Feb 01

Today’s News 1st February 2024

  • The Elite 1 Percent Behind The Cultural Civil War
    The Elite 1 Percent Behind The Cultural Civil War

    Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClear Wire,

    Scott Rasmussen has done America an enormous service. He and his team have identified the driving forces behind the destructive radicalism which is pushing us into a cultural civil war.

    While doing their two weekly national surveys, Rasmussen and his team noticed an anomaly. Out of every 1,000 or so respondents, there would always be three or four who were far more radical than everyone else. After several months of finding these unusual responses, Rasmussen realized they all shared three characteristics.

    The radical responses came from people who had graduate degrees (not just graduate studies), family incomes above $150,000 a year, and lived in large cities (more than 10,000 people per zip code).

    When Rasmussen aggregated the responses from more than 20 surveys, he realized these people made up a unique elite 1 percent.

    He then did a national survey of only people with these characteristics – and found some astonishing results. He briefed me and our team on the findings – and joined me on Newt’s World to talk about it further.

    When all other voters gave President Joe Biden a 41 percent job approval, the elite 1 percent rated him at 82 percent approval.

    The elite 1 percent are surprisingly young. Sixty-seven percent are between 35 and 54 years old. They are 86 percent white. Almost half of them (47 percent) favor “Sanders-like policies.” They are overwhelmingly Democrats (73 percent).

    The gap between the elite 1 percent and the rest of America is startling. While 57 percent of all voters say there is not enough individual freedom in America, 47 percent of the elite 1 percent say there is too much freedom. If you ask the section of the group that is politically obsessed (people who talk politics every day), 69 percent say there is too much individual freedom in America.

    Given this, it’s not surprising that the elite 1 percent have great faith in government. Some 70 percent trust government to do the right thing most of the time.

    Rasmussen said that this project has revealed the scariest single polling number he has seen in nearly 35 years of studying popular opinion. According to his data, 35 percent of the elite 1 percent (and 69 percent of the politically obsessed elite 1 percent) said they would rather cheat than lose a close election. Among average Americans, 93 percent reject cheating and accept defeat in an honest election. Only 7 percent reported they would cheat.

    While only 6 percent of most voters have a very favorable opinion of members of Congress, 69 percent of the elite 1 percent have a very favorable view (this is almost unimaginable). While 10 percent of all voters have a favorable view of journalists, the elite 1 percent really like them (71 percent favorable). While 17 percent of all voters have a favorable view of college professors, the elite 1 percent just love them (76 percent). This tracks, because many of the elite 1 percent may be college professors.

    To illustrate the scale of the gap between the elite 1 percent and the rest of the country, consider the elite 1 percent’s views on climate issues (and understand that these ideas are opposed by 63 percent to 83 percent of most Americans).

    • 77 percent of the elite 1 percent would like to impose strict restrictions and rationing on the private use of gas, meat, and electricity.
    • 72 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning gas powered vehicles.
    • 69 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning gas stoves.
    • 58 percent of the elite 1 percent favor of banning sport utility vehicles.
    • 55 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning non-essential air travel.
    • 53 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning private air conditioning.

    As Rasmussen noted, the degree to which the elite 1 percent think their views represent those of the average American is astonishing.

    According to Rasmussen, the most radical of the elite 1 percent were educated at what he calls the “dirty dozen:” Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, John’s Hopkins, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, and the University of Chicago.

    The elite 1 percent who graduated from these schools deeply believe in government. Fifty-five percent believe there is too much individual freedom in America and that Americans should obey government and follow government leadership.

    Rasmussen’s identification of the elite 1 percent begins to explain the depth of the tension between most Americans and the tiny group of elitists who control what Vladimir Lenin called “the commanding heights,” the elements of power which control the rest.

    It is the elite 1 percent who dominate the universities, news media, judiciary, intelligence agencies, giant foundations, and most major corporations. Although they are relatively few, they marry each other, their children go to the same schools, and they hire and promote each other.

    Charles Murray in his classic work, “Coming Apart,” analyzed zip codes and proved that graduates from “dirty dozen” universities that Rasmussen described live, work and play in the same zip codes. They are an isolated set and create a “power aristocracy” that has no knowledge of the rest of us – and contempt for most of us. This perfectly explains Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” line.

    Scott Rasmussen has done pioneering work. Every American should read “The Elite 1% and the Battle for America’s Soul” to understand what we are fighting to change.

    For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 23:40

  • Where Corruption Is Rampant
    Where Corruption Is Rampant

    Transparency International has released its 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index which gauges levels of perceived public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. The index scores them on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (clean) with the average score just 43 out of 100.

    As Statista’s Martin Armstrong reports, more than two thirds of countries scored lower than 50, as the majority of countries have made “no progress or declined in the last decade.”

    Infographic: Where Corruption Is Rampant | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In 2023, the countries with the lowest perceived level of public sector corruption were Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, followed by Norway, Singapore and Sweden.

    The opposite end of the index saw Somalia scoring just 11, making it the world’s most corruption-stricken country.

    Syria, Venezuela and South Sudan were close behind with a score of 13.

    The United States only came in 24th with a score of 69 – a slight increase on 2021’s score which was the country’s lowest since 2012 – and remains the same as that given in 2022.

    Transparency International cites “weak ethics rules for the US Supreme Court” which have “raised serious questions of judicial integrity” in the country. It notes however that despite this, U.S. federal and state judiciaries “largely” continue to have sufficient independence.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 23:20

  • Trans Runner Breaks 2 Women's Track & Field Records For New York College
    Trans Runner Breaks 2 Women’s Track & Field Records For New York College

    Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via The College Fix,

    A biological male who now identifies as female recently set two new track-and-field records for the Rochester Institute of Technology, prompting concern and anger among advocates who say it’s unfair to women competitors.

    “Sadie Schreiner set the 200-meter record and qualified for the Atlantic Region Championship with a time of 25.27 seconds at the RIT January Friday Meet. The runner also broke the 300-meter record with a 40.78-second finish,” the National Desk reported Tuesday.

    The Post Millennial pointed out that:

    “For comparison, Schreiner’s times would have placed the athlete in 18th place in the men’s 200-meter race, and in 10th place in the men’s 300-meter race.”

    This is not the first time Schreiner has made headlines.

    Last month the athlete drew attention after a meet Dec. 8 at Nazareth University in New York at which the runner set a new record in the 300 meter with a time of 41.80 seconds, the Daily Mail reported.

    Schreiner, who used to go by the name Camden Schreiner, “competed at the same meet a year ago in the men’s category of the 100m, where she came home in 19th place,” the Mail reported.

    Schreiner’s accomplishments have caught the ire of women’s rights advocates, including Riley Gaines, who posted on X on Monday: “The thing that never happens happened again. Male, Sadie (Camden) Schreiner, broke two more women’s collegiate records at @RITtigers. Women’s records mean nothing if they’re set by men.”

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    The Independent Council on Women’s Sports also posted on X: “Another male NCAA women’s record breaker… Women’s records are for WOMEN!”

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    Schreiner’s wins come as more states pass laws banning biological males competing against women in collegiate sports. Ohio approved such as law last week, for example.

    Last June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that prohibits biological men from competing in women’s collegiate sports. Last March, Arkansas also passed a law banning biological men from women’s sports.

    In 2021, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did the same.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 23:00

  • Optimistic Mindset Linked To Poor Decision Making
    Optimistic Mindset Linked To Poor Decision Making

    Authored by Ayla Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    While a positive mindset is often associated with success, a new study suggests that optimism often leads to poor decision-making, especially when it comes to finances.

    (Dean Drobot/Shutterstock)

    The study, conducted by the University of Bath in the UK and published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, sought to determine if people with an optimistic mindset had poorer decision-making cognition than people who were not optimistic. The researchers found that people with lower cognitive function tended to be more optimistic, which led them to make poor financial decisions.

    Study Findings Explained

    The study examined more than 36,000 individuals and found that people with realistic expectations and planning processes tend to make wiser decisions than people with a more optimistic mindset do.

    Researchers discovered that people with the highest cognitive ability were 22 percent more likely to be realists (or pessimists) when it came to financial planning. They also had a 34.8 percent decrease in optimistic tendencies compared to people with lower cognitive ability. Cognitive ability was measured based on various cognitive skills, including verbal fluency, numerical reasoning, and memory. The results suggest that optimism bias causes people to expect unrealistically positive outcomes in life decisions, especially in regard to their finances.

    “Optimism bias can lead to people not thinking about the consequences of their financial decisions when they think that everything will have a positive outcome or the outcome they expect,” Aura De Los Santos, a clinical psychologist, told The Epoch Times in an email. “High cognitive ability is associated with a higher level of realism because people understand that making deliberate decisions and thinking that there will be only one outcome is not very likely.”

    What Is Optimism Bias?

    Optimism bias is the difference between a person’s expectation and the resulting outcome. Around 80 percent of people have an optimism bias—so it appears to be an integral part of human nature.

    Optimism bias can have both positive and negative effects. First, optimism may be beneficial for physical health as one study reported that optimists are 14 percent less likely to die before age 65 and 30 percent less likely to die from cardiac arrest. Optimism also reduces stress and anxiety, which can have positive long-term effects on one’s health.

    “Positivism is also a reflection of having a healthy or positive outlook that can lift the mood when people are going through difficult situations, where they are able to see the other side of the coin,” Ms. De Los Santos explained.

    On the other hand, excessive optimism can lead people to make decisions that may cause harm in the future, including risky financial decisions, unprotected sex, substance use, etc. The backlash of the subsequent consequences can come at a significant personal cost.

    “People with an optimism bias may be very confident in their abilities, specifically in the financial decisions they make, not recognizing that they may have weaknesses in not knowing the moves they are making,” Ms. De Los Santos confirmed. “Overconfidence is beneficial for self-esteem, but it can also lead to failure.”

    How Does Excessive Optimism Lead to Low Cognition?

    Optimism innately causes people to take risks without properly considering the consequences. Excessive optimists may also believe that everything will turn out well in the end, even though they do not do what is required to achieve that outcome.

    People with a more realistic or pessimistic mindset tend to make wiser decisions and display better judgment compared to optimists, suggesting that low cognitive ability is an underlying cause of an excessively optimistic mindset.

    “An overly positive mindset can negatively affect human beings because they may not be prepared to deal with outcomes different from what they expect. Their capacity to adapt would be lower because they have not contemplated other scenarios,” Ms. De Los Santos explained. “Low cognitive ability can be related to the inability of people to realize that they are not making good decisions. It is likely that there is a close relationship between extreme positivity and incompetence.”

    Is Realism the Best Way To Go?

    Focusing on realistic thinking means you are prioritizing reality and therefore, the most realistic outcomes. Some research suggests that people with more realistic expectations (neither excessively positive nor excessively negative) tend to have better overall well-being. In general, decisions that are based on inaccurate, overly dramatic beliefs are far more likely to deliver worse outcomes compared with rational expectations.

    “In my experience as a psychologist, I have seen how high cognition is related to the ability to think through different scenarios, to consider financial gains and losses, where the human being understands their capabilities and how far they go,” Ms. De Los Santos explained. “An overestimation of their abilities can be a way to reinforce their self-esteem, but at the same time it can harm the financial aspect because decisions are made without taking into account the impact they can have.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 22:40

  • DoubleLine's Gundlach Doubles Down On Recession As The Other "Big Short" Is Now "Blissfully Long"
    DoubleLine’s Gundlach Doubles Down On Recession As The Other “Big Short” Is Now “Blissfully Long”

    Despite Powell’s pushback on expectations for a March rate cut, signaling that the US economy is hotter than the market – which until recently was pricing in 6 cuts for 2024 – expects, today DoubleLine’s Jeff Gundlach doubled down on his bearish outlook and told CNBC that a recession is still likely to occur in 2024 along with a higher unemployment rate.

    “We know that inflation was going to come down,” Gundlach said. “For now, we think there will be a stall in the inflation rate coming down. This means the market is not going to get the Goldilocks picture that it was euphoric about a couple of weeks ago.”

    Gundlach also criticized the Fed’s ‘higher-for-longer’ strategy, saying it posed a negative risk to future growth.

    “The longer the Fed stays at what is going to be about a 200 or 300 basis points real interest rate on Fed funds, there is risk to economic growth as we move into this year,” he told CNBC.

    Gundlach said higher rates continue to pose a major threat to the banking system but saw Wednesday jitters over New York Community Bancorp, as an isolated case. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of anecdotal evidence to give credence to the belief the urban and commercial real estate market is in a “debacle,” he added.

    And while the bond king was sweating the coming shakeout (and ostensibly buying bonds which tends to surge during recessions), one former uber bear was “blissfully” complacent about the coming meltdown.

    Steve Eisman, best known for being the other “Big Short”, for his highly profitable bet against subprime mortgages, said he’s now “more long-oriented” on the US market despite others’ deep concerns about ballooning federal deficits and crowding in stocks.

    According to Bloomberg, the Neuberger Berman Group portfolio manager said there’s no real sign that the soaring US debt poses a problem for markets or the US government. He’s equally sanguine on equities, despite the parallels that some perceive between today’s market and the dot-com bubble era.

    “I’m very blissful,” Eisman said Tuesday at the iConnections Global Alts conference in Miami Beach, referring to his broad market outlook. “I’m a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. It’s unbelievable.”

    “This argument about the deficit has been going on for forty years,” Eisman said, adding there are few reasons to worry “until I see real signs there’s a problem.” It wasn’t clear what signs he is referring to, but one can be absolutely certain they will appear… whatever they are because the trajectory from here on out is clear.

    The topic of crowding also came up: earlier this week we noted that according to JPMorgan, today’s Market Is “Far More Similar Than One May Think” To The Dotcom Bubble Peak.” That’s because the share of the top 10 stocks in the MSCI USA Index, including the Magnificent Seven, has climbed to 29.3% as of the end of December, just shy of the 33.2% peak seen in June 2000, sparking comparisons to the last days of the tech bubble.

    And while many have (repeatedly) warned there won’t be a happy ending, Eisman expressed no concerns when asked about crowding issues. As for his view on the broader market, he said “it’s a lot more relaxing being more long-oriented,” Eisman said. “The futures are up. A feeling of bliss.”

    While Eisman’s complacency is rather understandable – after all he has made his money and is now much more interested in a perpetuation of the status quo instead of profiting from its overhaul – his comments came after Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb warned earlier in Miami that the world’s biggest economy faces a “death spiral” of swelling debt, adding to recent alarms sounded by former US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin earlier this month.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 22:20

  • US Patriot Missile Downed Russian Transport Plane Which Killed 74: Putin
    US Patriot Missile Downed Russian Transport Plane Which Killed 74: Putin

    President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a Russian investigation into the shoot down of an Il-76 military transport plane which crashed close to the Ukrainian border last week has been concluded. 

    He pointed the finger at Washington and its supplying advanced weapons to Kiev in the remarks by saying it was a US Patriot missile that downed the flight. “It’s been definitively established that the plane was shot down by an American Patriot air defense system,” Putin said during a campaign event for his reelection.

    Zuma press, file image

    And after Moscow has raised the issue before the United Nations Security Council, Putin said that Moscow “insists” there be an international investigation into the incident.

    Shortly after it happened, merely within hours of the large transport airplane downing, the Kremlin had claimed 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war had been aboard. Thus it accused Kiev forces of killing their own. In total 74 people including crew were reported killed.

    Ukrainian officials strongly hinted their forces were behind it, but stopped short of outright taking responsibility. 

    The Kharkiv and Belgorod regions in particular have for months witnessed a huge uptick in aggressive Ukrainian military cross-border action, which has included use of missiles, mortars, and drones.

    Earlier this month, Ukraine and Russia exchanged nearly 500 prisoners, marking largest single swap since the early days of the war. This has driven speculation that the 65 POWs being transported on the downed Il-76 were possibly being prepared for another impending prisoner swap.

    There have also recently been reports Western allies have secretly met with Ukraine on a peace plan with Russia as the US presidential election cycle gears up.

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    A number of recent major mainstream US press reports have said Putin is more “open” than ever to the prospect of winding down the war, and reaching a peaceful settlement. But this would require Ukraine to cede territory, which so far Zelensky has been steadfast in refusing to do. 

    Meanwhile this latest major incident shows the great powers continue inching toward direct clash, after the Ukraine conflict has already long been acknowledged as a proxy war. If it is true that a Patriot missile was used to shoot down the Russian plane, it violates Putin’s previously stated ‘red line’ on foreign-supplied weaponry.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 22:00

  • Ex-IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump’s Tax Returns Sentenced To 5 Years In Prison
    Ex-IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump’s Tax Returns Sentenced To 5 Years In Prison

    Authored by Sam Dorman and Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A former contractor for the IRS was sentenced to five years in prison on Jan. 29 for leaking tax information associated with thousands of individuals, including former President Donald Trump.

    The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington on Jan. 4, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information. He leaked President Trump’s information to The New York Times in 2019 and shared data on some of the wealthiest Americans with ProPublica in 2020. His crime, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said, was the “biggest heist” in IRS history. His sentence included $5,000 in fines and community service.

    “It cannot be open season on our elected officials,” Judge Reyes said before adding that judges had a duty to make that clear. She later noted that Mr. Littlejohn purposefully sought his job at least in part to leak tax information.

    Judge Reyes began the hearing in Washington by lending her “sympathy” for Mr. Littlejohn while accusing him of perpetrating an “attack” on the nation’s constitutional democracy.

    “He targeted the sitting president of the United States of America and that is exceptional by any measure,” she told Mr. Littlejohn’s attorney. She added that in targeting President Trump, Mr. Littlejohn targeted the office of president.

    Judge Reyes said she would go beyond sentencing guidelines, adding that his offense covered the personal information and tax information of a substantial number of individuals, as well as risking nonmonetary harm. She also scrutinized the plea deal, stating she had “no words” for the fact that he only faced one count.

    House Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee had sent Judge Reyes a letter on Jan. 23, requesting the maximum sentence, while criticizing the Justice Department (DOJ) for not charging Mr. Littlejohn with additional counts.

    The letter cited Mr. Littlejohn’s plea deal, in which he acknowledged that he “willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation of his offenses.” It also noted that he engaged in “two separate acts related to misappropriation of taxpayer information.”

    Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was among those whose tax returns were leaked. He offered a victim statement in which he criticized Mr. Littlejohn’s conduct and suggested he got the “plea deal of the century.”

    President Trump’s attorney previously offered a statement on his behalf. According to CNN, she suggested that Mr. Littlejohn’s actions may have led to President Trump losing votes in the 2020 presidential election.

    Mr. Littlejohn offered a statement in which he apologized to the court, the government, Mr. Scott, and others hurt by his actions.

    “I alone am responsible for this crime,” he said in the courtroom.

    Mr. Littlejohn added that he acted out of a “sincere and misguided belief” that he was serving the “public interest,” but “systematically [violated]” the privacy of thousands.

    ‘Misguided Idealism’

    In a 15-page filing, prosecutors pushed for the maximum statutory sentence of five years in prison, arguing that Mr. Littlejohn’s betrayal of the public trust “merits significant punishment.”

    Mr. Littlejohn’s attorney, Lisa Manning, requested a lighter sentence than the DOJ sought, noting that he had no criminal history and believed he was “[serving] the public interest.”

    “Mr. Littlejohn is 38 years old, a first-time offender with a commendable past who committed this offense not for personal gain, not out of personal malice, but out of a belief that his violation of law would serve the public interest,” his sentencing memo read.

    His attorney attempted to portray him as someone well-respected by friends, but engaged in conduct that was “the product not only of his misguided idealism but of life experience that led him to treat each day as if it were his last.”

    When Ms. Manning argued that her client’s conduct wasn’t done out of political animus, Judge Reyes interjected, “Of course he did.”

    According to Mr. Littlejohn’s sentencing memo, he “made up his mind” about leaking to the NY Times after an unexpected diagnosis for his father and a NY Times opinion piece titled, “Everyone’s Income Taxes Should Be Public.”  Similarly, Mr. Littlejohn’s attorney said he was concerned about “systemic inequality” and influenced by Emmanuel Saez’s book “Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay.”

    “It had a profound impact on Mr. Littlejohn’s worldview,” his sentencing memo reads. “While the book suggested solutions to this inequality, Mr. Littlejohn feared that none would be achieved without robust public engagement with the topic.”

    ‘Above the Law’

    The DOJ in its sentencing memo argued that Mr. Littlejohn “weaponized” his access to taxpayer data to “further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law.”

    “A free press and public engagement with the media are critical to any healthy democracy, but stealing and leaking private, personal tax information strips individuals of the legal protection of their most sensitive data. … Defendant’s betrayal of the public trust merits significant punishment,” it reads.

    Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on July 11, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Littlejohn’s attorney argued that the DOJ didn’t have a basis for “requesting punishment six times greater than the maximum Guideline sentence for this offense.”

    The DOJ said Mr. Littlejohn “developed a sophisticated, detailed plan” for downloading tax returns and used more general search parameters to avoid triggering “scrutiny or detection of his scheme.” A plea document shows Mr. Littlejohn acknowledging that he “abused a position of trust and employed highly specialized technical skills in furthering his criminal activity.”

    Mr. Littlejohn had access to “vast amounts of unmasked taxpayer data” when he worked for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm that served public and private clients mostly on IRS contracts between 2008 and 2013.

    After President Trump took office in 2017, Mr. Littlejohn sought to return to work for Booz Allen “with the intention of accessing and disclosing” the tax returns of the president, whom he viewed as “dangerous and a threat to democracy,” according to prosecutors.

    Booz Allen’s spokesperson told Fox News that the firm fully supports the investigation into Mr. Littlejohn’s actions.

    “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the actions of this individual, who was active with the company years ago,“ the spokesperson said. ”We have zero tolerance for violations of the law and operate under the highest ethical and professional guidelines. We fully supported the U.S. government in its investigation into this matter.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 21:40

  • Portland Declares Emergency Over Fentanyl Crisis Three Years After Decriminalizing Drug Possession
    Portland Declares Emergency Over Fentanyl Crisis Three Years After Decriminalizing Drug Possession

    The idiots running Portland, Oregon have declared a 90-day state of emergency over an ongoing fentanyl crisis, just three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.

    Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek speaks to her constituents during a campaign rally in Portland on Oct. 22, 2022. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)

    State, County and City officials declared the ‘tri-government’ fentanyl emergency following recommendations by the governor-established Portland Central City Task Force late last year. As part of the response, the city, state and county will work together to ‘tackle the crisis’ (sure!), which will include the establishment of a “command center” in the central city to coordinate efforts and “refocus existing resources.”

    Fentanyl addicts who interact with first responders in downtown Portland over the next 90 days will be triaged in this new command center.

    “Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” said Gov. Tina Kotek (D).

    According to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, “We cannot underestimate the tremendous value of bringing leaders from different disciplines in a room on a daily basis who all account for a different part of the solution.”

    Mike Meyers, director of Portland’s Community Safety Division will head up the command team, while deputy police chief Nathan Reynolds of the state’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management will be the state’s incident commander.

    Portland Police will also work with Oregon State Police to jointly patrol downtown streets for fentanyl sales.

    As the Epoch Times notes further, the emergency declarations do not provide extra funding for the joint actions, and government agencies will instead rearrange current budgets to cover the costs.

    Fentanyl Overdoses Rise

    Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat acute pain. As little as two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal. It is also extremely addictive.

    According to U.S. officials, an increasing number of Mexican cartels have been importing fentanyl from China before pressing it into pills or mixing it into other counterfeit pills made to look like Xanax, Adderall, or oxycodone. The drugs are then sold to unaware buyers in the United States

    Announcing the tri-government actions, Ms. Kotek noted the ongoing opioid is impacting not just the state but the entire nation, with the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.

    Mock sizing of a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl, on April 1, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    From 2016 to 2021, drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl more than tripled across the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    In Oregon, health officials saw a 74 percent surge in fentanyl-related deaths from 2019 to 2020, according to the Oregon Department of Education.

    “Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Ms. Kotek said. “The Chair, the Mayor and I recognize the need to act with urgency and unity across our public health and community safety systems to make a dent in this crisis. We are all in this together.”

    Ms. Kotek added that the next 90 days will “yield unprecedented collaboration and focused resources targeting fentanyl and provide a roadmap for the next steps.”

    Elsewhere, Portland Mayor Wheeler said the joint emergency declarations are “exactly the type of coordinated action needed to make a direct impact and a lasting difference.”

    The joint emergency declarations come after U.S. and Chinese officials resumed talks in Beijing on Tuesday regarding how to counter the ongoing illicit trafficking of fentanyl.

    The discussions come more than a year after they were put on hold amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing in the wake of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

    Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Wang Xiaohong, China’s public security minister, said his deputy—who attended the closed-door talks with U.S. officials earlier in the day— had reached a “common understanding on the work plan” with officials and hopes the two delegations could “enhance and expand cooperation to provide more positive energy for stable, sound and sustainable China-U.S. relations.”

    Senior U.S. officials from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State, and Treasury participated in Tuesday’s talks. U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns was also in attendance.

    Reuters contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 21:20

  • FDA Finds Safety Signals For Updated COVID-19 Vaccines
    FDA Finds Safety Signals For Updated COVID-19 Vaccines

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Updated COVID-19 vaccines may cause heart inflammation and severe allergic shock, according to a new study from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in White Oak, Md., on June 5, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Researchers with the FDA, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and companies like CVS looked at health care databases to try to figure out if there were signs the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 vaccines might be linked to any health issues.

    They found several safety signals. One signal was for myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, and a related condition called pericarditis following Pfizer vaccination in adults aged 18 to 35. Another was for anaphylaxis, or severe allergic shock, following Moderna and Pfizer vaccination in people aged 18 to 64.

    The signals were detected in a database from Carelon Research.

    The incidence rate for anaphylaxis was 74.5 cases per 100,000 person-years following Pfizer vaccination and 109.4 cases per 100,000 person-years following Moderna vaccination.

    Researchers arrived at an incidence rate of 131.4 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis per 100,000 person-years after a Pfizer shot.

    No stratification was done by gender, despite myocarditis, according to many studies, disproportionately affecting males.

    Person-years is a measure used in some studies. In this study, all time during post-vaccination periods of time known as risk intervals were included. The risk intervals were different depending on the health outcome. For anaphylaxis, the risk interval was 0 to 1 day; for myocarditis/pericarditis, it was 0 to 7 days or 0 to 21 days.

    Additional issues were also identified in the four databases that were analyzed, but none rose to the level of a safety signal, a set criteria that is an indication of a vaccine causing an issue.

    The study analyzed data from people aged 6 months and older from August 2022 to July 2023. The bivalent shots were replaced soon after by updated vaccines because their effects, which already started low, were shown to wane in observational studies.

    Researchers only included people who were continuously enrolled in an insurance plan and did not suffer health issues during a “clean interval,” or if the health outcome in question did not occur during a certain interval.

    “References for the clean interval could not be located in the literature and are based on clinician input,” the authors said in a footnote.

    Pfizer and Moderna, which make COVID-19 shots that utilize modified messenger RNA (mRNA), did not return inquiries.

    FDA Response

    Patricia Lloyd, an FDA researcher, and her co-authors said the study “supports the safety of these vaccines” and “supports the conclusion that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks.”

    Asked for evidence to support those conclusions, Ms. Lloyd referred a request for comment to the FDA.

    “With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the vaccines are safe and effective. The FDA stands behind its findings of quality, safety, and efficacy for the mRNA vaccines. Additionally, it is simply a fact that millions of lives have been saved because of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, which most Americans undergoing vaccination have received,” an FDA spokesperson claimed.

    The agency provided a single citation from the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that used modeling to estimate that through November 2022, the vaccines prevented millions of deaths.

    The study was published ahead of peer review on the medRxiv server.

    Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist and president of the McCullough Foundation, told The Epoch Times in an email that results from the paper show “cardiovascular and neurological safety events are numerous and unacceptable on a population basis.”

    Dr. McCullough, who was not involved with the paper, noted that the study did not analyze COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness.

    “The FDA’s conclusion on risk benefit is not valid and reflects agency bias in attempting to promote the unsafe, ineffective products,” he said. “Our regulatory agencies should not be promoting or advertising the products they are charged with regulating.”

    The FDA clears vaccines. The agency in 2022 authorized and approved the bivalent vaccines despite there being no clinical trial data available.

    Limitations of the new paper included the lack of medical record review. Many authors reported their employment for health care companies as conflicts of interest.

    A previous study analyzing the health claims databases detected signals for seizures/convulsions among children aged 2 to 4 after Pfizer vaccination and children aged 2 to 5 following Moderna vaccination. That study analyzed the version of the vaccines that preceded the bivalent shots.

    In another new study, co-authored by Dr. McCullough, researchers reported finding a spike in reports of myocarditis in the federally-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in 2021.

    “We found the number of myocarditis reports in VAERS after COVID-19 vaccination in 2021 was 223 times higher than the average of all vaccines combined for the past 30 years,” the researchers said.

    Applying causality principles, the researchers said that COVID-19 vaccination was “strongly associated with a serious adverse safety signal of myocarditis, particularly in children and young adults resulting in hospitalization and death.”

    Federal officials have said that the COVID-19 vaccines cause myocarditis, pericarditis, and anaphylaxis, but that the vaccines also provide protection against infection and severe illness, tilting the risk-benefit balance in their favor. They have increasingly cited, in lieu of clinical trials, observational studies from the FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some of which lack peer review.

    Current U.S. recommendations are for essentially all Americans aged 6 months and older to get one of the newest COVID-19 vaccines, introduced in 2023. That contrasts with a number of other countries, such as the United Kingdom, which have stopped offering or no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccination for wide swaths of their populations.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 21:00

  • "Entirely Counterfeit": Harvard's Chief Diversity Officer Plagiarized At Least 40 Times According To Complaint
    “Entirely Counterfeit”: Harvard’s Chief Diversity Officer Plagiarized At Least 40 Times According To Complaint

    Weeks after the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay over a plagiarism scandal, the university’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, has been accused of doing the same.

    Sherri Ann Charleston (photo via the Washington Free Beacon)

    According to a Monday complaint filed with the university, as well as an analysis by the Washington Free Beacon‘s Aaron Sibarium, large portions of Charleston’s work very clearly appears to have been lifted from others without so much as quotation marks. She even took credit for her own husband’s work, according to the report.

    The complaint makes 40 allegations of plagiarism that span the entirety of Charleston’s thin publication record. In her 2009 dissertation, submitted to the University of Michigan, Charleston quotes or paraphrases nearly a dozen scholars without proper attribution, the complaint alleges. And in her sole peer-reviewed journal article—coauthored with her husband, LaVar Charleston, in 2014—the couple recycle much of a 2012 study published by LaVar Charleston, the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, framing the old material as new research.

    Through that sleight of hand, Sherri Ann Charleston effectively took credit for her husband’s work. The 2014 paper, which was also coauthored with Jerlando Jackson, now the dean of Michigan State University’s College of Education, and appeared in the Journal of Negro Education, has the same methods, findings, and description of survey subjects as the 2012 study, which involved interviews with black computer science students and was first published by the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. –Free Beacon

    As Sibarium notes on X:

    “The 2014 paper appears to be entirely counterfeit,” said Peter Wood, the head of the National Association of Scholars and a former associate provost at Boston University.

    “This is research fraud pure and simple.”

    Prior to joining Harvard in August 2020, Charleston was the chief affirmative action officer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After joining Harvard, she served on the staff advisory committee which helped choose Claudine Gay as president in December 2022, the Harvard Crimson reports. Charleston taught gender studies courses at the University of Wisconsin, while her bio describes her as “one of the nation’s leading experts in diversity” whose work involves “translating diversity and inclusion research into practice for students, staff, researchers, postdoctoral fellows and faculty of color.”

    It apparently also includes copious use of ‘ctrl-c’ and ‘ctrl-v.’

    “Sherri Charleston appears to have used somebody else’s research without proper attribution,” said former Villanova University political theory professor, Steve McGuire, who reviewed two of Charleston’s papers, the Beacon reports.

    Read the rest of Sibarium’s extensive reporting here…

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 20:40

  • 28 Republican AGs Say Ending Ammo Sales At Missouri Plant Could Harm National Security
    28 Republican AGs Say Ending Ammo Sales At Missouri Plant Could Harm National Security

    Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Attorneys General of 28 states are demanding that President Joe Biden ignore a request to investigate the Lake City Army Ammunition plant’s policy of selling 5.56 mm rifle ammunition to civilians.

    A man loads .223-caliber bullets into an AR-15 rifle magazine at FT3 tactical shooting range in Stanton, Calif., on May 3, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    A Jan. 24 letter written by Attorneys General Andrew Bailey of Missouri, Brenna Bird of Iowa, and Todd Rokita of Indiana and signed by 25 other attorneys general, warns that ending sales would harm America’s military readiness and do nothing to prevent crime.

    The letter derides a previous missive, dated Jan. 9 and written by New York Attorney General Letitia James and signed by 19 other Attorneys General calling for the investigation, as dangerous and uninformed.

    According to the James letter, the Lake City plant in Missouri has flooded communities with “military-grade” ammunition that has been used in a number of mass shootings.

    “Compounding the horror, the bullets used in this violence were subsidized by American taxpayers, as the federal government has apparently invested more than $860 million to improve production,” the letter reads.

    In their response, Mr. Bailey and his colleagues claim the writers of the Jan. 9 letter either don’t understand or are ignoring the facts.

    “The Democrats’ letter contains a litany of errors. These errors demonstrate our colleagues’ outright ignorance of firearms and ammunition,” the Jan. 24 letter reads.

    In a statement on his website, Mr. Bailey wrote that shutting down the plant would make Americans less safe, in addition to costing his state hundreds of jobs.

    “I will not let Joe Biden sacrifice the rights of law-abiding gun owners and manufacturers on the altar of appeasement to the Radical Left. Lake City Ammunition did nothing wrong,” Mr. Bailey wrote in a statement on his website. “I’m proud to stand in the gap with these like-minded attorneys general to protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

    Mr. Rokita agreed. In a statement on the Indiana Attorney General’s website, Mr. Rokia wrote that the principle at play covers more than just military readiness.

    “A tyrant’s tactic is to chip away at liberties little by little,” he wrote. “Americans cannot exercise their constitutionally protected right to use their firearms without access to ammunition. That’s why we’re taking a strong stand.”

    The Jan. 24 letter points out that the Lake City ammunition sold to civilians is not the same ammunition used by the military. And even if it were, the letter states, that would not be enough reason to ban its sale to civilians.

    “The primary cartridge is proprietary to the Army and may not be sold commercially. If the United States military using ammunition precluded that ammunition’s use by civilians, then other widely and commonly available ammunition, including 9mm and 12-gauge shotshells,” the letter reads. “Lake City only sells ammunition to commercial customers that is legal to manufacture. Lake City complies with all the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (“ATF”) requirements.”

    They also write that the claim that taxpayers are subsidizing the sales is the opposite of what’s happening.

    Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks to his staff in March 2023. (Courtesy of the Missouri Attorney General’s Office)

    “They get causality backward. The law-abiding target shooters and gun owners who buy Lake City ammunition are subsidizing national defense and military readiness,” the Jan. 24 letter reads.

    The letter from Mr. Bailey and the other pro-Second Amendment attorneys general points out that Lake City began selling ammunition to civilians as a means of maintaining production levels and a trained workforce in the event of war.

    The plant had been basically mothballed prior to 1990. With the early 1990s military actions in Iraq, Kuwait, and other areas, the Lake City plant found itself playing catch up, trying to get machinery running and employees trained to meet the surge in demand for ammunition.

    The addition of civilian sales to its government contract means the plant continues production and maintains its equipment and trained workforce, ensuring it’s able to meet future surges.

    “That section in the Lake City contract was—and remains—a sound policy choice. As we confront an increasingly dangerous world with unpredictable adversaries, now is not the time to undermine our military readiness,” the Jan. 24 letter reads.

    Mr. Bailey, Mr. Rokita, and Ms. Bird were joined by attorney generals from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina House of Representatives, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

    The Lake City Army Ammunition plant is located in Independence, Missouri, and has provided ammunition for every armed conflict America has been involved in since World War II. According to an information sheet, the facility covers more than 3,000 acres, has 408 buildings, and can produce 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition annually.

    In addition to small arms ammunition, the plant produces pyrotechnics, primers for various cartridges, and pyrotechnic and tracer mixes.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 20:20

  • The Real Victors In All The Bloodshed: US Arms Exports Hit Record High In 2023
    The Real Victors In All The Bloodshed: US Arms Exports Hit Record High In 2023

    Hundreds of thousands dead in Eastern Europe as the Russia-Ukraine war is about to reach a grim 2-year mark… tens of thousands of civilians slain in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank… Iraq, Syria, and Yemen again sliding into chaos, on the precipice of yet more Western military intervention… no one wins. 

    Correction: someone does win….

    With all the global geopolitical flashpoints erupting at the same time in the last year, Western defense firms have been raking it in, with US arms exports in particular reaching a record high in fiscal year 2023.

    “The United States sold $238 billion worth of weapons to foreign governments in 2023, as many European countries sought to replace stock sent to Ukraine for its defense against invading Russian forces,” Stripes writes. “That sum is a 16% increase from the year before and includes sales by U.S. arms companies and those directly negotiated by Washington, a statement Monday from the State Department said.”

    The demand has largely been driven by the war in Ukraine, which has cost the West tens of billions each month to sustain in support of Kiev. More importantly, in the now two-year long effort to keep up the flow of advanced weapons and vital artillery ammo, which is constantly depleted on the stalemated frontlines, European nations have seen their own stockpiles dwindle.

    NATO leadership has in response issued a desperate plea for members states to drastically and urgently jump start and ramp up production. The private sector, especially in France in Germany, is also racing to forge partnerships with Kiev.

    But meanwhile, standing in the gap remains the major US defense firms, with the biggest companies like Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman leading the way. As global instability rises, so do their stock prices…

    Arms sales and transfers are viewed as “important U.S. foreign policy tools with potential long-term implications for regional and global security,” the State Department said in a statement.

    Sales approved in the year included $10 billion worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Poland, $2.9 billion worth of AIM-120C-8 Advanced Medium-Range Air-To-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to Germany, and National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine.

    Association of the United States Army annual meeting & expo, via US Army

    NATO’s so-called ‘eastern flank’ has been a big driver, with State Dept. data confirming that Poland is a leading buyer. For a partial list of deals for major military hardware inked between US defense firms and Warsaw in the last year:

    • $12 billion worth of Apache helicopters
    • $10 billion worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
    • $3.75 billion worth of M1A1 Abrams tanks
    • Poland invested $4 billion in integrated air & missile defense command systems

    Prime Minister Donald Tusk has lately committed NATO-member Poland to becoming “the most powerful land force in Europe” and he’s building a US-supplied arsenal to make that happen (in continuity with prior Polish administrations). What has helped is the perception advanced in Western media sources that Putin is eyeing expanding the war into Europe, even threatening NATO countries.

    In the Pacific region, US arms sales have been boosted by the “China threat”. One report underscores, “Notably, countries outside Europe also participated in the arms market, with South Korea spending USD 5 billion on F-35 fighter jets and Australia investing USD 6.3 billion in C130J-30 Super Hercules aircraft. Japan secured a USD 1 billion contract for E-2D Hawkeye surveillance aircraft.” Of course, weapons have been drasticallyl boosted to Israel amid the Gaza war as well.

    But while Biden’s State Department is busy bragging about “the highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners,” the bodies are piling up on blood-soaked soil in various far-flung corners of the globe. Responsible Statecraft asks the apt question here… Tone deaf? Admin brags about 55% hike in foreign arms sales.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 20:00

  • Oregon University Will No Longer Give 'D-' Or 'F' Grades
    Oregon University Will No Longer Give ‘D-‘ Or ‘F’ Grades

    Authored by David Glasser via The College Fix,

    Citing a wrongheaded “GPA fixation,” Western Oregon University leaders have announced plans to abolish D- and F grades for students…

    They will replace them with “no credit” in an effort to support student success and encourage struggling undergrads to continue their education despite obstacles, they said.

    The public university announced in a news release this month the changes would start in the fall.

    “Students not earning a passing grade will be required to repeat the course and demonstrate proficiency. Our goal is to ensure that students who have met the core competencies and learning objectives graduate and provide every student an opportunity to be successful at Western Oregon University,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Jose Coll said in an email to The College Fix.

    Coll, who took the job as provost in June 2023, said in the news release that “GPAs will now be a true reflection of student success and course mastery; failures will no longer mask the demonstrated abilities of our students when they pass courses.”

    The news release stated that “the institutional academic grading regulation will reflect a grade range of A through D; the letter grades of D- and F will be replaced with No Credit (NC) for undergraduate students.”

    “The difference is that the grade of NC will not negatively impact student GPAs.”

    The move comes as data from the school shows that 65 percent of freshmen who drop out of WOU have earned at least one “F,” Inside Higher Ed reported.

    Western Oregon University acknowledged students receiving “no credit” are significantly more likely to continue with their education than those who fail classes, leading some to accuse the school of allowing “grade inflation” to occur, according to Inside Higher Ed.

    In a statement to The College Fix, Coll resisted this characterization.

    “The GPA fixation we have as a country and the grading system that’s been in place for over 200 years has been used to determine who belongs and who is capable, although we know that similar to the SAT and ACT, many capable students have been prohibited from pursuing their post-secondary education due to these barriers,” he said.

    But the center-right Oregon Association of Scholars, a branch of the National Association of Scholars, said the policy raises “several concerns.”

    “Colleges should be evaluating how well they are teaching and how well students are learning. This approach seems poised to increase retention by keeping struggling students in the system regardless of performance, until administrators can find a combination of courses to put a degree in their hand. Ensuring students can perform academically should come first,” a spokesperson for the group wrote in a prepared statement to The Fix.

    “Students deserve the opportunity to try, to push themselves, and to fail. They have the right to be treated like adults, the right to fail and to learn from it. What they take away from that experience should be up to them to work out, not something framed-up for them by college administrators to mask their problems with student retention and performance,” the statement added.

    The topic of grade inflation remains a pressing concern in higher education today.

    In December 2023, it was revealed that 79 percent of the grades given out at Yale University in the 2022-23 academic year were As.

    “As you can see, a large majority of grades in Yale College are in the A range (A or A-),” Dean Pericles Lewis remarked after the report’s release. “This results in compression, making it difficult for instructors to use grades for their intended purpose of helping students understand areas of strength and others that need attention.”

    At Harvard, an identical 79 percent of grades were As in the 2020-21 academic year, an increase of over 20 percent in the last decade.

    “Mean grades on a four-point scale were 3.80 in the 2020-21 academic year, up from 3.41 in 2002-03,” the Harvard Crimson reported.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 19:40

  • Hamas Returning To Northern Gaza, Reasserting Control In Some Areas
    Hamas Returning To Northern Gaza, Reasserting Control In Some Areas

    Now 117 days into the Gaza war, with fighting having long been focused in the south, and there are already reports that Hamas militants are returning to the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have for months exercised control of after pacifying it early in the ground offensive.

    The Guardian is among major publications to report that Hamas is newly mobilizing in the north and even trying to reestablish a system of governance, citing Israeli officials and eyewitnesses.

    Via Reuters

    One former Israeli national security advisor, Eyal Hulata, has described, “We are hearing more, unfortunately, of the recovery of [an] insurgency in both central and northern Gaza … We’re hearing more and more that Hamas are doing policing in northern Gaza and governing trade, and that is a very bad outcome.”

    Michael Milstein of the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israel-based think tank, explained to the publication how this could be possible. “Hamas control these areas. There is no chaos or vacuum because it is the workers of Gaza municipality or civil rescue defense forces, who are effectively part of Hamas, who are enforcing public order. Hamas still exists. Hamas has survived,” he said.

    “The IDF version is that in the northern part of Gaza the basic military structure of Hamas was broken … That only works with a conventional army but not for a flexible guerrilla operation like Hamas. We are already seeing individuals as snipers, setting booby traps and so on,” Milstein continued.

    Presumably small Hamas teams are also still able to make effective use of tunnels to launch ambushes or utilize other insurgent or guerilla tactics. This makes it almost impossible to stamp out Hamas completely. 

    Israel has meanwhile sought to actively prevent large swathes of Gazan residents from returning to their homes, also given it is still an active war zone. Some regional outlets have said the IDF is dropping leaflets warning refugees in the south against any attempts to travel back north.

    Meanwhile, Israel’s plans for the Gaza Strip post-war are still unclear, but Palestinians fear that Jewish settlers will eventually move in. According to a new report in Reuters, that was precisely the focus of a controversial conference over the weekend.

    “Israel’s hard-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urged Jewish settlers to return to Gaza at a packed gathering on Sunday, drawing condemnation from Palestinians who said his words amounted to a call for their forced deportation,” Reuters reported.

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    “The statement from the firebrand Ben-Gvir clashed with the official government position iterated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel does not intend to return a permanent presence to Gaza once the war with Hamas is over,” the report said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 19:20

  • Robotic "Companions" Are Testing The Scope Of Privacy And Sexual Freedom
    Robotic “Companions” Are Testing The Scope Of Privacy And Sexual Freedom

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Consider this: A brothel opens, offering “sexual services,” including “experiences” with girls under 15 years old.

    Typically, the police response to such a brothel would make the Normandy landing look like a small skirmish.

    But this brothel, Chub AI, is a virtual brothel, reportedly “staffed” by artificially intelligent bots.

    The controversy is part of a broader debate over sex bots and even sex bot brothels.

    Not long ago, the first sex robot brothel, Lovedoll UK, was shut down in Gateshead, England. 

    Even individuals such as Steven Crawford have purchased a doll and then pimped it out to customers. With the rise in such sales, the number of legal and legislative actions are rising as well.

    Over 50 years ago, what became known as the “sexual revolution” began in the United States with a debate over the scope of privacy and sexual freedom. We are now facing a second such debate, but liberal voices that once called for sexual freedom are now advocating bans and criminal penalties to deny the right to choose a different type of companion: sex dolls and bots.

    Houston’s city council unanimously blocked a proposed “sex robot brothel” from opening in the city, which would have been the nation’s first pay-by-the-hour robot brothel.

    “Westworld”-like technology is now on a collision course with long-standing privacy principles. For those fearing an “ex machina” future, there is an equal number of people fearing an ex-privacy future in the balance of this debate.

    A growing market for both sex bots and dolls is fueling the debate around the world. For companies such as Kinky S Dolls, the brothels are the equivalent to road tests for prospective owners of anthropomorphic bots that can cost $3,000 each.

    Sex dolls (which are anthropomorphic but not mechanical) are already widely used privately and increasingly in brothels. One Canadian brothel offered “six classy, sophisticated, and adventurous ladies; curated for the discerning gentlemen”…starting at $80 for a half hour.

    Since Ovid’s story of Pygmalion in the “Metamorphoses,” the dynamic of humans and inanimate objects has been a part of our literature. In that story, the lonely sculptor created his perfect woman out of ivory, only to fall in love with the statue. He prayed to Venus to give him a lover like his statue Galatea. She did so, and “the maiden felt the kisses, blushed and, lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the same time.”

    The robotic world is approaching its Pygmalion moment. New anthropomorphic devices are being programmed with more and more human features and lifelike responses. With breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, they can respond to questions and even display emotions from jealousy to desire. They are developing warm and reflective responses to touch.

    Indeed, Pygmalian’s story captures both the fantasy and the controversy over the explosion of sexbots. While both male and female bots are available, the consumer base for bots remains largely men, and the objections have been almost exclusively focused on gynoids, or fembots. For feminists, the sexbots are allowing men to objectify women and domination fantasies.

    In The Guardian, journalist Jenny Kleeman denounced new bots that can hold conversations and even joke precisely because they are “a dream woman” for men who “exist only for men’s use.”

    Kathleen Richardson, a robot ethicist at the De Montfort University, wrote a paper calling for a ban on all machines, but not human-like dolls. Richardson insisted that “the development of sex robots will further reinforce relations of power that do not recognize both parties as human subjects.” A supporter of the Campaign Against Sex Robots, Richardson warned “technology is not neutral. It’s informed by class, race and gender. Political power informs the development of technology.”

    This debate is different in that the fear is not how a product can harm humans, but how humans are simulating harm through a product.

    From a legal perspective, these sex robots are nothing more than a ramped up toaster with a fetching name. Even the term “brothel” can be challenged. In Paris, a sex doll brothel was opened and licensed as a “game center.” The analogy is based on the fact that bots, in the view of customers, are simply machines designed for recreation.

    The new bot battle is an extension of prior fights over pornography and prostitution. Some advocates long argued that pornography constitutes objectification and fuels violence against women. In the case of prostitution, many libertarians argue that two consenting adults should be allowed to contract for sex.

    Our current system has a glaring disconnect, where you can get paid to have sex on camera for a movie with multiple partners, but not to have sex in private.

    The bots remove the alleged victim in these scenarios. No one is being directly harmed when someone has relations with what is essentially an advanced appliance.

    This issue becomes far more difficult, however, when the bots are designed to resemble children. Such devices have already been banned in some countries, including recently in the U.S. The possession or import of child sex dolls has led to arrests in various countries, including the seizure of 123 such dolls in the United Kingdom.

    In the U.S., the “Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act” was notable in its sweeping underlying claims about not only childlike robots, but seemingly all robots.

    “Dolls and robots not only lead to rape, but they make rape easier by teaching the rapist how to overcome resistance and subdue the victim,” it states.

    Moreover, it maintains, “Dolls and robots are intrinsically related to abuse of minors, and they cause the exploitation, objectification, abuse, and rape of minors.”

    There is now a push to pass a bill referred to as CREEPER 2.0, which would outlaw not only the importation and transportation of such dolls but also their possession and sale.

    The vast majority of people have little problem with banning such childlike sex bots. These disgusting tools are depicting individuals who cannot consent in any context. However, the definition is vague and could raise legal questions in barring products that are perceived as having “features that resemble those of a minor.”

    The legal problems are magnified in broader efforts to ban sex dolls and bots. In 2002, in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court struck down two provisions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 that dealt with virtual or depicted child pornography. That included purely computer-generated images where there is no actual child or victim. Both provisions were found to violate the First Amendment, and the court rejected the type of assumed harm claimed by CREEPER.

    In the absence of a direct victim, we are left with a pure moral or social judgment on the private tastes and relations of adults.

    In Paris, feminists opposed sex-doll brothels on the basis that the dolls cannot consent and allow for violent fantasies. Lorraine Questiaux of the feminist group Mouvement du Nid (Nest Movement) called the brothel a “place that makes money from simulating the rape of a woman.”

    In Sweden, feminist organizations moved to ban sex bots as advancing the “objectifying, sexualised and degrading attitude to women found in today’s mainstream pornography.” They object to the right of men to create artificial women who “obey their smallest command” and “cannot say no to something that the man wants.”

    For many libertarians, the answer remains the same, the matter should begin and end with personal choice.

    In the series “Westworld,” “host” Annie asked a reluctant guest “if you can’t tell the difference, does it matter if I’m real or not?”

    Legally, the answer is no. 

    But as that difference erodes, the question as to whether it matters to others will grow.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 19:00

  • Legacy Media's Reporting On Mass Shooting Does Not Reflect Reality
    Legacy Media’s Reporting On Mass Shooting Does Not Reflect Reality

    Legacy media’s reporting on mass shootings does not reflect reality. 

    X account Unbiased Crime Report said, “According to Mother Jones, there were only 12 mass shootings in 2023!?” 

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    “Meanwhile, CNN will tell you there were 658 mass shootings in 2023,” the Unbiased Crime Report said. 

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    But legacy media conveniently leaves out the majority of mass shootings were labeled “gang violence.” 

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    Unbiased Crime Report said there is no set definition of a mass shooting.

    “The definition and numbers change drastically depending on the narrative they [corporate media] want to push,” the X user said, adding the narrative is entirely about gun control, plus the “Anti-white narrative: Exclude 98% of mass shootings! (because they MIGHT be gang related).” 

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    Another inconvenient truth is that most gang shootings occur in imploding Democrat-controlled cities where gun control is the strictest. 

    In an interview, Joe Rogan and gun rights activist Colion Noir spoke about this issue this week. 

    “When I look at who was pushing the narrative for gun control, it is always a Democrat. Always. Which is fine if that’s the way the party wants to lean. But what I have a problem with is when the vast majority of gun murders in this country are coming from inner cities that are all ran by Democrats. That’s where I have a problem. Because you’re pushing legislation and you’re pushing policies that do nothing to address the root cause of the issue. You’re literally using the deplorable conditions in these environments to justify more gun control policies that will do nothing to fix these environments but give you more control over people,” Noir told Rogan. 

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    If you’ve noticed, radical Democrats and their billionaire funders, like Mike Bloomberg, who plows tens of millions of dollars into anti-gun groups, have no viable solution in fixing inner cities. Instead, they want to destroy the Second Amendment. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 18:40

  • Split The International Energy Agency Into Two To Avoid Shocks
    Split The International Energy Agency Into Two To Avoid Shocks

    Authored by Mark Mills via RealClear Wire,

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) turns 50 this year. It’s time to rethink the IEA’s role and for the United States, the biggest source of funding, to suspend IEA payments until it has been restructured for the times.

    Why? Start with the fact that the IEA was created because of an “energy shock” that caused a global recession. The first quarter of 1974 saw a 400 percent jump in oil prices triggered by an Arab oil embargo. Policymakers and businesses everywhere scrambled to find reliable information about sources, supply chains, and options. The absence of such information was a key motivating factor for creating the IEA.

    Today, the prospect of a mere 40 percent oil-price hike evokes political and market panic. Many believe that an “energy transition” reduces the risks today, and that’s where the naiveté begins—and it epitomizes the IEA’s problem. The need for reliable and affordable energy, especially oil, is greater today. And energy markets and geopolitics are at least as vulnerable.

    Sure, a lot has changed. Social media, smartphones, never mind AI, didn’t exist in 1974. But overall progress has created a bigger world economy consuming more energy. Hydrocarbons still supply over 80 percent of all energy, and oil remains the geopolitical touchstone.

    Oil fuels over 95 percent of all transportation. Economies collapse if transportation costs soar or, worse, ceases. Since 1974, the number of cars in the world is up 500 percent, maritime tons shipped are up 350 percent, and air passenger-miles have risen nearly 2,000 percent. The Middle East supplies even more oil today. Of course, the surprise for 1974 “peak oil” pundits; the leap in U.S. petroleum production. The energy future is going to look a lot like the past.

    And no, electric vehicles and Tesla won’t change this equation. Even if batteries power half the world’s cars by 2034—an impossibly high goal—that would reduce global oil use just 10 percent. 

    One is reminded of an aphorism from the great science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Lots of energy realities aren’t going away, including risks that geopolitical events echo the past.

    Meanwhile, the IEA has strayed and adopted a new raison d’être that conflicts with being an unbiased source of vital energy facts. In 2015, the IEA formally adopted advocacy of an “energy transition,” doubling down in 2022 to include the mission “to guide countries . . . to comply with internationally agreed climate goals.” [emphasis added] The IEA stills reports on hydrocarbons, but it’s now psychically conflicted because of its eagerness to push policies to abandon hydrocarbons. Such ambitions themselves create, rather than ameliorate, risks of hydrocarbon disruptions. Those ambitions also create new risks for disruptions associated with energy alternatives.

    Whatever one thinks about its goals, as an advocate the IEA is not constitutionally capable of operating as a disinterested player because it is now by animated hopes rather than by analyzing realities.

    The stakes are high. European nations have spent trillions of dollars in pursuit of the “energy transition,” with plans to spend at least another $3 trillion by 2030. The U.S. has joined that pursuit with the biggest federal industrial policy spending program in history. The Inflation Reduction Act—which supporters admit is “the green new deal”—will lead to some $2 trillion to $3 trillion of alternative energy spending this decade.

    In rough terms, the aim is to force a nearly 2-gigaton-per-year reduction in American CO2 emissions by 2030. By then, Asian emissions will increase by at least 2 gigatons per year (likely more). Asian industries dominate production of the alternative energy materials that the U.S. and Europe buy. Thus, in the end, at best, there’ll be no change in global emissions, but a huge exchange of capital. And, even if that spending happens, hydrocarbons will remain the dominant energy source in the 2030s.

    Along the way, we’ll see a blizzard of new claims about capabilities, risks, sources of supply, environmental impacts, and especially energy security, reliability, and costs. However, when it comes to realities, facts and consequences will matter, not aspirations.

    For example, building alternative energy hardware will require that the world double copper production, the anchor material in electricity domains; its physics make it nearly irreplaceable. Global mining industries aren’t planning or even capable of producing the quantities needed in the timeframes proposed. We’ll need to understand where copper, and the entire suite of critical materials needed to build alternative energy machinery, is mined, and refined. China is dominant.

    Advocacy-free and credible energy information will be critical for policymakers and businesses. The simple solution. Break the IEA into a policy-free International Energy Information Agency (IEIA), and a stand-alone International Energy Transition Agency (IETA). The IEIA would be prohibited from advocacy, while the separately funded IETA would promote advocacy goals of its member countries.

    Given realities of international organizations, suspending payments is the only mechanism for forcing reform. There’s a long history of such by numerous presidents seeking to reform various international agencies. President Reagan did that with UNESCO in 1984, to much media hullabaloo, because it had strayed from its humanitarian mission.

    Perhaps facts cannot supersede politics in our society. But we should at least try to improve confidence in the facts about the energy infrastructures that underpin civilization. We can start by reforming the IEA.

    This article was adapted from a longer essay published at RealClearEnergy.

    Mark P. Mills is a distinguished senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a contributing editor of City Journal, a strategic partner in the energy fund Montrose Lane, faculty fellow, Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering, author of The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020s, and host of The Last Optimist podcast.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 18:20

  • Modi First, Scholz Worst: Ranking The Approval Ratings Of World Leaders
    Modi First, Scholz Worst: Ranking The Approval Ratings Of World Leaders

    What are the approval ratings of world leaders in 2024? 

    Morning Consult set out to answer the question, surveying people from 15 major countries around the world, and Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley created the inforgrahic below to show the worst (Germany’s Scholz) and the first (India’s Modi)…

    Figures in the dataset are rounded for simplicity. Data was collected from December 13, 2023 to January 2, 2024. Approval ratings are based on a seven-day moving average of adult residents in each country, with sample sizes varying by country.

    Which World Leader has the Highest Approval Rating?

    As of January 2024, India’s Narendra Modi has the highest percentage of domestic approval, with over two-thirds of Indians approving of his performance.

    This is no recent development, as Modi’s popularity has been consistently high for years now.

    There were six total world leaders that had the plurality of respondents approve of their performance, including Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. One of the newest leaders, Poland’s Donald Tusk, also came in strong with 50% approval.

    Eight countries had heads of state or government with disapproval ratings above 50%, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau.

    Germany’s Olaf Scholz also finds himself on the low end of the list. Scholz—who succeeded Angela Merkel in 2021—hit a record low in polling at the end of 2023 with 20% approval, tied only with South Korea’s Yook Seok-youl.

    And according to Morning Consult, they weren’t the world leaders with the lowest approval ratings. The full dataset of 21 countries shows that the leaders of Japan and the Czech Republic had lower total approval ratings as of the start of 2024.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 18:00

  • Arizona Lawmaker Introduces Bill Requiring Schools To Teach About Harms Of Communism
    Arizona Lawmaker Introduces Bill Requiring Schools To Teach About Harms Of Communism

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

    An Arizona state GOP lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require schools to teach about the harms of communist regimes, including such ills as poverty, suppression of speech, and systemic lethal violence.

    PHOENIX, AZ – JANUARY 17: View of the Arizona State Capitol building on January 17, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona. Supporters of President Donald Trump gathered at state capitol buildings throughout the nation today to protest the presidential election results and the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

    House Bill 2629, which amends parts of the Arizona Revised Statutes to bolster educational programs, includes two key parts: a mandatory classroom instruction on the ills of communism and the establishment of Nov. 7 as a commemorative “Victims of Communism Day” to be observed in Arizona public schools.

    “Beginning in the 2024-2025 school year any American government course required for graduation from high school must include at least forty-five minutes of instruction on the history of communist regimes around the world and the prevalence of poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence and suppression of speech under communist regimes,” the bill’s text reads.

    State Rep. Ben Toma introduced the bill on Jan. 23 in the Arizona State Legislature, where it’s scheduled for a Jan. 31 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

    Mr. Toma told Arizona Capital Times in an interview that being compassionate and helping the downtrodden is good, but he said communism pushes redistribution of resources at the point of a gun, a kind of “forced charity” that he said leads to slaughter.

    “And, secondly, it doesn’t work in the real world,” he insisted. “It doesn’t work anywhere.”

    Evils of Communism in Curriculum

    The bill’s text indicates that “Victims of Communism Day” would not be a legal holiday, meaning no time off. Rather, it would be observed in schools, which would provide instruction on that day (or an alternate one if school isn’t in session on that day) on the harms of communism.

    A curriculum would be developed, which would include such components as instruction on former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution in China. Under the CCP’s rule, it is estimated that between 60 million and 80 million people were killed, exceeding the total number of casualties in both World Wars combined.

    Other possible choices for instruction on that day would be about Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet system, or Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution.

    Demonstrators protest against the government of Nicolás Maduro on the main avenue of Las Mercedes, municipality of Baruta, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Feb. 2, 2019. Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images

    The issue is personal for Mr. Toma, whose family fled then-communist Romania when he was a child.

    “It’s not just my background,” he told Arizona Capitol Times. “It’s the background of many other people including currently in China, in North Korea, Vietnam, places like that that still have communism, that still have to deal with it.

    “Not to mention the amount of damage and, again, the millions or hundreds of millions that have lost their lives, or more,” he added.

    A chapter on the CCP’s history of killing—which is part of a broader publication by The Epoch Times on the harms of communism, titled “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party”—discusses how killing in communist regimes has both practical and ideological roots.

    “Mass murders during the Cultural Revolution established, culturally and politically, the CCP’s absolute leadership,” the publication states.

    “The Tiananmen Square massacre was used to prevent political crisis and squelch democratic demands. The persecution of Falun Gong is meant to resolve the issues of belief and traditional healing,” it continues.

    Communist persecution of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa—a peaceful spiritual practice—has involved various inhumane tactics, including torture, sexual abuse, and the widely condemned practice of forced organ harvesting, as outlined in a recent report.

    Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade to mark the 24th anniversary of the persecution of the spiritual discipline in China by the Chinese Communist Party in Washington on July 20, 2023. The pictures they are holding are of those who have been persecuted to death. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    Other Anti-Communist Efforts

    Besides Mr. Toma’s bill, there have been other legislative efforts to expose the harms of communism or oppose its spread in the United States.

    In October 2023, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill aimed at preventing the Chinese regime from influencing the State Department.

    The bill, called the No CCP Consultants Act, would prohibit the secretary of state from entering into, renewing, or extending contracts relating to “advisory and assistance services” with certain entities, including the governments of China and Russia.

    “We must guard against the Chinese Communist Party and its web of espionage,” Mr. Green said in a statement to The Epoch Times on Oct. 31.

    In March 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to punish communist China for its forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.

    H.R. 1154, dubbed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, passed by a vote of 413–2. It would sanction anyone involved in the act and require annual government reporting on such activities taking place in foreign countries.

    It would also punish those found to be involved in forced organ harvesting: a civil penalty of up to $250,000 and a criminal penalty of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison.

    Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the principal sponsor of the bill, told The Epoch Times ahead of the floor vote that the measure’s “got real teeth” and that he hoped it would become law.

    “This is an atrocity, this is a crime against humanity, and it’s a war crime, because this is a war on innocent people in China, and [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping is directly responsible. Those who willingly engage in this will be held responsible,” he said of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.

    Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) speaks during a hearing about “Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations” in Washington on July 11, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Smith said the bill could cover anyone who participates in forced organ harvesting, including patients who receive the organs.

    “If there’s willful knowledge that is being stolen from a Falun Gong practitioner, or anyone else, then they could be held criminally and civilly liable,” he said.

    “How do you know on a certain date you’re going to have a liver all ready to go? That’s because they kill the individual in order to get that. They murdered them,” he added, referring to cases of Chinese hospitals promising to deliver vital organs on a specified date, a process that experts have said is impossible under voluntary organ donor programs.

    Israel, Taiwan, Italy, and Spain have banned organ transplant tourism.

    Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) were among more than a dozen lawmakers leading the measure’s companion version in the Senate.

    Both measures were referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where they remain.

    Bill Boosts US-China Spending Transparency

    Earlier this month, Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) introduced legislation calling for increased transparency from the federal government regarding funds flowing to companies in China.

    The bill, titled “Our Money in China Transparency Act,” requires the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies to submit annual, detailed reports regarding taxpayers’ money spent on any federal program, project, or activity related to institutions or entities associated with the Chinese regime.

    “We know that Communist China does its best to hide the finances of its government and businesses from Americans,” Mr. Scott said in a statement.

    The legislation also tracks federal spending on federal-funded entities, including American universities’ China-based campuses.

    Aaron Pan, Eva Fu, and Andrew Moran contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/31/2024 – 17:40

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