Sep 19

Today’s News 19th September 2023

  • Beijing Furious At German FM's Dictator Remark: "Absurd Provocation" Insulting China's "Political Dignity"
    Beijing Furious At German FM’s Dictator Remark: “Absurd Provocation” Insulting China’s “Political Dignity”

    China on Monday reacted angrily after over the weekend a clip of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock referring to President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” went viral. Beijing summoned the German ambassador to China to lodge formal protest, saying it is “extremely dissatisfied” with the remarks which were given to Fox News during Baerbock’s visit to the US.

    China said it has “made serious inquiries” with the German government over the interview. Additionally in a daily briefing foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called the comments from Germany’s top diplomat “absurd” and blasted the “open political provocation” as the words “violate China’s political dignity”.

    Baerbock in the Thursday Fox interview had said “We will support Ukraine as long as it takes,” but then followed with: “If Putin were to win this war, what sign would that be for other dictators in the world, like Xi, like the Chinese president? Therefore, Ukraine has to win this war.”

    The dictator comment immediately grabbed world headlines, with the clip being shared widely on social media.

    “(The comments) are extremely absurd and are a serious infringement of China’s political dignity and an open political provocation,” China’s foreign ministry said.

    China far and away accounts for the bulk of all imports into Germany, with bilateral trade last year hitting record $337 billion.

    On Friday Baerbock met with her US counterpart Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the White House. Blinken said in a press conference afterward that the US and Germany are converging on their approaches to China.

    “We also discussed our common approaches to China, and we very much welcome Germany’s China strategy.  It is very coincident with our own,” Blinken told reporters. “I think it reflects something that we’ve seen around the world, both in Europe, in Asia, as well as in the United States, which is a growing convergence in our approaches to China.”  

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

    He then emphasized while alongside the German FM, “Both of us, among other things, share the goal when it comes to our economic relationships of de-risking, not decoupling.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/19/2023 – 02:45

  • Libya Dam Disaster Shows Horrific Consequences Of US-NATO Imperialism
    Libya Dam Disaster Shows Horrific Consequences Of US-NATO Imperialism

    Authored by Chris Hedges via Common Dreams,

    “We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton famously quipped when Muammar Gaddafi, after seven months of U.S. and NATO bombing, was overthrown in 2011 and killed by a mob who sodomized him with a bayonet. But Gaddafi would not be the only one to die. Libya, once the most prosperous and one of the most stable countries in Africa, a country with free healthcare and education, the right for all citizens to a home, subsidized electricity, water and gasoline, along with the lowest infant mortality rate and highest life expectancy on the continent, along with one of the highest literacy rates, swiftly fragmented into warring factions. There are currently two rival regimes battling for control in Libya, along with an array of rogue militias.

    The chaos that followed Western intervention saw weapons from the country’s arsenals flood the black market, with many snatched up by groups such as the Islamic State. Civil society ceased to function. Journalists captured images of migrants from Nigeria, Senegal and Eritrea being beaten and sold as slaves to work in fields or on construction sites. Libya’s infrastructure, including its electrical grids, aquifers, oil fields and dams, fell into disrepair.

    A general view of the flooded city of Derna, Libya. via AP

    And when the torrential rains from Storm Daniel — the climate crisis being another gift to Africa from the industrialized world — overwhelmed two decrepit dams, walls of water 20 feet high raced down to flood the port of Derna and Benghazi, leaving up to 20,000 dead according to Abdulmenam Al-Gaiti, Mayor of Derna, and some 10,000 missing.

    “The fragmentation of the country’s disaster management and disaster response mechanisms, as well as deteriorating infrastructure, exacerbated the enormity of the challenges. The political situation is a driver of risk,” said Professor Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization.

    Taalas told reporters last Thursday that “most of the human casualties” would have been avoided if there had been a “normally operating meteorological service” which “would have issued the [necessary] warnings and also the emergency management of this would have been able to carry out evacuations of the people.”

    Western regime-change, carried out in the name of human rights under the doctrine of R2P (Responsibility to Protect), destroyed Libya – as it did Iraq – as a unified and stable nation. The flood victims are part of the tens of thousands of Libyan dead resulting from our “humanitarian intervention,” which rendered disaster relief non-existent. We bear responsibility for Libya’s prolonged suffering. But once we wreak havoc on a country in the name of saving its persecuted — regardless of whether they are being persecuted or not — we forget they exist.

    Karl Popper in “The Open Society and Its Enemies” warned against utopian engineering, massive social transformations, almost always implanted by force, and led by those who believe they are endowed with a revealed truth. These utopian engineers carry out the wholesale destruction of systems, institutions and social and cultural structures in a vain effort to achieve their vision. In the process, they dismantle the self-correcting mechanisms of incremental and piecemeal reform that are impediments to that grand vision. History is replete with murderous utopian social engineering — the Jacobins, the communists, the fascists and now, in our own age, the globalists, or neoliberal imperialists.

    Libya, like Iraq and Afghanistan, fell victim to the self-delusions peddled by humanitarian interventionists — Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice. The Obama administration armed and backed an insurgent force that they believed would do the bidding of the U.S. Obama in a recent post urged people to support aid agencies to alleviate the suffering of the people of Libya, a plea that ignited an understandable backlash on social media.

    There is no official tally of the casualties in Libya that have resulted directly and indirectly from the violence in Libya over the last 12 years. This is exacerbated by the fact that NATO failed to investigate casualties resulting from its seven month bombardment of the country in 2011. But the total figure of those killed and injured is likely in the tens of thousands. Action on Armed Violence recorded “8,518 deaths and injuries from explosive violence in Libya” from 2011 to 2020, 6,027 of which were civilian casualties.

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

    In 2020, a statement published by seven U.N. agencies reported that “Close to 400,000 Libyans have been displaced since the start of the conflict nine years ago — around half of them within the past year, since the attack on the capital, Tripoli, [by Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar’s forces] started.”

    “The Libyan economy has been battered by the [civil war], the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” the World Bank reported in April of this year. “The country’s fragility is having far-reaching economic and social impact. GDP per capita declined by 50 percent between 2011 and 2020 while it could have increased by 68 percent if the economy had followed its pre-conflict trend,” the report says. “This suggests that Libya’s income per capita could have been 118 percent higher without the conflict. Economic growth in 2022 remained low and volatile due to conflict-related disruptions in oil production.”

    Amnesty International’s 2022 Libya report also makes for grim reading. “Militias, armed groups and security forces continued to arbitrarily detain thousands of people,” it says. “Scores of protesters, lawyers, journalists, critics and activists were rounded up and subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and forced ‘confessions’ on camera.” Amnesty describes a country where militias operate with impunity, human rights abuses, including kidnappings and sexual violence, are widespread. It adds that “EU-backed Libyan coastguards and the Stability Support Authority militia intercepted thousands of refugees and migrants at sea and forcibly returned them to detention in Libya. Detained migrants and refugees were subjected to torture, unlawful killings, sexual violence and forced labour.”

    Reports by the U.N. Support Mission to Libya (UNSMIL) are no less dire.

    Stockpiles of weapons and ammunition — estimated to be between 150,000 and 200,000 tons — were looted from Libya with many being trafficked to neighboring states. In Mali, weapons from Libya fuelled a dormant insurgency by the Tuareg, destabilizing the country. It ultimately led to a military coup and a jihadist insurgency which supplanted the Tuareg, as well as a protracted war between the Malian government and jihadists. This triggered another French military intervention and led to 400,000 people being displaced. Weapons and ammunition from Libya also made their way into other parts of the Sahel including Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

    The misery and carnage, which rippled out from a dismembered Libya, was unleashed in the name of democratization, nation-building, promoting the rule of law and human rights.

    The pretext for the assault was that Gaddafi was about to launch a military operation to massacre civilians in Benghazi where rebellious forces had seized power. It had as much substance as the charge that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, another example of utopian social engineering that left over a million Iraqi dead and millions more driven from their homes.

    Gaddafi — who I interviewed for two hours in April 1995 near the gutted remains of his home that was bombed by U.S. warplanes in 1986 — and Hussein were targeted not because of what they did to their own people, although both could be brutal. They were targeted because their nations had large oil reserves and were independent of Western control. They renegotiated more favorable contracts for their nations with Western oil producers and awarded oil contracts to China and Russia. Gaddafi also gave the Russian fleet access to the port of Benghazi.

    Hillary Clinton’s emails, obtained via a freedom of information request and published by WikiLeaks, also expose France’s concerns about Gaddafi’s efforts to “provide Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French Fran (CFA).” Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime adviser to Clinton, reported on his conversations with French intelligence officers about the motivations of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the chief architect of the attack on Libya. Blumenthal writes that the French president seeks “a greater share of Libyan oil”, increased French influence in the region, an improvement in his domestic political standing, a reassertion of French military power and an end to Gaddafi’s attempts to supplant French influence in “Francophone Africa.”

    Sarkozy, who has been convicted on two separate cases of corruption and breach of campaign finance laws, faces a historic trial in 2025 for allegedly receiving millions of euros in secret illegal campaign contributions from Gadaffi, to assist with his successful 2007 presidential bid.

    These were the real “crimes” in Libya. But the real crimes always remain hidden, papered over by florid rhetoric about democracy and human rights.

    The American experiment, built on slavery, began with a genocidal campaign against Native Americans that was exported to the Philippines and, later, nations such as Vietnam. The narratives we tell ourselves about World War II, largely to justify our right to intervene around the globe, are a lie. It was the Soviet Union that destroyed the German army long before we landed at Normandy. We firebombed cities in Germany and Japan killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The war in the South Pacific, where one of my uncles fought, was bestial, characterized by rabid racism, mutilation, torture and the routine execution of prisoners. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were egregious war crimes. The U.S. routinely destroys democracies that nationalize U.S. and European corporations as in Chile, Iran and Guatemala, replacing them with repressive military regimes. Washington supported the genocides in Guatemala and East Timor. It embraces the crime of preemptive war. There is little in our history to justify the claim of unique American virtues.

    The nightmares we orchestrated in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are minimized or ignored by the press while the benefits are exaggerated or fabricated. And since the U.S. does not recognize the International Criminal Court, there is no chance of any American leader being held accountable for their crimes.

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

    Human rights advocates have become a vital cog in the imperial project. The extension of U.S. power, they argue, is a force for good. This is the thesis of Samantha Power’s book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.” They champion the R2P doctrine, unanimously adopted in 2005 at the U.N. World Summit. Under this doctrine, states are required to respect the human rights of their citizens. When these rights are violated, then sovereignty is nullified. Outside forces are permitted to intervene. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the former president of the U.N. General Assembly, warned in 2009 that R2P could be misused “to justify arbitrary and selective interventions against the weakest states.”

    “Since the end of the Cold War, the idea of human rights has been made into a justification for intervention by the world’s leading economic and military powers, above all, the United States, in countries that are vulnerable to their attacks,” writes Jean Bricmont in “Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War.” “Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, [a] large part of the left was often complicit in this ideology of intervention, discovering new ‘Hitlers’ as the need arose, and denouncing antiwar arguments as appeasement on the model of Munich in 1938.”

    The creed of humanitarian intervention is selective. Compassion is extended to “worthy” victims while “unworthy” victims are ignored. Military intervention is good for Iraqis, Afghans or Libyans, but not for Palestinians or Yeminis. Human rights are supposedly sacrosanct when discussing Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, but irrelevant in our offshore penal colonies, the world’s largest open air prison in Gaza or our drone-infested war zones. The persecution of dissidents and journalists is a crime in China or Russia, but not when the targets are Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.

    Utopian social engineering is always catastrophic. It creates power vacuums that augment the suffering of those the utopianists claim to protect. The moral bankruptcy of the liberal class, which I chronicle in “Death of the Liberal Class,” is complete. Liberals have prostituted their supposed values to the Empire. Incapable of taking responsibility for the carnage they inflict, they clamor for more destruction and death to save the world.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/19/2023 – 02:00

  • Antifa Discussed Plans To Firebomb Federal Buildings, Jan. 6 Court Filing Contends
    Antifa Discussed Plans To Firebomb Federal Buildings, Jan. 6 Court Filing Contends

    Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A group of self-identified Antifa supporters who wanted “civil war and revolution” on Jan. 6 sought online blueprints for federal buildings so they could firebomb them and discussed using a Roman legion formation to attack police lines, a Sept. 15 court filing alleges.

    Protesters gather around a fire they built in the street as they make themselves heard following the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2017, in Washington. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    Defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, included the information in a renewed U.S. District Court push (pdf) to compel federal prosecutors to produce all bodycam footage and video filmed by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) undercover officers on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Mr. Pope, 37, publisher of the news website Free State Kansas, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, covering the protest and subsequent violence.

    Federal prosecutors charged him with civil disorder, corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, impeding ingress or egress in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. He faces a July 2024 trial.

    According to Pope’s latest motion, MPD officers made a traffic stop at 10:15 a.m. on Jan. 6 of a vehicle containing three Antifa operatives: Jonathan Kelly, Logan Grimes, and Dempsey Mikula.

    “Undercover officers who stopped their vehicle said they had received reports that the individuals were carrying weapons,” Mr. Pope wrote. “No footage of this incident has been produced by the government in discovery. However, Kelly live-streamed part of the police stop to Facebook.”

    Mr. Kelly refused to allow police to search his vehicle, so they sent for a dog to sniff the vehicle for contraband.

    “A little over ten minutes into Kelly’s livestream, a team of uniformed MPD officers showed up to replace the undercover police,” Mr. Pope wrote. “These uniformed officers wore body cameras and instructed Kelly, Grimes, and Mikula to get out of the vehicle while they waited for the dog to arrive.”

    At least two of the undercover officers who made the traffic stop were wearing colorful bracelets that identified them as members of MPD’s Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU), which gathered intelligence and shot video around Washington and at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

    Nearly 30 members of the Electronic Surveillance Unit were assigned to duty on Jan. 6, 2021, some of whom were gathering evidence on crowd activity. Members wore a special band on their left wrist to identify themselves as part of the unit, according to the MPD’s 96-page Jan. 6 action plan.

    ‘We Are Antifa’

    The trio of Antifa adherents created a video of themselves singing “We are Antifa” on their drive from Michigan to Washington for the Jan. 6 events, according to a video exhibit filed by Mr. Pope with his motion.

    Metropolitan Police arrested Mr. Grimes—who identifies as a woman and uses the name Leslie—for carrying a pistol without a license and being in possession of a high-capacity magazine and unregistered ammunition, according to Mr. Pope.

    The U.S. Department of Justice “has deemed the Grimes arrest relevant enough to the Jan. 6 cases to produce body camera footage from the officer who transported Grimes from the scene of the arrest to the booking facility,” Mr. Pope wrote, “but the government has withheld recordings from the many other officers who were on scene during the stop, vehicle search, and arrest.”

    Charges against Mr. Grimes were dropped a day later, on Jan. 7, 2021.

    “This lack of prosecution compared to other January 6 cases and the fact that the government continues to hide information about the ESU officers who conducted the Antifa car stop and body camera recordings demonstrates the government is intentionally concealing information about this Antifa seditious conspiracy,” Mr. Pope wrote. “Such information is exculpatory in my case.”

    Antifa supporters Logan (aka Leslie) Grimes and Dempsey Mikula (right) look on while police search the vehicle in which they were riding on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    The three Antifa operatives communicated using a server on the social media platform Discord. That server—nicknamed ‘Insurgence’—was managed by John Earle Sullivan, the Black Lives Matter activist who filmed the shooting of Ashli Babbitt near the House of Representatives on Jan. 6, Mr. Pope wrote.

    Mr. Sullivan, 29, of Tooele, Utah, is charged with 10 Jan. 6 crimes, including civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon on Capitol grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous or deadly weapon, and other federal charges. He faces an Oct. 23 trial in Washington.

    “Individuals using Sullivan’s Antifa server began discussing plans to look up blueprints for ‘tax buildings’ online so they could firebomb them by throwing fireworks into broken windows,” Mr. Pope wrote. “In addition to this, Antifa co-conspirators on Sullivan’s server began sharing tactical plans for attacking police lines using a Roman legion formation.”

    Discord Server Coordination

    Mr. Kelly and Mr. Grimes “were clearly conspiring with John Sullivan using Sullivan’s online server,” Mr. Pope wrote. “On December 29, 2020, John Sullivan posted an image of firearms and tactical gear on his Antifa server along with the message: “Civil War and Revolution.”

    Mr. Pope said he believes MPD undercover video and officer bodycam footage could contain more clues about communication and coordination between Mr. Sullivan and Antifa operatives.

    “This makes all ESU recordings and bodycam recordings of Sullivan, Kelly, Grimes, Mikula, and any other conspiring Antifa relevant to my defense, and the government has a Brady [Supreme Court decision] obligation to produce all such recordings and any other tips or related materials in discovery,” Mr. Pope wrote. “This also further justifies my request for the court to grant my motion to compel the government to produce all ESU recordings and body-worn camera footage.”

    At the top of the scaffolding near the police line on Jan. 6, Mr. Sullivan said, “This is a revolution, mother[expletives], let’s go, we taking this [expletive]!” Mr. Pope wrote. “After breaking through police lines, Sullivan said, ‘This [expletive] is ours’ and ‘we accomplished this [expletive].’

    “Sullivan then yelled for people down on the lawn to ‘get up here.’”

    Mr. Kelly, who wore a beige gas mask and carried a baseball bat, was the last person remaining on the southwest scaffolding at the Capitol and had to be removed by police, Mr. Pope wrote.

    Protesters clash with police on the west front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as shown on a CCTV exterior Rotunda camera. (U.S. Capitol Police/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    “Kelly and Mikula then faced off with police lines and stayed at the Capitol past the curfew,” Mr. Pope said.

    Mr. Grimes and Mr. Kelly posted photos of themselves in the crowds near the Ellipse. Mr. Kelly “asked his Antifa co-conspirators on Sullivan’s server whether he should ‘start blasting [expletive] Donald Trump on my megaphone,’” Mr. Pope said. “This demonstrates that those conspiring with Sullivan had a general objective to cause chaos on January 6, 2021.”

    In previous court filings, Mr. Pope disclosed how an undercover MPD officer assisted protesters in climbing over barricades and encouraged them to continue up the northwest steps to the Capitol. He was heard on video participating in crowd chants such as, “Whose House? Our House!”

    More recently, Mr. Pope disclosed how MPD officers on the Capitol’s upper terrace retreated from one of the entrances, giving protesters free access to stream into the Capitol.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 23:40

  • Watch: Freight Train Full Of Migrants Heading To Southern US Border 
    Watch: Freight Train Full Of Migrants Heading To Southern US Border 

    Fox News journalist Griff Jenkins shared a video on X showing a freight train packed with hundreds of migrants heading north toward the US border. This further suggests that President Biden’s new strategy to curb illegal southern border crossings may not work. 

    Jenkins explained the FerroMex freight train departed from Zacatecas, Mexico, on Sunday and is “heading to our southern border right now.” He said the migrants were cheering and clearly not heeding the message: do not come.”

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

    The alarming video comes as President Biden changed up border policies to reduce the number of illegal crossings at the southern border. However, as The Wall Street Journal noted, “The New Plan Isn’t working”: 

    Border crossings from Mexico into the US are on the rise again after an unexpected drop in May and June, when the administration ended its use of the pandemic-era measure known as Title 42 and replaced it with a new set of policies it said would work as a better deterrent.

    US Border Patrol arrested roughly 182,000 people at the U.S.-Mexico border in August, a return to the same level of arrests it made the previous August under Title 42, according to people familiar with the data.

    WSJ pointed out:

    “The crux of Biden’s new strategy at the border is to dissuade migrants from crossing into the US illegally by increasing the penalties for doing so—and by offering them newly created paths to move here legally.” 

    X user Border Hawk revealed one of those rail lines migrants use to get to the border. 

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

    The latest report by New York Times journalist Julie Turkewitz indicates that migrant numbers heading to the US remain very concerning.

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

    Clearly, the Biden administration has failed to secure the border, but the administration still promotes the idea that its policies are working. Anyone with common sense can see otherwise, as the illegal crossing troubles on the border have spread to New York City and other imploding Democrat-run cities. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 23:15

  • How Biden Will Circle The Wagons
    How Biden Will Circle The Wagons

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    The strategies of saving the Biden presidency from an impeachment and a Senate trial despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption are starting to emerge.

    The Family is confronted with damning evidence from the laptop, from the testimonies of Hunter’s business associates Bobulinksi and Archer, from Ukrainian oligarchs and Viktor Shokin, from IRS whistleblowers, from FBI writs, from a likely pseudonymous Biden trove of 4,000 emails to his son and associates, and from the absolute paranoia of a White House that must constantly change its narrative of denials to adjust to a growing portrait of utter corruption, bribery, and perhaps even the treason of warping U.S. policy to fit Biden family interests.

    The Defense in Depth 

    One of their strategies is to deny, then hedge, then ignore, then grow silent—and repeat the wash/rinse/spin cycle of stonewalling as many times as necessary to evade the mounting truth.

    Insidiously Joe Biden has retreated from his once loud protestations that he supposedly had no idea of what Hunter and his associates were doing. Such a patently dishonest denial set the model that the President would have no compunction about lying to the American people until the evidence of his wrongdoing becomes overwhelming.

    But this first line of defense did not crumble for years—only to be replaced by a second line of denial: Biden may have known of Hunter’s shenanigans, but he had no business interests with him. That was another blatant untruth.

    And that additional stalling also allowed Biden to ignore the closing walls of incrimination for even more months. When these two forward lines of defense collapsed, as the Biden consortium knew they eventually would, a retreat to a third line of defense followed: yes, Joe knew, after all, of Hunter’s miscreant shakedowns; and, yes, Joe, after all, conceded that from time to time he did meet Hunter’s business associates, and upon requests made phone calls to Hunter’s clientele. But he did not profit from such knowledge and associations. Instead an upright old Joe from Scranton was playing along with the “illusion” of influence peddling: Scranton naiveté is not D.C. criminality.

    Biden’s tripartite lines of defense always got shorter and shallower as evidence mounted. But so far Biden has managed to consume 31 months of his presidency through these strategic retreats. His fourth and final line of defense will likely be that he was involved, that he had rather than feigned contact, but that he did nothing other than what scores of other high-ranking politicians do who rub shoulders with would-be miscreants, sycophants, and crooks—and so did not knowingly take “loans” and “gifts” that had strings attached.

    To breach this fourth defense line, House Republicans will have to break through the labyrinth of Biden paywalls and find how much money was rerouted into Biden coffers. And then they must additionally compare what came into the Biden hands with a) what the family reported on their respective income tax returns, and b) whether their various properties and lifestyles were remotely possible without such massive hidden income. And getting bank records from the Bidens will be near impossible.

    The Ukraine Factor 

    Joe Biden has successfully profited by using American foreign aid to stop prosecutorial inquiries into his son’s and, indirectly per the laptop admissions, his own quid pro quo payments from corrupt Ukrainians.

    The firing of Viktor Shokin who knew of Hunter Biden’s corruption was one of the most blatantly corrupt and self-interested acts of a Vice President since the career of Spiro Agnew. Still, there is no reason why Biden would now give up such a proven successful strategy.

    Yet there are important issues for Biden at stake. One, Viktor Shokin is convinced that the Bidens were recipients of Ukrainian bribes intended to win U.S. foreign aid and influence over American foreign policy in Eastern Europe and vis a vis Russia.

    And two, an FBI confidential source has sworn that “a foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them — 17 such recordings.” And three, to corroborate testimonies from these Ukrainian players or to subpoena the purported 17 recordings would now translate into risking the wrath of Joe Biden the giver of massive Ukrainian military aid—now likely over $100 billion—and formerly on record of being perfectly willing to cancel Ukrainian aid unless Kyiv bent to his personal agenda.

    Now in an existential war, Ukrainians will likely not wish either Viktor Shokin or Mykola Zlochevsky, former head of Burisma and said to be in possession of the 17 recordings (including two that purportedly involve Joe Biden directly), to embarrass much less help to remove Biden by producing evidence confirming their charges.

    So we should assume the Ukrainian government will do its best to protect Biden from fellow Ukrainian accusers, mostly by silencing any Ukrainian who would dare endanger their stream of arms and money. For Kyiv, the ongoing Biden exemption from impeachment and conviction is likely seen as a matter of life and death.

    The Big Lie

    A third defense has been outright lying, the bolder and more absurd, all the better. Here Joe Biden has prepped the lying battlefield, whether deliberately or inadvertently, both through his pathological fabrications about his autobiography and the events of our time, and by the collapse of his cognitive facilities.

    Either way, his lies are contextualized by the media as “that’s just ole Joe spinning his tales.” In Biden’s fantasy world, he visited Ground Zero the day after the September 11 attacks, he taught a course on “political theory” at the University of Pennsylvania, his son Beau came home from Iraq in a coffin, and a catastrophic fire nearly consumed the Biden residence.

    All these were not only lies, but callous lies that played on the emotions of those in crisis and suffering—to the purported empathetic advantage of Joe Biden himself. So Biden has no compunction of lying ad infinitum.

    Remember, for years he lied that he fired Shokin because he was corrupt, that his government knew that, that the Europeans agreed, and that he did not leverage U.S. aid to ensure Shokin did not pursue Hunter’s Burisma nefariousness.

    All that was a total lie, but a media-protected lie nonetheless that served Biden well for at least five years.

    So we should expect the Left to embrace the full Biden lie and claim his serial contact with Hunter was the natural concern of a dutiful father, one who has suffered family tragedies and merely periodically called and emailed to cement family solidarity with other equally aggrieved Bidens.

    And when evidence mounts that Biden really did receive funds via Hunter’s dummy companies we will be told that these were loans, or Joe was gifting them to grandchildren—or, most likely, Joe was completely unaware that such funds eventually found their way into his bank accounts and were used to buy and rent his various sumptuous residences.

    Trump 24/7

    At each stage of the walls closing around Joe Biden, a commensurate “Trump did it” news bulletin emerged. Collate the indictments or the leaks about impending indictments from the supposedly uncoordinated work of Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Jack Smith, and Fani Willis both with iconic primary election dates ahead, and periodic revelations about the depth of Biden family corruption—and the synchronized distraction is quite stunning.

    Expect in the next year for each new incriminating document released, each new witness that comes forward with a tale of Biden corruption, almost immediately the headlines will blare about a new Trump gag order, a new scheduled Trump court appearance, a new flipped witness cooperating with a prosecutor, and a new leak about a “certain” conviction and jail time. The new media war will make its old Russian collusion’s “all-star,” “hunter-killer team,” and “dream team” prosecutors and the “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” revelations seem like child’s play.

    A Hit-bottom Media

    After being utterly discredited by fixating for years on the Russian “collusion” hoax, and hyping the laptop Russian “disinformation” fable, any professional media would by now have apologized, conducted mass firings, and pledged to report the news rather than massage and invent it.

    But no sooner does one media embarrassment end than the media ventures onto another, on the theory that it is so discredited and has hit bottom that it no longer has any reputation to defend. So a now liberated but bankrupt media feels it matters nothing whether its mythologies have a grain of truth.

    The Biden family corruption and the exemptions given Hunter Biden by a corrupt Biden department of Justice have been contextualized by the media as a prelude to what we can expect of the impeachment inquiry.

    In the modern American media, a Trump phone call threatening to delay offensive military aid until the Ukraine government could guarantee that its operatives were not empowering the Biden quid pro quo clan was an impeachable offense. A self-confessed Biden effort to alter US policy to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor, dutifully investigating the Hunter Biden/Biden family corruption, by threatening to cancel all U.S. aid to Kyiv was mere “familial” concern. Where incidentally is the outrage from current vehement supporters of blank-check, on-to-Moscow support for Ukraine over Joe Biden’s prior threats to cut critical military aid to Ukraine in efforts to ensure uninterrupted money streams to his own family treasure chest

    In sum, the media is more tarnished than ever, and therefore more dangerous because it accepts it has no reputation left to defend and now is entirely unbound to invent, to fabricate, and to smear.

    The Deep State

    In 2017 under media and Democratic pressure, the Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions was bullied into recusing himself. He appointed in his place Robert Mueller as special counsel, empowered by an unlimited budget and a blank-check concerning time and resources to find “collusion.”

    In contrast, in 2023 the Biden-appointed AG Merrick Garland, under fierce criticism for delaying the Hunter Biden investigation in order to run out of the clock on the statute of limitations on tax fraud, appointed David Weiss as special counsel. He was the prior chief culprit in providing cover for Hunter from indictments. So the proverbial fox is now in charge of the hen house.

    In 2019 the “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella was considered a sacrosanct patriot, even though he had no firsthand knowledge of the supposed crimes he was accusing the president of committing. Instead, the whistleblower was selectively being spoon-fed information from Alexander Vindman, the expatriate U.S. Lt. Colonel, who, in the midst of his accusations, admitted he was offered the Ministry of Defense by the Ukrainian government. Vindman, currently in the second round of his careerist Ukrainian melodrama, is self-appointed CEO of his middleman company, seeking to profit from the war by facilitating the transfer and service of arms from the U.S. government to Ukraine.

    Note the difference: in 2023 whistle blowers are now considered rogues, whether they be honest IRS investigators sickened by the corruption of their own DOJ prosecutorial counterparts, or FBI agents tired of the warping of their agency to facilitate the Biden coverups.

    The net result will be a near impossible congressional task in forcing any federal agency to honor a congressional subpoena, as most will follow the Eric Holder model of a cocky snub of Congress with certainty of exemption.

    The “Do You Really Want President Harris?” Factor

    If the evidence trumps the Biden reliance on administrative state suppression, media bias and character assassination, there is one ace in the Biden hole—Kamala Harris. She is, as has been widely remarked upon, the Spiro Agnew of our age. (Yet the latter, in fact, on the stump was a Cicero in comparison to Harris’s 500-word vocabulary.)

    In other words, the country is more scared of a not corrupt Harris than it is a senile and crooked Biden. And Biden has done nothing to dispel those impressions given that such a Nixonian fear of his Vice President is his last ticket to finishing out his term.

    Not just Biden but millions in the country are anxious that the president is one fall, one new email disclosure from oblivion. His ensuing removal would not just give Harris the presidency in the next year and a half, but also the advantage of incumbency going into the 2024 election year and beyond.

    So expect that the more the proverbial noose tightens around Biden, all the more his West Wing will leak daily stories about Harris’s puerility, her lightness of being, and her abject incompetence, and the dangers she would pose to the republic.

    The DEFCON 1 Option

    There is a final nihilist gambit. If Biden is confronted with his own email evidence of corruption, tapes of his agreement to financial exchanges, bank accounts with large foreign deposits, and direct testimonies that he received cash, he has one last refuge: the “Hunter did it all!” ruse.

    Hunter is all too aware of his own danger. Collate his mischievous recent grifting artistic career, the Malibu-renting Hunter trying to plead poverty to reduce child-support payments, the mysterious cocaine that turns up in a West Wing cubicle, his laptop anger at his Mr. Big Guy’s and Mr. 10 Percent’s underappreciation of Hunter’s bagman role, and Hunter’s threat to call the President of the United States to testify that a now trapped Hunter is innocent of everything.

    The resulting picture that emerges is an out-of-control Hunter—who lost a laptop, a crack pipe, and an illegally registered handgun—now very worried that he will become Joe’s scapegoat.

    Hunter still believes he is a Samson that can pull down the Biden temple upon them all—if the alternative is that he is the only Biden to stew for years in jail.

    Remember, Hunter also knows his father all too well—Joe’s long resume of plagiarism, greed, arrogance, corruption, lying, and fantasies—and so rightly believes at some point Joe might easily shrug, and in one of his “senile” moments, utter, “Well, no Joke, man—it was all Hunter’s stuff, not mine.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 22:50

  • Justin Trudeau Accuses India Of Extrajudicial Killing On Canadian Soil
    Justin Trudeau Accuses India Of Extrajudicial Killing On Canadian Soil

    An unprecedented major row in Canada-India relations has broken out into the open on Monday, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a televised speech to the House of Commons accused Indian intelligence of carrying out an extrajudicial killing on Canadian soil. 

    Trudeau cited “credible” intelligence pointing to “agents of the government of India” as being behind the June murder of a prominent Sikh leader named Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia.

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

    “Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” Trudeau announced in the speech to lawmakers.

    “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open and democratic societies,” he continued.

    The stunning and unprecedented moment of such a severe accusation as this leveled among large nation-states is likely to send already tension-filled India-Canadian ties falling off a cliff. Trudeau had also revealed to parliament that he had raised the alleged assassination of the Canadian Sikh leader with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G-20 summit last week.

    Canada on Monday promptly expelled a top Indian diplomat, described as the head of Indian intelligence in Canada, amid an ongoing investigation. India is being asked to fully cooperate with the Canadian investigation.

    Hardeep Singh Nijjar, file image

    45-year old Nijjar had been shot dead in parking lot of a Sikh temple in Surrey after an evening service on June 18. Nijjar was a prominent figure of international stature in the Khalistan independence movement, which supports the establishment of separate state for Sikhs in India. Due to its separationist political activities, groups associated with the movement have been dubbed “terrorist organizations”. 

    Nijjar himself was a wanted man in India, described as among the country’s top wanted foreign “terrorists”.

    Here’s how Indian media has covered his killing, saying that a ‘terror leader’ had been shot, and accusing him of leading “training camps” in Canada for militants to carry out operations inside India…

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

    Thousands of Canadian Sikh’s attended his funeral, and the killing has sparked outrage in Metro Vancouver’s large Sikh community.

    The Canadian government has meanwhile rejected the ‘terrorism’ narrative and has emphasized Nijjar’s Canadian citizenship. 

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

    Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly in the wake of Trudeau’s Monday speech confirmed that the head of Indian intelligence in Canada, based out of the Indian embassy, had been expelled as a consequence. “If proven true this would be a great violation of our sovereignty and of the most basic rule of how countries deal with each other,” she said of the Nijjar murder.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 22:25

  • 'It Was My Decision': Trump Defends 2020 Election Challenge
    ‘It Was My Decision’: Trump Defends 2020 Election Challenge

    Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President Trump gave some background on how the decision to challenge the 2020 elections came about.

    Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington on Sept. 15, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Former President Donald Trump received advice from many different people after the 2020 elections, and after weighing various opinions, as well as his own thoughts about it, he ultimately decided to formally challenge the results.

    In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, he spoke about what went into the decision.

    “I was listening to different people. And when I added it all up, the election was rigged,” he said. “It was my decision.”

    The two discussed the four criminal indictments against President Trump, including the one in Washington that alleges his actions in challenging the election went too far, tying the charges to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

    Ms. Welker asked why he decided to challenge the elections even after “the most senior lawyers in your own administration and on your campaign” told him he lost.

    “I didn’t respect them as lawyers,” he said, adding that former Attorney General Bill Barr had allegedly been afraid of an impeachment inquiry and acted to avoid that, and many others he had hired based on recommendations. “But I did respect others.”

    “It’s my choice,” he added. “I happen to know that the election was rigged,” he said, referring to evidence he had initially planned to release after the Georgia indictment of him, also for challenging the election results. On the advice of his current legal counsel, the evidence will be a part of his defense in upcoming trials instead.

    Ms. Welker asked if the 45th president, who is far ahead of other GOP candidates running for office in 2024, whether he believed he lost the 2020 elections.

    “I say I won the election,” he clarified.

    “Even though, again, your lawyers told you you did not,” she said.

    “Some people told me that. But many people told me the opposite,” he responded, leading her to question why he listened to “outside lawyers” who “had crazy theories.”

    “Were you listening to them because they were telling you what you wanted to hear?” she asked.

    “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening,” he said.

    “It was my decision,” he said.

    January 6

    The former president clarified his role of Jan. 6, 2021, as well.

    Special counsel Jack Smith is now prosecuting the Washington case against President Trump, alleging conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy against rights. They relate to Jan. 6 only in terms of his calls to delay the vote certification in Congress on that day.

    “First of all, I had very little to do with January 6th,” he said, referring to the Capitol breach. “I was asked to speak, and I was the President of the United States. I’m allowed to do that.“

    He said that “hundreds of thousands of people were there, and it was a beautiful, beautiful sight,” and that he spoke “peacefully and patriotically” at the event. He told Ms. Welker he had thought about going into the Capitol that day, but Secret Service advised him to go back to the White House.

    “I wanted to go down peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol. Secret Service, who I have great respect for, said, ‘Sir, it’s better if you don’t do that. It could be unsafe,'” President Trump said. He clarified they didn’t mean they anticipated a riot, but because with such a large crowd, a single assailant would have significant cover. “So I didn’t have a dispute with them.”

    He further alleged that the breach happened because then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turned down his offer of 10,000 additional National Guard. “She’s responsible for January 6th,” he alleged. “And the J6 Committee refused to interview her.”

    He noted that the treatment of those who were present was one reason he decided to run for reelection.

    “People that went [there], that didn’t even go into the building, have suffered gravely,” he said, pointing out that rioters in cities across the country calling to “defund the police” were not prosecuted in the same way. The Department of Justice has thus far brought 1,100 cases against those who were present on Jan. 6, and efforts continue.

    “When you launched your campaign in March, you told the crowd, quote, ‘I am your retribution.’ What does that mean? What does that look like?” Ms. Welker asked President Trump.

    “I think retribution is talking in terms of I have to protect people,” he said. “What they’re doing to people is so horrible. They’re putting people in jail for long periods of time. Firemen, policemen, accountants, even lawyers. They’re in prisons for years now and don’t even have trials in some cases.”

    “I’m talking about fairness,” he said, adding he was open to pardoning those who were wrongly imprisoned, and dismissing rumors that he planned to fire or target his political opponents. “I’m looking to appoint an attorney general who’s going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 22:00

  • Hold On To Your Wallets! Zelensky's Back In Town
    Hold On To Your Wallets! Zelensky’s Back In Town

    The Ron Paul Institute explains that after shipping some $45 billion in military equipment to Ukraine, the Biden Administration is bringing Ukrainian President Zelensky back to Washington to beg for more money. But with the war going badly for Ukraine and strong US opposition to spending more on the effort, it looks to be an uphill battle.

    Also today: who was the armed guy impersonating a cop at the RFK rally…and why can’t RFK get Secret Service Protection? Finally…Homeland Security has a new target: you! Watch today’s Liberty Report:

    * * *

    Zelensky is first expected to attend and will likely address a special session on Ukraine at the UN Security Council (UNSC). This means fireworks and controversy will likely be unleashed at the assembly as it will be a rare moment that the Ukrainian leader speaks at a forum with Russian representatives in attendance, given Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC. Some 140 world leaders will attend the UN General Assembly in New York City this week.

    The following day, Zelensky will drop in to the White House and attend meetings on Capitol Hill. He’s expected to press for more advanced weaponry, to be delivered at a faster rate, but Richard Gowan, an expert on the United Nations at the International Crisis Group, has explained to the AFP: 

    “If he’s too hardline, he may actually turn this opportunity into a bit of a diplomatic crisis,” he said.

    And the Washington Post agrees that with the counteroffensive going so badly, it’ll be a tough sell…

    Ukrainian officials had hoped to ride into New York this week touting major gains in their summer counteroffensive, but Russia’s entrenched forces have stymied efforts to achieve a major breakthrough, and both sides continue to sustain heavy casualties.

    The conflict’s toll on food and energy prices has accelerated calls in the developing world for a negotiated settlement. And support among the American public has been slipping as a segment of the Republican Party criticizes the war effort’s estimated $73 billion price tag.

    Still, WaPo calls Zelensky the “conflict’s most charismatic voice” and it’s expected he’ll present a dramatic narrative of horrific Russian atrocities and human rights abuses.

    But by and large his “star power” has faded since his first visit to Washington in December 2022, given also the fickle American public has generally grown war-weary, recent polls reflect, and as headlines covering the conflict have come and gone with rapidity, getting less and less featured in the front pages of US newspapers or on the big TV networks when compared to the frequency of a year ago.

    A sampling of what can be expected of Zelensky’s messaging in New York and Washington this week:

    Currently, there’s ongoing talk within the administration of Ukraine getting approval for the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which has a max range of 190 miles. Certainly Zelensky is going to press for this and more. Will Biden make this the focus of a “big” announcement when he greets Zelensky at the White House later this week?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 21:35

  • Chinese Spy Balloon Collected No Intelligence, Milley Now Says
    Chinese Spy Balloon Collected No Intelligence, Milley Now Says

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

    In February, a Chinese balloon floated over the US, prompting politicians on both sides of the aisle to claim Beijing was threatening Americans. The event led American officials to cancel high-level meetings with their Chinese diplomats. Seven months later, Gen. Mark Milley said the balloon never collected intelligence.

    Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told “CBS News Sunday Morning” the US intelligence community does not believe the craft collected intelligence but still maintained it was a “spy balloon.” America’s top general said, “The intelligence community, their assessment – and it’s a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon.” Milley continued, “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with a high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn’t transmit any intelligence back to China.”

    Source: US Department of Defense

    In Early February, a large balloon was spotted in the northern US. The craft was immediately claimed to be a spy craft by American officials. Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed Beijing’s decision to fly the balloon over the US as “both unacceptable and irresponsible.” America’s top diplomat then canceled a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister.

    On Sunday, Milley, who is retiring later this month, explained that the Chinese balloon ended up over the US due to unexpected weather. “Those winds are very high,” the general said. “The particular motor on that aircraft can’t go against those winds at that altitude.”

    From the start, Beijing has contested Washington’s claims that the craft was intended for surveillance, insisting it was merely a weather balloon for scientific purposes. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Washington’s response to the balloon damaged bilateral relations. “This is a clear overreaction that seriously contravenes the spirit of international law and customary international practice,” he explained. “What the US did has had a grave impact on the efforts and progress made by China and the US in stabilizing bilateral relations.”

    Still, politicians told Americans the balloon was a threat. Senator Lindsey Graham claimed Beijing was “up to no good.” “I don’t know crap about balloons, but I got common sense that if the Chinese got a balloon with three tractor trailers hitched to it, they’re up to no good,” the senator stated. “And why would you let them go to South Carolina? This makes no sense, it doesn’t pass the smell test, and this is dangerous.”

    Democrat Sen. Jon Tester called the balloon “a clear threat.” While Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi “Indeed, this incident demonstrates that the CCP threat is not confined to distant shores — it is here at home and we must act to counter this threat.”

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

    Senator Ted Cruz described the balloon as a threat and attacked President Joe Biden for not shooting down the craft over the US. “He allowed a full week for the Chinese to conduct spying operations over the United States, over sensitive military installations, exposing not just photographs but the potential of intercepted communications.” He added, “[Shooting down the balloon] is absolutely what the president should have done. Unfortunately, he didn’t do that until a week after it entered US airspace.”

    Biden ordered the military to shoot down the balloon after it had passed over the US and it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. In the weeks after the Chinese craft crossed American skies, Biden ordered the military to shoot down three additional balloons. The Pentagon later admitted that all three craft were civilian-launched weather and hobby balloons.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 21:10

  • Digital Second Amendment Unveiled: Anti-Woke AI Bot Equips Users With "Newest Weapons Of Digital Age"
    Digital Second Amendment Unveiled: Anti-Woke AI Bot Equips Users With “Newest Weapons Of Digital Age”

    Earlier this year, Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT gained significant popularity. Even though JPMorgan suggests the AI bubble may have leveled off recently, the momentum in AI chatbot development continues. 

    Mainstream AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing, and Google’s Bard attempt to sound neutral or refuse to answer provocative questions because their AI trainers and corporate funders are ‘woke’ and embrace government censorship. Many folks complained earlier this year about left-leaning biased answers from these woke AI bots. 

    “The danger of training AI to be woke — in other words, lie — is deadly,” Elon Musk posted on X in December after another user asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for a version of ChatGPT with the “woke settings” turned “off.” This led Musk to tweet earlier this year about creating his own uncensored chatbot that is free of corporate or governmental control. 

    Musk likely kicked off the counter bot (anti-woke bot) movement. The first of its kind, GatGPT, free of safety filters and woke guardrails, has been released by Defense Distributed, the company that pioneered the first 3D-printed firearm over a decade ago. 

    “GatGPT” leverages a pre-trained large language model fine-tuned on both general instruct datasets and expert, domain-specific firearm datasets. Defense Distributed created a subset of the GPT-4 OpenOrca dataset that is free of political and ethical contamination. 

    The team that built GatGPT, led by Cody Wilson, contends AI safety is a pretext for censorship and political control. They have declared a “[[Digital Second Amendment]]” that pledges to protect and distribute “the newest weapons of the digital age, not just to defend ourselves against corporate and government depredation, but to defend our civic identity and humanity.” 

    Wilson’s team laid out a series of events this year that shows what’s coming down the pipe: AI censorship by Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, elites: 

    • CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman before Congress, May 2023: “Government intervention will be critical.” Please regulate us!

    • CEO of Anthropic Amodei before Senate Judiciary Committee , July 25th 2023: Presentation “Oversight of AI: Principles for Regulation”. Please prevent the public from making weapons with AI!

    • Sept. 13th, 2023 Chuck Schumer holds private chamber, off the record, closed to the public meeting with heads of the large US AI firms. Elon Musk, caught afterward by the press, says Schumer did a “great service to humanity.” All present were asked to raise their hands in support of AI regulation.

    “This is an open conspiracy against the public. But it is too late,” the team said. 

    They expanded more on GatGPT and how the Digital Second Amendment will help shield law-abiding citizens from tyranny at the highest levels: 

    Our federal government operates in a partnership with large, private firms to anticipate and informally execute the government of the American people regardless of official action. It launders its agenda. After Russiagate and COVID, we all know of the alliance between the tech oligarchies and the national security establishment. Their union has produced a “counter-disinformation” complex whose goal is the total control of the Internet and public speech.

    AI journalism is uniformly produced in assistance of the narrative that the public requires regulation in advance of a national security event or, as is more fashionable, because the public cannot be trusted to live online with its own information interests. American journalism is here an extension of our government’s civil service.

    Defense Distributed, in releasing GatGPT, declares a Digital Second Amendment. Americans must have access to compute, databases, and AI models, the newest weapons of the digital age, not just to defend ourselves against corporate and government depredation, but to defend our civic identity and humanity.

    Ours is not a Magna Carta for Cyberspace. We know the disastrous history and direction of Internet regulation. The Communications Decency Act passed in response to a moral panic over online pornography, and only accidentally yielded the protections of Section 230. The story repeats itself with public and private attempts to regulate the people’s cryptography, printable gun files, and Bitcoin. 

    AI regulation is an open and official provocation against the Liberty and Sovereignty of American citizens. All who advocate for it are domestic enemies of the Constitution and must be absolutely opposed. The right of the people to keep and deploy models shall not be infringed.

    The rise of censor-free bots is only just beginning.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 20:45

  • California Gov. Newsom Boosts AI "Misinformation" Fears, Complains Of "Micro-Cults" Around Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan
    California Gov. Newsom Boosts AI “Misinformation” Fears, Complains Of “Micro-Cults” Around Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan

    Authored by Christina Maas via ReclaimTheNet,org,

    In yet another criticism of free speech, Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom of California is setting his sights on artificial intelligence (AI), voicing his concern over supposed “misinformation” circulating online.

    Newsom flagged misinformation as a pivotal issue during a Bloomberg AI interview, signifying a growing avenue where possible free speech issues arise.

    Newsom’s concern isn’t merely hypothetical.

    Overwhelmed by fear of a so-called online “micro-cult” scenario, he cited popular commentator Dr. Jordan Peterson and podcast heavyweight Joe Rogan, among others, as alleged promoters of potentially harmful viewpoints.

    “[Separately] I really worry about the misinformation, disinformation…

    …about what’s happening with our country, but I really worry about these micro-cults that my kids are in…

    …I say micro-cults because I don’t know if there’s a better way to describe it.

    …My son is asking me about Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson. And then immediately he’s talking about Joe Rogan. And I’m like; here it is, the pathway,” Newsom said.

    That’s not to say Newsom is entirely anti-AI; quite the contrary.

    He revealed his regular use of AI, crediting it for paving paths his administration wouldn’t have otherwise traversed.

    It even bested him and his team at drafting his State of the State speech, he claimed, and he appeared rather pleased with the comparative function of AI services Bard and ChatGPT.

    And, of course, “democracy” itself is at risk…

    “We’ve talked to some friends, and you may know them well, I won’t name them, who say this is the last quote unquote fair and free election of our lifetime.

    These are pretty credible people.

    Unless we dramatically do things differently. And some would suggest that’s not the case, that already the ability for bots to… direct people into these micro cults, already is outsized in terms of its influence.

    That’s pretty alarming when you think about it in those terms.”

    Interestingly, ChatGPT has been previously revealed to harbor a partisan bias.

    *  *  *

    If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 20:20

  • "They Were Laughing": Rogue Gang Of Teens Brutally Beat Gas Station Clerk In Lawless Seattle
    “They Were Laughing”: Rogue Gang Of Teens Brutally Beat Gas Station Clerk In Lawless Seattle

    A violent assault on a Seattle gas station clerk by teenagers, all for $100 and cigarettes, further highlights the growing culture of violence plaguing America’s younger generation. 

    Local news Fox 13 said the gas station clerk in Normandy Park was attending the register Friday night when a gang of young teens, driving a stolen Kia and Hyundai, ransacked the store, and in the process, one of the kids brutally beat the clerk while the others stole $100 from the register and cigarettes. 

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

    “Kids don’t seem to fear anything anymore,” Leah Johnston, the gas station cashier at Friendly Normandy Market, told Fox 13, adding, “There’s like, no repercussions for them the way there used to be.” 

    Johnston is correct. Progressive cities like Seattle have defunded police and only emboldened criminals to commit thefts and other violent crimes. 

    She explained the robbery only lasted 25 seconds. During it, she described, “They were laughing. They had no [regard] for anything. They don’t care anymore.” 

    Johnston continued, “I know of people who have been robbed, I know in the back of my mind it can always happen. But, I never thought that I would be attacked the way I was attacked.”

    King County Sheriff’s Department was dispatched to help with the investigation to identify the six suspects, some of whom were teens. 

    In a separate incident in August, only to be reported over the weekend after progressive mainstream media failed to report it, were two teens who murdered a bicyclist “for laughs” with a car in Las Vegas. 

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

    Nationwide, there’s an alarming trend in violence committed by teens. Some experts question if mental health issues stemming from Covid lockdowns are the reason for the outbursts of violence. Or perhaps Hollywood desensitizes teens with violent movies, songs, and video games. Or maybe it’s social media or the state promoting fatherless homes.

    While it’s too early to tell why the younger generation feels the need to reenact scenes from the video game ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ failed social justice reform has only fueled a crime wave rocking major metro areas.  

    Maybe it’s time for the Biden administration to address the violent youth crime wave that is now killing innocent law-abiding Americans. Remember, the government is supposed to work for law-abiding taxpayers — not the other way around. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 19:55

  • US Debt Rises Above $33 Trillion For The First Time, Soars By $1 Trillion In 3 Months
    US Debt Rises Above $33 Trillion For The First Time, Soars By $1 Trillion In 3 Months

    On Sept 6, when looking at the latest daily debt numbers, we predicted that total US debt would hit the very special (at least for Masons) number of 33 in two weeks.

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

    We were off by 2 days, with the US treasury naturally obliging by hitting the number early rather than late.

    Today, the Treasury announced that for the first time, total US debt has surpassed $33 trillion, rising by $56 billion in one day, and by a mindblowing $1 trillion in just the past 3 months!

    The historic breakout takes place just weeks before the interest on total Federal debt is set to hit $1 trillion, surpassing how much the US spends on defense – and soon after – every other outlay category.

    Finally, for those who expect a happy ending, we have one word: “don’t.”

    Here is the CBO’s latest debt forecast. It shows that US debt is now set to hit $50 trillion by 2030 (probably much sooner though), and then proceed exponentially higher until the US currency finally collapses.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 19:30

  • Sullivan's 'Secret Talks' With China Were Set Against Backdrop Of Turnover, Upheaval In Xi's Cabinet
    Sullivan’s ‘Secret Talks’ With China Were Set Against Backdrop Of Turnover, Upheaval In Xi’s Cabinet

    Hours of “constructive talks” between top US and Chinese officials on the island of Malta on Sunday were done in secret. The delegations spent 12 hours together in total for the two day intense talks.

    A note from Rabobank says there’s more than meets the eye, given some recent unexplained upheaval in Xi’s administration [emphasis ZH]…

    Chinese Foreign Secretary Wang Yi met with US National Security Advisor Sullivan in Malta over the weekend in the latest attempt to soften US-China relations ahead of a possible meeting between Presidents Biden and Xi.

    The Malta meeting comes four months after a secret meeting between Chinese and US officials in Vienna. In view of Xi’s absence from the recent G20 meeting in India, and the tensions between the US and China, there is concern as to whether he will show for the APEC gatherings in San Francisco in November. 

    The Malta meeting has taken place at a time of rising speculation about the transparency, and possibly, durability of Xi’s leadership. A second Chinese minister has reportedly been removed from public view. Defense Minister Li Shangfu has apparently disappeared, this follows the absence of former Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

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

    * * *

    A follow-on readout from Sullivan’s office described the Malta talks as “part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the relationship.” 

    It said “The two sides had candid, substantive, and constructive discussions, building on the engagements between President Biden and President Xi in Bali, Indonesia in November 2022.” Listed among key topics of discussion were global and regional security issues, including in the Taiwan Strait, as well as the war in Ukraine.

    The Biden administration has previously expressed concern that fraying relations and worsening communications could lead to “unintentional confrontation” if the spiral is not halted. 

    A US official has told Reuters “there have been some small or limited indications” that Beijing is ready to reopen some cross-military communications with the Pentagon. The deconfliction hotline was severed following the August 2022 visit of then House speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

    Also, could Gen. Mark Milley’s weekend comments to “CBS News Sunday Morning” been an attempt to further defuse tensions by downplaying the February spy balloon incident? Certainly that had been another key moment that drastically worsened US-China relations.

    “The intelligence community, their assessment – and it’s a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon.” Milley said, “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with a high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn’t transmit any intelligence back to China.”

    Likely the subject was broached in the Malta meetings between Sullivan and Wang Yi. Perhaps it’s an attempt to bury the hatchet and get past the balloon drama. But interestingly, just on the heels of the Malta meetings…

    Beijing and Moscow were expected to step up their strategic coordination as China’s top diplomat Wang Yi kicked off a four-day visit to Russia for security talks ahead of a possible visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin next month.

    China’s foreign ministry announced on Monday that Wang, the Chinese foreign minister and a Politburo member who heads the Communist Party’s foreign affairs office, will be in Russia until Thursday for the annual strategic security consultation meetings.

    Beijing’s foreign ministry further called this visit to the Russian capital “routine activity” – and it marks the Chinese top diplomat’s second such visit to Moscow since February.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 19:05

  • Military Finds F-35 Debris 80 Miles From Pilot's Ejection Area 
    Military Finds F-35 Debris 80 Miles From Pilot’s Ejection Area 

    Update (1842ET):

    ABC 15 local news reported that military ground teams have found “parts and debris” linked to the lost F-35B Lightning II near Indiantown Road in Florence County, South Carolina.

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

    “The location where the debris and parts were found is roughly 80 miles from where officials say the pilot ejected near North Charleston on Sunday,” WPDE ABC15 noted.

    According to ABC 15, locals in the area mentioned hearing a low-flying fighter jet on Sunday, followed by a loud bang.

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

    The military has called for a two-day hat of all aircraft, both domestically and internationally. The developments in this story become more bizarre by the day.

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

    The Babylon Bee provides a comedic take on the incident…

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

    What remains a mystery is why the pilot ejected. 

    *   *   * 

    Update (1456ET):

    The F-35 is still missing. However, the flight tracking website Flightradar24 has revealed numerous aircraft have been searching an area north of North Charleston. 

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

    *   *   * 

    “How in the hell do you lose an F-35?” South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace wrote on X Sunday night, adding, “How is there not a tracking device, and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?”

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

    On Sunday afternoon, Joint Base Charleston, an air base in North Charleston, was working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to “locate an F-35 that was involved in a mishap“. The pilot ejected safely from F-35B Lightning II, but there were no immediate crash reports. 

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

    The fact that the $140 million stealth fighter disappeared without any reports of a crash means it might have gone down in a sparsely populated area. The Drive pointed out, “The DoD is saying the F-35B was put on autopilot prior to the ejection.” 

    Military expert and former British military officer Frank Ledwidge told Newsweek the F-35 “could likely travel hundreds of miles without its pilot.” 

    “Historically, an aircraft without a pilot can fly a long way on autopilot,” added Frederik Mertens, a military analyst with the Hague Center for Security Studies.

    The Washington Post quoted Jeremy Huggins, a spokesman at Joint Base Charleston, who said the F-35’s transponder was not working “for some reason that we haven’t yet determined.” 

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

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

    *Developing… 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 18:42

  • How Far Are We From Revolution?
    How Far Are We From Revolution?

    Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

    Our government, or the unelected billionaire globalists behind the curtain, are telling us the bad guys are Russia and China.

    I do not consider them enemies. I consider them countries acting in a way that benefits them.

    The U.S. is the global bully, intimidating and bribing countries to do their bidding.

    Ukraine, the most corrupt country in the world, and the playground of the Biden Crime Family, has been utilized by Biden and his neo-con handlers, to try and bleed Russia so they can beat them in their next war. Instead, they have used the young men of Ukraine as cannon fodder, leaving that country with no future.

    That’s what the U.S. global empire does. It destroys.

    Franklin was right.

    The government is telling us who the bad guy is, but the real bad guys are them.

    We will not be allowing our youth to be used as cannon fodder in their next wars of choice.

    These lunatic sociopaths are willing to initiate Armageddon to achieve their goals.

    Before they can accomplish this destruction we will have to decide when revolution will be absolutely necessary.

    That time will be within the next few years. The choice is yours.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 18:40

  • Trump Leads Biden Nationally As RealClear Asks 'What Happened To DeSantis?'
    Trump Leads Biden Nationally As RealClear Asks ‘What Happened To DeSantis?’

    Former President Donald Trump would claim victory over President Biden, according to a pair of recent polls from CBS News/YouGov and Harvard Harris (which no longer disclose how many Democrats were oversampled).

    Illustration via Barron’s

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

    When broken down by party identification (or lack thereof), 57% of independents chose Trump vs. Biden’s 42%, while just 34% of everyone polled thought Biden would be able to finish a second term if reelected.

    Biden is well below Trump in terms of job approval at this point in their terms…

    But Trump and Biden are tied for favorability, with the recent trend towards Trump…

     

    44% think Biden wouldn’t be able to carry out an entire second term, while most voters say Trump would.

    Registered voter respondents were also asked if they find Trump and Biden to be physically and mentally healthy enough to serve as president, finding that only 28 percent of voters think Biden is physically well enough, while most say the 45th president is. Just 16 percent of voters say only Biden is physically healthy enough to serve, while 44 percent say Trump is the only one who is healthy enough. Another 12 percent see them both as physically fit versus 28 percent who say neither are. -Breitbart

    Trump’s lead over Biden increased in the Harvard-Harris poll, at 44% vs. 40%. Trump would lead Vice President Kamala Harris by 46% to 40%.

    (Anyone else getting a ‘potentially sensitive content’ warning on the Trump electoral map?)

    Ron who?

    Meanwhile, RealClear Politics‘ Sean Terende asks: “What happened to the DeSantis campaign?”

    DeSantis isn’t quite a penny stock, but he briefly fell behind Vivek Ramaswamy among bettors, and languishes with primary season voters at just 14.9% in the RealClearPolitics Average.

    What went wrong? It’s important to acknowledge up front that it is still early. As late as October of 2007, Hillary Clinton held a 26-point lead over Barack Obama. At this point in 2007, John McCain was in fourth place, behind Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. For that matter, eventual second-place finisher Mike Huckabee was polling at just 3% nationally. Eventual winner John Kerry was in third place in Iowa.

    But none of those contenders had been in first place previously. It seems that there is a difference between being an unknown to whom the public eventually warms, and being a known quantity that the public changes their mind about. Regardless, while the DeSantis campaign is likely not dead, it is clearly in a bit of a predicament. How did this happen? It seems that there are four factors:

    He doesn’t know his own brand. After the 2022 elections, DeSantis’ “lane” in the GOP primary campaign seemed pretty clear: He’s Donald Trump, but able to get things done. Or, if you prefer, “Trump, but without the baggage.” DeSantis had many of the traits MAGA Republicans most liked about Trump. He was willing to battle the media. He didn’t apologize for his actions. In the parlance of the times, “He fights.”

    DeSantis also notched up a series of high-profile wins, including taking on the college board over the content of the AP African American History curriculum, replacing the leadership of a famously liberal state school, and going to war with the Walt Disney Co. over its progressive practices. One could fairly say that the current backlash against “woke corporations” began in Florida.

    That opened a pretty good line of attack against Trump. Yes, Trump was an important course correction for the Republican Party, whose leadership had become too concerned with currying favor in the D.C. “Swamp.” Yes, he showed that it was possible to fight on issues that the GOP establishment had written off as too toxic, and still win elections.

    But, the argument went, Trump was ultimately ineffective. At the end of four years, there was no wall, much less a wall financed by Mexico. Obamacare wasn’t repealed, much less replaced. And it was hard to say with a straight face that Trump had really hired only the “best people,” after his cabinet was constantly reshuffled and moved around. Trump’s constant tweeting and punching back at political detractors, regardless of their station in the political pecking order, created a constant stream of mini-storm that distracted from his agenda.

    In other words, DeSantis was well-positioned to argue that he’d take the lessons of Trump, but could deliver on the promises. It was a good strategic position as well, as it wouldn’t require him actually to attack the still-popular (within the Republican Party) Trump.

    Instead, DeSantis seemingly opted to re-run Ted Cruz’s failed 2016 campaign. While he had initially defended Florida’s ban on abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy – a position that is broadly popular among the American public – DeSantis later pushed for and signed a six-week ban, which is much less popular. He attacked Trump for being too progressive on trans rights. He claimed Trump had tried to push through an “amnesty” bill on immigration.

    The problem here is twofold. First, that approach was tried by Cruz and others in 2015 and 2016, and it failed spectacularly. There’s no reason to believe it would suddenly work in 2023 after Trump’s actual presidency.

    This leads to the second problem: People either don’t believe it or don’t care. Few people consider Trump a hard-charging social conservative on gay rights or abortion, but this is a known quantity at this point (and whatever else you may say about his beliefs, Trump’s three justices provided the conservative margin of victory in Dobbs). No one is going to get to Trump’s right on immigration. Other issues, like Trump’s refusal to pursue entitlement reform and his profligate spending, are throwbacks to an earlier GOP that likely no longer exists.

    DeSantis’ opponents aren’t giving up. In 2015 and 2016, one of the keys to Trump’s success was that the anti-Trump wing of the GOP was splintered among many candidates, all eager to try to get to the “final round” against him. Something similar seems to be happening in 2023. Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Tim Scott are all competent candidates with different appeals to different types of anti-Trump Republicans. Vivek Ramaswamy gives no indication he wants to leave the field anytime soon. This is potentially consequential in Iowa, where Trump is polling below 50% in the RealClearPolitics Average.

    In short, while DeSantis had hoped – and many analysts expected – that this would morph into a two-person race, that situation has not materialized. Instead, what we have right now is a one-person race, and a second tier occupied by four or five other candidates. Moreover, none of those candidates really has any incentive to drop out right now, given DeSantis’ stumbles and the chance for someone to claim the momentum that was once his. In other words, Republicans find themselves in a similar dynamic to the one that prevailed in 2015 and 2016, with whatever anti-Trump momentum there is split among multiple candidates, none of whom has a clear incentive to leave the race.

    He’s not up to the task. While DeSantis’ big win in Florida ought not be dismissed, we should also remind ourselves that the road to the presidency is paved with the bones of overhyped campaigns that wilted under the national spotlight. DeSantis has proved to be awkward on the national trail, with difficulty gladhanding and connecting with “regular” people. Case in point: his awkward expression when asked about trailing in the polls.

    DeSantis is certainly not the first politician to suffer from this fault. Bob Dole was criticized for always seeming grumpy, despite the fact that he was recognized as one of the funniest members of the United States Senate during his tenure. Those who know the Clintons say they’d rather be stuck in an airport with Hillary than Bill. But the presidency isn’t about a candidate’s “true” self; it’s about the external-facing product that the public is asked to choose to lead the country.

    Events, dear boy, events. Perhaps the most frustrating possibility is this: The Republican nomination was never really there for Ron DeSantis to win. It is there for Donald Trump to lose. Under this telling, a large part of the reason why DeSantis was competitive with Trump in November and December was that November of 2022 reminded Republicans about the costs of Donald Trump, with Trump-endorsed candidates losing close races nationally and likely costing Republicans control of the Senate.

    This started to turn around for Trump not when he began to hit DeSantis. Rather, it happened when the possibility that criminal indictments of the former president brought by Democratic prosecutors – or prosecutors hired by Democrats – transformed into a reality. It enabled Trump to focus media attention on himself and his campaign. Perhaps most importantly, it inherently positioned him as a Republican fighting against Democrats and the media, two of the things for which Republicans tend to like him the most.

    In other words, DeSantis was, and continues to be, captive to events. Had Trump’s candidates won in 2022 rather than lost, we probably wouldn’t even be talking seriously about what went wrong for DeSantis, because his campaign would have been stillborn. Perhaps events will break his way again in the future. But it seems more likely that they won’t.

    Sean Trende is senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics. He is a co-author of the 2014 Almanac of American Politics and author of The Lost Majority. He can be reached at strende@realclearpolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter @SeanTrende.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 18:15

  • Your WiFi Can See You
    Your WiFi Can See You

    Authored by Mr.E via BombThrower.com,

    When police suspected Danny Kyllo, an Oregon man, of growing cannabis in his home they drove to his house with a thermal imaging device to scan it. They found hot pockets in the house, which were used to obtain a search warrant and subsequently bust Kyllo.

    Fortunately, a 5-4 Supreme Court decision ruled the scan an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment, requiring a warrant the police did not obtain.

    Score one for privacy, but the government is about to have a far more controversial and dangerous tool at its disposal to monitor what’s going on inside your home.

    Unlike a thermal imager, this device is already in your home – and you put it there.

    How It Works

    WiFi is electromagnetic waves in the 2.4 and 5 GHz ranges. It’s the same thing as the light you see, only it can penetrate walls due to its much longer wavelength. Just like light (and echolocation) these waves also reflect off various surfaces and, when reconstructed properly, can be used to create an image.

    Development of this technology goes back at least as far as July 2005, where researchers claimed at an IEEE Symposium that they had created an ultra-wideband high-resolution short pulse imaging radar system operating around 10 GHz. The applications for which were explicitly for military and police use, providing them with “enhanced situation awareness.”

    A few years later, in 2008, researchers at UC Santa Barbara created an initial approach for imaging with WiFi that they presented at IEEE ACC 2009. A year later they demonstrated the feasibility of this approach.

    The Race is On

    Sensing the potential of this new surveillance technology, other researchers began piling on. Progress was initially slow but, in 2017, two researchers in Germany demonstrated the ability to do WiFi imaging using techniques borrowed from the field of holography. According to Philipp Holl, an undergrad student and lead study author who worked with Friedemann Reinhard of the Technical University of Munich to develop the new method, “The past two years have seen an explosion of methods for passive Wi-Fi imaging.”

    At the time, the technology could only make out rough shapes of things. “If there’s a cup of coffee on a table, you may see something is there, but you couldn’t see the shape,” Holl says, “but you could make out the shape of a person, or a dog on a couch. Really any object that’s more than 4 centimeters in size.”

    The Controversy Begins

    In 2018 the team at UC Santa Barbara published a paper titled “Et Tu Alexa?” examining the potential threats of this emerging technology. They examined the problem of adversarial WiFi sensing and the risk to privacy resulting from the widespread deployment of wireless devices, which could be used to track your precise physical location, movement, and other physiological properties.

    Fortunately, they also propose some countermeasures for defending against such attacks to reduce the quantity and quality of the WiFi signals captured by the attacker, such as Geo-fencing and rate-limiting. These methods are not as effective with IoT devices, though, due to the frequency with which they make transmissions.

    The Breakthrough

    Up until this point it was necessary to use frequencies higher than commercial WiFi (2.4 and 5 GHz) to achieve decent imaging resolutions. That all changed in February 2019 when a team from Michigan State University published a paper in IEEE Access outlining how they were able to use signals at 5.5 GHz, which matches the 802.11n/ac WiFi protocol, to create a 2-D image of two reflecting spheres and a reflecting X-shaped target, concluding “full 2-D imagery is possible by capturing the WiFi signals present in typical environments.”

    Adding AI and Going 3-D

    At MobiCom 2020, researchers from the University of Buffalo, presented their WiPose technology, touted as “the first 3-D human pose construction framework using commercial WiFi devices.” This system uses the 2-D imaging technology previously discussed to construct a 3-D avatar of the humans captured by it. The system uses a deep learning model that encodes the prior knowledge of human skeletons in the construction process of the 3-D model.

    In 2019, former DARPA contractor Ray Liu launched his first commercial product in the WiFi sensing domain. Pitched as a way of “Making the world safer, healthier, and smarter,” the original military and law enforcement usages mentioned when this technology was born in 2005 were cast aside. The company claims the technology is so accurate that it can sense your breathing using nothing but standard WiFi signals.

    In a 2021 company blog, Liu discusses the development of IEEE 802.11bf, a new WiFi protocol, which is aimed at standardizing WiFi imaging across all devices – thus making it easier for companies such as his to exploit compatible wireless networks. Liu was elected to serve as IEEE President for 2022, and the new standard continues to be developed to this day.

    Further refinements to the imaging technology itself have been made. In late 2021 another paper was submitted to IEEE outlining how the researchers were able to achieve high-resolution imaging results with commercial WiFi signals using beamforming on the 802.11n/ac protocol.

    Ready for Production

    The perfect WiFi imaging system may have just been introduced to the world in December 2022, when researchers from Carnegie Mellon University married the latest in WiFi sensing technology to a human form estimation engine known as DensePose.

    (Left Column) image-based DensePose (Right Column) WiFi-based DensePose

    DensePose is a technology developed by Meta/Facebook, beginning in 2018. It’s very similar to the WiPose system we previously discussed and aims at “mapping all human pixels of an RGB image to the 3D surface of a human body.” The researchers modified DensePose so that, rather than taking an RGB image, it would be compatible with the imagery being produced by state-of-the-art WiFi sensing technologies. The resulting system “can detect the pose of humans in a room based solely on the WiFi signals passing through the environment.”

    Big Brother’s New Eyes

    It’s telling how the pitch for this technology has pivoted from military and police use to keeping people safe in their own homes. The true purpose of this is obviously for law enforcement, the military, and intelligence agencies. We already live with mass digital surveillance and if you don’t believe that this won’t get incorporated into their plans to monitor everything you do, then you haven’t been paying attention.

    Apart from putting CCTV cameras in everyone’s living spaces, this technology offers a comprehensive and supremely surreptitious way of putting eyes in every room of your house and place of work. Indeed, this just may become the norm. With nearly a third of Gen Z favoring the installation of government surveillance cameras in your home, this less-intrusive method may just find even broader support from the brainwashed masses. It will be possible to know where you are in the house and exactly what you’re doing, from sitting on the toilet to making love.

    We’ve seen how easily intelligence agencies can get secret warrants to surveil anyone of particular interest. We’ve also seen just how easy it is for someone to become a target for surveillance. You very well might, one day, find your WiFi router and access points feeding imagery to an alphabet agency that didn’t like your social media posts, while armed thugs wait for the perfect moment to execute their next no-knock raid.

    *  *  *

    Subscribe to the Bombthrower mailing list to get these posts as they come out, and follow Mr. E via his Substack and Twitter.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 17:50

  • $250 Million NYC Condo Sees Price Slashed To $195 Million After A Year Without Selling
    $250 Million NYC Condo Sees Price Slashed To $195 Million After A Year Without Selling

    A 17,500-square-foot (1,626-square-meter) condo that sits on the top of Extell Development’s Central Park Tower was once listed for $250 million.

    A year after its listing, and a year after failing to sell, the price has been slashed by 22%, to $195 million, according to a new report from Bloomberg. 

    Gary Barnett, founder and chairman of Extell, talked down the price cut to Bloomberg: “The original pricing on these units were headline prices.”

    Sure. 

    He continued: “We have recently sold a significant amount of inventory at the top of the building and now want to get serious about selling these two showcase homes as well, so we lowered the prices to closer to where we think they will trade.”

    The building is at Billionaires’ Row building on West 57th Street and the apartment in question starts at the 129th floor. It sports 23 total rooms, including seven bedrooms and a ballroom, which is of course a “must have” for any apartment in New York City. 

    As Bloomberg notes, the $238 million that Ken Griffin paid for a place at 220 Central Park South still remains the highest price tag ever on a New York Apartment. The Extell Central Park Tower unit doesn’t look as though it will challenge Griffin’s purchase price. 

    And in what is likely a sign of the “cooling housing market” times, another property of Extells, a 12,600-square-foot duplex, also saw its price slashed from $175 million to $149.5 million earlier this year. 

    Jonathan Miller, president of appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. concluded: “Even with the new price, the brokers will probably have a lot of work to do.”

    Recall last week Zero Hedge contributor Wealthion published an interview with Danielle DiMartino Booth explaining why the housing market in the U.S. was in for a “Category 5” storm that could rival the great financial crisis. You can watch that video here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 09/18/2023 – 17:25

Digest powered by RSS Digest