ukraine have purportedly been taken in the name of democracy, the rule of law and western values and against a military action by Russia considered unprovoked and illegal.  The EU appears to have been also concerned about the unsettling of post-World War II borders – or rather the national frontiers that followed the end of the Cold War – and has expressed unfounded fears that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are the prelude for further aggression in Europe.

    Deep down, through its actions against Russia the European leadership psyche seems to have had a cathartic release, unleashing an old Russophobia manifested in Europe over decades if not centuries, melting together Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation in an effort to portray and convince the average European about an inherent Russian malignity that needs to be rooted out once and for all.

    In its one-sided defence of Ukraine, the EU has been unwilling to recognize and accept the civil war character of the Ukraine conflict, Russia’s legitimate security concerns and its ongoing warnings about it over years, the historical background of a conflict rooted on the mistreatment of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population that worsened since the US sponsored Ukraine coup in 2014 and its failure to support a diplomatic settlement in 2015 – i.e. the Minsk agreements -, in which they played a mayor facilitating role.  The EU ignores the deep flaws of the current Ukraine government and the society it has tried to create, both defined now by blatant corruption, political persecution of opposition and an ultra-nationalist ideology,  all this hardly reflecting so-called European values.

    Sadly, the EU has been incapable to develop an autonomous and justly self-serving European alternative in the conflict and has become hostage of the US hegemonistic agenda.  By refusing to take a balanced approach, the EU is disqualifying itself to be an honest broker on peace negotiations that sooner rather than latter will need to start in the conflict.  Non-European countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are now taking the lead, reflected for instance in the recent Russo-Ukrainian prisoner exchange, a prominent role unthinkable only a few months ago which is embarrassing for Europe given its traditional place in diplomacy.

    Europe’s capitulation to the US agenda is of course not new and had a glaring precedent in the support of NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 and its dismemberment with the creation of the Kosovo enclave.  Nowadays, the EU nomenklatura tramples on basic principles of democracy and sovereignty through its attempts to drop the unanimity principle in the EU’s decision-making process.  Furthermore, the EU leadership is opportunistically using the Ukraine conflict to preserve its existence and even trying to morph itself into a de facto military alliance, an aberration from its original aims.

    The EU behaviour reflects a political and military marasmus that had its roots in the outcome of World War II.  The United Kingdom has had a similar trajectory in international relations, but at least it has been consistent with its old pro-Atlantic views and has had a bit more of care and concern for its own independence and sovereignty, at least insofar as continental Europe is concerned.

    Only an existential shock in Europe, which may come this coming winter and result because of an energy blackout, will enable its society and their politicians to understand where their true interests lie and how to take proper action.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/19/2022 – 02:00

  • Blinken: China Wants To Seize Taiwan On A "Much Faster Timeline" Than Previously Thought
    Blinken: China Wants To Seize Taiwan On A “Much Faster Timeline” Than Previously Thought

    China has made a decision to seize Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” than previously thought, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday after China’s leader Xi Jinping reiterated his intent to take the island, by force if necessary.

    “There has been a change in the approach from Beijing toward Taiwan in recent years,” Blinken said in an event at Stanford University in California, according to Bloomberg.

    The remarks from Biden’s top diplomat on Monday come as China holds its twice-a-decade Communist party congress, and were in response to Xi Jinping’s widely-watched, nearly two-hour-long speech on Sunday to say the “wheels of history are rolling on towards China’s reunification” with Taiwan. While peaceful means were preferable, Xi added, “we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.”

    According to Blinken, China has made a “fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable, and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline.” He didn’t elaborate on the timing or provide other details.

    Responding to Blinken’s remarks on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin criticized the U.S. for selling billions in advanced weapons to Taiwan and accused the Biden administration of encouraging the island’s move toward formal independence.

    “Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese,” Wang told reporters at a regular briefing. “We are ready to create vast space for peaceful reunification, but we will leave no room for separatist activities in any form.”

    As Bloomberg notes, although Biden administration officials have regularly accused China of eroding the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait, comments about Beijing’s intentions with regard to an invasion are less common.

    Observers are highly sensitive to any remarks that might provide insights into how senior officials in Beijing or Washington view the potential for war over Taiwan — an event that would have enormous geopolitical and economic consequences, particularly given President Joe Biden’s repeated pledges that the U.S. would help defend the island.

    The State Department didn’t respond to questions on Monday whether Blinken’s comments reflected any formal assessment that China has moved up its agenda for taking Taiwan – they probably didn’t and the comment was merely an off the cuff comment by an administration that has lost all control and is alienating virtually every foreign power, from the Russia-China axis, to all of OPEC+. In March of last year, Admiral Philip Davidson, then commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that China wanted to take Taiwan “during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 23:40

  • Johnstone: The Profoundly Stupid Narrative That Nuclear Brinkmanship Is Safety And De-Escalation Is Danger
    Johnstone: The Profoundly Stupid Narrative That Nuclear Brinkmanship Is Safety And De-Escalation Is Danger

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    Of all the face-meltingly stupid narratives that have been circulated about the US proxy war in Ukraine, the dumbest so far has got to be the increasingly common claim that aggressively escalating nuclear brinkmanship is safety and de-escalation is danger.

    We see a prime example of this self-evidently idiotic narrative in a new Business Insider article titled “Putin’s nuclear threats are pushing people like Trump and Elon Musk to press for a Ukraine peace deal. A nuclear expert warns that’s ‘dangerous.’”

    “An understandable desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous if it means rushing to implement a ‘peace’ in Ukraine that serves Russian interests,” writes reliable empire apologist Charles Davis.

    “Such a move, which some influential figures have called for, risks setting a precedent that atomic blackmail is the way to win wars and take territory troops can’t otherwise hold, a model that could be copycatted by even the weakest nuclear-armed states, and may only succeed at delaying another war.”

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    Davis’ sole source for his article is the UN Institute for Disarmament Research’s Pavel Podvig, who is very openly biased against Russia.

    “The West supports Ukraine with weapons and financial and moral and political support. Giving that up and saying that, ‘Well, you know, we are too afraid of nuclear threats and so we just want to make a deal’ — that would certainly set a precedent that would not be very positive,” says Podvig. “If you yield to this nuclear threat once, then what would prevent Russia in the future — or others — to do the same thing again?”

    Like other empire apologists currently pushing the ridiculous “de-escalation actually causes escalation” line, Davis and Podvig argue as though nuclear weapons just showed up on the scene a few days ago, as if there haven’t been generations of western policies toward Moscow which have indeed involved backing down and making compromises at times because doing so was seen as preferable to risking a nuclear attack. We survived the Cuban Missile Crisis because Kennedy secretly acquiesced to Khrushchev’s demands that the US remove the Jupiter missiles it had placed in Turkey and Italy, which was what provoked Moscow to move nukes to Cuba in the first place.

    Throughout the cold war the Soviet Union insisted on a sphere of influence that US strategists granted a wide berth to, exactly because it was a nuclear superpower. Even as recently as the Obama administration the US president maintained that “Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”

    Nevertheless we’re seeing this new “escalation is safety and de-escalation is danger” narrative pushed with increasing forcefulness by imperial spinmeisters, because it would take a lot of force indeed to get people to accept something so self-evidently backwards and nonsensical.

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    “All of you who are saying that we have to give in to nuclear blackmail are making nuclear war more likely. Please stop,” tweeted Yale University’s Timothy Snyder recently. “When you give in to it, you empower dictators to do it again, encourage worldwide nuclear proliferation, and make nuclear war much, much more likely.”

    Snyder, who has been photographed grinning happily with Ukraine’s President Zelensky, does not actually believe that people tweeting in support of de-escalation and detente will cause a nuclear war. He uses the newfangled buzzword “nuclear blackmail” to discredit calls for de-escalation and detente because he wants those who support de-escalation and detente to be silent. He says “please stop” solely because he wants peace advocacy to stop.

    “Nuclear war comes because we’ve done too little not too much,” tweeted Alexander Vindman, a key player in advancing the Trump-Ukraine scandal, further pushing the narrative that greater escalation is where the safety is.

    In response to a tweet by France’s President Macron saying “We do not want a World War,” a senior policy advisor for the US government’s Helsinki Commission named Paul Massaro tweeted, “Precisely this sort of weak, terrified language leads Russia to escalate.”

    Imagine being so warped and twisted that you see that as a sane response to the most normal statement anyone can possibly make.

    Meanwhile you’ve got idiots like Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger acting like they’re being brave tough guys by welcoming continual nuclear escalation while calling anyone who advocates de-escalation cowards:

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    The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel somehow pulled off the heroic feat of getting an article advocating de-escalation published in the Washington Post with a piece titled “The Cuban missile crisis was 60 years ago, but it’s urgently relevant today.” Reminding us how close we came to total annihilation and how we only survived getting so recklessly close to nuclear war by “plain dumb luck,” she argues that humanity cannot risk going to the brink like that again.

    “Humanity cannot afford to spin the cylinder again in this game of Russian roulette; we must unload the gun. Our only path forward is de-escalation,” vanden Heuvel writes.

    Indeed it is. It’s absolutely insane that humanity is risking its own extinction over these games of empire-building and planetary domination when we’ve got so many other existential hurdles we need to focus on clearing.

    This is all completely unnecessary. There’s nothing inscribed upon the fabric of reality saying states need to be waving armageddon weapons at each other. There’s no valid reason not to lay aside these games of global conquest and collaborate together toward a healthy coexistence on this planet.

    We could have such a beautiful world. All the energy we pour into competition and conquest could go toward innovation that benefits us all, making sure everyone has enough, eliminating human suffering and the need for human toil. We’re trading heaven on earth for elite ego games.

    There’s no valid reason we can’t move from models of competition and domination to models of collaboration and care. Collaboration with each other; care for each other. Collaboration with our ecosystem; care for our ecosystem. We’re throwing it away in exchange for senseless misery and peril.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 23:00

  • Portion Of Mississippi River Closes Again As Drought Crisis Worsens
    Portion Of Mississippi River Closes Again As Drought Crisis Worsens

    Supply chains across the Midwest face significant constraints as a portion of the Mississippi River is closed again.

    Bloomberg reported a stretch of the Mississippi River, about 125 miles northeast of Memphis, near Hickman, Kentucky, closed Monday as water levels continue to plunge. 

    Dredging operations began in the afternoon to clear debris from the waterway. The US Coast Guard said three vessels and 51 barges were waiting in the line at Hickman. 

    According to the National Weather Service, waters in Memphis reached negative 10.79 feet and continue to decline, reaching record-low levels. 

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    The ultra-low river levels are severely impacting the agriculture industry across the Midwest. We pointed out barges are reducing weight which has caused a shortage of vessels to haul farm goods from this season’s harvest to Gulf Coast terminals for export. 

    We also said the decline in barge traffic and reduction in weight on vessels has led to a shortage. This has triggered shipping costs for barges to hyperinflate. 

    Farmers who cannot find a shipper on the waterway have piled up beans and other farm goods on their property. There’s only a certain amount of time before these freshly harvested crops go bad.  

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    Some farmers have been fortunate to find truckers, but there’s only a finite supply due to everyone searching for land transportation, including rail. 

    Earlier this month, the Coast Guard closed the area around Stack Island, Mississippi, due to dredging operations after barges were grounded as water levels dropped. 

    Jeff Graschel, a hydrologist at the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center, said there are some signs of rainfall with cold fronts ahead, “but nothing that will get us out of the low-water situation.” 

    There are no signs that the low water disruption will soon abate on the nation’s most crucial waterway.

    … and we must remind readers while Bloomberg and every other corporate media outlet blame so-called man-made climate change … perhaps three years of La Nina is the culprit.  

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 22:40

  • Fauci On COVID School Shutdowns: 'I Had Nothing To Do With It'
    Fauci On COVID School Shutdowns: ‘I Had Nothing To Do With It’

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Since announcing in August he would be departing his post at the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he had “nothing to do” with COVID-related school lockdowns and the reported accompanied loss in learning among public school students.

    Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a Senate hearing in Washington on Sept. 14, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Fauci denied that he was responsible for pushing the public consensus that schools should be shut down due to the spread of the virus. Across the United States, numerous public and private schools were forced to shut down and use virtual learning—which many experts and studies say led to a dramatic drop in basic skills.

    ABC News host Jonathan Karl asked: “Was it a mistake in so many states, in so many localities, to see schools closed as long as they were?”

    “I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake’ John because if I do it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,” Fauci said in response. “Could there be too high a price?” Karl clarified, likely referencing the plummeting academic performance, social isolation, and mental health crisis that school closures fueled.

    “What we should realize, and have realized, [is] that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that,” added Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. “The idea that this virus doesn’t afflict children is not so. We’ve already lost close to 1,500 kids so far.”

    A study that inflated the number of COVID-19 deaths among children was corrected in July.

    Fauci’s agency has no authority to force the shutting down of schools, businesses, or other entities, although Republicans and other critics have said that during his frequent interviews starting in early 2020, Fauci recommended widespread lockdowns. Those closures and stay-at-home orders were issued either by states, counties, or municipalities as the federal government—namely the Centers for Disease Control and Prediction—mainly issued recommendations.

    Fauci also often made dire claims about the trajectory of the pandemic—even making a grim prediction this week that new variants of the virus would resurge this fall and winter.

    Later in the ABC interview, Fauci claimed that he repeatedly called on schools to stay open as long as possible, although he did not provide evidence or an example for that claim.

    “No one plays that clip. They always come back and say ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with it]. I mean, let’s get down to the facts,” he stated.

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    Statements

    In May 2020, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told him that data shows that children aren’t at serious risk of severe COVID-19 complications, Fauci said that “I think we better be careful that we’re not cavalier, in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects.”

    In other public settings and during interviews, Fauci also continuously warned about lifting restrictions for schools, which likely helped fuel extensions or more lockdowns of schools. In March 2020, Fauci said he would favor a nationwide lockdown and said the “worst is ahead” for COVID-19.

    Fauci in late 2020 expressed support for keeping schools open but wanted many businesses shut down.

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    During one instance in December of that year, Fauci said he wants to “close the bars and keep the schools open.”

    “The default position should be to try, as best as possible within reason, to keep the children in school or to get them back to school,” Fauci said. “If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected,” he added.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 22:20

  • "We Gonna Kill Rats": New York City Battles "Sea Of Rodents"
    “We Gonna Kill Rats”: New York City Battles “Sea Of Rodents”

    As ‘nature heals’ following more than two years of lockdowns, New York City is tackling a “sea of rodents” that has taken over the streets.

    In a Monday press conference, Mayor Eric Adams and crew announced that the city would be limiting the window for residents to put their trash on the curb from 4pm to 8pm. If residents have sealed containers, they can place them outside no earlier than 6 pm.

    “This will reduce the amount of time trash is out before collections,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “No more watching these bags litter our sidewalks.”

    Adams has pledged to solve the city’s sanitation issues and said in June that part of the more than $100 billion budget this year will be allocated to clean up public spaces. In the first six months of 2022, complaints about trash on sidewalks jumped to 17,749 from 13,026, Politico reported in August. Rat sightings increased 71% since 2020, New York City Council member Shaun Abreu said at the press conference. –Bloomberg

    “Everyone that knows me, they know one thing – I hate rats,” said Adams, adding “We gonna kill rats. Rats have no place in the city, and we’re going to use every method as needed…”

    More quotables from the conference, as noted by Bloomberg‘s Emma Court;

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 22:00

  • Senate Seeks $10 Billion In Military Aid For Taiwan
    Senate Seeks $10 Billion In Military Aid For Taiwan

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The Senate’s version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will include $10 billion in military aid for Taiwan, Defense News reported on Monday.

    The $10 billion would be given to Taiwan over five years in the form of Foreign Military Financing (FMF), a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to purchase US weapons.

    Image: Military News Agency via AP

    However, Taiwan will be able to use $300 million of the FMF each year to purchase military equipment from its own industrial base, a privilege only currently enjoyed by Israel. Other FMF recipients need waivers to use the funds to purchase arms that don’t come from the US.

    The $10 billion is a massive increase from the $4.5 billion initially proposed by Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in a piece of legislation known as the Taiwan Policy Act. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee brought the military aid up to $6.5 billion when it advanced the bill in September.

    But the senators have decided to include the military aid portion of the Taiwan Policy Act in the NDAA, which was boosted to $10 billion in a bipartisan amendment added to the military spending bill by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).

    The Taiwan Policy Act would also boost diplomatic ties with Taiwan, requires sanctions in the event of Chinese aggression, and give Taiwan the benefits of being a major non-NATO ally. But those aspects of the bill were not included in the NDAA amendment.

    The Senate is expected to vote on the NDAA when Congress returns to Washington after mid-term elections in November. Once approved, the House and Senate will need to negotiate the final version that will head to President Biden’s desk.

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    The Senate’s effort to give Taiwan a massive amount of military aid comes as tensions are soaring between the US and China over the island. China’s unprecedented military drills in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visiting Taiwan and its rhetoric over the issue make it clear that more US support for Taiwan will only make a conflict in the region more likely.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 21:40

  • Surprise! EcoHealth Landed $1 Million Grant To Work With '80% Mouse Death' Boston University On 'Future Pandemic Prevention'
    Surprise! EcoHealth Landed $1 Million Grant To Work With ‘80% Mouse Death’ Boston University On ‘Future Pandemic Prevention’

    Monday’s report in the Daily Mail that the University of Boston has engineered a chimeric COVID that has an 80% kill rate in humanized mice has caused quite the stir.

    To review, in an effort to research what makes Omicron so transmissible – and funded in part by grants from the NIH and Anthony Fauci’s NIAID – a team of researchers cobbled the Omicron spike protein to the original strain of Covid-19. The resulting virus was five times more infectious than Omicron.

    “The Omicron spike (S) protein, with an unusually large number of mutations, is considered the major driver of these phenotypes. We generated chimeric recombinant SARS-CoV-2 encoding the S gene of Omicron in the backbone of an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 isolate and compared this virus with the naturally circulating Omicron variant,” reads the pre-print.

    The authors speculate that their chimeric strain is unlikely to be as deadly in humans as it was in the mice because the specific breed used in testing are more susceptible to severe Covid.

    Gain of Function?

    “The research is a clear example of gain of function research of concern and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen (ePPP) research,” said Dr Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, adding “‘It is especially concerning that this new US-government ePPP research – like the previous US-government ePPP research on chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses at Wuhan Institute of Virology that may have caused the pandemic – appears not to have undergone the prior risk-benefit review mandated under US-government policies.”

    Gain of function research was largely restricted in the US until 2017, when the National Institutes of Health began to allow it to take place using government funds.

    Previously it had been halted from 2014 to 2017 over concerns that it could lead to the inadvertent creation of a pandemic. -Daily Mail

    The University of Boston refuted the notion that they were performing GoF research, adding that it was  reviewed and approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) and the Boston Public Health Commission (don’t you feel safer already?).

    “This research mirrors and reinforces the findings of other, similar research performed by other organizations,” said a spokesperson. “Ultimately, this research will provide a public benefit by leading to better, targeted therapeutic interventions to help fight against future pandemics.”

    Peter Daszak again?

    Which leads us to today’s report…

    Just two months before the ‘80% mouse kill rate’ SARS paper was published, EcoHealth Alliance – the NYC-based nonprofit headed by Peter Daszak (and was also funded by the NIH and Fauci’s NIAID to genetically manipulate bat Covid in Wuhan, China) – bragged about a $1 million NSF grant to work with Boston University on a project to ‘work towards predicting and preventing future pandemics.”

    NEW YORK – 30, AUGUST, 2022 – EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), in partnership with Boston University, was awarded a $1 million Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention Phase I (PIPP) grant by the National Science Foundation. The team of scientists will strategize methods of early infectious disease detection and intervention.

    …

    EHA researchers will focus on predictive models of location and likely pathogens. This will be accomplished by first compiling a list of mutagenic RNA viruses with a high risk of spillover based on their ability to spread, cause outbreak, and cause severe illness. Next, the team will identify locations at risk of spillover and localized spread by assembling a list of animals known to host one or more of the focal viruses. -EHA

    And from Boston University’s press release announcing the partnership:

    A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Boston University will work towards predicting and preventing future pandemics as part of a new $1 million project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Faculty members from the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, the Center for Information & Systems Engineering (CISE), the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research (CEID), the Bioengineering Technology & Entrepreneurship Center (BTEC), and the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) will work with researchers from EcoHealth Alliance to develop a set of models that can predict disease emergence and spread, and to devise effective pandemic mitigation strategies.

    Of note, several researchers from the EcoHealth-allied National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) were involved in the creation of the 80% mouse death chimeric SARS-CoV-2.

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    Last year we reported that 18 months before the pandemic, scientists in Wuhan, China submitted a proposal to release enhanced airborne coronaviruses into the wild in an effort to inoculate them against diseases that could have otherwise jumped to humans, according to The Telegraph, citing leaked grant proposals from 2018.

    The bid was submitted by Daszak, who was hoping to use genetic engineering to cobble “human-specific cleavage sites” onto bat Covid ‘which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells’ – a method which would coincidentally answer a longstanding question among the scientific community as to how SARS-CoV-2 evolved to become so infectious to humans.

    Perhaps Daszak is teaching BU scientists about sequencing spike proteins?

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 21:20

  • Secret Records Released By Court Expose Retired US Generals On Saudi Payroll
    Secret Records Released By Court Expose Retired US Generals On Saudi Payroll

    Authored by Jake Johnson via Common Dreams,

    A sweeping investigation published by The Washington Post on Tuesday after years of digging and legal battles with the US government shows that at least 15 retired American generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for Saudi Arabia’s ministry of defense since 2016.

    “Saudi Arabia’s paid advisers have included retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a national security adviser to President Barack Obama, and retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who led the National Security Agency under Obama and President George W. Bush,” the Post reported, citing more than 4,000 pages documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings.

    US Marine Corps General James L. Jones in 2006, Getty Images

    The Post noted that it “sued the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the State Department in federal court” in pursuit of the documents, which the outlet finally obtained after a protracted legal fight.

    “Congress permits retired troops as well as reservists to work for foreign governments if they first obtain approval from their branch of the armed forces and the State Department,” the newspaper pointed out. “But the US government has fought to keep the hirings secret. For years, it withheld virtually all information about the practice, including which countries employ the most retired U.S. service members and how much money is at stake.”

    In total, the Post found that “more than 500 retired U.S. military personnel—including scores of generals and admirals—have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments” such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Turkey, and Kuwait, mostly with the official approval of U.S. military branches. “Records show they rarely reject a job request,” the Post found.

    The Post did highlight some cases of ex-military officials taking “foreign jobs or gifts without notifying the U.S. government at all,” citing the prominent example of retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a Trump loyalist who raked in nearly $450,000 in payments from Turkey and Russia in 2015 without receiving clearance from U.S. officials. Other ex-servicemembers named in the Post story as paid consultants to the Saudi defense ministry include retired Air Force Brig. Gen. John Doucette and retired Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry.

    Kate Kizer, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, wrote on Twitter that the reporting provides further evidence that “war and crimes against humanity” are “big business for U.S. military leaders after their service.”

    The Post published its explosive story as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers are pushing for a total reexamination of longstanding diplomatic and military relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in the wake of OPEC’s decision to slash oil production, driving up prices in the U.S. and across the world. Saudi Arabia receives around 70% of its weaponry from the U.S. on top of other military and logistical support.

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    “Saudi planes literally couldn’t fly if it weren’t for American technicians,” U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in an interview last week. “Yet they are fleecing the American public… There needs to be consequences.”

    The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a watchdog organization, filed a similar FOIA lawsuit as the Post and also published the results of its investigation on Tuesday.

    “Between April 2010 and August 2020, the State Department issued over 500 waivers to retiring servicemembers, allowing them to take emoluments to work on behalf of foreign interests,” POGO’s Julienne McClure wrote in a summary of the group’s findings. “While many of these positions are not disclosed, some clearly support military operations, such as “battle trainer,” while others are far more general, including descriptions like ‘consultant’ or ‘advisor.'”

    McClure noted that “over half of these waivers were granted so former military officials could work on behalf of United Arab Emirates interests, despite the Emirati government’s troubling record of human rights violations.”

    “Even as the State Department issued hundreds of these waivers,” McClure wrote, “they simultaneously listed a bevy of human rights abuses in their 2020 Country Report on human rights issues in the United Arab Emirates, including ‘arbitrary arrest and detention… government interference with privacy rights… undue restriction on free expression and the press… and criminalization of same-sex sexual activity.'”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 21:00

  • Mysterious GPS Disruptions Spread In Texas Near Fort Hood
    Mysterious GPS Disruptions Spread In Texas Near Fort Hood

    Update (2053ET): 

    GPS interference in Texas has spread from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area to now east and west regions of Waco, Texas. 

    One area west of Waco with high levels of GPS interference is butting up against America’s third-largest military base, Fort Hood. 

    One Twitter user said: “Can’t wait until someone figures out the source.” 

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    *  *  *

    GPS interference is being reported around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area airports, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The first reports of signal degradation occurred about 24 hours ago.  

    “Significant GPS interference being reported by pilots in the Dallas area. Aircraft being rerouted onto non-RNAV arrivals,” the flight tracking website ADS-B Exchange first reported Monday afternoon. 

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    Bloomberg said the “runway at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has been closed after aviation authorities said GPS signals there aren’t reliable.”  

    The FAA said it was investigating GPS signal degradation in the metro area and looking closely to see if this could be due to “possible jamming of the global-positioning system. “

    So far, the FAA has found “no evidence of intentional interference.” And airlines have yet to report major disruptions. 

    One Twitter user posted a high-resolution map of the GPS interference. The orange and red specks show areas where GPS signal loss is currently. 

    The cause of the disruption is unknown.  

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 20:53

  • "Operation Lone Star" In Texas Seizes Enough Fentanyl To Kill Every American
    “Operation Lone Star” In Texas Seizes Enough Fentanyl To Kill Every American

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star” has deployed thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers and Department of Public Safety troopers across the border this year despite the lack of effort from the Biden administration. In doing so, Texas has seized enough fentanyl to kill every American. 

    “In the past year, Texas law enforcement alone has seized over 342 million lethal doses of fentanyl—enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States,” according to Abbott’s office. 

    The announcement comes after Raul Ortiz, The Head of The US Border Patrol, testified under oath that the White House’s border strategy of “no consequences” for illegal immigrants had caused one of the most significant border “crises” in years.  

    Since President Biden entered office, around 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed onto US soil — that’s almost equivalent to the entire population of Ireland. The crisis unfolded after Biden rolled back Trump-era policies. 

    FAIR President Dan Stein recently warned: “The endless flow of illegal aliens and the incursion of lethal narcotics pouring across our border will not end until this administration demonstrates a willingness to enforce our laws.” FAIR is one of the largest immigration reform groups in the country. 

    The consequence of migrants and drugs flowing over the border has also led to a surge in fentanyl hitting American streets, triggering a tidal wave of overdose deaths. 

    “Fentanyl remains the single deadliest drug threat our state and nation has ever encountered, killing four Texans every day.

    “Fentanyl is a clandestine killer, with Mexican drug cartels strategically manufacturing and distributing the drug disguised as painkillers, stimulants, anti-anxiety drugs, and even candy,” Abbott said in a statement on Monday.  

    Under the Biden administration, teen overdose deaths have never been higher due to synthetic opiates. Last year, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. 

    Thanks, Biden… 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 20:40

  • Luongo: The Fed Is Exposing The Lies Of Two Generations Of People In Power
    Luongo: The Fed Is Exposing The Lies Of Two Generations Of People In Power

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    Fed Watch: When They Call For the Bailiff You Know You’re Winning

    You may ask yourself, “What is that beautiful house?”
    You may ask yourself, “Where does that highway go to?”
    And you may ask yourself, “Am I right, am I wrong?”
    And you may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?”

    – Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

    In the face of the Fed’s intransigent hawkishness we are now on the verge of exposing the worst lies of two generations of people in power.  I’ve maintained for more than a year now that the global oligarchy known here as The Davos Crowd thought they’d run the table on the US and the UK with COVID-19.

    The various bailout packages, Pelosi’s CARES Act and pending legislation — Build Back Better, etc. — were supposed to destroy the fiscal position of the US once and for all. These were political blackmail to force the Fed not to raise rates when it clearly needed to.

    That Pelosi et.al. were only able to pass neutered versions of these bills is a sign that powerful forces behind the scenes are not down with this plan.

    Now, in light of the near-complete coup attempt against UK Prime Minister Liz Truss (more on that later this week) we are looking at big power plays to decide whether Davos will retain control over Western policy. Truss’ difficulties point to Davos having a few markers to call in here.

    But, I want to go back to a couple of weeks ago and also talk about Credit Suisse. At the same time there was a coordinated effort to stop Truss implementing a very non-Davos fiscal program. there was a coordinated whisper campaign to start a bank run on Credit Suisse.

    Clearly this attack failed, but it’s equally clear Davos activated the next level of their assault on any institution snot aligned with them.  

    Is it any wonder that the two big European financial centers outside of the EU came under coordinated attack, Economic Hitman style, in the days following Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and the coronation of Globalist Charles III as King?

    After that, and subsequent statements by FOMC Chair “Baller” Jerome Powell, Davos had to bring in the UN begmanding (begging masquerading as demanding [H/T Joachin Flores for that one]) all central banks stop raising rates to avoid a global recession.

    This was promoted all across the Davos-controlled media space.  Even Rupert Murdoch’s War Street Journal got in on the action to sway GOPer’s a month out from the mid-terms. And I asked the big question last week, “Can the Fed Afford to Pivot,” with the US $31 trillion in debt?

    The answer from the Fed has been a consistent, no.

    And that means Davos is in serious trouble. As I’ve tirelessly pointed out, the Fed controls global dollar liquidity in a way they haven’t in decades. And that is why the screams of pain from all the usual suspects are so loud.

    That said, Davos continues to execute a script they have no way to augment if they want to achieve their stated goals. Taking out the UK was the right move. But, is it a move that puts them on the path to winning or just an attack of opportunity in a series of rearguard actions?

    The Bailiff Moment

    Bullies always know when they are caught.  Bullies are also generally the worst form of liars, ones who shout down opposition rather than engage in conversation.

    In interrogations the goal is always to get the liar to trap himself and leave him calling for relief. This is why you should never talk to cops without a lawyer, FYI.

    They are easy to trap because the lies are so transparent.  All it takes is the slightest application of the Socratic Method — using one’s own argument to find flaws in it through counter-example — and you can get them “calling for the bailiff” in a matter of minutes.

    The title of this post is my best remembrance of the title I first saw this video posted under at Lewrockwell.com back in 2009. I know this is 7+ minutes of having to watch Nancy Pelosi, but trust me, it’s worth it.

    This is the only video of Nasty Nancy I can stomach to watch, because Jan Helfeld crushes her on minimum wage in less than 3 minutes.  The squirm is almost like music.  It’s a masterclass in evasion, deception and bullying.  It lays bare the malignancy of her narcissism.

    It is a real, tangible benefit to humanity revealing this horrific human being.  Notice how when Pelosi really understands what’s happened she resorts to multiple threats, “You made a mistake!” she repeats glaring at him. 

    She became his enemy in that moment. 

    If you despise Pelosi as much as I do this is a treat for new readers, a thank you for joining us I’ve dredged up from my memory and the bowls of the YouTube algorithm.

    I brought this out to show you how easy it is to expose the duplicity and fragility of the narratives surrounding our political and financial reality.  

    The Reflections of Vampires

    It was this interview which helped crystallize my filter I use to view these false narratives.  It’s why it was so easy for me to see the Fed’s raising the RRP rate by 0.05% above the Fed Funds Rate at last year’s June FOMC meeting as a watershed moment. 

    It was no different than Helfeld showing Pelosi that her intern argument was nonsense.  That move exposed the weak US dollar which had been created during the Trump administration as a supremely false move in historical context.

    Powell raises RRP by 0.05% and the whole world freaks out.  The euro collapses, gold’s nascent rally is snuffed out and US bond yields begin rising, forcing euro-bond rates out of the negative-yielding basement.

    “It puts the positive yield on its skin or else it gets the rate hike again!”

    Since then it’s been nothing but a series of ever-escalating actions to force the Fed to pivot off Powell’s ‘Volcker-esque’ policies.  I’ve chronicled all of the twists and turns of this story, beat for beat, since last June.

    These last sixteen months have played out like this seven minute interview with Pelosi.  Jerome Powell is Helfeld and Davos is Pelosi.   They kept making the case their plan for the US to spend spend spend when inflation was here here here.

    The most obvious corollary to this interview and Powell was when Obama et.al. launched that insider trading scandal of the Fed governors last fall and forced three hawks off the FOMC.  

    “You made a mistake!”

    Note we have a sequel this week with Atlanta Fed Chair Raphael Bostic having to do a mea culpa over more insider trading at the Fed.

    Don’t Look Up!

    This week Truss finally caved. It will be the end of her and the any dreams Elizabeth II had of an independent Britain.

    I told you Truss was a moron and clearly overmatched for the job.  But it goes beyond that.  After the BoE toys with markets for a couple of weeks, the message to the world was to avoid bad stuff (“RECESSION!”) is get the evil US Fed to pivot.

    Will Powell pivot? I don’t think so. Why? He’s not a moron. Nor is he alone like Truss was. Truss was set up to fail.

    For months, I’ve been alone in saying the Fed is going to be aggressive. For months I said the Fed is not raising rates to tame cost-push inflation which it doesn’t have the tools to fight.

    Now, I’m not alone anymore. Neither John Hussman or Danielle Dimartino Booth thinks the Fed will pivot. Others are still trapped at denial in the Kubler-Ross model.

    Hussman points out that the Fed has never pivoted on hiking rates with the PCE deflator, currently 4.9% (with modifiers, see the linked article), above the Fed Funds Rate, 3.25%. He makes a powerful argument.

    This is what Powell et.al. mean when they say they can’t leave the job undone.

    But in a recent interview with Hedgeye’s Keith McCullough, Ms. Booth kept saying what I’ve been saying, “The Fed isn’t trying to stop inflation.” She uses the Fed’s massive TIPS portfolio as part of the reason, but it’s also something, when pressed, she’s, “not able to say.”

    Watch the whole interview, it’s fascinating.

    So, against this dark background, we have one non-EU European financial center crushed.  Let’s go back to the other, Switzerland.  The Fed’s intransigence is why I think the whisper campaign against Credit Suisse was another of these operations.  

    I’m not saying that Credit Suisse isn’t vulnerable.  Of course it’s vulnerable. The reason it almost worked is because they are vulnerable, just like the UK pension system was Truss’ Achilles’ heel.

    All I’m saying is that I have a hard time believing that all of the EU’s continental competition coming under extreme pressure in quick succession has a strategic component to it.

    Everyone acted like the Fed pivoted when they did a couple of $3+ billion tranches of swap line liquidity to the Swiss National Bank this month. Notice how there was no money for the Bank of England and almost no money for the ECB.

    What if this is just more battle lines being drawn?

    Because the UN coming out and decrying the central banks raising rates is a massive tell that the wrong people’s oxen are being gored.  It isn’t just these two events.  

    We had the public meltdown of Jeremy Seigel on CNBC which was amplified beyond all recognition. Jeffrey Sachs stopped CNN cold with the pronouncement that the US was behind the bombing of the Nordstreams.  

    These people are all close allies of George Soros and the Democratic party machine.  The fear over the mid-terms is real now.  Even Nate Silver at five-thirty-eight.com is worried the Democrats are about to get Rick-rolled.

    UN Cries Uncle

    So, Davos using deep assets at the UN through UNCTAD to issue warnings against the Fed and Volcker-like policy is no different than Pelosi calling for the guard to remove Helfeld from her office. 

    They demanded easy money and price controls in typical Davosian communist fashion.  We need to coordinate monetary policy worldwide to stop the collapse of the old system.  

    It was a classic appeal to the common good and for internationalism over nationalism.  

    This is also a moment of the purest weakness.  

    And if you think Europe isn’t weak here and that the Fed is still not in Helfeld’s seat asking uncomfortable questions of narcissist bullies with questionable taste in clothes I give you the EU’s latest trade data. (H/T Robin Brooks on Twitter)

    Trade surpluses are gone. Inflation raging. Producer prices rising faster than inflation. Bond volatility at levels not seen since COVID.

    Europe’s Energy price spikes are demons of their own summoning. They had a cozy deal with Russia and chose fake free markets for natural gas to create a volatility playground to bankrupt their middle classes.

    So, they want this inflation, even if they say they don’t. They want the inflation to force the Fed to subsidize it, like it did when Globalist Ben and his Auntie Janet ran the place.

    What they never planned on was having to do this and fight the Fed simultaneously. In broad strokes, they could freeze capital in Europe’s banks, grab back City of London and add Zurich, while putting the US on a path to true insolvency to neuter the power of New York.

    Now all they have left is playing power politics with its junior EU members who were only interested in ensuring their people didn’t starve, e.g. Hungary. Lashing out at cripples is not a good look.

    All arguments that the US dollar doesn’t deserve its strength or that the Fed has a responsibility to Europe when all they’ve done is engage in fiscal and monetary hara-kiri via negative rates for nearly a decade are pathetic as they are stupid.

    You can see that this call was an extension of the anti-US psy-op that ran wild after the Nordstream bombings.  There is a concerted effort now to at once push for open war between the US and Russia while also blaming the Fed for the crash in the global markets. 

    “You made a mistake, here!”

    The BoE pivot was done to isolate the Fed. The Reserve Bank of Australia only raised by 25 basis points to support the BoE.

    The ECB is silent during all of this, because they are the Elephant in the room that’s been pushed off the mountain and is about to go splat.

    The UN’s response? Don’t Look Up!

    Fake Rally, Fake Markets

    The reward to the world is a massive rally in stocks, bonds and safe-havens.  While this is clearly just a bout of short-covering in most of these markets which were stretched to the downside, it’s also timed with the global call for central bank dovishness and price controls from the UN.

    The narrative now is the Fed is being petulant and rapacious, just like the US foreign policy establishment. The victim narrative is reaching a crescendo right in time for the mid-terms.

    That’s why the whisper campaign against Credit Suisse didn’t materialize into a bank run. They were a warning and used as a weapon to pressure the Fed.  As pointed out to me on Twitter the Fed opened a new repo facility for commercial banks.  

    Do you notice who ISN’T on this list?  Three guesses and the first two don’t count.  No major European banks.  Nataxis doesn’t count when Deutsche Bank, Unicredit, or ING are not on the list.

    Just US, Canadian, Hong Kong and Japanese banks.

    Guess who got money and who didn’t? The Swiss.

    A lot was made of that meeting, and it served as good fodder for the attack on Credit Suisse. Will the Fed come in with an emergency rate cut? Will they pivot?

    And for the Fed to call a meeting for the same day that Credit Suisse was attacked and the UN to begmand them to pivot only to comment on debit card payment systems, is a massive tell.

    The Fed updated the new rules for debit card transactions to have at least one backup processor in place. If anything, this means Davos can’t lean on VISA to deny your grocery purchase unilaterally because of mean tweets or because you’re Alex Jones. 

    This clearly says to me that they are fighting this crap at the foundational level.  It also says that the FOMC’s silence on UK Gilts, Credit Suisse, etc. is deafening.

    Since then there’s been nothing but more acquiescence to the coming 75 basis point hike on the eve of the mid-term elections. The Bank of England got their pound of flesh, all puns intended, and for now things are stable. It won’t be for long.

    As Ms. Booth said and I agree, every rally in the stock market, every wiggle by someone to increase offshore liquidity and calm things down, is another opportunity for the Fed to keep repeating their position.

    “Why can’t we raise rates?”

    “Why can’t we charge what we want for the money we provide?”

    “Why do we have to define the value of US labor by your rules?”

    “Why does their have to enforce a minimum wage for offshore dollar speculators?”

    “Bailiff!!”

    But, the big unanswered question no one is allowed to answer is the one that Ms. Booth kept avoiding in that interview, “If the Fed isn’t fighting inflation with rate hikes, then what are they fighting?”

    You know my answer. Davos does too.

    What’s hilarious is watching Europe call for the bailiff and everyone finally realizing that the Fed told him to take an early lunch break.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you like watching narcissists squirm

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 20:20

  • Biden To Unveil Cunning New Plan To Lower Gas Prices: Drain Even More From The SPR
    Biden To Unveil Cunning New Plan To Lower Gas Prices: Drain Even More From The SPR

    As was leaked earlier today, President Biden will address the nation tomorrow to explain his next cunning plan to lower gas prices for the average American (except those in California) since OPEC+ snubbed his delay-til-after-the-midterms begging-bowl and decided to cut production last week.

    His cunning new plan, we hear you ask?

    Well it’s simple – more of the same: blame big oil (gouging and profiteering), blame little oil (greedy local gas station owners), blame the Saudis (who are now Putin puppets)… and drain more of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

    The Wall Street Journal reports, citing official sources, that central to the president’s address will be a decision for the Energy Department to go ahead and sell the last roughly 15 million of 180 million barrels from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve he had authorized for sale back in March.

    Biden also plans to call on the Energy Department to be prepared for more sales from what’s left of about 400 million barrels in the reserve if Russia or others disrupt world markets, according to the White House.

    The SPR is already at its lowest level since 1984…

    …and as the chart shows only 130mm barrels above its lows at inception of around 270mm barrels.

    However, as we have noted too many times to remember, the problem is not a lack of crude oil but a lack of refining capacity…

    Brian Milne, product manager, editor, and analyst at DTN, told MarketWatch:

    “U.S. policy pushing away from oil consumption has led to refinery transitions to renewables, or outright closures. This trend accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” and then accelerated further upon Biden’s inauguration.

    Gasoline prices at the pump are still up $1.66 from when the Biden administration moved into The White House (but are well off the highs from June)…

    And as far as the belief that the previous SPR drainage lowered the gas price, Milne highlighted that the bigger drivers lowering US gasoline prices, however, were “sharply lower demand from China amid its zero-COVID policy that has stymied economic activity, and reduced transportation demand as millions of citizens were either locked down or had other restrictions reduce their mobility.”

    Since President Biden has been in The White House, 230mm barrels of crude have been drained from the SPR and gasoline prices for the average American are up $1.66…

    That said, imagine where oil prices (and gas prices) would be without the SPR drain! (and maybe, just maybe, that is the point: if market forces allowed to work – as painful in the short-term as they may be – as every energy/commodity trader knows, high prices beget low prices in the end).

    Finally, we couldn’t help but consider the case for impeaching the president over such reckless acts.

    Consider that first, we learned he was pressing Saudis to help him with elections (Trump was impeached for less ‘quid pro quo’), and now he is draining a critical national asset (enabling a clear national security threat) just to boost approval (for his party’s personal gains), instead of encouraging US production and enabling increased refining.

    Bear in mind that the level of the SPR is now at a record low around just 22 days of supply (and will go even further down should the latest plan come into place)…

    Cuts from OPEC and Russia, combined with a higher demand from China as its economy emerges from pandemic lockdowns, would lead to new shortfalls in oil supply, according to Neil Beveridge, senior energy analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. That could push crude prices back to $120 a barrel by the end of 2023, his team forecast.

    “That’s when you really need the SPR,” Mr. Beveridge said in an interview.

    “And if the SPR has been partially exhausted, it can lead to a steeper escalation in prices.”

    But it gets better (or worse), since Bloomberg reports that the administration plans to initiate purchases when West Texas Intermediate crude prices are at or below $67 to $72 per barrel, according to a senior administration official.

    Just who do they think will sell them oil at that price?

    And while we are doing thought experiments, what’s to stop OPEC+ from cutting output by another 1MM per day for a year and forcing Biden to drain the entire SPR? Inevitably leading to a massive new demand to refill the ’emergency’ reserve, sending prices soaring?

    Perhaps that why oil is starting to catch a bid this evening?

    We give DTN’s Brian Milne the last word on the actual policy:

    “Transferring SPR crude oil from emergency reserves to commercial tanks now would likely not help in lowering retail gasoline prices, or do so only marginally,” adding that “such a policy does not make sense.”

    Or put another way…

    Source: @AbeLopezAuthor

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 20:00

  • Democratic Party Captured By Environmentalists, Aiding Russia & China; Expert Claims
    Democratic Party Captured By Environmentalists, Aiding Russia & China; Expert Claims

    Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Environmentalists have captured the Democratic party and, in their push towards Net Zero, are aiding Russia and China, a senior fellow at RealClearFoundation, Rupert Darwall, says.

    Workers sort coal near a coal mine in Datong, China’s northern Shanxi Province on Nov. 3, 2021. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

    Furthermore, the push towards Net Zero has monopolized “the money,” as the group includes many Silicon Valley billionaires, intellectuals, and the mainstream media, Darwall told The Epoch Times and NTD’s Paul Greaney in an interview.

    In the interview, which aired on NTD’s Fresh Look America on Oct. 12, Darwall said a prime example of environmentalists taking over the Democratic party, and monopolizing the money, is California.

    There, billionaire environmentalists have instituted “an aggressive green agenda” that doesn’t negatively impact them but directly opposes the average California voters’ interests, he said.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) pose during their meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Sept. 15, 2022. (Alexandr Demyanchuk/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

    “Voters, and particularly in the Central Valley, who endure stifling temperatures in summer, had to pay ruthlessly high prices to condition their homes. They don’t have beachfront properties that are cooled from the Pacific.”

    Darwall added that because California is “essentially a one-party state,” voters can’t correct the “extreme environmental policies.” Plus, environmentalists use a version of McCarthyism to stifle opposition.

    In the 1950s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy accused thousands of innocent people and parties of disloyalty and allowing Communism to influence their lives and policies.

    Darwall said environmentalists today use a similar tactic when they label anyone who disagrees with them as a “climate denier.”

    “They know ‘denier’ is a very powerful term to be called. You may have seen a New York Times journalist interviewing the president of World Bank, and [the journalist asks] “are you a climate denier?’ It’s designed to chill debate. Not just chill it but prevent people questioning.”

    Green Imperialism

    If this progression towards Net Zero continues, Darwall said he knew who will win.

    “China and Russia. I mean, basically, the opponents of the West, geopolitically from stepping back, but they’re the big winners from the West deciding to bring itself to its knees. I mean, no modern economy can function without cheap, abundant energy and fossil fuel derived energy.”

    “We’re basically cutting off our legs. The pain will increase. People are blaming Putin for the terrible winter the Europeans are going to experience this this year. But the way I would put it is Net Zero is Vladimir Putin’s best ally.”

    Darwall further added that not only is the West hurting itself and helping Putin, but it’s also engaging in a sort of “green imperialism.”

    As mentioned above, the president of the World Bank had been attacked, specifically by Al Gore, Darwall said, because the World Bank was one of the “big providers of finance to Africa.”

    “There are over a billion Africans, and they are energy starved. Africa is an energy-starved continent. And the effect of Western green policies is to freeze, as it were, African Development at a very low level.”

    Darwall continued, “Grid-delivered electricity is the doorway to the modern world. If you compare the 19th century to the 20th century, the big change is electricity.

    “For Africa to flourish and develop, it needs reliable, cheap, grid-delivered electricity. And that is what people like Al Gore and John Kerry are denying Africans.”

    Darwall specified that people like Kerry and Gore are pursuing an agenda that geologically damages the West, its strategic interest, and the economic and social interests of less developed nations.

    Political Reckoning

    As a result, Darwall believed a political reckoning is coming to the West. He says that as gas prices and inflation continue to climb, voters will show their displeasure for extreme environmental policies and “vote for the other party.”

    That benefits Republicans, as under Donald Trump, the United States was an energy superpower.

    “In those four years he was president, America was an energy superpower. And now this energy superpower is going around to the Gulf, begging OPEC plus to increase oil production. It’s absolutely extraordinary.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 19:40

  • Biden Tells Iran Protesters "Keep Fighting" As Tehran Says Unrest Driven By US, Saudis
    Biden Tells Iran Protesters “Keep Fighting” As Tehran Says Unrest Driven By US, Saudis

    Iran protests have been persisting and growing fiercer since the September 16 death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by police in Tehran for not adhering to the country’s strict Islamic dress code. The “anti-hijab” protests which are raging and lately taking over university campuses across various cities are now coming under increased international media coverage. Now in their fifth week, the protests and ongoing clashes with security forces have left over 230 Iranians dead, including reportedly with casualties among police as well.

    Multiple hundreds of demonstrators have also been arrested. Increasingly, Iranian authorities are blaming the Islamic Republic’s “enemies” – including the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia – for fomenting what have morphed into raging anti-government unrest. This theme of Tehran is likely to gain more traction among broader swathes of the Iranian population which have by and large remained on the sidelines after on Monday President Joe Biden issued a message of support for the protests…

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

    Biden made the off-the-cuff statements to activists and reporters, describing of his July visit to Saudi Arabia, “Everyone thought I went to the Middle East because of oil, it was because of Iran.” Biden praised the “incredible courage” of the protesters, and when asked by an activist to issue a message to Iranians in the streets, he said: “Keeping fighting, we’re with you.”

    This past week has seen the first instances of the US president personally issuing such specific support to the anti-regime protests, and it’s certainly going to be noticed in Tehran, given officials there have already said the “riots” are a US-backed plot. 

    Biden had also said days ago in a visit to a California community college:

    “Iran has to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights,” Biden said.

    “I want you to know that we stand with the citizens, the brave women of Iran, for real, for real,” Biden said, “who right now are demonstrating to secure their very basic, fundamental rights.”

    Speaking about the death of Amini, he said, “it stunned me what it awakened in Iran. It’s awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted in a long, long time.”

    Via CNN

    It’s very likely the protesters themselves are increasingly wary of ways in which their movement faces the potential to be externally hijacked (whether real or perceived). Already the government is pointing to instances of protests being encouraged from the outside. This was a key talking point on Tuesday from Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori-Jahromi in an address given at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabai University.

    The official cited Western as well as Gulf Arab attempts to beam propaganda into Iran via state-funded satellite broadcasts. As AFP and Iran state media described of his words:

    Bahadori-Jahromi said Persian-language media outlets and platforms based outside Iran were being used to “put pressure” on Tehran.

    “Countries are willing to pay from their own pockets to start Persian-language media, while they do not know Persian at all and want to put pressure on us,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

    Earlier Tuesday, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi accused Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia of backing such foreign media.

    “Social media and television channels, especially the ones affiliated with regional movements including Saudi Arabia and some Western countries,” have created “false atmospheres”, he said, without identifying any of the outlets.

    This has further been a theme of government officials and some Iran-based pundits appearing on US networks like CNN.

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    They liken what’s happening inside Iran to an externally driven regime change project, akin to the way events spiraled in Libya and Syria during the “Arab Spring” of the prior decade.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 19:20

  • Buchanan: Where US And Ukrainian War Aims Collide
    Buchanan: Where US And Ukrainian War Aims Collide

    Authored by Pat Buchanan,

    To President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine, Crimea and the Donbas are national territories whose retrieval justifies all-out war to expel the invading armies of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

    Yet, who controls Crimea and the Donbas has, in the history of U.S.-Russian relations, never been an issue to justify a war between us.

    America has never had a vital interest in who rules in Kyiv.

    Through the 19th and almost all of the 20th century, Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire or the USSR, ruled from Moscow. And that condition presented no issue of concern to the USA, 5,000 miles away.

    For us, the crucial concern in this Ukraine-Russia war is not who ends up in control of Crimea and the Donbas, but that the U.S. not be sucked into a war with Russia that could escalate into a world war and a nuclear war.

    That is America’s paramount interest in this crisis.

    Nothing in Eastern Europe would justify an all-out U.S. war with Russia. After all, Moscow’s control of Eastern and Central Europe was the situation that existed throughout the Cold War from 1945 to 1989.

    And the U.S. never militarily challenged that result of World War II.

    We lived with it. When Hungarians rose up in 1956 for freedom and independence, the U.S. refused to intervene. Rather than risk war with Russia, the Hungarian patriots were left to their fate by President Dwight Eisenhower.

    How the world has changed in the 21st century.

    Today, while the U.S. is under no obligation to go to war for Ukraine, we are obliged, under the NATO treaty, to go to war if Slovakia, Czechia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia are attacked.

    And, though Kyiv is not a member of NATO, the U.S. finds itself the financier and principal armorer of Ukraine in a war with Russia over Crimea and the Donbas, which could involve the use of nuclear weapons for the first time since Nagasaki.

    In short, our vital interest — avoidance of a U.S. war with a nuclear-armed Russia — may soon clash with the strategic war goals of Ukraine — i.e., full retrieval of Crimea and the Donbas.

    If Putin is serious about an indefinite war to hold Crimea and the Donbas as Russian territory, how far are we willing to go to aid Ukraine in driving the Russians out and taking these lands back?

    What appears to be emerging is a situation something like this:

    As U.S. weapons help drive Russian soldiers out of the occupied regions of Ukraine, Russia and Putin are being driven into a corner, where the alternatives left to them shrink to two: accept defeat, humiliation and all its consequences, or escalate to hold onto what they have.

    At some point, escalation to prevent defeat can require crossing the nuclear threshold. And Putin and his retinue have said as much.

    Bottom line: At some point in this conflict, achieving the war aims of Ukraine must force Moscow to consider escalation or accept defeat.

    For Russia, the worse the war situation is, the sooner comes the day when Putin must either play his ace of spades to avoid defeat, or accept defeat, humiliation and his potential overthrow in Moscow.

    As Russia’s use of nuclear weapons could lead to a war that could involve the United States, Kyiv’s relentless pursuit of its vital interests — retrieval of all the lands taken by Russia, including the Donbas and Crimea — will eventually imperil vital U.S. interests.

    If Kyiv, with U.S. weapons and support, pushes the Russians out of Crimea and the Donbas, Kyiv pushes its war with Russia closer and closer to a nuclear war.

    As Kyiv seeks to reconquer all its territory lost to Russia since 2014, it pushes Russia closer and closer toward consideration of the only way to avert defeat and national humiliation, use of tactical nuclear weapons, which means moving closer to war with the United States.

    The higher the casualty rates for Putin’s Russia, the worse the defeats inflicted on Russia by U.S.-armed and -equipped Ukrainians, the greater the likelihood Russia plays its ace of spades, nuclear weapons, to stave off defeat and humiliation and ensure the survival of the regime.

    In short, the closer Putin comes to defeat, the closer we come to nuclear war, for that increasingly appears to be the only way Putin can prevent a Russian defeat, disgrace and humiliation.

    Americans had best begin to consider what is the outcome to this war that can end the bloodshed, restore much of Ukraine to Kyiv, but not be seen as a historic humiliation for Russia.

    Some Americans see this war as an opportunity to inflict a defeat and disgrace on Putin’s regime and Russia. Those seeking such goals should recognize that the closer they come to achieving their goals, the closer we come to Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.

    Recall: President John F. Kennedy sought to provide an honorable way out of the Cuban missile crisis for the Soviet dictator and nation who precipitated it.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 19:00

  • "This Is Unsustainable": NYC Homeless Shelter Population Hits Record High
    “This Is Unsustainable”: NYC Homeless Shelter Population Hits Record High

    It’s a ticking time bomb. 

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency earlier this month as the city’s homeless shelter population exploded to a record high due to an endless stream of migrants bussed up from the southern border.

    NYC’s Department of Homeless Services reported 62,174 people are now living in the city’s shelters, exceeding the previous record of 61,415 set in January 2019, according to New York Daily News. 

    Adams’ administration has blamed the shelter chaos on an influx of migrants from border states. He has forecasted a billion-dollar cost to house and provide social services to the migrants. 

    “This is unsustainable. The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities,” Adams recently warned. “Local government cannot be the solution for national crisis – especially manufactured crisis.” 

    Construction is underway for a migrant humanitarian emergency center at Randall’s Island. It would be the first stop where migrants bussed from border states to NYC would be processed. 

    The city’s shelter system is cracking, and nearly every homeless shelter is at full capacity as the cold season begins. 

    In addition to setting a new population record, the average length of stay has also surged to all-time highs, with single adults now spending an average of 509 days in shelters, according to city data. Families with kids are, on average, in a shelter even longer — 534 days — and adult families spend an astonishing 855 days in shelters on average, the data shows. — New York Daily News

    The official count as of last week is around 19,000 Central and South Americans have entered the city homeless shelter intake system. Adams said the influx of migrants could soon send the shelter population above 100,000. 

    But it’s not just migrants adding to the count, Kathryn Kliff of the Legal Aid Society told CBS News:

    “The fact that we are at a record high number of people in shelters is not just a result of recent migrants – it’s a result of vast homelessness in New York City and the city failing to prioritize affordable housing for new Yorkers, and this has been going on for years.” 

    NYC’s homeless say migrants are being prioritized over them. 

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    Adams’ office has considered renting out thousands of hotels and even contracting a cruise ship for six months to house the migrants. 

    What’s even more astonishing is that mainstream corporate media blamed the migrant influx on Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, though as we pointed out, one Democrat-led Texas border city has been shipping thousands of illegals to sanctuary cities like New York City and Chicago. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 18:40

  • Catalog Of Deceit: A List Of JB Pritzker's Falsehoods & Whoppers
    Catalog Of Deceit: A List Of JB Pritzker’s Falsehoods & Whoppers

    Authored by Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints,

    Truth is easy to hide in politics today. The number of crises and governmental failures in America and Illinois are simply overwhelming — far beyond what most voters can be expected to see. In Illinois, that blindness is worsened by a shrinking media unwilling to question.

    Gov. JB Pritzker has exploited those circumstances relentlessly and successfully. The record must be corrected.

    Straight to the point, here’s our list of minor deceptions to outright lies we’ve seen from him. Suggest additions that we have overlooked in the comment section.

    1. Gerrymandered Maps. “The Illinois Governor’s whopper on redistricting is one for the ages, wrote the Wall Street Journal.” Specifically, Pritzker promised during his first campaign to veto any redistricting map “drafted or created by legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs or allies.” But he proceeded to sign what is widely seen as among the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, and his broken promise, wrote the Journal, “will now take its rightful place in the annals of political whoppers beside George H.W. Bush’s famous pledge not to raise taxes.”

    2. Claims that federal bailout money had nothing to do with improved budget situation. “Let me set the record straight for you,” Pritzker said. “State budget surpluses would exist even without the money we received from the federal government.”  That’s among his most audacious whoppers, explained in detail here.

    3. False growth claims. “Numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Illinois is now a state on the rise with a growing population,” Pritzker said. We explained here in detail why that is false.

    4. Claim that US Constitution prohibits Illinois pension reform. Pritzker says that a state constitutional amendment to allow for meaningful pension reform is “fantasy.” That claim, which he uses to justify inaction on pension reform, is flat wrong. Pensions and other contracts may be reformed within reasonable limits, just as other states have done, as we’ve explained and courts have ruled.

    5. False claims about pension buyouts. Under Illinois’ pension buyout programs, Pritzker claimed in 2019, the state will save “billions and billions,” perhaps $25 billion. That claimed contradicted what the state had said in bond offering documents and nothing remotely close to supporting those savings was ever produced, despite our requests for any evidence. Alleged savings from it were “plucked out of thin air,” as one journal for government professionals put it.

    6. Absurd claims about savings from consolidating some pension administration. Pritzker in 2019 claimed that his new law to consolidate administration of local pensions was a “banner accomplishment in Illinois’ long history” that showed “monumental willingness to prioritize responsible and sustainable fiscal management.” It was a wise step but savings will be tiny, as we explained here. And it now turns out that the law has yet to be fully implemented, being held up in litigation.

    7. Numerous false or unfounded claims about “the science” on Covid. We have a full, new column on those here.

    8. “Strongest financial position in decades.” That’s a repeated claim about where Illinois stands. The best way to look at the state’s overall financial performance is the state’s Net Position, basically, it’s net worth – as shown in actual, audited financial statements that include growing debts, which is where Illinois’ crisis lies. That’s exactly what Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza focused on – before Pritzker took office. Net Position has plummeted year in and year out since for twenty years, through 2021, the last year reported. Improvement may be expected for 2022 but that’s only because of a deluge of federal bailout money and an exceptionally good year for the markets, which bolstered pension funds. Pritzker often cites recent credit upgrades to support his claim. But the credit upgrades resulted largely from the federal bailouts, which drove up inflation and interest rates, more than cancelling out any interest savings that might have resulted from the upgrades. Moreover, Illinois would need around 20 more upgrades to truly get back to the “strongest financial position in decades.”

    9. The Kyle Rittenhouse lie. After Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted for shooting three men in the Kenosha riots, Pritzker issued a statement saying “shooting unarmed citizens is fundamentally wrong.” In truth, one had a pistol pointed at Rittenhouse at the moment Rittenhouse fired, captured in video. More fundamentally, Pritzker knows full well that it is entirely appropriate and lawful to use a gun in self-defense when facing imminent bodily harm of any kind, which the jury rightly concluded was shown by the evidence. For this defamatory lie, Pritzker should have apologized.

    10. Caps on SALT deduction as a middle class issue. Last April, Pritzker and governors from six other high tax blue states sent a letter to President Biden asking for elimination of the cap on SALT deductions for federal income tax calculations with the central claim being that the caps hurt the middle class. That’s completely false. Pritzker and the other governors were trying to alleviate the particulary harsh impact of the caps on high earners in high tax states. In truth, the cap on SALT deductions was a windfall for the middle class and hammered high income taxpayers.

    11. Unfounded claims to Congress about masks and COVID. In July 2020, before Covid had fully impacted Illinois, Pritzker testified before Congress that he had “created a path for others to follow” through his mask mandate, and advocated for a federal mask mandate. In truth, he had no empirical support for that claim even at the time, and evidence has shown that masks were ineffective.

    12. Persistent claim that Illinois “was facing unprecedented challenges because we had a Republican governor who decided to hold the state budget hostage.” That’s a whopper. As we have explained in detail, while Bruce Rauner harmed the state by handling the budget impasse poorly, the state was in abysmal shape when he took office. Fiscal problems soared when a Democratic supermajority allowed a temporary income tax increase to expire during Rauner’s term, and problems abated when the biggest tax increase in state history passed concurrently with a budget and borrowed $7 billion to pay bills, moving debt from one credit card to another.

    13. Claim that Illinois budget surpluses are “projected for years to come,” made before the U.S. House Oversight Committee. No such projections exist. All budget projections show deficits returning.

    14. Blaming Republicans for failure to pay down federal loans for the state’s unemployment fund. “Every republican voted against paying down our states debts,” Pritzker said earlier this year. No, Republicans unanimously opposed the bill authorizing a partial repayment because they wanted all of the $4.5 billion paid off, not just $2.7 billion as the bill provided.

    15. False claim that federal law prevented use of pandemic relief money for paying down unemployment fund debt. Debt owed by the unemployment trust fund has been ignored in state budgets. When asked last year why it wasn’t reduced using funds from federal government under ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act, Pritzker said, “You can’t actually use ARPA funds according to the rules of ARPA. That’s patently false.

    16. Child Care and unemployment. “The biggest thing preventing people from getting back to work is child care and sometimes elderly care,” Pritzker said last year. That’s highly debatable, at best. There are many reasons why people aren’t returning to work.

    17. Pension debt. “We have been paying down the pension obligation,” Pritzker said last year. That’s utter nonsense. The unfunded pension liability has grown and grown every year and has peaked under Pritzker because annual pension contributions are not enough even to allow the pensions to tread water. The most recent year is an exception by some measures but only because of extraordinary market gains in the state’s 2022 fiscal year that are now rapidly being reversed.

    18. Blaming Covid for fiscal issues. Last year, Pritzker wrote, “COVID-19 temporarily interrupted the progress we were making to undo the damage left behind by Gov. Bruce Rauner, who saddled state residents with massive additional deficit spending and caused the state to suffer eight credit rating downgrades in just four years.” No, the state came out ahead thanks to excessive federal assistance.

    19. Claim that GOP opposed all federal pandemic relief. In December 2020, Pritzker said about half of Congressional Republicans won’t vote for “any” state and local help, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In truth, the CARES Act had already passed both the House and Senate unanimously and gave $150 billion to state and local governments. Trillions more that indirectly helped the state had been authorized with bipartisan votes, and the Omnibus Spending Bill had passed the House and Senate with overwhelming, bipartisan majorities including an extremely generous $82 billion for schools and $14 billion for regional transit.

    20. Boasting about high college financial aid application rates by high schoolers and crediting state officials. In truth, all high schoolers were required to do so by law.

    21. The “very fine people” lie. In his Florida presidential teaser speech, he repeated the claim that “Trump said there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ at the Charlottesville white supremacy rally.” That one has been discredited over and over again, even by two CNN hosts.

    22. Bleach to stop Covid. Also in his Florida speech, he repeated the claim that Trump suggested ingesting bleach to stop COVID. Newsweek and even left-leaning PolitiFact, among many others, have shown that he didn’t.

    23. “Don’t say gay.” Pritzker repeated the lie about what Florida’s restriction on teaching gender identity says. “Under the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ agenda,” Pritzker said, “DeSantis wants to codify a modern day LGBTQ McCarthyism, forcing teachers to hide their marriages and children to out their peers at school.” The bill says no such thing. It only says classroom curriculum from kindergarten through third grade should not include teaching little children about gender identity. Two-thirds of Americans support that. “This polling reflects what our common sense already tells us,” one pollster said. “Only fanatics think the classroom curriculum from kindergarten through 3rd grade should include teaching little children about gender identity.”

    24. White nationalists everywhere. We have an epidemic of young men enamored with white nationalism,” Pritzker said in Florida. There’s not a shred of evidence supporting anything remotely close to that.

    25. Schilling in 2021 for what Pritzker and President Biden called a “$3.5 trillion infrastructure” bill. That bill in fact was “one of the greatest financial cons in fiscal history,” said the Wall Street Journal. It was far more than $3.5 trillion and it wasn’t infrastructure.

    26. “Comprehensive” property tax relief for everybody. He made that claim earlier this year regarding legislation that in fact only provided relief for senior, veteran and disabled homeowners, shifting the burden to others, with no overall effect on property taxes paid.

    27. Claim that the recent Dobbs decision by the US Supreme Court eviscerated privacy rights. In fact, truth both the leaked draft opinion and the final opinion went to great lengths to say the decision was limited to abortion and had no effect on other privacy rights.

    28. An April TV ad claiming he lowered gasoline, grocery and property taxes. No, his tax relief only delayed a gasoline tax increase, temporarily lowered grocery taxes until after the election and provided a on-time rebate on property taxes.

    29. Blaming Senate Republicans for failure to appoint Prison Review Board members. The Republicans simply didn’t have enough members to do that.

    30. False claim that federal bailout money cannot be used to repay Illinois’ loan from the federal government for its unemployment trust fund. We wrote about that whopper here and much of the loan remains unpaid.

    31. False claims about reduced debt. Earlier this year, he said this, which is typical of claims he often makes: “Every year over the last three years we have paid off debts by our predecessors that have been a drag on Illinois finances, in some instances for decades…. reduced the burden that would have fallen on future generations and stopped irresponsible practices that would have kicked the can down the road.” That’s preposterous, flatly contradicting what both the state’s auditors and Comptroller Mendoza say. Illinois’ balance sheet sank further into the hole during each of the three years since Pritzker took office in January 2019.

    32. Toilets. Pritzker and his wife had five toilets removed from a mansion they own to claim that it was uninhabitable in a fraudulent attempt to reduce property taxes.

    33. Balanced Budgets. Pritzker as well as countless Republicans and Democrats have made the claim every year, and every year we have documented ad infinitum why they are not balanced. They are not balanced either on the cash basis on which they are prepared or on the far more important accrual basis, which reflect growing debt, which is the core of Illinois’ fiscal crisis.

    Wake up, Illinois.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 18:20

  • Twitter Is Fine With Pfizer Propaganda, But Comic Books About The US Border Crisis Are Not Allowed
    Twitter Is Fine With Pfizer Propaganda, But Comic Books About The US Border Crisis Are Not Allowed

    Only a couple weeks ago, corporate Pharma giant Pfizer partnered with Marvel and widely promoted a new one-shot comic book featuring classic Avengers heroes leaping into action as children watch from the sidelines in a hospital.  The children learn that in order to become like the Avengers they don’t need to fight villains, all they need to do is get their new covid mRNA vaccines.  The propaganda campaign was all over Twitter’s social media platform and the ethics of the source was never questioned.

    The book has been immediately dated due to Pfizer’s recent admission under oath at the EU Parliament that their covid vaccines were never tested in the prevention of viral transmission, upending months of claims that getting the vax meant saving grandma and grandpa from exposure to the disease.  The claim that the vaccines were “proven” to prevent transmission was also used as the basis for covid passport schemes in nations across the west, trampling the personal rights of millions.  

    Pfizer essentially gets to say and do what they want on Twitter, and Marvel has the same luxury.  Neither company has anything to fear in terms of their voices being censored due to the political leanings they might exhibit, the issues they address or the fallacies they might spread.  Some groups are protected because they have the “correct” politics.

    In yet another incident which showcases the ideological bias of a platform which has long claimed to have never targeted conservatives, it appears that Twitter is not so favorable towards comic books that veer away from leftist ideology.

    Comic book writer/creator and Eisner award winner Mike Baron, known for his popular work on The Punisher, has had to go independent in order to continue telling pro-military, pro-police and pro-conservative stories.  Marvel has since neutered the Punisher franchise, long hated by leftists because they consider the character to be a symbol for the political right.  Baron can’t make Punisher comics anymore, so he created his own characters as a means to explore topics which are important for conservatives. 

    His latest effort is a book called ‘Private American’, which tells the story of a US border overrun by illegal immigration and human trafficking, a border patrol agency overwhelmed and a federal government that does nothing to help.  The hero, a Cuban American and army veteran, decides to step in to thwart the criminal threat.

    If we set aside the comic book element, it’s basically a documentation of current events.  

    Without the backing of large corporate marketing machines like Marvel, Baron has to turn to social media to promote his work.  Unfortunately, Twitter has not been receptive.  The account for Private American has been permanently banned and Baron is not allowed to use any alternative accounts to discuss his creative efforts.  Twitter claims that the comic violates its terms of service and that the Private American account is used for “abusive behavior.”  No examples of violations have yet been provided by the social media company.

    When asked what the real reason for the ban might be, Baron and his team had this to say:

    “We think the ban is most likely due to the content being pro-border control. We have seen our last three projects deal with some kind of big tech censorship: Florida Man was banned from the comic books subreddit (with 2.7 million comicbook fans) because moderators loath conservative creators. Facebook rejected our ads for Thin Blue Line (a pro police graphic novel), until FOX News did a story about it and they relented, saying there was violence depicted but upon another review, it was acceptable. Now Twitter has said we use multiple accounts for “abusive behavior” and to evade banning.

    If we were using multiple accounts to abuse people, then why not ban ALL of the accounts I operate?  We can show proof that all of our Private American posts are promotional or only share news stories dealing with the border chaos.

    When we asked Twitter to be more specific of what we could do to remedy this, they never responded again.”

    The purging of conservatives from social media is real, and certain issues can be declared taboo at any given moment to the advantage of the political left.  If something makes them look bad they don’t have to debate the details or defend their policies, all they have to do is silence the discussion.  This includes censoring writers and artists that simply address the existence of a problem from a non-leftist perspective.

    “Ten years ago, this book wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow,” Baron says. “But in today’s hyper-politicized climate, with a press that won’t do its job, the simple act of stating the obvious truth that borders are necessary is considered forbidden speech.”

    A lawsuit was filed in May of this year against top ranking Biden Admin officials, citing evidence that indicates potential collusion with Big Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter.  Internal documents released by Republican Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana suggest that the White House used connections and influence within these companies to censor and ban accounts which disagreed with their official narratives.  

    The DHS “Government Disinformation Board”, which was disbanded after only three weeks due to massive public backlash, was meant to become an extension of the White House coordination with social media companies.

    Perhaps the border crisis has been added to the Biden list of forbidden topics?  Specifically, the concept of “private Americans” standing up and doing something about it?  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/18/2022 – 18:00

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