Apr 20

Today’s News 20th April 2024

  • US Fentanyl Crisis Is A 'CCP-Run Operation', Says Peter Schweizer
    US Fentanyl Crisis Is A ‘CCP-Run Operation’, Says Peter Schweizer

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

    Three months after the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned a Chinese mafia leader for fentanyl trafficking, he received an award in Beijing.

    Peter Schweizer in March 2022. (NTD)

    In March 2021, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Overseas United Working Committee recognized Wan Kuok Koi, also known as “Broken Tooth,” as a “patriotic businessman” and the “chief representative” of all international Hongmen associations. Hongmen is synonymous with triads, or Chinese transnational organized crime syndicates, to many Chinese.

    The awarding entity is a CCP United Front organization and a platform under the China Association for Science and Technology. It also pushes China’s flagship infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), worldwide. According to the Treasury Department notice, Mr. Wan has established a security company protecting BRI investments in Southeast Asia.

    In a recent interview with EpochTV’s American Thought Leaders (ATL), investigative writer Peter Schweizer cited Mr. Wan’s case as an example of the CCP’s take on the United States’ fentanyl crisis.

    “The notion that ‘oh, China’s trying very hard, but they can’t fix this’ is an absolute joke in my mind,” he said.

    In addition, the author of a new book titled “Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans” told ATL that the U.S. fentanyl crisis is a “CCP-run operation.”

    “The drug cartels are certainly involved, but they’re the junior partner,” Mr. Schweizer said, adding that the CCP is present at “every link of the chain.”

    The Chinese production of fentanyl precursors is widely known. However, Mr. Schweizer’s research also shows that China provides pill-pressing machines at cost for fentanyl-laced fake pill production, distributes the synthetic opioid in the United States, facilitates the Mexican drug cartels’ financial transactions, and provides secure communication systems to cartels so they can bypass detection by U.S. law enforcement.

    Currently, fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. The deadly drug was responsible for about 75,000 deaths, or 200 per day, in 2022. Compared with 3,105 deaths in 2013, the death toll increased 23-fold.

    Facing this crisis, which has been growing exponentially, the U.S. government has yet to come up with an effective solution. In Mr. Schweizer’s view, U.S. leaders’ inaction is a significant factor.

    He documented in his book how senior U.S. leaders, albeit initially voicing concerns about China’s involvement in fentanyl trafficking, have remained largely silent on the issue.

    One of those leaders is President Joe Biden.

    At a Senate hearing in 1992, the then-chair of the Judiciary Committee warned that “China is poised to become the lynchpin of the heroin trade.”

    Then-Sen. Biden also criticized the then-Bush administration’s lack of action on confronting China, saying that “the truth is that the cooperation between the United States and China in fighting drugs is limited, at best, and as is its course, the administration is turning a blind eye to China’s renegade behavior.”

    Yet, the Biden administration has been taking a similar approach: touting its counternarcotics cooperation with China, which relies on voluntary domestic control measures. CCP leader Xi Jinping didn’t keep similar past promises that he made to former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

    Ambassador Robert Lighthizer (L); Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute (C); and Michael Pillsbury, senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation (R); at The Heritage Foundation’s Leadership Summit in National Harbor, Md., on April 20, 2023. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

    Different than heroin or cocaine, fentanyl takes the lives of people who mostly take the drug unknowingly. A New York University study in 2023 showed that a majority of the people who took fentanyl didn’t intend to do so.

    Therefore, Mr. Schweizer thinks calling the fentanyl crisis a drug problem is missing the mark.

    To him, it’s “extremely convenient” for the Biden administration to treat fentanyl as a “drug addiction problem, rather than what it is—poisoning,” he said.

    “It absolves you of trying to confront the CCP on this because you’re essentially saying this is a human nature problem in the United States.”

    In Mr. Schweizer’s view, the first family’s financial ties to China prohibited them from confronting the communists to reign in the Chinese fentanyl actors—a move that could be effective “overnight” if CCP leader Xi Jinping wanted it to be, Mr. Schweizer said.

    The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

    Mr. Schweizer’s findings don’t stop at the fentanyl crisis, which he sees as a part of the CCP’s broader approach of “disintegration warfare,” aimed at bringing down the United States by attacking its “soft underbelly” regarding Americans’ politics, economics, and psychology.

    In the ATL interview, he also talked about the CCP’s links to activities that sow social discord by inflaming racial and gender divisions in U.S. society and “dumbing down the West” with TikTok.

    The interview premieres on April 18.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 23:20

  • Major War Just Narrowly Averted & Biden Already Mulls $1BN+ In New Arms For Israel
    Major War Just Narrowly Averted & Biden Already Mulls $1BN+ In New Arms For Israel

    President Biden is mulling his first new major arms sales to Israel since the unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack which targeted the country last Saturday.

    Though the world just narrowly avoided witnessing a major regional war explode with Thursday night’s Israeli ‘limited’ retaliation on the Islamic Republic, the White House apparently thinks the ‘answer’ is to pump Israel with yet more and more weapons and ammo, to the tune of $1+ billion.

    AFP via Getty Images

    “The Biden administration is considering more than $1 billion in new weapons deals for Israel including tank ammunition, military vehicles and mortar rounds, U.S. officials said, at a time of heightened scrutiny of the use of American-made weapons in the war in Gaza,” Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

    “The proposed weapons transfers—which would be in addition to those in a military aid deal currently before the Congress—would be among the largest to Israel since it invaded Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7,” the report continues.

    This also comes while the administration has been talking out of both sides of its mouth – on the one hand condemning the immense civilian death toll in Gaza, and on the other vowing to remain firm in its “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s defense.

    The US administration has time and again said it has been urging Israel against escalating with Iran. The White House has also said it did not “greenlight” Israel’s Thursday overnight attack, which reportedly targeted radar sites in Isfahan, which is home to a key Iranian nuclear facility.

    As for the Gaza operation, Biden has still sought to press Israel to hold off on a Rafah ground offensive. And yet, the IDF is more ensconced in the Gaza Strip than ever. There are new reports of an Israeli military base being established in the heart of Gaza.

    “Satellite images and photographs shared on social media show extensive development and construction at two outposts the Israel Defense Forces is building on the strategic road that divides the Gaza Strip into two,” reports Haaretz.

    “The army calls the construction of these outposts in what it calls the ‘Netzarim Corridor’ as a long-term achievement. The whole corridor is referred to as something that is here to stay,” the report indicates.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 23:00

  • NIH Refuses To Release Details Of COVID-19 Vaccine Royalty Agreement
    NIH Refuses To Release Details Of COVID-19 Vaccine Royalty Agreement

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

    The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is refusing to release additional information about an agreement it reached over a COVID-19 vaccine that has earned it at least $400 million.

    Syringes of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines at a vaccination site in Los Angeles, on Feb. 16, 2021. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)

    The NIH declined to provide any materials in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Epoch Times.

    “The NIH withholds the entirety of the records as they are protected from release,” Gorka Garcia-Malene, an NIH officer, told The Epoch Times in a letter.

    She cited an exemption outlined in the act that allows government agencies to partially or fully withhold information.

    “In this case, exemption 3 incorporates 35 U.S.C. 209 (f), which reads in relevant part, ‘No Federal agency shall grant any license under a patent or patent application on a federally owned invention unless the person requesting the license has supplied the agency with a plan for development or marketing of the invention, except that any such plan shall be treated by the Federal agency as commercial and financial information obtained from a person and privileged and confidential and not subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5,’” Ms. Garcia-Malene wrote.

    “Exemption 4 protects from disclosure trade secrets and commercial or financial information that is privileged and confidential,” she added.

    In February 2023, Moderna announced that it had paid $400 million to the NIH and would make additional payments in the future as part of a licensing agreement for spike proteins used in the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the contract, which confirmed the payment but redacted details of the future payments.

    The Epoch Times then lodged a new request, seeking more details about the future payments, which are said to be based on how many COVID-19 vaccines are sold.

    Ms. Garcia-Malene was responding to the new request.

    James Love, director of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, said the information should be made public.

    “The NIH put out several press statements about the royalty dispute with Moderna, and they should not now claim it is some secret confidential information. And when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, the public interest in transparency is large too,” Mr. Love told The Epoch Times in an email.

    “There are a lot of NIH officials who resent transparency,” he added.

    Inquiries to NIH spokespersons received away messages. Another request for comment, sent to one of the addresses provided in the away messages, was not returned.

    The Epoch Times plans to appeal the NIH’s decision.

    The NIH is one of several government agencies that receive royalty payments. Officials there have fought against attempts to acquire information on these payments, but in 2023, they disclosed some $325 million in royalties received between 2009 and 2020 after being sued.

    Some experts say the payments, made to the agency and many of its top scientists, should be stopped.

    “Neither the government nor any government employee should have any financial interest in a product for which the government has any involvement in licensing or promoting,“ Aaron Siri, managing partner of Siri & Glimstad LLP, told The Epoch Times in an email. ”It creates a dangerous conflict of interest.”

    Move on BioNTech

    The NIH is trying to obtain more money from COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, according to recent filings.

    BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner, said in the forms that the NIH served it with a notice of default because the NIH’s position is that BioNTech owes it money from COVID-19 vaccine sales.

    BioNTech said it does not think it owes the NIH money but that “the ultimate outcome of these matters is uncertain and we cannot guarantee that our interpretation of these license agreements will prevail, or that we will not ultimately need to pay some or all of the royalty and other related amounts in dispute.”

    The NIH did not return inquiries on the BioNTech filings.

    The NIH has said previously it licensed its spike protein technology to BioNTech for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

    The Epoch Times has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the notice of default and related documents. Another request seeks information on whether the NIH has threatened or served Pfizer with a similar notice.

    However much money the U.S. government receives in royalties will be much less than it has paid for the vaccines. The government has purchased hundreds of millions of shots, spending north of $30 billion.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 22:40

  • Housing Costs Are Crushing The American Middle Class, But How Can We Fix The Problem?
    Housing Costs Are Crushing The American Middle Class, But How Can We Fix The Problem?

    In a new poll conducted by the Financial Times and Michigan’s Ross School of Business, data shows there is a rare bipartisan agreement among Republicans and Democrats – Both sides believe that there are no housing advantages for the their political opponents and 70% of leftists, independents and conservatives alike rate affordability as one of their top three concerns.  In other words, Americans disagree on almost everything else, but they all recognize that most of them are in deep trouble when it comes to keeping a roof over their heads.

    It’s not just the math, it’s the daily drain on people’s pocketbooks that makes the problem so undeniable.

    While the Biden Administration has spent the better part of the past year claiming that “inflation is going down” the reality has been far more bleak.  Surveys also show that 62% of homeowners has struggled at least periodically in the past year to make their mortgage payments and half of all renters also reported difficulty keeping up with monthly payments.  Over 22% skipped meals, 20% worked extra hours and 20% sold belongings to pay their housing costs on time.  

    Disturbingly, 60% of poll respondents who make $100,000 or more per year also ranked housing costs at the top of their list of worries going into 2024.  Meaning, the crisis is spreading well beyond low income families and is dragging down the middle class. 

    Low income, fixed income and middle-income renters are all facing challenges.  The market has become so disjointed that middle-income earners are finding it nearly impossible in most states to find homes in their price range, either to buy or to rent.

    The average middle class income is $58,000 to $98,000 annually.  The average yearly cost of a family home rental is $25,000 ($2100 a month and nearly half of a single earner’s income on the low end of the middle class average).  This greatly supersedes the common 30% rent rule which suggests that housing should not eat more than 30% of a renter’s salary.  In 2019 the average monthly rent for a home was $1400; that’s a 50% increase in the span of only four years.   

    In order to safely afford the monthly median home rental price of $2100, a tenant must make over $6000 after taxes per month.  This cuts more than 50% of the population out of the market.  It’s not just the cost of housing, though, there’s also a major crisis in availability.    

    Across the US  there is a shortage of at least 7.2 million homes affordable and available to renters with extremely low incomes. Extremely low-income renters face a shortage in every state and major metropolitan area.  Middle-income housing is vanishing; known as the “missing middle”, this portion of the market has been bought out and inflated to the point that elasticity in prices has been crushed right along with home buyers and renters.  That is to say, if you make less than six figures then you are quietly and quickly being strangled out of housing access.  

    But how do we solve this ongoing problem?  Government rent controls won’t do anything other than create a larger shortage by scaring property owners out of the rental market.  The Federal Reserve’s (supposed) attempts to use higher interest rates to deflate the bubble without triggering consequences to the greater economy have utterly failed.  The conundrum is that the biggest property buyers in the country are supported by the central bank and thus they remain unaffected by higher rates.  

    These are massive corporate buyers like Blackstone and Black Rock which invest in companies that buy US houses.  Black Rock by extension owns a stake in nearly 7% of the nation’s total rental properties.  In 2023 corporate investors accounted for 27% of all family home purchases.  Even in the case of house flipping, corporate purchases on a large scale tend to drive up prices for everyone else.

    Then there’s the issue of illegal immigration which is adding millions of “asylum seekers” every year to the population; all of those people are looking for housing.  With government programs and subsidies helping them they eventually find that housing, allowing them to eat up another piece of the pie.  This leaves legal citizens in the lurch and struggling with low availability.  

    Finally, there’s general inflation.  Building costs for materials and labor have skyrocketed, meaning building new houses might help over many years to stabilize the market but it does not solve the immediate supply crisis and the inflation associated with it.  Americans don’t need more expensive houses, they need more affordable houses.  

    To alleviate the crippled market conditions today would most likely require state imposed moratoriums on corporate home purchases, a moratorium on foreign purchases, not to mention the direct removal of illegal migrants.  Taking action on all three would free up supply and at least give US citizens room to breath by cutting back on their top most expensive necessity.  At bottom things cannot continue the way they have been otherwise the system can and will break under the pressure, leading to even worse economic outcomes.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 22:20

  • Breakfast Cereals Scrutinized For Pesticide That May Harm Reproduction
    Breakfast Cereals Scrutinized For Pesticide That May Harm Reproduction

    Authored by Sina McCullough via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Imagine starting your day with a bowl of cereal that could be silently affecting your family’s health. Recent studies show that chlormequat, a pesticide linked to reproductive issues, has been found in popular breakfast cereals like Quaker Oats and Cheerios. As this substance infiltrates the American food supply, the potential risks to our health and future generations loom larger, raising urgent questions about the safety of our everyday food choices.

    In a study published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology on Feb. 15, 2024, researchers revealed alarming findings regarding the prevalence of chlormequat.

    Chlormequat was detected in the urine of 4 out of 5 people or 80 percent of Americans tested. Additionally, 92 percent of oat-based foods tested contained chlormequat, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios.

    This study—the first to report urinary chlormequat measurements in adults living in the United States—highlights the possible widespread presence of chlormequat and the necessity for transparency and further investigation into potential health implications for consumers.

    (Anna Hoychuk/Shutterstock)

     What Is Chlormequat?

    Chlormequat, widely known in the salt form as chlormequat chloride, is an agricultural chemical first registered in the United States in 1962 as a plant growth regulator. Plant growth regulators are chemical substances employed to control and regulate plant growth, flowering, and fruit yield, according to a 2006 study in the International Journal of Andrology.

    Chlormequat application in grain crops results in reduced stem height, thereby minimizing the occurrence of lodging (bending over), which can reduce the efficiency of the harvesting process.

    Chlormequat is the world’s most common plant growth regulator according to a 2020 study published in Toxicology. “Chlormequat is often the most detected pesticide residue in grains and cereals, as documented by monitoring surveys spanning several years,” according to the 2024 study. It is approved for use in Europe and parts of North America.

    In the United States, chlormequat is permitted exclusively for use on ornamental plants and is prohibited for application on food crops grown within the country. Therefore, the presence of chlormequat in Cheerios and other oat-based foods sold in the United States raises questions regarding its introduction into the food supply chain.

    How Did Chlormequat Enter the US Food Supply?

    In April 2018 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowed chlormequat into the food supply by establishing acceptable food tolerance levels for chlormequat chloride in imported oats, wheat, barley, and select animal products. This action allowed for the importation and sale of those agricultural products even if treated with chlormequat.

    Consequently, U.S. consumers may unknowingly be ingesting tainted imported foods—potentially exposing themselves to chlormequat or its residues.

    In 2020, the allowable chlormequat levels were increased for oats. In April of 2023, the EPA proposed allowing the first-ever use of chlormequat on barley, oat, wheat, and triticale grown in the United States. If passed, exposure levels may increase, raising concerns about its implications on health and food safety.

    Heath Concerns Surrounding Chlormequat

    Chlormequat, while not as notorious as other pesticides, has long been linked to reproductive and developmental concerns in animal research.

    In the 1980s, Danish pig farmers observed reproductive declines in pigs consuming chlormequat-treated grains, according to a 2006 article in the International Journal of Andrology.

    The observation led to a controlled laboratory study, which confirmed impaired reproduction. Specifically, sows fed chlormequat-treated grain experienced impaired reproduction, primarily disruptions in oestrus cycling, and difficulty mating, as cited in the 2006 article.

    These findings prompted the Danish pig industry to recommend restricting the use of crops treated with chlormequat and other growth regulators (up to a maximum of 30 percent of diet energy) due to potential reproductive issues.

    Similar findings were observed in 1999 when male mice exposed to chlormequat through food or drinking water demonstrated “significantly diminished fertilization and cleavage rate” of sperm, indicating a decrease in sperm function, according to a study in Reproductive Toxicology.

    Of significance, the estimated intake of chlormequat in the abovementioned pig (0.0023 milligrams (mg)/kilograms (kg) body weight (bw) per day) and mouse (0.024 mg/kg bw/day) experiments fell below the reference dose published by the EPA (0.05 mg/kg bw per day) and the acceptable daily intake published by the European Food Safety Authority (0.04 mg/kg bw/day), according to the 2024 study. These findings raise concerns regarding the current established limits set by regulatory authorities.

    Recent studies further demonstrate chlormequat’s reproductive and developmental toxicity, including:

    • Delayed onset of puberty: According to a 2020 study in Toxicology Letters, male rats exposed to chlormequat from postnatal day 23 to 60 demonstrated reduced prostate weight and delayed onset of puberty.
    • Reduced sperm motility: Male rats exposed to chlormequat in utero demonstrated a delayed onset of puberty as well as decreased sperm motility, according to a 2021 study in Toxicology Letters.
    • Decreased testosterone: Male adult rats exposed to chlormequat by oral gavage (delivering substances directly to the stomach via a bulb-tipped needle) demonstrated lower testicular weight, decreased sperm motility, and decreased testicular testosterone, according to a 2018 study in Toxicology Letters.

    Moreover, developmental toxicity studies suggest that chlormequat exposure during pregnancy can disrupt fetal growth and metabolism postnatally, indicating a lasting impact on offspring development in rats. For instance, a 2020 study published in Toxicology reported maternal exposure to chlormequat in rats led to adverse effects on postnatal health, including hypoglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hyperproteinemia seven days after birth compared with controls.

    A 2007 study in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry reported detectable levels of chlormequat in blood, as well as its transfer into milk, in pigs exposed to chlormequat. While these markers have not been thoroughly investigated in humans, they raise concerns regarding potential implications for fetal exposure during pregnancy and infants’ exposure through breastfeeding.

    Some studies have failed to detect significant impacts of chlormequat on reproduction in female mice or male pigs, or the fertilization capacity in male mice exposed to chlormequat during development and postnatally. The equivocal findings in the toxicological literature concerning chlormequat could stem from variations in tested doses, outcome measures, and/or funding sources. According to a 2006 study in the International Journal of Andrology, “Reports from the industry do not show any effects at these low levels.”

    Aim of New Ground-Breaking Study

    Considering the health concerns underscored in the scientific literature, the goal of the 2024 study was to assess the impact of the EPA’s decision to permit chlormequat in the United States food supply.

    Study Design

    The 2024 study assessed chlormequat levels in the urine of individuals from three distinct geographic regions in the United States spanning from 2017 to 2023. Specifically, 21 urine samples were gathered in South Carolina in 2017, 25 samples were collected in Missouri from 2017 to 2022, and 50 samples were obtained in Florida in 2023.

    The study also examined chlormequat levels in oat and wheat-based products acquired in the United States during 2022 and 2023. Specifically, 25 conventional oat-based food items were analyzed during this period, along with eight organic oat-based products and nine conventional wheat-based food products.

    Study Results

    Urine Analysis

    Chlormequat was detected in 80 percent (77 out of 96) of urine samples.

    The authors noted a rising trend in chlormequat exposure over time, with detection frequencies notably elevated in 2023 samples compared to those from 2017 and the years 2018 to 2022. Specifically, in 2017, 69 percent of samples tested positive, while from 2018 to 2022, 74 percent were positive. In stark contrast, 90 percent of samples in 2023 were positive, representing a significant increase compared to all previous years examined.

    According to the researchers, “These data indicate likely continuous exposure given the short half-life of chlormequat [2–3 hours].”

    To assess whether the rising concentrations detected in the urine samples reflected potential dietary exposure to chlormequat, the researchers analyzed chlormequat levels in oat and wheat-based food products purchased in the United States.

    Food Exposure Analysis

    The results of the food analysis were equally concerning: a high percentage of conventional oat-based products tested positive for chlormequat, with popular brands like Quaker Oats and Cheerios among those affected.

    Specifically, 92 percent (23 out of 25) of conventional oat-based products tested positive for the presence of chlormequat, “indicating a high prevalence of chlormequat in oats,” according to the study. This highlights the potential risk posed to consumers, particularly children, who may consume these products regularly.

    Chlormequat was detected in 12.5 percent (one out of eight) of organic oat-based products tested. Additionally, 22 percent (two out of nine) of conventional wheat-based products tested positive for chlormequat.

    Collectively, the urinary and food exposure data “may reflect the likely recent introduction of chlormequat into the U.S. food supply due to EPA regulatory action changes involving chlormequat, including establishing a limit on chlormequat in food in 2018 and raising those limits for oats in 2020,” according to the study.

    Conclusion

    This groundbreaking study sheds light on the possible widespread prevalence of chlormequat in the United States food supply, as documented in both urinary and food exposure analyses. The findings reveal a concerning trend of increasing chlormequat exposure over time, with detection frequencies spiking notably in recent years.

    Chlormequat’s documented toxicological properties, particularly its association with reproductive and developmental issues, raise significant concerns about its long-term effects on human health. Moreover, there is currently no monitoring of chlormequat in food products in the United States, leaving consumers vulnerable to potential risks.

    With the EPA’s proposed expansion of chlormequat usage on domestically grown crops, the study’s findings serve as a crucial call to action for greater transparency in pesticide usage and monitoring, as well as consumer awareness so we can work toward a food supply that safeguards the well-being of the individual.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 22:00

  • "We Promise This Is Not A Person In A Bodysuit" 
    “We Promise This Is Not A Person In A Bodysuit” 

    Boston Dynamics unveiled Wednesday a new humanoid robot that creepily moves like no other robot has moved before. 

    The new fully electric Atlas robot represents a path to commercialization and a new generation of robots that will leave folks asking if this is the beginning of the ‘Skynet’ (Terminator) robot. 

    “This week we announced the retirement of our hydraulic Atlas and unveiled what comes next—a fully electric Atlas robot designed for real-world applications,” Boston Dynamics wrote in a press release. 

    Boston Dynamics posted a new video on X of the Atlas robot, jokingly saying, “We promise this is not a person in a bodysuit.” 

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    Musk tweeted an image from the horror movie “The Ring,” referring to the iconic scene in which the character Samara emerges from the television in a scary crab-like fashion, at Boston Dynamics. 

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    Some X users compared Atlas to the “Terminator” robot. 

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    Others said humanity is “doomed.” 

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    Maybe the White House needs one of these robots…

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    Demand for humanoids in factories will likely erupt by the mid-2030s. After that, the commercialization of these robots should drive down prices. This could unlock the potential for these robots infused with AI to work in the service industry or be adopted by households. This is all terrible news for low-skilled, low-wage workers (read: “AI Will Lead To 300 Million Layoffs In The US And Europe”). Before all of this, these robots will be adopted by militaries. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 21:40

  • Speaker Johnson's Ignominious Betrayal
    Speaker Johnson’s Ignominious Betrayal

    Authored by David Stockman via David Stockman’s Contra Corner,

    Speaker Johnson’s ignominious betrayal of fiscal sanity might well be the death knell for the GOP. He is apparently risking his speakership on behalf of $95 billion of foreign aid boondoggles that Uncle Sam cannot remotely afford, and which actually provide zero benefit to the homeland security of America. And we do mean zero, as in nothing, nichts, nada, nyet and nugatory, as we amplify below.

    What Johnson’s impending Waterloo means, therefore, is not merely the prospect of another wild and wooly succession battle, but actually that there is no point at all in the preservation of a Republican majority and GOP House Speaker. After all, the Washington GOP has become so infected with neocon warmongers and careerist pols who spend a lifetime basking in the imperial projects and pretensions of the world’s War Capital that apparently the best the House GOP caucus could do when it ejected the previous careerist deep stater from the Speaker’s chair was to tap the dim-witted nincompoop who currently occupies it.

    The Republican party is thus truly beyond redemption. As JFK once said about the CIA, its needs to be splintered into a thousand pieces and swept into the dustbin of history.

    Indeed, when you look at the calamitous fiscal trajectory embedded in the CBO’s latest 30-year fiscal outlook, you truly have to wonder about what miniature minds like Congressman Johnson’s are actually thinking. That is to say, the latest CBO report published in March presumes that there will never be another recession and no inflation flare-up, interest rate spike, global energy dislocation, prolonged Forever War or any other imaginable crisis ever again—just smooth economic sailing for the next 30 years.

    And yet, and then. Even by the math of this Rosy Scenario on steroids the public debt will reach $140 trillion at minimum by 2054. In turn, that would cause interest payments on the public debt with rates no higher than those which prevailed between 1986 and 1997 to reach $10 trillion per year.

    You simply don’t need paragraphs, pages and whole monographs worth of analysis and amplification to understand where that is going. The nation’s fisc is now on the cusp of descending into the maws of a doomsday machine. So how in the world do these elements of Johnson’s offering make even the remotest sense?

    Speaker Johnson’s Foreign Aid Boondoggle:

    • Indo-Pacific aid: $8.1 billion.
    • Israel: $26.4 billion.
    • Ukraine: $60.8 billion.
    • Total: $95.3 billion.

    Apparently, it’s because Johnson and a good share of the Washington GOP have succumbed wholesale to neocon paranoia, stupidity, lies and hollow excuses for warmongering. For crying out loud, Putin has no interest in molesting the Poles, to say nothing of storming the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. He is certainly no Ghandi, but well more than smart enough to recognize that with Russia’s GDP of $2.2 trillion and war budget of $80 billion there would be no point in going to war with NATO’s $45 trillion of GDP and combined war budgets in excess of $1.2 trillion.

    Likewise, China’s $50 trillion debt-ridden Ponzi would collapse in months if its $3.5 trillion flow of export earnings were disrupted after attempting to land its single modern aircraft carrier on the California coast. And Iran has no nukes, no intercontinental range missiles and a GDP equal to 130 hours of US annual output.

    So, some Axis of evil!

    Yet that’s exactly what the Speaker said this morning after going to too many Deep State briefings and apparently having his own johnson yanked once too often. The Swamp creatures surely see the lad’s naivete and blithering ignorance as a gift that doesn’t stop giving. That is to say, a “mark” who knows nothing at all about the world from sources not stamped, “Top Secret (lies)”.

    Speaker Mike Johnson: “We’re going to stand for freedom and make sure that Putin doesn’t march through Europe… we’re the greatest Nation on the planet, and we have to act like it”,

    This is a critical time right now, a critical time on the world stage. I can make a selfish decision and do something that’s different but I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing. “I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. I really do. I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten.

    I believe Xi, Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination on it. “So I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies.

    To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys. My son is going to begin in the Naval Academy this fall. This is a live-fire exercise for me as it is so many American families. This is not a game, this is not a joke.

    Needless to say, our dufus Speaker doesn’t know the “Baltics” from the “Balkans” where Serbia and other Russian friendlies are definitely not quaking in their boots about Putin.

    In point of fact, however, it is not hard to see that the civil war and territorial dispute between Kiev and Moscow over the Donbas and rim of the Black Sea from Mariupol to Odessa is a one-off of Russian and regional history and Washington’s mindless push of NATO eastward to Russia’s very doorstep.

    The light-yellow area of this 1897 map gave an unmistakable message: To wit, in the late Russian Empire there was no doubt as to the paternity of the Donbas and the lands adjacent to the Azov Sea and the Black Sea. Already then, they were part of the 125 years-old New Russia, which had been assembled by purchase and conquest during the reign of Catherine the Great.

    Indeed, it was only in 1922 that the yellow area—essentially demarcating the four provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which recently voted to rejoin Russia—was appended to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by the great humanitarian and map-maker, V. Lenin.

    And yet Speaker Johnson now wants to crash the Republican Party on enforcing a map drawn by one of history’s bloodiest monsters. It’s come down to that.

    That is to say, the war in Ukraine would stop tomorrow without another dime of aid from the US taxpayers if Washington agreed to partition the wholly artificial polity assembled by Lenin, Stalin (parts of Poland) and Khruschev (Crimea). In every presidential election in “Ukraine” since 1991 the electorate has essentially voted for separation via 80/20 pluralities in Novorossiya and Crimea for the pro-Russian candidate and 80/20 pluralities in the center and west for the Ukrainian nationalist.

    That is, America’s national security would be undermined not one bit by a new map showing two countries and no war: That is, Novorossiya (New Russia) in the east and south, on the one hand, and the parts and pieces of Poland, Galicia-Austria and the Cossack Hetmanates in the center and west, on the other. Agree to keep NATO out of this rump state of Ukraine and it’s all over except the shouting.

    Nevertheless, the insanity of the Russophobia which keeps knuckleheads like Johnson from having an even rudimentary grasp of the matter reveals an even larger issue.

    Namely, it explains why Washington’s hegemonic foreign policy is a dysfunctional disaster, which unceasingly spawns madness like today’s $95 billion foreign aid boondoggle.

    To wit, it encourages the Empire’s client and allied states to take bellicose positions vis a vis Washington designated rivals and enemies because it brings aid to their treasuries, weapons to their militaries and prestige and self-importance to their politicians and diplomats.

    Thus, would Poland’s rightwing politicians always be barking at Russia, Russia, Russia in the absence of its NATO membership and US military and diplomatic shield? We sincerely doubt they would be poking the bear, but instead would be seeking friendly accommodation with a natural trading partner.

    Likewise with Germany. The latter was apparently so petrified by a rescendant Russia that as recently as 2019 it spent the grand sum of just $50 billion and 1.3% of GDP on defense, while quite logically fueling its booming industrial and export economy with cheap Russian gas.

    What has changed since then is not remotely Germany’s assessment of the Russian threat. What changed is client state politics. The Green Party entered the government coalition with the Social Democrats by beating the war-drums because they saw attacking Russia and Russian gas as a way to promote their hideous crusade against fossil fuel. And they did so with impunity, knowing that Washington’s military shield had their backs.

    As to Tiawan’s client state politics, it’s not even a close call. Announce that Washington’s archaic “strategic ambiguity” policy– left over from the time of two departed demons, Mao Zedong and Chaing Kai Chek—has now also departed into the “inoperative” realm of Nixon-speak and you wouldn’t need any “Indo-Pacific” aid boondoggles, either.

    To the contrary, Taiwan’s leaders would be scampering to Beijing for discussions of a “Hong Kong” transition in short order. America’s homeland security, of course, would be no worse for the wear—except for saving the cost of 100,000 servicemen in the Far East and the multi-trillion cost over time of patrolling the Pacific for the benefit of exactly what?

    Then, of course, we get to the $26.4 billion for Israel. That’s about 4.5% of its GDP and should come out of its own war taxes, not Uncle Sam’s credit card. Moreover, it’s proof positive of the baleful impact of the Empire’s military shield and checkbook on client state politics. As we recently showed, Israel’s defense spending has been steadily plunging to less than 5% of GDP, even as its voters have repeatedly elected bellicose governments consisting of rightwing warmongers and fanatical religious factions.

    These Netanyahu governments have consistently undermined a two-state solution to the Palestine problem, even going so far as to bless the transfer of billions of cash in suitcases to Hamas in order to undermine the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.

    Likewise, Netanyahu has wantonly demonized Iran mainly for the purpose of domestic politics and as a means to assemble 60+ vote coalitions in the Knesset.

    Absent the US Navy and Air Force shield in the region, however, no Israeli government would have ever conducted unending assassination raids on that country or sabotaged on Capitol Hill Washington’s attempts at constructive arrangements with Iran like Obama’s nuke deal.

    Indeed, absent Uncle Sam’s $4 billion annual gift and even more valuable regional military shield, Netanyahu and his extremist coalitions would have needed to raise taxes massively in Israel in order to fund their Garrison State war policies. We doubt the Israeli electorate would have tolerated the true cost of Netanyahu’s madness for very long.

    At the end of the day, what Washington now needs is a break-up of the GOP and the formation of a Peace and Freedom party from the remnants of the conservative GOP and the dovish left. Both have been ejected from the UniParty by today’s Republican and Democrat denizens of the world’s War Capital.

    So perhaps Johnson’s hari-kari act will bear some fruit, after all. Not as he intended, but in the good way that American democracy desperately needs at this fraught juncture.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 21:20

  • Man Who Self-Immolated Near Trump Trial Was Anti-Fascist, Warned Of "World Coup" And Wanted To Start "F*cking Revolution"
    Man Who Self-Immolated Near Trump Trial Was Anti-Fascist, Warned Of “World Coup” And Wanted To Start “F*cking Revolution”

    Update (1710ET): 37-year-old Max Azzarello has been identified as the man who set himself on fire near the NYC courthouse where Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ trial is taking place. He is in critical condition in a burn unit, police said Friday.

    Before setting himself on fire, Azzarello dropped a stack of pamphlets that led people to the “Ponzi Papers” substack – in which he writes: “My name is Max Azzarello, and I am an investigative researcher who has set himself on fire outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan.”

    Azzarello claims that a totalitarian conspiracy is in play, orchestrated by the U.S. government and its allies, aiming to impose a fascist world order.

    This extreme act of protest is to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery:

    We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup.

    These claims sound like fantastical conspiracy theory, but they are not. They are proof of conspiracy. If you investigate this mountain of research, you will prove them too. If you learn a great deal about Ponzi schemes, you will discover that our life is a lie. If you follow this story and the links below, you will discover the rotten truth of ‘post-truth America’. You will learn the scariest and stupidest story in world history. And you will realize that we are all in a desperate state of emergency that requires your action.

    To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you. But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict.

    Because these words are true, this is an act of revolution. -The Ponzi Papers

    Azzarello’s manifesto focuses on the financial sector – particularly around recent banking crises and the role of cryptocurrencies. He suggests that the Silicon Valley Bank run, which was linked to Peter Thiel’s actions and the subsequent collapse of Silvergate Bank, was no accident but part of a broader scheme involving cryptocurrencies as a global Ponzi scheme. He claims that cryptocurrencies were designed to destabilize the economy, implicating major corporations and elites in facilitating this financial upheaval. This scheme, he argues, has contributed to global inflation and is poised to cause even greater economic disruption.

    He then expands to politics, alleging that that U.S. government has devolved into a ‘secret kleptocracy,‘ pointing to bipartisan manipulation. According to Azzarello, the government perpetuates division and crisis to maintain control and distract from its exploitative operations. This, he asserts, leads inevitably towards a fascist state unless urgently addressed.

    Lastly, he suggests that pop culture such as The Simpsons was designed to normalize dysfunction and distract from critical issues – and that the media is used by the elites in order to manipulate public perception and maintain the status quo that suppresses collective action against systemic injustices.

    His solution? A revolution (and, of course, setting himself on fire):

    Azzarello was reportedly active in the Anarcho-Communist forum on Reddit,

    He also took a photograph with former President Bill Clinton.

    And went on a rant against Donald Trump, who he claims is “with Hillary” (and Biden) in the scheming department.

    More:

    *  *  *

    Update (1440ET):

    “Latest: A man lit himself on fire outside courthouse where Trump trial underway, NYPD officials brief within hour. CNN team on the ground observed one of the flyers – it said “NYU is a mob front” and had various allegations of wrongdoings against the school,” reports CNN’s Jim Sciutto. 

    *   *   * 

    A disturbing video has surfaced on X showing a man setting himself on fire outside the courthouse in Midtown Manhattan where former President Trump’s trial is taking place. 

    CNN is reporting:  

    The man walked into the park across the street from the courthouse, throwing flyers into the air, a senior law enforcement official told CNN. He then pulled something out of a backpack — it was not immediately clear what the item was — and lit himself on fire, the official said. 

    The media outlet continued: 

    Investigators are now fanning out to collect the flyers the unknown man threw into the air, another senior law enforcement official. A CNN team on the ground observed one of the flyers. It said “NYU is a mob front” and had various allegations of wrongdoings against the school.

    The video is shocking. 

    Why did a CNN reporter oddly declare that there was an active shooter? 

    On X, Elon Musk asked: “Was he protesting against the trial or for it?” 

    “It seems like Trump Derangement Syndrome is getting out of control,” X account Planet Of Memes said. 

    There is the possibility the man could be protesting the Israel-Hamas war as protests have flared up nationwide—still no official report on why the man decided to light himself on fire.  

    *Developing… 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 21:10

  • North Carolina High School Student Suspended Over Use Of "Illegal Alien"
    North Carolina High School Student Suspended Over Use Of “Illegal Alien”

    A 16-year-old High School student in North Carolina was suspended for three days after using the term “illegal alien” – a legal term of art, during a vocabulary assignment in his English class.

    Leah McGhee, the boy’s mother, says her son was assigned vocabulary words during class last Tuesday, which included the word ‘alien,’ the Carolina Journal reports. When her son asked; “Like space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards?” – another student in the class took offense and threatened to kick his ass, prompting the teacher to call in the assistant principal.

    School administrators at Central Davidson High School in Lexington deemed his words ‘offensive and disrespectful to classmates who are hispanic,’ according to the report.

    “I didn’t make a statement directed towards anyone; I asked a question,” the suspended boy said in response to his suspension. “I wasn’t speaking of hispanics because everyone from other countries needs green cards, and the term “illegal alien” is an actual term that I hear on the news and can find in the dictionary.”

    According to the report, the boy’s record could now be damaged as he aims to secure an academic scholarship for collage. He currently participates in school clubs, track, and cross country.

    “Because of his question, our son was disciplined and given THREE days OUT of school suspension for ‘racism,’” his mother wrote in an email shared with the Journal. “He is devastated and concerned that the racism label on his school record will harm his future goal of receiving a track scholarship. We are concerned that he will fall behind in his classes due to being absent for three consecutive days.”

    Leah said the assistant principal has so far refused to remove the infraction from her son’s record. The family is working with an attorney to remedy the situation so it doesn’t harm his future, and they expect more developments in the days ahead.

    Meanwhile, State Senator Steve Jarvis, R-Davidson, said he contacted the school district’s superintendent to make him aware of the situation. Jarvis told the Carolina Journal that while he informed top officials of the issue and urged officials to look for the best outcome, he did not take a stance on what they should do because he wasn’t there to understand all sides of the story. -Carolina Journal

    “I do not see that that would be an offensive statement, just in getting clarification,” said Sen. Jarvis. “But there again, I don’t know. I don’t know the situation of this particular incident.”

    Seems fairly clear, no?

    In a statement to Newsweek, the high school said: “Please know that Davidson County Schools administrators take all discipline incidents seriously and investigate each one thoroughly,” adding “Any violation of the code of conduct is handled appropriately by administrators.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 21:00

  • FBI Warns Of Risk Of Chinese Hack Attack On Energy Infrastructure
    FBI Warns Of Risk Of Chinese Hack Attack On Energy Infrastructure

    Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

    The director of the FBI has warned that the Chinese state has its sights set on U.S. critical infrastructure to compromise U.S. economic and national security.

    Speaking at the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, Christopher Wray said:

    “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] has made it clear that it considers every sector that makes our society run as fair game in its bid to dominate on the world stage, and that its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic and break America’s will to resist.”

    The head of the FBI also explained that the Chinese state has taken a hybrid approach to its efforts to weaken the United States, involving cybersecurity, counterintelligence, and crime.

    The motivation for these efforts, according to Wray, was “driven by the CCP’s aspirations to wealth and power,” and the desire to “seize economic development in the areas most critical to tomorrow’s economy,” including through illegal means, such as theft.

    With regard to critical infrastructure specifically, Wren said “The fact is, the PRC’s targeting of our critical infrastructure is both broad and unrelenting.”

    “It’s using that mass, those numbers, to give itself the ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing,” the head of the FBI also said.

    Wray referred to an ongoing hack attack dubbed Volt Typhoon which had opened up access for the hackers to a number of U.S. companies including pipeline operators. China, however, has denied any connection to Volt Typhoon, which Beijing said was a ransomware group, per a Reuters report.

    “Some in the US have been using origin-tracing of cyberattacks as a tool to hit and frame China, claiming the US to be the victim while it’s the other way round, and politicizing cybersecurity issues,” the Chinese embassy in Washington said, as quoted by Reuters.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 20:40

  • RFK Jr Nails Down First Battleground-State Ballot Spot: Who Will Benefit Most?
    RFK Jr Nails Down First Battleground-State Ballot Spot: Who Will Benefit Most?

    In a development that’s sure to cause shudders at Democratic National Party headquarters, the independent campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr on Thursday officially secured a place on the ballot in tightly-contested Michigan. However, some polls point to Kennedy being a bigger threat to Trump in the state that has 15 electoral votes. 

    Michigan is considered one of seven battleground states that will decide the 2024 presidential election — along with Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Polls generally show that the presence of independent and third-party candidates Kennedy, Cornel West and Jill Stein provide a small benefit to Donald Trump.

    With many Democratic electoral cornerstones wobbling — including blacks, Hispanics and young people — Blue Team is worried that Kennedy will peel off enough discontented Democrats to deliver victory to Trump. That’s why Democrats are launching a multi-pronged attack on Kennedy, from legal challenges to his state ballot applications to hosting more than 15 Biden-endorsing Kennedy family members at a Philadelphia event on Thursday. 

    Democratic worries about Michigan are compounded by what happened in the state’s February primary. In a protest of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war, more than 13% of Democrats voted “uncommitted.” The 100,000 who chose that option represented a block more than 9 times Donald Trump’s 2016 victory margin.  

    However, two recent polls suggest the Trump campaign should be uneasy about Kennedy’s Michigan ballot accomplishment.

    • Fox News shows Trump up 3 points in a head-to-head, but only up 2 points in a five-way contest. Kennedy scores 9%. 
    • Marketing Resource Group has Trump ahead by 6% vs Biden, but up 3% with Kennedy, Stein and West in the mix. Kennedy snags 13%. 

    With the uncertain Kennedy impact in mind, Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC on Monday launched a “Radical F***ing Kennedy” website, which spotlights various Kennedy stances that are anathema to conservatives.  

    A Trump-backing Super PAC launched this website Monday to turn conservatives away from voting for Kennedy

    With less than seven months to election day, Michigan is only the second state where Kennedy is officially on the ballot — along with Utah. However, Kennedy’s campaign and PAC say they’ve hit the signature requirements in many other states — including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina — and are awaiting the states’ validation. 

    Earlier this week, Kennedy announced that, after having considered the option, he wouldn’t pursue the Libertarian Party’s nomination as a way of instantly achieving 50-state ballot access. “We’re not gonna have any problems getting on the ballot ourselves so we won’t be running Libertarian,” Kennedy told ABC News. “We’re going to add probably two to three states a week.”

    Kennedy won’t officially be an independent in the Wolverine State: His name will appear on the ballot line of the obscure Natural Law Party, which was founded to solve political problems “through alignment with the ‘Unified Field’ of all the laws of nature through the use of the Transcendental Meditation.” Once a fledgling national organization, its last remnants are in Michigan; Ralph Nader ran on the state party’s line in 2008. “[Kennedy is] the most qualified candidate in the modern-day history of America,” said party chairman Doug Dern.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 20:20

  • Biden Education Secretary Threatens to Shut Down Largest Christian College In The US
    Biden Education Secretary Threatens to Shut Down Largest Christian College In The US

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, threatened during a congressional hearing to weaponize the Department of Education to target and shut down the largest Christian university in the United States.

    As Fox News reports, Cardona made his threats during a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, in response to a question by far-left Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). DeLauro attacked Grand Canyon University (CGU), falsely declaring it “a predatory for-profit school,” to which Cardona said that “we are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students.”

    “You have a shiny brochure and a great commercial,” Cardona said.

    “But the product is not worth the paper it’s written on. We have students graduating 60K to 70K dollars in debt, only eligible for jobs making under 30K. That to me is unacceptable.”

    GCU has been accused of misleading students about the true cost of some of its doctoral programs, for which Cardona’s Education Department fined the university $37.7 million; the school is currently appealing that fine, which was implemented in November.

    Past fines imposed by the Education Department on other schools were significantly smaller, with Penn State being fined just $2.4 million for its failure to deal with Jerry Sandusky’s sexual crimes; Michigan State was fined only $4.5 million for its similar failure to respond to the crimes of Larry Nassar.

    In October, the department claimed that an investigation by the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) determined that GCU had “lied” about the true costs of its doctoral programs to over 7,500 students, while presenting no evidence.

    The department then gave GCU just 20 days to request a hearing with the department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals to object to the fine.

    “Our next recourse after that decision would be another appeal within the Department, this time directly to the Secretary of Education,” said a GCU spokesman.

    “Officials continue to make derogatory and inflammatory public statements that are legally and factually incorrect and not shared by any of the other 26 regulatory and accrediting bodies that oversee GCU,” the GCU spokesman continued.

    “The Secretary’s comments to the House Appropriations Committee were so reckless that GCU is demanding an immediate retraction, as they do not reflect the factual record in this case. He is either confused, misinformed or does not understand the actions taken by his own agency.”

    In response to Cardona’s threats, the American Principles Project (APP) has launched a petition to “protect Christian colleges.”

    The petition says, in part, that in “light of the Biden administration’s unprecedented attacks on our nation’s largest Christian colleges,” the AFP and all signatories to the petition demand that “the administration halt their crusade and let students choose the schools that fit their values.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 20:00

  • "Southwest Stop!": Near Runway Disaster At Washington-Reagan Recorded On Shocking Audio 
    “Southwest Stop!”: Near Runway Disaster At Washington-Reagan Recorded On Shocking Audio 

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is caught in one of the worst aviation crises in American history, as Boeing jets fall apart in mid-air and while on the runway. The latest near-disaster happened when a JetBlue flight nearly collided with a Southwest Airlines flight at Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport on Thursday morning. 

    For any Zero Hedge readers who are aviators, you already know that as a pilot in command in airspace controlled by a tower, you’re putting complete trust in air traffic controllers to guide you on the most effective path possible without hitting other planes. 

    But that was almost not the case on Thursday morning when air traffic control instructed Southwest Airlines Flight 2937 to cross runway four at the airport while JetBlue Flight 1554 took off. 

    The audio is absolutely shocking. For any pilot, it sends shivers down your spine…

    DCA TOWER: JetBlue 1554, Stop!

    DCA GROUND: Southwest, Stop! Southwest 2937, Stop!

    Southwest Pilot: We stopped. We were cleared to cross runway 4.

    JetBlue Pilot: We’re stopping, JetBlue 1554

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

    This is not the first operational error by towers across US airports. In February 2023, a landing FedEx cargo plane nearly collided with a Southwest passenger at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. 

    On Friday, FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker directed controllers to take ten hours off between shifts and a minimum of 12 straight hours off before a midnight shift. 

    Every pilot should be concerned about the FAA’s latest DEI hiring spree of folks with “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism” problems.

    Sigh, Buttigieg. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 19:40

  • Soaring Russian Oil Imports Drag OPEC's Market Share In India To Record Low
    Soaring Russian Oil Imports Drag OPEC’s Market Share In India To Record Low

    Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

    Russia was India’s single largest oil supplier for a second consecutive fiscal year, as surging imports of Russian crude dragged down the share of OPEC and Middle East supply to India to a record low, Reuters reported on Friday, citing data from tanker-tracking data obtained from industry sources.

    In the 2023/2024 fiscal year ended March 31, the share of Middle East oil supply of India’s oil imports slumped to as low as 46% — the lowest on record dating back to 2001-2002, according to the Reuters analysis. This compares with a 55% share of the Middle Eastern crude supply of Indian imports in the previous fiscal year 2022/2023.      

    The key driver of historically low Indian imports from the Middle East was the surge in Russian crude supply to the world’s third-largest oil importer.

    Russia alone accounted for around 35% of all Indian crude oil imports in 2023/2024, per the data compiled by Reuters.  

    For the first time ever, India – which depends on imports for around 87% of its oil consumption – imported roughly equal volumes of OPEC and non-OPEC crude, thanks to the 57% annual surge in imports from non-OPEC producer Russia. 

    Higher prices of Saudi crude and lower Kuwaiti supply as Kuwait limited exports of some grades to direct them to a new refinery also contributed to the low share of the OPEC and Middle Eastern crude of India’s imports. 

    India’s crude imports remained flat in the 2023/2024 fiscal year, but the import bill of the world’s third-largest oil importer fell by almost 16% due to lower oil prices and record-high imports of cheaper Russian crude.   

    While volumes were essentially unchanged, India’s spending on crude oil imports dropped by 16%, to $132.4 billion in 2023/2024, down from the $157.5 billion import bill for the 2022/2023 fiscal year, provisional data from the Indian Oil Ministry showed earlier this week.  

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 19:20

  • "Defund NPR Act" Introduced In House Over Bias, "Radical, Left-Wing Activist" CEO
    “Defund NPR Act” Introduced In House Over Bias, “Radical, Left-Wing Activist” CEO

    Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) has introduced the “Defund NPR Act” to pull federal funds from National Public Radio, after veteran journalist Uri Berliner – who resigned this week following a suspension for penning a scathing article which exposed the network’s far-left bias, including the fact that the outlet’s DC bureau employs 87 registered Democrats and no Republicans, the Daily Caller reports.

    What’s more, NPR CEO Katherine Maher – who once bragged about taking censorship orders from the feds as the head of Wikipedia, and said during a Ted Talk that “truth” is a “distraction” which is “getting in the way of getting things done,” was called out for years worth of woke diatribes on X (formerly Twitter), including calling herself “someone with cis white mobility privilege,” anger towards white men for flying business class, and defending looting.

    “NPR’s new CEO is a radical, left-wing activist who doesn’t believe in free speech or objective journalism. Hoosiers shouldn’t be writing her paychecks. Katherine Maher isn’t qualified to teach an introductory journalism class, much less capable of responsibly spending millions of American tax dollars,” Banks told the Daily Caller shortly before introducing the bill.

    “NPR was a liberal looney bin under the last CEO John Lansing, and it’s about to get even nuttier. It’s time to pull the plug on this national embarrassment. Congress must stop spending other people’s hard-earned money on low grade propaganda,” Banks added.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 19:00

  • Huge Blast Rocks Iraq Base Used By Iran-Linked Militias
    Huge Blast Rocks Iraq Base Used By Iran-Linked Militias

    Reuters is reporting a “massive” blast at an Iraqi base used by Iran-linked militias south of Baghdad in the overnight hours (local). 

    “A huge blast rocked a military base used by Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to the south of Baghdad late on Friday,” army sources said to Reuters.

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

    Few other details have been given, but images are widely circulating online showing what indeed appears to be a very large-scale strike.

    A number of regional correspondents have been quick to identify it as an American military airstrike; however, given the events of the night prior (the ‘limited’ attack on Iran), others are speculating it was the Israelis behind it.

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

    Both the Israelis and Americans have struck Iran-linked PMF bases before, mostly in Eastern Syria – but a strike on such a scale inside Iraq by Israel remains very rare or even unprecedented.

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

    Of course, since this again takes place when he market is closed the only way to trade it is via bitcoin, where the algos have decided to price in the end of the world for the third time in 5 days.

    * * *

    The Pentagon later denied US forces were behind the strike…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 18:50

  • Is There More To This Current Bird Flu Panic Than Meets The Eye?
    Is There More To This Current Bird Flu Panic Than Meets The Eye?

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    Why are global health officials issuing such ominous warnings about the bird flu?  Do they know something that the rest of us do not? 

    H5N1 has been circulating all over the planet for several years now, and it has been the worst outbreak that the world has ever seen.  Hundreds of millions of birds are already dead, and now H5N1 has been infecting mammals with alarming regularity.  The good news is that so far it has not been a serious threat to humans, but could that soon change? 

    According to the World Health Organization, the possibility that H5N1 could start spreading among humans is an “enormous concern”…

    The increasing spread of bird flu to humans is an ‘enormous concern’, the World Health Organization has warned.

    The virus, an extremely deadly H5N1 subtype, has caused devastating declines in bird populations following its emergence in Europe in 2020.

    It has since jumped to mammals such as cows, cats, seals and now people, raising the risk of the virus mutating to become more transmissible.

    The fact that so many different types of mammals are now being infected is definitely alarming.

    But perhaps cows would not be getting infected if we were not literally feeding them chicken crap…

    As epidemiologists scramble to figure out how dairy cows throughout the Midwest became infected with a strain of highly pathogenic avian flu — a disease that has decimated hundreds of millions of wild and farmed birds, as well as tens of thousands of mammals across the planet — they’re looking at a standard “recycling” practice employed by thousands of farmers across the country: The feeding of animal waste and parts to livestock raised for human consumption.

    “It seems ghoulish, but it is a perfectly legal and common practice for chicken litter — the material that accumulates on the floor of chicken growing facilities — to be fed to cattle,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union.

    It is not known if eating chicken crap is why so many cows in so many different states are being infected with H5N1.

    But at a time when the bird flu is running rampant among chickens and turkeys, it seems very foolish to take chicken crap and feed it to our cows.

    In any event, now there is a lot of panic about the potential for an H5N1 outbreak among humans.

    Authorities at the WHO are warning that the death rate would be “extraordinarily high” if such an outbreak were to occur…

    Experts at the WHO said humans face an ‘extraordinarily high’ mortality rate if the strain were to take hold, currently killing more than half of those infected.

    I agree.

    The bird flu is very dangerous, and if it starts spreading among humans on a widespread basis a lot of people will die.

    So why are U.S. taxpayer dollars being used to fund experiments in China that are specifically designed to make bird flu viruses even more deadly?  The following comes from an extremely shocking Daily Mail article…

    Lawmakers are demanding answers after it was revealed the US is sending taxpayer dollars to a Chinese army lab to make bird flu viruses more dangerous to people.

    Eighteen members of Congress are demanding answers from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) about the project, which was first revealed by DailyMail.com.

    It is part of a $1million collaboration between the USDA and the CCP-run Chinese Academy of Sciences – the institution that oversees the Wuhan lab at the center of the Covid lab-leak theory.

    In a scathing letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack last week, the bipartisan group said: ‘This research, funded by American taxpayers, could potentially generate dangerous new lab-created virus strains that threaten our national security and public health.’

    As I warn in my latest book, mad scientists all over the globe are taking some of the most deadly bugs even known to humanity and are purposely trying to make them even more deadly.

    And way too often, your tax dollars are paying for it.

    Of course experiments on H5N1 are not new.

    Over a decade ago, gain of function experiments that were funded by Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci actually created a mutant version of H5N1 that “had gained the ability to spread through the air between ferrets”…

    And yet in late 2011 the world learned that two scientific teams – one in Wisconsin, led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, and another in the Netherlands, led by virologist Ron Fouchier – had potentially pushed the virus in that direction. Each of these labs had created H5N1 viruses that had gained the ability to spread through the air between ferrets, the animal model used to study how flu viruses might behave in humans.

    The ultimate goal of this work was to help protect the world from future pandemics, and the research was supported with words and funding by two of the most prominent scientists in the United States: Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

    Why would they purposely create such a thing?

    Ferrets were specifically chosen for that research because they have respiratory systems that are very similar to humans.

    Our ability to create deadly diseases far exceeds our ability to control them, and once something gets out it can spread around the globe in the blink of an eye.

    Right now, there is a lot of concern about a “mystery respiratory illness” that has suddenly appeared in Argentina…

    A mystery respiratory illness has hospitalised dozens of people in Argentina in an outbreak that shares eerie similarities with Covid’s arrival.

    Sixty patients have been sickened with ‘severe atypical pneumonia’ in the capital, Buenos Aires.

    An alert about the cluster of cases was last night circulated via an international public health surveillance system.

    Covid was brought to the attention of the world in late 2019 as a result of the same database, called ProMed.

    Hopefully this will turn out to be nothing.

    But it is just a matter of time before more great pestilences ravage our planet.

    Will H5N1 be one of them?

    I don’t know, but this is a story that I will definitely be watching closely.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 18:40

  • The World's Economic Myths Are Hitting Their Limits
    The World’s Economic Myths Are Hitting Their Limits

    Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

    There are many myths about energy and the economy. In this post I explore the situation surrounding some of these myths.

    My analysis strongly suggests that the transition to a new Green Economy is not progressing as well as hoped.

    Green energy planners have missed the point that our physics-based economy favors low-cost producers.

    In fact, the US and EU may not be far from an economic downturn because subsidized green approaches are not truly low-cost.

    [1] The Chinese people have long believed that the safest place to store savings is in empty condominium apartments, but this approach is no longer working.

    The focus on ownership of condominium homes is beginning to unwind, with huge repercussions for the Chinese economy. In March, new home prices in China declined by 2.2%, compared to a year earlier. Property sales fell by 20.5% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period a year ago, and new construction starts measured by floor area fell by 27.8%. Overall property investment in China fell by 9.5% in the first quarter of 2024. No one is expecting a fast rebound. The Chinese seem to be shifting their workforce from construction to manufacturing, but this creates different issues for the world economy, which I describe in Section [6].

    [2] We have been told that Electric Vehicles (EVs) are the way of the future, but the rate of growth is slowing.

    In the US, the rate of growth was only 3.3% in the first quarter of 2024, compared to 47% one year ago. Tesla has made headlines, saying that it is laying off 10% of its staff. It also recently reported that it is delaying deliveries of its cybertruck. A big issue is the high prices of EVs; another is the lack of charging infrastructure. If EV sales are to truly expand, they will need both lower prices and much better charging infrastructure.

    [3] Many people have assumed that home solar panel sales would rise forever, but now US home solar panel sales are shrinking.

    A forecast made by the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie indicates that US solar panel installations by homeowners are expected to fall by 13% in 2024. There are many issues involved: higher interest rates, less generous subsidies to homeowners, not enough grid capacity for new generation, and too much overproduction of electricity by solar panels in the spring and fall, when heating and air conditioning demand is low. The overproduction issue is particularly acute in California.

    For each individual 24-hour day, the timing of solar energy production does not match up well with when it is needed. With sufficient batteries, solar electricity produced in the morning can help run air conditioners in the evening. But storage from summer to winter is still not feasible, and batteries for short-term storage are expensive.

    [4] It is a myth that wind and solar truly add to electricity supplies for the US and the countries in the EU. Instead, their pricing seems to lead to tighter electricity supplies.

    Strangely enough, in the US and the EU, when wind and solar are added to the electric grid, electricity supplies seem to get tighter. For example, one article says, Most of US electric grid faces risk of resource shortfall through 2027, NERC [regulatory group] says.

    Charts of electricity supply per capita show an unusual trend when wind and solar are added. Figure 1 shows that, in the US, once wind and solar are added, total electricity generation per capita falls, rather than rises!

    Figure 1. US per capita electricity generation based on data of the US Energy Information Administration. (Data is through 2023, even though this is not easy to see from the labels.)

    The EU, using a somewhat shorter history period, shows a similar pattern of declining total electricity generation per capita, even when wind and solar are added (Figure 2).

    Figure 2. Electricity generation per capita for the European Union based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, prepared by the Energy Institute. Amounts are through 2022.

    I believe that the strange pricing systems used for wind and solar in the US and EU are driving out other electricity suppliers, especially nuclear. With this system, intermittent electricity enjoys the subsidy of going first at the regular wholesale market rate. Other providers find themselves with very low or negative wholesale rates in the spring and fall of the year and on weekends and holidays. As a result, their overall return falls too low. Nuclear is particularly affected because it requires a huge, fixed investment, and it cannot be ramped up and down easily.

    Besides the foregoing issues affecting the supply of electricity generated, there are also factors affecting the demand for electricity. Electricity generation using wind and solar tends to be high priced when all costs are included. The US and EU are already high-cost areas for businesses to operate. High electricity rates further add to the impetus to move manufacturing and other industry to lower-cost countries if businesses desire to be competitive in the world market.

      On a world basis, in 2022, wind and solar added about 13% to total world electricity generation (Figure 3).

      Figure 3. Electricity generation per capita for the World based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, prepared by the Energy Institute. Amounts are through 2022.

      Based on Figure 3, with the addition of wind and solar, the upward slope of the world per capita electricity generation has been able to remain pretty much constant from 1985 to 2022, at about 1.6% per year. But the US and the EU, as high-cost producers of goods and services, haven’t been able to participate in this per capita growth of electricity.

      Instead, China has been a major beneficiary of the shift of manufacturing overseas from the US and EU. It has been able to rapidly increase its electricity supply per capita, even with wind and solar. It has also been adding both nuclear and coal-fired electricity generation capacity.

      Figure 4. Electricity generation per capita for China based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, prepared by the Energy Institute. Amounts are through 2022.

      Thus, this analysis produces the result a person would expect if the physics of the world economy favors efficient (low-cost) producers.

      [5] It is a myth that the US and EU can greatly ramp up the use of EVs or greatly increase the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) without relying on fossil fuels.

      Both EV production and AI are heavy users of electricity supply. We have seen that the US and the EU no longer have growing per-capita electricity supplies. Ramping up electricity generation would require a long lead time (10 years or more), a major increase in fossil fuel consumption, and an increase in electricity transmission lines.

      The State of Georgia, in the United States, is already running into this issue, with planned data centers (related to AI) and EV manufacturing plants. The state plans to add new gas-fired electricity generation. It will also import more electricity from Mississippi Power, where the retirement of a coal-fired plant is being delayed to provide the necessary additional electricity. Eventually, more solar panels are planned, as well.

      [6] It is a myth that the world economy can continue as usual, whatever happens to energy supply and growing debt. China’s homebuilding problems could, in theory, lead to debt bubbles crashing around the world.

      The world economy depends upon a growing bubble of debt. It also depends on an ever-increasing supply of goods and services. In fact, the two are closely interrelated. As long as a growing supply of low-priced energy of the types used by built infrastructure is available, the economy tends to sail along.

      China, with problems in its property business, is an example of what can go wrong when energy supplies (coal in China) become expensive, as supply becomes increasingly constrained. Figure 5 shows that China’s per-capita coal supply became constrained in about 2013. China’s per capita coal extraction had been rising, but then it dipped. This made it more difficult for builders to construct the homes planned for would-be homeowners. This is part of what got home builders in China into financial difficulty.

      Figure 5. Per capita coal supply in China based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, prepared by the Energy Institute. Amounts are through 2022.

      Finally, in 2022, China was able to get coal production up. But the way this was done was through very high coal prices (Figure 6). (The prices shown are for Australian coal, but Chinese coal prices seem to be similar.)

      Figure 6. Newcastle Coal (Australia) prices in chart prepared by Trading Economics.

      Building concrete homes at such high coal prices would have resulted in new homes that were far too expensive for most Chinese citizens to afford. If builders were not already in difficulty from low supply, adding high coal prices, as well, would be a second blow. Furthermore, all the workers formerly engaged in home building needed new places to earn a living; the current approach seems to be to move many of these workers to manufacturing, so that the popping of the home building bubble will have less of an impact on the overall economy of China.

      There is now concern that China is ramping up its manufacturing, particularly for exports, at a time when China’s jobs in the property sector are disappearing. The problem, however, is that ramping up exports of manufactured goods creates a new bubble. This huge added supply of manufactured goods can only be sold at low prices. This new low-priced competition seems likely to lead to manufacturers, around the world, obtaining too-low prices for their manufactured products.

      If other economies around the world are forced to compete with even lower-cost goods from China, it could have an adverse impact on manufacturing around the world. With low prices, manufacturers are likely to lay off workers, or give them excessively low wages. If wages and prices are inadequate, debt bubbles in other parts of the world are likely to collapse. This will happen because many borrowers will become unable to repay their debt. This is the reason that we have been hearing a great deal recently about raising tariffs on Chinese exports.

      [7] The world’s biggest myth is that the world economy can continue to grow forever.

      I have pointed out previously that based on physics considerations, economies cannot be expected to be permanent structures. Economies and humans are both self-organizing systems that grow. Humans get their energy from food. Economies are powered by the types of energy products that our built infrastructure uses. Neither can grow forever. Neither can get along without energy products of the right types, in the right quantities.

      We become so accustomed to the narratives we hear that we tend to assume that what we are told must be right. These narratives could be based on wishful thinking, or on inadequate models, or on a sour grapes view that says, “We don’t want fossil fuels anyhow.” We know that humans need food, and that economies will continue to require fossil fuels. We can’t make wind turbines or solar panels without fossil fuels. What do we plan to do for energy without fossil fuels?

      In a finite world, economies cannot continue forever. We don’t know precisely what will go wrong or when it will go wrong, but we can get a hint from the recent failures of myths that our economy may change dramatically in the not-too-distant future.

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 04/19/2024 – 18:00

    1. Rep. Greene: Congress Members Who Back Ukraine Aid Should Join Kiev's Military
      Rep. Greene: Congress Members Who Back Ukraine Aid Should Join Kiev’s Military

      Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

      Republican Rep. Majorie Taylor-Greene has proposed an amendment requiring lawmakers who vote in favor of the $60 billion Ukrainian aid bill to join Ukraine’s military. Taylor-Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) have pledged to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from his post if he allows a floor vote on the aid package. 

      In a social media post, Axios Capitol Hill reporter Juliegrace Brufke shared the text of the new amendment to the $61 billion Ukraine aid bill that has been stalled for months in Washington. The measure states, “Any Member of Congress who votes in favor of this Act shall be required to conscript in the Ukrainian military.”

      Rep Taylor Greene with her staff.

      “If you want to fund the endless foreign wars, you should have to go fight them,” Taylor-Greene posted on X. “That’s why I’m introducing an amendment that would require any Member of Congress who votes for the multibillion [dollar] Ukraine supplemental to enlist in Ukraine’s military.”

      The Georgia Republican also introduced amendments that would direct funding from Ukraine to space lasers to defend the southwest border, or aid to Americans impacted by a major train derailment in Ohio and wildfires in Hawaii. 

      Taylor-Greene introduced the amendments in retaliation after House Speaker Johnson broke an earlier pledge to block additional funding for the Ukraine proxy war unless Congress authorized significant funding for US immigration enforcement and various border reforms. 

      Johnson plans to have the House vote on a series of four bills that will provide $61 billion to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel, and $8 billion to Taiwan. The fourth bill is expected to be called a “national security” law that includes a TikTok ban and gives the president the power to sell off frozen Russian assets and transfer the money to Ukraine. 

      In addition to the amendment, Taylor-Greene has called to oust Johnson from the speakership over his broken promise. The congresswoman has been joined by Massie, which means Johnson would not survive a removal vote without support from Democrats. 

      Taylor-Greene’s effort to stymie the Ukraine aid package has drawn the ire of some of her colleagues. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) introduced two amendments smearing the lawmaker as an agent of Russia.

      The amendment says Taylor-Greene has “repeatedly attempted to block aid to Ukraine, empowering Vladimir Putin’s unlawful violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The congresswoman has vocally embraced an ‘America First’ philosophy and has explained that continued funding for the war in Ukraine does nothing to benefit Americans. 

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

      Taylor-Greene has also pointed to Kiev’s undemocratic policies and the sizable neo-Nazi presence within its military as other reasons for opposing the $61 billion aid bill. Moskowitz later attacked Taylor-Greene for highlighting the hardline elements in Ukraine’s armed forces. 

      “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler. The only people who know about Nazis and Hitler are the 10 million people and their families who lost their loved ones – generations of people who were wiped out,” Moskowitz said. “It is enough of this disgusting behavior, using Nazis as propaganda … You want to talk about Nazis? Get yourself over to the Holocaust Museum. You go see what Nazis did.”

      However, Moskowitz has repeatedly invoked the Nazi label to further his own political agenda, once declaring that X was “crawling with Nazi termites” and later claiming Hamas has similar goals to the Third Reich.

      Tyler Durden
      Fri, 04/19/2024 – 17:40

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