Mar 20

Today’s News 20th March 2024

  • Former Top Polish Army Chief Admits "Ukraine Is Losing The War"
    Former Top Polish Army Chief Admits “Ukraine Is Losing The War”

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

    A former top Polish army chief says Ukraine is losing the war and that “more than 10 million people are missing.”

    General Rajmund Andrzejczak, the ex-chief of the Polish General Staff, made the comments during an appearance on Polsat Television.

    “More than 10 million people are missing. According to my estimates, losses should be in the millions, not hundreds of thousands. The country has no resources, no one to fight. Ukrainians are losing this war,” said the general.

    Andrzejczak pointed to Ukraine’s dwindling anti-aircraft missile supplies, which would allow Russia to conduct more effective strikes, casualties, and infrastructure damage.

    “The Ukrainians are losing this war,” he stated emphasized.

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    After German intelligence sources warned that Russia would be in a position to attack another NATO country after 2026, Andrzejczak warned that Poland has a limited time to prepare.

    “We need to prepare… A lot depends on us, whether it will be in two, three, or five years. Our mission is to push the threat further away. There is still time, but much work is needed,” he said.

    As we highlighted back in December, Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official, that the war in Ukraine is effectively “over” because Kiev’s counter-offensive has failed and there is no appetite in America to continue funding it.

    The average age of a Ukrainian soldier is now 43 and mentally disabled men are being sent to fight on the front lines.

    Back in November Sascha Lehnartz, chief correspondent of German newspaper Die Welt, said the Ukrainian “counteroffensive seems to have failed” and that there was a sense Kiev had “already lost” the war.

    A month before that, CNN reported on a Time article which quoted a top Zelensky aide as saying, “He deludes himself. We’re out of options. We’re not winning.”

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/20/2024 – 02:00

  • New York Times, After Years of Appeasing CCP, Now Plans Attack On Dissidents In US
    New York Times, After Years of Appeasing CCP, Now Plans Attack On Dissidents In US

    Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The New York Times for nearly six months has been preparing a hit piece against Shen Yun Performing Arts, The Epoch Times has learned.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    Communications obtained by The Epoch Times suggest the article, which is yet to be published, will play into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its transnational repression campaign against Shen Yun.

    The New York-based Shen Yun, whose mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and whose slogan is “China Before Communism,” has been a major thorn in Beijing’s side for nearly two decades.

    In its campaign, the CCP has used a plethora of tactics to obstruct Shen Yun—which each year performs for an audience of a million people globally—including attempting to pressure theaters to drop performances, persecuting artists’ family members back in China, and hijacking the U.S. legal system for its purposes.

    The FBI last May arrested two suspected Chinese agents who had tried to bribe an FBI agent posing as an IRS official with tens of thousands of dollars in an attempt to revoke Shen Yun’s nonprofit status.

    The Department of Justice indicated that the two alleged CCP agents had also sought to use an environmental lawsuit targeting the company’s training facilities and schools to “inhibit” their growth.

    The next attack against Shen Yun, however, appears to be coming from America’s largest newspaper, The New York Times.

    Two reporters, Michael Rothfeld and Nicole Hong—the latter of whom began to work on the Shen Yun story after spending six months at The New York Times’ China desk—have specifically sought out former artists who might have left the company years ago with a grudge, records obtained by The Epoch Times suggest.

    Many of Shen Yun’s artists are practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation practice whose followers are brutally persecuted by the CCP—making the company a prime target of the regime and its proxies. Some of Shen Yun’s dance pieces include artistic depictions of the persecution.

    “We know these reporters are targeting for interviews [with] a tiny group that might have something bad to say about Shen Yun, and seem to be ignoring the overwhelming majority [of artists] who see their time at Shen Yun positively and deeply rewarding,”  Ying Chen, a vice president of Shen Yun, told The Epoch Times.

    “Flowing Sleeves,” from the 2009 Shen Yun Performing Arts program. (2009 Shen Yun Performing Arts)

    “We also know some of these interviewees have freely traveled to China, which raises a huge red flag because normally anyone who works for Shen Yun or is known to practice Falun Gong would be in grave danger going back to China—but these folks do so freely and repeatedly. We also have records of communication that demonstrate some of these interviewees were very happy with their experience at Shen Yun, but now are saying the opposite to The New York Times.

    “All this indicates that The New York Times is laser-focused on attacking us, and are building a story around very questionable interviews.”

    ­­­­Out to Smear

    Internal CCP documents show the Party considers the Shen Yun campus in upstate New York, called Dragon Springs, a “headquarters” of activities by Falun Gong practitioners to counter the persecution.

    “Attack the overseas Falun Gong headquarters and bases systematically and strategically,” reads one CCP directive document obtained by The Epoch Times.

    Another document prescribes specific industries to co-opt in its transnational repression against Falun Gong, calling for mobilization of “China friendly people such as experts, scholars, journalists … who have greater influence in the U.S. and Western countries to speak for us, and strive to make more foreign media to publish more reports favorable to us.”

    The New York Times now appears to be doing just that, commented Larry Liu, a deputy director of the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a nonprofit dedicated to monitoring the persecution of Falun Gong.

    The New York Times published a section called “China Rules” in its Nov. 25, 2018, edition. The section included giant Chinese characters on a red background and a glowing report on the CCP, while simultaneously diminishing the United States. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    “This article will likely be the CCP’s dream come true,” says Mr. Liu.

    Not long after Ms. Hong returned to New York last year after a stint with The New York Times’ China team in Seoul, some former Shen Yun dancers started to receive emails from her and Mr. Rothfeld. The emailed questions were at times disturbingly specific and left the artists with the impression the reporters were trying to dig up information that could be weaponized against the company, Mr. Liu said.

    One former dancer was only asked about one specific incident: a knee injury.

    According to Mr. Liu, the reporters seem to be trying to craft a narrative suggesting that the dancers don’t receive sufficient medical care, a key false narrative pushed by the CCP to malign Falun Gong.

    The Epoch Times spoke to dozens of Shen Yun artists and their family members as well as students and teachers at two schools affiliated with Shen Yun. They described the environment as demanding, but with a healthy culture and supportive community. The suggestion of lacking medical care or treatment prompted visceral responses.

    “It’s absolute rubbish,” said Kay Rubacek whose son and daughter perform with Shen Yun. Ms. Rubacek is a filmmaker whose portfolio includes award-winning documentaries and the program “Life & Times” on NTD.

    “Everyone who watches the show, sees Shen Yun, they can see that these dancers love it. They really love what they do.”

    Her children started attending Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, a grade 5–12 private art school, when they were 13 and 14. She was very particular about first getting familiar with the campus and the teachers, she said.

    “I’m very careful with where I send my kids. I’m very protective of them,” she said. “So for me to feel comfortable for them to go to a boarding school, I have to check everything, and I checked everything.”

    The dance track at the school gives students the possibility of auditioning for Shen Yun while training at the Fei Tian College on the same campus, which is what her children did–with great success, she noted.

    She recalled that shortly after joining the school, her son hit his toe during dance practice. He was taken for an X-ray, which revealed a hairline fracture. His dance teacher insisted he couldn’t join dance class again until the fracture had fully healed.

    He took the hiatus as an opportunity to focus on stretching, becoming one of the most flexible dancers in the troupe, she said.

    “The level of positivity that I see coming from them and their ability to face challenges is pretty remarkable and something that I wish I had as a kid,” Ms. Rubacek said.

    She was appalled to learn that The New York Times would try to smear her children as being part of some opprobrious organization.

    Shen Yun dancers rehearse a classical Chinese dance routine at their facility in Orange County, N.Y., in this file photo. (Courtesy of Shen Yun)

    ‘Real Danger’

    “The false narratives that the Times seems to be pursuing are a grave concern for us because it can create real danger,” said George Xu, vice president of Dragon Springs.

    He said several months ago local and federal authorities mobilized to counter what they believed was a credible threat posed by a Chinese man who posted to social media about wanting to be part of a “death squad.” The man also posted a video of himself loading an AR-15 rifle magazines.

    The man “propagates these same false narratives and had been speaking with some of the same individuals the [New York] Times is interviewing,” Mr. Xu said.

    “At one point, this man was known to be in the area of our campus. … We had state police patrolling our entrances, and everyone was on high alert. This is very serious.”

    The Epoch Times obtained a copy of a September FBI Officer Safety bulleting, stating that the man “has made threats to the Dragon Springs campus,” was seen in the area, and “is potentially armed and dangerous.”

    Aiming for the Top

    Shen Yun prides itself as the leading Chinese classical dance company in the world, growing from one group in 2007 to eight, each with its own orchestra, touring the world and performing for more than a million people every year. The Epoch Times has been a long-time media sponsor of Shen Yun.

    As with any elite artistic endeavor, classical Chinese dance requires enormous effort, said multiple dancers and teachers.

    Alison Chen at the Fei Tian College campus in Middletown, N.Y., on Sept. 19, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    “To become an artist of such a high caliber, it definitely takes a lot of grit and a lot of persistence, and you have to sacrifice a lot of time and energy,” said Alison Chen, who retired from Shen Yun in 2015 to become a dance teacher and later co-chair of the dance department at Fei Tian College’s campus in Middletown, New York.

    She was still in her teens when she started training with Shen Yun in 2007, shortly after its inception. Thanks to her aptitude and previous dance experience, she was invited to join the touring company fairly quickly as part of her school practicum. Over the years, however, the company has continued to raise the bar. Fei Tian students are still allowed to audition for tours as part of their coursework, but their dance skills must be exceptional for them to make the cut, she said.

    Compared to ballet, classical Chinese dance training is more aligned with the natural disposition of the human body, leading to less extreme strain, said Jimmy Cha, who was a professional ballet dancer before he joined Shen Yun in 2008.

    Ballet dancers usually retire in their 30s and are often left with chronic pain and other ailments. On average, younger amateur dancers suffer one injury and older professional dancers 1.2 injuries for every 1,000 dance hours, according to a 2015 review of research on the topic.

    According to those estimates, a professional dance company the size of Shen Yun would theoretically have hundreds of injuries occurring every year.

    The dancers and teachers The Epoch Times spoke to didn’t have such statistics ready, but all agreed the injury incidence they observed in Shen Yun was a fraction of that number.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 23:40

  • Piers Morgan Vs Jeffrey Sachs On Putin: "Russia's War With Ukraine Was Completely Avoidable"
    Piers Morgan Vs Jeffrey Sachs On Putin: “Russia’s War With Ukraine Was Completely Avoidable”

    Economist Jeffrey Sachs has appeared this week on Piers Morgan Uncensored where the two discussed Russian leader Vladimir Putin just being elected to a fifth 6th year term as president. Sachs speaks from within the establishment, having long served as a UN advisor, but has at the same time been branded in mainstream media as “a Putin cheerleader” – as Wall Street Journal and others have long described him. Sachs had a wide-ranging discussion with Morgan over the Ukraine crisis and other pressing global topics. The guest has long been controversial for his ‘unorthodox’ views on everything from Syria to Libya to US hegemony and Western regime change efforts in the third world.

    “My point has always been, lets end this war in Ukraine,” Professor Sachs told Morgan, while emphasizing that Washington has been bent on regime change in Moscow which began in earnest in 2014 with the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in Kiev. Sachs said the tragedy of the Ukraine war ultimately began with the US seeking to destabilize Russia and NATO expansion up to its borders. Sachs lashed out at critics saying “It’s not a matter of cheerleading. It’s a matter of common sense. I’ve known the Eastern European region for over 30 years.” He described that Washington thought it could “bleed” Russia and so thwarted attempts at peace talks in the wake of the February 2022 invasion.

    Sachs said, “My view is that this war was completely avoidable, and could have been ended in March 2022. But, it persists because we don’t have a sensible approach.” When asked about his views of Vladimir Putin and the prospect for peace negotiations to finally settle the war, Sachs offered the following: “We’re not in a game. We’re not in name calling. We’re not in a cage brawl,” Sachs said. “We’re trying to actually not have the world spiral into nuclear war. So it’s not that game. The game is sit down and negotiate.” Sachs in the interview pointed out that as far back as 2007 Putin was clear on his red lines regarding violating prior NATO vows of not expanding East. Watch a key section of the interview below:

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    Sachs explained the following on the origins of the Ukraine war:

    “I believe that the big mistake of both sides is we should talk this out. And now let me say a word about talking it out. In 2008, when Bucharest happened, European leaders called me because I’m friends with them. They said, what is your crazy president doing, by the way?

    Some who are in power right now, I won’t name names. What is your president doing? Why is he destabilizing things? He promised he wasn’t going to push Ukraine. That’s what european leaders say in private. They don’t say it in public. We avoided the negotiations. Then 2014 came, sadly, Piers. I saw some of it firsthand. It was ugly. The United States should not be funding overthrows of governments. We did. I know it.

    The two also discussed everything from the war in Gaza to the TikTok ban, with Sachs saying of the China-based platform and current controversy: “I think we are in the middle of a very typical American paranoid phase…“

    On the Gaza war, which began on Oct.7 and the Hamas terror attack on southern Israel, Sachs said controversally:

    “Israel has the most extremist religious nationalist government in its history…there’s no end game here politically other than complete domination or ethnic cleansing or slaughter.”

    Watch the full Piers Morgan and Jeffrey Sachs interview below:

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 23:20

  • Duty, Honor, Nothing
    Duty, Honor, Nothing

    Authored by ‘Citizen Soldier’ via RealClear Wire,

    My father remembers a trip with my grandfather to the U.S. Military Academy in the early 1960s to watch a baseball game. They loved the game, but what struck my grandfather, who served in the Pacific during World War II, was something else.

    “Watch how they sprint on and off the field,” he said. “Every inning. The best player and the worst. Whatever the score.”

    I don’t know whether the boys at West Point still sprint on and off the athletic fields. I bet they do. Their generals and the politicians, however, are running in the wrong direction.

    West Point is dropping “Duty, Honor, Country” from its mission statement, to be replaced with the nebulous phrase, “Army Values.” Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland said “Duty, Honor, Country” would remain West Point’s “motto.”

    But “motto” is not mission, which declares what a unit is and does. Troops live and die for the mission. No “motto” could ever mean so much.

    West Point leadership wants us not to be alarmed. Just trust the process, they say. The “process” – apparently of erasure and reinvention – began two years ago with removal of plaques and images of Robert E. Lee in favor of “appropriate language and images,” as Gilland described them.

    So here we are, further stripping away the tradition and rigor that defined West Point.

    In contemporary America, life in power seems dedicated not to responsibility but self-interest. Authority figures and thought leaders specialize in manipulating opinions, bullying us into using certain words, canceling history, placing certain ideas above others. Their eyes are big, their minds addled by attention and praise, their demands absolute.

    Such a culture is contemptuous of and disdains tradition. So-called leaders are energized by tearing down tradition, making more room for monuments to their own era and outsized egos.

    Tweak the colors.

    Change the fonts.

    Replace time-honored words for something new, something soft, something “appropriate.”

    This is not to say I doubt the patriotism of Lt. Gen. Gilland, and others like him. Gilland has given more than 40 years of service to the Army. He and many other soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are the best of us.

    Which is why we urge him to pick his head up and look around, remember that leading is more than just keeping your head down as you navigate the career minefield, hoping to survive, praying that playing along will secure the next rank.

    To those at the top, I say this:

    Words gain their meaning through generations of commitment, sacrifice and faith.

    Duty.

    Honor.

    Country.

    These are the words that define us—throw them away at our own peril.

    Citizen Soldier believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 23:00

  • Sorghum: The Ancient Grain For Modern Health
    Sorghum: The Ancient Grain For Modern Health

    Authored by Emma Suttie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Although many may not have heard of sorghum, it is an ancient grain that has been a staple in diets throughout Africa and Asia for millennia. According to the Whole Grains Council, ancient grains refer to grains that have been largely unchanged for hundreds of years and, thus, are often healthier options compared to the many refined grains we eat today.

    Sorghum. (Jennifer Princ/Shutterstock)

    Sorghum, or sorghum bicolor, is a cereal grain plant and member of the grass family—along with wheat, corn, and barley. It has a high yield and is resistant to heat and droughts, making it a highly prized crop in hot and arid regions.

    There are many varieties, and the plant produces small, round grains that are often categorized by color, coming in white (the most common), yellow, red, and black varieties. The grains are eaten cooked or ground into flour for bread, baked goods, and other dishes.

    The United States is the largest producer of grain sorghum globally, producing about 454 million bushels in 2021. It is a hearty, versatile crop that, in addition to being a nutritious food for humans, is used for animal feed and biofuel, and a sweet variety is used to make syrup, molasses, whiskey, and rum.

    Sorghum goes by many names around the world. It is known as Guinea corn in West Africa, kafir corn in South Africa, dura in Sudan, mtama in East Africa, bachanta in Ethiopia, cholan, chari, milo, and jowar in India, shallu in Myanmar, and kaoliang in China.

    Nutrition

    Sorghum is a gluten-free grain that has gained popularity in recent years due to an increasing number of people looking for gluten-free options to make bread and other baked goods or those with celiac disease who need to avoid gluten to keep their digestive systems happy.

    Dr. Steven Gundry is a former heart surgeon and present director and founder of the International Heart & Lung Institute and the Center for Restorative Medicine, a bestselling author, and expert in human nutrition. A big fan of sorghum for its health benefits, Dr. Gundry recommends it to patients, telling The Epoch Times via email:

    “Since 100 percent of my leaky gut and autoimmune patients have antibodies to gluten and the other wheat, barley, rye, and oat proteins, it’s the perfect replacement to stop damage to the gut wall, yet still tastes great and has that all-important ‘mouthfeel’ [as] the other grains.”

    Sorghum is also an abundant source of polyphenols—compounds that plants produce that help to protect them from threats. Those protections are passed on to us when we eat these polyphenol-producing plants.

    Research has shown that polyphenols in plants have a significant protective effect against the development of multiple chronic diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer.

    Raw, grain sorghum. (Picture Partners/Shutterstock)

    Dr. Gundry also points to another unique benefit of sorghum, saying:

    “Sorghum is one of the few grains that has no hull, hence it has no lectins—dangerous plant proteins that can cause leaky gut. Moreover, it is a plant that grows well with limited water use, perfect for global climate changes.

    “Plus, because of its texture, it can be a great stand-in for other grains like sorghum risotto or sorghum ‘oatmeal’ or turkey stuffing—I share a recipe for this in my NYT bestselling ‘Plant Paradox Cookbook!’”

    An excellent source of protein and fiber, a one-cup serving of sorghum grain offers 20.4 grams of protein and 12.9 grams of fiber. Abundant in vitamins and minerals, sorghum has ample phosphorous, iron, magnesium, copper, zinc, and potassium, all vital for a healthy body.

    Sorghum is also exceptionally high in antioxidants due to its phenolic compounds. A study published in The Journal of Medicinal Food found that two sorghum varieties—black and sumac—have greater antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties than popular foods like pomegranates and blueberries.

    Studies have shown sorghum is beneficial for a variety of conditions, from helping to lower blood sugar to helping reduce the risk of some cancers.

    Helps Lower Blood Sugar

    Its low glycemic index level means that sorghum digests more slowly than other grains, helping release glucose into the body gradually, which is especially helpful for those with diabetes.

    A small randomized-controlled trial using healthy men set out to evaluate the effect of grain sorghum on blood glucose and insulin levels after eating. The men consumed either whole wheat (used as the control) or grain sorghum muffins, and their glucose and insulin levels were measured “15 minutes before and 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120, 180 minutes after consumption.”

    Researchers found an average of 35 percent reduced blood glucose in the men eating the sorghum muffins. Insulin responses were also significantly reduced with the sorghum muffins versus the control. The results led the researchers to conclude that grain sorghum can “assist in managing glucose and insulin levels in healthy individuals.”

    Supports Heart Health

    Keeping blood moving freely throughout the circulatory system is vital for a healthy heart, and heart disease remains the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. Aspirin is commonly prescribed for those with heart conditions and for those at risk of developing the disease to thin the blood and prevent dangerous blood clots from forming.

    According to data from the National Institutes of Health, approximately 29 million Americans “who don’t have cardiovascular disease take aspirin daily for prevention.”

    In a study published in Nutrients in 2020, researchers took blood samples from 18 healthy volunteers and treated them with various levels of black sorghum extract to observe their effect on blood clotting. The extract “significantly reduced both collagen-induced platelet aggregation and circulatory PMP [platelet-derived microparticles] release compared to the control,” meaning they reduced blood clotting.

    Based on the results, the study concluded that the black sorghum extract may have cardioprotective effects by “modulating specific signaling pathways involved in platelet activation and PMP release.”

    Sorghum May Help Reduce the Risk of Some Cancers

    Studies suggest that sorghum may also have anticancer effects.

    A study using human breast cancer xenografts in mice (human breast cancer implanted into mice) found that sorghum could suppress tumor growth and inhibit migration and metastasis of human breast cancer cells. The researchers concluded by “strongly recommending” sorghum (Hwanggeumchal sorghum) as an “edible therapeutic agent” for its “tumor suppression, migration inhibition, and anti-metastatic effects on breast cancer.”

    Another study set out to test the anticancer effects of a “high phenolic sorghum bran extract” on human colon cancer cells. The study found that colon cancer cells treated with the extract demonstrated a “significant dose-dependent suppression of cell proliferation.” The extract also induced apoptosis (cell death) and inhibited cell growth, migration, and invasion. Researchers noted that “the present study expands our understanding of the potential use of high phenolic sorghum bran to prevent human colon cancer.”

    In a third study using a mouse model, “high-phenolic sorghum bran extracts” inhibited the spread and induced apoptosis (cell death) in colorectal cancer cell lines. The extract also activated AMPK (a tumor suppressor) and autophagy (a healthy cell’s natural recycling process that removes unwanted or defective parts). Six weeks of treatment with the extract was shown to “significantly suppress tumor formation.”

    More research on human subjects is needed, but the initial research on animal models and in humans is promising.

    How to Use Sorghum and Where to Find it

    Sorghum is highly versatile and available in most health food stores and online as a grain, flour, and, increasingly, in a wide variety of products like popcorn, pasta, cereal, and bread. Dr. Gundry has a section on his website listing recommended products, including some made with sorghum, like spaghetti.

    For anyone looking to introduce a healthier whole grain into their diet or those trying to avoid gluten due to sensitivities—you don’t have to give up grains completely—sorghum is a wonderful, nutrient-packed option, high in protein and fiber, with many health benefits.

    “For those people who cannot give up grains, sorghum is the perfect replacement. Plus, for people who cannot give up popcorn, Popped sorghum tastes like, smells like, looks like popcorn! My wife is addicted to it!” Dr. Gundry says.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 22:20

  • Egypt Saw Gas Trade With Israel Soar In 2023, As Economy Falters 
    Egypt Saw Gas Trade With Israel Soar In 2023, As Economy Falters 

    Via The Cradle

    Israel’s NewMed Energy reported on Tuesday that natural gas exports from the Leviathan field to Egypt increased by 28 percent in 2023. The company reports that the exports jumped from 4.9 billion cubic meters (BCM) in 2022 to 6.3 BCM in 2023. 

    Israel Katz, former energy minister, approved the increase in exports to Egypt last year. For 2026, he projected an annual production increase of six BCM – about 60 percent over the current volume. “3.5 BCM of which will be directed in favor of Egypt,” the report stated. 

    Image source: Albatross

    “The expansion of the total export quota to Egypt was increased by 38.7 BCM over 11 years,” the Israeli Ministry of Energy’s August announcement read. “The export permit was granted under the comprehensive framework approved by government decisions … and in consultation with the Director of the Natural Gas Authority. In addition, an additional increase of 0.5 BCM per year is being considered.”

    The ministry noted that, in addition to enabling production expansion, the new exports are expected to derive billions of dollars in bonus revenues for Israel, increase energy ties with Egypt and other regional players, and strengthen Israel’s geopolitical status.

    Furthermore, the report adds that “on December 14, 2023, the partners in the Tamar reservoir announced that the Ministry of Energy approved them to increase the export permit of the reservoir from 38.7 BCM … to 43 BCM. This amount will make it possible to increase the maximum amount of additional gas allowed for export to Egypt from 3.5 BCM per year to 4 BCM per year. As of the valuation date, no agreement has yet been signed. The export is subject to the aforementioned export permit.”

    NewMed reported that Leviathan’s partners, including Chevron, will invest $568 million to upgrade the field. In the latter half of 2025, annual production will increase from 12 BCM to 14 BCM. The company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $102 million, down significantly from $141 million the previous year.

    Egypt–Israel tensions have been on the rise in recent months over Tel Aviv’s plan to push Gazans into the Sinai Peninsula to continue with their plan of invading Rafah. 

    Cairo has called on Washington, which has previously condemned the plan, to send a clear message to its regional ally not to move forward with the Rafah invasion. It says that “it is not enough to state opposition; it is also important to indicate what if that position is circumvented, what if that position is not respected.”

    However, following multiple investment deals into Egypt by other regional allies of Israel and a boost in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to be granted to Egypt, the North African nation is constructing an “isolated security zone,” something which local rights groups are calling Cairo’s preparation for an influx of Palestinian refugees.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 22:00

  • Woman Who Worked For Congress After Jan. 6 Charged In Capitol Breach
    Woman Who Worked For Congress After Jan. 6 Charged In Capitol Breach

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

    A woman who worked for multiple members of Congress after the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol has been charged with participating in the breach.

    Isabella DeLuca was arrested in Irvine, California on March 15 on charges of theft of government property, parading in a Capitol building, and disorderly conduct in a restricted building and in the Capitol, according to court documents that were unsealed on Monday.

    Surveillance footage reviewed by the FBI showed a woman matching Ms. DeLuca’s appearances in and around the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to one filing. The video showed her moving from the Capitol’s terrace to the Capitol, entering the building through a broken window, and helping people steal furniture, including a lamp and chair.

    Ms. DeLuca later posted on social media that she was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    She faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

    Ms. DeLuca became an intern for then-Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) in April 2021, according to archived screenshots of her LinkedIn profile. Ms. DeLuca was employed by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from 2022 through early 2023, according to congressional salary records.

    Ms. DeLuca later went on to work as a media associate for The Gold Institute for International Strategy.

    A spokesperson for the institute told the Associated Press that the organization learned on Monday that Ms. DeLuca was charged.

    “Following further internal investigation, we felt it necessary to sever our relationship,” the spokesperson said.

    Ms. DeLuca wrote on X after the charges were unsealed, “Thank you everyone for all the kind messages and the support.” She asked for donations to cover her legal defense.

    Mr. Zeldin did not respond to a request for comment.

    “Isabella DeLuca was an intern in Congressman Gosar’s office for three months beginning in the Fall of 2022. We have no knowledge of any alleged participation in activities on January 6, 2021,” Anthony Foti, a spokesperson for Mr. Gosar, told The Epoch Times via email.

    Tip

    The FBI first received a tip on Jan. 9, 2021, about Ms. DeLuca being part of the breach, and interviewed her on Jan. 21, 2021. Ms. DeLuca and her mother, who also spoke to the FBI that day, said Ms. DeLuca was at the Capitol but did not enter the building, according to the FBI.

    Bank records obtained by the FBI showed Ms. DeLuca paid for a train ticket to Washington on Jan. 5 and stayed at a hotel room in Alexandria, Virginia. Her credit card showed purchases in Washington on Jan. 6 within two miles of the Capitol.

    The FBI in 2022 obtained a search warrant for Ms. DeLuca’s Instagram account, which showed her asking for a ride from Baltimore, Maryland after the train broke down and that she got one to Alexandria on early Jan. 6, 2021.

    The FBI in December 2023 interviewed workers at the apartment building where Ms. DeLuca lives and an employee identified Ms. DeLuca in photographs from the Capitol.

    Messages, Posts

    Ms. DeLuca posted on Twitter on Jan. 6, 2021, at 2:55 p.m., “Fight back or let politicians steal and [sic] election? Fight back!”

    She told another Instagram user shortly after that she was heading to the Capitol.

    After the events captured by video, other Instagram messages obtained by the FBI showed Ms. DeLuca wrote in messages that “it’s insanity here” and “I got maced and had a sound bomb go off right next to me.” Early the next day, she wrote in another message that the reason she supported breaching the Capitol was, “According to the Constitution, it’s our house.”

    “I was there on Jan. 6. I have mixed feelings. People went to the Capitol building because that’s Our House and that’s where we go to take our grievances. People feel, as do I that an election was stolen from them and it was allowed,” she added in a Jan. 14, 2021, social media post.

    Ms. DeLuca later deleted many Instagram posts from on and around Jan. 6, 2021, according to the FBI. “Based on my knowledge, training, and experience, people who commit criminal acts will often delete information about those acts from social media accounts in an attempt to thwart any subsequent criminal investigation,” a

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 21:40

  • FBI Has To Face Lawsuit Over 'No-Fly List:' Supreme Court
    FBI Has To Face Lawsuit Over ‘No-Fly List:’ Supreme Court

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

    The FBI must face a lawsuit filed by a Muslim man who has since been removed from the bureau’s “no-fly list,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 19.

    “The government has failed to demonstrate that this case is moot,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a unanimous ruling.

    “While the government’s representation that it will not relist Mr. Fikre may mean that his past conduct is not enough to warrant relisting, that does not speak to whether the government might relist him if he engages in the same or similar conduct in the future,” he added later.

    The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Jan. 2, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Yonas Fikre, a Eritrean national and American citizen, sued the FBI in 2015 after having issues traveling due to being on the no-fly list, which is part of the government’s terrorist screening database. It bars certain people from flying.

    “The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision is a major blow to the lawlessness that has allowed the FBI to amass almost two million people on their secret lists. This is but the latest indication that the FBI’s secret watchlists have no place in our country,” Gadeir Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing Mr. Fikre, told The Epoch Times in an email.

    Government officials did not respond to requests for comment.

    Told He Couldn’t Return

    Mr. Fikre experienced problems flying, including when he traveled to Sudan in 2009 from Oregon, according to court papers.

    While in Sudan at the U.S. embassy there, two FBI agents told Mr. Fikre he could not return to the United States since he was on the no-fly list. The agents also asked him about the mosque he attended and offered to look into having him removed from the list if he became a bureau informant.

    Mr. Fikre refused.

    Mr. Fikre then went to the United Arab Emirates, where he allegedly was detained for months on direction from the FBI. He eventually ended up in Sweden.

    The government in 2015 declined to remove Mr. Fikre from the last, alleging he “is an individual who represents a threat of engaging in or conducting a violent act of terrorism and who is operationally capable of doing so.” The information supporting placing and keeping Mr. Fikre on the last was too sensitive to share, the government said at the time.

    Mr. Fikre then filed the suit.

    Case Dismissed Before

    In 2016, the FBI told Mr. Fikre it removed him from the no-fly list because “he no longer satisfied the criteria for placement on the on-fly list.”

    The bureau then asked a federal court to dismiss the case, claiming the removal meant the suit had become moot.

    The U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled for the government. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the decision because, it said, there was nothing to prevent the government from putting Mr. Fikre back on the list in the future.

    After the government swore it would not do that, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman, appointed under President George W. Bush entered an order dismissing the case.

    But the appeals court again overturned the lower court decision, finding that the court wrongly dismissed the claims and that the government had not provided enough information on why Mr. Fikre was placed on and then removed from the list. It remanded the case back to the district court.

    The government then appealed the ruling, asking the Supreme Court to step in.

    “The court of appeals erred in holding that respondent’s claims challenging his placement on the No Fly List are not moot even though he was removed from that list seven years ago and the government has submitted a sworn declaration stating that he ‘will not be placed on the No Fly List in the future based on the currently available information,’” government lawyers said. “The court’s holding directly conflicts with decisions of the Fourth and Sixth Circuits that have found similar No Fly List claims moot upon the execution of declarations materially identical to the one in this case.”

    More on SCOTUS Ruling

    The Supreme Court, though, said that the government was wrong.

    “The government contends that because Mr. Fikre has been delisted since 2016 and has presumably interacted freely with his co-religionists during that time, it is unlikely he will face relisting in the future. This too is insufficient to warrant dismissal,” Justice Gorsuch, appointed by President Donald Trump, said.

    “A defendant’s speculation about a plaintiff’s actions cannot make up for a lack of assurance about its own. The burden here is on the defendant to establish that it cannot reasonably be expected to resume its challenged conduct, and nothing the government offers here satisfies that formidable standard,” he added.

    In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, appointed by President Bush, said the ruling did not mean the government must disclose classified information to Mr. Fikre, his attorneys, or a court.

    Justice Alito was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by President Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 21:00

  • Young People Aren't Nearly Angry Enough About Government Debt
    Young People Aren’t Nearly Angry Enough About Government Debt

    Authored by The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Young people sometimes seem to wake up in the morning in search of something to be outraged about. We are among the wealthiest and most educated humans in history. But we’re increasingly convinced that we’re worse off than our parents were, that the planet is in crisis, and that it’s probably not worth having kids.

    I’ll generalize here about my own cohort (people born after 1981 but before 2010), commonly referred to as Millennials and Gen Z, as that shorthand corresponds to survey and demographic data. Millennials and Gen Z have valid economic complaints, and the conditions of our young adulthood perceptibly weakened traditional bridges to economic independence. We graduated with record amounts of student debt after President Obama nationalized that lending. Housing prices doubled during our household formation years due to zoning impediments and chronic underbuilding. Young Americans say economic issues are important to us, and candidates are courting our votes by promising student debt relief and cheaper housing (which they will never be able to deliver).

    Young people, in our idealism and our rational ignorance of the actual appropriations process, typically support more government intervention, more spending programs, and more of every other burden that has landed us in such untenable economic circumstances to begin with. Perhaps not coincidentally, young people who’ve spent the most years in the increasingly partisan bubble of higher education are also the most likely to favor expanded government programs as a “solution” to those complaints.

    It’s Your Debt, Boomer 

    What most young people don’t yet understand is that we are sacrificing our young adulthood and our financial security to pay for debts run up by Baby Boomers. Part of every Millennial and Gen-Z paycheck is payable to people the same age as the members of Congress currently milking this system and miring us further in debt.

    Our government spends more than it can extract from taxpayers. Social Security, which represents 20 percent of government spending, has run an annual deficit for 15 years. Last year Social Security alone overspent by $22.1 billion. To keep sending out checks to retirees, Social Security goes begging to the Treasury Department, and the Treasury borrows from the public by issuing bonds. Bonds allow investors (who are often also taxpayers) to pay for some retirees’ benefits now, and be paid back later. But investors only volunteer to lend Social Security the money it needs to cover its bills because the (younger) taxpayers will eventually repay the debt — with interest.

    In other words, both Social Security and Medicare, along with various smaller federal entitlement programs, together comprising almost half of the federal budget, have been operating for a decade on the principle of “give us the money now, and stick the next generation with the check.” We saddle future generations with debt for present-day consumption.

    The second largest item in the budget after Social Security is interest on the national debt — largely on Social Security and other entitlements that have already been spent. These mandatory benefits now consume three quarters of the federal budget: even Congress is not answerable for these programs. We never had the chance for our votes to impact that spending (not that older generations were much better represented) and it’s unclear if we ever will.

    Young Americans probably don’t think much about the budget deficit (each year’s overspending) or the national debt (many years’ deficits put together, plus interest) much at all. And why should we? For our entire political memory, the federal government, as well as most of our state governments, have been steadily piling “public” debt upon our individual and collective heads. That’s just how it is. We are the frogs trying to make our way in the watery world as the temperature ticks imperceptibly higher. We have been swimming in debt forever, unaware that we’re being economically boiled alive.

    Millennials have somewhat modest non-mortgage debt of around $27,000 (some self-reports say twice that much), including car notes, student loans, and credit cards. But we each owe more than $100,000 as a share of the national debt. And we don’t even know it.

    When Millennials finally do have babies (and we are!) that infant born in 2024 will enter the world with a newly minted Social Security Number and $78,089 credit card bill for Granddad’s heart surgery and the interest on a benefit check that was mailed when her parents were in middle school. 

    Headlines and comments sections love to sneer at “snowflakes” who’ve just hit the “real world,” and can’t figure out how to make ends meet, but the kids are onto something. A full 15 percent of our earnings are confiscated to pay into retirement and healthcare programs that will be insolvent by the time we’re old enough to enjoy them. The Federal Reserve and government debt are eating the economy. The same interest rates that are pushing mortgages out of reach are driving up the cost of interest to maintain the debt going forward. As we learn to save and invest, our dollars are slowly devalued. We’re right to feel trapped.  

    Sure, if we’re alive and own a smartphone, we’re among the one percent of the wealthiest humans who’ve ever lived. Older generations could argue (persuasively!) that we have no idea what “poverty” is anymore. But with the state of government spending and debt…we are likely to find out. 

    Despite being richer than Rockefeller, Millennials are right to say that the previous ways of building income security have been pushed out of reach. Our earning years are subsidizing not our own economic coming-of-age, but bank bailouts, wars abroad, and retirement and medical benefits for people who navigated a less-challenging wealth-building landscape. 

    Redistribution goes both ways. Boomers are expected to pass on tens of trillions in unprecedented wealth to their children (if it isn’t eaten up by medical costs, despite heavy federal subsidies) and older generations’ financial support of the younger has had palpable lifting effects. Half of college costs are paid by families, and the trope of young people moving back home is only possible if mom and dad have the spare room and groceries to make that feasible.

    Government “help” during COVID-19 resulted in the worst inflation in 40 years, as the federal government spent $42,000 per citizen on “stimulus” efforts, right around a Millennial’s average salary at that time. An absurd amount of fraud was perpetrated in the stimulus to save an economy from the lockdown that nearly ruined it. Trillions in earmarked goodies were rubber stamped, carelessly added to young people’s growing bill. Government lenders deliberately removed fraud controls, fearing they couldn’t hand out $800 billion in young people’s future wages away fast enough. Important lessons were taught by those programs. The importance of self-sufficiency and the dignity of hard work weren’t top of the list.

    Boomer Benefits are Stagnating Hiring, Wages, and Investment for Young People

    Even if our workplace engagement suffered under government distortions, Millennials continue to work more hours than other generations and invest in side hustles and self employment at higher rates. Working hard and winning higher wages almost doesn’t matter, though, when our purchasing power is eaten from the other side. Buying power has dropped 20 percent in just five years. Life is $11,400/year more expensive than it was two years ago and deficit spending is the reason why. 

    We’re having trouble getting hired for what we’re worth, because it costs employers 30 percent more than just our wages to employ us. The federal tax code both requires and incentivizes our employers to transfer a bunch of what we earned directly to insurance companies and those same Boomer-busted federal benefits, via tax-deductible benefits and payroll taxes. And the regulatory compliance costs of ravenous bureaucratic state. The price paid by each employer to keep each employee continues to rise — but Congress says your boss has to give most of the increase to someone other than you. 

    Federal spending programs that many people consider good government, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurance for children (CHIP) aren’t a small amount of the federal budget. Government spends on these programs because people support and demand them, and because cutting those benefits would be a re-election death sentence. That’s why they call cutting Social Security the “third rail of politics.” If you touch those benefits, you die. Congress is held hostage by Baby Boomers who are running up the bill with no sign of slowing down. 

    Young people generally support Social Security and the public health insurance programs, even though a 2021 poll by Nationwide Financial found 47 percent of Millennials agree with the statement “I will not get a dime of the Social Security benefits I have earned.”

    In the same survey, Millennials were the most likely of any generation to believe that Social Security benefits should be enough to live on as a sole income, and guessed the retirement age was 52 (it’s 67 for anyone born after 1959 — and that’s likely to rise). Young people are the most likely to see government guarantees as a valid way to live — even though we seem to understand that those promises aren’t guarantees at all.

    Healthcare costs tied to an aging population and wonderful-but-expensive growth in medical technologies and medications will balloon over the next few years, and so will the deficits in Boomer benefit programs. Newly developed obesity drugs alone are expected to add $13.6 billion to Medicare spending. By 2030, every single Baby Boomer will be 65, eligible for publicly funded healthcare.

    The first Millennial will be eligible to claim Medicare (assuming the program exists and the qualifying age is still 65, both of which are improbable) in 2046. As it happens, that’s also the year that the Boomer benefits programs (which will then be bloated with Gen Xers) and the interest payments we’re incurring to provide those benefits now, are projected to consume 100 percent of federal tax revenue.

    Government spending is being transferred to bureaucrats and then to the beneficiaries of government spending who are, in some sense, your diabetic grandma who needs a Medicare-paid dialysis treatment, but in a much more immediate sense, are the insurance companies, pharma giants, and hospital corporations who wrote the healthcare legislation. Some percentage of every college graduate’s paycheck buys bullets that get fired at nothing and inflating the private investment portfolios of government contractors, with dubious, wasteful outcomes from the prison-industrial complex to the perpetual war machine.

    No bank or nation in the world can lend the kind of money the American government needs to borrow to fulfill its obligations to citizens. Someone will have to bite the bullet. Even some of the co-authors of the current disaster are wrestling with the truth. 

    Forget avocado toast and streaming subscriptions. We’re already sensing it, but we haven’t yet seen it. Young people are not well-informed, and often actively misled, about what’s rotten in this economic system. But we are seeing the consequences on store shelves and mortgage contracts and we can sense disaster is coming. We’re about to get stuck with the bill.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 20:20

  • BlackRock Seeds Ethereum-Backed Digital Liquidity Fund With $100 Million
    BlackRock Seeds Ethereum-Backed Digital Liquidity Fund With $100 Million

    Having surpassed Microstrategy in the size of its holdings amid the furious success of spot bitcoin ETFs…

    …the world’s largest asset manager has taken “the next step forward” toward a single ledger, instantaneous settlement and ending illicit activities, in the view of CEO Larry Fink.

    BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has filed United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Form D for the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund. This marks the launch of BlackRock’s first tokenized asset fund.

    CoinTelegraph’s Derek Andersen reports that. according to the filing, BlackRock created the fund in 2023, but has yet to launch it. Form D is used to obtain various exemptions. BlackRock indicated that it is seeking an exemption under the Investment Company Act Section 3(c), which exempts it from certain SEC regulations. The fund was created under the jurisdiction of the British Virgin Islands.

    The fund will have a $100,000 minimum investment and be offered by Securitize, a U.S. digital assets securities firm, which will also conduct the sale of the tokens. The form shows $525,000 in sales commissions, and indicates the size of the fund as “indefinite.” The form was signed on March 14.

    The fund will be tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain with an ERC-20 token called BUIDL, which currently has one holder and a $0 on-chain market cap, according to Etherscan.

    That website also indicated that the fund received a transfer of $100 million on March 4.

    BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund’s SEC filing. Source: SEC

     Securitize is registered as a stock transfer agent and alternative trading system with the SEC.

    Source: @rleshner on X

    It has tokenized assets for asset manager KKR and Spanish real estate investment trust Mancipi, as well as formed a partnership with SBI Digital Markets in Singapore and bought cryptocurrency fund manager Onramp Invest, which had over $40 billion in assets under management.

    BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund was among the first to receive SEC approval in January. Its CEO Larry Fink, who has been generally bullish about BTC, with reservations, told Bloomberg just after the ETF approval:

    “We believe the next step going forward will be the tokenization of financial assets, and that means every stock, every bond […] will be on one general ledger.”

    “Every investor, you and I, will have our own number, our own identification. We could rid ourselves of all issues around illicit activities about bonds and stocks and digital by having a tokenization,” Fink added.

    He went on to praise customization strategies through tokenization and instantaneous settlement.

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

    As we detailed previously, the bottom line is that while Bitcoin was the pioneer in Wall Street’s institutionalization race, having seen the startling success of bitcoin ETF adoption, the financial titans including Goldman, Blackrock – and now – JPM, have set their sights on what comes next, which is something near and dear to the people who manage trillions: the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to tokenize everything, from information, to data, to money itself. And they have picked the token to do it with.

    So keep a close eye on what happens on May 23 when the SEC is reportedly pushing hard against ETF approval for the second biggest digital asset: with all three of the largest US financial institutions pushing hard, any resistance will die a quick and painless death.

    More in the full notes from JPM, Std Chartered and Goldman

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 20:00

  • It’s Time For GOP To Unite Behind Trump
    It’s Time For GOP To Unite Behind Trump

    Authored by Bernie Marcus via RealClear Wire,

    For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy. I see the federal government using its enormous powers with contempt for the governed instead of with the consent of the governed as our founders envisioned.

    Fundamental change in America is occurring by executive order or the force of the government’s police powers instead of through the legislative process required by the Constitution. From this, I fear that free market capitalism may be replaced by big government socialism. I also fear the erosion of our rights and freedoms, including parental rights, freedom of speech and religion, and due process.   

    In the past, I always had the confidence that a president who was a threat to democracy could be voted out of office in the next election. I am no longer that confident today. My lack of confidence is because the media today is not the watchdog over government that our Founders intended it to be. It is instead the lapdog of government, shielding the public from the entire truth about the policies and actions of the current administration.

    One vivid example of this became a meme: the television reporters declaring while doing their standups that the riots in 2020 were “mainly peaceful” as fires raged in the background. I was not surprised earlier this month by the reprise of “Russia collusion.” Nor will I  be surprised if the media soon characterizes a Trump rally as an “insurrection.” The media may be the biggest threat to our democracy since only well-informed voters guarantee the future of it.

    There is more on the line in this year’s presidential election than ever before. It is a mistake to assume that this election will be a rerun of 2020. The presumptive nominees and the world have changed since then. President Biden can no longer portray himself as “kindly Uncle Joe” or a moderate Democrat. His recent State of the Union Address, which was the most divisive of any I recall, reveals he is a very angry man and not someone Americans would want as their uncle. His policies and the undemocratic means by which he implemented them confirm he has been pulled to the far left by far-left extremists in the Democrat Party. 

    The Biden administration’s policies invited an invasion along our southern border by millions of unvetted people, compromised national security, allowed crime to spin out of control in our streets, forced middle-class Americans to raid their retirement funds to put food on their tables, and divided America more than at any time in our history since the Civil War. Joe Biden has fulfilled Barack Obama’s promise to “transform” America. This is not a welcome transformation, as confirmed by Biden’s dismal job approval ratings.

    When Donald Trump was in office, his Democrats and their media allies portrayed him as a pugnacious New Yorker who “did not act presidential” and somehow craved dictatorial powers. They’re still doing this, although they’ve upped the rhetoric. Over the weekend, Nancy Pelosi invoked Adolf Hitler while attacking the former president.

    His detractors are unwilling to look past Trump’s rough edges and see the results he achieved during his first of what I hope will be two terms. His policies achieved the highest wage rate in 50 years while keeping inflation in check, the lowest unemployment rate for minorities, and energy independence for America, among other stunning results. Moreover, his policies and the projection of his and America’s strength kept the country out of any new foreign conflicts. It is essential to our national security that America’s enemies fear our president.

    This does not mean that President Trump did not have to do better. He did, and he has done so since leaving office. Having become close to him in the last seven years, I have seen a side of him that is not seen by the public. He is truly one of the most misunderstood men in America, and I and other friends of his have urged him to let the public see the real Donald Trump. His recent praise of Nikki Haley was unifying and shows the magnanimous side of him that his friends often see. Expect more of the real Donald Trump to emerge.

    The world has also changed since 2020. It is much less safe, and America’s enemies have become stronger and more emboldened. China, Iran, and Russia have become enriched by changes in America’s energy policy: canceling the Keystone Pipeline, reducing oil drilling leases, and blocking all oil drilling on certain federal lands. America’s cities are less safe because of the illegal entry into the country of millions of unvetted people from China, Russia, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. This is compounded by the unwillingness of local Democratic Party prosecutors to prosecute violent criminals. Moreover, the Taliban have reopened terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. The stakes now are even higher than the first Trump-Biden match. 

    The running mate who Donald Trump picks will be more important than in prior elections. Although he proved in his first term that he is the most capable person to solve America’s problems, it will likely take more than four years to solve the mountain of problems America now faces.

    There are several actions conservative donors should take to ensure that Trump-Biden II will have a different outcome than their first match. First, the different factions of the Republican Party must unite behind Trump and participate fully in the presidential election. Put another way, no one should sit out the presidential election or withhold their financial support to our nominee.

    Second, those who have supported constitutionally dubious schemes like invoking the 14th Amendment to try to keep Trump off the ballot should discontinue such efforts.

    Third, conservative donors should fund efforts to fill holes in Republican election strategies. There are, for example, gaps between Democrat and Republican efforts on early voting for low-propensity voters.  Democrats have a tremendous advantage here. There are also gaps in election mechanics, e.g., Zuckbucks are still flowing into some of the battleground states.

    Fourth, Democrats have a consequential advantage in the youth vote – there is a ceiling at 35% of millennial and Gen-Z voters casting votes for the Republican nominee in the last three presidential elections. Glenn Youngkin proved that this gap can be narrowed as he split the youth vote with Terry McAuliffe in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election. The key to reaching and persuading young voters is more influential messengers, more impactful messages, and “clean” message distribution channels.

    America is worth saving!

    Bernie Marcus is the co-founder of Job Creators Network, a philanthropist, and the retired co-founder of The Home Depot.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 19:40

  • Bill Gates-Backed Company Seeks To Deploy Small Modular Nuclear Reactors In U.S.
    Bill Gates-Backed Company Seeks To Deploy Small Modular Nuclear Reactors In U.S.

    A company founded by Bill Gates is planning on being the first to build a new generation of nuclear power plants based on small modular reactors (SMRs) in the United States. These plans usually have a power capacity of 300MW or less, which is about 1/3rd of regular reactors. 

    TerraPower has officially “joined the race” against Russia and China to develop lower-cost nuclear reactors, according to FT this week.

    CEO Chris Levesque said they are seeking US regulatory approval for their innovative liquid sodium-cooled reactor this month. The Natrium reactors could be constructed at nearly half the cost of traditional water-cooled nuclear reactors.

    TerraPower, which has secured nearly $1bn in private investments, has also partnered with the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation to explore the deployment of Natrium reactors in the UAE for electricity and hydrogen production.

    With up to $2bn in promised support from the US government, the company is advancing its inaugural project in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Despite pending permits, construction near a former coal power site will start in June, focusing on preliminary, non-nuclear structures. TerraPower aims to activate the plant by 2030, according to the report. 

    Levesque told FT: “When you use liquid sodium as a coolant instead of water it’s a game-changer. Natrium plants will cost half of what light water reactor plants cost . . . and we are moving our project along pretty aggressively.”

    FT reports that American firms are striving to match their counterparts in Russia and China, who have already operationalized two Small Modular Reactor (SMR) plants. These include a floating plant in Pevek, Russia, and another in Shidao Bay, China.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. nuclear sector is hindered by elevated interest rates, surging expenses, and a scarcity of the enriched uranium needed for new reactors – not to mention the far left ‘woke’ crowd who continues to protest due to ‘safety concerns’ about what is really the safest, most efficient and greenest way to generate power…

    FT notes that in November, rising costs led NuScale, an Oregon company, to scrap its plans for America’s inaugural SMR after utilities balked at a proposed 50% price hike.

    TerraPower has yet to quote prices for its Natrium-generated power. Its Kemmerer reactor, initially a demonstration, aims for full-scale commercial operation. In October 2022, TerraPower and PacifiCorp, part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, announced plans to explore the deployment of five more Natrium reactors by 2035.

    “Sodium-cooled reactors operate at lower pressures, which requires fewer safety systems. That reduces problems that could go wrong with the plant and reduces costs because they can be built with simpler materials while maintaining safety,” concluded Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at The Breakthrough Institute.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 19:20

  • Trump Sues ABC News, Host George Stephanopoulos For Defamation
    Trump Sues ABC News, Host George Stephanopoulos For Defamation

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

    Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday against the American Broadcasting Companies (ABC) and ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, accusing them of defamation.

    Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump speaks in the library, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 4, 2024. (Alon Skuy/Getty Images)

    The complaint alleges that Mr. Stephanopoulos defamed President Trump on March 10, during an episode of “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” when he repeatedly stated during the broadcast that a jury had found President Trump liable for the rape of writer E. Jean Carroll, despite being “aware of the truth.”

    “These statements were and remain false, and were made by Defendant Stephanopoulos with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth given that Defendant Stephanopoulos knows that these statements are patently and demonstrably false,” the complaint reads.

    President Trump’s complaint alleges that Mr. Stephanopoulos was aware that the jury did not find the former president liable for rape, “yet still falsely stated otherwise.”

    Mr. Stephanopoulos made these allegedly defamatory statements “within the scope and course of his employment or contractual relationship” with ABC and “with intent to harm” President Trump.

    The filing outlined two reasons to support the claim that the statements were made “with intent to harm” as being because the ABC host allegedly “was and is aware of the truth regarding the determinations made by the subject juries.”

    The additional reason outlined in the complaint alleges that Mr. Stephanopoulos’ statements “appear to have been prepared in advance and were written on notes that he was reading from while making these defamatory statements.”

    Ms. Carroll claimed that the alleged incident took place at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan more than two decades ago, but could not remember specifically when, according to the filing.

    President Trump has maintained his denial of the allegations.

    Statements Made During Rep. Mace Interview

    The incident at the heart of President Trump’s complaint happened on March 10, during an interview Mr. Stephanopoulos was conducting with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who was a victim of rape at the age of 16.

    During his preamble to introduce her, the ABC host played a clip of Ms. Mace speaking publicly during her 2019 campaign about the impact rape had on her.

    The program then cut to Mr. Stephanopoulos, who immediately directed statements to Ms. Mace about her support for President Trump despite a jury’s verdict in his civil case involving Ms. Carroll.

    Ms. Mace, who later described feeling blindsided by the questioning, accused Mr. Stephanopoulos during the interview with attempting to shame her as a victim of rape.

    George Stephanopoulos with Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey discuss “Build The Life You Want” at The 92nd Street Y, New York in New York City, on Sept. 12, 2023. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

    “You endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges in two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming a victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?” asked Mr. Stephanopoulos.

    Put immediately offside, Ms. Mace replied: “Well, I will tell you, I was raped at the age of 16, and any rape victim will tell you, I’ve lived for 30 years with an incredible amount of shame over being raped. I didn’t come forward because of that judgment and shame that I felt.

    “And it’s a shame that you will never feel, George, and I’m not going to sit here on your show and be asked a question meant to shame me about another potential rape victim. I’m not going to do that,” she continued.

    “It’s actually not about shaming you. It’s a question about Donald Trump.”

    “No, you are shaming me,” she insisted.

    “You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president,” he said.

    “Right.”

    “Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said. “Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge. He repeated—”

    Ms. Mace, cutting across his statement, said: “It’s not a criminal court case, number one. Number two, I live with shame, and you’re asking me a question about my political choices trying to shame me as a rape victim and find it disgusting.”

    As the heated exchange continued, Mr. Stephanopoulos denied that he was trying to shame Ms. Mace.

    “You’re trying to shame me this morning,” she said.

    “I’m just asking you—” said Mr. Stephanopoulos

    “And I find it offensive. And this is why women won’t come forward,” Ms. Mace said.

    “Women won’t come forward because they’re defamed by those who perpetrate rape. Donald Trump has been—” Mr. Stephanopoulos said.

    “They are judged, and they’re shamed, and you’re trying to shame me this morning. I think it’s disgusting,” Ms. Mace continued, speaking over the host.

    During his exchange, the more that Mr. Stephanopoulos defended himself against Ms. Mace’s accusations of shaming her, the more he repeated statements such as that President Trump was “found liable for rape.”

    “I’m asking you a very simple question, explain what—” the ABC host said.

    “And I answered it. You’re shaming me for my political choices,” Ms. Mace said.

    “No, I’m not—I’m asking you a question about why you endorsed someone who’s been found liable for rape. Just answer the question.”

    “It was not a criminal court. This was—this was a—it was a civil court,” she said.

    “It was a civil court that found him liable for rape,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said.

    The ABC host tried to move the discussion forward by noting that Ms. Mace was repeating the same statement about shaming her.

    “You’re questioning my political choices because I’ve been raped,” the South Carolina congresswoman charged. “I think that’s disgusting.”

    “No,” Mr. Stephanopoulos replied, “I’m questioning your political choices because you’re supporting someone who’s been found liable for rape.”

    The host pushed Ms. Mace to answer his question: “Why are you supporting someone who’s been found liable for rape?”

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    The congresswoman asserted that President Trump was found guilty of sexual abuse. “It wasn’t actually rape, by the way,” she added.

    Following the interview, Ms. Mace said she wouldn’t do an ABC interview again, telling NewsNation that she had come to discuss “Donald Trump versus Joe Biden and the 2024 race.”

    ABC declined to comment to The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 19:00

  • Colombian Drug Lord Arrested After Operating Out Of Texas Migrant Shelter
    Colombian Drug Lord Arrested After Operating Out Of Texas Migrant Shelter

    If you’ve ever traveled internationally and returned legally to the United States, there is a rigorous vetting process through Customs and Border Protection. But for the millions of migrants that illegally crossed into the US because of open southern border policies enforced by radical leftists in the White House (and secretly pushed by mega-corporations and NGOs), anyone is welcome, including terrorists and drug lords.

    Department of Homeland Security claims that migrants entering flooding into the US undergo “robust security vetting,” but law-abiding citizens, especially folks in Manhattan, know this statement is malarky as neighborhoods transform into third-world countries overnight.

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    Earlier this month, White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez doubled down on the big lie, claiming migrants “pass through a rigorous vetting process.”

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    The lack of vetting, whether at the southern or northern border, is producing tragic consequences nationwide.

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    The chaos is being realized as some illegals embark on rape and/or kill rampages. 

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    One of the most shocking revelations of the Biden administration’s failure to properly vet migrants was in San Antonio, Texas, where authorities recently arrested 29-year-old Aderbis Pirela, one of Interpol’s top 10 Most Wanted, for operating a drug ring within a migrant shelter, according to The National Desk.

    Pirela, the second-in-command of a violent Colombian gang, was wanted for four murders, drug trafficking, and warrants out of Bogota. The fact that the gangster made it into the US is evident in the lack of a “robust security vetting” process. 

    “This just goes to the heart of one of the main issues. The reality is every time Secretary Mayorkas or anybody from this administration tells the American people that we properly vet everyone before we release them is just a lie,” former Head of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan said. 

    Morgan continued: “They’re provided a false sense of security that doesn’t exist. The reality is there are many countries that illegal aliens are coming into our country from that we have zero diplomatic relationships with, and we’re getting nothing with respect to their criminal history.”

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    Some of those migrants entering the US are known terrorists. Nearly two dozen were caught attempting entry at the southern border at the end of last year. Currently, Iranian assassin(s) roam free in the US (read: here). And the surging terror threat is likely the real reason why New York City mobilized National Guard troops with machine guns to patrol subways. 

    The issue facing Biden and his loser party of woke communist radicals is these unvetted illegals are being dumped into once-peaceful neighborhoods across metro areas by the tens of thousands. Every death, every rape, every beating an illegal inflicts on anyone will boil in the veins of Americans as they will never forget the pain and suffering Democrats have caused by open borders. They will take this anger out at the ballot box on Nov. 5. Polling data shows Americans are overwhelmingly fed up with open borders. 

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    By the way, let’s not forget the names of the Americans whose lives were cut short by illegals. Say her name: “Laken Riley.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 18:40

  • Billionaire Investor To Back Donald Trump 2024
    Billionaire Investor To Back Donald Trump 2024

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz plans to vote for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race, citing President Joe Biden’s mental condition and immigration policies.

    Nelson Peltz, founding partner of Trian Fund Management LP., speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, Calif. on Oct. 25, 2016. (Mike Blake/Reuters)

    “It will probably be Trump and I’m not happy about that,” he told the Financial Times in an interview, adding that Biden’s “mental condition is really scary.” Furthermore, Mr. Peltz expressed his concern regarding the porous U.S. southern border, which has turned into a hot-button issue for both Republicans and Democrats in the election season.

    “We can’t go on letting everyone into this country . . . We have an immigration problem—it’s not a Republican or Democrat problem,” said Mr. Peltz. He expressed opposition to stopping immigration altogether but “I want some boundaries put on it so we know at least who we’re bringing in,” he said, according to the outlet.

    Illegal immigration has been a thorn in the side of Democrats, with the Biden administration’s policies being criticized for the massive amounts of inflows across the southern border. Former President Donald Trump said at a recent rally that one of the first things he would do once elected would be to end every single “open border policy of the Biden administration.”

    “That border was a tiny fraction of what this border is,” President Trump said. “This is the worst border in the history of the world.” Since President Joe Biden took office, there have been an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants who have crossed the border.

    Mr. Peltz is the founder of Trian Fund Management, an investment management firm with offices in New York and Florida. According to Forbes, the firm has $8.5 billion in assets under management, with Mr. Peltz currently worth around $1.7 billion.

    The billionaire is among President Trump’s neighbors in Palm Beach but has not spoken to the former president “in quite a while,” reported FT.

    Regarding President Biden’s mental acuity, “I don’t know what he knows and I don’t know what he doesn’t know.” said Mr. Peltz. “I don’t know who’s speaking for him and that’s troubling.” It is not clear whether he will donate to President Trump’s campaign.

    Mr. Peltz has been involved with activist investments for some time. In 2017, he fought and won a seat on the executive board of consumer goods conglomerate Proctor and Gamble. Currently, his focus is on Disney.

    Peltz Versus Disney

    Mr. Peltz’s investment firm Trian has been involved in a proxy battle with Disney for instituting the investor along with former Disney executive Jay Rasulo as board members. Trian currently holds approximately $3.5 billion of Disney stock. The media behemoth and the billionaire investor have been engaging shareholders for the requisite votes needed for the seats.

    Disney movies have been underperforming at the box office lately. Mr. Peltz says he wants to “restore the magic” in the company and outlined his visions in a detailed 133-page memo released earlier this month.

    Published by Trian to convince shareholders at the company’s annual meeting next month, the memo said that “Disney is the most advantaged consumer entertainment company in the world,” the company “lost its way” with a deterioration in financial performance, and ultimately loss amounting to tens of billions in shareholder value.

    “We believe the root cause of Disney’s underperformance is poor oversight from a Board that lacks focus, alignment and accountability.”

    The memo detailed how Disney competitors like Netflix and Amazon were faring much better with their content, and return on invested capital and margins.

    Trian blamed Disney for showing “no interest in meeting or inviting Nelson Peltz to interview with the Board or Governance and Nominating Committee.”

    Disney responded in a 66-page regulatory filing that Mr. Peltz and Mr. Rasulo were “not what Disney needs right now.” The company said their suggestions “are nothing new” and they did not understand the company’s challenges nor had the skills to promote Disney in its current situation.

    However, Mr. Peltz has been known to be persistent in achieving his objectives, as was revealed in 2006 with Heinz, in 2015 with Dupont, and in 2017 with P&G.

    Biden’s Mental Criticisms

    President Biden’s mental capabilities have been increasingly in the spotlight during the election season. His common gaffes and slurring of speech have raised concerns about his age even among those who supported him in 2020.

    According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, 61 percent of respondents believed President Biden was “just too old” to be an effective commander-in-chief.

    A February special counsel report described the 81-year-old president’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.”

    The Robert Hur report noted that President Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.

    In response to reporters’ questions about his memory, President Biden disputed the report’s statements and said he’s “the most qualified person in this country to be president.”

    The White House also pushed back on the characterizations of President Biden’s memory in a Feb. 5 letter from the president’s lawyers that was published in Hur’s report. The letter argues that the president’s “inability to recall dates or details of events that happened years ago is neither surprising nor unusual,” particularly about when certain documents were packed or moved.

    “We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate,” the letter said. “The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report.”

    “If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president. Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Make America Great Again Inc., the main super PAC backing Trump’s candidacy.

    The Associated Press contributed to the report.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 18:20

  • "It's Enraging": NYC Homeowner Arrested For Changing Locks After Squatters Take Over
    “It’s Enraging”: NYC Homeowner Arrested For Changing Locks After Squatters Take Over

    A woman who inherited a home in New York City full of people squatting illegally was arrested and led away in handcuffs after she changed the locks.

    Adele Andaloro, 47, was placed under arrest at her $1 million home in Flushing, Queens, which she inherited from her parents after they died.

    “It’s enraging,” Andaloro told the NY Post. “It’s not fair that I, as the homeowner, have to be going through this.“

    Andaloro claims the ordeal erupted when she started the process of trying to sell the home last month but realized squatters had moved in — and brazenly replaced the entire front door and locks.

    Fed up, she recently went to her family’s home on 160th Street — with the local TV outlet in tow — and called a locksmith to change the locks for her. -NY Post

    The spat with the squatters, which was caught on camera, rapidly erupted into a verbal altercation until the cops showed up and led Andaloro away – charging her with ‘unlawful eviction.’

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    As the Post notes, people can claim “squatter’s rights” if they’ve been squatting for just 30 days at a property. This makes it illegal for homeowners to change the locks, turn off the utilities, or remove the squatters’ belongings.

    “By the time someone does their investigation, their work, and their job, it will be over 30 days and this man will still be in my home,” Andaloro said. “I’m really fearful that these people are going to get away with stealing my home.”

    During the recent encounter at her home, Andaloro — who was armed with the deeds — was filmed entering the property after one of the apparent tenants left the front door open.

    After changing the locks, a man claiming to be on the lease — identified by the local outlet as Brian Rodriguez — returned to the property and barged through the front door.

    “You shouldn’t be trying to steal my house,” a furious Andaloro yelled at him during the caught-on-camera ordeal.

    Following a flurry of 911 calls, responding cops told Andaloro she had to sort the saga out in housing court because it was considered a “landlord-tenant issue.” -NY Post

    Andaloro says she’s now been forced to go through the court system to start an eviction filing to settle the landlord-tenant dispute.

    A man identified as Brian Rodriguez claims to be on the lease. (ABC7)

    As the Post further reports, this is the latest such incident – which comes weeks after a couple’s plan to move into a $2 million home in Douglaston, Queens with their disabled son was derailed by a squatter who claimed to have an agreement with the previous owner.

    In another incident, a squatter turned a Rockaways home into a ‘house of horrors‘ with over a dozen emaciated cats and dogs trapped inside.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 18:00

  • "That's Joe Biden?" Biden Family Associate Confirms Joe & Family Used Email-Aliases During Vice Presidency
    “That’s Joe Biden?” Biden Family Associate Confirms Joe & Family Used Email-Aliases During Vice Presidency

    Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Eric Schwerin, an associate of President Joe Biden and his family, appears to have confirmed allegations that the president and several of his family members relied on aliases and personal email accounts to communicate amongst themselves during his term as vice president.

    On June 6, 2015, Hunter Biden (L) kisses his nephew Hunter, son of Beau Biden, as they stand with Beau’s widow Hallie (3L), then-Vice President Joe Biden and Beau’s daughter Natalie before his funeral, at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

    In a transcribed interview conducted on Jan. 30 and released on Monday, Mr. Schwerin identified President Biden as the person behind at least two email aliases that were active between 2009 and 2017 during his time as vice president during the Obama administration. Mr. Schwerin’s testimony provides an added layer of confirmation to allegations Republican investigators have raised for months, that the president and his family concealed their communications through various assumed names.

    During the Jan. 30 interview, an investigator asked Mr. Schwerin whether an email account owner identified as “Robinware456” had any relation to President Biden. “Yes,” Mr. Schwerin said.

    “That’s Joe Biden?” the investigator asked, to which Mr. Schwerin replied, “Correct.”

    The same investigator then asked about another suspected alias name, “Hurricane5155.” Mr. Schwerin replied that he believed that account was operated by President Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden.

    Mr. Schwerin identified the alias “261penn” as the account of President Biden’s eldest son, Beau Biden.

    The investigator then asked about another account name, “Robert.L.Peters.” Mr. Schwerin replied that it was his understanding this account also belonged to then-Vice President Biden.

    “I never used that email, so I don’t know, but that’s my understanding from later on,” Mr. Schwerin said, when asked about the “RobertL.Peters” persona.

    Mr. Schwerin said he primarily communicated with President Biden through the “Robinware” persona.

    House investigators have previously uncovered more than 260 email communications in which “Robinware456” was either the sender or a recipient. “RobertL.Peters” was a recipient of at least 26 additional email communications uncovered by House investigators. The “Hurricane5155” and “261penn” personas appeared in hundreds of additional email chains involving White House staff accounts.

    These covert communications have been a point of focus for Republicans leading an ongoing impeachment inquiry into whether President Biden engaged in influence peddling with his family members throughout his political career.

    NTD News reached out to the White House for comment about these email aliases but did not receive a response by press time.

    Schwerin Denies Knowledge of Influence Peddling

    Mr. Schwerin testified that he became acquainted with the Biden family while working at the U.S. Commerce Department during the Clinton administration, during which time he met with then-Senator Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. After leaving this government position, Mr. Schwerin said he joined Hunter Biden at a law and lobbying firm and later co-founded the firm Rosemont Seneca Partners with Hunter Biden.

    Between 2009 and 2017, Mr. Schwerin testified that he performed “a number of administrative and bookkeeping tasks” for then-Vice President Biden, pertaining to his household finances.

    “In the course of performing these duties, I had the ability to view transactions both into and out of Vice President Biden’s bank accounts while he was Vice President,” Mr. Schwerin said in his opening statement during the Jan. 30 interview. “Based on that insight, I am not aware of any financial transactions or compensation that Vice President Biden received related to business conducted by any of his family members or their associates, nor any involvement by him in their businesses.”

    In his opening statement, Mr. Schwerin further denied any knowledge of President Biden taking any official action to benefit his family members.

    “I cannot recall any requests for Vice President Biden to take any official action on behalf of any of Hunter’s clients or his business deals, foreign or domestic,” Mr. Schwerin said.

    He said that throughout his interactions with then-Vice President Biden, the elder Biden was “always crystal-clear that he wanted to take the most transparent and ethical approach.”

    Mr. Schwerin testified that this bookkeeping work he did for then-Vice President Biden was free. He testified that he also expected no favors from the elder Biden for this bookkeeping work, nor did he elicit any favor or witness Hunter Biden elicit any favors.

    While performing these free bookkeeping services, Mr. Schwerin was appointed to the U.S. Commission on the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in 2015. He said he believed the role came about following a 2009 conversation with a member of then-Vice President Biden’s staff.

    “My assumption was that it was something that, you know, the Vice President had signed off on, but I would think it was someone from the staff who said, we can put your name forward to Presidential Personnel, and they would, you know, give you a call about this,” Mr. Schwerin said.

    During the interview, Mr. Schwerin also described working with Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden, helping connect Mr. Archer with Blue Star Strategies. Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden and Mr. Archer sat, retained Blue Star Strategies for lobbying services at a time when the company was dealing with investigations of its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

    Mr. Schwerin testified that he had access to Joe Biden’s bank accounts until some point “towards the end of 2017.” He testified that he could not recall having seen records for loans Joe Biden purportedly gave his brother, James Biden, which were purported to have been repaid in September 2017 and March 2018.

    From NTD News

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 17:40

  • Boycott Slams Planet Fitness Shares As Americans Fight Back Against Wokeism
    Boycott Slams Planet Fitness Shares As Americans Fight Back Against Wokeism

    Approaching the one-year mark since Bud Light’s controversial partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on TikTok, a nationwide boycott of the light beer – criticized for tasting like ‘piss water’ – has been relentless as blue-collar and white-collar conservative Americans stand up in unison, bounded by memes and the power of X, to protest their distaste for woke propaganda pushed by mega-corporations. 

    To this day, conservatives are on a warpath against the woke mind virus as it infects high-level executives of mega-corporations who have learned absolutely nothing from Bud Light nuking itself with Mulvaney. 

    The power of the people. Folks are beginning to understand this. 

    Last week, Americans began to boycott Tyson Foods for planning to fire at least a thousand hard-working Americans in which the company even said it was planning to hire tens of thousands of illegals through a shadowy non-government organization. 

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    Fast forward to this week, Americans are boycotting Planet Fitness for its move to defend its decision to ban the membership of a customer in Alaska who spoke out about a “man in women’s locker room shaving.”

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    Since the Libs of TikTok’s X post went viral, shares of Planet Fitness have plunged 14%. 

    This comes as Planet Fitness boycott calls increase by the day. 

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    When will these woke executives learn that catering to a fringe minority rather than the majority will only result in a blowback with customers? 

    Which index firm is going to create the ‘woke index’? 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 17:20

  • RNC Files Election Integrity Lawsuit Against Nevada Secretary Of State
    RNC Files Election Integrity Lawsuit Against Nevada Secretary Of State

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

    The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Nevada GOP have sued the Nevada Secretary of State, accusing the state’s top elections official of undermining voter confidence by failing to follow federal law on the proper maintenance of voter rolls.

    A voter returns a voter card after casting their ballot on the first day of in-person early voting inside a tent at a shopping center in Las Vegas on Oct. 22, 2022. (David Becker/Getty Images)

    The RNC filed its complaint on March 19 at the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, accusing Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar of failing to keep voter rolls accurate, in violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

    “Election integrity starts with clean voter rolls, and that’s why the National Voter Registration Act requires state officials to keep their rolls accurate and up-to-date,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.

    ‘Easier to Vote and Harder to Cheat’

    The NVRA requires that states maintain accurate and current voter registration rolls for federal elections. But the RNC said in its complaint that a half dozen Nevada counties have implausible voter registration rates.

    “At least three Nevada counties have more registered voters than they have adult citizens who are over the age of 18,” the complaint reads. “That number of voters is impossibly high.”

    The three Nevada counties in question are Douglas (104 percent), Lyon (105 percent), and Storey (113 percent).

    Another two Nevada counties have voter registration rates in excess of 90 percent of adult citizens over the age of 18: Carson City (92 percent) and Clark (91 percent).

    “That figure far eclipses the national and statewide voter registration rate in recent elections,” the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint.

    U.S. Census data released in May 2023 shows that the national voter registration rate for the 2022 Congressional election was 69.1 percent—the highest for a midterm election since 2000.

    Nevada’s statewide voter registration rates for the 2022 and the 2020 elections were 65.1 percent and 66.2 percent of the voting-age citizen population, per the complaint.

    Additionally, several Nevada counties have unusually high rates of inactive registrants: Elko (31 percent), Eureka (23 percent), Humboldt (26 percent), Lincoln (25 percent,), Mineral (30 percent), Nye (31 percent), Washoe (17 percent), and White Pine (23 percent).

    Some other counties have unusually low rates of removals from voter rolls, per the complaint.

    “Securing clean voter rolls in Nevada is a critical step towards ensuring that it will be easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Mr. Whatley said in a statement.

    The Nevada Secretary of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    ‘Protecting the Vote’

    The Nevada lawsuit comes after a recent leadership shakeup at the RNC saw Mr. Whatley become the chair and former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, take the post of co-chair.

    Both Mr. Whatley and Ms. Trump have said publicly that a key focus of theirs will be election integrity.

    The latest lawsuit marks the 81st case of election integrity litigation that the RNC has engaged in during the current election cycle.

    The RNC recently filed a similar lawsuit against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, accusing her of undermining public confidence in elections by failing to properly maintain voter rolls.

    An analysis by the RNC showed that 76 of Michigan’s 83 counties have inflated voter rolls, in violation of the NVRA. Among them, 53 counties have more active registered voters than voting-age U.S. citizens.

    “Jocelyn Benson has failed to follow the NVRA, leaving Michigan with inflated and inaccurate voter rolls ahead of the 2024 election,” Mr. Whatley said in an earlier statement.

    In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, Ms. Benson denounced the lawsuit as “meritless.”

    Ms. Benson added that more than 700,000 voter registrations have been canceled since she took office and another 520,000 have been slated for cancellation in 2025.

    “Federal data shows Michigan is the fifth most active state in the nation in removing the registrations of voters who have died,” she wrote.

    “Let’s call this what it is: a PR campaign masquerading as a meritless lawsuit filled with baseless accusations that seek to diminish people’s faith in the security of our elections,” Ms. Benson added.

    Focus on Election Integrity

    Ronna McDaniel left her post as RNC chair on March 8.

    In her final speech as the head of the organization, she said she believes Mr. Whatley will be “phenomenal” in the role and, in particular, on an issue that President Trump “cares deeply about, which is election integrity.”

    For his part, the former president said in mid-February that he’s convinced that Mr. Whatley, who served as general counsel for the North Carolina GOP in addition to being its chairman, will be “committed to election integrity, which we must have to keep fraud out of our election so it can’t be stolen.”

    Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks in the library at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 4, 2024. (Alon Skuy/Getty Images)

    The former president maintains that he was cheated out of victory in the 2020 presidential election in part because of outright fraud and in part because of last-minute changes to election rules that sharply expanded opportunities to cast mail-in ballots, while softening voter verification requirements.

    Mr. Whatley said recently that the Republican party would use all available tools to help President Trump to win the 2024 election, while also ramping up its focus on election integrity.

    He said in a recent memo that the RNC would bolster programs that focus on both in-person and absentee early voting, as well as ballot harvesting where legal.

    Mr. Whatley said that the various initiatives aimed at voter outreach and early voting will be paired with strong election integrity efforts, including mounting legal challenges to voter identification and

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/19/2024 – 17:00

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