- Why Might Ukraine Want Russia To Use Nuclear Weapons?
Why Might Ukraine Want Russia To Use Nuclear Weapons?
Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned on Sunday in an interview with leading Russian media that:
“Such escalation on the part of Ukraine (by invading Kursk) is an attempt to push Russia to asymmetric actions.
Well, let’s say to use nuclear weapons. I know for sure that Ukraine would be very happy if Russia or we used tactical nuclear weapons there.
They will applaud it. Then, probably, we would hardly have allies left. In general, there would be no even sympathetic countries left.”
That sounds absurd on the surface, but it actually makes a lot of sense if one thinks more deeply about it.
The use of nuclear weapons is taboo because of the physical and environmental damage that they cause.
There are also credible fears that they’d lead to one’s nuclear-armed adversaries retaliating in a tit-for-tat fashion, thus rapidly climbing the escalation ladder to the brink of World War III. Nevertheless, several states still retain nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes in line with their respective doctrines.
As regards Russia’s, they can be employed in the event of a large-scale conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state, among other conditions. That hasn’t yet happened in the Kursk context, but the hypothetical scenario of that region or another being completely captured by Ukraine might be deemed by some decisionmakers as meeting the criterion depending on how rapidly the front lines collapse. To be clear, there’s no credible indication that anything of the sort will unfold.
Nevertheless, Ukraine might capitalize upon its attack there by striking the nearby nuclear power plant. A top Russian military journalist had earlier warned that “[Ukraine] plan[s] to strike the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel of a nuclear power plant” in either Kursk or Zaporozhye. This then prompted the Russian Defense Ministry to officially declare that “tough military and military-technical countermeasures will be taken immediately” in that event.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that such strikes against those targets “could result in a large-scale technogenic catastrophe in Europe”, not to mention in the Russian heartland if the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant melts down in the aftermath. These combined conventional (invasion) and unconventional (de facto dirty bomb) attacks could push Russian decisionmakers closer to seriously considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response as a last resort out of self-defense.
Whether dropped inside of Russia’s own borders or Ukraine’s, they’d send a political shockwave across the world due to breaking the previously mentioned taboo, which could indeed lead to there being “no even sympathetic countries left” in support of Russia barring a few like North Korea.
China and India would be under immense pressure to distance themselves from Russia, not just by the West, but also for appearance’s sake since they wouldn’t want to legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by their rivals.
Reports have also swirled that the US might conventionally retaliate against Russian forces inside of Ukrainian-claimed territory if nuclear weapons are used there, thus placing their proxy war on a direct path to World War III if that happens. Ukraine is still losing to Russia despite its sneak attack in Kursk so its leadership might have calculated, however “irrationally” it seems to objective observers, to provoke Russia into raising the stakes to that level.
It’s this escalation sequence that Lukashenko likely had in mind when warning that Ukraine wants Russia to use nuclear weapons, which could hypothetically occur if it completely captures a Russian region and/or is responsible for a nuclear catastrophe through its attacks against Russian nuclear power plants.
The first probably won’t happen since their offensive appears to have been halted, while the second is entirely in Ukraine’s hands, so it’s incumbent on the West to do its utmost to stop them from doing this.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/20/2024 – 02:00 - Time For NeverTrump Republicans To Put On Their Big Boy Pants & Think Of Their Country
Time For NeverTrump Republicans To Put On Their Big Boy Pants & Think Of Their Country
Authored by Brian C. Joondeph via American Thinker,
My flak jacket is on as I write this since I am sure to offend or piss off some friends, family, and colleagues who are ostensibly Republicans or conservatives but have a visceral aversion to Donald Trump.
Some tell me they are Republican and miss Ronald Reagan but also admit they “couldn’t” vote for Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020. Nothing says one is Republican like voting for a liberal Democrat.
This is the NeverTrump wing of the Republican Party, emerging shortly after Trump secured the GOP nomination in 2016. Reasons for NeverTrump-ism are myriad.
Some were offended by his mean tweets, name-calling, and brash Queens personality. Others disliked his confidence and determination to punch back twice as hard when attacked, particularly when the attacks were bogus (Russian collusion, fine people, grab em by the p***y, etc).
Many establishment Republicans only wanted a nominee who was part of George Carlin’s “big club,” with the last name of Bush, or endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal, or the Koch brothers.
Still others bristled at Trump’s desires to secure America’s borders, avoid foreign wars, achieve American energy independence, and level the playing field of global trade. After all, globalists and the military-industrial complex are happy with and profit immensely from open borders, endless wars, high energy prices, and China-centric trade deals.
Screenshot The Last Refuge, by permission In two and a half months, there will be a reckoning, America First versus America Last. The comparisons to four years ago are legion.
Trump attempted to build a border wall, despite NeverTrump resistance from his own party. Biden opened the border to the tune of 10,000 known illegal crossings per day.
Trump nominated three Constitutional Supreme Court justices while Biden nominated one who doesn’t know what a woman is. Democrats want to stack the high court with leftists who will rewrite the U.S. Constitution to resemble Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto.
Trump’s economy had high employment and low inflation. The Biden/Harris/Obama economy provided the opposite. Trump did not start any foreign wars during his four years in office. Harris/Obama/Biden started wars between Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Iran, and Yemen and the Western world.
Our national debt has eclipsed $35 trillion. Congress spends $12 million per minute. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is 1.37, red line territory. GDP represents all federal income, personal and government, but federal receipts or income is only $4.4 trillion, an eighth of the debt.
If the federal government aimed to eliminate the debt, it would take eight years with zero spending on anything the government currently funds. Our rapidly growing debt is not sustainable without some serious course correction. Who is more likely to steer America in the right direction? Obama/Harris/Biden or Trump? This should be an easy answer.
The current Democrat presidential ticket is two Marxists. They want to command and control all aspects of American economics and life. They will weaponize the government even further to achieve their Orwellian dystopia. The U.K. is imprisoning those who post critical or mean comments on social media. Harris/Walz will say, “Hold my beer” and double down on censorship, punishing anyone who disagrees with Big Brother.
They will regulate the airline industry to the point that air travel is either unaffordable or impractical. Price controls will be added to food and groceries, limiting choices and creating shortages. How did government control of food distribution work in Venezuela and the U.S.S.R.?
Taxes would rise under a Harris administration. So would the minimum wage, making small business so small it no longer exists, while big business simply passes on increased wage costs to consumers, a stealth tax.
Under a Democrat administration, America will send money and U.S. soldiers to defend other countries’ borders, while leaving America’s borders wide open. Illegal aliens will continue terrorizing, injuring, or killing Americans, whether at a Missouri laundromat, a Wisconsin home, or at a Florida motel.
Cutesy time is over, as Dan Bongino would say. In a few months, America will either have a reset, or a quick slide into tyranny and chaos.
Trump is Trump, his personality almost 80 years in the making. He will not suddenly become Ronald Reagan, with a smooth voice and disarming charm. But so what?
Trump’s brashness is a breath of fresh air compared to career politicians who offer a word salad of platitudes and promises while actually accomplishing nothing.
When you are dying from some strange disease that no one can diagnose or treat, who do you want caring for you? You could have warm, empathetic, fatherly Dr. Marcus Welby, who doesn’t know what’s wrong with you but holds your hand as you die. Or you could have rude, abrasive, obnoxious Dr. Gregory House who, while making fun of you with zero bedside manner, makes the correct diagnosis and prescribes the proper treatment, allowing you to walk out of the hospital a week later.
We are not choosing a prom date, a spouse, a roommate, or a valentine. We are choosing the leader of America and the free world. You may not like Trump’s calling his opponents mean names. But did you object when Bush was called ‘Hitler,’ Trump ‘a Nazi,’ or Paul Ryan “pushed” granny off a cliff?
Politics ain’t beanbag. If your opponent is fighting dirty, you had better step up or you will lose. It seems many NeverTrump Republicans, rather than get their knuckles bloody, would rather take the high road and deliver a kindly concession speech.
What’s more offensive? J.D. Vance tweeting about the new Democrat base of childless cat ladies? Or the U.K. imprisoning one of her citizens for 20 months for posting on Facebook, “Every man and their dog should be smashing f*** out Britannia Hotel.” While at home we have no problem with Daily Beast and CNN contributor Reza Aslan tweeting, “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f***ing thing down.”
Assuming the election actually happens (not derailed by pandemic, cyberattack, or war) and that Harris/Walz is the ticket (rather than Obama, Clinton, or Biden), America is faced with a binary choice. At least the Republican ticket was chosen by voters, unlike the Democrat ticket selected in a smoke-filled room by DNC muckety-mucks.
NeverTrumpers can pout that their preferred guy or gal was rejected, not by the Chamber of Commerce or Wall Street Journal but by Republican voters, instead nominating someone who speaks to the concerns of millions of Americans and is willing to fight for them. It’s a simple choice and not that complicated.
Insurrection Barbie on Twitter concluded a rant with this:
When Trump was president, your streets were safer, your border was secure, your wallet had more money in it, you could buy more goods with your paycheck, and the entire world was at peace instead of on fire.
Voting for communism is not the solution to your precious feelings.
Get a therapist.
Time for NeverTrumpers to put on their big boy pants and think of their country, their children, and grandchildren. Do they want the Marxist world the Democrats are eager to usher in, displayed in real time in the U.K.? Or do they want to push back in the only way practical?
As Ronald Reagan spoke in 1964, it’s “a time for choosing.” Choose wisely.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor, Substack Dr. Brian’s Substack, Truth Social @BrianJoondeph, and LinkedIn @Brian Joondeph.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 23:25 - More Than 1 In 9 Americans Live In Poverty
More Than 1 In 9 Americans Live In Poverty
In 2022, the U.S. official poverty rate was 11.5% with a total of 37.9 million people in poverty.
This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the three-year average of poverty rates by U.S. state from 2020 to 2022.
The poverty rates are calculated using the official poverty measure, which defines poverty by comparing the pre-tax annual income to a specific national threshold adjusted for family size.
The figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau and are updated as of September 2023.
Southern U.S. Generally More Poor
U.S. poverty rates were relatively higher in the South.
Many of the states with the highest poverty rates, including New Mexico (18.2%), Mississippi (17.8%), Louisiana (16.9%), Arkansas (15.9%), and Kentucky (15.8%), are characterized by large rural areas which are historically poorer than urban areas.
State Number of people in poverty (in thousands) Percentage of population in poverty New Mexico 382 18.2% Mississippi 518 17.8% Louisiana 765 16.9% Arkansas 475 15.9% Kentucky 706 15.8% Oklahoma 620 15.8% West Virginia 274 15.6% Alabama 738 14.8% District of Columbia 98 14.7% Texas 4,026 13.7% North Carolina 1,407 13.3% South Carolina 693 13.3% Florida 2,861 13.1% Georgia 1,391 13.0% Nevada 394 12.6% New York 2,410 12.4% Arizona 876 12.1% Michigan 1,156 11.7% Alaska 81 11.5% Missouri 695 11.5% Ohio 1,345 11.5% California 4,439 11.4% Tennessee 796 11.4% Indiana 739 10.9% Pennsylvania 1,368 10.8% Montana 118 10.7% Delaware 106 10.5% Hawaii 146 10.2% Connecticut 350 9.8% South Dakota 86 9.7% North Dakota 73 9.6% Oregon 399 9.5% Illinois 1,174 9.4% Iowa 299 9.4% Kansas 260 9.0% Idaho 170 8.9% Maine 122 8.9% Rhode Island 95 8.8% Wyoming 49 8.7% Maryland 529 8.6% Virginia 733 8.6% Colorado 489 8.5% Massachusetts 589 8.5% Vermont 53 8.4% Washington 637 8.3% New Jersey 749 8.2% Nebraska 159 8.1% Wisconsin 467 8.0% Minnesota 429 7.7% New Hampshire 99 7.1% Utah 235 7.1% Many of these Southern states also have low levels of education attainment and labor force participation, which contribute to slow economic growth and lower personal income levels.
Nine of the 15 states with the lowest per-worker GDP are in the South, and states like Kentucky and Arkansas are among the states with the lowest prime-age employment-to-population ratio.
On the county level, about one in five counties in the South experienced “persistent poverty,” maintaining a poverty rate above 20% for three decades. Over 80% of all persistently poor counties in the U.S. are located in the South.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 23:00 - Manhattan DA Defers To Judge On Delaying Trump's Sentencing Date
Manhattan DA Defers To Judge On Delaying Trump’s Sentencing Date
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said it will defer to a New York judge on former President Donald Trump’s request to delay his criminal case sentencing until after the presidential election this year.
Bragg’s office, in a letter received by the court on Aug. 19, wrote that prosecutors will leave it up to Judge Juan Merchan to decide whether Trump’s sentencing in his New York case should be delayed beyond the current Sept. 18 hearing date.
Trump’s attorneys last week asked the judge to postpone his sentencing until after the November election, where he is the leading Republican candidate for president. Prosecutors did not specifically oppose the former president’s request for a delay.
Prosecutors wrote in their letter, “Given the defense’s newly-stated position, we defer to the Court on whether an adjournment is warranted to allow for orderly appellate litigation of that question, or to reduce the risk of a disruptive stay from an appellate court pending consideration of that question.”
“The People are prepared to appear for sentencing on any future date the Court sets,” the letter continued.
In their request for a delay, Trump’s lawyers last week wrote to the judge that the sentencing should take place after the start of early voting for the election, saying the timing would harm the proceedings.
“Sentencing is currently scheduled to occur after the commencement of early voting in the Presidential election,” attorney Todd Blanche wrote.
“By adjourning the sentencing until after that election—which is of paramount importance to the entire Nation, including tens of millions of people who do not share the views of Authentic, its executives, and its clients—the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”
They also argued there was not enough time before the sentencing for the defense to potentially appeal Merchan’s ruling on Trump’s request to overturn the conviction due to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision, which related to a separate criminal case Trump faces, found that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for their official acts, and that evidence of presidents’ official actions cannot be used to help prove criminal cases involving unofficial actions.
Bragg’s office responded by saying that prosecutors will also not take a position, leaving it to Merchan to decide.
In their letter, prosecutors said the prospect that Trump immediately appeals the judge’s decision on immunity may mean a potential Sept. 18 sentencing would be delayed anyway after “significant public safety and logistical steps” were already taken to prepare for Trump’s court appearance.
In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records before Merchan set a July 11 sentencing date. The judge later postponed it to Sept. 18 and last month said he would rule on Trump’s immunity claim on Sept. 16.
During the six-week-long trial, prosecutors said that Trump criminally concealed payments to prevent an adult performer, Stephanie Clifford, from going public about an alleged affair she said occurred in 2006, which the former president has categorically denied. They further argued that the concealing of the payments was designed to impact the 2016 election with the intent to violate election laws.
Trump faces criminal charges in two other jurisdictions—one in Fulton County, Georgia, and the other in Washington—for alleged election interference after the 2020 election. His classified records case was dismissed by a federal judge last month, although Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought that case and the Washington one, has vowed to appeal the judge’s decision.
The Fulton County election case, meanwhile, has been postponed as Trump and several co-defendants have appealed a Fulton County judge’s decision that allowed District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case amid allegations of impropriety. His Washington case restarted several weeks ago after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all the charges, repeatedly saying they’re politically motivated and designed to harm his 2024 candidacy.
The May conviction was the first time in U.S. history that a current or former president was convicted of a felony crime. Earlier in August, Trump again attempted to have Merchan recuse himself from the case, which the judge denied.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 22:35 - Which US States Have The Highest Violent-Crime Rates?
Which US States Have The Highest Violent-Crime Rates?
In 2022, there were about 1.2 million violent crimes reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Violent crimes comprise of four offenses: homicide (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter), rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
The national violent crime rate has seen a gradual decrease over the last couple of years. In 2020, it sat at 398 incidents per 100,000 people, and as of 2022 the nationwide number sits at 381 incidents per 100,000 people.
This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the rate of violent crime per 100,000 individuals by U.S. state in 2022, with the figures from the FBI. The data is current as of October 2023.
The FBI national crime statistics for 2022 are based on data received from 16,100 of 18,930 participating law enforcement agencies in the country that year.
Nation’s Capital Leads in Violent Crime
DC recorded the highest violent crime rate in 2022, at 812 incidents per 100,000 residents. The district also saw the highest homicide rate in the country, at 29 homicides per 100,000.
State Violent crime rate (incidents per 100,000 individuals) District of Columbia 812 New Mexico 780 Alaska 759 Arkansas 645 Louisiana 629 Tennessee 622 California 499 Colorado 492 South Carolina 491 Missouri 488 Michigan 461 Nevada 454 Texas 432 Arizona 431 New York 429 Oklahoma 420 Montana 418 Kansas 415 Alabama 409 North Carolina 405 Maryland 398 Delaware 384 South Dakota 377 Washington 376 Georgia 367 Oregon 342 Massachusetts 322 Indiana 306 Wisconsin 297 Ohio 294 Illinois 287 Iowa 287 Nebraska 283 Minnesota 281 Pennsylvania 280 North Dakota 280 West Virginia 278 Hawaii 260 Florida 259 Mississippi 245 Utah 242 Idaho 241 Virginia 234 Vermont 222 Kentucky 214 New Jersey 203 Wyoming 202 Rhode Island 172 Connecticut 150 New Hampshire 126 Maine 103 This trend is continuing to rise in DC, with a 39% increase in violent crime reported in 2023.
Armed carjackings, particularly involving youth, have become a significant issue in recent years, with cases doubling from 2022 to 2023.
Some experts attribute the rise in violent crime to DC’s lack of statehood and its complex network of overlapping law enforcement agencies, such as the Metropolitan Police Department, FBI, U.S. Park Police, and Capitol Police, which makes coordination and communication challenging.
In second-ranked New Mexico, violent crime has seen a steady rise in the past 10 years, with around 11,660 incidents in 2012 to 16,494 in 2022.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 2011 to 2022, there was an 84% increase in the firearm-related death rate in the state.
To see how the U.S. homicide rate compares with that of Europe and the UK over time, check out this graphic.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 22:10 - RNC Asks Supreme Court To Block 41,000 Arizona Voters From Voting In November
RNC Asks Supreme Court To Block 41,000 Arizona Voters From Voting In November
Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,
The Republican National Committee (RNC) asked the Supreme Court on Aug. 19 to prevent 41,000 registered voters from voting in the November presidential election because they allegedly did not provide proof of U.S. citizenship.
Arizona is a hotly contested battleground that could help determine who wins the election. In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.
The new filing in RNC v. Mi Familia Vota came after the RNC filed an emergency application with the court on Aug. 8. Respondent Mi Familia Vota is a nonprofit group active in Arizona and several other states.
The application is pending before Justice Elena Kagan.
At issue in the case are the Arizona laws, H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243, which the state Legislature approved in 2022.
The statutes require people registering to vote in the state to present “satisfactory” proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, to provide proof of eligibility to vote. The laws also require registrants to provide their state or country of birth and require counties to carry out citizenship verifications and purge noncitizens from the voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton halted enforcement of the proof of citizenship mandate on May 2, citing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Law, and a prior state court order.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton halted enforcement of the proof of citizenship mandate on May 2, citing the federal so-called Motor Voter Law and a prior state court order.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed Bolton’s order by a vote of 2-1 on Aug. 1.
Although Congress has made it easier for Americans to register to vote, federal rules should not be allowed to supersede “the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections,” the RNC said in the application it originally filed on Aug. 8.
In the Aug. 19 filing, the RNC referenced the other side’s invocation of the so-called Purcell Principle, which is a judicial doctrine that courts should not change rules close to an election because doing so creates a risk of causing confusion.
But this approach is wrong because it would require “courts to make a freestanding assessment of whether enforcement or nonenforcement of state election law is more likely to cause confusion.”
The respondents’ argument would impose an unfair standard because it directs federal courts to look at state enforcement policy and “find that the status quo weighs in favor of an injunction if enforcement has not been vigorous enough,” the brief says.
This refashioning of the Purcell Principle would also make federal courts “weigh Purcell in favor of an injunction if enough state election officials would prefer that result—even when other state officials would enforce state law.”
This approach to Purcell would allow federal authorities to interfere with state lawmaking processes.
“Allowing the Ninth Circuit’s weaponization of Purcell against state election law to stand will only encourage more last-minute injunctions by federal courts,” the brief says.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes urged the Supreme Court to reject the application in a brief filed on Aug. 16.
It is already too close to the election for the Supreme Court to act in this time-sensitive case, he said.
“In just a mere 7 weeks, early voting in Arizona will begin. To be sure, at this juncture in Arizona elections, time is not only of the essence, but it is in short supply. “
“Last minute statewide policy changes like those requested in the Application, no matter how small they may seem to some, can (and Secretary Fontes believes will) drastically impact how affected votes are collected and processed.”
The U.S. Department of Justice urged the Supreme Court to deny the application.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a brief filed Aug. 16 that because the NVRA “preempts” the Arizona laws’ requirement that voters file “documentary proof in order to vote for President or vote by mail,” the RNC was “unlikely to prevail” in the case.
Federal preemption means that a state law that conflicts with federal law is invalid.
It is unclear when the Supreme Court will act on the RNC’s application.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 21:45 - Fire Rages At Large Russian State Oil Depot, Still Two Days After Ukraine Drone Attack
Fire Rages At Large Russian State Oil Depot, Still Two Days After Ukraine Drone Attack
A massive fire has been raging in the southern Russian city of Proletarsk (in Rostov region) for nearly two days, after a cross-border Ukrainian drone strike on its major state fuel storage facility ignited fuel warehouses.
Large crews of firefighters have been working to extinguish the blaze for well over 24 hours straight at this point, leaving over 40 of them injured.
Ukraine claimed responsibility for the Sunday morning drone strike on the “Kavkaz” oil and petroleum storage facility, while Russian authorities said that a diesel fire ignited after local anti-air defense batteries downed inbound drones over the city.
The Kyiv Independent cited Rostov officials who described “Russian air defense units thwarted the drone attack but their efforts caused debris to strike the facility, setting it on fire.”
Ukraine officials further noted that “oil and petroleum products, which were supplied to the Russian occupation army were stored here.”
Follow-up videos after the initial attack showed new explosions at the site, which could be seen at a great distance. An official state of emergency for the area has been declared.
Image source: v-pravda.ru “As of now, 41 firefighters have been hospitalized. Eighteen of them required extended care, with five in intensive care,” Golubev Rostov region hast stated on Telegram.
One widely circulating video shows a fireball and smoke plumes so large that firefighters are forced to stand helplessly by and appear unable to do anything while the flames rage several stories high.
❗️Meanwhile, in #Proletarsk, Rostov Region, for the third day now, there has been a regular smoke blanket at an oil depot as a result of a UAV landing. Due to the high temperature, firefighting has been suspended. The smoke plume has stretched for 25 kilometers. Good luck! pic.twitter.com/7wMK8wcL5g
— Maryna Chekh (@ChekhMaryna) August 19, 2024
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In total Russia’s defense ministry later said at least five drones were shot down over Proletarsk during the time when the fire erupted at the fuel depot.
Proletarsk is a significant distance from Ukraine, at some 250 kilometers (or 155 miles) from the border.
Ukraine has launched several large-scale drone attacks on Russian airfields and fuel depots during its major cross-border Kursk offensive since the start of the Aug.6 incursion.
To understand the size of the Proletarsk state reserve fuel facility, here is the satellite photo. Back of the envelope calculation is that it holds up to $200 million worth of fuel, based on the Russian domestic wholesale price of about $500 per ton of diesel. Each of these… https://t.co/rSjhCIN58g pic.twitter.com/ZHIe9wBGXK
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) August 19, 2024
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By the looks of it, fuel worth hundreds of millions of dollars in state reserves is going up in flames.
This is the latest disaster in a series of ‘bad news’ developments for the Kremlin as Ukraine tries to desperately hit Russian territory with everything it has, even as Ukraine forces are fairing poorly and are still losing ground along the frontlines in the Donbass.
Planet Labs overhead satellite image taken Monday afternoon local time.
Russia’s Defense Ministry (MoD) has meanwhile on Monday said it captured the town of Artemovo in Eastern Ukraine (and called Zalizne in Ukraine), with the MoD describing it as one of the area’s “major population centers.”
More footage showing just how immense the blaze is…
🔥 Russia: The Kavkaz oil depot in Rostov region stored oil products for exclusive use by the Russian military.
The storage tanks continue to detonate as fire expands, for 40 hours now.
The governor initially reported that all Ukrainian drones were “intercepted.” pic.twitter.com/C4IztWUjCq— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) August 19, 2024
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 21:20 - IRS Launches Initiative To Combat Growing Number Of Tax Scams
IRS Launches Initiative To Combat Growing Number Of Tax Scams
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a new coalition with members of the tax industry on Friday seeking to counter the growth of scams threatening tax systems and taxpayers.
The new “Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats” (CASST) initiative was convened at the request of IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington on Jan. 4, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times) It will “work to expand outreach and education about emerging scams, develop new approaches to identify potentially fraudulent returns at the point of filing and create infrastructure improvements to protect taxpayers as well as federal, state and industry tax systems,” the IRS said in an Aug. 16 press release.
The agency has reported a rising number of identity theft cases. In the 2024 filing season, the IRS confirmed 15,242 instances of fraudulent returns, indicating they were filed by scammers to claim refunds owed to other people. The agency prevented the issuance of more than $180 million in refunds related to these returns.
The 2024 number was more than 20 percent higher than the confirmed identity theft cases during the 2023 season.
Additionally, the IRS’s Identity Theft Victims Assistance unit received 294,138 reports of identity theft in fiscal year 2023, according to a report by the Taxpayer Advocate Service. This is the second highest in five years and more than 217 percent up compared to fiscal year 2019.
The CASST task force will “better protect taxpayers from falling prey to unscrupulous actors by leveraging multilateral relationships across the tax ecosystem to minimize the filing of fraudulent tax returns,” the IRS stated.
In addition to the IRS, other members of the joint effort include the Federation of Tax Administrators which represents state tax agencies, national tax professional organizations, and leading tech firms operating in the tax industry.
Groups like the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights and the National Association of Computerized Tax Processors have announced their support for the program. In total, the joint effort has the backing of more than 60 different groups from the private sector.
The joint effort aims to put in new protections by the 2025 filing season to prevent taxpayers from being scammed. The group will work to make structural changes to improve the ability to spot and stop the scams.
This includes improving PTIN and EFIN validation as well as steps to counter “ghost preparers,” referring to fake tax preparers who encourage people to claim credits and benefits for which they don’t qualify. They charge a hefty fee from taxpayers and then disappear after the return is prepared, leaving taxpayers to deal with the consequences of incorrect claims.
Scamming Taxpayers
Over the past months, the IRS has issued warnings about several scams targeting taxpayers. In April, the agency issued an alert over fake charities seeking donations from unsuspecting people.
“We see repeated instances of scammers using major disasters as a way to prey on well-meaning taxpayers. In these tragic situations, many people want to help, but con artists too frequently come in posing as charitable groups to take advantage of the situation, stealing money and personal information,” said Werfel.
“People should remember it’s important to never feel pressured to give donations immediately. They should do some research and only donate to clearly established charities that help victims.”
Some scammers make use of the IRS’s offer in compromise (OIC) program to mislead taxpayers. OIC is an initiative aimed at helping taxpayers who cannot pay federal tax debts.
Many taxpayers are applying for the program after being pushed into it by scamsters who charged excessive fees for their services, the IRS stated.
Earlier in March, the IRS warned taxpayers about phishing scams designed to steal their personal information. Identity thieves are attempting to trick taxpayers into clicking online links that entice them to submit private info or download malware to their systems.
IRS warned people not to click any unsolicited communication claiming to be from the agency as it could load malware onto their computers and steal information.
Then, there were scams that encouraged taxpayers to apply for refunds for which they are not eligible. For instance, some taxpayers were found claiming fuel tax credits that are only applicable for certain business activities such as running a farm or purchasing aviation gasoline. Taxpayers were found to have created fictional household employees to claim refunds.
“The IRS has seen hundreds of thousands of dubious claims come in where it appears taxpayers are claiming credits for which they are not eligible, leading to refunds being delayed and the need for taxpayers to show they have legitimate documentation to support these claims,” the agency said.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 20:55 - Democratic D.C Councilman Arrested & Charged With Bribery, Faces 15 Years In Jail
Democratic D.C Councilman Arrested & Charged With Bribery, Faces 15 Years In Jail
Washington, D.C., Councilman Trayon White Sr. has been charged with bribery, according to court filings unsealed on Aug. 19.
White was arrested on Sunday by federal authorities.
As Zachary Stieber reports at The Epoch Times, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent, White agreed to accept $156,000 in cash in exchange for using his position as a member of Washington’s District Council to pressure government employees to extend contracts valued at $5 million.
White indeed took payment of $35,000 in cash across four separate occasions—the most recent on Aug. 9—from the owner of the companies that were given the contracts, according to the affidavit.
City code bars public officials from accepting any gifts from people or entities that have or are seeking to obtain contractual or other business with Washington’s government.
White and the owner met on June 26 to discuss a scheme that involved the owner paying White money to ascertain whether contracts for the owner’s companies with the District of Columbia Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement would be extended, according to charging documents. White accepted $15,000 at the meeting and said he would discuss with a certain government employee what would happen with the contracts.
In a meeting about three weeks later, the pair met again and White gave the owner updates on the contracts and received $5,000, the FBI agent said.
During another meeting in July, the owner allegedly gave White $10,000 and they talked about his ongoing efforts to extend the contracts the companies had with the neighborhood office and the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which he oversees as chairman of the District Council’s Committee on Recreation, Libraries, and Youth Affairs. White was also working on helping secure new contracts for the companies.
“I feel good energy about what we embarking on, what we trying to do. I want to bring you up to speed before we go in here about stuff I’ve been working on, trying to get you where you need to be,” White was quoted as saying.
In the last meeting, in August, White received $5,000, according to the affidavit, which included images of White holding white envelopes that were said to be full of money. He said local officials had told him the contracts were poised to be extended.
The owner of the companies provided information to federal officials as part of a plea agreement he reached in which he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bribery related to how he fraudulently obtained loans from the federal government and bribed White.
“Because the investigation into the alleged bribery scheme involved contracts that could soon be awarded and other potential official acts that could be taken, our Office took swift steps to address the alleged crimes we were investigating,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said in a statement.
A query to a spokesperson for White returned an away message. White has not appeared to comment on his arrest and the charge. He did not have an attorney listed on the court docket.
White, a Democrat, first joined the District Council in January 2017 and was reelected to another term in 2020.
The law that White is accused of violating bars officials from demanding, seeking, receiving, accepting, or agreeing to receive or accept anything of value in return for “being influenced in the performance of any official act; being influenced to commit or aid in committing, or to collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or being induced to do or omit to do any act in violation of the official duty of such official or person.”
White faces up to 15 years in prison as well as a fine of up to three times the money he agreed to accept.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 20:30 - Into The Great Depression, Part 1: The Roaring '20s & The Creation Of The Fed
Into The Great Depression, Part 1: The Roaring ’20s & The Creation Of The Fed
Authored by Tumoas Malinen via substack,
Something that has been a particular interest of mine is the Great Depression of the 1930s. It continues to be the deepest global economic malaise of modern times, which preceded the most destructive war in human history. The extreme nature of the economic contraction has intrigued me, in addition to the path that led to it. The latter mostly because of the role of the newly created central bank, the Federal Reserve, in it.
I’ve written extensively on the Great Depression in a book I am writing about forecasting financial crises. I think that the similarities between now and the era leading into the Depression are strikingly similar. This is why I decided to publish a series mapping the path of the U.S., and the world, into the deep global economic collapse. I start by mapping the route to the ‘Great Crash’, that is, to the collapse of the U.S. stock market at the end of October 1929.
In just four trading bays between 23 and 29 October 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) collapsed by 29% wiping out massive amounts of financial wealth. While the 1929 crash did not start the Great Depression, it laid the groundwork for it. Worryingly we seem to be on a similar road that led to the Great Crash, which I will map in this first entry to the series. I will also detail the creation of the Federal Reserve, which played a major role in the financial mania that led to the crash.
What is notable with the period, which preceded the Great Depression, is that many leading nations across the world experienced an economic decline at the same time, which manifested into a global banking crisis. We are seeing signs of the same kind of global slowdown now.
Before we dig deeper, let me inform that I decided to the make my piece on the Systemic Meltdown free to read. This is because, I think that everyone should understand what such an event would entail for the world, and how we could be able to manage it.
Now, let’s enter the ‘history lane’.
The Roaring Twenties
During the 1920’s, the United States became a dominant global power. She was the world’s leading exporter and second as an importer. Also, between 1924 and 1931, the US was responsible for around 60 percent of global international lending, making her the world’s banker.
High levels of imports and overseas investments from the US provided ample dollar liquidity to other countries, which were used to service international debts and to import goods and services. A high portion of this debt was short-term, but that did not bother the recipient countries.
The re-established global gold standard also acted in a pro-cyclical manner. Many countries were worried about their currencies appreciating due to capital inflows, and fixed their exchange rates to gold. This included, for example, Finland, France and Italy. But, because real appreciation through consumer price inflation was generally not allowed either, capital inflows were transformed into credit booms. Some countries, like the United Kingdom, fixed their exchange rate too high and were forced constantly to maintain restrictive credit conditions to support the overvalued currency. So, contrary to its original aim, the gold standard and fixed exchange rates actually fed the asset and credit booms or, alternatively, pushed countries to credit contraction.
The ‘Roaring Twenties’ was thus not a continuous economic boom, with for example the U.S. experiencing three recessions: from January 1920 to July 1921, from May 1923 to July 1924 and from October 1926 to November 1927, according to the NBER. However, it was a relentless financial asset boom with, for example, the DJIA pushing through two recessions without even flinching.
The role of the newly formed central bank, the Federal Reserve, behind the credit boom of the 1920’s and subsequent crash is undeniable. The creation of the “Fed” was also mired with worries it would end up socializing the economy. As we now know, these fears were not unfounded.
The creation of the Federal Reserve
There had been several attempts to create a national or central bank in the U.S. during the 1800s, but those efforts had failed. The Panic of 1907, the first financial crisis of the twentieth century, was a game changer. The crisis started after several investors suffered crippling losses on their speculative bets. This started runs in the banks these investors were associated with. Runs spread to trust companies, which were unregulated financial intermediaries outside the banking system, providing liquidity (loans) to stockbrokers. They were the “shadow banks” of the time, loosely tied to commercial banks but a crucial part of the financial ecosystem. To stem the panic, banker J.P. Morgan personally guaranteed parts of the US banking system and solicited cash from large financial institution and industries to the exchange to support brokers. He also created a group of financiers to support ailing institutions and to buy plummeting stocks of sound companies. Yet, the Panic evolved into a deep economic contraction surpassed only by the Great Depression. Moreover, it gave more power to demands that the US banking system required a “liquidity backstopper”, i.e. a central bank.
In 1908, a Republican controlled Congress passed the Aldrich-Vreeland Act creating the National Monetary Commission, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich. The Commission introduced a public-private consortium entitled the National Reserve Association, to serve as a central bank. In the proposed institution, the decision-making leaned heavily towards the private sector. For example, out of the 46 proposed directors, 42 were to be appointed, indirectly and directly, by banks. The 1912 elections turned both the Congress and the White House to Democrats, which then made their own efforts for the monetary reform. In 1912, legislation known as the Glass-Willis proposal was introduced. The legislation aimed at creating a central bank through a compromise, which eventually led to the passing of the Federal Reserve Act on 23 December, 1913.
The “socialization” of the economy, by the Federal Reserve, was especially worrisome to the Republicans highlighted in the proposition for the National Reserve Association. A German-American banker, Paul Warburg, noted on the situation that “The view was generally held that centralization of banking would inevitably result in one of two alternatives: either complete governmental control, which meant politics in banking, or control by ‘Wall Street’, which meant banking in politics”. Efforts to establish a compromise between these two alternatives took many forms.
First of all, the power of the Fed to issue legal tender (currency) was restricted by both the ‘real bills doctrine’ and the gold standard. The regional privately-owned Reserve Banks, not the government-controlled Federal Reserve Board, were given the control for the creation of central bank credit, or money. That is, regional Reserve Banks lend to banks in accordance with their needs, and the Federal Reserve Board holds just a supervisory role. The Reserve Board did not conduct independent open-market operations, nor did it have any national interest rate policy. The “monetary policy” was conducted through Reserve Banks, who mostly responded to the needs of commercial banks.
The real bills doctrine stated that the Fed could only extend credit and thus increase the supply of money against collateral that already had established value through a “commercial transaction”. This meant that the value of the collateral could not be in the future and that it needed to have a price set in the markets. This, effectively, banned the monetization of the federal debt by the central bank, where the central bank buys debt directly from the Treasury. Yet, it was difficult to assess what constituted a “real bill”, which meant that different regional Reserve Banks had differing policies concerning the collateral they received from their loans.1
It was assumed that such a ‘two-tier system’ would ensure that neither the banks nor the government could take an upper hand in this newly created, “centralized” monetary system. This assumption failed.
The Fed started to takeover the economy, or to “socialize” it, effectively right after its inception. The real bills doctrine slowly faded away in the 1920s, and the Fed started its open-market operations, where it buys or sells securities of the US treasury to the banks to manipulate the short-term interest rate. Moreover, also in the 1920s, the Fed started to develop the federal funds market, where deposits or ‘reserves’, obliged and voluntary savings by commercial banks at the Reserve Banks, would be transferred nationally to banks in need, overnight. Yet, the Board did not control it, neither did the Fed have a target rate to manipulate banking lending in the economy through the interest rate set on the reserves. Now, the Fed Funds Rate, set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) used in the overnight lending activities between banks and the Fed, effectively dictates the price (interest) of bank credit in the economy. This was never the idea.
The Banking Act of 1935 ended the autonomy of the Reserve Banks, and the Board received the authority over open-market operations. The government-side of the Fed started to take over, which meant that the fears regarding the socialization of the economy started to materialize. Yet, there was one factor standing in between the socialization of the economy by the Fed, and the still-somewhat-free monetary system: The gold standard.
The Gold Standard
In a gold standard, which had been returned somewhat forcefully after the First World War, the stock of gold of a nation and its demand affects the availability of money and inflation. This meant that the Federal Reserve had only a limited control over money in circulation in the economy. It could not print it at will.
In a gold standard, the flow of gold into a country through, e.g., international trade increases the gold reserves and thus the supply of money (credit) in the economy. To sterilize, the central bank can let the ratio of gold reserves to notes in circulation to increase or it can rise the interest rate to tighten the supply of short-term credit. Outflows of gold naturally has an opposite effect diminishing the amount of money in circulation, unless interest rates are lowered or ratio of gold reserves to notes lowered.
In the 1920’s, the Fed let the share of gold reserves to notes rise effectively sterilizing all gold inflows from abroad. This was seen as the main factor keeping the consumer price inflation at bay. However, the flow of gold to the US and its sterilization also “exported” deflation to other countries, who were forced to cut back the supply of domestic credit due to falling gold reserves. So, while the money stock of the US was kept at bay by letting the share of gold reserves to rise this also meant that the interest rates were kept relatively low from around 1922 till 1928, which fed the speculation in the asset and real estate markets. The credit boom intensified peaking in 1925 and again in 1927. In the absence of signs of inflation, the Fed had little motives to rise short term interest rates even there were rather clear signs of a real estate and consumer booms. The 1920’s kept on “roaring”.
Regardless of its flaws, the gold standard was a crucial element in the playbook of those, who tried stop the socialization of the economy by the Federal Reserve, because it restricted the creation of money by the central bank. This was removed in early 1970s by the dissolution of Bretton-Woods, unleashing the money printing and economy-manipulation ability of the Fed in its totality. We can also argue that, at that point, the government-side of the Fed totally took over.
During the Spring of 2020, at the wake of the Corona-shock, we wittnessed the full socialization of the financial market of the U.S. Durign that Spring, the Fed backstopped U.S. Treasury markets, intervened in corporate commercial-paper and municipal bond markets and short-term money-markets. Alas, the socialization of the U.S. economy, feared by those who objected the creation of the Federal Reserve over 100 years ago was complete, and I fear that the Fed will not stop there. More on that later. Now, back to the 1920s.
Feeding the speculation
A change in the mindset of the Federal Reserve arrived in January 1928, when a consensus was reached that the era of easy money (cheap credit) should end. The Reserve Banks began to sell their government securities, diminishing the supply of money, and gradually raised the discount rate, which determines the interest rate banks are charged on their loans from the Fed, to five percent from 3.5 percent. The Fed was afraid that a sudden change in monetary policy and tighter credit conditions might be destabilizing for business and the asset markets and tried to gently deflate the bubble on Wall Street by making the bank borrowing for speculation gradually more expensive. However, the policy had unintended and major domestic and international consequences.
A noticeable industry of non-bank lenders developed during the 1920’s, and higher rates made more funds available for stock market speculation from these non-bank sources. Stockbrokers’ loans were usually funded by the large balance sheets of corporations, which made them a viable option for investors as rates at money markets rose. For example, during 1929, Standard Oil of New Jersey contributed $69 million to call market per day, on average. As investors had looked overseas for funds, their sudden turn to domestic funds drew dollar liquidity from international markets. Although other foreign lenders stepped up to cover at least some of these flows, the withdrawal of dollar liquidity, e.g., drove Germany into a recession and the UK to the brink of a recession already before the crash in Wall Street. Moreover, as call rates for margin loans rose in the US, it became profitable for banks to borrow cheaply from the Fed and lend the money to speculators with a very good margin. During the last weeks of 1928, the call market rate rose to 12%, while the Fed funds rate was 5%. A window for a great arbitrage trading opened to all banks feeding the stock market frenzy. The prices of stocks increased three-fold between 1927 and August 1929.
There was a one major innovation in the stock markets during the 1920’s that fed the speculation. Trading at the margin enabled the buyer of the stock to greatly increase his/her leverage. The idea of buying a security at the margin is that the security is left with the broker as a collateral for the loan used to buy the asset, while the investor pays only a small cash deposit (the margin). The invention of margin trading thus greatly amplified the speculation in the stock market. In the 1920’s, earnings were also generally much less than the interest of the margin lending. Therefore, the buyer on margin was betting mostly on the rise of the stock price in question. Notably, broker’s loans, which define the collateral used to buy assets at the margin, started to rise strongly in 1928. In the same year, credit growth accelerated clearly above its long-term trend. A convincing case can therefore be made that the speculative bubble in the stock market started only as late as 1928.
Troubles emerge
On December 4, 1928, President Coolidge noted in his state of the union address that:
No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospects than that which appears at present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment […] and the highest record of years of prosperity.
There definitely were reasons for joy. The US economy had grown by close to 40 percent from the dismal year of 1921. The Federal Reserve index of industrial production had almost doubled (it did double when reaching its peak in June 1929). Wages had not risen so much, but prices were stable. Business earnings rose rapidly. There, of course, were also some problems. Most notably, the rich were getting richer much faster than the poor were able to escape from their impoverished state. Income inequality grew rapidly basically all though the 1920’s.
The first half of 1929 was marked with increasing market volatility and some close calls. The stock market kept on rising and the economic boom continued, but the Fed was becoming ever more nervous about the speculation and the flow of funds from corporations and individuals to feed it. The Board of the Fed did not want to address the issue directly, but it also kept on pondering how to respond. In early February 1929, the Federal Reserve Board issued two statements, from which the first was aimed to individual Federal Reserve banks and the latter for the general public, with one clear message: the Federal Reserve facilities were not to be used to aid the growth in speculation. At almost exactly the same time, the Bank of England raised its bank rate from 4.5 to 5.5%. Stock markets dropped, but soon recovered.
In March 1929, the Federal Reserve Board was meeting constantly in Washington. Because no statements were given from the meetings, it started to make investors nervous. On March 25, the selling in the highly over-valued stock market began. Banks also began to curb their loans to the call market and the rate of brokers’ loans rose strongly. On March 26, it looked like a selling panic could form, but one banker, Charles E. Mitchell, acted to stem the flow. He stated that his bank, the National City, would loan money as necessary to prevent a market liquidation. His bank also borrowed from the New York Fed and thus did what the Board of the Fed had explicitly warned against. Money rates eased and markets rallied. Charles E. Mitchell had single-handedly saved the stock market, and while he faced some grilling from the Senate there were no legal or other actions against him. There was a sense of relief, which was short-lived.
During the latter stages of the boom, it was a common belief that earning and dividends would continue to grow rapidly because of systematic application of science to industry, development of modern management technologies and business mergers. These were, in practice, the same ones that historians have used to explain the ‘Roaring Twenties’, and which have been used many times after the 1920’s to explain booms. As always, during the boom, they seem totally valid arguments. Like many times after the 1920’s, high stock prices and high price-earnings ratios were also a consequence of expected rapid growth in earnings.
So, while dark clouds gathered, the twenties kept on roaring, until suddenly they did not.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 20:05 - Harley-Davidson Hits Brakes On Woke Activism Amid Boycotts & Bud Light Treatment At Sturgis
Harley-Davidson Hits Brakes On Woke Activism Amid Boycotts & Bud Light Treatment At Sturgis
Commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck’s strategy to expose all the insane woke activism within mega-corporations with large conservative customer bases logged another win today. This comes on the heels of his successful campaign to pressure Tractor Supply into scrapping its diversity, equity, and inclusion program and forcing John Deere to scale back its DEI policies.
Nearly a month after Starbuck launched the anti-woke crusade against iconic motorcycle brand Harley-Davidson in an X post titled “It’s time to expose Harley Davidson,” Harley issued a press release explaining earlier today, “We are saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks, designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community.”
In response to mounting social media backlash and boycotts at the 84th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally earlier this month, Harley succumbed to Starbuck’s pressure by eliminating DEI functions at the company and woke spending goals. This is a victory for Harley riders, as the company now pledges to focus its sponsorships on motorcycling, first responders, active military, and veterans. Also, it said there would be no more woke training for employees.
Another win for our movement. I couldn’t do this without all of you. @harleydavidson just issued this statement where they promise:
• No more DEI functions
• No more supplier diversity spend goals
• They’ll no longer participate in @HRC scoring
• Sponsorship activities… pic.twitter.com/HMICsQAbz4
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 19, 2024
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Some X users suggested that the boycott at the 84th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota earlier this month was a wake-up call for management. The event is the largest motorcycle rally in the world. As Starbuck pointed earlier this month, the Harley tent at Sturgis received the ‘Bud Light treatment’.
Add Harley to the list.
Not all X users were satisfied with Starbuck’s win. They said until the CEO and other leftist activists in management are fired, these folks are just going to rebrand wokeism.
Until they get rid of those woke executives, they’ll just rebrand this stuff. This letter has too much woke speak. Just like John Deere, they’re fence sitting. Look at the difference between Tractor Supply’s response vs. John Deere and Harley Davidson. Tractor Supply is making…
— Gabrielle Clark (@GabsClark5) August 19, 2024
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It’s not a win until the CEO and board are out! Never count your chickens before they’ve hatched. If manufacturing doesn’t remain and those policies aren’t actually followed through with, then it’s all just surface nonsense. A victory only happens when those things take place
— JDS (@TikiDrinki) August 19, 2024
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Until they fire the CEO it’s all fake!! Don’t believe one word that comes out of there liberal lying mouth
— 🇺🇸⚡NATIVE PATRIOT⚡🇺🇸 (@gcombs71) August 19, 2024
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Which major American brand will Starbuck target next?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 19:40 - 1,307 Days
1,307 Days
Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance
One thousand, three hundred and seven. That’s how many days Kamala Harris has been Vice President of the United States, effective this Monday.
Now let’s do a thought experiment. Put aside the fact that Harris was arbitrarily made the Democratic nominee without ever receiving a delegate or winning a primary.
And put aside the fact that, after usurping power via an in-party coup, she has continued as its candidate for nearly a month without giving an unscripted press conference or taking questions.
Let’s focus on the fact that this candidate, who has been part and parcel of the well-being of the state of the nation for the better part of four years, is not only completely blind to the damage her current administration’s policies have caused but is publicly calling them out. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s proposing policy solutions that are going to make the problems created by her policies worse.
Last week, taking a break from reading the same thing from a teleprompter every day, somebody on Harris’s strategy team thought it would be a good idea to begin trashing the economy of the country over the last three years.
The problems are well known: the country has been suffering from ridiculous inflation, and prices are through the roof, placing a burden on many low- and middle-class families.
Chart: Zero Hedge
“We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed, but our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high,” she said on Friday. “A loaf of bread costs 50% more today than it did before the pandemic. Ground beef is up almost 50%.”
But the alarm is coming from inside the house.
“Under the Biden-Harris administration, grocery prices have shot up 21%, part of an inflation surge that has raised overall costs by about 19% and soured many Americans on the economy, even as unemployment fell to historic lows. Wages have also risen sharply since the pandemic, and have outpaced prices for more than a year. Still, surveys find Americans continue to struggle with higher costs,” ABC wrote last week.
The same report makes it clear that grocery prices are now only rising in-line with pre-pandemic rates of change: “Grocery prices are still painfully high compared to four years ago, but they increased just 1.1% in July compared with a year earlier, according to the most recent inflation report. That is in line with pre-pandemic increases.”
In other words, the price gouging boogeyman doesn’t seem to exist.
The stunning thing is Kamala Harris is now campaigning on being able to fix these problems when her administration oversaw them to begin with. I mean, I knew a lot of the Democratic Party base was essentially the voting equivalent of trained circus seals and that they are going to vote for whatever candidate the state stuffs down their throat as the solution to racism and climate change anyway, but this is far more egregious.
When CNN is running headlines like this and you’re a Democrat, you know your policy has to really be horrific:
Same with The Washington Post running opinion columns like this one:
Think of the hubris necessary to run on a platform of fixing the policies of the last administration when you are the last administration.
Source: WaPo
Now, let’s take that destructive idiocy and square it: the proposed “solutions” Harris is coming up with are all extraordinarily inflationary. Harris has proposed cancelling medical debt, a $6,000 child tax credit for families within a newborn child, $25,000 in downpayment assistance for 400,000 first-generation home buyers and a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers.
In other words: “Hubba, hubba, hubba, money, money, money. Who do you trust?”
In the world of unicorns and rainbows, this all sounds great. But back here in reality, where people know there are always consequences to actions, the country simply doesn’t have the money to pay for this crap. That means that the money for these proposals is going to have to be printed, and, as most of us know, expanding the money supply is the literal definition of inflation.
Putting aside the moral hazard that these policies would create—namely, that giving everybody a $25,000 credit to buy a house guarantees the price of housing rises by $25,000 per house because the seller now knows that you’re $25,000 richer—the result is going to be more inflation.
And at the same time Harris proposes slamming the inflation accelerator down to the floor, she’s turning around and blaming the problem that the government is creating—inflation—on grocery stores and “price gouging.”
As a result, she has proposed price controls on food, a policy you would be more likely to see in North Korea or communist Russia than in Los Angeles and New York. Price controls do nothing to solve the problem: they only would lead to food shortages, black markets, and grocery stores so burdened by regulation that would be forced to go out of business if they can’t raise their prices.
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Even a Mensa candidate like Harris should understand that grocery stores have some of the lowest margins of any business. They have hiked prices on items because the cost of producing those items has risen. Just because Harris doesn’t like the end result of shrinkflation and higher prices doesn’t make the idea of micromanaging a state-planned economy any more of a solution than it has been all the times it has failed throughout history.
Harris has called her plan an “economic opportunity plan”, but the only thing that creates opportunity, lowers prices, and gives consumers more choice and a better bargain is free-market capitalism. Subsidizing houses with taxpayer money, worsening the problem that the welfare state has created by incentivizing having children, using taxpayer money and purchasing power to socialize other people’s fiscal irresponsibility and trying to exercise government control over the cost of rice and beans is the opposite of having a vibrant free-market economy that offers people opportunity.
Instead, it is literally throwing a wet blanket of communism over what’s left of our country’s economy and implementing arguably the worst possible “solutions” to fix the problem of inflation that the country is grappling with. If these harebrained ideas take hold, the country will suffer from significantly more inflation than it has dealt with over the last three years. The result would make the stagflation that we are dealing with now a mainstay for many years to come and would also disincentivize the rest of the world from holding U.S. dollars and U.S. treasuries.
And so there you have it: the party that constantly fearmongers and scares its base into thinking that not voting for them will result in authoritarian fascism is pushing an unelected candidate, selected by a handful of the country’s elites, eager to usher in an openly communist agenda that is all but guaranteed to destroy the fabric of our country.
You can’t make this sh*t up.
Now read:
- George Gammon Explains The Yen Carry Trade Chaos
- Matt Taibbi: Kamala, Trump & The Death Of Objective Truth
- Modern Chickenshit Monetary Theory
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 19:15 - Watch: Security Perimeter At DNC Breached By Protesters
Watch: Security Perimeter At DNC Breached By Protesters
Update (1907ET):
The Democratic National Convention is in full swing.
Reports from local media outlets and journalists on the ground reveal that protesters breached the first layer of the security perimeter on the north side of the United Center, just hours before President Biden’s scheduled speech this evening.
Here’s more color on the security incident from Fox 32 Chicago:
Protesters broke through a portion of the security fence on West Washington Boulevard. Chicago cops could be seen running to confront the demonstrators. There was a brief standoff between the police and protesters.
Officers donned riot gear as they faced off with the large crowd. Arrests were also made. A woman was seen being led away in handcuffs, while a man was carried away by several officers.
After about 20 minutes, tensions calmed down and police could be seen reconstructing the broken fence. All protesters were moved out of the secured area.
“First layer of fence outside DNC breached,” independent journalist Ford Fischer wrote on X.
First layer of fence outside DNC breached. pic.twitter.com/wSCJItR7f3
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 19, 2024
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Fischer provided more footage of the tense situation.
Police squeeze protesters out of the secure area. pic.twitter.com/aT5ujO7jOF
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 19, 2024
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Protesters link arms as police approach them in what would have been secured area. pic.twitter.com/NxkFBu9Kjn
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 19, 2024
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Police begin attempting to rebuild breached areas of DNC fence as protests continue. pic.twitter.com/kJwfxrmpWl
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 19, 2024
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Other X citizen journalists are reporting from the incident area. Another user said, “The DNC Perimeter has been breached.”
The DNC Perimeter has been breached.
This is just a mostly peaceful protest and I am totally grabbing my popcorn for this.#DNCConvention2024 pic.twitter.com/X0UKAsbcnK
— Steve 🇺🇸 (@SteveLovesAmmo) August 19, 2024
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Here’s what others are reporting:
🇵🇸 PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS USE ENCRYPTED APPS TO ORGANIZE 160K+ DNC DEMONSTRATIONS
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are using Telegram to coordinate large-scale protests at the DNC in Chicago.
The “Resistance News Network” channel, with 166K subscribers, has shared calls to… https://t.co/IfTeCwsU4O pic.twitter.com/za6PlRInf9
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 19, 2024
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The march route is lined with tons of Chicago cops on bikes who will be surrounding the protest, drastically limiting demonstrator’s ability to interact with DNC attendees and the general public – organizers have expressed safety concerns about crowds corralled into tight spaces pic.twitter.com/nZmyRRIlZD
— UNICORN RIOT (@UR_Ninja) August 19, 2024
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Thousands have gathered for the March on the DNC in Chicago this afternoon – speakers are addressing the crowd, calling for an end to US support of Israel. A march to take the streets in protest against the political convention is set to begin shortly. pic.twitter.com/WIYTMj8LZe
— UNICORN RIOT (@UR_Ninja) August 19, 2024
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Spotted at the March on the DNC protest pic.twitter.com/O7RugneslP
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 19, 2024
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— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 19, 2024
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* * *
Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,
Starting Monday, Democrats will hold their long-anticipated national convention during which they’ll formally nominate their presidential candidate and outline to voters their vision for the future.
The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will formally lock in the presidential and vice presidential nominees for both major parties.
Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), were nominated at the Republican National Convention last month.
Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, clinched enough delegates to win her party’s nomination at the beginning of August during a virtual roll vote that left little room for last minute dissenters.
She’s expected to accept the nomination, along with her chosen running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in speeches delivered on the final two nights of the event.
This is set to be a very different convention than voters expected at the beginning of the election cycle, when President Joe Biden led the ticket for Democrats.
However, a pressure campaign forced Biden out of the candidacy after an underwhelming debate performance shock up the political landscape.
Since Harris took over the ticket, Democrats have enjoyed a boost in polling. Still, the stakes are high for Harris and the Democrats, who will need to put on a united front after months of division within the party.
Here’s what to expect during the second major party convention of the year.
When and Where
The DNC will be held from Monday, Aug. 19, to Thursday, Aug. 22, in Chicago.
Democrats have a long history of holding their conventions in the windy city—this will be the 12th time since 1864 that the convention has been hosted there.
The last DNC to be held in Chicago was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton was easily re-nominated by his party.
The main event this year is being held at the United Center, a convention center that doubles as the home stadium for the Chicago Bulls basketball team and the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.
Around 50,000 attendees are expected, including the party’s approximately 5,000 delegates. Like most major political events, it won’t be open to the public.
However, it will stream on a variety of platforms, according to the party.
In addition to the normal media coverage of the event each night, voters will also be able to watch the convention online, courtesy of C-Span.
The event will also be streamed in its entirety via Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube using the vertical style popularized by those apps.
Additional delegate-only events that are not streamed to the public will be hosted at the nearby McCormick Center.
Speakers
The convention will feature speeches from an array of Democrat notables.
Biden will be among the first speakers. He’s expected to call into the convention via video.
As is tradition at these events, neither Walz nor Harris are expected to speak until the final two days: Walz is likely to speak on the second to last day of the convention, and Harris on the final night.
Speakers are expected to appear according to this schedule:
Aug. 19:
- President Joe Biden
- Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
- Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker
Aug. 20:
- Former President Barack Obama
Aug. 21:
- Former President Bill Clinton
- Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
Aug. 22:
- Vice President Kamala Harris
Time and Day TBD:
- Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
- Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)
- Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)
Platform
During the convention, Democrats will also formally adopt their party’s draft platform.
Released in July, the draft platform mentions Trump dozens of times.
It also details Democrats’ position on an array of issues.
It reiterates Democrats’ demands for a federal codification of Roe v. Wade—unsurprising as abortion is one of Democrats’ strongest polling issues.
Economically, there’s not much in the platform that’s especially new: it calls for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour by 2026, policies to increase the affordability of childcare and healthcare, and making the Child Tax Credit permanent.
Additionally, the platform repeats Democrats’ long-held demands for higher taxation of very wealthy individuals and corporations.
The draft platform also calls for securing the southern border while providing a “pathway to citizenship” for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country.
However, this platform, released in early July, hasn’t been updated since Biden dropped out.
Now, hours before the convention kicks off, it still lists Biden as the party’s candidate.
As is usually the case at major party conventions, the platform will be discussed, debated, amended, and formally ratified during the convention.
Protests
While Democrats seek to project an image of unity, there’s one factor that’s outside of the party’s control: expected protests from interest groups on the left.
Namely, protestors are expected to move full steam ahead with protests originally planned against Biden.
Time to board up your businesses, Democrats are coming to Chicago pic.twitter.com/azU47I30k1 #DNCChicago
— Matt Batzel (@MattBatzel) August 17, 2024
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One protest, organized as the “March on the DNC 2024,” will feature a group of around 200 left wing-groups, and could potentially number into the tens of thousands—raising concerns about event security.
Specifically, the protestors are demanding that the DNC and Harris change their stance on Israel, calling for the United States to “stand with Palestine” and “end U.S. aid to Israel,” along with a laundry list of other left-wing demands.
The event already has the highest possible federal security classification.
Security for the event will be handled by a coalition of local, state, and federal law enforcement, including the Secret Service.
Despite the challenges, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and local police have maintained that the event will be secure.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 19:07 - For A Democrat, The American Heartland's Normalcy Is A Terrifying Dystopia
For A Democrat, The American Heartland’s Normalcy Is A Terrifying Dystopia
Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,
The Civil War tore America apart and left 600,000 dead. Still, despite its ferocity, it had at its heart only one big issue: whether the Constitution’s promise of individual liberty overrode states’ rights to govern themselves. Otherwise, Americans were much the same: the Bible, hard work, heterosexuality, the nuclear family, anti-crime, etc.
America today actually faces a more profound schism than it did then because we’ve become two entirely different people.
An opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle really hammers the point home, as a regular columnist looks at a county fair in the Heartland and sees a dystopian world.
Soleil Ho identifies herself a plural being who should be referred to as “they” and “them.” She is “an opinion columnist and cultural critic, focusing on gender, race, food policy and life in San Francisco.” She’s even made it to Joy Reid’s show for exposing the horror of parents who are opposed to the push to destroy their children’s biological reality with the lunacy of “transgenderism.”
Image by AI.
Ho recently took a trip to visit relatives in the American heartland (perhaps rural Illinois) and professed herself to be absolutely horrified by what she found there. The headline of Ho’s San Francisco Chronicle essay (and I don’t know whether Ho or the Chron came up with this headline) is “I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I could have imagined.”
I opened the essay assuming that I’d read about the economic despair that decades of Democrat policies have visited on rural America: Shuttered factories and stores, homelessness, drug addiction, foreclosed homes, crime-ridden communities, illegal aliens sucking up public funds, etc.
Instead, Ho described a bucolic county fair, complete with “rides, the charcoal-kissed meat skewers and the stall that churns out fried cheese curds, those little molten pebbles enrobed in crisp chambers of light-as-air batter,” along with happy people collecting “plenty of award ribbons for photography, cookies, crafts and giant garden-grown vegetables.”
But for Ho, none of this mattered. Attending the fair with Democrat relatives trapped in a Heartland hellhole, the real evil lurked beneath this Arcadian surface. These happy people celebrating their lives and eating wonderful fair food are evil. Truly evil. Why? Because they support Trump:
Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.
In packed queues for roasted corn, I squeezed past parents balancing their children’s plastic lemonade cups in their arms with “Trump/Vance 2024” lawn signs tucked under their armpits. “Nice sign!” one blonde, elementary school-age girl shouted above the din, with her thumbs up at a woman holding one of them.
Ho was also confronted with the terrible specter of men in floral Hawaiian shirts.
You and I, staunch conservatives, may just think, “Ooh, I like Hawaiian shirts” or “Oh, that’s kind of tacky,” but the alert woke person knows better.
Ho hears the dog whistle of the “boogaloo” movement, a seriously fringe and ineffective group that no conservatives care about.
I suspect that while a scattering of Hawaiian shirts horrifies Ho, she’s copacetic about hundreds of masked Antifa members attacking people, fire-bombing federal buildings, and otherwise engaging in violent mayhem.
To Ho, the county fair represents everything evil in America:
My family, mostly Democrats or otherwise apolitical, are pragmatic about politics: This is their home. They quietly listen to the daily political rants and ravings about crime, immigrants and “transes” from MAGA colleagues, neighbors and friends, hoping for any opportunity to pivot to the weather.
There’s the divide. The evil Americans think that crime should be punished, immigrants should arrive legally, and that embracing the mental illness of body dysphoria should be discouraged, not encouraged. Ho also boasts that, in the Utopia of San Francisco, she need not fear wearing a “Notorious RBG” shirt, forgetting that conservatives in that Utopia risk physical assault, vandalism, and job loss for daring to voice their political opinions. By contrast, Ho could have worn her “Notorious RBG” shirt to that fair without worry. Republicans believe in free speech.
For Ho, her nightmare in the dystopia of the heartland culminated with the crowd at the rodeo singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The horror was too much for her. “I’d had enough. I stayed seated, head in my hands, and waited for the bulls to come charging out of their pens.”
It took America four years and 600,000 lives to resolve the one question of individual liberty versus state’s rights, a battle that conveniently divided itself along geographic lines. How is our country ever to resolve the fact that we have living cheek by jowl two entirely different cultures, each with values antithetical to the other, all vying for the same political control?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 18:25 - Where DNCs And RNCs Have Taken Place
Where DNCs And RNCs Have Taken Place
When the Democratic Party picked the city of Milwaukee as the location for its 2020 National Convention, it chose a Midwestern city other than Chicago for the first time in more than 100 years.
The Republican Party apparently hasn’t forgotten how Democrats invaded their National Convention turf four years ago. The 2024 RNC took place in Wisconsin’s most populous city as the Midwest is expected to once more play a key role in November’s presidential election.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, with the the Democratic National Convention kicking off in Chicago today, Democrats have reverted to familiar Midwestern territory.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Republican have branched out much more within the region, visiting Kansas City and Cleveland multiple times (including in 2016) as well as St. Paul (in 2008) and Detroit once.
Both Democrats and Republicans have also favored New York City as well as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for their conventions and neither party has branched out to the West Coast more than a couple of times.
But while Democrats have also added East Coast locations Boston and Atlantic City to their roster over the years, Republicans have been more active in the South, visiting Dallas, Tampa and New Orleans. Both parties have held their annual events in Miami, Houston and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 18:00 - Forty Centuries Of Failure: Price Controls, Debasement, & Tyranny
Forty Centuries Of Failure: Price Controls, Debasement, & Tyranny
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,
It hasn’t worked once, so why would a politician go all-in on price controls now?
August 15th was the anniversary of the infamous “Nixon Shock”, when excessive spending and trade deficits had governments on the ropes, as prices climbed relentlessly, inflation soared into the double digits, while economic growth stalled.
In 1971 of that year, Nixon “temporarily” suspended convertibility of the US dollar for gold (still in effect), while simultaneously proclaiming a 90-day freeze on all wages and prices across the United States.
The stagflationary 70’s also saw Trudeau the 1st enact “The Anti-Inflation Act of 1975”, with his infamous “6 and 5” measures (a 6% cap on wage increases with a 5% cap on prices was supposed to put 1% back into the pocket of the peasants).
None of this worked, and as the lumpenpublic were mulched by higher prices and growing government, gold served as a barometer to it all – soaring from $35/oz at the time of the Nixon Shock to $850/oz in 1980 (that all-time high still won’t be exceeded in inflation adjusted terms until gold cracks about $2,580).
It took Paul Volcker to get inflation under control with double-digit interest rates – (when the news came that he had been elevated from President of the New York Fed under Gerald Ford to Chairman by Jimmy Carter, Volcker’s wife burst into tears).
Today, 50 years later with a monetary regime that makes the 70’s look austere, double-digit interest rates are simply not an option – we’ve just seen a 5-sigma event nearly blow up the global monetary system from the BoJ nudging interest rates from the zero bound to 25bps.
With an unprecedented levels of monetary expansion and debt levels somewhere beyond nosebleed elevations, policy-makers and central bankers are trapped.
This is why we’re seeing a resurgence in popular rhetoric around the idea of price controls – everywhere from Jagmeet Singh here in Canada, who blames grocery store CEOs for inflation, to Dem nominee and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris, channeling him with promises of food price controls as part of her election campaign.
Price Controls Invariably Presage Decline (& Tyranny)
The definitive chronicle of price controls throughout recorded history comes to us by way of Robert L. Schuettinger and Eammon F. Butler’s “Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls” – or “How Not to Fight Inflation“.
I could not for the life of me find my hard copy, but during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, The Mises Institute saw the value in republishing it…
“By special arrangement with the authors, the Mises Institute is thrilled to bring back this popular guide to ridiculous economic policy from the ancient world to modern times. This outstanding history illustrates the utter futility of fighting the market process through legislation. It always uses despotic measures to yield socially catastrophic results.”
It starts as far back as Urakagina of Lagash, a King of Sumeria in around 2350BC who came to power and overturned wage and price controls held in place by an unnamed line of despotic predecessors:
“[he]began his rule by ending the burdens of excessive government regulations over the economy, including controls on wages and prices…
An historian of this period tells us that from Urakagina,‘we have one of the most precious and revealing documents in the history of man and his perennial and unrelenting struggle for freedom from tyranny and oppression.’
This document records a sweeping reform of a whole series of prevalent abuses, most of which could be traced to a ubiquitous and obnoxious bureaucracy …it is in this document that we find the word ‘freedom’ used for the first time in man’s recorded history; the word is ‘amargi’.“
It is somewhat telling to find that the word “freedom” was seemingly coined to describe the end of price controls.
The Code of Hammurabi of ancient Babylon is often cited as one of the earliest legal codes, thought to be the first to enshrine the presumption of innocence, but it also contained detailed tables of price controls on everything from goods to services – like the hiring of a wagon (“forty qa of corn per diem”) to the wages of a field laborer (“eight gur of corn per annum”).
According to Schuettinger and Butler, historical records show that Hammurabi’s price controls dampened trade and economic activity for both Hammurabi and his successors, citing W. F Leemans, who found that:
Prominent and wealthy tamkaru (merchants) were no longer found in Hammurabi’s reign. Moreover, only a few tamkaru are known from Hammurabi’s time and afterwards . . . all . . . evidently minor tradesmen and money-lenders.
Concluding:
“it appears that the very people who were supposed to benefit from the Hammurabi wage and price restrictions were driven out of the market by those and other statutes.”
Finding that:
“There was a remarkable change in the fortunes of the people of Nippur and Isin and the other ancient towns which he ruled, which came in the middle of Rim-Sin’s reign [Hammurbi’s predecessor – whose policies he extended] . The beginning of the economic decline corresponds exactly with a series of “reforms” inaugurated by him.
For the first of many times throughout this piece, I will ask the reader to “hold that thought”.
We can fast forward to ancient Greece where Athens, a city state “perpetually short on grain” sought to control the prices at which it was sold in order to keep them “just”. At one point, under a measure that was supposed to be temporary (sound familiar?), state appointed corn buyers called “Sitonai” were mobilized to set the pricing.
Predictably, the problem got worse, and there were calls to make the measures permanent. One politician, Lysian of Athens wanted to put grain dealers who broke the code to death.
The book is exhaustive in its examinations, covering China, India, the Medieval age, even modern times (Canada and the US in the seventies) – but ancient Rome warrants a deeper look – particularly the road to Emperor Diocletian’s Edict of 301AD.
“Under the tribune Caius Gracchus the Lex Sempronia Frumentaria was adopted which allowed every Roman citizen the right to buy a certain amount of wheat at an official price much lower than the market price.
In 58 B.C. this law was “improved” to allow every citizen free wheat. The result, of course, came as a surprise to the government.
Most of the farmers remaining in the countryside simply left to live in Rome without working.
If that wasn’t enough:
Slaves were freed by their masters so that they, as Roman citizens, could be supported by the state.
(There is a modern day analog here with open borders and the illegal immigration crisis – where we could be looking at mass migrations as being, at least partially, incentivized by governments of weakening economies trying to jettison dependents and potential rebels – offloading them to countries dumb enough to think they’re acting enlightened by taking them on and supporting them).
By 45BC, Julius Caesar found that roughly a third of the citizenry was living on “free food” from the government.
He managed to reduce this number by about half, but it soon rose again; throughout the centuries of the empire Rome was to be perpetually plagued with this problem of artificially low prices for grain, which caused economic dislocations of all sorts.
Succeeding emperors resorted to the ancient version of “Quantitative Easing” – currency debasement:
In order to attempt to deal with their increasing economic problems, the emperors gradually began to devalue the currency. Nero (A.D. 54–68) began with small devaluations and matters became worse under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–80) when the weights of coins were reduced. “These manipulations were the probable cause of a rise in prices,” according to Levy. The Emperor Commodus (A.D.)
By Diocletian’s time in the 4th century it reached truly hyper-inflationary levels when measured in other provincial currencies:
Egypt was the province of the Empire most affected, but her experience was reflected in lesser degrees throughout the Roman world. During the fourth century, the value of the gold solidus changed from 4,000 to 180 million Egyptian drachmai.
Diocletian’s Dilemma
Gresham’s Law states that “bad money drives out the good” – it means that rapidly devaluing or debased currencies are traded for anything other than themselves (which drives prices denominated in that currency up) – while “sound” currencies, like gold, or nowadays Bitcoin are hoarded – or at least more carefully spent.
“[I]n the years before Diocletian, emperors were issuing tin-plated copper coins which were still called by the name ‘denarius.’ Gresham’s Law, of course, became operative; silver and gold coins were naturally hoarded and were no longer found in circulation.”
The result of iterative generations of government mismanagement and currency debasement was the hollowing out of the middle class:
“The middle class was almost obliterated and the proletariat was quickly sinking to the level of serfdom. Intellectually the world had fallen into an apathy from which nothing would rouse it.”
The same thing is happening today, but in Diocletian’s time, he saw what was happening and moved to impose some kind of order, first by issuing a new Denarious, that after centuries of declining silver content, openly contained none:
…and then, moving to a system that attempted to replace money entirely (again, hold that thought):
Since money was completely worthless, he devised a system of taxes based on payments in kind. This system had the effect, via the ascripti glebae [tenant serfs], of totally destroying the freedom of the lower classes—they became serfs and were bound to the soil to ensure that the taxes would be forthcoming.
But he had a dilemma:
The principal reason for the official overvaluation of the currency, of course, was to provide the wherewithal to support the large army and massive bureaucracy—the equivalent of modern government.
Diocletian’s choices were to continue to mint the increasingly worthless denarius or to cut “government expenditures” and thereby reduce the requirement for minting them.
In modern terminology, he could either continue to “inflate” or he could begin the process of “deflating” the economy.
Diocletian decided that deflation, reducing the costs of civil and military government, was impossible. On the other hand: To inflate would be equally disastrous in the long run.
Diocletian’s problem is the same one central banks and policy makers face today, all over the world:
Source: IMF
The world is awash in too much debt – with debt-to-GDP more than doubling from 100% to over 256% since the Nixon Shock. With interest rates being artificially suppressed for decades – austerity is off the table, for now — I’ve been writing for years how CBDCs and #Netzero are essentially setting the table for forced austerity.
But we’re not there yet – retail CBDCs are a few years away from being ready but the global financial system is unravelling now (in the meantime, you can get on the waiting list for my CBDC Survival Guide, which is coming out this fall).
How did Diocletian navigate the quagmire?
The Solution: Inflate with Price Controls
As Schuettinger and Butler recount,
It was in this seemingly desperate circumstance that Diocletian determined to continue to inflate, but to do so in a way that would, he thought, prevent the inflation from occurring.
He sought to do this by simultaneously fixing the prices of goods and services and suspending the freedom of people to decide what the official currency was worth.
Contrary to our own political leaders, Diocletian wasn’t stupid (in fact, he may have been the most intelligent Roman Emperor after a long string of weak minded half-wits who were propped up by the military).
He knew that the incentives would be against the productive class working, selling, and entrenpreneuring at a loss and he understood that Incentives Are Everything. In his case:
“if farmers, merchants and craftsmen could not expect to receive what they considered to be a fair price for their goods they would not put them on the market at all, but would await a change in the law (or in the dynasty).”
So Diocletian had to realign people’s incentives:
“From such guilt also he too shall not be considered free, who, having goods necessary for food or usage, shall after this regulation have thought that they might be withdrawn from the market; since the penalty ought to be even heavier for him who causes need than for him who makes use of it contrary to the statutes.”
The penalty was …death.
Same for anyone who purchased goods or services at prices above the prescribed amount (no matter how hungry or desperately you needed something or how scarce that something was).
As draconian as that sounds, it almost looks like more people were killed by deprivation and mob rule than were executed for violating price controls:
There was much blood shed upon very slight and trifling accounts; and the people brought provisions no more to markets, since they could not get a reasonable price for them and this increased the dearth so much, that at last after many had died by it”
The authors go on to cite Roland Kent:
“In other words, the price limits set in the Edict were not observed by the traders, in spite of the death penalty provided in the statute for its violation; would-be purchasers, finding that the prices were above the legal limit, formed mobs and wrecked the offending traders’ establishments, incidentally killing the traders, though the goods were after all of but trifling value; hoarded their goods against the day when the restrictions should be removed, and the resulting scarcity of wares actually offered for sale caused an even greater increase in prices, so that what trading went on was at illegal prices, and therefore performed clandestinely.
Within four years, the law was set aside, and Diocletian abdicated.
Michael Rostovtzeff, another leading Roman historian, remarked:
“Diocletian shared the pernicious belief of the ancient world in the omnipotence of the state, a belief which many modern theorists continue to share with him and with it.”
Here We Are Again
Since the unprecedented monetary stimulus during Covid, we are now beginning to see exactly how trapped we are – with politicians taking victory laps for 2.9% inflation (hedonically adjusted and perpetually revised) – nobody is really remarking that the official targeted inflation rate is in the process of being hiked by half from 2% to 3% target.
The Fed is getting ready to cut interest rates, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the ECB are already cutting and as I told readers in the latest issue of The Bitcoin Capitalist, the Bank of Japan just showed the world that they can’t raise:
On Tuesday, August 6th, the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance held an emergency meeting, and the next day announced “no more rate hikes” until the global financial system could handle it.
Which will be never.
For the first 50 years of the post-Bretton Woods era, since the Nixon Shock, monetary debasement has been mostly under-the-radar and after the stagflationary 70’s, had been largely confined to asset inflation.
This was thanks to a massive bond super-cycle that saw the cost-of-capital come down for 50 years, igniting an asset bubble on the other side of the ledger:
Consumer inflation never really started hitting hard until the aftermath of Covid, and the central banks took to hiking rates to try and get it back under control (my suspicion was always that what they really wanted to do was reload as high as possible so they could cut, once again):
Again, from this month’s TBC (see end of this post for a trial deal):
We’ve been saying since the Fed originally started hiking, that they would do so until something broke.
In March of 2023, something broke – with Silicon Valley Bank and the regional banking crisis; it was quickly papered over with FDIC backstops on all deposits, while the Fed abandoned their balance sheet reductions and quickly reinflated the money supply.
Everything since then has been a theatrical, slow-motion pivot.
Now, after this Bank of Japan miscalculation, something really broke – and the world now sees how the BoJ is trapped, the rest of the central banks are paused or already cutting, right when the global liquidity cycle is starting to turn back up.
(Also – M2 is also beginning to rise again)
Price Controls Are The ‘Hail Mary’ Play of a Bankrupt System
All the usual tricks which got us this far, money printing, interest rate suppression, ballooning debt have finally run out of runway because they are now resulting in. consumer price inflation.
This is 100% the fault of bad political leadership and central bank policy but that will never be admitted.
Instead, politicians will resort ad hominem attacks on the productive class, and absurd accusations that it is the fault of investors and entrepreneurs, who must navigate the risks of monetary debasement, for causing it.
Hence, we have Kamala Harris seemingly anchoring her political campaign on “ending price gouging” once she’s in office.
She seems to be channeling Canada’s own champagne socialist, Jagmeet Singh, the Rolex wearing, Versace sporting millionaire who routinely demonizes CEOs – particularly those of grocery store chains, for causing inflation:
Corporate greed in our country has reached a breaking point after decades of Liberal and Conservative governments that have rewritten the rules to favour the ultra-rich.
Now, every bill you pay makes CEOs richer.
It’s wrong.
I’ll change the rules to help you, not CEO profits.
(What’s ironic in both cases, is Harris is promising to do something upon being elected, although she’s the incumbent Vice President since 2020, while Jagmeet Singh is the one person in Canada, who is single-handedly propping the Trudeau government in power with a coalition government that he could end at any time).
The Lure of Technocracy For Price Controls
After one looks at the historical record – 4,000 years of endless failures, in price controls, communism and every permutation of centrally planned economies, there has to be a reason politicians are still reaching for it as a solution to problems they have caused and why a small – but vocal and influential, segment of the public cheerleads this as a net benefit for society.
The secret sauce of “it’s different this time” is technology – particularly Big Tech, big platforms, Total Information Awareness and surveillance. Central planners think it is now technically feasible to run all the calculations and tracking in real time that would enable unrestrained monetary stimulus while keeping a lid on negative externalities like inflation.
Politicians like Kamala Harris and Jagmeet Singh are just farming public sentiment created by their own policy failures, but there are very serious people – mostly unelected technocrats of a particular globalist mindset, who think we have the means, motive and opportunity to create a kind of “fully automated luxury communism”.
One of my go-to clips for illustrating the mindset is J Michael Evans at a WEF meeting talking about coming personal carbon trackers:
Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasts at the World Economic Forum about the development of an “individual carbon footprint tracker” to monitor what you buy, what you eat, and where/how you travel. pic.twitter.com/sisSrUngDI
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) May 24, 2022
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I’ll lay out the quote again here:
“We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.
The stage is set, when politicians tell you they want to be able to control prices, believe them – but what the public must understand is that price controls means spending controls.
The politicians will tell you that it’s all about putting “greedy CEOs” in their place.
What they won’t tell you is that price controls also means is telling you what you can or cannot eat, how you use energy – whether you’ll be permitted to travel, or make any other kind of economic decision or make any kind of value exchange that you used to take for granted.
In a world of price controls, that’s over.
Throughout history, price controls have always brought about serfdom and tyranny because that is the only way to override individual incentives. In today’s highly wired world that would mean total technocratic feudalism.
The most vivid example we have today is Venezuela – where price controls were so effective, the rabble had to break into public zoos to eat the animals.
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 17:40 - Local Cop, Not Secret Service, Shot Trump Rally Shooter First
Local Cop, Not Secret Service, Shot Trump Rally Shooter First
The first shot to hit Thomas Crooks, the man who sprayed eight shots at a Butler, Pennsylvania Trump rally on July 13 – hitting Trump in the ear and killing an attendee – came from a local SWAT operator who was about 100 yards away from the building on which Crooks was positioned, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said in a preliminary investigative report.
Law enforcement agents at the site of a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images When the SWAT officer saw Crooks moving around the rooftop, he quickly left his post and sprinted towards the man, “running to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire while Crooks was firing,” said Higgins.
“He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR,” Higgins added later, citing eyewitness testimony.
Shooting the buffer tube may have disabled Crooks’ rifle.
The next shot which killed Crooks came from a US Secret Service counter-sniper, according to Higgins.
As the Epoch Times notes further, Higgins, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives task force, traveled to Butler County to recreate how Crooks climbed onto the roof and assess what happened.
He said he was assisted in the investigation by local officials, including the Butler County Emergency Services Unit tactical team commander and a top official with the Butler County District Attorney’s office.
Higgins said that among the theories he probed was whether there was another shooter on top of a water tower overlooking the fairgrounds.
“There are videos on the internet showing a dark figure or a shadow on the water tower on J13. If there had been someone on that tower on J13, it would have to have been some top-shelf operator way beyond anything I’ve ever actually seen,” Higgins wrote. “Regular SWAT operators or snipers would not have the skills and gear to quickly overcome the first 25 feet of no ladder and then climb the remaining 75 feet to the catwalk, and then climb the quite intimidating and precarious dome vent access ladder.”
Higgins said he did not think it was possible for a second shooter to have been on top of the tower and that he did not see any evidence supporting the theory. He also stated that all 10 shots heard that day were accounted for, with eight coming from Crooks, one from a local SWAT officer, and one from the Secret Service.
Higgins said he plans on climbing to the top of the tower in the future as he continues to investigate the shooting.
“As I have said, every question will be answered, every theory explored, and every doubt erased. The American people deserve the full truth on the attempted assassination of President Trump,” Higgins said in a statement. “Our investigative efforts are moving forward in good faith. The release of my preliminary investigative report is reflective of my desire to deliver transparency and reassurance to the American people.”
Higgins sent his findings to Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), the chairman of the House task force.
The task force was created to issue subpoenas and take other steps to look into the shooting. It was given a deadline of Dec. 13 to produce a final report.Kelly and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the committee, recently asked top federal officials, including U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for documents and information related to the attempted assassination. Lawmakers have not yet disclosed what information they’ve received.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 17:20 - Carry Trade Trap: The Real Reason Why The Fed Has Waited So Long To Cut Rates
Carry Trade Trap: The Real Reason Why The Fed Has Waited So Long To Cut Rates
Authored by Brandon Smith, via Alt-Market.us,
In 2022 there was considerable debate among alternative economists what the Federal Reserve was likely to do in the face of rising stagflation. There were people who argued that the Fed would capitulate to stock market demands, stop raising interest rates and return to QE. These analysts operated on the assumption that the central bank WANTS to save the US economy from substantial deflationary crisis and that they will happily print money forever in order to delay such an event.
Some of us, however, understand that the Fed is not loyal to the US economy, nor is it necessarily interested in self preservation as an institution. In 2022 in my article ‘It’s A Fact That Needs Repeating: The Federal Reserve Is A Suicide Bomber’ I predicted:
“This leads us to the final question – What happens next? That’s easy to answer: The fed continues to hike rates well into next year and will not reverse course or capitulate and return to stimulus. The dovish predictions were wrong. The people that said the Fed would not raise rates were wrong. The people that said the Fed would never remove support from stock markets were wrong. This process is ongoing and the effects will grow as the months pass, but those that were hoping for a manic return to the days of bailouts and QE are going to be deeply disappointed.”
This prediction proved correct. I noted at the time that the Fed is not following its own program, it’s following a global program coordinated by the IMF and BIS. In order to understand why the Fed does the things it does, one must accept that they don’t care about the current world order. They care about facilitating a new world order.
Of course, part of that agenda requires that the central bankers never receive blame for their role in any economic crisis. They have no problem blowing up the system as long as there’s a convenient scapegoat. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.
I usually don’t put much energy into tracking stocks because I see them as a side show. Equities are primarily built on delusions, false hopes and unchecked fiat and the bubble will pop when those delusions are inevitably dashed by reality. Stock markets are not a leading indicator; they are a trailing indicator and they crash long after numerous other alarms have been triggered. That said, every once in a while the smoke and mirrors lift and you can get a glimpse of what is really happening behind the scenes.
The central bank has removed the primary backstop supporting US and European markets – The low interest rates that were feeding cheap money into corporate buybacks. Despite endless spin and false data from the Biden Administration the deflationary side of the crisis is starting to rear its ugly head.
A weaker-than-expected jobs report last week has fueled concerns about a potential economic recession and calls for an interest rate cut. Employers hired 114,000 workers last month, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021. It’s only going to get worse from now on and I wouldn’t be surprised to see an unemployment avalanche in 2025.
Keep in mind that BLS jobs data has been rigged by the Biden White House for years; the majority of jobs “created” during Biden’s term are low wage part-time jobs and most have been going to illegal immigrants, not to American citizens. The same illegal immigrants that Biden has allowed into the country through open border and amnesty policies.
This trend is only going accelerate by winter. Why? Because the effects of the high interest rates are taking hold. It happens slow at first, then all at once. But how have stocks remained so high during this time period? A recent market shock may help us to understand…
As noted, the August stock slump has been partly driven by weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data at the end of last week. The readings led investors to worry that the Federal Reserve may be behind the curve in cutting interest rates to fend off a recession. But why does the Fed continue to keep rates high if this is the case?
There are two reasons.
First, as I have mentioned over and over since 2018, the end of QE and the raising of interest rates is a Catch-22; a trap. Not for the Fed, but for the US economy. Our financial system has become so addicted to cheap money from the central bank that it can barely function without it. We are seeing the addict begin to crash. Covid stimulus held up the system for another few years, but now that hit of sweet helicopter money is fading and the high is over.
At the same time we’re being crushed with a stagflationary hydraulic press. Prices continue to climb on most necessities and the cumulative inflation is around 30% (officially) on average since 2021. Compare grocery receipts from 2020 to today, though, and you’ll find a 30% to 100% increase in prices on most necessary goods and services.
The establishment (and the DNC) has been operating on the narrative that inflation has been defeated. The Fed knows that this is a lie. The moment they cut rates inflation will spike again and the illusion will be exposed. There’s FAR too many dollars floating around chasing too few goods. For those that believe a rate cut is in the works to support the Kamala Harris campaign, I would suggest such a move might actually hurt her chances (whatever those chances may be) because her entire economic platform requires doubling down on the “success” of Bidenomics. If CPI spikes again in October then her campaign is sunk.
Of course, over 54% of mainstream economists and investors polled now expect a rate cut next month and some Fed officials have mentioned the possibility. I remain doubtful, but it will certainly make the election cycle even more interesting if they do.
The second issue is what appears to be a “carry trade trap.”
Carry trades refer to operations in which investors borrow in a currency with low interest rates, such as the Japanese yen, and reinvest the proceeds in higher-yielding assets elsewhere (the US). The strategy is a considerable driver of US stock markets and has kept stocks alive despite the Fed’s removal of QE.
This month’s stock plunge was triggered by fears that the Bank of Japan might hike interest rates, coupled with expectations that the Fed will cut rates in the near term due to the recession threat. This would kill the carry trade that has kept stocks going. To prevent a destructive carry trade unwind the Fed would have to coordinate with the BOJ and introduce a new stimulus program to soften the blow. But as I mentioned above, if the Fed returns to QE inflation will skyrocket yet again.
The public will demand an explanation as to how it’s possible for there to be deflation in markets and jobs and inflation in prices all at the same time? The Fed won’t have answers for them. It’s a Catch-22 on top of a Catch-22.
I believe there is no way out of this situation and that central banks deliberately maneuvered the US into this predicament. The only thing left for them to do is pull the plug when the timing is most advantageous. After the elections makes the most sense, especially if conservatives come out on top and there is a red sweep in 2025.
Then, the whole mess can be wrapped up and thrown in their laps.
One thing the events of this month prove is that the system is so unstable that even a hint of a change in the status quo could mean disaster. Don’t assume that banks will keep trying to kick the can down the road; they’re operating on a timeline that serves the interests of the global establishment, not the American public.
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 17:00 - Blinken Praises Netanyahu's Acceptance Of Gaza Truce Deal That Doesn't Exist
Blinken Praises Netanyahu’s Acceptance Of Gaza Truce Deal That Doesn’t Exist
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in Tel Aviv in what both called “a very good and important meeting.” Blinken touted that Netanyahu has accepted latest US proposal on a Gaza ceasefire deal, and now he’s urging that Hamas “must do the same”.
Netanyahu in the meeting aftermath said that he appreciates “the understanding the US showed toward our vital security interests, amid our joint efforts to bring about the releases of our hostages.”
“I want to emphasize,” Netanyahu said, “efforts to release the maximum number of living hostages — in the first stage of the deal.” Blinken in a presser proclaimed that he’s in the region “to bring across the finish line” a ceasefire deal. He earlier warned this may be a “last chance” to secure a deal.
But the reality is that this is Blinken’s ninth visit to Israel since the war began after the Hamas terror attack of Oct.7, and each and every trip has been filled with statements of the voicing a US “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security and simultaneous declarations that a truce as at the ‘goal line’.
And yet the same blame-game always quickly ensues following such empty declarations, over the question of who is to blame for ultimately blowing supposedly ever-so close to the goal line deal – though realistically it doesn’t seem there is a viable deal on the table at all.
AFP via Getty Images All of this makes it hard to gauge the degree to which Blinken’s visit is just another empty exercise in Biden admin PR.
The geopolitical analysis blog Moon of Alabama points out the following:
Axios claims that Hamas rejects a ceasefire deal with Israel:
Hamas rejects new U.S. proposal for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal
The opener:
Hamas on Sunday rejected an updated U.S. proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, blaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for moving the goalposts and the U.S. for indulging him.
Seven paragraphs later we learn:
Zoom in: More specifically, Hamas objects to the fact that the proposal doesn’t include a permanent ceasefire or comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Moon of Alabama concludes, “There is no ceasefire deal,” and questions: “How then could Hamas reject a ceasefire deal?”
Instead, this is what it really seems all about: projecting optics back home to Democratic voters who can yet again try to paint this meaningless trip as a “win” for Biden/Harris ahead of November…
BREAKING: HUGE Win for Biden /Harris Administration :
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Netanyahu has just accepted the latest U.S. proposal on a Gaza ceasefire deal. pic.twitter.com/MPxtXjVj7N
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) August 19, 2024
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And Blinken’s own words reflect something which appears merely in abstract, ephemeral form and not yet actually agreed to or a working option in any firm way…
“There is a deep sense of urgency for getting this done,” said Blinken. He described that this is “the best way to make sure the conflict doesn’t spread, that we don’t see escalation, that we can actually defuse some of the pressure points that we see throughout the region, and then open prospects for trying to build more enduring peace and security for everyone throughout the Middle East.”
On the recent build-up of Pentagon assets in the region, Blinken claimed that Washington does “not to provoke aggression” but rather it’s all about deterrence, and “also to make clear that if it does, we are fully prepared to defend Israel.”
Meanwhile, Blinken on the ground in Tel Aviv, Al Jazeera is reporting that IDF strikes across Gaza have expanded and are relentless…
UNRWA says “Israeli ‘strikes are now relentless’ and some Palestinians in Gaza have no choice but to live in the rubble of destroyed buildings amid expanding Israeli evacuation orders.” https://t.co/4Wdefh0TeZ
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 19, 2024
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According to the latest AJ newswire headline: Senior Hamas Official says they agreed to proposal made by Biden and the US administration failed to convince Netanyahu of it, Al Jazeera reports.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/19/2024 – 16:40
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