Today’s News 20th November 2023

• US Has Highest-Ever Childhood Vaccine Exemption Rate In History
  US Has Highest-Ever Childhood Vaccine Exemption Rate In History

  Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

  The United States now faces its highest-ever childhood vaccine exemption rate in history, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report published on Nov. 10.

  

  Before the pandemic, the United States had maintained nearly 95 percent nationwide vaccination coverage for 10 years.

  Yet between 2020 and 2021, vaccine coverage in kindergarten-aged children fell to 94 percent; between 2021 and 2022, it dropped to 93 percent.

  “It is not clear whether this reflects a true increase in opposition to vaccination, or if parents are opting for nonmedical [vaccine] exemptions because of barriers to vaccination or out of convenience,” the report authors concluded.

  “Whether because of an increase in hesitancy or barriers to vaccination, the COVID-19 pandemic affected childhood routine vaccination,” they continued.

  Post-COVID Skepticism Spilling Into Vaccine Skepticism

  Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, was concerned that people’s skepticism toward the current COVID-19 vaccines may have also affected their attitude toward conventional vaccines, leading to the decline in CDC-recommended and state-required vaccinations, as recently reported by the CDC.

  He suggested that the CDC’s initial delayed recognition of myocarditis as a COVID vaccine side effect in adolescents and young adults, coupled with the agency’s encouragement to vaccinate, as one example of what may be contributing to people’s distrust.

  “I think those [vaccination] recommendations were well-intentioned,” he said, but the slow acknowledgment of side effects may have left some people with a perception that the CDC was “not completely forthcoming.”

  Pediatrician Dr. Mark Barrett said that the current trend is likely caused by people distrusting recommendations from the CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and even their doctors.

  “I feel parents are doing their own research,” he wrote to The Epoch Times via email.

  Pediatrician Dr. Derek Husmann said that children having the lowest risk of severe COVID-19 gave parents and pediatricians a unique perspective, making them question the broad need for vaccines.

  “The pediatricians’ perspective is pretty significantly different—in reference to the COVID pandemic—than a physician who takes care of adults,” Dr. Husmann said, “because the pediatric population was at essentially zero risk of death or serious complications from COVID infection.”

  According to the CDC website dashboard, deaths from COVID-19 make up about 3 percent of all deaths, but the percentage is even smaller in children.

  “There was a perceived conflict between the information that COVID was less serious in children, yet the vaccine was recommended for them. This was never satisfactorily explained or resolved,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy in the Infectious Disease Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, wrote to The Epoch Times.

  California pediatrician Dr. Samara Cardenas said that the public slowly came to realize the COVID-19 vaccines were not safe nor effective as initially promised, and this may have also prompted parents to question the need for routine vaccinations.

  “[In California], if you’re not vaccinated, they won’t even take a medical exemption. So I have quite a few patients asking about homeschooling rather than vaccinating their children,” she said.

  “There has been this incredible increase in homeschooling since the COVID pandemic, and so that may have falsely inflated the vaccine rates in the [report],” added Dr. Husmann, who is based in rural Texas.

  Conventional Vaccines vs. COVID-19 Vaccines

  Some doctors are now troubled by the risks posed by declining rates of conventional vaccinations and the potential for increased outbreaks due to vaccine-preventable diseases like polio.

  Dr. Meissner said, “At this time, it is important for parents to consider a distinction between the benefits versus risks of the pediatric COVID vaccines and other childhood vaccines that have successfully controlled many infectious diseases.”

  Dr. Schaffner agreed, adding that children are encouraged to get immunized against COVID-19 and that more public health work is needed to encourage conventional vaccine takeup.

  “Measles, polio, diphtheria, for example, are vague concepts to [parents]. And so, these diseases are not known, therefore not respected or even feared, leading to questions about the vaccine,” Dr. Schaffner said.

  “I tell current medical students that before we had measles vaccine available in the United States, back in the 1960s, there were 400 to 500 children that died annually in the United States, secondary to measles and its complications,” he explained. “Their jaws drop. They have no idea.”

  However, some doctors have become more cautionary about childhood vaccine recommendations, fearing denial and the potential coverup of side effects.

  “There is a potential public health concern when children remain fully unvaccinated for all traditional childhood vaccines,” pediatrician Dr. Renata Moon, who previously worked as a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, wrote to The Epoch Times. “[But] the question on everyone’s mind is, ‘what safety data do we have for each childhood vaccine?’

  “Many parents who used to follow the traditional childhood vaccination schedule have stepped back from vaccinating their children altogether. They have lost trust in recommendations from public health agencies and are taking a ‘safer to wait’ approach,” she added.

  Dr. Cardenas echoed Dr. Moon with a similar statement. “I used to be 100 percent vaccinated,” she said, adding that the COVID era has made her realize she needs to do more research, and has similarly taken the safer-to-wait approach for now.

  Dr. Husmann added that immunization does not guarantee a complete elimination of outbreaks, explaining that there have been measles outbreaks among both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

  In 2003, a measles outbreak occurred in a highly vaccinated boarding school in Pennsylvania. The school had a vaccination rate of 95 percent. Out of nine laboratory-confirmed cases of measles, only two were unvaccinated.

  Other cases demonstrate the opposing scenario. In December 2022, a measles outbreak occurred in central Ohio. The jurisdiction estimated an immunization rate of 80 percent to 90 percent, yet of the 73 children infected, most (67) were unvaccinated.

  The centuries-long recommendation to vaccinate stems from the notion that there is no trade-off for immunity against infectious disease. However, Drs. Husmann and Cardenas argue that childhood vaccines may also present long-term risks that are not well-known and rarely discussed.

  Safety of Childhood Vaccines Scrutinized

  Recently, childhood vaccines have faced renewed scrutiny. These include the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) and diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTaP) vaccines for their links to autism and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for its links to encephalitis.

  Yet long-term vaccine safety data and vaccine studies are lacking, and this applies to all vaccines on the market.

  For instance, the Haemophilus influenzae B vaccine (Hib), a four-dose series approved for infants and children aged 2 months to 5 years, had safety monitoring for only 30 days post-vaccination. The package insert for Infanrix, a DTaP vaccine, states that adverse reactions were monitored for only four days after vaccination.

  In 2013, the National Vaccine Program Office commissioned the former Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee, now the National Academy of Medicine, to reexamine the evidence supporting safety claims for the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule.

  The committee found that “few studies have comprehensively assessed the association between the entire immunization schedule or variation in the overall schedule” and health outcomes, and “no study has directly examined health outcomes” the way the committee was charged to address.

  The committee further stated that no studies have been conducted “to determine the long-term effects of the cumulative number of vaccines or other aspects of the immunization schedule.”

  While no long-term randomized, controlled trials exist for any vaccines, extensive research has compared vaccinated populations to unvaccinated. Randomized placebo-controlled trials are considered the gold standard in testing treatments.

  A 2017 pilot study led by professor Anthony Mawson at Jackson State University compared vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unvaccinated children aged between 6 and 12.

  The researchers found that while fully and partially vaccinated children had significantly fewer cases of chickenpox and pertussis, they had 30 times greater odds of being diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and around four times greater odds of having allergies, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism. They also had about five times the odds of having a learning disability and almost four times the odds of having a neurodevelopmental disorder.

  Mr. Mawson’s second study compared children who were unvaccinated, vaccinated, and vaccinated with preterm birth, which is a risk factor for neurodevelopmental deficits. The vaccinated children had almost thrice the odds of neurodevelopmental disorders, while preterm and vaccinated children had 14.5 greater odds of neurodevelopmental disorders than unvaccinated.

  A 2020 study led by Brian Hooker, professor emeritus of biology at Simpson University, compared data of vaccinated and unvaccinated children collected from three different medical practices. The authors found that vaccinated children had nearly 4.5 greater odds of asthma and over twice the odds of developmental delays and ear infections.

  Since these studies are not randomized and controlled, they do not indicate a causal relationship but suggest potential health concerns.

  The study findings suggest that children may be trading long-term health for infectious disease immunity, Dr. Husmann said.

  “We think that we’re making a choice between immunization and maybe some short-term adverse reactions like pain, swelling, fever, fussiness, or not feeling well for a few days,” Dr. Husman said, “but we are also giving your child a significantly increased risk of a whole host of chronic health conditions, including, autism, seizures, and asthma.

  “You really don’t know if it’s worth it to try to prevent an incredibly rare infectious disease and put your child or yourself at risk of a chronic illness.”

  An Opportunity for Safer Vaccines

  While Dr. Husmann questions the safety of vaccines, he is keeping an open mind about adequately tested and safe vaccines in the future.

  “I do not [want my patients to be] necessarily anti-vaccine; what I want them to be is vaccine freedom-friendly … I want my patients to be open and accepting of any vaccine that is truly safe and effective.”

  Similarly, Dr. Cardenas agreed that it is a good thing that parents are proactively learning about these medications.

  “Everybody should get instructed and educated on what is happening when you are being injected or even when you’re getting medicines. You should ask your doctor, what is this for? What are the side effects? I think the public is beginning to do that, and I think it is very good.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 23:55

• Apple Is America's Worst Major Company For Employee Retention
  Apple Is America’s Worst Major Company For Employee Retention

  Employees consider various factors when committing to a company long term, including a positive work environment, fair compensation, job security, opportunities for professional growth, and resilience against disruptive changes in the economy or technology.

  So, which companies have the worst employee retention?

  Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti remarks that to create this graphic, Resume.io analyzed LinkedIn data to identify large companies where employees have the shortest tenures in the U.S..

  Tech Giants on Top of the List

  Resume.io ranked the top 100 companies by market cap in the U.S. based on their average employee tenure through an analysis of their LinkedIn pages.

  With a turnover rate of 13.2%, the tech industry is the economy’s most turbulent.

  Tech giants comprise three of the five shortest average tenures among company workforces.

  On average, staff at companies like Apple, Amazon, and Meta quit their jobs before the second year.

  
  

  Over the years, Apple and Meta have been seen as top companies to work with, with employees enthusiastically praising their cultures, values, benefits, and perks.

  However, recent shifts, such as the return-to-office policies and lack of stability, have taken a toll on these companies.

  Following the Covid-19 pandemic, Apple instituted a three-day-a-week in-office schedule in 2022. According to Tech.co, 67% of employees expressed dissatisfaction with the policy at that time.

  Last year, Meta grabbed headlines by announcing the most significant tech layoff of the year, involving a 13% reduction in staff.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 23:20

• Outside APEC, Complaints Of Intimidation & Assaults
  Outside APEC, Complaints Of Intimidation & Assaults

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,

  The United States sent Chinese President Xi Jinping a dissonant message on human rights this week when the Biden administration and California officials rolled out the red carpet for the brutal dictator.

  

  Xi’s 10 years as president are marked by a genocide against China’s Muslim minority, attempts to wipe out Tibetan culture, and persecution of Christians and followers of Falun Gong – not to mention a crackdown on democracy, religious freedom, and civil rights in Hong Kong. 

  Yet, during official and unofficial meetings this week, there was no mention of the long list of atrocities. Instead, Xi received an unusually warm reception. 

  On Wednesday night in the confines of San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency ballroom, America’s corporate chieftains gathered to fete Xi as a “guest of honor” at a banquet drawing nearly 400 attendees. The gala took place on the sidelines of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a gathering of 21 member countries to support free trade and business ties. 

  The executives were so excited to share the room with the Chinese president that they gave him two standing ovations before Xi uttered a word. American titans of business, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, Black Rock’s Larry Fink, Boeing’s Stanley Deal, and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, joined Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to rub shoulders with Xi and a cohort of Chinese officials. 

  Tickets for the banquet started at $2,000 each, with several companies shelling out $40,000 to buy eight seats at a table in the ballroom and one at Xi’s table. After Xi’s remarks, attendees provided yet another standing ovation, according to Reuters. 

  Some executives made no attempt to hide their gushing. On the way into the Hyatt, Bridgewater Associates hedge fund founder Ray Dalio told the Financial Times that he was “excited to have this relationship [with Xi].”

  If Dalio entered the hotel from the main lobby, he couldn’t have avoided the polar opposite scene and messaging. A Tibetan student activist named Tsela had strapped herself to a flagpole and was waving the Tibetan flag when Xi and his entourage arrived. Other activists from Students for a Free Tibet chanted “Murderer” at the Chinese leader, “Down with the CCP,” and “Human Rights in Tibet.” 

  At one point, a pro-Chinese protester carrying an American and Chinese flag in one hand and a bullhorn in the other drowned out the Tibetan activists’ voices. 

  An activist promoting democracy in Hong Kong displayed a bleeding wound in one tweet, along with a photo of menacing-looking men in surgical masks carrying long metal pipes. The activist complained that pro-Beijing forces were attacking her group outside the Hyatt Regency.

  “Harassment and assault happening at the protest zone,” tweeted Anna Kwok, the executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, Wednesday night. 

  Kwok has a HK$1 million bounty on her head from the Hong Kong government for helping organize the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. While her Twitter accounts did not provide footage of the alleged attacks, she shared several messages threatening her life from pro-China social media accounts. One from an account that goes by @Chinaloverguy threatened to kidnap her, tie her up, and send her back to China. 

  “I do want the million dollar reward as i will first to tie you up with ropes then send you to a black market or simply send you back to HK myself,” the account warned. 

  Late Thursday afternoon, Kwok shared photos of her and several other Chinese pro-democracy activists meeting with Mark Lambert, the State Department’s China coordinator and deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. The meeting took place “just blocks” from the APEC summit. 

  “We’ll keep speaking up for our people and pushing for concrete action despite the transnational repression,” she tweeted. 

  Earlier Wednesday, Students for a Free Tibet complained on Twitter that it was “attacked” by 20 pro-Chinese counter-protesters in medical masks, whom the activists described as paid Chinese operatives. The alleged assaults occurred after the activists displayed an anti-Xi banner with the words, “Dictator Xi Jinping, Your Time is Up!” through openings in a garage structure. The activists said the group of pro-Chinese men in surgical masks grabbed the flag through openings on a lower level, pulling the banner and stealing it while nearly dragging the student activists over the ledge where they were holding onto and displaying the banner. Students for a Free Tibet also tweeted footage of a confrontation and scuffle when both groups converged in an elevator trying to leave the scene. 

  “This is the CCP. This is China. This is who APEC nations and the world are doing business with,” the group stated in the tweet. 

  In another episode of pro-China intimidation, several demonstrators in blue surgical masks carrying Chinese flags harassed a Uyghur woman toting a light-blue Turkmenistan flag now outlawed in China. Members of the pro-China contingent followed her closely, eventually enveloping her flag in a sea of larger Chinese flags. 

  Tibetan activist accounts identified the woman as Tursunay Ziyawudun, a Uyghur refugee now living in the United States who testified to Congress in 2022 that she had been raped and tortured by Chinese police in a “re-education” concentration camp. In her testimony, she detailed what she described as just one horrific episode in the CCP’s systematic targeting of young women for sexual abuse. 

  “Even in America, this is the reality of the CCP,” Students for a Free Tibet said in its tweet, referring to attempts by pro-Chinese counter-protesters to intimidate Ziyawudun. 

  Inside the summit’s lecture halls and ballrooms, there was a complete disconnect with the multiple anti-China protests taking place outside – and, at times, with reality. There was no mention of genocide or human rights abuses during Xi’s and Biden’s public remarks. Instead, Xi told the crowd he is ready to partner with America, and the world needs the two superpowers to work together. 

  “Whatever stage of development it may reach, China will never pursue hegemony or expansion and will never impose its will on others,” Xi said in remarks at the Wednesday night dinner. “China does not seek spheres of influence and will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone.” 

  At a press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Biden made waves by saying that he still considers Xi a dictator despite progress in reducing tensions in their relationship. On Thursday, however, Biden focused mainly on the positive, pledging not to “decouple” from China, explaining that the U.S. is instead “de-risking and diversifying our economic relations” with Beijing. 

  “Stable relations between the world’s two largest economies is not merely good for the two economies, it’s good for the world – a stable relationship is good for everyone,” Biden said, without acknowledging that his own State Department has officially deemed Xi’s persecution of the Uyghurs as genocide and has repeatedly placed China on official human rights and religious freedom blacklists. 

  Business and trade analysts argue that Xi’s speech is unlikely to dramatically shift his approach to bilateral business and trade relations. As the economic and geopolitical rivalry has intensified over the last few years, China has grown more suspicious of U.S. companies, cracking down on American consultancy firms and damaging investor confidence. 

  The Biden administration’s decision not to use the opportunity to send a firm human rights message, along with Xi’s open embrace from top American business executives, has dimmed hopes among human rights groups that Xi will curb his brutal persecutions and arbitrary arrests. 

  Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China, railed against Xi’s dinner with U.S. business executives. 

  Gallagher sent a letter on Monday to the dinner’s hosts, the U.S. China Business Council and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, demanding a complete list of companies who paid to attend the gala. 

  “The U.S. business community needs to remove its golden blindfolds and realize that doing business with the CCP risks the safety of their employees, their shareholders, and the savings of millions of Americans,” Gallagher told Fox News Wednesday. “$40,000 may buy you a meal with Xi, but it can’t buy you a conscience.” 

  Other human rights leaders on Capitol Hill were also disappointed with the absence of any reference to China’s egregious human rights record during the summit’s official proceedings. Several members of Congress and advocacy organizations had pressed Biden to demand the release of three American citizens who have been held hostage in China for years before the two leaders met. At the very least, they wanted Biden to present to Xi a list of individuals the CCP has arbitrarily detained on false charges. 

  The timing of Biden’s meeting with Xi also coincided with several threats in Hong Kong against a group of U.S. lawmakers. Rep. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, was one of four members of Congress included in a Monday petition to Hong Kong’s High Court that would enable the territory’s law enforcement to arrest them if they travel to and are found in the city. 

  The others are Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, as well as Reps. Young Kim, a California Republican, and James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat. 

  Curtis has introduced several Hong Kong-focused bills, including one that would implement sanctions on several top Hong Kong officials if international commissions determine they have violated international human rights laws. 

  The Utah congressman, who spent three years in Taiwan in the late 1970s, said he’s particularly distressed that San Francisco city officials didn’t provide greater free-speech protections for human rights protesters outside APEC. 

  “It’s an obvious attempt to intimidate, not just their own residents, but those of us who enjoy the freedoms we do here in the United States,” he told RealClearPolitics Thursday. 

  While Curtis agrees with Biden’s efforts to help thaw relations with China, he bristled at reports that American business executives gave Xi a standing ovation. 

  “I thought, they don’t know this man – they don’t know what he’s doing and all the atrocities that are happening in China.”

  Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ White House/na

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 22:45

• China's Quasi-QE Isn't Enough To End Real Estate Crisis
  China’s Quasi-QE Isn’t Enough To End Real Estate Crisis

  By Ye Xie, George Lei and Henry Ren, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategists

  Three things we learned in the past week:

  1. Beijing’s stepped-up support for the property market might not be enough to spur a turnaround. In a meeting Friday, regulators told banks to meet all “reasonable” funding needs from property developers. The call came after a report showed new home prices in major cities dropped the most in eight years in October.

  Bloomberg also reported that Beijing plans to provide at least $137 billion of low-cost financing to the nation’s urban village renovation and affordable housing programs, potentially funded through the Pledged Supplemental Lending. The PSL, a controversial tool sometimes dubbed as China’s version of QE, helped end a housing downturn in 2015. But it’s also been criticized for inflating the property bubble in smaller cities further.

  This time, its impact is likely to be more limited. Apart from a smaller size, a key difference now is that the renovation program targets bigger cities, which Nomura estimates only accounts for 20% of the nation’s new home sales.

  “Most of the excess housing stock is really in smaller cities,” said Adam Wolfe, an economist at Absolute Strategy Research. “So this might not do as much to soak up developers’ excess inventories as the previous program due to its smaller size and narrower scope.” He added the growth outlook for next year is likely to worsen as consumers and local governments are tapped out.

  

  2. China’s geopolitical predicaments saw improvement. The Biden-Xi summit turned out to be, by and large, a success. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s main opposition parties joined hands, raising hopes of a 2024 presidential victory that could ease tensions with Beijing. Political events could now “bolster sentiment more significantly” even as “investor concerns over Chinese growth loom large,” Singapore-based DBS Group said in a research report.

  DBS sees scope for a return of US investments to Chinese assets, as the “geopolitical risk premium” declined. October data showed capital outflows waned, and global investors bought government bonds by the most in four months. The offshore yuan rallied 1.2% over the past week, posting the best returns in more than eight months.

  

  3. Reports from China’s biggest internet companies gave investors little reason to cheer. Alibaba cut short an ill-fated plan to separate its cloud business, sending its US-listed shares to lowest levels in almost a year. The stunning reversal came just six months after the firm announced plans to distribute the cloud unit to shareholders as a stock dividend.

  Alibaba’s core business of domestic e-commerce fell short of revenue expectations, and its peer JD.com’s retail arm saw no growth during the third quarter, underscoring the challenges that both companies face in an increasingly competitive industry. Tencent showed progress in new initiatives such as short-form videos, but underwhelming sales of games at home and abroad remain a concern.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 22:10

• Israel Admits It Killed Some Of Its Own At Nova Music Festival
  Israel Admits It Killed Some Of Its Own At Nova Music Festival

  Via The Cradle

  An Israeli police investigation into the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival near the Gaza border on October 7 revealed that an Israeli attack helicopter killed some of the attendees, Haaretz reported on Saturday. 

  According to a police source, an investigation into the incident showed that an Israeli combat helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at Hamas fighters and other Palestinians who crossed through the border fence from Gaza into Israel, but also fired on some of the Israelis attending the music festival. According to the police, 364 people in total were killed there.

  

  The Israeli military and rescue services previously claimed that 260 Israelis were killed at the festival, all by Hamas and Palestinians in a deliberate massacre. But this is the first acknowledgement that Israeli forces killed some of their own.

  Previous reports in Israeli media revealed that Israeli forces killed Israeli civilians in Be’eri, a settlement also near the Gaza border. In that case, Hamas fighters were holding Israelis captive in homes. When the Israeli military arrived, it opened fire, including by firing tank shells, killing both Israeli captives and Hamas fighters.

  Three of those killed in Be’eri by Israeli tank fire were 12-year-old Liel Hezroni, her brother Yanai, and their aunt Ayla. Israeli broadcaster Kan reported that Liel’s relatives held a farewell ceremony for her, rather than a burial ceremony, because her body could not be recovered from the house that collapsed on her and other Hamas captives after an Israeli tank fired two shells into it. 

  A similar instance occurred in Sderot, where Hamas fighters had taken over the local police station, and were holding Israeli police captive inside. Both the Hamas fighters and Israeli police were killed when the Israeli army fired tank shells at the police station, killing everyone. Israeli forces then bulldozed the station.

  It is therefore unclear how many of the Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Hamas, whose fighters were seeking to take as many Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, captive back to Gaza as possible, and how many were killed by Israeli forces refusing to negotiate for the captives’ release.

  Israel initially claimed Hamas and Palestinians killed 1,400 Israelis on October 7, including soldiers, police, and civilians, but later revised the count to 1,200. Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev acknowledged that 200 of the alleged victims were Hamas fighters or Palestinians whose bodies were burned so badly that Israeli authorities could not initially identify them and assumed them to be Israelis.

  In an interview with MSNBC on Friday, he stated, “We originally said, in the atrocious Hamas attack upon our people on October 7th, we had the number at 1,400 casualties and now we’ve revised that down to 1,200 because we understood that we’d overestimated, we made a mistake. There were actually bodies that were so badly burnt we thought they were ours, in the end apparently they were Hamas terrorists.”

  Hamas fighter fires a MANPADS at an approaching Israeli military helicopter at the scene of the Nova music festival where at least 260 Israelis were massacred on Oct. 7. The full video shows hostages being hauled off at the same site https://t.co/74Si1eUMI5 pic.twitter.com/WZgKQ6wqIN

  — Hugo Kaaman (@HKaaman) November 13, 2023

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

  Regarding the Nova festival, Haaretz reported as well that, “There is a growing assessment in the security establishment that the terrorists who carried out the massacre on October 7 did not know in advance about the Nova festival held near Kibbutz Re’im, and decided to come to the place after discovering that a mass event was taking place there.” The Hamas fighters had initially intended to attack nearby settlements in what is known as the Gaza envelope.

  According to Haaretz, senior security officials estimate that Hamas found out about the existence of the party using drones, and directed its fighters to the location using their communication system. In a video from a body camera of one Hamas fighter, “he is heard asking a captured Israeli for directions to reach the bad guys, even though he was in a different area.” One of the findings that strengthens the assessment, according to the police and other security officials, is that the first Hamas fighters arrived at the Nova festival from the direction of road 232 and not from the direction of the Gaza border fence.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 21:35

• Conservative Think Tank Reveals Best, Worst States For Freedom In Education
  Conservative Think Tank Reveals Best, Worst States For Freedom In Education

  Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Citing the need for equity, lawmakers in several Democrat-controlled states have passed measures recently that make it harder to discipline students who act up in the classroom.

  

  Schools in California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, and other states have adopted student discipline systems based on “restorative justice” instead of suspending students for bad behavior.

  That means, instead of giving students penalties for misbehavior, schools use “empathetic communication” to explain to students why their misbehavior is harmful.

  But at least one state has struck out in a different direction in the hopes of improving student success.

  In Oklahoma, Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of public instruction, has proposed reforms that will encourage more disciplining of students. He believes that’s the best way to improve learning, he told The Epoch Times.

  Decisions like this helped land his state in 10th place on the 2023 Education Freedom Report Card, compiled by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank focused on public policy research.

  The Heritage Foundation report ranks school systems in all states and the District of Columbia by their degree of education choice, transparency, teacher freedom, and return on investment in education.

  Education choice refers to what degree of choice parents get over where their children attend school.

  Teacher freedom means the degree to which teachers control instruction within the classroom.

  The transparency rating refers to the degree to which parents know what’s happening in local schools.

  Return on investment compares how much each state spends on education in relation to student success on the National Assessment of Education Progress exams.

  Florida earned the top spot in the report. Rounding out the top 10, in order of ranking, were Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma.

  The bottom 10 on the report were New Jersey, Washington, Delaware, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and, in last place, Oregon. All of these states lean left politically and had a majority of votes in 2020 for President Joe Biden.

  And left-leaning policies lead to poor outcomes at schools, Oklahoma superintendent Mr. Walters said.

  “As with many subjects, the [political] left is completely dead wrong on this. It’s not that society is causing students to misbehave—it’s that students are not being responsible for their own behavior.”

  

  But education officials in Minnesota, ranked near the bottom of the Heritage Foundation report, believe “restorative practices” are an example of a winning educational policy.

  “Restorative practices (RP) are drawn from the traditions of Indigenous people and communities of color around the world,” the Minnesota Department of Education’s website reads. “They are grounded in a belief that people are profoundly relational, interconnected and inherently good.”

  “Inherently good” children misbehave because the systems they are in fail them and push them into misbehavior, Minnesota’s guide to implementing restorative justice theorizes.

  “It is the system (not the children) that needs to be made whole,” the guide reads.

  Conservative policies prevail in nine states in the top 10. Arizona was the only state in the top 10 with a majority of votes for President Biden in the 2020 election that toppled incumbent President Donald Trump.

  Conservative Approach

  Oklahoma has taken an approach that’s the opposite of the policies in states that seek to make it more difficult to remove unruly youngsters from classrooms.

  Mr. Walters has focused on implementing educational policies that hold students accountable for their actions, he said.

  These policies, he said, help students succeed by creating environments where students can learn.

  And that makes teachers happier, he said.

  Veteran teachers have complained that student behavior is worse than ever, he said. They’ve told him: “We’ve got to get discipline back on track,” he said.

  So, “they’re very excited that we’re taking this seriously.”

  Under his proposed Comprehensive Classroom Discipline Reform for Oklahoma, teachers will have the rights to enforce school district policies, inform law enforcement, refuse to teach violent students, and not be held liable, he said.

  He’s especially proud of the state’s fifth-place ranking on education choice because school choice ensures “every parent has access to as many options as possible,” he said. And he’s working on boosting rankings in other areas.

  “We are bringing transparency to the state. We are working to ensure that districts are showing their policies, their curriculum, their budgets.”

  Red States vs Blue States

  State choices on how to fix education make a real difference in children’s lives, Mr. Walters said.

  It’s a temptation for state officials to “fix education” by creating policies that change metrics rather than fixing underlying issues, he said.

  Schools can help more students succeed, he said. Or they can lower standards until whatever students do counts as success.

  Officials in some states, he said, approach the problem by saying, “We want graduation rates to go up. So what do we do? Well, let’s lower the standards by which we’re holding people to graduate.”

  “You can graduate more people that way,” Mr. Walters said. “But what are you graduating them with?”

  He prefers to push schools to improve education so that students graduate by reaching higher standards.

  Oklahoma has invested $2.9 million in a “Back to Basics” plan designed to teach children reading and math literacy, Mr. Walters said. The plan pays teachers for tutoring and provides bonuses of up to $4,000 for students’ improved learning.

  He takes the same approach to discipline.

  If schools set clear expectations, he said, students will learn to meet them.

  

  “What you’re trying to instill in young people is self-discipline and work ethic,” Mr. Walters said. “These are the type of things that equate to being successful, not only academically but in life.”

  If school systems can create good citizens, life, overall, will get better for students, he said.

  And that means happier teachers, too, he said.

  “We had over 900 teachers apply for our incentive bonus to come teach in the State of Oklahoma.“

  Republican-controlled Florida ranked top overall on the Education Freedom report card, and earned the rankings of second in educational choice, first in transparency, second in teacher freedom, and fifth in return on investment.

  “By providing universal school choice, parental rights in education and curriculum transparency, we have ensured that parents are able to fully direct the upbringing of their children,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news release.

  New Standards

  Oklahoma’s policies starkly contrast with several educational reforms favored by the political left, emphasizing leniency toward students.

  In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the state’s Senate Bill 274 on Oct. 8. This bill ended school suspensions for bad behavior, including talking back to teachers, using phones in class, breaking dress code, being late, and more.

  Supporters say measures like these ensure that African American and minority students won’t receive suspension.

  “Willful defiance suspensions have disproportionately impacted students of color, LGBTQ students, students who are homeless or in foster care, and those with disabilities,” California state Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat,  announced on her website.

  By not suspending students who misbehave in these ways, California will give them more time in school, which will result in education, Ms. Skinner said.

  “Suspending youth for low-level behavior issues leads to significant harm, including learning loss and a higher likelihood that affected students will drop out of school completely,” she said.

  Currently, California ranks 26th overall on the list by The Heritage Foundation. The state ranked 40th on educational choice, fifth on transparency, 43rd on teacher freedom, and 22nd on return on investment.

  

  In 2021, Oregon lawmakers passed Senate Bill 744, a measure that said students wouldn’t be required to show proficiency in “essential learning skills” to get a diploma during the school years of 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024.

  This bill cites “an emergency” as the reason to end standardized tests that show how the state’s students rank compared to youngsters throughout the country.

  It’s unclear from the bill’s wording whether the emergency was related to the COVID-19 pandemic or some other academic emergency.

  However, the bill doesn’t suspend all educational requirements.

  Oregon high-school students still have to earn a minimum number of class credits.

  Since the bill’s passage, student graduation rates have remained relatively consistent at nearly 81 percent, state statistics show.

  While the state ranks last, overall, it ranks 46th on education choice, 25th on transparency, 51st on teacher freedom, and 29th on return on investment.

  Education Battles

  Left-wing groups have fought against his policies, Mr. Walters said.

  “I will never back down,” he said.

  Mr. Walters has referred to teachers’ unions as “terrorist organizations.”

  In response, the Oklahoma branch of the National Education Association (NEA) published an official statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying Mr. Walters was “unprofessional.”

  “Public school educators are not getting rich off of this job,” the statement said. “They keep their hearts and classrooms open to every single child across Oklahoma because they love their students. Comparing them to people who blow up buildings is disgusting, especially when every educator puts their life on the line to protect students as school shootings continue to rise.”

  Monica Royer, media relations specialist for the Oklahoma Education Association, said she had no comment about Mr. Walters.

  Teachers’ unions often take sides with the political left. The NEA’s LGBT teacher caucus provided badges to teachers with scannable codes that referred students to websites with LGBT sex guides.

  Radical activists interested in peddling left-wing ideology like that to children are the biggest danger in education today, Mr. Walters said.

  “The left has been trying to force this woke ideology into our schools, and they’ve tried it through many different mechanisms,” he said. “We’re going to continue to push parent rights, parent choice, and also weaken the power of the teachers union every step of the way.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 20:25

• Dictator Xi's American Cleanup Tour
  Dictator Xi’s American Cleanup Tour

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “I know folks say – Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all these fancy leaders are coming into town,” said Gavin Newsom, licking the still-damp pressure-washed sidewalks of San Fran’s Tenderloin, the press snapping away. “And that’s true…because it’s true,” continued California’s governor, praying that Xi Jinping’s visit would position him as a serious leader should President Biden stumble a few more times between now and next November.

  After San Francisco was magically cleaned up ahead of Xi Jinping’s visit, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom says:

  “I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all these fancy leaders are coming into town.’ That’s true because it’s true.” pic.twitter.com/gMaKBtRq5f

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 13, 2023

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  “But it’s also true for months and months and months prior to APEC we’ve been having different conversations, and we’ve raised the bar of expectation between the city, the county, the state, and our federal partners,” said Gavin, America’s fever perhaps finally breaking, a California politician appearing to condemn, however gently, the senseless forfeit of a great city to tents, rampant crime, drug abuse, squalor.

  Portland’s mayor saw Newsom’s press conference and immediately called the Chinese embassy in DC, to beg for a state visit from Xi. He was put on hold. Seattle’s governor was ahead of him in the queue. Naturally Baltimore’s war-torn mayor had been first to call, but Chicago’s mayor had front run the order by piggybacking Citadel’s high-speed connection.

  “Could Mr. Jinping please come visit our South Side? Just a quick drive by? High-speed, anything, please?” the mayor pleaded.

  Yellen considered asking Xi to swing by Treasury to clean up our chronic deficit but felt it better to leave this historic challenge for her successor. New York City’s Mayor Adams, not one to defund the police unless forced to by budget cuts, was too busy explaining to his constituents that the migrant crisis would cost the city $11bln over the coming two years (next year’s $110bln NYC budget will contain a $7bln deficit).

  Governor Abbott was tempted to have Xi come clean up the mess on his border, but communists are obviously not welcome in Texas.

  Regardless, on this issue too, America’s fever was breaking. And with New York’s Governor Hochul seeking a more sensible approach to immigration, the creation of a sovereign border of some practical significance was finally on the horizon.

  WATCH: Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes his head as Biden agrees Xi Jinping is a dictatorpic.twitter.com/AsnCqSrSym

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 16, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 19:50

• The Rise Of Socialists In Latin America Is Giving Terror Groups A Home
  The Rise Of Socialists In Latin America Is Giving Terror Groups A Home

  Authored by Marcos Schotgues via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The new wave of leftist governments in Latin America, along with an increasingly brazen posture from Tehran has given Iran and its proxy terrorist groups a favorable environment to mingle with organized crime, cross borders with impunity, and engage in more direct state-to-state exchanges, analysts say.

  

  “There’s always been a certain level of, not only networks, but also influence by both Hezbollah and behind Hezbollah, Iran, in the region,” said Evan Ellis, a former State Department official and research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.

  “That increased with respect to the state-to-state Iranian engagement largely through populist actors in the mid-2000s, with a new crop of leftist populist leaders: Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and certainly Rafael Correa in Ecuador, among others.”

  

  This movement includes the recent reported entry of Iran and Hezbollah agents into the region through Venezuela, as evidenced by a 2022 incident in which a plane was grounded and seized in Argentina upon request of the United States. The state-owned aircraft had five Iranian nationals on board. Paraguay officials and others claimed they were linked to the Quds Force, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Argentina denied reports that crew members were linked to Quds.

  The seizure coincided with the return to the region of many of the same populist actors. “Essentially, you’re taking Quds Forces operatives and Hezbollah-affiliated personnel around the region,” Mr. Ellis said.

  “In recent months what you’ve seen also is a broadening of that Iranian engagement with a trip to Nicaragua to talk about oil deals. And more recently, a three nation trip by President [Ebrahim] Raisi, accompanied by several ministers, including his defense minister, to Venezuela, as well as to Nicaragua and to Cuba, where several deals were signed in each place.”

  The Iranian links in the region have become more apparent amid the Israel–Hamas war. On. Nov. 8, two alleged Hezbollah operatives were arrested in Brazil for planning attacks in the country. And warnings of a terror threat to the United States have increased, particularly in relation to its porous southern border.

  Chile and Colombia, both with newly-elected leftist administrations, recalled their ambassadors to Israel on Oct. 31 and criticized the Jewish country’s offensive against Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists.

  Bolivia severed diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv on the same day—the country had signed an agreement with Iran in July to strengthen “defense and security cooperation.” At the time, Iran’s Defense Minister said Latin American nations occupied a “special place in Iran’s strategic outlook,” and that the cooperation with Bolivia could be modeled by more countries in the region.

  

  Carlos Berzaín, Bolivia’s former minister of defense and now head of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy, said every Latin American country being ruled under ‘21st century socialism’ is “publicly converted into an enemy of the United States—adopting the rhetoric Cuba has had for almost 65 years—with very grave political and security consequences.”

  The term “21st century socialism” is commonly used by Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship and others to characterize their ideology.

  Mr. Berzaín said his homeland is an example of one of the countries reclaimed by socialists (in late 2020) after a brief stint with the opposition in power.

  “Today, Bolivia, as a dictatorship, is dependent upon the leadership of Cuba’s dictatorship, and its foreign policy shows it,” he told the Epoch Times.

  “It is at the service of other dictatorial regimes like Iran, Russia, and China with which there is no traditional or legitimate interest in the type of relations they maintain. Those are founded on corruption … on Bolivia’s condition as a narco-state, and on favoring crimes such as terrorism with an ‘anti-imperialist’ rhetoric.”

  Leading Iran analyst Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Foundation for the Defence of Democracy, said terrorist networks have grown.

  “In Brazil, the sympathetic government of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva has allowed Hezbollah and Iranian fronts to quietly expand with little risk of scrutiny from authorities,” Mr. Ottolenghi wrote in an Oct. 28 article.

  

  “In Chile, with a strong and radicalized Palestinian diaspora, Iranian agents and Hezbollah networks have infiltrated government, media, and academia, in addition to running illicit financial networks.”

  Iran and its proxies’ long and widespread activity in Latin America further increases concerns about a welcoming political environment.

  Terrorist group Hezbollah has played a prominent role in the region. U.S. officials estimate Iran gives the group hundreds of millions of dollars annually, weapons, and more.

  “For decades, Hezbollah has patiently built a global web of networks, engaged in illicit financial activities, and supported terrorist plots,“ Mr. Ottolenghi wrote.

  He said most countries in the region don’t consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization, making it harder to monitor and curb its activities.

  “Because of its decades-long involvement with organized crime—a critical component of Hezbollah’s funding strategy—the group has extensive connections with local crime syndicates,” Mr. Ottolenghi said.

  “These connections provide access to weapons, explosives, counterfeiting, and most critically, corrupt public officials in key positions at migrations, customs, and ports of entry.”

  

  In recent years, several Hezbollah-connected arrests have been made in Latin America.

  “In 2017, U.S. authorities arrested Samer el Debek, another Hezbollah agent, who, court documents reveal, had scouted potential targets that included the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Panama, as well as the Panama Canal,” Mr. Ottolenghi said.

  “In 2021, Hezbollah operatives attempted to assassinate U.S. and Israeli nationals in Colombia.”

  Despite the handful of arrests, Iran and proxy Hezbollah’s activity is ongoing in the region and remains largely “undisturbed,” Mr. Ottolenghi said.

  Complicity and Close Ties

  The enabling of illegal activity by Latin American leftist governments and their direct criminal engagement with Iran have been extensively reported.

  Key state actors have facilitated transnational terrorist activity by providing criminals, who are wanted by Interpol, transport on state-run airlines as well as real passports with fake names.

  “The speed and ease with which Hezbollah operatives are able to secure false documentation in Latin America should not come as a surprise,” stated Matthew Levitt in a 2013 House Homeland Security hearing. At the time, Mr. Levitt was the counterterrorism and intelligence director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

  “According to Israeli intelligence, the use of such passports by Hezbollah operatives is widespread, and the documents are used by the organization’s activists in their travels all over the world.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 19:15

• Anti-Woke Central Bank Nemesis Javier Milei Wins Argentina's Presidential Election
  Anti-Woke Central Bank Nemesis Javier Milei Wins Argentina’s Presidential Election

  Javier Milei, the outsider libertarian candidate with radical solutions to Argentina’s economic crisis, has just won Sunday’s presidential runoff against Economy Minister Sergio Massa.

  

  In a surprise outcome, Massa conceded in a speech to supporters in Buenos Aires on Sunday even before the official results were released, saying he called Milei to congratulate him on his victory.

  Javier Milei, a 53-year-old far-right economist and former television pundit with no governing experience, claimed nearly 56 percent of the vote, with more than 80 percent of votes tallied. It was a stunning upset over Sergio Massa, the center-left economy minister who has struggled to resolve the country’s worst economic crisis in two decades.

  Voters in this nation of 46 million demanded a drastic change from a government that has sent the peso tumbling, inflation skyrocketing and more than 40 percent of the population into poverty. And with Milei, Argentina takes a leap into the unknown — with a leader promising to shatter the entire system, which the locals now correctly realize, is broken.

  Milei, who two months ago was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, has promised to fix Argentina’s perennial economic problems by making drastic budget cuts, replacing the battered peso with the US dollar and shutting down the central bank.  He will take office on Dec. 10.

  Ep. 24 Argentina’s next president could be Javier Milei. Who is he? We traveled to Buenos Aires to speak with him and find out. pic.twitter.com/4WwTZYoWHs

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) September 14, 2023

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  Massa, from the ruling Peronist coalition, placed first in October’s first round, a remarkable comeback after losing a primary election two months previously. But the dire state of Argentina’s economy, plagued by 143% hyperinflation and a looming recession, posed a challenge too far to his presidential bid.

  “Argentines chose another path,” Massa said in a speech to supporters. Polls before the vote showed Milei with a slight edge over his rival.

  For those unfamiliar with Milei’s unique style, the following clip should be rather informative:

  THE JAVIER MILEI MUSICAL IS GONNA BE WAY MORE FIRE THAN EVITA. pic.twitter.com/OHxQwBhXVW

  — INVESTMENT HULK (@INVESTMENTSHULK) August 18, 2023

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  Commenting on Milei’s victory, Elon Musk predicted that “Prosperity is ahead for Argentina.”

  Prosperity is ahead for Argentina

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023

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  A Milei presidency will have profound implications for not only the third-largest economy in Latin America, but also the region and the world. In a continent dominated by leftist leaders, Milei could create tensions with governments he has attacked, including crucial trading partner and neighbor Brazil. In an era of growing Chinese influence in Latin America, Milei could become the region’s most vocal antagonist to a country he once called “an assassin.”

  Milei made a name for himself as a television pundit who insulted other guests, and has shown a tendency to fight with the news media. In presidential debates, he has cast doubt on the widely accepted tally of murders during the country’s Dirty War from 1976 to 1983.

  He has branded Argentine Pope Francis an “evil” leftist, called climate change a “socialist lie” and said he would hold a referendum to undo the three-year-old law that legalized abortion.

  Wielding chain saws on the campaign trail, the wild-haired Milei vowed to slash public spending in a country heavily dependent on government subsidies. He pledged to dollarize the economy, shut down the central bank and cut the number of government ministries from 18 to eight. His rallying campaign cry was a takedown of the country’s political “caste” — an Argentine version of Trump’s “drain the swamp.”

  Massa was emblematic of that ruling elite — “the king of the caste,” said political analyst Pablo Touzón. The career politician attempted to distance himself from the leftist government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the heirs to the populist dynasty first launched by Juan and Eva “Evita” Peron in the 1940s. Along with a grassroots campaign of activists, Massa sought to stoke fear over a Milei presidency they argued could threaten Argentina’s democracy and way of life.

  But ultimately, anger won over fear. For many Argentines, the bigger risk was more of the same.

  “We don’t have anything to lose,” Tomás Limodio, a 36-year-old business owner who voted for Milei in Buenos Aires on Sunday. “We’ve had this type of government for so many years, and things are only getting worse.”

  Argentinian Donald Trump, Javier Milei.

  Today is a great for Argentinians! pic.twitter.com/aG5yaAPTsc

  — I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) November 19, 2023

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  * * *

  Earlier:

  Argentinians return to the polls on Sunday, November 19 to elect the next president in a consequential runoff election. Voters will choose between incumbent Finance Minister Sergio Massa and right-wing libertarian Javier Milei. The election results will shape Argentina’s social and macroeconomic outlook in coming years.

  As Goldman writes in its election preview note, polls point to a tightly contested race, with a majority showing Milei having a slight edge in voter preferences. A significant fraction (around one third of polls), however, suggests that Massa is in the lead. In general, polls in Argentina have a poor track record and in this electoral process they have systematically failed to capture shifts in voters’ sentiment. To add to the uncertainty, Massa was seen as outperforming Milei in the final presidential debate last week.

  

  In the August primary elections (PASO), Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party surprised by taking the lead, followed by the center-right coalition Juntos por el Cambio whose presidential ticket would be led by Patricia Bullrich. Massa’s left-leaning Peronist coalition, Unión por la Patria, finished third. In the October first round election, in turn, Massa topped most expectations with an improved performance and finished first. Milei came in second place without a significant change in support, and Bullrich disappointed and finished a distant third.

  

  After the first-round election, part of the Juntos por el Cambio coalition, the faction led by Ms. Bullrich and former President Mauricio Macri, announced their support for Mr. Milei. While the bloc represented by the Radical Party decided not to formally endorse any of the candidates, some members have publicly sided with Mr. Massa.

  Following Sunday´s results, investors will turn their attention to economic policy announcements. In the short term, the highly managed exchange rate will be a critical variable to follow. After the August primary elections, the government weakened the exchange rate by about 22% to 350 ARS per Dollar. Subsequently, the exchange rate was kept frozen at this level until this week, when a crawl resumed (1.0% so far this week). Nevertheless, pass-through was high and inflation accelerated considerably after the post-PASO devaluation and as a result, the real exchange rate is now even more overvalued than before the August devaluation.

  

  Parallel exchange rates, for their part, continue to trade at a significant spread over the official rate (162% for the informal market exchange rate and around 145% for the bond (MEP) and equity (CCL) implied rates) and the futures market anticipates a meaningful depreciation in the months ahead. Pressures in both markets, however, eased after the first-round election showed Massa first, having increased significantly following Milei’s outperformance in the August PASO.

  

  Likewise important, in the coming months there are significant payments scheduled to the IMF (around US$0.9bn in December and US$1.9bn in January) and foreign currency bond holders (approximately US$1.5bn due in interest payments in January). In the meantime, the EFF program with the IMF remains off track, and in our view its realignment will take time.

  

  Regardless of the election winner, Goldman writes that a swift change in economic policies is imperative. The accumulated imbalances in the economy have grown too large and must be addressed promptly. The bank expects the economy to contract for the second year in a row in 2024, annual inflation is tracking at close to 150% and is expected to continue to rise in the coming months, the exchange rate is overvalued, international reserves are at critical levels, net reserves are significantly negative (around -US11bn), the fiscal imbalance persists, sovereign bonds trade at distressed levels, and the government lacks access to international financial markets. All in, if policymakers do not steer macro policy in a more orthodox direction, the macro adjustment could impose itself sooner or later, bringing a loss of control of the process and even higher social and economic costs.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 18:30

• Family Businesses Can’t Afford To Lose Access To Reliable Electricity
  Family Businesses Can’t Afford To Lose Access To Reliable Electricity

  Authored by Palmer Schoening via RealClear Wire,

  Dependable, low-cost electricity is essential to keeping the lights on for millions of American family-owned businesses.

  

  It is the type of essential item that touches nearly every aspect of our lives; the bakery relies on ovens, the repair shop on power tools, and the local grocer on refrigeration, and on and on. A consistent and affordable power source ensures that they can operate without interruption and keep prices competitive for their customers despite low margins and a fragile economy. Unfortunately, misguided federal policies now threaten to further disrupt our electric grid and could cause these business to shutter.

  In the last several years, the U.S. has rapidly pivoted from a common sense, ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy to one motivated by the singular desire to eliminate fossil fuel-generated electricity. That goal of a energy change could even be somewhat defendable if not for the fact that our economy and power grid are clearly not ready for the rushed and reckless transition that federal regulators are rushing.

  Like all other areas of the economy, energy markets adhere to the basic laws of supply and demand. Regulators have distorted the sector to force conventional power plants into early retirement, reducing total power generation and increasing prices. The Biden Administration has backed these actions based on the dubious claim that positive incentives for solar and wind projects will allow new arrays and wind farms to fully replace conventional power plants. 

  But reality eventually catches up, and while regulators been successful at pushing the margins to the point where many traditional power plants are struggling to compete financially, they have failed to create the conditions necessary for the rapid deployment of new technologies to replace these important resources. For reasons ranging from permitting to logistics to expense, thousands of renewable energy projects have been delayed for years, in some cases past the planned retirement dates of the existing plants they are meant to replace. All of this comes at a high cost to family businesses like manufactures which rely on affordable energy to keep their doors open and their workers employed. 

  Family businesses shouldn’t be made to – and can’t afford – to foot the bill for a haphazard and artificial shift to new and unproven technologies before our grid is ready for it. And while an eventual energy transition is inevitable, recent blackouts in Texas, California, and other parts of the country reveal just how far we are way from that occurring organically. Despite the best efforts of a small group of activist regulators, thermal power generation – coal, natural gas, and nuclear included – remain a critical part of our energy mix.

  Small businesses all over the country are hoping that keeping energy prices from further inflation could still be a rare point of bipartisan consensus in Washington. Before the situation worsens, and irreversible harm is done to the backbone of America’s economy, policymakers must realize that abandoning the “all of the above” approach before the country is prepared will result in more business closures and therefore less jobs in our communities. 

  Palmer Schoening serves as Chairman of the Family Business Coalition. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 18:05

• Is This Why The OpenAI Board Fired CEO/Co-Founder Altman?
  Is This Why The OpenAI Board Fired CEO/Co-Founder Altman?

  Update (1320ET): As (completely unfounded) rumors swirl over the OpenAI board’s sudden shock firing of CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter, that in recent weeks, Altman was actively working to raise billions from some of the world’s largest investors for a new chip venture to reportedly rival NVDA’s.

  The project – code-named Tigris – saw Altman traveling extensively to the Middle East, seeking tens of billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Mubadala Investment Company, SoftBank Group, and others for an AI-focused hardware device that he’s been developing in tandem with former Apple design chief Jony Ive.

  Altman’s pitch was for a startup that would aim to build Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs – semiconductors that are designed to handle high volume specialized AI workloads. The goal is to provide lower-cost competition to market incumbent Nvidia and, according to people familiar, aid OpenAI by lowering the ongoing costs of running its own services like ChatGPT and Dall-E.

  Custom-designed chips like TPUs are seen as one day having the potential to outperform the AI accelerators made by Nvidia – which are coveted by artificial intelligence companies – but the timeline for development is long and complex.

  Bloomberg reports that Altman’s chip venture is not yet formed and the talks with investors are in the early stages, said the people, who asked not to be named as the discussions were private.

  So, was Altman raising this money behind the board’s back?

  Their carefully-worded statement says Altman was not “consistently candid in his communications with the board.”

  Additionally, as we detailed below, in a memo to staff, Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, said:

  “We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices.

  This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board.”

  So, did the ‘ethics-police’ on the board dislike the investors (Saudi PIF)?

  Did the board get its nose bent out of shape over their lack of input on Altman’s strategy (because who wouldn’t want ot hear what a deep-state censorhsip tsar-ess thought)

  Was Microsoft’s Nadella furious at the board’s decision because he (quietly) liked the idea of challenging NVDA’s dominance in the AI chip space, since Bloomberg reports, once again, according to people familiar, Microsoft was also interested in backing Altman’s chips venture.

  We are certain of one thing – by the time the ‘truth’ is outed from this temper-tantrum-turd, it will have been well-polished.

  *  *  *

  Less than a day after JPMorgan came up with this pearl of a headline after the shocking news that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had unexpectedly been ousted by his own (incompetent) board for being “not consistently candid” (whatever that means, details of what actually happened have yet to be revealed)…

  

  … the drama surrounding Altman’s departure just took a turn for the even more dramatic, because according to reports in the WSJ and Verge, OpenAI’s investors are “pressing the board” to reinstate Sam Altman back as CEO, and none more so than Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who was “furious” by the ouster, Bloomberg reported, and has been in touch with Altman pledging to support him whatever steps he takes next.

  

  The WSJ adds that while Altman is considering returning, he has told investors that he wants a new board, which inexplicably includes such woke luminaries as Helen Toner (whose tweets are protected of course), the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (which means she does nothing at all), and who is perhaps best known for her support of the malignant fraud espoused by SBF that is “effective altruism” better known as virtue signaling covering up flagrant crime and fraud.

  Who is Helen Toner, and why did she fire @sama?
  Insane effective altruist. Sam never should have trusted her…https://t.co/C45Wg3zGM6

  CC: @adamdangelo

  — Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@wagieeacc) November 17, 2023

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  Besides Toner, OpenAI’s current board consists of chief scientist Ilya Sutskever (who also co-founded OpenAI and leads its researchers, was instrumental in the ousting of Altman this week, according to sources), Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, and former GeoSim Systems CEO Tasha McCauley, wife of actor Joseph Godron-Levitt. Unlike traditional companies, the board isn’t tasked with maximizing shareholder value, and none of them hold equity in OpenAI. Instead, their stated mission is to ensure the creation of “broadly beneficial” artificial general intelligence, or AGI.

  The now former (and soon-to-be again current) CEO also discussed starting a company that would bring on former OpenAI employees, and is deciding between the two options. Altman is expected to decide between the two options soon, the WSJ said, although the Verge notes that the former CEO is “ambivalent” about coming back and would want significant governance changes.

  Altman holding talks with the company just a day after he was ousted indicates that OpenAI is in a state of free-fall without him. Hours after he was axed, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and former board chairman, resigned, and the two have been talking to friends and investors about starting another company. A string of senior researchers also resigned on Friday, and people close to OpenAI say more departures are in the works.

  The OpenAI board has been subjected to intense criticism over its decision, made public late Friday afternoon in a blog. post  Several people, including co-founder Greg Brockman and three senior researchers have departed from the company in protest.

  Besides Microsoft, which is the leading shareholder in OpenAI, venture capital firm Thrive Capital is also working to orchestrate efforts to reinstate Altman. The motive is clear: Microsoft invested $13 billion into OpenAI and is its primary financial backer. Thrive Capital is the second-largest shareholder in the company. Other investors in the company are supportive of these efforts, the people said.

  Then again, Microsoft is probably not all that angry: according to the Sam Bankman-Fried funded Semafor, “only a fraction of Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI has been wired to the startup, while a significant portion of the funding, divided into tranches, is in the form of cloud compute purchases instead of cash” which gives the software giant whose stock last week hit an all time high and is about to surpass Apple as the world’s most valuable company, leverage as it sorts through the fallout from the ouster of Altman.

  The report goes on to note that “Nadella believes OpenAI’s directors mishandled Altman’s firing and the action has destabilized a key partner for the company.” It is also unclear if OpenAI, which has been racking up expenses as it goes on a hiring spree and pours resources into technological developments, violated its contract with Microsoft by suddenly ousting Altman. At the same time, Microsoft has rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property so if their relationship were to break down, Microsoft would still be able to run OpenAI’s current models on its servers. This is critical because Microsoft has made OpenAI’s products such a key part of its offerings, from Windows to Microsoft Office to GitHub, that anything involving that underlying technology would have an instant and adverse material impact on the $2.75 trillion company’s bottom line.

  That’s why since Friday, Silicon Valley has been buzzing about what could happen to this key partnership, including whether Microsoft and other OpenAI investors might attempt to reinstate Altman as CEO (which, as we now learn, is in process).

  On Saturday in a note to employees, OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap said the company’s leaders “still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, and are working to resolve the situation,” according to an internal memo reviewed by Semafor. Lightcap shared new insight into the board’s decision, clarifying that there was no “malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices.”

  That struck a different tone than the board’s statement on Friday that said Altman was “not consistently candid” with directors. Instead, Lightcap characterized it as a “breakdown in communication” between Altman and the board and added that the leadership has full faith in interim CEO Mira Murati.

  The exact reason for Altman’s firing remains unclear. But for weeks, tensions had boiled around the rapid expansion of OpenAI’s commercial offerings, which some board members felt violated the company’s initial charter to develop safe AI, according to people familiar with the matter.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 17:58

• How Important Is The Holiday Season For US Retailers?
  How Important Is The Holiday Season For US Retailers?

  Conventional wisdom says that the weeks leading up to Christmas are the most important time of the year for retailers in the United States. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are going to spend between $957 and $967 billion during November and December this year, with average spending for gifts and other holiday-related items expected to amount to $875 per consumer.

  But, as Statista’s Felix Richter asks, how reliant are retailers on a successful holiday season? Can two to three months really make or break an entire year?

  Well, it depends.

  According to retail sales figures published by the U.S. Census Bureau, some types of retailers are more reliant on holiday season sales than others.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  If retail sales were distributed evenly throughout the year, the holiday quarter, i.e. the period from October through December, should account for 25 percent of the year’s total sales.

  As our chart illustrates, most retailers’ holiday sales clock in way above that benchmark though. Hobby, toy and game stores for example generated 34.5 percent of their annual sales in the last three month of last year, which is not surprising considering that toys, games and hobby supplies are popular Christmas gifts.

  Across all categories, the holiday season is not as important as one might think though. Last year, the fourth quarter accounted for 26.8 percent of total retail sales in the United States. There are even some retailers that don’t look forward to the holiday quarter as it delivers subpar results. Those include car dealerships, gas stations and building material and supplies dealers.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 17:30

• Turley: Don't Count On A Trump Conviction – None Of These Cases Are Slam-Dunks
  Turley: Don’t Count On A Trump Conviction – None Of These Cases Are Slam-Dunks

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is a longer version of my column in the New York Post on the leaking of the interviews of former counsel to Donald Trump.

  The interviews could magnify the difficulties for both Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith in their respective prosecutions.  These cases still represent a serious threat to Trump, but these prosecutors must first overcome a glaring potential contradiction. That does not mean that Christie and the other candidates will not get a “Spring Break” with a conviction, but it could prove more challenging even with highly favorable jury pools.

  

  Here is the column:

  This week, Chris Christie declared that “it’s over” for Donald Trump and predicted  that the former president would be a convicted felon “by the Spring.” He was specifically referring to the prosecutions linked to the 2020 election denial in Atlanta and D.C.

  However, Yogi Berra would likely caution that, in baseball and litigation, “it ain’t over till it’s over.”

  Trump’s greatest threat of conviction remains in Florida, where he is facing federal charges related to his retention of classified documents.

  But the judge in that case seems inclined to delay it, perhaps even until after the election.

  And with reports that Biden will not face charges in his own handling of classified documents, Trump has a political rallying cry that – correctly or not – he’s being treated differently.

  So that leaves the two cases surrounding the 2020 election.

  In Georgia, a slew of former lawyers are taking pleas with promises to testify if called. Some of their depositions have been leaked, much to the dismay of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. She has reason to be alarmed because some of the leaked interviews hit hard at the weakest link in her conspiracy case.

  For instance, Sidney Powell stated that Trump clearly believed that he had won the election when he was challenging the results in the courts and Congress.

  Powell pleaded to misdemeanors for a deal that avoids jail time and preserves her ability to resume the practice of law. She notably did not plead guilty to the sweeping racketeering charges brought by Willis to link Trump in an effort to subvert the election.

  I previously wrote that the Achilles heel of the criminal complaint was Trump’s state of mind: “As a threshold matter, one problem is immediately evident. If Trump actually did (or does) believe that he did not lose the election, the indictment collapses.”

  That’s exactly what Powell argues. Trump had “general instincts that something wasn’t right here.” She added “I didn’t think he had lost. I saw an avenue pursuant to which, if I was right, he would remain president.”

  That supplies a key defense for Trump: That he believed assurances from counsel that he had a case to make in challenging the election.

  Powell’s statement will also present challenges to Special Counsel Jack Smith who has a parallel case in Washington, D.C. While both prosecutors benefit from heavily favorable jury pools in staunchly Democratic strongholds, it requires only one holdout juror to result in a hung jury.

  Smith has admitted that Trump’s election claims were protected under the First Amendment, but claims that, at some point, they became criminal lies. But Smith fails to explain when that line was clearly crossed —  a dangerous ambiguity for free speech, particularly in the context of an election.

  Smith ignores past election challenges by Democrats that were made without factual or legal support, including the challenge in Congress to certifying Trump’s victory in 2016 by figures like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md). The statement of Powell only magnifies those concerns over the lack of a clear line between political advocacy and criminal conduct in future cases.

  As part of his own agreement, former counsel Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty  to conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Again, the deal avoided jail time and allowed him to keep his law license.

  His attorney, Scott Grubman, said that Chesebro “never believed in ‘the Big Lie’ ” and that he knows Joe Biden won the election. However, the question is what he told Trump about avenues for challenging the election. Grubman was quoted in the Messenger as stating that  he “do[esn’t] think” Trump should be concerned about Chesebro’s plea and Chesebro “didn’t snitch against anyone.”

  Previously, Chesebro’s lawyers stated that nothing about his “conduct falls outside the bounds of what lawyers do on a daily basis; researching the law in order to find solutions that address their clients’ particularized needs.”

  Both the prosecutors and media have maintained a conflicted narrative of a man who could not accept defeat and a man who knew he was defeated.

  Trump has long been portrayed as a megalomaniac in the media who never apologizes nor accepts failure. It is perfectly consistent that a man long described as having an inflated self-image would not accept that he is a loser.

  That long-held journalistic view is now a viable criminal defense.

  The Georgia case has strong individual claims for crimes like unauthorized access to voting machines or areas. But that clarity is lost in the effort to establish a massive racketeering conspiracy to ensnare Trump.

  While polls increasingly show Trump winning a general election against Biden, pundits point to these criminal trials as proof it’s all over.

  However, none of these cases are truly slam dunks, particularly with the danger of hung juries.

  In the end, both Willis and Smith are saying that a client can be criminally liable for taking the advice of counsel.  Yet, his former counsel still maintain that “I didn’t think he had lost. I saw an avenue pursuant to which, if I was right, he would remain president.” Willis will argue that not only the lawyers should be punished for these claims but so should the client in following their advice. Moreover, she will seek to use the lawyers themselves to convict their client for listening to them.

  Former counsel Jenna Ellis quotes another Trump aide in saying that the court losses did not matter because “we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave.’” However, the man she now calls a “narcissist” did indeed leave. He left with counsel publicly maintaining their ongoing claims of fraud, including Ellis. The question is whether such bad lawyering can make a good case for the prosecution.

  For candidates like Christie, it is understandable to hope that the courts will finally dislodge the hold of Trump on this primary. He, like others, look at this election, to paraphrase Richard III, as “the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of [New] York.” However, spring could just as easily bring more discontent rather than convictions.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 16:55

• "He's Going To Lose": Bill Maher And Donna Brazile Slam Biden As Democrats Recoil Over Age, Handling Of Israel War
  “He’s Going To Lose”: Bill Maher And Donna Brazile Slam Biden As Democrats Recoil Over Age, Handling Of Israel War

  Gavin Newsom’s oft joked about 2024 shadow campaign is going swimmingly, as Democratic darlings such as former DNC Chair Donna Brazile have joined the ongoing media campaign to destroy Joe Biden ahead of the next election.

  

  Brazile joins the ranks of David Axelrod and Bill Kristol, the former of whom suggested Biden ‘get out or get going,’ and Kristol – a NeverTrump™ neocon’s neocon, said “it’s time for Biden to announce he won’t run in 2024.” The two were reacting to an early Nov. NY Times poll which showed Trump wiping the floor with Biden in 5 of 6 battleground states that Biden carried in 2020.

  

  Of course, Brazile, appearing Friday on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, took the easy way out – attacking Biden’s age vs. say, his rapidly eroding support among pro-Palestinian Democrats with newfound libertarian leanings when it comes to sending money to Israel.

  “What do you think of prominent Democrats like David Axelrod calling for Biden to ‘get out or get going,’ – did he say that?”

  To which Brazile replied: “Look, people think that Joe Biden is perhaps too old. They’re right!”

  “Perhaps,” Maher replied.

  “Everyone ages differently,” she continued. “And, you know, so – so, Betty White lived to be 99. Mick Jagger is still twistin’ his ass.”

  Maher said moments later; “Do I think Joe Biden can do the job? Absolutely.” [fealty pledged]. “I don’t think he can win the job. And that’s what I care about. He’s going to lose.”

  Watch:

  👀 Now Even Bill Maher is Throwing in the Towel on Biden’s 2024 Run

  “I don’t think he can win the job and that’s what I care about. He’s going to lose.” pic.twitter.com/9zVXi37ld2

  — Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) November 18, 2023

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

  Maher also opined on why Trump is doing so well in the polls.

  “Trump is killing it—not just within the party, but he’s beating Biden heavily too,” he said – using this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference held in San Francisco as an example of public debacles harming Democrats.

  “Put aside the fact that you only clean up when you have company coming over,” he said. “So they cleaned it up, they get vagrants off the street, the homeless. God forbid the guy who sends us the fentanyl sees somebody on fentanyl.”

  Bill Maher on the cleanup for APEC, fentanyl, and specifically China President Xi –> “God forbid the guy who sends us the fentanyl sees someone on fentanyl…” pic.twitter.com/DyeTRwY44b

  — FriscoLive415 (@friscolive415) November 18, 2023

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  Biden’s age is Democrats ‘biggest liability’ for 2024

  

  On Sunday, Bloomberg pointed out that Biden, who turns 81 on Monday, is ancient.

  While the White House insists that Biden remains healthy enough to serve as commander in chief, recent polls show him trailing Trump across key swing states, with voters citing deep concerns about his health and acuity.

  A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult survey this month found voters in seven swing states more likely to associate old age with Biden than any other topic. In an open-ended question asking what they had heard about the candidates lately, hundreds of respondents cited Biden’s age. Fewer than a dozen did the same for Trump.

  Those perceptions have been fueled by high-profile moments including his fall at an Air Force Academy graduation, staircase stumbles boarding Air Force One, the revelation he was using a medical device to aid his breathing during sleep, and a series of verbal gaffes. Taken together, they have fanned uneasiness among Democrats that the man who has cast himself as the bulwark against Trump’s return is just one illness or injury from plunging his campaign – and the nation – into calamity.

  And then there’s Israel

  According to a new NBC News poll, Biden’s standing has hit new lows amid the Israel-Hamas war, with many Democrats opposing the US government’s support of Israel.

  NBC News Poll: Biden’s standing hits new lows amid Israel-Hamas war pic.twitter.com/gzuX5YiTNN

  — John Hudson (@John_Hudson) November 19, 2023

  Where does Gavin stand on that whole kerfuffle since recently returning from Israel and China?

  

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

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 16:20

• Elon Musk's X Intervenes For Student In Trouble With College Over Social Media Posts
  Elon Musk’s X Intervenes For Student In Trouble With College Over Social Media Posts

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

  Elon Musk’s company is intervening for a college student in trouble for posts he made on Twitter, in what is believed to be the first time Mr. Musk has made good on his promise to support people being punished over their speech.

  

  X Corp. is supporting a University of Illinois student after the school launched disciplinary proceedings against him over statements he made on Twitter, now known as X, according to letters reviewed by The Epoch Times.

  Juan David Campolargo, the student, was preliminarily found in violation of the university’s student code of conduct, which bars “inciting, aiding, or encouraging others to engage in a behavior which violates the student code,” according to the student’s lawyers.

  Mr. Campolargo also violated the part of the code that prohibits theft of services or possession of stolen property, the school determined.

  Mr. Campolargo was charged over posts he made with an X account that provided students with information on events that offered free food, lawyers with Schaerr Jaffe wrote in the letters. In several posts, Mr. Campolargo advertised a closed conference, but he was not aware the event was closed, the lawyers said.

  “It was not until nearly a month after Mr. Campolargo’s posts that he learned the dinner was apparently part of a closed conference. There was no evidence of any disturbance of the event or the dinner. Mr. Campolargo also went to the room where the dinner was offered, but arriving at 8:30 p.m., the conference had concluded and all attendees had already left. While the university catering staff was in the process of throwing away the remaining food, without any objection from the catering staff, Mr. Campolargo took some of the food for later,” the lawyers wrote to Robert Jones, the university’s chancellor.

  “Two additional students showed up a few minutes later and were provided food with the staff’s consent. After that, the staff completed their take down and cleaned up by 9:00 p.m. In short, there was no ‘theft’ of food or other university property.”

  They added: “Mr. Campolargo also did not incite any student to violate the student code of conduct. Rather his ‘offenses’ were exercising his First Amendment right to publicize opportunities for students to find food on campus, and openly taking some food that was being thrown in the trash.”

  Should the university uphold the preliminary finding and punish Mr. Campolargo, the student would have a legal claim for a violation of his First Amendment rights, the lawyers warned the school.

  They cited in part a federal ruling in 2013 that said a government actor “may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected … freedom of speech even if he has no entitlement to that benefit.”

  Previous rulings have found that placing messages on T-shirts and passing out Valentine’s cards are protected by the First Amendment.

  Mr. Campolargo being mistaken about whether the event was open does not undermine the position that his speech was protected, given the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is “no general exception to the First Amendment for false statements,” the student’s lawyers said.

  If the sanctions pressed against Mr. Campolargo are upheld, he will lose his position as resident adviser and lose his allowance for housing and meals, the university has informed the student. To be a resident assistant, a student must “maintain a clear judicial history.” Because of Mr. Campolargo’s financial situation, the loss of the housing and food benefits “may also cost him his ability to complete his degree,” his lawyers told the university’s Office for Student Conflict Resolution in another letter.

  The missives were sent in November.

  They were first reported by the Financial Times on Nov. 16.

  

  Support Confirmed

  Mr. Campolargo, who did not return an inquiry, is an engineering student at the university.

  Schaerr Jaffe’s lawyers declined to comment on the letters, referring The Epoch Times to X.

  A query sent to X returned an automated message that said, “Busy now, please check back later.”

  Mr. Musk confirmed his support for the college student in a brief X post.

  “We will do whatever it takes to support your right to free speech!” he said.

  Mr. Jones, the University of Illinois, and the university’s Office for Student Conflict Resolution did not respond to requests for comment.

  Mr. Musk said earlier this year that he would support people in trouble for posts made on X.

  Advertisement – Story continues below

  “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill,” Mr. Musk wrote.

  “No limit. Please let us know,” he added at the time.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 15:45

• Recycling Eco-Myths Is The Existential Threat
  Recycling Eco-Myths Is The Existential Threat

  Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

  The recycling myth – Save the planet by separating paper and plastic! – is a foundational falsity of the green movement.

  

  By promising a relatively simple solution to an alleged problem, it has enabled the left to control behavior through a made-up morality that stigmatized dissent – Only bad people refuse to recycle.

  Like most progressive interventions – from welfare policies that destroyed families while increasing dependency, to drug use reforms that have filled city streets with desperate addicts – recycling plans that sound good on paper (and plastic) have continuously collided with reality so that even liberal outlets such as the New York Times (“Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not”), NPR (“Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse”) and the Atlantic magazine (“Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work”) have finally admitted its failures.

  The same dynamic is now at work regrading a far more significant green fantasy: the left’s push to decarbonize the U.S. and other Western industrial economies during the next few decades and attain an eco-purity calculus known as Net Zero. While brandishing the moral cudgel with full force – President Biden describes climate change as “an existential crisis,” i.e., every person and puppy will die if we don’t submit to his agenda – the left also suggests the transition will be easy-peasy: Just build some windmills, install some solar panels, and swap out your car, stove, and lightbulbs for cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

  Though much of the cheerleading media downplays this fact, it is already clear that Biden’s enormously expensive, massively disruptive goal is a pipe dream. In a recent series of articles, my colleagues at RealClearInvestigations have reported on several of the seemingly intractable problems that the administration and its eco-allies are trying to wish away.

  The dishonesty begins with the engine of the green economy – the vast array of wind and solar farms that must be constructed to replace the coal and gas facilities that power our economy. James Varney reported for RCI that the Department of Energy’s official line is that the installations required to meet Biden’s goal of “100% clean electricity” by 2035 will require “less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area” – or roughly 15,000 of the lower 48’s roughly 3 million square miles. However, Varney noted, “the government report that furnished those estimates also notes that the wind farm footprint alone could require an expanse nine times as large: 134,000 square miles. That is equivalent to the land mass of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky combined – plus all of New England.

  Echoing the 19^th century adage that figures don’t lie, but liars figure, the discrepancy mostly involves estimates of what can be built around the windmills. Each turbine’s footprint is relatively small, but they have to be spaced far apart. The DOE’s smaller number is based on the fanciful assumption that all the surrounding land can be used for agriculture and other purposes, while the larger figure assumes none of it will. The truth probably is somewhere in between. That the government is trumpeting the impossibly small number – while ignoring the additional land needed to build transmission lines which will carry the current to end users – is telling and troubling.

  Given Biden’s aggressive timeframes for the build-out – 2035 is a mere dozen years from now – one might expect that the administration has a master plan detailing where and when these green farms will be constructed. It does not. And, as Steve Miller reported for RCI, this challenge already seems insurmountable given the “grassroots resistance … coalescing in varied new state laws and local ordinances that threaten to bog down solar and wind development in a multi-front legal and regulatory war on a scale not seen before.”

  In a stinging irony, opponents are routinely invoking arguments regarding endangered species and wetlands that environmentalists have long deployed to kneecap pipelines, gas fields, and other fossil fuel projects.

  Another largely ignored problem area is charging stations for electric vehicles. John Murawski reported for RCI that California’s first-in-the-nation move to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars after 2035 is highlighting an array of challenges and dislocations. To keep electric cars rolling, the state “may need to install at least 20 electric chargers for every gas pump now in service to create a reliable, seamless network” – or more than 2 million new stations during the next decade, which is about 10 times as many EV ports as gas station nozzles.

  It might be hard to convince private businesses to house the chargers, because, as a 2022 report from the California Energy Commission noted, “Revenue from electricity sales alone is often not enough today for chargers to be profitable, especially for stations with lower utilization.” That’s why California is investing at least $14 billion to subsidize this fantasy.

  Even if the EV infrastructure gets built, it will require a massive change in behavior. The days of fill ’er up once or twice a week will likely become a distant memory. Most public stations will only be able to provide between five and 60 miles of range for an hour hook-up. Private citizens will need to pony up for their own charging infrastructure at home, while renters and low-income drivers will have to rely on employer and municipal largesse to supply chargers.

  The green dream also involves knotty geo-politico issues. Ben Weingarten reported for RCI that America’s transition to renewables is empowering its most formidable economic adversary. “China currently holds a commanding position in the clean energy industry, controlling the natural resources and manufacturing the components essential to the Biden administration’s desired alternative energy transition,” Weingarten wrote. “Energy experts believe that its dominance will become more entrenched in the years ahead because of domestic environmentalist opposition to perceived ‘dirty’ mining and refining operations, and the Biden administration’s ‘clean energy’ spending blitz – which could provide Chinese companies and subsidiaries billions in subsidies.”

  What’s more, if the U.S. slows its production of oil and gas in the coming years, hostile or problematic nations that continue to drill – including Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Venezuela – will reap the benefits should renewables fail to become a reliable source of power.

  Finally, the systematic erasure of these and other consequential questions is part of a broad effort to quell dissenting views. While climate action advocates in the government, media, and academia argue that the science is settled, Murawski reported for RCI that a growing number of experts are courageously challenging this orthodoxy. In August, for example, “more than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel physics laureates, signed a declaration stating that there is no climate emergency, and that climate advocacy has devolved into mass hysteria,” Murawski wrote. “The skeptics say the radical transformation of entire societies is marching forth without a full debate, based on dubious scientific claims amplified by knee-jerk journalism.”

  In detailing the central arguments of these skeptics, Murawski reported that few fall into the camp of “climate deniers” – itself a shameful label used to equate climate change with the Holocaust. They acknowledge the Earth is warming. Some, however, question whether human activity is to blame and, if it is, whether the massive human interventions being demanded can make much difference. Others say that the money spent retooling the economy would be better spent spurring economic growth that will allow people to adapt to a changing world.

  Murawski reported that many dissenters believe that “[S]logans such as ‘follow the science’ and scientific consensus’ are misleading and disingenuous. There is no consensus on many key questions, such as the urgency to cease and desist burning fossil fuels, or the accuracy of computer modeling predictions of future global temperatures. The apparent consensus of imminent disaster is manufactured through peer pressure, intimidation, and research funding priorities, based on the conviction that ‘noble lies,’ ‘consensus entrepreneurship,’ and ‘stealth advocacy’ are necessary to save humanity from itself.”

  A lie is rarely noble. It is almost always evidence of a weak argument and contempt for those it seeks to influence. Those who see climate change as an urgent danger and believe they know how to counter the threat should make their case forthrightly instead of recycling tired myths. Our democracy faces an existential threat when the will of the people gives way to the coercion of the masses.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 14:35

• Yet Another Leftist Journalist Arrested On Child Pornography Charges
  Yet Another Leftist Journalist Arrested On Child Pornography Charges

  In the last 12 months alone, two senior producers for ABC and CNN were sentenced to prison for child porn.

  We’re starting to sense a trend.

  On Monday, Slade Sohmer, 44, the former managing editor of CNN’s now defunct BEME video sharing app and, until a month ago, editor-in-chief of the left-leaning video-driven news site The Recount, was freed on $100,000 bail after he was charged in a Massachusetts court with possessing and disseminating “hundreds of child pornography images and videos.”  He has pled not guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of dissemination of child pornography.

  

  Descriptions of the materials in question are indeed horrific, and prosecutors have hinted that Sohmer may have been involved in the production of some videos as well as the abuse of children. Court documents cited by the Berkshire Eagle earlier this week allege that Sohmer’s phone contained disturbing video clips showing boys believed to be as young as 3 years of age being raped and forced to perform sex acts by adults. Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey said this was one of the most “egregious” cases of its kind she has come across.

  According to the Berkshire County Law Enforcement Task Force’s Affidavit in Support of Probable Cause, Sohmer allegedly bragged about tricking a 14-year-old boy into sending nude pictures. He also allegedly fantasized about tricking a boy into rape, in which Sohmer and an unnamed accomplice would “Spitroast him for hours.”

  I’ve obtained the affidavit police used to support the arrest of former @therecount editor Slade Sohmer. In it, police said the uncovered hundreds of child porn videos and hundreds more texts where Slade allegedly discussed wanting to sexually abuse children. pic.twitter.com/UVSAeKh4EN

  — Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) November 16, 2023

  

  

  Sohmer’s career history is replete with yellow journalism and attacks on conservatives. The Recount’s bread and butter content for at least a couple years included a steady stream of hatchet job videos targeting “conspiracy theorists,” primarily people who stood against covid mandates and forced vaccination.  

  The arrest of the former editor comes not long after the arrest of CNN producer John Griffin for child sexual abuse, as well as the arrest of ABC producer James Gordon Meek on child pornography charges. Some critics argue that the growing list of leftist journalists caught in child pornography scandals helps to explain some of the strange behavior of media outlets where child abuse “networking” is concerned.

  Their extreme hostility to stories like Pizzagate, their defense of movies like Cuties, as well as their attacks on the film The Sound Of Freedom make more sense if there is a trend of pedophilia hidden within media circles.          

  Sohmer, whose X handle is @Slade, was once praised by John Podesta for ‘sleuthing out the origin of the sinkhole,’ replying to a joke from Slade implying that a sinkhole around Mar a Lago was due to Trump’s ‘glowing orb’ meeting.

  

  

  Sohmer made waves in 2018 when he addressed a class of fourth graders (taught by his mother) where he discussed his homosexuality with the children.  Buzzfeed covered and applauded the story in an article ironically titled “People Are Touched By This Writer’s Conversation With A Bunch of Fourth Graders,” but that piece has now been removed from Buzzfeed’s website. 

  

  Another unfortunate factor playing into the case is Sohmer’s longtime involvement in a non-profit called Camp Power, a summer camp for underprivileged children which Sohmer co-directed.  Funding for Camp Power is mainly provided by an organization called Country Roads Foundation, of which there is almost no online information. 

  In a podcast from 2019, Sohmer described his 10 years co-running Camp Power as well as his involvement as a camp councilor through his college years, working with children from grades 5 to 11.  He states that the event was the “best week of his year every year.”

  Sohmer also mentions that the organization provided scholarship vacations in which kids from Camp Power could win a place in their college program and visit various schools.  He noted that he “always drives the van” for the kids on such trips.     

  Between this, the pedophiles surrounding @jaketapper and countless other examples, when are we finally going to have a national conversation about the pedo problem in left-wing media?

  — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) November 14, 2023

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 14:00

• Rally On, Wayne! Rally On, Garth!
  Rally On, Wayne! Rally On, Garth!

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  Betting that the “everything rally” will continue seems about as mature and responsible as two high schoolers hanging out in their parent’s basement and idolizing heavy metal bands, but that’s where I am right now.

  Major Headwinds

  There are two major headwinds that I see (there are probably many more out there, including a resurgence of inflation, but I either don’t see them as realistic or am dismissing them for now).

  Geopolitical Risks

  • Support for supplying weapons to Ukraine is waning. The fighting is clearly at a stalemate. In all likelihood, the next phase of the war will feature a renewed Russian offensive later on this winter once the ground freezes. It will also be interesting to see if North Korean arms play a meaningful role.

  • Israel and Hamas. Israel is making progress towards eliminating Hamas as a military threat, but not without civilian casualties and difficulties maintaining support from its allies (more accurately, the citizens of allied countries). This effort is far more likely to be measured in months (not days), and the difficulties and risks of escalation remain. I continue to hear more concerns about supply chains, both due to the loss of production in Israel and also concerns for the safety of shipping in the region.

  • China and the U.S. The highly anticipated meeting between Xi and Biden (More Than a Photo Op) seemed to go well, although Biden’s use of the word “dictator” dampened the fireworks in the immediate aftermath. Nevertheless, the “easy” next step is to relieve tensions, either by reducing tariffs or by shifting the rules regarding various high-tech sanctions. The easy and short-term “fix” is both easiest for politicians and what I’m betting on (especially given all of the other high-level meetings that occurred between the two countries leading up to the Xi/Biden summit). I expect that we get news that is good for markets from here, and I would own some Chinese stocks here for a trade.

  • My view is that maybe geopolitical headwinds are more than priced in at the moment.

  Recession Risks

  • Maybe we are already in a recession?

    • The unemployment rate shot up from 3.4% as recently as April to 3.9% in October. That 0.5% move in a 6-month period seems concerning. While the Sahm Rule is focused on 3-month moving averages, it is worth noticing.

    • I don’t need AI (though it would probably help) to tell me that something weird is going on with consumers and retailers. Even my inbox is flooded with “storewide” discount offers. We saw a similar trend in autos when mailings went from “we want your used car” to “have we got a deal for you with your trade-in” to “winter sales events.” That was a very useful indicator for the Manheim Used Vehicle Index, which continues to decline. Sure, with AI scanning emails, looking at social media advertising, and parsing through earnings calls, we’d probably have “better” information than my subjective view, but I’m running with the view that sales are slowing more abruptly than expected.

    • For the first time in years, I feel that if I wait, I will get a lower price. That’s just me, but I suspect that far more readers will agree with this statement than disagree with it. As unscientific as that is, I’m running with it – schwing!

  • The Economist Who Cried Recession.

  • It is difficult (and dangerous) to be wrong twice. As we wrote in the piece linked above, there is a danger in continually calling for a recession and being wrong! Actually, there are two dangers:

    • Someone (or me the strategist), who calls the recession, loses credibility.

    • People are surprised by the recession when it actually hits.

  • The only “logical” view is that if you called for a recession, you are very careful about making another recession call. “Everyone” got it wrong the first time, so you get a bit of a “free pass” on that mistake. Much like the Fed reporting “transitory” inflation, you don’t want to be wrong again, because getting a second “free pass” is difficult.

    • I suspect that there is a massive amount of good (even great) bearish analysis on the economy that is being held back, restrained, or otherwise not making the circuits because it would be too embarrassing to be wrong again!

    • It was easy to be bearish on Treasuries and point to supply and D.C. because “everyone” was talking about it, the media loved it, and it was working.

    • It’s been difficult to be bearish on the economy, because it hasn’t been working, the media hasn’t had the time for it, and being wrong would waste a good “free” pass.

  • So, I think that the economy is slowing rapidly and we may be in a recession by year-end (while all these various agencies finish their revisions sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2024). That risk is dangerous for risk assets! But the bulls have some time before those stories dominate the headlines for all the reasons above, and markets won’t get fearful until then.

  Since I’m bearish on the consumer, jobs, and the economy, you can understand why I don’t feel the need to argue why inflation fears (at least for the next few months) aren’t high on my list of market worries.

  The Tailwinds

  There are many potential tailwinds:

  Seasonality. There is a reason why this report is sponsored by Wayne’s World. It is juvenile, simplistic, and entertaining (if not useful). We’ve made it to Thanksgiving, and sentiment has been and remains too bearish. There are plenty of reasons to talk about M&A (sellers have had enough time to lower their overly lofty expectations, and there is enough stability for buyers to step in, especially as financing costs got much more manageable in a very short time). All the year-end/Santa Claus rally stuff will get a lot of attention (more than usual) as the market’s recent strength will fuel the supply of such analysis. I don’t love seasonality, but who am I to fight it? Especially when it will help my market views

  

  Rates.

  

  The 10-year Treasury yield closed Friday at 4.43% (a level which it has bounced from recently). If yields go lower (I suspect that the data will help with this), then the next stop is around 4.3%. I see no reason for stocks not to respond well to yields as they head towards 4.3%. That is a number still “consistent” with a “reasonable” landing. Yes, we will start getting more and more recession calls in the coming days, but they will remain “background” noise and be easily dismissed. As we go below 4.3% that is when all those bears (who have been circumspect) will come out of the woodwork. So, lower yields (which is my main call) will help stocks until around 4.3% where the narrative will become more difficult (especially when the media and analysts will “unleash the hounds” of bearishness). It will take some negative news to reach 4.3% (given all the other issues). Lower inflation due to a better relationship with China can help initially, but we won’t be at 4.3% without some serious doubts about the state of the economy.

  Return chasing. I am not worthy! Okay, I had to work that line into today’s report somehow, and this seemed to be the best place.

  

  • We all know how much of this year’s return has been driven by just a handful of stocks. The QQQ (a Nasdaq 100 ETF) is up 46% versus 22% for QQE (an equal weighted version). SPY (S&P 500) is up 19% vs 4% for RSP (an equal weighted version). IWM (Russell 2000) has eked out a 3.4% gain and was negative on the year as recently as last week!

  • Look at what is starting to happen as of late: the laggards have been driving the show, especially to the upside! On Friday, the “major” indices barely moved, but the equal weighted versions did well, with the Russell 2000 increasing more than 1% to gain over 5% on the week!

  • If there is one “pain” trade left for funds, it is being long the “magnificent” stocks versus being short everything else. If I was a massive hedge fund, one area that I’d try to squeeze higher into year-end would be the laggards (like the Russell 2000), partly because people are underweight or short, and partly because the market caps of companies in this index are smaller and they are easier to push around. I’m looking for a massive catch-up into year-end on the equal weights and Russell 2000!

  The tailwinds might range from whimsical (seasonality) to technical (the laggards turning the corner) and rely on equities “misinterpreting” or “translating” lower yields “incorrectly” for a period of time.

  Bottom Line

  It may seem like some of my headwinds are tailwinds, but that is deliberate. Geopolitical risk is being priced in overly negatively at the moment, and I expect that news on the China/U.S. front will help mitigate risk.

  It may seem like some of my tailwinds are headwinds, but that is on purpose. The move to lower yields will, at least initially, be more important than the reasons for those moves to lower yields.

  I like rates and more inversion in the curves. Still using 4.3% on 10s as a near-term target.

  I like credit. While we didn’t discuss credit directly in this report, I remain very bullish. Yes, supply will be higher than normal in December as issuers take advantage of the “unexpected” reprieve in rates, but there should be plenty of money available. That is especially true for BB issuers who can fill the void left in the BB space by Ford’s upgrade (Ford entities were upgraded by S&P to BBB- recently, making their bonds eligible for Investment Grade Index inclusion). I continue to believe that investors will rethink “credit” risk in terms of the U.S. government, and get more overweight credit products (please see last weekend’s Safety Dance where we try to explain this in greater detail).

  Equities. I love the laggards and like the rest (for now). Use 4,600 on the S&P 500 as a target to watch (which seems like it could coincide with 4.3% on 10s), but be heavily skewed to the under-owned names, indices, and subindices as I think that the combination of positioning along with everything else will drive extreme outperformance!

  Rally on! Schwing!

  Just because something is juvenile and immature, doesn’t mean that it’s bad! Kind of like this “everything rally.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 13:25

• France Dispatching Warship With Medical Aid To Gaza
  France Dispatching Warship With Medical Aid To Gaza

  Already the United States has a significant naval build-up in the Mediterranean and Mideast region, but over the weekend France has newly announced it is also sending a warship related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

  “France is preparing to send its Dixmude helicopter carrier to the eastern Mediterranean to offer medical assistance in Gaza,” the office of the French president announced. 

  

  The warship is set to deploy “at the start of the week and arrive in Egypt in the coming days,” according to President Emmanuel Macron’s office. The statement underscored a purely humanitarian aid mission.

  “France will also contribute to the European effort with medical equipment on board European flights on November 23 and 30,” the statement continued.

  It added, “France is mobilizing all its available means to contribute to the evacuation of wounded and sick children requiring emergency care from the Gaza Strip to its hospitals.”

  In recent days Macron has been involved in talks with his Qatari and Egyptian counterparts. He spoke about the ongoing hostage crisis in Gaza with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. 

  The Saturday meetings resulted in the three countries agreeing on “the need to increase the number of trucks entering Gaza and to strengthen coordination for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the treatment of the wounded,” in a statement.

  Israel has reportedly already agreed days ago to allow more fuel into the Gaza Strip. This has riled hardliners in Israeli Knesset as they argue that supplying fuel will only benefit Hamas. The Netanyahu government has continued feeling pressure from the international community, and from Washington, given the soaring death toll among Palestinians and the severe humanitarian crisis unfolding.

  The EU is looking at a maritime corridor for Gaza aid.

  Here is why it will be difficult👇 #EuropeNews https://t.co/6XCxGUVzT6

  — euronews (@euronews) November 14, 2023

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

  There have been weekend reports that a major hostage breakthrough deal has been reached, but has yet to materialize on the ground. A Qatar government statement said, “The challenges that remain in the negotiations are very minor… They are more logistical, they are more practical.”

  Negotiations have been “up and down over the last few weeks. I think I’m more confident now that we are close enough to reach an agreement that will allow these people (the hostages) to return home safely” a Qatari spokesman said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/19/2023 – 12:50

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