Today’s News 20th April 2023

• Beijing's Antarctic Land Grab: CCP Builds 5th Base Near South Pole
  Beijing’s Antarctic Land Grab: CCP Builds 5th Base Near South Pole

  Authored by Daniel Teng via The Epoch Times,

  Beijing is embarking on the “most significant” expansion of its footprint in Antarctica after new satellite images revealed the communist regime has resumed construction on a fifth polar station.

  

  A satellite view with overlays shows areas to be developed at the new Chinese station under construction, on Inexpressible Island, Antarctica, January 2, 2023. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)/Hidden Reach/Maxar Technologies 2023/Handout via REUTERS

  The new station, located on Inexpressible Island near the Ross Sea, could double as a spying operation, a Washington-based think tank suggests.

  “While essential for tracking and communicating with China’s growing array of scientific satellites, ground stations can support intelligence collection,” the report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies says.

  “Importantly, the station’s position may enable it to collect signals intelligence from U.S.-allied Australia and New Zealand and could collect telemetry data on rockets launching from newly established space facilities in both countries.”

  The CSIS says China has faced more challenges in establishing a footprint in the northern Arctic and, instead, has a “freer hand” to explore the South Pole.

  While the United States still maintains the largest presence on the continent, Beijing’s presence is expanding rapidly. It currently has four stations (all to be expanded), including the Great Wall, Taishan, Kunlun, and Zhongshan stations.

  

  A map shows the locations of existing Chinese Antarctic stations and the Inexpressible Island site of a new station in this handout image. (Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)/Hidden Reach)

  “The Zhongshan Station’s assets could be leveraged to collect intelligence on foreign militaries in the Indian Ocean, including on the joint U.S.-UK Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia. It could also play a support role in monitoring India’s developing naval forces operating in the region.”

  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained that its frequent expeditions to Antarctica are for research purposes only.

  However, the U.S. Department of Defense has said the CCP’s strategy is to develop “dual-use technologies, facilities, and scientific research,” all aimed at improving the capabilities of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

  These research stations could also be reference positions for Beijing’s answer to the U.S.-run global positioning system, the BeiDou satellite network.

  “There’s absolutely no reason why Antarctica would be immune from this doctrine,” Anthony Bergin, senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, previously told The Epoch Times.

  “Particular technologies, particular pieces of scientific research, could be morphed into part of a bigger system. It’s not so much we would expect a direct military threat from Antarctica.”

  Antarctic Treaties Under Threat

  The Antarctic Treaty System, established in 1961, is a key agreement governing international relations on the continent. The treaty is considered one of the most “successful sets of international agreements” because it has relied on goodwill and peaceful cooperation between nations.

  Since the CCP ratified the treaty in 1983, it has been steadily expanding its footprint, fishing fleets, and research expeditions to the continent.

  Beijing’s role in Antarctica’s affairs also has been contentious on other fronts.

  In 2022, Russia and China again blocked a proposal to establish a new conservation zone in the area during a Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting. This was the sixth consecutive year that such a proposal had been blocked by either party.

  “It’s this weird politicization of science,” Tony Press, a former CCAMLR commissioner, said in an interview with Scientific American.

  “Frankly, it is now holding back progress,” the U.S. delegation to the CCAMLR meeting said in an opening statement. “Countries that have prioritized their individual needs have weakened our ability to meet the shared conservation objectives on which this body was founded.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 23:40

• Silver Vs Stocks: Comparing Performance During Recessions
  Silver Vs Stocks: Comparing Performance During Recessions

  Historically, silver has been an alternative to traditional investments like stocks and bonds.

  Amid the recent wave of bank failures and rising interest rates, many investors sought the metal, making prices jump.

  But has silver helped investors weather recessionary storms in the past?

  The infographic below, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, uses data from Macrotrends to highlight silver’s price movements during recessions and compares it to changes in the S&P 500.

  

  Silver Price During Recessions

  Like gold, silver’s value comes from its scarcity as a precious metal. Silver, however, has a higher industrial use, from electronics and medical applications to batteries and solar panels.

  Additionally, the silver market is much smaller than the gold market, making it a much more volatile asset.

  The metal saw its biggest price drop in 1980 when it tumbled over 56% after the Hunt brothers, who controlled over half of the world’s privately owned silver, failed in an attempt to corner the market and were forced to sell after a rise in margin requirements.

  Silver prices plummeted again during the 1990s recession before a steady recovery that culminated in an all-time high reached in 2011, three years after the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis.

  Over the last five decades, silver has only outperformed the S&P 500 in three of eight recessions: 1973, 1981 and 2007.

  

  As of March 2023, the silver nominal price was down 6.1% while the S&P500 was down 3.3%.

  Silver Price in 2023

  Over the next months, silver demand is expected to rise, supporting the price. Silver’s industrial market could be lifted from further gains in vehicle electrification and governments’ expanding commitment to green infrastructure, according to the Silver Institute.

  However, if the economic scenario worsens and industrial users of silver reduce their output, the metal may face some headwinds.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 23:20

• Republicans Rally Behind Donald Trump – The List Is Growing
  Republicans Rally Behind Donald Trump – The List Is Growing

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

  Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) on Tuesday joined the growing list of Republicans endorsing former President Donald Trump for the 2024 presidential election after a positive meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

  

  In a statement issued on Tuesday, the House Republican from Texas emphasized his belief that Trump’s proven track record and commitment to putting America first make him the best candidate for the GOP nomination.

  “I met with Governor DeSantis, and while he has done commendable work in Florida, there is no doubt in my mind that President Trump is the only leader who can save America from the leftist onslaught we are currently facing,” Gooden said.

  Gooden portrayed the former president as a “tireless” and persistent fighter who supports American jobs and the economy, and stands up against illegal immigration. Gooden also highlighted Trump’s support for the military and veterans, as well as his opposition to the “dangerous socialist agenda” promoted by the radical left.

  “I wholeheartedly endorse President Donald J. Trump for the 2024 presidential election and vow to fight alongside him to reclaim our country from the leftist forces that threaten to destroy it,” Gooden said. “Together, we will ensure a prosperous and secure future for our great nation.”

  Florida Republicans Endorsing Trump

  Gooden joins a growing list of House Republicans backing the former president for the Republican nomination, including seven members from Florida who’ve backed Trump over DeSantis.

  This week, Republican Reps. Greg Stuebe, John Rutherford, and Brian Mast joined Cory Mills, Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds, and Matt Gaetz, who already endorsed Trump.

  Steube told Newsmax on April 17 that Trump is “the only person that can reverse on day one all these disastrous policies of the Biden administration.”

  “We need to right all the wrongs that have happened under this administration, fix the things that happen in Afghanistan, support our military and our veterans, and do the things that the America First agenda stands for, and that is one person, Donald Trump,” Steube said.

  “I’m honored to add my endorsement to the long list of endorsements for President Trump,” he added.

  Donalds, who publicly endorsed Trump earlier this month, declared him the only leader who can get America “back on track” and provide the strength and resolve to “make America great again.”

  Other Endorsements

  Trump has received more than 39 endorsements from House Republicans, the most of any declared candidates, according to Ballotpedia.

  He also gained the support of seven senators and one governor, Henry McMaster of South Carolina.

  On April 13, Trump picked up his seventh Senate endorsement from Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.). Budd said America was stronger and safer under Trump but, in contrast, had become “a nation in decline” under President Joe Biden. This echoed Trump’s remarks in November when he announced his candidacy.

  “That’s why I endorse Donald J. Trump for President,” Budd said. “Hardworking, everyday families need a return of the America First agenda to restore prosperity and peace.”

  The six other GOP senators who have endorsed Trump’s presidential bid are Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).

  Trump has garnered a diverse array of endorsements from House Republicans spread across 16 states, with the largest number of endorsements coming from Texas, which had 12 as of April 13, according to Ballotpedia, which updates its statistics weekly.

  South Carolina has four endorsements for Trump, while Arizona has three; the remaining states have one to three endorsements each: Alabama, two; Colorado, one; Georgia, one; Illinois, two; Indiana, one; Louisiana, one; New Jersey, one; New York, two; Ohio, three; Tennessee, one; West Virginia, one; and Wyoming, one.

  Meanwhile, DeSantis, who has not announced his candidacy but has been spending time in early primary states, has so far received two House GOP endorsements from Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

  While DeSantis has support among Republican voters, recent polls have consistently placed him second behind Trump in a possible 2024 Republican primary matchup.

  The latest endorsements of Trump come shortly after the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into hush-money payments to adult entertainment actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.

  Trump, who has maintained his innocence, has stated that Bragg has “no case” against him.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 23:00

• Black Incarceration Rates Are Dropping In The US
  Black Incarceration Rates Are Dropping In The US

  The incarceration rate of Black men in the U.S. has been dropping after reaching a high in 2001.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Yet, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the rate at which Black U.S. men are imprisoned is still many times that of the white and more than double that of the Hispanic male population.

  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,807 Black men per 100,000 were held in state or federal prisons in the U.S. during 2021 after being sentenced (that’s roughly one in 55). This number doesn’t include people in county jails or in pre-trial confinement.

  All in all, the Sentencing Project estimated at the height of the incarceration crisis in 2001 that the likelihood of a Black men spending time behind bars in their lifetime was 1 in 3, while it was 1 in 17 for all U.S. men.

  Imprisonment rates for women are much lower across the board in the U.S., and the rate of Hispanic and Black women being imprisoned has equally dropped since the late 1990s. The group with the lowest overall incarceration rate, white women, are unique in the sense that their imprisonment rate was growing quite steadily since 1980 and only started dropping since 2015.

  Different theories exist why Black incarceration rates have been declining. For one, crime and arrests have been decreasing in the U.S. overall. Also, the war on drugs has shifted its focus onto meth and opioids, which are drugs associated to a larger extent with the white population. Finally, criminal justice reform might have had some positive effects too, according to the Marshall Project.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 22:40

• Luongo On The 'Straight From ShitLib Central-Casting Gun-Enthusiast' Pentagon-Leaker
  Luongo On The ‘Straight From ShitLib Central-Casting Gun-Enthusiast’ Pentagon-Leaker

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

  The “Pentagon Papers’ is making the rounds as the big new event of the past couple of weeks. The controversy is over the ‘leaks’ of strategic briefing documents detailing US future plans for the war in Ukraine. I’ve watched this story unfold with a weather eye but wanted to wait to see how it would progress before commenting.

  I know, not going for the click-bait at the height of the anxiety-pimping is a rare thing these days.

  This morning Kit Knightly at Off Guardian put out a strong post on the disinformation process that I believe is worth your time. Even though I disagree with his conclusion, or more precisely leave myself open to a different conclusion, his Disinfo Radar isn’t far off from the calibration zero-point.

  This leak has all the hallmarks of being a fake, by Kit’s 5 point heuristic, a heuristic I think has value, just not singular value. This ‘leak’ doesn’t fit this model because of other responses to it. Because in order to sweep it into the corner, it burned the media as information gatekeeper in ways that those with power never do. More on that later.

  

  Black is the new Red

  For now let’s focus on the black-pilled, those that live in a perpetual state of cynicism. For them it is easy to just dismiss this event the way Kit does, as something to shift the Overton Window in such a way as to reinforce the narrative they want you engaged in –in this case maneuvering us into supporting another war for globalism.

  It’s all content designed, in the parlance of social media, to boost engagement. Because the system has adapted, they don’t manufacture consent anymore – they farm participation. Angry refutation and warm praise record the same in the algorithm. They don’t want your agreement, they want your attention. And when they feel the story is losing the audience, well, here’s some super secret facts you aren’t supposed to know.

  This is an excellent point that I agree with, in theory. Yes, they use multiple approaches to move public opinion. Yes, they like to hand out red pills to the normies to give them the cheap dopamine hit of ‘figuring stuff out.’

  But, here’s the thing about this type of insight, it’s its own form of psy-op.

  Formally identifying this gives the disinformation brokers the flexibility to use both of these techniques (and other techniques) to keep people like Kit and fellow travelers like Whitney Webb and others focused on trying to figure out which one it is.

  I hate to single Whitney out here because I genuinely like her and believe she’s an honest broker, but I have to because of her current obsession, Jamie Dimon, which I’ve been asked about by so many people (again, more on that later),

  The thing to observe is when they figure it out, they will write, talk and text about it.

  It drives traffic, gives positive feedback, and has all the appearance of both real journalism and sincerity (which, by the way, I’m not doubting) but is it for the right reason?

  It looks to me like chum for smart people to feel clever and one step ahead of the bad guys. The positive feedback drives subscriber and revenue growth reinforcing the idea of work well done.

  But is it really? Or are they just rats chasing the trail laid for them by the cheese mongers?

  I say this as someone acutely aware of their own personal tendency to doing just that. It’s not hard to fall down the wrong rabbit hole, obsessed with facts but not what they mean…

  This is why all heuristics in an information space as polluted as this one need constant error checking.

  Conversing With Tyrants

  Uncovering the techniques of control are just uncovering the mechanics. In this case, however, it looks like it is uncovering the agenda, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

  Ultimately, it brings to mind Gene Hackman’s ultimate fate in Coppola’s classic movie The Conversation, playing his saxophone in the ruin of his apartment secure he’s satisfied his paranoia.

  For all of his skills and brilliance, rather than be an asset, he’s been taken off the board chasing shadows.

  That’s the trap of focusing on the what (the corruption) and the how (the mechanisms) but not the why.

  This is a serious issue going forward.

  Distrusting those with power goes without saying. We’re all operating in this space with this basic drive. No doubt, there. It’s our duty to uncover truths, but it’s also important to question our own frameworks, lest we become reflexive repeaters of the very disinformation we believe we are uncovering.

  So, in this case to dismiss the Pentagon Papers as just another control technique may feel right but be completely wrong because it assumes the basic fallacy of this period of history, that there is only one big club vying for control over the West.

  The Division Hell

  I’ve produced a lot of content making the case for a counter revolution within the US power hierarchy. The basic premise is that as groups approach existential threats to their power and/or position they will react in predictable ways to maintain their power.

  It isn’t complicated. But it does mean that corrupt people may act in ways counter to how they reacted previously, forsaking old relationships. I’ve never believed group identity is eternal because I don’t believe cartels are anything other than meta-stable based on mutual coincidence of wants.

  Because of that we have to remain open for people to surprise us with moves that seem out of character.

  Only the most ideologically nihilistic would pursue Davos’ path. Only those with a hatred of humanity born of a deep wellspring of love for all things Malthusian would bring us to this point. [inviting open war between nuclear-armed powers]. And to deny that there’s anyone in a position to oppose this from our side of the new Berlin Wall is just surrender masquerading a cynicism. [emphasis mine]

  To understand how fragile Davos really is I put it to you like this: For the price of a few hundred basis points, the Fed forced a coup in the UK, the ECB into a tightening cycle with more yield curve control, likely blew up FTX and its burgeoning offshore crypto-dollar Ponzi Scheme, and forced the Swiss National Bank to intervene against the bank run on Credit Suisse.

  And this brings me back to the Pentagon Papers. It is the height of lunacy to believe there aren’t people out there honestly trying to stop this train before it stops at World War III. To dismiss the leak as just another brick in the imperial wall while not seriously considering the idea that it was done by patriots in the Pentagon is honestly irresponsible.

  Because you can construct that argument very easily, especially given how over-the-top the response was by the “Biden” administration. Do you think John Kirby is really that good at misdirection and misinformation?

  I don’t.

  In fact, his exchange with the media is a major tell that this was not something on the administration’s whiteboard. When the media openly asks how they can help (seemingly supporting Kit’s point #1) we have crossed into new territory. Why?

  Because it’s never been that way before. Yes, we knew the media were court stenographers, people like myself and Kit have known this for more than a decade. But to openly torch what’s left of their credibility to support disinformation to keep the administration’s secrets is something very very new.

  This wasn’t some double-secret 12-D chess maneuver by hyper-competent game players. This was far more what it looked like on the surface, a sphincter-clenching moment of raw panic from people whose lies were outed in pure damage control mode.

  Here’s a better question that’s been going around for days now, How can the FBI find the leaker so quickly when they can’t find their ass with a map and both hands when it’s something they want to keep secret?

  Is your worldview so black that you can’t even consider that this straight from shitlib Central Casting 21-year-old “gun enthusiast” (like that’s even a pejorative) wasn’t fed to them as chum to make their response look as insane as it was?

  That doesn’t look like panic to you?

  Seriously, if this kid was as much of a misguided patriot as he was portrayed you don’t think he wouldn’t lean in and take one for the team for a commanding officer he respects trying to stop the US military from being railroaded into another war it couldn’t win?

  I’m not saying it’s true. What I’m saying is you can’t discount that possibility to zero, or even not consider it as highly likely just because your cynicism is your defense mechanism against disappointment.

  You see in my world the MIC is terrified of everyone finding out that their weapons don’t work. The Dept. of Defense is equally terrified of us finding out they’ve spent trillions on imperial welfare and not very much on actual military preparedness, or that Obama and company have purposefully left it a shell.

  What should scare you more is why that was allowed to happen and for whom was that a strategic goal?

  Talk about a question no one in D.C. wants to face!

  Even if you believe the whole thing is just a massive grift to keep fleecing the Muppets for annual appropriations, it doesn’t track then that they leaked these plans to sell more weapons.

  Because it would be a one and done deal. Sell weapons for a few quarters into a sovereign debt and currency crisis to lose a war (or two) which culminates in the complete humiliation of the US military.

  No way would patriots within the Pentagon and the MIC grifters go for this strategy. The incentives do not line up.

  Talk to the Unseen Hand

  In the same way, as I’ve argued for nearly two years, the incentives for Wall St. and the Fed do not line up either. Which brings me back to Whitney Webb and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Whitney is making the rounds with her latest expose on the connections between Dimon and Jeffrey Epstein.

  I’m not commenting on the quality of Whitney’s work or her motives behind it.

  The timing on this is, of course, coincident with Dimon’s legal troubles over the same issue, which we know is a highly politicized issue. Now, if there is one person who has the pull and the power to support the Fed’s moves to regain control over its monetary policy it is Jamie Dimon.

  As such, Dimon then represents one of the biggest threats to Davos’ desired outcomes of a future dominated by full surveillance over all financial activity via CBDCs. Make no mistake, I don’t trust Dimon as far as I could throw him, but I also know that he is a fulcrum on which a lot of future plans rest.

  So, to me, his new legal troubles are a counter-move against him, in a classic ‘nuts and sluts’ campaign to pressure him out of his position. If you think JPM is a monolith then you have a simplistic view of organizations. It isn’t. There are plenty of people at JPM who would sell Dimon down the river for a whole lot less than thirty pieces of silver.

  If Davos can’t get rid of Jerome Powell at the Fed then Dimon is the next best target.

  This isn’t to say that Whitney shouldn’t inform us of Jamie Dimon’s connections, his past, etc. But proving Dimon is dirty is like proving the sun rises in the East. His recent comments in JPM’s annual report about using eminent domain to procure stable energy for the future is easily explained.

  Wall St. loves a one-sided trade and setting monetary policy. There is a healthy probability that Powell may lose the political fight on Capitol Hill and JPM will need to support moronic Climate policies or face extinction, so throwing a bone to the Davos crazies makes sense. But his position that oil needs significant investment is also simultaneously genuine.

  Everyone focused on the solar farms and windmills but Dimon’s statement also included the only thing you would actually use eminent domain for… pipeline. And pipelines are a big Davos no-no.

  The real job of the journalist/analyst is to ask why is it that all of a sudden we know of Dimon’s past associations with Epstein?

  Who’s seeding that into the zeitgeist? If you’re going to take the bait and ‘expose the real Jamie Dimon’ then shouldn’t you also ask why someone is putting that idea in your head?

  If you’re really interested in the truth then you would always keep your radar for such stuff in good working order.

  But if Dimon really is a WEF/Davos stooge then why is he being pursued in a kangaroo court similar to what Donald Trump is currently going through (also an Enemy of Davos) and what was done to Matteo Salvini in Italy over his migrant policy.

  No one is out there defending Jamie Dimon as the victim of a Soros-backed smear campaign because he’s the epitome of what is hated in the world right now: a rich, white guy, CEO of the most powerful bank in the world.

  Ask yourself who benefits from taking him down?

  If Dimon was a Davos stooge as Whitney suggests then why aren’t his legal troubles going away rather than seemingly multiplying?

  This is the core of one of my basic heuristics in trying to parse real information from the fake, what are they trying to make me believe about what’s in front of me? Do I believe that?

  Why is it being amplified through the response engines of social media?

  This is especially relevant knowing full well that the reason Dimon is on the hot seat in the first place is because he’s openly defied Davos’ Climate Change orthodoxy by echoing Powell’s ‘higher for longer’ rhetoric, his firm being at the forefront of the transition from a Eurodollar system backed by LIBOR to a new US-focused system built on SOFR, and his going to Davos 2023 this year and proclaiming that oil will be with us for the next fifty years.

  In the end the conversation we should be having isn’t over who did what before the game reached its terminal phase but who they will become when theirs is the head on the chopping block and why?

  And that’s the real heuristic needed to parse where things are headed and who’s on which side of the ledger.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you hate recursion

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 22:20

• NHL Former PK Subban On Pride Jerseys: "We Cannot Push Everyone To Be An Activist"
  NHL Former PK Subban On Pride Jerseys: “We Cannot Push Everyone To Be An Activist”

  NHL veteran and legendary defenseman PK Subban is speaking out against the league trying to mandate Pride Night jerseys onto its players after numerous well known players have declined to wear them during games. 

  He called the move a “push” to make everyone an “activist”, according to Fox News. He said that he does not believe that a player “needs to be activist” and he said that “there are other ways to show support without having to wear a hat, a T-shirt or a jersey,” the report said.

  He raised the issue that while many people support the LGBTQ community, they don’t need to be mandatorily and involuntarily deputized into speaking out about social issues just because they play sports. 

  

  Subban commented: “We cannot push everyone to be an activist, we need to be very careful. I feel people pick and choose what they want to talk about and I don’t like it when we put the onus on athletes to be activists.”

  “They don’t need to be activists. I’m not saying it is right or wrong to wear the (Pride) jersey, we have just got to be very careful how we push players to do things,” he continued. 

  “You can support the LGBTQ community without having to wear a hat, a T-shirt or a jersey,” he added.

  Among other players who have cited potential reprisal from Russia as reasons not to wear pride jerseys, the report notes that Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov, San Jose Sharks goalie James Reimer and NHL veterans Eric and Marc Staal have all declined to wear the jerseys, citing religious reasons. 

  

  “This is the first time we’ve experienced that, and I think it’s something that we’re going to have to evaluate in the offseason,” commented Commissioner Gary Bettman.

  Coach Rick Tocchet of the Canucks said recently about one of his players opting out due to fears of Russia repercussions: “I’m not going to get into it because we don’t know the deals that happen over there. So I respect his decision.”

  Subban concluded: “The people that write the articles, the people that push certain narratives in the media, they have to be held accountable. We have to be very, very careful about the way we perceive a moment.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 22:00

• FBI Nixed Raid On Tennessee Religious Compound After Waco Massacre
  FBI Nixed Raid On Tennessee Religious Compound After Waco Massacre

  Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA (emphasis ours),

  Exactly 30 years ago, the FBI was planning to raid a purported religious compound in Benton, Tennessee—but bureau officials aborted the plan after agents killed 76 people during the disastrous April 19, 1993, raid in Waco, Texas, according to a previously unpublicized document reviewed by Headline USA.

  

  The FBI’s planned raid on the Tennessee-based “Order of St. John of Jerusalem” was part of a sweeping 1990s-era undercover operation called Patriot Conspiracy, or PATCON, which entailed undercover agents and informants infiltrating the right-wing militia movement.

  Extremism researcher J.M. Berger has extensively covered PATCON, including the planned Tennessee raid. In an April 2012 article for Foreign Policy, Berger wrote that the FBI closed its investigation into The Order of St. John in July 1993 because officials were worried that agents were “only obtaining intelligence and not moving forward with the criminal investigation.”

  But that’s not the whole story. Neither Berger’s research nor publicly available FBI documents indicate that agents had, in fact, planned a similar Waco-style raid in Tennessee.

  This is only revealed in a March 2013 email written by former FBI informant John Matthews, who participated in PATCON. Matthews wrote the email to Jesse Trentadue—an attorney currently embroiled in litigation against the FBI over PATCON—who recently provided the record to Headline USA. The email has not received media attention until now.

  Matthews’ email matches much of what’s written in publicly available FBI PATCON records.

  Those records describe The Order of St. John as an extremist religious group led by a medical doctor named John Grady, who was calling for violence against the federal government. An April 1992 FBI memo said Grady, who also headed the American Rifle and Pistol Association, owned some 340 acres of land that he used to locate a sprawling compound.

  “Survival and firearms training has been conducted on the OSJ and APRA property and men have been seen wearing camouflage units and carrying firearms,” the FBI memo said.

  Matthews’ email described how he helped the FBI plan its raid. In the email, Matthews wrote that Grady “had bunkers all over his land.”

  “I took pictures of them inside and out,” he said.

  

  According to Matthews, the FBI had him bring another undercover government agent—”I believe he was from the Army (Delta Force),” he said—to conduct reconnaissance on the Tennessee property. Grady and his wife were gone for the night, Matthews said, giving him and his Delta Force partner the run of the place.

  “Dr. Grady did not know I brought this guy in at night … He took notes on how wide the bunker walls were and how the doors were made … I already knew that a team was building up to hit Doc Grady’s place next. They had to know everything about the place in case of a standoff with his followers inside the compound,” Matthews wrote.

  Matthews further said that “within hours of Waco” agents were already headed to Tennessee to plan the next raid.

  But top officials apparently had second thoughts, as the Tennessee raid was called off amidst the negative attention federal agencies were receiving after the Waco massacre.

  “Doc Grady was saved by Waco,” Matthews wrote. “Seeing Waco did not go over so well in the eyes of a lot of folks, they did not raid Doc Grady’s, for it would have opened a bigger can of worms and a war may have started from the groups across the country.”

  Headline USA was unable to contact people who can corroborate Matthews’ story. The FBI has declined to comment on PATCON, while Grady died in 2018. The Order of St. John’s website is still active, but the group did not respond to an email seeking an interview or comment.

  Grady reportedly denied all allegations of illegal activity when interviewed by extremism researcher Berger in 2012.

  “Every statement that you’ve shown me is false,” Grady reportedly told Berger, disputing the contention in FBI documents that his religious and gun-rights groups were white supremacist in nature. To Grady’s point, the fact that the FBI called off its raid after receiving public backlash from Waco indicates that agents found no hard evidence of criminality at his compound.

  Berger has also been quiet about PATCON in recent years. Whereas his early work exposed FBI malfeasance, journalist Matt Taibbi recently revealed in his Twitter Files reporting that Berger later became a contractor for the State Department’s “Global Engagement Center.” Berger created a tool that’s now being used by the GEC to push censorship on the internet, according to Taibbi.

  28. The Hamilton 68 dashboard creator, J.M. Berger, was on the GEC payroll until June of 2017, just before the dashboard’s launch. Hamilton claimed the list was “the fruit of more than three years of observation.”

  Berger “unequivocally” denies working on Hamilton for GEC. pic.twitter.com/1QJpV39tIH

  — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

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  Matthews, for his part, is unavailable because he has been off the grid since around 2014, when he was going to testify as a witness for Trentadue in his lawsuit against the U.S. government. Matthews changed his mind about testifying the night before he was supposed to take the stand, leading to Trentadue alleging that the FBI engaged in witness tampering and threatened Matthews.

  Trentadue’s allegations have been subject of a court-appointed investigation for the last nearly eight years. The investigation has been conducted behind closed doors, with gag orders on all parties.

  Trentadue told Headline USA he believes Matthews’ story to be highly credible, as the former PATCON informant has provided accurate information about numerous other secret FBI operations.

  The FBI also finds Matthews to be highly credible.

  As Newsweek noted in a 2011 article about the informant-turned-whistleblower, the bureau honored Matthews for his service after serving as an informant throughout the ‘90s, giving him a plaque that says the following: “John W. Matthews: In appreciation and recognition for your outstanding efforts in assisting the FBI to combat domestic terrorism throughout the United States: March 28, 1991–May 30, 1998.”

  Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 21:40

• REI To Close Portland Store, Citing 'Safety Of Our Employees' And 'Out-Of-Control' Thefts
  REI To Close Portland Store, Citing ‘Safety Of Our Employees’ And ‘Out-Of-Control’ Thefts

  Add outdoor retail giant REI to the growing list of companies planning to close stores in Portland, Oregon, because of rampant lawlessness in the Democrat-controlled city. 

  Oregon Live said REI notified customers on Monday about plans to close its store in Portland’s Pearl District early next year. The retailer said its store in Portland “had its highest number of break-ins and thefts in two decades, despite actions to provide extra security.”

  

  “While we do not believe a downtown Portland location will be possible in the near term, our stores in Tualatin, Hillsboro, and Clackamas remain open and ready to outfit you with the gear and advice you need to enjoy life outside,” REI told customers.

  REI spokesperson Megan Behrbaum told the local media outlet that REI had made numerous investments in theft prevention, including hiring private security, surveillance technology, and security glass. She said despite all of this, the break-ins and shoplifting continued. 

  “The extra security measures required to keep customers and employees safe are not financially sustainable.

  “We will continue to invest in these areas through the remainder of our lease, but cannot justify continuing this expense through a lease extension beyond early 2024,” Behrbaum said. 

  REI has been added to the list of major retailers shuttering stores in Portland. Walmart and Cracker Barrel called it quits last month. Nike also closed a store to public access, telling city officials that shoplifting was the cause.

  According to the Portland Police Bureau, burglaries, robberies, vehicle thefts, and vandalism have surged over the last several years. The jump in violent crime comes just after the city elected a progressive district attorney in 2019 that implemented social justice reforms that have largely backfired. 

  Portland was once known as the ‘crown jewel of the West Coast’ for its trendy art and food shops but is now transforming into a liberal hellhole of lawlessness as businesses have no choice but to exit to protect margins.  

  More broadly, Portland isn’t the only liberal metro area experiencing business flight. Out-of-touch city leaders in Chicago were furious last week with Walmart’s plan to close stores.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 21:20

• The House GOP Effort To Defund – Not Police, But Wokeness
  The House GOP Effort To Defund – Not Police, But Wokeness

  Authored by Ben Weingarten via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Through executive orders and budget requests, the Biden administration has sought to embed “diversity, equity, and inclusion” principles across the entirety of the federal government – and in turn to touch the lives of every American. Now members of  the Republican House majority, who see this whole-of-government effort as a woke assault on America and its core values, are working to combat it using the power of the purse. 

  

  In a series of letters to House appropriations leaders, Rep. Jim Banks and like-minded colleagues have identified and called for the defunding of all “‘woke’ programs and initiatives that are rooted in discrimination and promote far-left ideology in the federal government” in 2024 spending bills. 

  The letters, obtained exclusively by RealClearInvestigations, are a product of Banks’ Anti-Woke Caucus, a 26-member group of House Republicans launched by the former chair of the Republican Study Committee earlier this year, and notably counting among its members Rep. Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, members of the House Freedom Caucus, and others. 

  Banks and caucus members delivered the letters to the chairmen and ranking members of each of the 12 House Appropriations Committee subcommittees in late March following the release of President Biden’s $6.8 trillion 2024 budget request.  

  Each letter flags examples of “woke” offices or policies to which Congress allocated funding in relevant 2023 spending bills, and the associated dollars, and calls for those “and all programs that discriminate based on race, gender, and sexual orientation or seek to disparage our nation’s core ideals and history [to] be decreased to $0” in the 2024 versions of the bills. 

  A narrow reading of the line items characterized as woke in the letters – which represent only a partial accounting of such programs and initiatives – shows that such programs totaled over $900 million in 2023. 

  Some of the 2023 programs the Republican members seek to zero out in 2024 include: 

  • The Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act’s more than $200 million in spending on programs aimed at increasing race-based hiring and recruitment in STEM. 

  • The State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act’s $200 million for the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund. 

  • The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act’s $108 million for “environmental justice” activities. 

  The $900 million outlay excludes broader items highlighted in the letters, like the $3.5 billion earmarked for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the 2023 Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Given that the letters represent only a partial accounting of such programs, the vagueness of budget language, and the discretion with which federal agencies can act, tax dollars advancing such efforts may well substantially dwarf these figures. 

  The letters also target language in the 2023 versions of: 

  • The Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, claiming that “white supremacists and violent anti-government domestic extremists” are “infiltrating security and law-enforcement agencies.” 

  • The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, directing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to detain transgender illegal aliens at facilities only with staff who have received “LGBTI Sensitivity and Awareness Training,” and medical personnel with experience delivering hormone therapies. 

  • The Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, requesting that the Department of Energy consider social equity and environmental and energy justice in state and community energy programs. 

  “We believe that the House Republican majority has a responsibility to use its spending powers to ensure that we do not contribute further funding to anti-American and divisive initiatives,” the signatories to each letter wrote. 

  Tough Odds

  They face tough odds given Democratic control of the Presidency and Senate and the persistence of budgetary gridlock in Congress. Though the House has primary power under the Constitution to tax and spend, only three times in the last 47 years has Congress completed a budget in advance of the subsequent fiscal year, which begins October 1 — often relying instead on continuing resolutions that temporarily fund the government at existing levels. This year spending disagreements extend to negotiations to avert a U.S. debt default by relaxing the limit on federal borrowing, a ceiling some expect the government to reach this summer; in those talks, the Biden administration has refused to contemplate any cuts at all.

  Should Congress pass and President Biden ultimately compromise on a budget that does not wholly comport with his progressive priorities, his administration could be expected to circumvent the anti-woke constraints. In a recent precedent, President Trump declared a national emergency to justify redirecting funding to build a southern border wall that Congress had not so allocated. The courts ultimately blessed that effort. But in his first day in office, President Biden froze it.  

  When asked about chances of GOP success in the present effort, Rep. Banks told RCI that:  

  This needs to be the Republican majority that says enough is enough. Speaker Pelosi famously said “show me your budget and I’ll tell you your values.” This appropriations cycle, Republicans need to show that we value liberty, patriotism and legal equality and that we reject dividing Americans based on race, anti-Americanism, radical gender ideology and climate hysteria. 

  Even if the defunding effort fails, the Banks-led coalition may see a political benefit to pursuing it: pushing Democrats in the 2024 election cycle to stake out positions on more deeply ideological – and presumably less broadly popular – programs.

  RCI asked ranking Democrats on several of the appropriations subcommittees for comment on the Banks letters, and had not received any responses at the time of publication. 

  The House Anti-Woke Caucus members’ budget requests represent its most extensive legislative effort to date. 

  In March, the caucus reportedly held its inaugural dinner and endorsed its first piece of legislation, the Fairness, Anti-Discrimination and Individual Rights (FAIR) Act. Sponsored by Anti-Woke Caucus member Tom Tiffany, a Republican from Wisconsin, the bill would bar any federal agency, contractor, state, or private entity that receives federal funding from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment on the basis of race, color, or national origin. 

  Banks announced he would be establishing the Anti-Woke Caucus in January, pledging to “fight institutionalized wokeness” – an announcement that came just days before he would declare his candidacy for an open U.S. Senate seat in Indiana in 2024.  

  In an interview for RealClearPolitics in February, the Indiana congressman indicated that the caucus had three missions – the first two to which the appropriations subcommittee letters seem to aim: To “Identify Wokeism, defund it and uproot it, and then hold those accountable for it.” 

  Banks added that wokeism is “a cancer that’s going to eat our country inside out and kill us if we don’t do something about it.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 21:00

• Post-Pandemic Burnout: 20% Of Nurses May Quit In Next Four Years, Says Survey
  Post-Pandemic Burnout: 20% Of Nurses May Quit In Next Four Years, Says Survey

  The total American nursing workforce has fallen 3.3% over the past two years, but experts expect the trend is about to rapidly accelerate — to the point that one in five nurses could call it quits by 2027.  

  “High workloads and unprecedented levels of burnout during the COVID‑19 pandemic have stressed the U.S. nursing workforce, particularly younger, less experienced RNs,” write the authors of a survey-study published on Thursday in the Journal of Nursing Regulation. 

  We pause to ask…was any of that burnout due to practicing choreographed dance routines for TikTok? 

  Nurses, with nothing else to do “during COVID”, performing exquisitely choreographed dance routines for their TikTok fan base.

  They’d like it if you forgot this. pic.twitter.com/p3LwM0qOI2

  — Guy’s Politico Channel (@Politic56721677) November 29, 2022

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  More than 100,000 left nursing during the pandemic, and researchers say another 800,000 could bail in the next few years. The paper was the focus of a panel discussion at the National Press Club hosted by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), reports MedPage Today.   

  Such an exodus would have powerful ripple effects throughout healthcare, said Brendan Martin, NCSBN’s director of nursing regulation. 

  The survey included more than 54,000 respondents, with 92.5% of them being women. Key findings: 

  • 50.8% feel emotionally drained
  • 56.4% feel used up
  • 49.7% feel fatigued
  • 45.1% feel burned out or “at the end of their rope”

  In an ominous sign for what’s to come, quitting nurses skew young: 41% of the post-pandemic flameouts had an average age of 36 and fewer than 10 years on the job. Age and workload are key factors, say the study’s authors: 

  “The most pronounced differences emerged when comparing early career nurses with higher workloads to their more experienced peers with normal workloads. In this comparison, early career respondents with high workloads were more than three to four times more likely to report higher frequencies of feeling emotionally drained, used up, fatigued, burned out, or at the end of their rope.”  

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 20:40

• Transgender Athlete Barred from Australian Women’s Basketball League
  Transgender Athlete Barred from Australian Women’s Basketball League

  Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Transgender athlete Lexi Rodgers has been barred from playing in the NBL1 South women’s basketball league in the Australian state of Victoria.

  

  The decision was handed down by an expert panel after former NBA star Andrew Bogut broke the news of Rodgers’ involvement.

  In a statement on April 18, Basketball Australia said former AFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Peter Harcourt, Olympian Suzy Batkovic, and Associate Prof. Diana Robinson concluded that Rodgers was ineligible to play for the Kilsyth Cobras.

  “Firstly, on behalf of Basketball Australia, I’d like to acknowledge and sincerely thank Lexi for her cooperation, understanding, and patience throughout this process—it’s a complex space that continues to evolve,” said Batkovic.

  “While Lexi is understandably disappointed with the outcome, I know she’ll continue to support her NBL1 South team throughout the season and be an active member of the basketball community.”

  NBL1 sits just below the country’s top-flight basketball competition, the National Basketball League.

  Reaction to the Decision

  Basketball Australia maintained that it would assess transgender applications on a “case-by-case” basis and consider a “balancing range of factors.”

  Rodgers and the Kilsyth Cobras team have been informed of the decision.

  In response, Rodgers wrote on Instagram that she had participated in good faith in the process, saying it was not the end of her journey.

  “I am sad about the potential message this decision sends to trans and gender-diverse people everywhere. I hope that one-day basketball’s governing body can replicate the inclusion and acceptance I have found on the court with my teammates,” she wrote.

  However, Bogut said it was the right decision.

  “It is beyond alarming we live in a time where an ‘expert panel’ is needed to make these decisions,” he wrote on Twitter. “Don’t let the activists try and overcomplicate what is simple: Women’s sports are for Women.”

  Bogut had earlier accused administrators of a lack of transparency around Rodger’s participation.

  “Members of that club don’t know. Other teams in that league don’t know,” Bogut said on Instagram. “I’m not afraid to speak about it. I think it needs to be discussed.”

  “This athlete in question has already played the game. From what I understand, a friendly game against a team that had no idea it was going forward. They asked some questions, apparently before the game [and] the game still went ahead—kind of like, ‘Too bad, deal with it.’”

  The head of Christian Voice Australia, Greg Bondar, said transgenderism was a growing trend that was impacting more and more younger people.

  “The Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School reports that the number of young people identifying as transgender has doubled in just the last few years and that one out of five people who identify as transgender are 13 to 17 years of age,” he said in a statement.

  Transgender Players in Sport a Contentious Issue

  Meanwhile, the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports has received much public scrutiny.

  In early April, criticism was aimed at transgender golfer Breanna Gill who won the Australian Women’s Classic at Bonville Golf Resort in New South Wales.

  “Thoughts on having a transgender-specific league? Or transgender-specific sports?” wrote Hailey Rae Ostrom, a U.S. professional golfer, on Twitter.

  While global swimming administrator FINA voted on June 2022 to regulate transgender athletes more stringently, only allowing biological males into women’s competitions if they had not experienced puberty yet.

  Athletes must maintain testosterone levels below 2.5 nmol/L. Around 71 percent of FINA’s 152 members voted in favour of the new rule.

  Additionally, The World Athletics Council has banned biological males from competing in elite female competitions and tightened testosterone restrictions for other athletes, stating that its top priority is to maintain the integrity of the female category in athletics.

  The Council said in a statement that it has agreed to exclude male-to-female transgender athletes who have been through male puberty from the female World Rankings competition, effective from March 31, 2023.

  Meanwhile, U.S. beverage giant Bud Light saw its sales plummet following the release of an advertising campaign featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.

  Restaurant owner Jeff Fitter, owner of Case and Bucks, reported sales of the brand’s bottled products dropping 30 percent over the past week, and draught beer plummetting 50 percent.

  “In Bud Light’s effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else, including their traditional audience,” he told Fox Business.

  CEO of the parent company, Anheuser-Busch, was forced to apologise for the ad.

  “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer,” said Brendan Whitworth, in a statement.

  Bud Light’s customer base is comprised largely of sports fans and middle Americans.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 20:20

• Trump's Palm Beach Mansion Next To Mar-A-Lago Hits Rental Market
  Trump’s Palm Beach Mansion Next To Mar-A-Lago Hits Rental Market

  Mansion Global reports a Trump family-owned oceanfront beach house in Palm Beach, Florida, down the street from Mar-a-Lago, has returned to the rental market after a failed sale despite a red-hot South Florida housing market.

  “A one-of-a-kind direct oceanfront estate boasting 10,455 total square feet of living space and unobstructed views of the Atlantic, 1125 S Ocean features 8 bedrooms, 8 full and 3 half bathrooms,” the description of the beach house reads on Zillow. 

  

  It further said, “This iconic, trophy property is rarely available for lease and includes over 200 feet of water frontage … and for approved occupants, residency at the beach house comes with coveted access to the exclusive Mar-a-Lago Beach Club next door.” 

  

  Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties has the rental listing and is asking $195,000 per month or about $2.3 million per year. 

  “In Palm Beach, we’ve seen so much movement from all different parts of the country and the world.

   “It’s the perfect house for someone who wants to try out Palm Beach,” Premier Estate Properties’ Margit Brandt, who listed the rental, told Bloomberg.

  Between 2021-22, the property’s asking price increased from $49 million to $59 million. Despite the booming South Florida real estate market, no buyer was found. 

  

  Bloomberg pointed out the beach house was previously in a trust in the name of Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, which sold for $18.5 million in 2018. The current owner is a limited liability company that lists Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as officers. 

  For those seeking entry to the Mar-a-Lago Beach Club, renting Trump’s beach house might be the golden ticket inside. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 20:00

• As Soros-Backed Prosecutor Fights Attempt To Oust Her, Judge Sets Separate Contempt Hearing
  As Soros-Backed Prosecutor Fights Attempt To Oust Her, Judge Sets Separate Contempt Hearing

  Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

  Accusations of mismanagement and chaos are piling up against St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.

  

  St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks in St. Louis, Mo., on Jan. 13, 2020. (Jim Salter/AP Photo)

  Gardner appeared in court on April 18, the first hearing in Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s attempt to remove her from office. Gardner’s lawyers are seeking dismissal of that case.

  Bailey asserts she neglected her duties by failing to properly staff her office and allowing thousands of criminal cases to languish. Gardner’s lawyers counter that Bailey never even alleges she committed any “intentional” acts that would justify her ouster.

  Lawyers from Bailey’s office argued that Gardner should be disqualified from holding office because of her alleged pattern of “inaction” and “willful neglect” of her duties.

  A day before the hearing, a judge ordered Gardner to “show cause” why she shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for failing to ensure that prosecutors from her office show up for a murder trial on April 17. A hearing in that matter is set for April 24, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

  The contempt action comes after a judge sanctioned Gardner for failing to turn over evidence in a double murder case earlier this month.

  

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

  During the hearing in Bailey’s case against Gardner, a representative of judges in St. Louis’ 22nd Circuit Court said: “The circuit attorney’s office is now in a state of near total collapse.” The man, whose name was unclear during a live broadcast of the Gardner hearing, told Visiting Judge John Torbitzky: “An expedited resolution of this matter is very important.”

  Torbitzky is expected to decide within a couple of weeks whether to throw out Bailey’s petition against Gardner. He ordered attorneys to file written arguments about the motion to dismiss within a week; Torbitzky said he would decide whether to dismiss the case promptly after that.

  If it proceeds, a trial likely would be held in September, based on a scheduling discussion during the hearing.

  In his original court filing (pdf) against Gardner, Bailey wrote: “She has sacrificed the safety of the city of St. Louis. She has squandered the goodwill of the courts through misdirection and incompetence. She has turned away grieving families while murderers walk free.”

  Action Follows Outcry

  But an attorney representing Gardner, Jonathan Sternberg, said Bailey doesn’t have the goods on Gardner.

  “This is an attack on the democratic process by someone who was never elected,” Sternberg said, taking a dig at Bailey, who was appointed to his position in January after the former attorney general, Eric Schmitt, became a member of the U.S. Senate. Bailey and Schmitt are Republicans; Gardner is a Democrat.

  “Mr. Bailey doesn’t like the job Miss Gardner is doing,” Sternberg said. So the appropriate remedy would be for Bailey to support an opposition candidate in the next election rather than trying to throw her out of office via a court proceeding, Sternberg said.

  Such drastic action should be reserved for cases involving intentional acts and corruption, which aren’t alleged in this case, Sternberg said.

  Janae Edmondson Case

  Bailey filed the action against Gardner last month following a public outcry over the tragic case of Janae Edmondson. That visiting teen athlete, who is from Tennessee, lost both of her legs in a pedestrian-vehicle crash. The driver accused of causing the crash that hurt Janae, is an armed robbery suspect who remained free despite violating his house arrest order dozens of times.

  

  Janae Edmondson, a Tennessee teen athlete, lost both of her legs after a speeding vehicle caused a crash as she walked with her parents in St. Louis, Mo., on Feb. 18, 2023. (Rhonda Ross/GoFundMe)

  Gardner is one of 75 prosecutors nationwide who benefited from billionaire George Soros’ efforts to get “progressives” elected, according to author Matt Palumbo, who wrote a book about Soros.

  Gardner’s battle to keep her job is occurring in the context of a national debate over the alleged “soft-on-crime” policies of some Democrat prosecutors in big cities, particularly those who received backing from funds from Soros. According to The Missouri Times, Gardner’s campaign benefited from Soros’s largesse.

  Although embattled, Gardner has announced she is seeking re-election in 2024 to the position she has held since 2017.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 19:40

• Taylor Swift Rejected $100 Million FTX Sponsorship Over 'Unregistered Securities' Question
  Taylor Swift Rejected $100 Million FTX Sponsorship Over ‘Unregistered Securities’ Question

  While Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal, Giselle Bündchen, Larry David and other celebrity promoters are currently being sued over their endorsement of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Taylor Swift isn’t among them – because she was the only celebrity to ask whether NFTs were unregistered securities, according to the lawyer handling a class-action lawsuit against the other celebs.

  

  During an appearance on “The Scoop” podcast, attorney Adam Moskowitz said the plaintiffs are seeking more than $5 billion from the celebrity endorsers, who he says didn’t do their due diligence to determine whether the crypto exchange was breaking the law.

  “The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift,” said Moskowitz, who added that FTX wanted Swift to sell concert tickets as NFTs – which Swift questioned.

  “In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them: ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?'” said Moskowitz.

  Swift’s father notably used to work for Merrill Lynch.

  I’m not surprised. Taylor is smart and her father is a well-regarded investment banker.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023

  According to the Financial Times, Swift began discussing the $100 million sponsorship in the fall of 2021. FTX would implode one year later, after concerns over commingling customer funds led to a stampede of withdrawals.

  The class-actioon lawsuit accuses celebrities of promoting an unregistered security – which, when sold in the United States, must be registered with the SEC. In a December complaint, the SEC said that the company’s cryptocurrency, FTT, was classified as a security because it was sold as an investment contract, yet was not appropriately registered.

  “In order to induce confidence and to drive consumers to invest in what was ultimately a Ponzi scheme,” the defendants “made numerous misrepresentations and omissions,” according to the lawsuit.

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 19:20

• The Bullet Train Epitomizes Golden State Corruption
  The Bullet Train Epitomizes Golden State Corruption

  Authored by Edward Ring via AmGreatness.com,

  California’s failing rail project is a metaphor for a state that has turned its back on the ordinary, hardworking people who live there…

  

  It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Travel from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two hours via high-speed rail. California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 1A, authorizing $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to build this so-called “bullet train.” They were told not only that the total cost would only be $33 billion but also that the entire 500-mile system would be running by 2030.

  Fat chance.

  In March of this year, the California High-Speed Rail Authority released its latest progress report. The project is now projected to cost $127 billion, and there is no longer a projected completion date. The initial stretch of track, a 171-mile segment across the sparsely populated, pancake-flat San Joaquin Valley, is projected to be done by 2030 at a cost of $35 billion.

  These are staggering numbers, a testament to a staggering waste of financial and material resources. For this first segment of track, Californians are going to pay $206 million per mile, and that’s if there aren’t any more overruns. The financing alone—based on preposterously optimistic ridership projections for this segment of 6.6 million riders per year, and a 30-year-term at 5 percent annual interest—would work out to a cost of $348 per ticket. Not exactly an easily affordable means of travel.

  California’s high-speed rail project, in short, is a disaster. Everything about it fails any rational cost-benefit analysis. It will be a permanent financial drain on Californians, because in order for anyone to be able to afford to use the train for a daily commute, ticket revenue won’t even pay operating costs, much less pay back the construction costs.

  From an environmental perspective, the California High-Speed Rail Authority boasts that the initial segment will reduce total vehicle miles traveled in California by 183 million miles. That sounds like a lot until you take into account that Californians logged 340 billion vehicle miles traveled in 2022. High-speed rail by 2030 expects to reduce that total by 1/20th of one percent.

  But the opportunity cost of blowing $127 billion, and counting, on a train that will not significantly alleviate either traffic congestion or “greenhouse gases” is perhaps the bitterest joke of all. For $127 billion, Californians could build infrastructure that would improve their quality of life for generations.

  Even in absurdly expensive California, $127 billion goes a long way. That much money could pay to raise the height of the Shasta Dam, build the proposed Sites Reservoir to its original 2 million acre-feet storage capacity, restore every aqueduct in the state, build new systems to harvest and store storm runoff, upgrade every major treatment plant in the state to recycle and reuse wastewater, refurbish the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to last till 2050 or longer, build two additional nuclear power plants of the same size, and resurface and add lanes to every major interstate freeway.

  For $127 billion, even at ridiculously inflated California prices for public works, Californians could have abundant, affordable water and power, they could have a freeway system upgraded for the 21st century, and they would still have tens of billions left.

  Corruption and Waste as a Way of Life

  The problem with spending money on rational, practical solutions that lower the cost of living and improve the quality of life for millions of Californians is that this goal is inconvenient for the special interests that run California. On the other hand, pouring every spare bit of money, materials, and labor into a make-work megaproject serves several hidden agendas.

  The rationale for high-speed rail is to help save the environment, as if adding a 500-mile scar to the landscape, consuming millions of tons of steel and concrete in the process, is somehow preferable to simply upgrading the capacity of existing road and rail assets in the state.

  But the true motivation to fund useless megaprojects is a desire to neglect California’s essential water, power, and transportation infrastructure, because by creating scarcity and high prices for these resources, public utilities and private energy producers reap larger profits. This plays out across several economic sectors.

  For example, public utilities collect regulated profits, fixed at a percent of revenue. If renewable electricity costs several times more than conventionally generated power—and it does and always will if you do honest cost accounting and factor out the punitive permitting costs—then utilities make more profit. Ten percent of $0.40 per kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity at peak is a much bigger number than 10 percent of $0.04 per kilowatt-hour for clean natural gas-generated electricity.

  With water, the higher the price goes, the easier it is for big agricultural corporations to outlast and buy out small family farms, consolidating the industry. It’s also more lucrative for hedge funds that are buying land in California just for the water rights. The higher the price of water, the more valuable their investments.

  One would think California’s powerful unions would recognize the benefit that practical infrastructure investments would have for all working families in California, but they don’t. As long as their construction workers have lucrative jobs on the high-speed rail project, there is no upside to them taking on the environmentalist lobby or the corporate and financial players that profit from scarcity and high prices. Nonetheless, California’s construction unions could be a political wild card. If they want to demand projects that would generate positive economic benefits and help all working families, they have the political power to make it happen.

  The Ripple Effects of Scarcity Policies

  Affordable and abundant water and energy form the foundation for broad-based prosperity. They make home ownership more affordable, because the supply of homes cannot be significantly increased unless there is adequate water. They make electricity and gasoline affordable, which benefits households and businesses. And scarcity of water and energy are not the only essential resources that California denies its citizens.

  Building materials, lumber in particular, need to be imported from other states and nations since California’s state legislature has regulated in-state timber harvesting to less than 25 percent of what it was as recently as the 1990s. But rather than thin the forests with responsible revitalized logging, every year the firefighting industrial complex gears up to collect additional billions fighting cataclysmic fires in overgrown, mismanaged forests, and silences criticism with two words, “climate change.”

  California’s overregulation of everything has led to its so-called housing crisis because it is now impossible for private developers to make a profit building homes that working families can afford. Instead, a host of special interests, collecting countless billions in money from taxpayers, have created a massively subsidized industry in low-income housing and “permanent supportive housing” for the homeless.

  These projects waste stupefying amounts of money, but if regulations were loosened up to allow private development of homes people could afford, or if homeless people were humanely moved off the streets into supervised encampments where they could recover their sobriety and their dignity, the scams would come to a screeching halt.

  Spending $200 million per track mile on high-speed rail and over $500,000 per unit of “permanent supportive housing” has nothing to do with saving the planet or helping the disadvantaged homeless. These insanely overpriced projects endure because spending that money wisely would create a competitive economic environment, threatening the margins and the market share of the special interests that run California.

  Wasting billions on projects that will never yield the public benefits they promise but will nonetheless ensure permanent sources of profit and power for California’s public sector bureaucrats, its environmentalist pressure groups, its public utilities, its hedge funds and pension funds, its corporations, and its subsidized land developers is the business of California’s elite now. All of them are determined to keep things just the way they are. Because for all of them, ongoing public failure is ongoing special interest success.

  California’s High-Speed Rail project is a failure. It is also a metaphor for a state that has turned its back on the ordinary, hardworking people who live there. The larger problem is that California is exporting this mentality into the rest of America, along with its propaganda, and its corrupt, punitive economic model.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 19:00

• Home Foreclosures And Missed Credit Card Payments Surge As Consumers Buckle
  Home Foreclosures And Missed Credit Card Payments Surge As Consumers Buckle

  In the first quarter of this year, home foreclosures surged, as reported by property data firm Attom. Following a two-year lull, pandemic-related housing assistance programs are winding down. Homeowners who chose not to make mortgage payments are now either negotiating new terms with lenders, selling their properties, or, as current trends suggest, facing foreclosure. This troubling rise coincides with consumers falling behind on their credit card payments.  

  While still below pre-pandemic levels, foreclosure filings during the first quarter of 2023 totaled 95,712 properties, up 6% from the previous quarter and 22% from a year ago. This was the 23rd consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in foreclosure activity. 

  

  “Despite efforts made by government agencies and policymakers to try and reduce foreclosure rates, we are seeing an upward trend in foreclosure activity,” Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM, said in a statement. He continued:

  “This unfortunate trend can be attributed to a variety of factors, such as rising unemployment rates, foreclosure filings making their way through the pipeline after two years of government intervention, and other ongoing economic challenges. However, with many homeowners still having significant home equity, that may help in keeping increased levels of foreclosure activity at bay.”

  Much of Attom’s data was recorded before Silicon Valley Bank’s demise. A credit crunch followed and sparked further busting of the tech bubble that added capital destruction in private equity and venture capital firms. Now real estate investments, primarily commercial real estate, are being significantly reevaluated as more financial stress is boiling up. 

  Making matters worse is 24 months of negative real wage growth for consumers who’ve maxed out credit cards and drained personal savings. Lower-tier consumers are coming under pressure as big banks are beginning to notice a startling uptrend in credit card and loan payment delinquencies. 

  “We’ve seen some consumer financial health trends gradually weakening from a year ago,” Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo said on an earnings call last Friday.

  Banks have tightened their lending standards ahead of expected turmoil among consumers. 

  Wells Fargo set aside $1.2 billion in the first quarter to cover potential loan losses.

  Bank of America provisioned $931 million for credit losses in the quarter, much higher than the $30 million a year prior but below the fourth quarter $1.1 billion provision.

  JPMorgan more than doubled the amount it set aside for credit losses in the first quarter from a year earlier to $2.3 billion, reflecting net charge-offs of $1.1 billion. –Epoch Times

  UBS analysts led by Erika Najarian believes mounting macroeconomic headwinds would lead to “credit deterioration throughout 2023 and 2024 with losses eventually surpassing pre-pandemic levels given an oncoming recession.” 

  Najarian said loan defaults are forecast to stay “below the peaks experienced in prior downturns.” 

  However, we’re noticing that consumers are buckling under financial pressure—an ominous sign of trouble ahead. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 18:40

• Chinese Lab Developed COVID-19 Virus, Senate Report Claims
  Chinese Lab Developed COVID-19 Virus, Senate Report Claims

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

  The COVID-19 virus originated in a Chinese laboratory and was leaked unintentionally, a new U.S. Senate report concludes.

  

  The virus, SARS-CoV-2, leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which tests bat coronaviruses, twice in 2019, researchers conducting the report say.

  “The preponderance of information supports the plausibility of an unintentional research-related incident that likely resulted from failures of biosafety containment during SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-related research,” the 301-page report, released on April 17, states.

  Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Ky.), a member of the Senate Health Committee, released the report, which was produced by a team that included Dr. Robert Kadlec, a longtime former government health official who played a key role in developing the COVID-19 vaccines, and staffers on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where Marshall chairs the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security. The final report updates an interim report released in the fall of 2022.

  Researchers started with two hypotheses, Marshall told reporters in a briefing. One was that the virus started in animals before spilling over to humans, known as a natural origin. The other was a leak from the Wuhan lab, located in the same city where the first COVID-19 cases were detected in late 2019.

  “They exhausted every piece of evidence that they could find, every resource witness that they could talk to, to come up with conclusions,” Marshall said.

  Kadlec’s team of consultants spent approximately 18 months probing the COVID-19 origins and concluded that the available evidence supports a lab leak.

  More specifically, there was likely an aerosol leak that caused an infection of lab personnel or the virus may have been released to the outside environment due to biocontainment failures. One theory revolves around cleaning agents causing corrosion of welded seams in the lab, a possibility mentioned in multiple 2019 documents on upgrading the lab.

  “Patents addressed biocontainment faults with animal transfer cabinets, biosafety autoclaves, leaky airtight doors, and excessive corrosive disinfectants affecting stainless steel laboratory equipment and biocontainment structures,” the report states.

  

  Both domestic and foreign bodies have for years raised concerns about biosafety at the WIV. A 2018 U.S. State Department cable, for instance, (pdf) reported that the then-newly opened biosafety level four lab at the facility had a “serious shortage” of trained technicians to safely operate the lab.

  Researchers at the lab, before the pandemic, reported experimenting on mice, bats, and palm civets to find coronaviruses that were more capable of infecting humans, and sometimes experimented at sub-biosafety level four conditions. A more recent summary showed scientists conducted experiments that increased the function of a bat coronavirus. WIV’s refusal to reveal the full results of their experiments resulted in U.S. officials ending a subgrant after the pandemic started.

  Research-related lab biosafety issues can unfold in a number of ways, while most infections acquired in laboratories due to lapses are never conclusively determined, researchers have said previously.

  Chinese reports, communications, and notices were offered as support for the lab leak theory, including an attempt in November 2019 to procure an air incinerator at the lab. That suggested “some concern about the risk of an infectious aerosol escape,” researchers say in the new report. They also noted that WIV staffers underwent a remedial biosafety training course that same month.

  Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 suggest the virus was manmade, including the presence of a furin cleavage site at the same location that was proposed in a grant proposal by EcoHealth Alliance, the report concludes. EcoHealth funneled U.S. taxpayer money to scientists in Wuhan.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 18:20

• Biden Admin 'Mishandling' Hunter Biden Investigation Says IRS 'Criminal Supervisory Agent' In Charge Of Probe
  Biden Admin ‘Mishandling’ Hunter Biden Investigation Says IRS ‘Criminal Supervisory Agent’ In Charge Of Probe

  In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, an IRS supervisor has stepped forward to blow the whistle on the Biden administration for improperly handling the criminal investigation into the President’s son, Hunter Biden.

  

  In a Tuesday letter sent to Congress by a “career Internal Revenue Service criminal supervisory special agent,’ the whistleblower claims to have information that would contradict sworn testimony by a “senior political appointee,” as well as a “failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case,” according to the Wall Street Journal, citing the letter.

  What’s more, the supervisor says he has evidence showing “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”

  

  According to the report, the supervisor has been overseeing an “ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” which insiders say is Hunter Biden.

  Hunter Biden is facing a criminal investigation related to his taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase. When he said in December 2020 that his tax matters were under investigation, Hunter Biden said he was “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”

  Investigators have believed for months they had enough evidence to indict the younger Mr. Biden, the Journal and other news outlets have reported. Prosecutors have also weighed whether Hunter Biden’s well-documented drug addiction would present a defense against a potential criminal tax case, the Journal previously reported. He hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing. -WSJ

  Mark Lytle, a lawyer for the IRS agent, said in the Tuesday letter addressed to both Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, that his client is seeking whistleblower protections in exchange for his information.

  “Despite serious risks of retaliation, my client is offering to provide you with information necessary to exercise your constitutional oversight function and wishes to make the disclosures in a nonpartisan manner to the leadership of the relevant committees on both sides of the political aisle,” reads the letter, signed by Lytle, who claims that the employee previously disclosed the information internally at the IRS and to the DOJ inspector general.

  US Attorney David Weiss, the top federal prosecutor in Delaware under the Biden administration, has been leading the DOJ’s investigation of Hunter. According to AG Merrick Garland, Weiss has broad authority to pursue charges.

  “He has been advised he is not to be denied anything he needs,” Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 1. “I have not heard anything from that office to suggest that they are not able to do everything the U.S. attorney wants to do.“

  You know I can’t help but notice a lack of journalistic interest in this breaking story, based on retweets and quote tweets. https://t.co/x8BdjLTJyw

  — Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 19, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 18:00

• White House Slams Brazil After Lula Accuses US Of 'Encouraging' War In Ukraine
  White House Slams Brazil After Lula Accuses US Of ‘Encouraging’ War In Ukraine

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

  The White House has accused Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of repeating Russian and Chinese propaganda. While visiting China, Lula said that the US should stop “encouraging” the war in Ukraine and seek peace instead.

  Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, the White House’s National Security Council’s Spokesperson, John Kirby, lashed out at Lula. “Brazil has substantively and rhetorically approached this issue by suggesting that the United States and Europe are somehow not interested in peace or that we share responsibility for the war,” Kirby said. “In this case, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts.”

  

  The spokesman went on to call Lula’s statement “simply misguided” and “deeply problematic.”

  Kirby’s statement comes as the Brazilian president scrutinized NATO’s role in the Ukraine war and sought to bring Moscow and Kiev to the negotiating table. “The United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace,” he said Saturday. “The European Union needs to start talking about peace so that we can convince Putin and Zelensky that peace is in the interest of everyone and that war is only interesting, for now, to the two of them.”

  On Sunday, Lula further disputed the Western narrative about the war in Ukraine by arguing Kiev and Moscow both bear responsibility for the conflict. Both Russia and Ukraine “had decided to go to war,” he remarked. 

  While visiting China last week, Lula proposed forming a coalition to pursue an end to the conflict in Ukraine. “I have a theory that I have already defended with Macron, with Olaf Scholz of Germany, and with Biden, and yesterday, we discussed at length with Xi Jinping.” He continued, “It is necessary to constitute a group of countries willing to find a way to make peace.”

  The Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Monday. Vieira called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and criticized Western sanctions for harming the global economy. 

  Lavrov explained the Kremlin was happy with the role Brazil was willing to play in resolving the conflict. “As for the process in Ukraine, we are grateful to our Brazilian friends for their excellent understanding of this situation’s genesis.” He said, “We are grateful (to them) for striving to contribute to finding ways to settle it.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/19/2023 – 17:40

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