Today’s News 24th August 2023

• Abortion: The Republican Party's Albatross
  Abortion: The Republican Party’s Albatross

  Authored by Bill King via RealClearPolitics.com,

  Polling has shown that for nearly five decades, slightly over half the American people have believed that abortion should be legal in some circumstances. Just over a quarter believe it should be legal in all circumstances, and about 17% believe it should be illegal under any circumstance. The opinions of the American people have been remarkably stable. However, since the repeal of Roe, there has been an uptick in those who believe it should be legal in any circumstance and a downtick in those who believe it should be illegal in any circumstance. In the last polls conducted by Gallup, only 13% of Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

  A poll by Pew found about a dozen states where a majority believed that abortions should be illegal in “all or most circumstances.”

  I have not been able to find any poll in any state where there is anywhere close to a majority that believes it should be illegal in all circumstances. Recent Texas polling has the number of Texans with that view in the low teens.

  

  Yet, Republicans in state legislatures across the country are pushing abortion restrictions that are clearly out of step with the nation’s mood. Why? Because typically only about 10% of voters show up for the Republican primaries, and virtually all of the 10-15% of Americans who believe abortion should be illegal in any circumstance vote in the Republican primaries. And because gerrymandering has made most November general elections irrelevant, Republican legislators must toe the line or face angry primary voters.

  It is a dilemma for which the Republican Party has no solution and which is unlikely to be resolved anytime in the foreseeable future. For most Americans who believe a fetus at the time of conception has all the rights of a person, their belief is a fervent religious belief, which means that they are not persuadable to moderate their view and they cannot compromise on the issue. And because the Republican agenda includes this and other positions that are largely out of step with the majority of the American people, it is unlikely that the party is going to be able to expand its primary voting base to dilute the fervent anti-abortion voters.

  The depth of the Republican abortion problem was on full display in Ohio’s referendum last week to raise the percentage needed to amend its constitution from 50% to 60%. The referendum was engineered by anti-abortion legislators attempting to improve their odds in another referendum this fall, which would prevent the Ohio legislature from prohibiting abortion before fetal viability and guarantee an exception for the health of the mother. Ohio voters, who clearly favor this constitutional amendment, saw through the transparent attempt to derail it and trounced the proposal by a 14-point margin (57-43).

  That margin is even more impressive than it may seem at first blush, because the election was a special election with only a 38% turnout. Anti-abortion activists typically overperform in low turnout elections. When Ohioans vote in November on the actual abortion amendment and turnout is up, the amendment will probably win by 20 points or more. Keep in mind that Trump won Ohio by eight points.

  The Ohio results come in the wake of voters in the red states of Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana solidly defeating ballot measures that were advanced by anti-abortion activists.

  In two blue states, California and Vermont, ballot measures ensuring certain abortion rights passed overwhelmingly.

  As long as the Supreme Court had state legislatures handcuffed with the Roe ruling, Republican members of those bodies could demur to primary voters that they were powerless to restrict abortion.

  But after Roe was overturned, they were forced to act to survive potential primary voters, which alienated general election voters in the process.

  The 2022 election was the first test of whether swing voters would be swayed by Roe being overturned and move them toward Democratic candidates. Many pundits have attributed the no-show of the Republican red wave in 2022 to the abortion issue, and some exit polls seem to confirm that was probably a significant factor. It is important to keep in mind that Roe was only overturned in June, just four months before the election and, critically, before many state legislatures began to crack down on abortions.

  Historically, abortion has been listed by relatively few voters among their most important issues. But that is probably because most viewed the issue as settled by Roe. However, with abortion back on the agenda in many states, this is likely to change, especially with those all-important white suburban women who lean Republican but are also willing to switch sides. Most of these women are not “pro-abortion,” but they also know from personal experience the complexity many women face with their pregnancies, and they resent rigid state laws limiting the options women have.

  The only thing that will keep the Republican Party from suffering a real free fall from its extreme anti-abortion agenda next November is that swing voters also view the Democratic Party as driven to extremes by its ideologues. Or, as one of my friends likes to say, “The only thing keeping the Republican Party afloat is how god-awful the Democratic Party is.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 23:50

• Mexican Cartels Increasingly Use Drone-Dropped And Roadside Bombs
  Mexican Cartels Increasingly Use Drone-Dropped And Roadside Bombs

  Behaving more and more like a military force, Mexican drug cartels have greatly increased their use of improvised explosive devices in their combat with authorities and rival criminal gangs, the Mexican army said on Tuesday.  

  Already this year, 42 police officers, soldiers and others have been wounded, nearly triple the count in 2022. Fatalities have included a National Guard officer and several police officers. 

  

  “All of these explosive devices are homemade, based on tutorials that can be found on the internet,” said Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval. Most of the them use either readily-purchased black powder, or explosives stolen from Mexican mines. They’re deployed in a variety of ways — including roadside bombs, car bombs, and bombs dropped from drone aircraft. 

  Drone-bombings are surging: The tactic wasn’t seen before 2020, but 260 such attacks have been tallied this year. “Even that number may be an underestimate: residents in some parts of the western state of Michoacan say that attacks by bomb-dropping drones are a near-daily occurrence,” reports Associated Press. 

  

  The bombs often fail to explode, but when they do, the results can be catastrophic. July brought one of the most spectacular set of bombings yet — as a coordinated series of seven road bombs killed four police and two civilians in what the governor of Jalisco called “a trap” targeting law enforcement. Four vehicles were destroyed and 14 people were injured by bombs so strong that they cratered the highway. 

  A majority of the explosive deployments have been recorded in Michoacán state, where the Jalisco cartel has long been at war with a federation of local gangs. 

  Bombings almost seem charming in contrast to a godawful cartel video that circulated from Mexico this week. It depicted the decapitation slaughter of five kidnapping victims. Traveling to attend a festival in Jalisco, they were apparently lured with a bogus employment opportunity, with the intent of forcing them to work for the cartel. Authorities believe they refused. Most horrifically, the video seemed to depict one of the victims being forced to bludgeon and decapitate another, before being killed himself. 

  For Mexicans, the video resurrected memories of a 2010 incident in which abducted men who refused to serve the cartel were forced to fight each other until death with sledgehammers. Let’s pray these horrors stay south of the border.  

  Open floodgates at Arizona border allowing thousands of migrants to walk into the country
  🔥🔥🔥

  🔊 pic.twitter.com/RaZRYAVf7S

  — Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 23, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 23:30

• Will You Comply?
  Will You Comply?

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  There are new mask mandates in Southern California and talk of them coming back in various spots around the country, including a university in Atlanta. Contact tracing too is back, even though that never works for respiratory viruses. Rumors are swirling about new lockdowns for some new variant that is being touted by the World Health Organization (WHO). The predictable CNN is interviewing Pfizer employees about the glories of their new booster just rubber-stamped by the FDA.

  And Fauci is out and about defending lockdowns and suggesting that we could have more.

  

  The first time is tragedy, said Karl Marx, and the second time is farce.

  We might be headed into the realm of farce, as masks that everyone knows don’t work are mandated and shots that everyone knows don’t work to stop the spread are widely encouraged. Mandates for them could easily be next. In fact, not one government policy from the entire pandemic period achieved anything but destruction.

  Now we see the problem with the failure to have a real reckoning over the COVID response. It means that the whole panoply of failed and brutal policies could come back again.

  As NPR reminds us on a daily basis, we now “have the tools” necessary to combat another pandemic or even the spread of seasonal viruses—and never mind that none of these tools actually work and all of them demoralize the population.

  At the same time, the hashtag #donotcomply is trending. Many people swear that they will not go along this time. Maybe that’s right but I’m not prepared to predict mass refusal. There were many times during the last lockdowns and masking that I refused to comply but that can create awkward situations.

  The store owner and I agreed that masks are dumb and we both went without. The next time I went in, he told me to put one on. I asked why. He said that passersby were looking through the windows and noticing we were not wearing masks and reported the store to the local government. The health inspectors arrived demanding answers.

  That was enough to convince him. He was not going to risk the well-being of his shop in what he considered to be a trivial issue of mask compliance. He would not die on this hill.

  I totally get it. I respect very much people who swear that they will not go along but I also understand those who comply. It’s a tragedy but not everyone wants to be a martyr for the cause of freedom. To be sure, if no one went along, all the lockdown regulations would effectively be null and void. There aren’t enough enforcers to bring about compliance if the whole population doesn’t go along.

  But that’s not usually how it works. Typically in these cases, the government can always count on a portion of the population to do the work of coercion for them. That’s why it is called totalitarianism: the whole of society involves itself in its own self-destruction. We saw it under China’s Cultural Revolution where the Red Guard did most of the killing, and we saw it in the COVID lockdowns when average people felt moved to rat out their fellow citizens to the health police.

  All of this takes me back to the writings of Étienne de la Boétie and his important essay “The Politics of Obedience.”

  The author is a French aristocrat and the year of writing was 1552.

  It’s as powerful then as it is now.

  “I should like merely to understand,” he wrote, “how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation! Yet it is so common that one must grieve the more and wonder the less at the spectacle of a million men serving in wretchedness, their necks under the yoke, not constrained by a greater multitude than they.”

  Perhaps it is cowardice? Boétie answers:

  “If a hundred, if a thousand endure the caprice of a single man, should we not rather say that they lack not the courage but the desire to rise against him, and that such an attitude indicates indifference rather than cowardice? When not a hundred, not a thousand men, but a hundred provinces, a thousand cities, a million men, refuse to assail a single man from whom the kindest treatment received is the infliction of serfdom and slavery, what shall we call that? Is it cowardice? … When a thousand, a million men, a thousand cities, fail to protect themselves against the domination of one man, this cannot be called cowardly, for cowardice does not sink to such a depth. … What monstrous vice, then, is this which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, a vice for which no term can be found vile enough.”

  Instead, he counsels mass non-compliance or civil disobedience. He says that even the most powerful government is rendered powerless by the mass refusal of the public to go along. If that happens, government simply ceases to have authority and power. All the guns and weaponry are rendered useless. The state lives off the people’s willingness to be bullied. If they stop being willing, the state simply falls.

  “Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”

  That’s a powerful and brilliant vision, one that has inspired me for a very long time. In addition, the 20th century saw some powerful implementations, particularly those led by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

  But how plausible is it that something like this can happen in our time? Government does everything in its power to make sure that it does not happen. The most important tool is propaganda. That can take many forms. It could be preachers yelling about eternal damnation of the refuseniks but it could also be fancy Pfizer executives calmly explaining how a new potion will protect the population against a pathogen. In both cases, the government is able to tap into the mortal fears of the public.

  And to make sure that only one message gets out, censorship becomes an imperative.

  This is why the CDC and NIH, along with the DHS and the CIA, involved themselves so heavily in social media and search engines to make sure that the public did not hear any voices of dissent. This way people will be discouraged from resisting.

  Also important is restricting gatherings.

  This was the real point of “social distancing” restrictions, not to protect you against viruses but rather to stop people from meeting others who were similarly incredulous. The goal was to isolate people so that they become demoralized and feel like crazy people.

  A major problem for all of the non-compliers this time is that we are still very much in the minority. This is partly owing to the propaganda. Google and YouTube, which make up 90 percent of both search and video traffic, are heavily censored by government. YouTube has even stated that it will not allow any content that contradicts the World Health Organization, which is the entity that started all this lockdown stuff to begin with.

  I commend everyone who swears they will not go along. But every circumstance is different.

  It is not always so easy to refuse. Everyone has jobs and income needs. People also seek social approval and thus cave when it matters most. Like Étienne de la Boétie,

  I long for a time of mass non-compliance. We are closer to that point now that we were three and a half years ago but I seriously doubt we are there just yet.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 23:10

• Hedge Funds Dump Record Amounts Of Chinese Stocks In Longest Selling Stretch On Record
  Hedge Funds Dump Record Amounts Of Chinese Stocks In Longest Selling Stretch On Record

  Not too long ago, investors – especially “smart”, fast money – loved plunking money in China, especially during painful drawdowns.

  Not this time: according to Bloomberg, global investors have sold China’s blue-chip stocks during the longest stretch of outflows on record, signaling that even the nation’s “blue chip” leaders are falling out of favor as the neverending rout deepens.

  According to the latest flow data on individual stocks available on Bloomberg, foreign investors sold 6.2 billion yuan ($851 million) of liquor giant Kweichow Moutai during Aug. 7-18, making China’s largest liquor maker the most heavily sold stock via trading links with Hong Kong. It was followed by 4.7 billion yuan of selling each for leading renewables stock LONGi Green Energy Technology Co. and major lender China Merchants Bank.

  The 10 most-sold stock by foreigners in the latest rout were among the 50 largest ones on the CSI 300. Major distiller Wuliangye Yibin, Ping An Insurance Group of China, and EV maker BYD saw selling of at least 2.9 billion yuan each through Aug. 18.

  

  In total, overseas funds offloaded the equivalent of $10.7 billion in Chinese shares in a thirteen-day run of withdrawals through Wednesday – the longest since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 2016 – as they fled the mainland market. The departures comes as a prolonged housing slump raises the risk of broader financial contagion, making the nation’s equity benchmark among the worst global performers this month with a nearly 8% loss.

  Goldman’s Prime Brokerage group made a similar observation, finding that hedge funds net sold Chinese stocks for 3 straight sessions and in 12 of the 16 days MTD. In cumulative notional terms as seen on the Prime book, this month’s net selling in Chinese equities – onshore and offshore combined – is approaching record levels vs. monthly net flows of the past decade.

  Importantly, long liquidations accounted for more than 70% of the notional net selling MTD. This month’s notional long selling already exceeds the levels seen in Aug ’21 and Jul ’15 and is on track to be the largest over the past decade.

  

  Including the August MTD activity, hedge funds have now reversed all of the cumulative notional net buying in Chinese stocks from Nov ’22 to Jan ’23 (aka “the reopening trade”). Since the start of February, ~56% of the cumulative notional net selling has ben driven by A-shares with the remainder roughly split between H-shares and ADRs.

  

  Chinese equities collectively now make up ~7.6% of global net market value on the Prime book, vs. 9.5% at the start of August and 11.2% at the start of 2023, the lowest level since early November and in the 14th percentile vs. the past five years.  Aggregate long/short ratio in Chinese equities now stands at ~2.2 (vs. ~2.7 at the start of 2023), also at the lowest level since November and in the 14th percentile vs. the past five years.

  

  The CSI 300 Index is now trading at its lowest since November as optimism of another stimulus following the July Politburo meeting quickly evaporated, even as China’s social mood is turning uglier by the day amid record youth unemployment which is rising by one percent every two months. Foreigners had moved into the market en masse back then, only to leave again now in droves as economic data continue to disappoint and stimulus fails to impress.

  A separate Bloomberg analysis showed that emerging market funds have also turned more bearish on Chinese stocks, deepening their average underweight position to almost 100 basis points as of the second quarter from 24 basis points three months earlier. They were overweight by 40 basis points as of end-2022.

  The selling streak is showing little sign of cooling, and on Wednesday overseas funds shed another 10.5 billion yuan. A top-performing Chinese macro hedge fund blamed global capital for sinking the country’s stocks, calling them a “bunch of aimless flies” that stir up market volatility. The silver lining is that foreign funds own less than 4% of total A-shares outstanding, according to a report this month from China International Capital Corp. Of course, by the time they are gone, the financial assets of the Chinese population will be worth a fraction of what it is now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 22:50

• Watch Live: 8 GOP Presidential Candidates Battle For A Participation Trophy
  Watch Live: 8 GOP Presidential Candidates Battle For A Participation Trophy

  Eight Republican candidates gather on stage to battle it out for the world’s greatest participation trophy as former President Trump – the far and away frontrunner in the race – is interviewed simultaneously by Tucker Carlson on X.

  Candidates needed to meet certain requirements set by the RNC to be able to participate in Wednesday’s debate. In addition to polling requirements, to qualify, they needed at least 40,000 separate donors to their presidential campaign committee, with at least 200 from 20 or more states and territories.

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum qualified for the debate.

  We note that Burgum injured himself playing basketball on Tuesday, his campaign confirmed, and it was unclear if that would prevent him from participating.

  

  DNC chair Jamie Harrison on Wednesday said that the first GOP primary debate will be a circus while briefing reporters ahead of it in Milwaukee.

  “I don’t know if it’s going to be a debate but more like a circus,” he said, adding that all the candidates in the field, including former President Trump, are “extreme.”

  Of course, no one asked him if President Biden will be having a debate? RFK Jr is ready.

  Watch the debate live here (due to start at 2100ET):

  *  *  *

  As The Epoch Times’ Nathan Worcester detailed earlier,as the first Republican presidential debate approaches, many may wonder how the various hopefuls are getting ready—and how the American people will receive their pitches against the backdrop of the absence of former president Donald J. Trump.

  In a series of interviews, campaign representatives and knowledgeable analysts shared insights on the coming spectacle.

  

  DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and ‘Trump in Absentia’

  Last week, a debate memo published on the website of a firm linked to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis offered some initial clues as to what observers should expect at the event, which will take place in Milwaukee on Aug. 23.

  The memo suggested Mr. DeSantis could “hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response.”

  “Take a sledge-hammer to Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake,’” it reads.

  In addition, it advises him to attack both President Joe Biden and the media repeatedly and “defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.”

  

  The Pence campaign did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

  When asked how Mr. Ramaswamy is preparing for the Aug. 23 debate, a spokesperson for his campaign directed The Epoch Times to a 45-second clip the candidate recorded with ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh.

  Mr. Ramaswamy told Ms. Walsh he didn’t want to be “overly prepared.”

  He said the event would be his “first time ever” participating in such a primary debate, setting him apart from his competitors.

  “It’ll be something of a warmup for me,” Mr. Ramaswamy added.

  The millennial entrepreneur and anti-woke investor generated a little more pre-debate publicity on Aug. 21, posting an RFK, Jr.-style video of himself playing tennis shirtless, with the caption, “Three solid hours of debate prep this morning.”

  

  Trump’s ‘Smart Move’

  Mr. Trump’s absence from Wednesday’s debate, and prospective appearance with Mr. Carlson on another medium, has elicited a range of responses.

  While Mr. Christie accused his competitor of “running scared,” a Ramaswamy’s campaign representative told The Epoch Times that the former president “should do whatever he wants!”

  “Having counter-programming during the debate is a smart move by both Carlson and Trump since it will help distract from the debate and attract attention, which is their goal,” said Kevin Tober, a news analyst with the Media Research Center, in an email interview with The Epoch Times.

  “We can expect Trump’s absence to loom large over the debate. Many of the questions, if not most, will end up having to do with him or about him,” Mr. Tober predicted.

  

  Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said he thinks Mr. Trump will ultimately “overshadow everything the seven candidates on the stage do, and thus will undermine the ability of all of them to achieve their respective goals due to the fewer number of eyeballs watching the debate and the less intense media coverage of the debate.”

  “At the end of the day, the Republican candidate Democrats most want to face in 2024 is Donald Trump, since they believe Biden can beat Trump but would have a much more difficult time beating DeSantis, Scott, Haley, etc.” Mr. Jones told The Epoch Times via email.

  Timothy Head, executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, told The Epoch Times that Mr. Trump’s rivals for the presidential slot are in a delicate position.

  “Not only do you attack Trump at your own peril of being retaliated against by Trump himself, but even more importantly for the other candidates is trying to court Trump voters,” Mr. Head said in a telephone interview.

  Both Mr. Tober and Mr. Jones expect Mr. DeSantis to be the most mercilessly scrutinized candidate on stage.

  “Due to some recent missteps from the DeSantis campaign, you can expect some tough questions to come his way. That’s expected, though, since he’s the leading candidate among those participating,” Mr. Tober said.

  Mr. Jones said he anticipates Mr. DeSantis “will try to set himself clearly apart as the only viable option to Trump without being seen as overtly anti-Trump.”

  He suggested that Mr. DeSantis’s rivals will go after the governor “with the goal of freeing up his donors and voters”—a prediction in line with what other insiders have told The Epoch Times about the intra-GOP scramble for the presidential nomination.

  “The lane is for Trump and a non-Trump candidate. That’s an oversimplification, but sometimes a simple story is right,” Daron Shaw, a presidential campaign veteran and professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Epoch Times in a July interview.

  

  According to Mr. Head, a very big question will loom over the debate: “Which candidate can establish themselves as the Trump alternative?”

  He said he’s paying close attention to which candidates succeed in connecting with the electorate.

  That holds true even for candidates who have strong records on the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s central issues—parental rights, religious liberty, and abortion.

  While he argued that Mr. Pence’s “political and policy backgrounds could hardly be any stronger” for religious voters, he acknowledged that there is a “personality equation” as well.

  ‘Not Afraid of Hard Questions’

  Other 2024 hopefuls shared some details about what to expect in Milwaukee with The Epoch Times.

  An advisor to former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told The Epoch Times that the candidate has “been preparing for six months on the campaign trail answering unscripted questions from voters across New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina.”

  “She’s not afraid of the hard questions. She’ll always fight for what she believes in,” the advisor added.

  

  A campaign spokesperson for Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told The Epoch Times that the presidential hopeful “will share his positive, conservative message on the debate stage in Milwaukee.”

  “This debate is another opportunity to connect with millions of voters across the country and show why Tim has faith in America and why he is the strongest candidate to beat Joe Biden,” the spokesperson continued.

  The Epoch Times contacted the presidential campaign of North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. The campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

  Jackson Richman contributed to this report

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 22:45

• Macleod: The Global Bank Credit Crisis
  Macleod: The Global Bank Credit Crisis

  Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

  Globally, further falls in consumer price inflation are now unlikely and there are yet further interest rate increases to come. Bond yields are already on the rise, and a new phase of a banking crisis will be triggered.

  This article looks at the factors that have come together to drive interest rates higher, destabilising the entire global banking system. The contraction of bank credit is in its early stages, and that alone will push up interest costs for borrowers. We have an old fashioned credit crunch on our hands.

  A new bout of price inflation, which more accurately is an acceleration of falling purchasing power for currencies, also leads to higher interest rates. Savage bear markets in financial and property values are bound to ensue, driving foreign investors to repatriate their funds. 

  This will unwind much of the $32 trillion of foreign investment in the fiat dollar which has accumulated in the last fifty-two years. And BRICS’s deliberations for replacing the dollar as a trade settlement medium could not come at a worse time.

  

  Global banking risks are increasing

  Gradually, the alarm bells over credit are beginning to ring. Monetarist and Austrian School economists are hammering the point home about broad money, which almost everywhere is contracting. It is overwhelmingly comprised of deposits at the commercial banks. And this week, even China’s command economy has had credit problems exposed, with another large property developer, Country Garden Holdings missing bond payments.

  A global cyclical downturn in bank credit is long overdue, and that is what we currently face. Empirical evidence of previous cycles, particularly 1929—1932, is that fear can spread though the banking cohort like wildfire as interbank credit lines are cut, loans are called in, and collateral liquidated. The question arising today is whether the current credit cycle downturn is more acute than any of those faced by our fiat currency world since the 1970s, or whether timely expansions of central bank liabilities can come to the rescue again.

  The problem with using monetary policy to avert a financial crisis is that there is bound to come a time when it fails, particularly when it is driven by bureaucrats whose starting point is an assumption that banks are adequately capitalised for an economic downturn. This ignores unproductive debts from previous cycles which have simply accumulated into a potential tsunami of defaults. When it overwhelms the banks, the policy response can only be so destructive of the currency that the cure exacerbates the problem. And with bond yields rising again, there are good reasons to believe that a tipping point is now upon us.

  Credit, which is synonymous with the towering mountains of debt is all about faith: faith in monetary policy, faith in the currency, and faith in a counterparty’s ability to deliver. Before we look at risks faced by the fiat currency cohort, it is worth listing some of the factors that can lead to the collapse of a credit system:

  • Contracting bank credit. Contracting bank credit is the consequence of the bankers recognising that lending risks are escalating. It is an acute problem when bank balance sheet leverage is high, magnifying the potential wipe-out of shareholders’ capital arising from bad and doubtful debts. Consequently, both normal and overindebted borrowers whose cash flow has been hit by higher interest rates are denied loan facilities, or at the least they are rationed at a higher interest cost. Therefore, the early stages of a credit downturn see interest rates rising even further leading to business failures. Essentially, the central banks lose control over interest rates.

  • Interbank counterparty risks. There is a long history of banks suspecting that one or more of their number has become overextended or mismanaged and is therefore a counterparty risk. Banks have analytical models in common to determine these risks, so there is a danger that the majority of banks will share the same opinion on a particular bank at the same time, leading to it being shut out of wholesale markets. When that happens, it cannot fund deposit outflows, is forced to turn to the central bank for support, or it suddenly collapses. Recently, this was the fate of Silicon Valley Bank. A downgrade by a credit agency, such as S&P or Fitch, could trigger an interbank lending crisis, either at a local or international level in the case of a country downgrade. These downgrades have now started.

  • Rising bond yields. Banks usually stock up on government debt, redeploying their assets when they are cautious about lending to the private sector. Therefore, an increase in bond holdings tends to be countercyclical with reference to the credit cycle, with exposure limited to maturities of only a year or two. This pattern has been broken by central banks suppressing interest rates to or below the zero bound at a time of prolonged economic stagnation. Again, Silicon Valley Bank serves as an example of how this can go horribly wrong. It was able to fund bond purchases at close to zero per cent to buy Treasury and agency debt of longer maturities to enhance the credit spread. When interest rates began to rise, the bank’s profit and loss account took a hit, and at the same time, the market values of their bond investments fell substantially, wiping out its balance sheet equity. The Fed has taken on this risk by creating the Bank Term Funding Programme, whereby the Fed takes in Treasuries at their redemption value in return for cash in a one-year swap. Essentially, the problem in the US is covered up and accumulating on the Fed’s balance sheet instead — though this is not reflected in the Fed’s accounting practices. The draw-down in this facility is currently $107 billion and rising.

  • Quantitative tightening. Collectively, the major central banks (the Fed, ECB, BoJ, and PBOC) have reduced their balance sheets by some $5 trillion since early-2022. This QT has been put into effect by not reinvesting the proceeds of maturing government debt. Nearly all of the reduction in the central banks’ balance sheets is reflected in commercial bank reserves, which are balances recorded in their accounts as assets. Accordingly, the commercial banking system as a whole comes under pressure to reinvest the released reserves into something else, or to reduce its combined liabilities to depositors, bondholders, and shareholders. Initially, the commercial banking system can only respond by increasing holdings of three and six months treasury bills, which is an unstable basis for government funding.

  • Collateral liquidation. All the charts of national bond yields scream at us that they are continuing to rise, instead of stabilising and eventually going lower as the majority of market participants appear to beleive. Furthermore, with oil and other energy prices now rising strongly, the prospect of yet higher interest rates driven by contracting bank credit (as detailed above) along with a number of other factors discussed in this article point to significantly higher bond yields driving a bear market in financial assets and property values. Where banks hold collateral against loans, there will be increasing pressure on them to sell down financial assets before their values fall further.

  • Property liabilities. Bank lending for residential and commercial property will have to absorb substantial write-offs from the consequences of interest rates driven higher by price inflation and contracting bank credit. The Lehman crisis was about lending and securitisation of mortgage debt. This time, higher interest rates will add commercial real estate into the equation.

  • Shadow banks. Shadow banks are defined as institutions which recycle credit rather than create it for which a banking licence is required. It includes pension funds, insurance companies, brokers, investment management companies, and any other financial entity which lends and borrows stock or deals in derivatives and securities. All these entities present counterparty risks to banks and other shadow banks. Some of the risks can emerge from unexpected quarters, as was illustrated by the pension fund blow-up in the UK last September.

  • Derivatives. Derivative liabilities come from global regulated markets, which are assessed by the Bank for International Settlements to have an open interest of about $38 trillion last March with a further $60 trillion notional exposure in options. Markets in unregulated over-the-counter derivatives are far larger, at an estimated $625 trillion at end-2022 comprised of foreign exchange contracts ($107.6 trillion) interest rate contracts ($491 trillion) equity linked ($7 trillion), commodities ($2.3 trillion), and credit including default swaps ($9.94). All derivatives have chains of counterparty risk. We saw how a simple position in US Treasuries undermined Silicon Valley Bank: a failure in the derivative markets would have far wider consequences, particularly with regulators being unaware of the true risk position in OTC derivatives because they are not in their regulatory brief.

  • Repo markets. In all banking systems, some more than others, banks depend on repurchase agreements to ensure their liquidity. Low interest rates and the availability of required collateral feature in this form of funding. Particularly in Europe, repo quantities outstanding have built up in various currencies to over €10.4 trillion equivalent according to the International Capital Markets Association. Essentially, these amounts represent imbalances within the financial system, which being collateralised have become far larger than the traditional overnight imbalances settled in interbank markets. Even though repos are collateralised, the consequences of a counterparty failure are likely to be far more concerning to the stability of the banking sector as a whole. And with higher interest rates, a bear market in collateral values seems set to dry up this liquidity pool.

  • Central bank balance sheets. Central banks which have implemented QE have done so in conjunction with interest rate suppression. The subsequent rise in interest rates has led to substantial mark to market losses, wiping out their equity many times over when realistically accounted for. Central banks claim that this is not relevant because they intend to hold their investments to maturity. However, in any rescue of commercial banks, their technical bankruptcy could become an impediment, undermining confidence in their currencies.

  Looking at all these potential areas for systemic failure, it is remarkable that the sharp rise in interest rates so far has not triggered a wider banking crisis. The failures of Credit Suisse and a few regional banks in the US are probably just a warm-up before the main event. But when that time arrives, it becomes an open question as to whether central banks and their governments’ treasury ministries will pursue bail-in procedures mandated in G20 members’ laws in a knee-jerk response to the Lehman crisis. Or will they resort to bailouts as demanded by practicalities? Lack of coordination on this issue between G20 nations could jeopardise all banking rescue attempts.

  Additionally, while technicians in central banks have some understanding of credit and the practicalities of banking, the same cannot be claimed of bank regulators. They rarely have hands-on experience of commercial banking. They devise stress tests, the starting assumption of which is that banks regulated by them will survive. Otherwise, they will be demonstrated to have failed in their duties as regulators. It is noticeable how the economic assumptions behind prospective banking stresses are almost always unrealistically mild.

  When the muck hits the fan, the bureaucratic imperative is to deflect all blame of the failure to the commercial banks themselves, away from their own incompetence.

  The US banking system’s weak points

  As the reserve currency for the entire global fiat currency system, the dollar and all bank credit based upon it is likely to be the epicentre of a global banking crisis. If other currencies weaken or fail, there is likely to be a temporary capital flight towards the dollar before financial contagion takes over. But if the dollar fails first, all the rest fail as well.

  The condition of the US banking system is therefore fundamental to the global economy. There are now signs that not only is US bank credit no longer growing but is contracting as well.

  

  The chart above is the sum of all commercial bank deposits plus reverse repurchase agreements at the Fed. While the latter are technically not in public circulation, they have been an alternative form of deposits for large money market funds that otherwise would be reflected in bank deposits. Recently, having soared from nothing when the Fed permitted certain non-banks to open repo accounts with it in 2021, to a high of $2,334.3 billion last September, the facility has subsequently declined by $543 billion. Adding this change into the bank deposits figures shows the true contraction of bank credit to be $1,203 billion, which is 5.9% of the high point earlier this year. Some of the difference in bank liabilities has been taken up by an increase in loans to commercial banks ($556 billion) which is understandable when depositors earn virtually nothing on their deposits compared with fixed loans to a bank. 

  When these factors are considered, total assets are not yet significantly below their peak, indicating that so far banks have been only rearranging their assets with a view to controlling risk. Therefore, the credit crisis it is still in its early stages, which the potential to increase significantly.

  The chart below indicates why in a deteriorating lending environment banks are sure to contract their balance sheet totals.

  

  Over the last three decades, the ratio of total assets to tier 1 risk capital has grown from just under eight times, which historically was considered as normal, to a recent fourteen times. It is this leverage ratio that threatens to wipe out shareholders’ capital if the combined level of non-performing loans and mark-to-market write-offs on financial investments increases from here.

  A second weak point is the US’s dependency on foreign dollar short-term holdings including bank deposits, which according to the US Treasury totalled $7,122 billion last May. Of that total, $2,367 billion are bank deposits, being 13% of the total in the US banking system. But to the total of short-term holdings must be added long-term holdings of $24,788 billion for a grand total of short and long-term investments of almost $32 trillion. This is substantially in excess of US GDP and has accumulated as a result of two related factors. Since the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, the dollar has been the reserve currency, and internationally commodity prices have always been quoted and dealt in with dollars.

  Within living memory, accumulation of dollars in foreign hands became excessive once before. It led to dollars being redeemed for gold, reducing US gold reserves from 21,682 tonnes in 1948 to 9,070 tonnes in 1971, when the run on gold led President Nixon to suspend the Bretton Woods Agreement. Following the abandonment of Bretton Woods, to date the dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power measured in real, legal, international money which is gold. Due to its reserve currency status and persistent US trade deficits, the proportion of foreign ownership of dollars to US GDP has continued to grow. But recent geopolitical events are threatening to reverse that trend.

  As dollar bond yields rise, undermining the capital values of the $32 trillion of foreign-owned financial assets and bank deposits, foreigners are bound to sell their dollar assets to avoid mounting losses. And already, we see many foreign nations which are not allied with America beginning to take evasive action. It is rumoured that next week there will be up to 60 nations attending the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, all seeking an alternative to the dollar’s hegemony. Russian state media has clearly stated that a new gold-backed trade settlement currency is on the summit’s agenda, calling an end to the dollar’s fiat currency regime.

  Whatever comes out of the summit, it is clear that the fiat dollar regime has almost run its course. The withdrawal of credit from the US economy will undermine the currency, increase the rates of US producer and consumer price inflation, and therefore drive up bond yields. Financial asset and property values which have become dependent on cheap finance will take a massive hit, serving to encourage additional foreign selling of non-financial assets. The losses for banks, not just in the US, are set to rapidly escalate.

  Undoubtedly, banks will come under pressure to bail out the US Government from a further deterioration of its finances at a time when foreigners are more interested in selling US Treasuries than buying them. To an extent, substituting dodgy loans to the private sector for government debt is attractive to the banks, but only with very short-term maturities. The consequence will be that government financing of maturing Treasuries and of new issues will be facilitated by 3-month and 6-month T-bills, which can be regarded as near-cash. The inflationary consequences are one thing, but the impact of rising interest rates due to the dollar being sold down by foreign agents will intensify the debt trap by rapidly increasing debt funding costs.

  As if this is not enough, at the same time the collapse of bank credit is bound to act negatively on derivative obligations. The table below is a snapshot of OTC obligations for the top twelve US banks.[i]

  

  For the reader losing count of all the noughts, it should be noted that for the top nine their exposure is in the trillions. While it is true that some OTC derivatives, such as credit and credit default swaps are not obligations for their notional amounts, others such as foreign exchange derivatives, commodity, and equity-linked contracts ($117 trillion) are extinguished for the full amount. But they are only recorded on bank balance sheets as insignificant contract values. 

  For example, in the BIS derivative estimates quoted earlier in this article, the notional value of foreign exchange OTC contracts last December was $107.576 trillion with a gross market value of $4.846 trillion. It is the latter figure which is the basis recorded in bank balance sheets. But even that total is further reduced by being listed as a net balance of purchase and sold obligations, reducing apparent exposure to an even smaller figure. Essentially, over $107 trillion of assets and liabilities are made to disappear.

  According to the BIS’s 2022 triennial OTC derivatives survey, the US dollar is a component of 88.5% of this FX position. Other than offshore trading between non-US banks in Eurodollars, which is a minor proportion of the total, all dollar contracts have US banks as counterparties. This gives rise to two systemic threats. The first and most obvious is counterparty failure with a foreign bank or shadow bank. Obviously, with rising interest rates and collapsing financial asset values in collateral, the risk of counterparty failure from outside the US banking system will increase. The second counterparty failure comes from contracts between two US banks or shadow banks.

  We can be sure that central bankers (if not bank regulators) are fully aware of these risks, refusing to draw public attention to them. For confirmation, we saw the Fed rescue AIG in September 2008 in an $85 billion bailout. AIG was the world’s largest insurance company at that time, and an originator of credit default swaps and other derivative obligations. There were other factors involved, such as securities lending. But clearly, for the Fed to rescue an insurance company must have reflected the Fed’s concerns about AIG’s failure as a counterparty in the CDS market.

  The new BRICS gold currency

  Next week, we will know more about the proposal being presented at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg. All the indications are that this new settlement currency will be denominated in a quantity of gold, such as gold grammes. The return of gold backed credit is an important development for the growing BRICS family and all the member nations, dialog partners and associates of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation seeking a better alternative to the US dollar. Furthermore, it is now in Russia’s strong interest to undermine the US dollar, lifting oil and gas dollar prices to stabilise a falling rouble. 

  The extent to which the plan for a new gold denominated currency is credible seems set to undermine the dollar’s value expressed in commodities, goods, and services externally in addition to the domestic economic and monetary factors mentioned above. The foreign exchanges will begin to anticipate that dollar reserves held by central banks in the growing BRICS camp will become increasingly redundant, to be replaced with the new gold trade settlement currency. Sovereign wealth funds are bound to follow by reducing their dollar balances, as will international commodity dealers and importers.

  Not only will dollars be sold, but the need to recycle them into US Treasuries and other investments will fall away. Unless the US Government acts to radically cut its borrowing requirements, it will face a rapidly deteriorating funding situation. The dollar costs of commodities, raw materials and imported goods will rise due to the dollar’s weakness. Consequently, dollar interest rates are bound to rise to reflect the premium foreign holders will demand to retain their dollar balances. And even that is unlikely to be enough. The great unwind of the last fifty-two years of pure fiat dollars will surely threaten not only the dollar’s existence, but its highly leveraged banking system.

  The discarding of the fiat currency past for a currency or currencies more closely allied to energy and commodities, which is actually what gold represents, is not limited to the destruction of fiat dollars, but of all other fiat currencies as well. For our current purposes, what also concerns us is the same threat faced by the other major currencies: the euro, yen, and sterling.

  It has already been mentioned that an initial failure in the US banking system will be the likely course of events because it is the most over-owned of all the major fiat currencies. But if a banking crisis does break out elsewhere first, it could lead to the dollar being temporarily bought as a safe haven until financial contagion undermines all banking relationships. It behoves us to look at the position in these other major currencies. And the example we will take is of the issues which face banks in the Eurozone.

  The euro system

  In common with other major central banks, the ECB and its network of national central banks, together the euro system, have accumulated government and other bonds through quantitative easing. The extent to which it has boosted the size of the euro system balance sheet and subsequently declined is shown in the chart below.

  

  Having hit a high point of €8,828 billion fifteen months ago, the ECB’s and national central banks’ combined assets have declined to €7,167 billion. Most of the increase from the last financial crisis to the peak had been through what the ECB calls asset purchase programmes, but otherwise known to us as quantitative easing. The decline in total assets has been achieved by allowing short-term assets to mature and for the funds to be not reinvested, leading to the liabilities to commercial banks being reduced.

  Nevertheless, on the remaining securities holdings totalling €4,865 billion currently, there are significant losses on a mark-to-market basis. Assuming an average maturity of five years, and an average rise in yield from 0% to 3.2% on Eurozone government bonds, over the last year the losses in the euro system amount to about €700 billion. This is nearly six times the combined euro system’s equity. The valuation problem is concealed by euro system accounting, which values bonds on a straight line basis between purchase price and final redemption value.

  To assume that this is not a problem because the ECB can always print euros is complacent. The only hope for the Eurosystem is for bond yields to decline, and therefore values to rise restoring balance sheet integrity. But for now, yields are rising, and it is becoming clear that they will continue to rise. At some stage, the assumption that inflation will return to target and that interest rates and bond yields will decline will be abandoned, and the recapitalisation of the entire euro system will then have to be contemplated.

  It will not be easy. Undoubtedly, legislation at a national level in multiple jurisdictions will be required. It is one thing for the ECB to railroad its inflationary policies through despite protests from politicians in Germany and elsewhere, but begging for equity capital puts the ECB on the back foot. Questions are bound to be raised in political circles about monetary policy failures, and why the TARGET2 imbalances exist. The whole recapitalisation process could descend into a very public dispute, particularly since national central banks may need capital injections as well before they can recapitalise the ECB in proportion to their shareholder keys.

  Yet, Europeans rely upon the euro system to backstop the entire commercial banking network, whose global systemically important banks (GSIBs) are even more leveraged than the American banks. Furthermore, there are bound to be hidden Eurozone equivalents of Silicon Valley Bank, whose balance sheets have been undermined to the point of insolvency by the unexpected rise in interest rates and the collapse in bond values. The €10 trillion repo market also faces collapsing collateral values. Eurozone GSIBs have heavy exposure to derivative counterparty risks. Yet, the euro system itself is bankrupt, having paid top euros for bonds which have been sinking faster than a tropical sun at twilight. 

  It is in the nature of a banking crisis that several factors come together in an unexpected perfect storm. We will all be wise after the event. But for now, we can only observe the disparate strands likely to come together and destroy the euro system, its commercial banks, and possibly the euro itself.

  That is, if the US banking system doesn’t collapse first.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 22:30

• A Crashed 1954 Ferrari Fetches $1.9 Million At Monterey Auction
  A Crashed 1954 Ferrari Fetches $1.9 Million At Monterey Auction

  Classic Ferraris are hot items at premier auction events, such as RM Sotheby’s Monterey Car Week last week.

  A crashed 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider Series I by Pinin Farina coachwork fetched $1.87 million. The sports car is one of 13 and will take much more than a buff job to return to road-worthy status.

  

  RM Sotheby’s description of the mangled Ferrari says this one is chassis number 0406 MD, the second one built and assembled in March 1954. 

  Only “13 spiders and two berlinettas were completed by Pinin Farina over a run of first-series cars before Scaglietti assumed coachwork production. Cherished by enthusiasts today for its historical significance, gorgeous aesthetics, and spirited performance, the 500 Mondial is a highly desirable collectible that is eligible for major vintage events, justifying its position at the center of notable collections worldwide,” the auction house said. 

  It was revealed by the auction house 0406 MD had a racing history:

  “In April 1954 the Ferrari was piloted by former factory driver Franco Cortese and co-driver Perruchini at the Coppa della Toscana, finishing 19th overall and 2nd in class. It is interesting to note that Cortese is listed as the owner on the factory build sheets, and his name appears several times in the engineering notes, prompting speculation that the car was purchased by Cornacchia specifically for Cortese’s use.”

  In 1954, Franco Cortese drove the 0406 MD at the Coppa della Toscana.

  

  Then, the ultra-rare Ferrari changed owners a few times in the late 1950s and suffered a crash with extensive fire damage in the mid-1960s. 

  “By the early 1970s the Ferrari was acquired by marque specialist Ed Niles, who soon sold it without an engine. After briefly passing through two Maryland-based ownerships, the spider was sold to Walter Medlin by 1978. The Mondial has since been preserved in its race-damaged condition, accounting for 45 years of seclusion from the collectible Ferrari niche. The car continues to wear its factory-issued chassis plate, and it is accompanied by components including rear-axle corners and its matching-numbers gearbox. It is also accompanied by a larger, 3.0-liter Tipo 119 Lampredi inline-four engine, such as would have been used in a Ferrari 750 Monza,” the auction house said. 

  RM Sotheby’s continued to touch on the rarity of the sports car: 

  “It is worth noting that genuine 500 Mondial examples are very rare; chassis number 0406 MD is further distinguished by being just the second car built, and having been raced and owned by one of postwar Italy’s best-known privateers. It is furthermore desirably documented with color copies of the original factory build sheets and CSAI homologation papers.” 

  Regarding the results from Monterey, as pointed out by Bloomberg:

  By the end of the weekend, total sales reached a little more than $400 million across five auction houses, including after-sales, down from $473 million last year. An average sell-through rate of just 68% for 1,225 vehicles fell short of the 78% rate from last year, when there were 1,023 on the block. A sell-through rate of 80% or more is considered healthy for a car auction.

  Average sale prices faltered, too, dropping to $477,981 from $591,768. Several Ferraris struggled, even though they’re largely considered market-proof. At Bonhams a 1967 Ferrari 412 P took $30.2 million after a lackluster show of bidding, far less than the expected $40 million. A 1964 Ferrari 250 LM at RM Sotheby’s reached a high bid of $17 million—but missed its reserve and didn’t sell at all.

  It’s unclear what the new owner plans to do with 0406 MD. Returning the vehicle to race status could cost millions of dollars.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 22:10

• Watch: Trump Warns Tucker, "There's A Level Of Passion… And Hatred I've Never Seen" And That's "Probably A Bad Combination"
  Watch: Trump Warns Tucker, “There’s A Level Of Passion… And Hatred I’ve Never Seen” And That’s “Probably A Bad Combination”

  Tucker Carlson dropped a tease clip earlier in the evening of what to expect in tonight’s interview, taking a jab at his former employer – who will be hosting the GOP debate directly against the discussion with Trump:

  “Whatever you think of Trump he is the far and away indisputable front runner in the Republican race,” Carlson said during the less than minute long video.

  “So when Trump approached us about having a conversation for a far larger audience than he would receive on cable news we happily accepted.”

  Tucker asks some stunning questions, including: “Do you think Epstein killed himself?” and “Whatever happened to Mike Pence?”

  Then Tucker goes there:

  “It started with protests against you, then impeachment twice, and now indictments… Are you worried that they are going to try to kill you? Why wouldn’t they try to kill you?”

  Trump calmly responds:

  I’ve seen the lengths that they go to… when they make up the Russia, Russia, Russia collusion and that’s exposed… these are sick people. I think they hate our country.”

  On the indictments sending Trump’s poll numbers higher:

  “I think the people of this country don’t get enough credit for how smart they are… but they get it…”

  “…the people see it’s a fraud.”

  

  On Biden:

  “Crooked Joe Biden is so bad, he’s the worst president in the history of our country. I don’t think he’s going to make it to the gate, but you never know.”

  “I think he’s worse mentally than he is physically… and he’s not exactly a triathlete.”

  “He’s both the most corrupt president we ever had and most incompetent.”

  On Biden’s links to China:

  “I actually believe he’s compromised… the Chinese have so much on him.”

  “He is in many ways a Manchurian candidate.

  “Do you think the rest of the world looks at Biden and thinks, somebody else must be running the government?”

  “well, somebody else has to be. I don’t think he’s capable of doing anything.”

  Who is pulling the strings?

  We have a president that can’t put two sentences together, can’t speak, can’t walk, can’t talk. I don’t think he gets to the starting gate but these people do miracles… I mean he ran out of his basement and he got away with it because of COVID… and they cheated on the election…

  …but they have people that are very smart, but they’re fascists and they’re radical left lunatics and they’re destroying our country.”

  On EVs:

  “The happiest time for someone in an electric car is the first 10 minutes. The unhappiest time is the next hour”

  Fear of violence?

  “Do you think we’re moving toward Civil War? Do you think its possible that there’s open conflict?” Carlson follows up.

  Trump nods, and responds:

  “there’s a level of passion and love that I have never seen. And there’s a level of hatred of what they’ve done to our country that I’ve never seen… and that’s probably a bad combination.”

  A rigged election?

  “We got way more votes in 20 than in 2016… but the election was rigged…they used COVID to cheat in a lot of different things… and we have so much on it… but we had judges that didn’t want to look… but I have never seen spirit like there is right now.”

  Trump says we should go back to all-paper ballots.

  “There is only one reason they don’t want Voter ID… it’s because they want to cheat.”

  And finally, Tucker asks:

  “you’re saying they stole it from you last time, why wouldn’t they do the same this time?”

  To which Trump replies:

  “well, they will try… they’re going to try…”

  Trump blasted  the GOP establishment’s action during his term, saying that “Mitch McConnell was trying to get senators to impeach me.”

  Trump’s first action as president?

  “close the border… except for people who want to come in legally… and getting the hundreds of thousands of criminals that have been allowed into our country and bringing them back to their country.”

  Watch the full interview below (due to begin at 2055ET):

  Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023

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

  As we detailed earlier, former President Donald Trump is skipping tonight’s GOP debates, and will instead appear for an interview with Tucker Carlson – where the pair will undoubtedly upstage the current crop of GOP candidates, who according to current polls, have no chance in hell of receiving the Republican nomination.

  Trump confirmed in a social media post that his interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson will be released tonight (Aug. 23), just before the network’s Republican presidential primary debate.

  The former president announced on Truth Social that his previously recorded interview with Mr. Carlson will broadcast at 9 p.m.

  “Sparks will fly,” President Trump wrote in his post about the interview, which will reportedly stream on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

  

  “Many people are asking whether or not I will be doing the DEBATES?” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.

  “ALL AMERICANS have been clamoring for a President of extremely High Intelligence. As everyone is aware, my Poll numbers, over a ‘wonderful’ field of Republican candidates, are extraordinary. In fact, I am leading the runner up, whoever that may now be, by more than 50 Points. Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate? I’M YOUR MAN. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

  Of note, the former president now holds the largest lead over his rivals according to a CBS News poll released on Saturday, while his nearest rival – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – has fallen even further behind.

  

  When it comes to Trump’s multiple indictments, it’s clear the right sees them as nothing more than a partisan attempt to dislodge him from the 2024 race. And with each new charge, Trump’s status as a martyr (and ratings) continue to rise.

  First, as was the case with Trump’s previous indictments, Republican primary voters’ overwhelming concern about the Georgia charges is that they’re politically motivated.

  They dismiss the premise of the charges: the bulk of them do think Trump tried to stay in office, but to them, it was legal and constitutional because these Republican primary voters overwhelmingly think President Biden didn’t win legitimately. -CBS News

  When asked whether the GOP candidates should argue the case for themselves, 91% agreed, vs. 9% who said they should talk trash against Trump.

  

  What’s more, around 75% of Trump voters are those who “show support for his legal troubles” as their rationale, while 99% say that “things were better under Trump.”

  

  Trump voters also generally believe Trump is telling the truth (duh), which is why the indictments aren’t having an impact in support among his base. Voters who say they place top importance on a candidate being “honest and trustworthy” picked Trump at 61%, followed by DeSantis at 17%.

  The context here is that Republican primary voters believe the political system is corrupt at an even higher rate than Americans overall do. That could mean perceiving Trump as railing against — or prosecuted by — that system might well make him seem, from their perspective, like the one telling a larger truth. 

  

  And when it comes to who voters think has the best chance of beating President Biden, it’s once again Trump in a landslide.

  

  

  Is there a path forward for the other candidates?

  Perhaps if they get used to being called “Mr. Vice President,” if Trump should pick them.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 22:00

• In Her Jan. 6 Courtroom, Judge Who Will Hear Trump's Case Is The Pot Calling The Defendant Incendiary
  In Her Jan. 6 Courtroom, Judge Who Will Hear Trump’s Case Is The Pot Calling The Defendant Incendiary

  Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClear Wire,

  

  At her first appearance in the criminal case against Donald Trump for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan repeatedly warned the former president’s lawyers that politics would not be tolerated in her courtroom. 

  “The fact that [Trump is] running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice,” Chutkan said during the August 11 hearing. “If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.” 

  But even as she warns Trump about his “inflammatory” language, Chutkan has routinely issued politically charged rulings and made incendiary statements of her own while presiding over some 30 cases involving Trump supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the U.S. Capitol. 

  A review of thousands of pages of hearing transcripts reveal that Chutkan has repeatedly expressed strong and settled opinions about the issues at the heart of United States v. Donald Trump – the criminal case she is now presiding over.  

  These include her public assertions that the 2020 election was beyond reproach, that the Jan. 6 protests were orchestrated by Trump, and that the former president is guilty of crimes. She has described Jan. 6 as a “mob attack” on “the very foundation of our democracy” and branded the issue at the heart of the case she is hearing – Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen – a conspiracy theory.   

  Although judges often make comments from the bench, Chutkan’s strident language raises questions about her impartiality in handling the case against the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024. 

  The U.S. code that addresses grounds for recusal states, ”Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” One reason to recuse is if the judge has demonstrated “a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.”  

  GOP Rep. Matthew Gaetz of Florida recently filed a resolution to condemn and censure Chutkan for exhibiting “open bias and partisanship in the conduct of her official duties as a judge.”  

  But if the aim among Trump loyalists is to get a new judge assigned to the case, it’s a steep legal hurdle. Stephen Gillers, a professor of law at New York University, said that typically a judge can be recused for bias or the appearance of bias “only when the purported bias comes from a source outside the judge’s work as a judge.” He continued, “Almost never will a judge be recused for opinions she forms as a judge – in hearing cases and motions. Judges are expected to form opinions based on these ‘intrajudicial’ sources. It’s what judges do.”  

  A Trump representative declined to comment about Judge Chutkan’s potential bias. The chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the American Bar Association did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Chutkan.

  Appointed by Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2013, Chutkan has been one of the toughest judges on Jan. 6 defendants. In several cases, she has given defendants longer prison terms than recommended by prosecutors. In at least two cases she sentenced defendants to jail time when prosecutors only sought probation. Chutkan herself admitted during a July 2022 court hearing that she is “one of the few judges that’s given a lot of terms of incarceration” in Jan 6. cases. 

  On at least one occasion, Chutkan suggested in open court that Trump should have been charged for his alleged role in what she routinely describes as “an attempt to overthrow the government” on Jan. 6.  

  Before sentencing Christine Priola, a Trump supporter from Ohio who pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, to 15 months in jail, Chutkan appeared to lament the fact Trump was not yet in prison. “[The] people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man – not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant, not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said on Oct. 28, 2022. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” (Emphasis added.) 

  Chutkan accused Matthew Mazzocco, another Jan. 6 defendant, of choosing Trump over the country. In rejecting Mazzocco’s argument that he traveled from Texas to Washington to engage in a legal political demonstration, Chutkan declared at his October 2021 sentencing hearing: “He went there to support one man who he viewed had the election taken from him. In total disregard of a lawfully conducted election, he went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country or in support of democracy.”   

  Although Mazzocco only spent 12 minutes inside the Capitol and committed no violence, Chutkun rejected the government’s recommendation of three months home confinement for pleading guilty to “parading” in the Capitol, a Class B misdemeanor, and instead sentenced Mazzocco to 45 days in jail.   

  Despite President Trump’s explicit request that his supporters march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, Chutkan blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 violence while sentencing Robert Palmer, who pleaded guilty in June 2021 to one count of assaulting police officers with a dangerous weapon (a fire extinguisher). In that case, Palmer’s lawyer sought a reduced prison sentence by echoing the judge’s view of Trump.  

  “Mr. Palmer went to the Capitol at the behest of the former president,” attorney Bjorn E. Brunvand wrote in a December 2021 sentencing memo to Chutkan. “Like many others who participated in the Capitol riot, Mr. Palmer blindly followed the many figures who falsely but persistently claimed that the election had been stolen from the president.”  

  Palmer himself told Chutkan that Trump’s claims about a “stolen” 2020 election prompted him to travel from his Tampa home to the nation’s capital to participate in the Capitol protest. In a handwritten note dated November 2021, Palmer told Chutkan that he realized “Trump supporters were lied to by those that at the time had great power meaning the then sitting president, as well as those acting in his behalf.” 

  Palmer apologized to Chutkan for his conduct and begged for mercy. 

  His plea fell on deaf ears. Although Chutkan expressed no sympathy for Palmer, whom she sent to prison for more than five years, she amplified Palmer’s assertions that Trump bore some responsibility:

  And it is true, Mr. Palmer you have made a very good point, one that has been made before – that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged. That is not this court’s position. I don’t charge anybody. I don’t negotiate plea offers. I don’t make charging decisions. I sentence people who have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I don’t have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant. And you’re correct in that no one who was encouraging everybody to take the Capitol has been charged as of yet, but I don’t think that fact means that you should get a lower sentence. 

  Chutkan’s references to the former president aren’t the only area of concern for Trump. Her comments from the bench also suggest that she shares the same view of Jan. 6 as the man prosecuting Trump in her courtroom, Special Counsel Jack Smith.

  Tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with investigating “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021,” Smith indicted Trump in the District of Columbia on three conspiracy counts and one obstruction count last month.  

  Throughout the 45-page indictment, Smith repeatedly accused Trump of knowingly promoting falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election. “[For] more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.” 

  Chutkan clearly shares that view. On numerous occasions, the judge has insisted the 2020 election was legitimate and fully vetted by the court system – a claim disputed by Trump that lies at the heart of the case she is now hearing.  

  “He went to the Capitol because, despite election results which were clear-cut, despite the fact that multiple court challenges all over the country had rejected every single one of the challenges to the election, Mr. Palmer didn’t like the result. He didn’t like the result, and he didn’t want the transition of power to take place because his guy lost,” Chutkan also said during Palmer’s sentencing. (When not cryptically referring to Trump, Chutkan often describes the former president as “guy.”) 

  She has accused individuals who believe the 2020 election was “stolen” as promoting “conspiracy theories.” In the case of Donna Bissel, who pleaded guilty to the nonviolent petty offense of “parading” in the Capitol, Chutkan cited Bissel’s personal beliefs as reason to sentence her to 14 days in jail rather than impose the three-year probation sentence recommended by prosecutors. 

  “As noted in the government’s sentencing memo, the defendant appears to be susceptible to believing outlandish and absurd conspiracy theories,” Chutkan said during Bissel’s October 2021 sentencing. “To protect the public, it’s important to make sure that she does not fall victim to another lie or conspiracy and act out in a way that again jeopardizes public safety. It’s one thing to believe in conspiracy theories in your basement, and it’s another thing to act out on them and, for instance, to travel from Indiana to D.C. to storm the Capitol to overturn an election.” 

  Court records show that Chutkan has repeatedly scolded defendants who question the integrity of the 2020 election – skepticism shared by 39% of Americans, according to a recent CNN poll. Here are a few examples of Chutkan’s comments on Jan. 6:  

  • USA v. Scott Ponder: “When you say you got caught up, Mr. Ponder, there’s a lot of rage and a lot of emotion and a lot of tension as you describe, and people felt very strongly, right or wrongly, that an election had been stolen. I think the evidence is quite clear that it had not, but that’s neither here nor there.” (July 26, 2022)
  • USA v. Benjamin Larocca: “Everyone standing around with their cameras on that — in front of those doors, every single one of those people contributed to the mob that tried to intimidate those police officers; that tried to gain entry into that building; that were trying to stop the transfer of power and nullify a lawfully conducted election. This was a lawfully conducted election.” (August 10, 2022)
  • USA v. Christian Cortez: “[He] was motivated to come because his candidate didn’t win and he somehow believed this election was stolen and he wanted to get it back. As I said, this wasn’t just a protest. He wanted to — that mob wanted to overthrow the government. They wanted to undo the results of what they considered a stolen election; their guy didn’t win.” (August 31, 2022) 

  Little Nuance: Chutkan’s View of Jan. 6 

  For Chutkan, the events of Jan. 6 provoke strong emotions, which she freely volunteers from the bench. “[Every] single time I watch the videos and look at the photographs of what was going on that day, I am struck anew by how horrible this was, by how violent and terrifying, and how the outnumbered and vastly unequipped law enforcement officers were feeling that day as they were basically struggling for their lives and wondering if they were going to make it home to their kids,” Chutkan told defendant Matthew Caspel in December 2022. “I don’t know if we’ll ever recover from that.” 

  A former public defender in Washington, D.C. – one of the country’s most perennially violent cities, and one generally lenient toward criminals – Chutkan argues that Jan. 6 is among the worst crime scenes she’s ever witnessed.  

  “I watch these videotapes in almost every case, and every single time I am struck anew at how horrifying the events of that day were,” she volunteered to Benjamin Larocca, who pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor and received 60 days in jail. “And I’m struck as someone who is watching – has seen this kind of footage multiple times and was looking at footage on the day – and as somebody, frankly, who has seen a lot of crime scene footage. I was a criminal defense lawyer, I was a public defender for many years. I’m not easily shocked, but it’s shocking.”  

  Many observers believe Trump already confronts a nearly insurmountable task in receiving a fair trial in the nation’s capital, a city that voted 92% for Joe Biden. Further, the Justice Department has a near-perfect conviction rate in Jan. 6 trials. Chutkan’s extensive record of comments suggest the judge presiding over his case will not make it any easier. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 21:50

• Iran Unveils New Drone Rivaling US MQ-9 Reaper & Capable Of Reaching Israel
  Iran Unveils New Drone Rivaling US MQ-9 Reaper & Capable Of Reaching Israel

  This week Iran’s military unveiled a drone which it says rivals the United States’ MQ-9 Reaper drone, touting the aircraft as easily capable of reaching Tehran’s number one enemy Israel.

  The Islamic Republic claims the new Mohajer-10 drone can stay continually airborne for 24 hours, and showcased it as the Defense Industry Day conference on Tuesday.

  

  Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attended the conference in person in order to inspect the drone, and hailed that it will “firmly introduce Iran as an advanced and technologic nation to the world.”

  According to regional reporting, “The Islamic Republic’s media outlets claimed the drone can fly up to 24,000 feet with a speed of 210 kph carrying a bomb payload of up to 300 kilograms. The drone can also allegedly hold electronic surveillance equipment and a camera.”

  However, some Western analysts have expressed skepticism, particularly regarding the claim that it mirrors the capabilities of the MQ-9 Reaper.

  Steve Bucci, a former Pentagon official, told The Foreign Desk publication that the Iranians “tend to exaggerate a lot, so I will assume that while it may look like a Reaper, I doubt it is as capable.”

  Al Jazeera writes that “media reports said the drone can travel non-stop at an altitude of 7,000 metres (4,350ft) for up to 2,000km (1,242 miles), meaning that it could reach Israel.”

  But there does remain consensus that Iran’s drone program is generally very capable, also given the heavy reliance on Iran-produced drones by Russian forces operating in Ukraine. 

  New footage released by the Islamic Republic’s state media…

  Iran today unveiled the latest entry in its Mohajer drones – Mohajer 10. It has a reported operational range of 2,000 km.

  State media have released the video below. The text in Persian and Hebrew at about 9 second in reads: “Prepare your bunkers”. pic.twitter.com/ji5wyFgOqs

  — Kian Sharifi (@KianSharifi) August 22, 2023

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

  It’s also long been known that Iran’s ballistic missiles are quite advanced, and these have been subject of intense debate alongside Iran’s nuclear program.

  Iran and Israel are still engaged in a proxy war inside Syria, where Israeli air attacks frequently target both Syrian and Iranian military positions, especially in and around Damascus and the south.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 21:30

• I'm Not F**king Eating Bugs: A Manifesto
  I’m Not F**king Eating Bugs: A Manifesto

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  I have often commented that inflation is especially nefarious, because it operates in the dark machinery of the night, as nobody notices or has the time to understand it.

  Inflation robs people every second of every day, with a majority of its victims unable to articulate how it works.

  Inflation’s equally odious and obnoxious cousin is shrinkflation. Shrinkflation is what companies do when they don’t want to violently rub it in your face directly by raising prices. Instead they offer up the gentle rub of giving you less product, for the same price.

  Usually, this douchebaggery is accompanied by exceptionally insulting marketing. For example, here’s some limp-d*cked attempt by a focus group at Proctor and Gamble at trying to convince you that the Arabic numeral “6”, an integer known and understood for millennia, actually means “9”.

  

  Shrinkflation is just as grotesque as inflation, and falls into a chum-bucket of consequences that materializes out of thin air, the excrement of the dollar’s continued loss of purchasing power.

  And not unlike inflation, these consequences need to be kept under wraps just enough so that they can persist, but with nobody noticing them. If you don’t notice the powers that be taking one nanometer in ground a day from you, it’ll be decades before you notice that you’ve been moved a mile.

  There’s been no better example of this “taking one nanometer in ground a day from you” than an emerging and growing chorus of news articles and op-eds beginning to suggest that the populace will one day be eating insects for meals in order to – wait for it – help fight climate change.

  Have you noticed headlines like these popping up over the last few years? Here’s one from earlier this month:

  

  Here’s another from May 2023:

  

  And here’s a third, from the head of the snake over at the World Economic Forum:

  

  The best part? Before the World Economic Forum’s article even starts, there’s disclaimers about how the WEF is the “victim” of this article being widely “misrepresented”, as if people are incapable of reading the fucking title and drawing their own conclusion.

  Before there is one word of op-ed, there’s a “Help us prevent the spread of misinformation” note.

  

  One might ask why this idea continues to pop up, other than the fact that Klaus Schwab is directing his lobotomized sycophants in charge of various world governments and media outlets to push the narrative.

  Surely progressive, left-leaning yuppies believe that it’s for our own good.

  ---

  50% OFF ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS: Subscribe and get 50% off and no price hikes for as long as you wish to be a subscriber.

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  “Insects must be better for us nutritionally and will help save the planet,” they’ll think to themselves. “That’s why the government and media, who always have our best interests in mind, are introducing the idea to us. Thanks guys!”

  But the reality of the situation is that bug-eating, which used to be fodder for shows like Fear Factor, is being pushed on us because it is the next step in drastically moving our quality of life lower to compensate for a widening inequality gap and the continued loss of purchasing power of the dollar.

  

  I have argued for years that our quality of life is slowly deteriorating as a result of not having sound money or sensible Central Bank policies. Shrinkflation is an obvious example. Less obvious examples include our cities slowly turning into demilitarized zones, the quality of products we use deteriorating and an array of campaigns to have us surrender our civil liberties and quality of life in the name of Greta Thunberg.

  As I wrote about in my article “World Economic F*ck’em”, our government and media seem to be happily falling in line with the cues of the puppeteers of the world, many of whom can be found at the World Economic Forum, a collective of self-righteous global elites handing down virtues, values, lessons, lectures and political initiatives to us peons out here in the rest of the world.

  That’s right. This group of globally unelected turbo-dildos knows what’s best for us. And what’s best for us always somehow results in us having less private property, fewer civil liberties and moving us one step closer to literally eating dog shit in order to survive. Thanks, Klaus!

  

  Today I take my stand, because one day we’re making peace with eating crickets…the next we’re eating that weapons-grade slop they were serving up on the Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix because the machines have taken over and food is no longer a delicacy, it is only a required and necessary source of sustenance and basic nutrients to adequately continue to keep our bodies functioning as batteries.

  

  To put it simply, I’ve had enough. The idea of not having personal property and surrendering my civil liberties is one thing. Hell, I can make peace with both just by virtue of the fact that I don’t own much to begin with, and because the government is just going to take whatever it wants regardless. But when you start to replace my Cooler Ranch™ Doritos and Chick-fil-A with mealworms? Well, then you just found the boundaries of the hill that I’m willing to die on.

  So if you work at NPR, The New York Times or the Washington Post, do me a favor and save your breath when it come to penning Klaus’ next virtuous-sounding op-ed suggesting we start digging through dirt to find earthworms for breakfast.

  I’m not reading it, it’s obvious that you are shills for a globalist agenda that further divides the haves and the have-nots, and, for lack of a better way to put it: I’m not f*cking eating bugs.

  

  QTR’s Disclaimer: I am not a guru or an expert. I am an idiot writing a blog and often get things wrong and lose money. I do not fact check contributor material that I aggregate from other sources. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning and generally trade like a degenerate psychopath. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities or any asset class – just my opinions of me and my guests. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in and I’m sure have lost more than I’ve made in my time in markets. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. Positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it three times because it’s that important.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 21:10

• Wagner Decries 'Murder' Of Prigozhin Amid Reports Anti-Air Missile Struck Plane
  Wagner Decries ‘Murder’ Of Prigozhin Amid Reports Anti-Air Missile Struck Plane

  Update(1605ET): At this point it’s looking like the entire top command of Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group was aboard the private plane that was downed northwest of Moscow hours ago. Wagner itself is confirming Yvgeny Prigozhin’s death, with Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel Grey Zone calling it a “murder”. 

  “The murder/assassination of Prigozhin will have catastrophic consequences. The people who gave the order do not understand the mood in the army and morale at all. Let this be a lesson to all. You always have to go to the end,” the Wagner channel statement reads.

  The bodies of Prigozhin and his second-in-command Dmitry Utkin, have reportedly been identified, according to statements which have been quick to come out of Russian media. Russian news agency TASS has also made it official: “Evgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin were on board the crashed Embraer plane, the Federal Air Transport Agency reported.”

  Another video of the crash of Prigozhin’s plane #Russia pic.twitter.com/Yx06O8cjql

  — Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) August 23, 2023

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

  Russian authorities have said eight bodies have been recovered thus far. FT has summarized the following details of emerging Wagner statements:

  A post by Grey Zone, a Wagner-connected social media channel, claimed Russian anti-aircraft defences had shot down the plane. It said that residents heard “two bursts of characteristic air defense fire” before the crash. “This is confirmed by inversion traces in the sky in one of the videos,” it added. Mash, a news outlet on social media app Telegram, said locals had heard two loud bangs before the crash.

  The same report cited a Western official to say it was an anti-aircraft missile that struck the private jet: 

  A western official said they had been told the plane had been brought down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile system but could not confirm whether Prigozhin was on board, adding: “Putin doesn’t take prisoners.”

  A Wagner-linked channel says Prigozhin is dead.

  “The leader of the Wagner Group, a Hero of Russia, a real patriot of his motherland – Yevgeny Prigozhin has died at the hands of traitors of Russia. But even in hell he’ll be the best! Glory to Russia!”https://t.co/Kn66YlOWV6

  — max seddon (@maxseddon) August 23, 2023

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  Alicia Kearns, Chair of the UK’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has observed in the aftermath, “The speed at which the Russian Govt has confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg should tell us everything we need to know.”

  President Biden (who is apparently already back on vacation) has been briefed this afternoon, and told reporters from Lake Tahoe that he’s “not surprised” when asked about Prigozhin’s reported death. “I don’t know for fact what happened, but I am not surprised,” Biden said according to Bloomberg. He then pointed the finger at the Russian President: “Not much happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” Biden added.

  Suddenly some of the mainstream is calling Prigozhin a “dissident” – a very strange choice of words considering his complicated role in the Ukraine war…

  This “Russian dissident” must have written a subversive novel satirizing the Kremlin or something https://t.co/jRoi82DbYA

  — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) August 23, 2023

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  Speculation continues as to precisely what brought the plane down (whether missile or a bomb detonation)…

  Very intresting. More and more russian outlets are reporting that a “terrorist attack/explosion” on board Prigozhin’s jet caused it to crashhttps://t.co/20B09m2HL2 pic.twitter.com/fpOh45wDX7

  — Faytuks News Δ (@Faytuks) August 23, 2023

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  * * *

  The internet has exploded with an avalanche breaking reports that Wagner chief Yvgeny Prigozhin’s business jet has crashed over Russia’s Tver region, northwest of Moscow.

  Unconfirmed reports say anywhere from seven to ten people were on board, all presumed dead – but it was initially unclear if Prigozhin himself was on board at the time. Russian media sources are now confirming that he was on board the downed plane, and is presumed dead.

  TASS says the crashed business jet was on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg. pic.twitter.com/u3gAjOkY3B

  — Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) August 23, 2023

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  This has led to immediate speculation that the private plane could have been shot down upon Putin’s orders (or people in the military command placed a bomb?… or a sophisticated Western intel op?). Per FT’s Moscow correspondent: “Wagner-linked channels say Russian air defense *shot down the plane* – the same private jet Prigozhin regularly uses.”

  The Kremlin has quickly issued confirmation that the aircraft did indeed belong to the controversial Wagner leader who led a mutiny against the defense ministry June 23-24. Per official news wires out of Russia

  • RUSSIA SAYS 10 PEOPLE KILLED AFTER PRIVATE JET CRASHES IN TVER REGION NORTH OF MOSCOW
  • RUSSIA SAYS EVGENY PRIGOZHIN COULD BE ON BOARD OF PLANE THAT CRASHED IN TVER REGION NORTH OF MOSCOW – TASS

  Russia Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with registration number RA-02795 crashed. This board belonged to the team of Yevgeny Prigozhin and was repeatedly seen in Belarus. pic.twitter.com/DPk9Q8tDaR

  — Getty (@region776) August 23, 2023

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  Russian official sources are confirming, including RT…

  KOMMERSANT: PRIGOZHIN HAS DIED IN THE PLANE CRASH IN RUSSIA’S TVER, RUSSIA’S FEDERAL AIR TRANSPORT AGENCY SAYS

  Below is another video widely circulating of what is purported to be the Wagner chief’s plane going down. A plume of smoke is seen hovering midair as the aircraft plummets straight down, strongly suggesting either a missile shot it down or a bomb detonated mid-air.

  ⚡️ Самолёт, который разбился в Тверской области, принадлежит Евгению Пригожину, утверждают издание Baza и журналистка Ксения Собчак. На борту бизнес-джета Embraer, как утверждается, были 7 человек, они погибли.

  Видео: соцсети pic.twitter.com/EzyZ3PbVT8

  — ЭХО (@echofm_online) August 23, 2023

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  On-ground videos of the burning crash site have quickly circulated, included very graphic ones (not shown).

  Prigozhin’s personal jet crashed near Tver. Prigozhin and 10 other people including Wagner Commander Dmitry (Wagner) Utkin reportedly have died. The jet was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg pic.twitter.com/zsjLG0tbsa

  — Giorgi Revishvili (@revishvilig) August 23, 2023

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  State news outlet RT writes in an update:

  A private jet traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed on Wednesday in Russia’s Tver Region. The Russian Emergencies Ministry said all 10 people on board had died. Rosaviation has since said that Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Private Military Company, was listed among the passengers.

  And additional statements are emerging:

  Former Putin advisor Sergei Markov: “The murder of Prigozhin is the main achievement of Ukraine and all enemies of Russia will rejoice” — Al Jazeera

  But then again…

  ⚡️Reports that Prigozhin’s second aircraft is currently maneuvering over Moscow. pic.twitter.com/AZM7NfQulM

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) August 23, 2023

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  There are emerging reports that Russia’s security services are investigating whether Prigozhin’s jet crashed due to a terrorist attack.

  This is a good moment to recall Joe Biden’s words on Yevgeny Prigozhin, issued July 13, 2023: “If I were he, I’d be careful what I ate. I’d be keeping my eye on my menu.”

  developing…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 21:00

• Doctor Suspended Over Covid Vaccine Stance To Sue Ohio Medical Board
  Doctor Suspended Over Covid Vaccine Stance To Sue Ohio Medical Board

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

  A doctor whose license was recently suspended by Ohio’s medical board is planning to sue the board.

  

  Dr. Sherri Tenpenny is planning to fight the decision, which members of the State Medical Board of Ohio said was over the doctor’s response to their investigation into her critical comments on COVID-19 vaccines, Dr. Tenpenny’s lawyer says.

  “We’re going to definitely be filing suit,” Tom Renz, the lawyer, told The Epoch Times. “I don’t think there’s really any question about that.”

  The suit will focus on alleged violations of Dr. Tenpenny’s due process rights and will challenge the suspension. Depending on the components, it may be filed in state court or may be filed in federal court.

  “We’re going to just make sure that we do what we wish they would have done, which is to be ethical, to follow the law, and to make sure that justice is served,” Mr. Renz said.

  The board declined to comment.

  Suspension

  Board members voted on Aug. 9 to suspend Dr. Tenpenny’s license until she meets certain conditions, including paying a fine and cooperating with investigators.

  Members and the office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said that Dr. Tenpenny did not properly respond to questions prompted by complaints filed over her public testimony before the Ohio House of Representatives that included references to claims that vaccinated people had become magnetic.

  “This case is not about Dr. Tenpenny making comments about how when you’re vaccinated, 5g Towers could interfere with [you]. It’s not about Dr. Tenpenny saying, when you are vaccinated, your body becomes magnetized. It’s not about any of that, right?” Dr. Amol Soin, a board member, said ahead of the vote. “It really is about this whole issue of cooperation or not.”

  Dr. Tenpenny’s actions included failing to appear at a deposition, according to Kimberly Lee, the state official who served as hearing examiner for the case.

  “This is not punitive. This is procedural,” Assistant Attorney General James Wakley said before the vote. “This is a stick necessary to ensure that we get the answers that we require based on the board’s responsibility for ensuring the safety of the public.”

  Dr. Tenpenny and Mr. Renz say the state is mislabeling how she responded to questions and other investigative steps. They say she filed legal objections to the subpoena and other documents, that the investigation was unconstitutional in part because the state could not define how it defines “failure to cooperate” and because it would not show them the complaints.

  “You may not like her position on vaccines, on COVID, on whatever it is that she has. But that’s not the question before the board,” Mr. Renz told the board. “The question before the board today is one simple question: ‘Were her rights to due process violated? The record shows that they were. We have a hearing examiner who can’t actually define what those rights are.”

  He added: “This appears very much like a witch hunt, like someone who’s looking for an outcome rather than looking to follow the law.”

  The board declined to provide the complaints to The Epoch Times, citing state law. The law says that the board must investigate in a way that “protects the confidentiality of patients and persons who file complaints with the board.”

  The same law says that punitive action can be leveled in the event of failure to cooperate with a board investigation.

  Mr. Renz also says that the state should have gone to court to resolve the matter.

  Mr. Wakley said that going to the courts would lead to “a complete breakdown of the process of investigations” and that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

  If the board went to court for every case, “the board would never get anything done,” added Dr. Jonathan Feibel, another board member.

  Breathalyzer Comparison

  Mr. Yost, a Republican, said that Dr. Tenpenny could have gone to the courts before the vote.

  Mr. Renz said that it was the state’s responsibility to compel and that they were not trying to cause a fight with the board.

  Mr. Yost also told Just the News that Dr. Tenpenny’s actions were like a driver who was pulled over refusing to take a breathalyzer.

  Mr. Renz said that comparison did not make sense.

  “If a cop pulls you over, and says, ‘you need to take a breathalyzer,’ he’s got to have a reason for that, right? He’s not allowed to just randomly pull you over and say you need to take a breathalyzer because he doesn’t like how you look, he can’t pull you over and say that you need to take a breathalyzer unless you’re showing some signs and symptoms or give him some reason to think that you may be intoxicated,” Mr. Renz said. “Otherwise, that’s violating your due process rights.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 20:30

• Philly Real Estate Influencer "Big Bizzneesss" Accused Of Fraud
  Philly Real Estate Influencer “Big Bizzneesss” Accused Of Fraud

  We know this one is going to sound too unbelievable to be true, but a real estate influencer (whatever that means) from Philadelphia who goes by the pseudonym “Big Bizzneesss” has been accused of fraud and deceit. 

  The online persona, whose real name is Greg Parker Jr. and who hails from Philadelphia, has been offering “a dream come true for thousands of young investors looking to break into the real estate market”, according to a report from The Real Deal. 

  His wife, Danielle “Nikki” Morris Parker, has also shared in showcasing his supposedly lavish lifestyle, the report says. But behind the rags-to-riches story and photos of private planes, luxury cars, and a multimillion-dollar mansion, the couple’s promises to empower young investors may not have been what they seemed.

  The report, which cites a Philadelphia Inquirer expose, says that instead of helping young people replicate their success, they left people high and dry after taking in tens of thousands of dollars from some of their 285,000 Instagram followers. 

  

  The couple would routinely hold seminars that ranged from $97 to $297, including upsells like mentorship and opportunities to invest in properties that they picked, the report says. They were offering “secrets of profiting from distressed real estate markets”, the report says. 

  Benjamin Nelson, an undergraduate at Drexel University, was one such aspiring real estate entrepreneur. He shelled out $20,000 to the Parkers for a property purchase but the sale never consummated and then follow up calls to the Parkers were “met with silence”.

  He said: “I keep getting the runaround. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  He texted Parker last year in an attempt to get his money back: “Playing with someone’s hard earned money is one of the worst things you can do.”

  And he’s not the only story. The report says that Federal lawsuits have been filed against the Parkers under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) fraud act. The suits are alleging that the couple defrauded clients by promising either mentorship or property sales that never took place. 

  Two suits have already been settled and Danielle Parker’s company has filed for bankruptcy, putting two other suits on hold. The Cleveland FBI office may be investigating potential criminal liability, the report says. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 20:10

• Busted! Fox News & Martha MacCallum Caught Presenting Koch Brothers Activist As Fake DeSantis Voter
  Busted! Fox News & Martha MacCallum Caught Presenting Koch Brothers Activist As Fake DeSantis Voter

  Authored by Sundance via The Conservative Treehouse,

  By now we are all too familiar with the schemes and plots of the corporate media as they participate in the political illusion of choice game.  However, for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News debate moderator Martha MacCallum, this catch shreds the remaining little credibility they carried.

  Fox News is hosting the GOP debate in Wisconsin.  During this build up segment, Martha MacCallum introduces the “random Republican voters” in Wisconsin who will watch the debate.  Except, well… there’s a little problem.  MacCallum introduces Chris Lawrence as a “Wisconsin GOP voter” who seemingly supports Ron DeSantis.  However, MacCallum fails to mention that Chris Lawrence actually works for the Koch Network, who have recently pledged to spend $70 million to defeat President Trump.

  Not only has Chris Lawrence worked for the Koch Network for the past 9 years, he is also the Senior Field Director for the Koch group Americans for Prosperity.  In essence, Lawrence is a political operative planted in the group by Fox News to support Ron DeSantis and make it appear like he is an innocuous voter.  Fox News and Martha MacCallum should be embarrassed, but they won’t be.  WATCH (prompted):

  Don’t forget, Ron DeSantis supporters Eric Erickson and Guy Benson sit on the Koch Network AfP Advisory Board (see here).

  It’s all one big game of illusion, and Fox News is once again a big part of the Republican fraud.  Proving yet again, that everything in the Ron DeSantis orbit is astroturf, phony, manufactured and made up.

  

  

  👋🏼 Hi I looked into “Wisconsin voter” Christopher Lawrence, why didn’t you tell people he’s a paid activist belonging to the open borders network that recently pledged $70M to stop Trump?

  👉 https://t.co/AtRDTWMkTc pic.twitter.com/qKDz9F6iwg

  — Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) August 23, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 19:50

• Huawei To Dodge US Sanctions With 'Secret' Network Of Chip Factories
  Huawei To Dodge US Sanctions With ‘Secret’ Network Of Chip Factories

  A DC-based trade group says that Huawei is building a network of secret semiconductor-fabrication facilities across China in what Bloomberg describes as “a shadow manufacturing network that would let the blacklisted company skirt US sanctions and further the nation’s technology ambitions.”

  Huawei, which is receiving some $30 billion in state funding from the CCP and its home town of Shenzhen, moved into chip production last year according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which says in a recent presentation that the sanctioned company has acquired at least two existing plants and is building at least three others.

  

  The US Commerce Department under former President Donald Trump added Huawei to its entity list in 2019, which prohibits it from working with American companies under nearly all circumstances. If they’re constructing facilities under undisclosed subsidiaries, however, the telecom giant may be able to dodge sanctions and indirectly purchase US chipmaking equipment and other supplies that would otherwise be banned.

  The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, in response to questions from Bloomberg News about the SIA warnings, which haven’t been previously reported, said it’s monitoring the situation and is ready to take action if necessary. It has already blacklisted dozens of Chinese companies beyond Huawei, including two the SIA says are part of Huawei’s network — Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. and Pengxinwei IC Manufacturing Co., or PXW.  -Bloomberg

  “Given the severe restrictions placed on Huawei, Fujian Jinhua, PXW and others, it is no surprise that they have sought substantial state support to attempt to develop indigenous technologies,” said the BIS in a statement to Bloomberg. “BIS is continually reviewing and updating its export controls based on the evolving threat environment and, as evidenced by the Oct. 7, 2022 rules, will not hesitate to take appropriate action to protect US national security.”

  Last October, the Biden administration slapped China with export controls that prevent Chinese companies from acquiring certain advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment in an attempt to slow down the CCP’s military development. The controls excluded older-generation chipmaking equipment, such as those which use 28-nanometer technology or above. Companies on the blacklist, such as Huaei, can’t even buy older equipment without a rarely-issued license.

  

  “These developments were already publicly reported on by multiple media outlets months before SIA simply highlighted these news items at an association meeting discussing market trends,” the SIA said in a statement.

  It’s not clear why the association is sounding the alarm on these issues now. The Washington-based lobbying group represents the majority of the world’s semiconductor makers, including Intel Corp., South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Its members also include companies that produce chipmaking equipment, such as Applied Materials Inc. and the Netherlands’ ASML Holding NV.

  Certain members of the lobbying group will face competition from Chinese rivals if they’re successful in building domestic production facilities, but SIA members like ASML and Nvidia Corp. lose revenue from China as American export controls become stricter. The association may be trying to warn members to be cautious in working with companies that could have hidden ties to blacklisted entities like Huawei. -Bloomberg

  According to the SIA presentation, Huawei is backing five chip plants located primarily around Shenzhen where they are headquartered. If they operate without the Huawei label, it may be difficult for suppliers to know they’re dealing with a sanctioned company.

  

  Under BIS rules, American suppliers are obligated to adhere to “know your customer” rules requiring them to investigate whether customers are buying under suspicious circumstances, such as an item being inconsistent with a customer’s stated needs.

  “If there’s a red flag, then you have an obligation to investigate,” said lawyer Kevin Wolf of Akin Gump. “Absent a red flag, there is no affirmative duty to verify or go beyond the company’s representations.”

  Since it was published in April, the SIA presentation has set off alarm bells both within the industry as well as the Biden administration, which is weighing more stringent export controls over Beijing.

  

  The CCP, meanwhile, says the US is trying to hinder its economic development, and has vowed to develop its own local alternatives for chips, critical tech components, and production machinery.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 19:30

• Federal Judge Sides With Christian Activist Banned By University For Calling Transgender Student 'Male'
  Federal Judge Sides With Christian Activist Banned By University For Calling Transgender Student ‘Male’

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A federal judge has blocked the University of Wyoming (UW) from censoring a Christian activist who openly called a female-identifying transgender student “male.”

  In a preliminary injunction issued on Aug. 18, the U.S. District Court in Wyoming sided with Todd Schmidt, an elder at Laramie Faith Community Church, ordering the university to not ban him from tabling on campus while the case proceeds.

  On Dec. 2 2022, Mr. Schmidt set up a table in the UW student union with a sign that read, “God created male and female and Artemis Langford is a male.” Mr. Langford is a transgender student who joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority earlier that year, prompting members to sue the national Greek organization for admitting a biological male into the all-female group.

  When asked by a UW administrator to remove the student’s name from his sign, Mr. Schmidt initially refused but complied after they threatened to call the police on him. He continued to debate with students passing by for the remainder of that day.

  “I’m just trying to tell the truth and bring people to God. That’s all there is. There are not any more genders than that. Biology teaches everybody about that,” Mr. Schmidt said, reported the student newspaper Branding Iron, where Mr. Langford is a reporter.

  The incident ultimately led to the university placing a one-year sanction on Mr. Schmidt. While he is still allowed in other areas of campus, he could no longer reserve a table in the UW student union until the spring of 2024.

  In a campus-wide message sent on Dec. 5, UW officials said Mr. Schmidt “violated the university policy prohibiting discrimination and harassment,” noting that “a line was crossed when a student was harassed by name.”

  Mr. Schmidt, on the other hand, argued that the area serves as a public forum and that his message was not harassment but First Amendment-protected speech.

  U.S. Senior District Judge Nancy Freudenthal disagreed with the university, saying that the inclusion of the student’s name was necessary for the Christian activist to fully express his opinion.

  “Schmidt’s speech was expressive, with the intent to convey a particular message,” the judge wrote. “Schmidt mentions Artemis Langford by name, but that is unavoidable, as the debate revolves around the propriety of a particular biological male participating in an activity—joining a sorority—traditionally reserved for biological females.”

  The judge further recognized that the church elder’s action was not harassment or discrimination but a genuine “debate about gender identity, a matter of public importance.”

  “Schmidt does not misgender Langford to denigrate her, but to debate a public issue,” she wrote.

  “This is particularly true on college campuses because they are the ‘marketplace of ideas.’ While elementary and public schools prioritize the inculcation of social values, universities seek to encourage inquiry and the challenging of a priori assumptions,” Judge Freudenthal added. “Therefore, this Court finds that Schmidt’s speech is protected free expression and not harassment or discriminatory conduct.”

  In response to the ruling, the university said in a statement that although it is disappointed, it will comply with the terms of the preliminary injunction while weighing on whether to keep defending its policy in court.

  “The university believed its one-year suspension … was appropriate and lawful, especially considering his prior misconduct and the university’s legal obligations,” the statement read.

  “Providing a forum for free expression and the airing of diverse views is a foundational principle for UW. However, the university must also prioritize protection of its students from unlawful harassment and discrimination,” it argued.

  “The university will continue to take lawful steps to protect the safety of students, employees and members of the public.”

  Sorority Sisters Lawsuit

  In a separate lawsuit, seven sorority sisters from the UW chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma claimed that the organization violated its own rules by admitting Mr. Langford last September.

  The women are seeking damages from the national sorority and the revoking of Mr. Langford’s membership.

  According to the complaint, while Mr. Langford does not live in the Kappa house, he spends time there frequently in areas reserved for women, watching the female members as they walk into the bathroom with only a towel on or spending hours sitting on a couch “staring at them without talking.”

  “Some Plaintiffs sought to live in Kappa’s single-sex environment because of religious or moral beliefs that young, unmarried women should not live with young, unmarried men,” the lawsuit stated, adding that one of the plaintiffs is “a victim of sexual assault who wanted a safe place to interact with other college students without the presence of men.”

  In June, Kappa Kappa Gamma filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, denouncing it as a “frivolous” attempt to remove Mr. Langford for “political purposes.”

  “Kappa defines its membership in its position statement adopted in 2015 as individuals who identify as women,” the motion read. “Plaintiffs cannot identify any bylaw, standing rule, or policy that prohibits Kappa from taking this position, and the term is unquestionably open to multiple interpretations.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 19:10

• An Inconvenient Truth: The Global Wildfire Narrative Mainstream Media Won't Touch
  An Inconvenient Truth: The Global Wildfire Narrative Mainstream Media Won’t Touch

  Corporate media outlets, climate crusaders like Greta Thunberg, and new and improved ‘Greta 2.0’ (Sophia Kianni), as well as progressives across Western governments, who echo climate doom propaganda at the peak of the Northern Hemisphere, have desperately attempted to convince folks the world is on fire.

  However, Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, served up an inconvenient truth on X, formerly known as Twitter, for ‘science-loving’ climate warriors, citing weather data from European government-run Copernicus. 

  Lomborg said, “Fire has burned lowest area in the US in a decade.”

   But if you were reading mainstream media headlines. You would’ve believed “the world is on fire”: 

  

  “Have you seen that reported anywhere?” he asked, referring to Copernicus’ wildfire data is absent from corporate presses. It’s an inconvenient truth that destroys the climate change narrative. 

  Data:

  Fire has burned 𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙨𝙩 area in the US in a decade

  Have you seen that reported anywhere?

  Yes, Canada burned much more (constantly reported), but the US, Europe, Africa, Asia burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

  In total, world burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

  🧵 and refs belowhttps://t.co/scZCc2cFi9 pic.twitter.com/ZpxW6BokPI

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  Lomborg continued, “Contrary to what you constantly hear in the media Global fire in 2023 has so far burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 than normal Yes, the Americas burned much more, but surely the media should also tell you that Africa and Europe burned much less?”

  Contrary to what you constantly hear in the media

  Global fire in 2023 has so far burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 than normal

  Yes, the Americas burned much more,

  but surely the media should also tell you that Africa and Europe burned much less?https://t.co/scZCc2cFi9 pic.twitter.com/KagbUtav8P

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  “Global emissions of CO₂ from fire is down,” he said. 

  Global emissions of CO₂ from fire is downhttps://t.co/PSNDw5CRSc

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  Meanwhile, The New York Times insists the “climate crisis” is a “World on Fire”: 

  New York Times literally shows you a world in flames

  — despite less fire globally https://t.co/xaMsaQjayC

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  Maybe the NYT is spreading misinformation. 

  Satellites show ever smaller area burned in the world, with 2022 lowest yethttps://t.co/bednTdlbsP

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  And other corporate media outlets are doing the same. 

  While the world burns ever 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

  Media talks about the world burning ever 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚https://t.co/D7NUAb6JlJ

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  The same corporate media outlets that once shouted ‘trust the science’ are now conveniently turning a blind eye to the hard data. Why? Because facts don’t align with their climate apocalypse narrative. So what’s the endgame of the elites just north of Richmond? Well, it’s to ram through a dystopic climate agenda of banning cow farts and forcing an insect diet on the masses. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 18:50

• Why The COVID Delusion Continues
  Why The COVID Delusion Continues

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  Well, the COVID panic has been over for more than a year, and most people seem to be breathing a bit easier now, both literally and figuratively.

  

  Most everyone has returned to their pre-COVID lives. The masks are mostly gone, and testing is only undertaken by a few people who remain in fear.

  The great majority of people state that they did the “right thing” and got the requisite initial jabs, although a majority of people state that they decided against the boosters. The reason? Most are unclear on that, except to say that, “I was beginning to have doubts… but I’m still glad I got the initial injections.”

  Of course, since the “all clear” signal was sounded, those doctors who initially jumped on board the COVID Express with both feet have calmed down a bit, and many research facilities have been doing studies on the possibility of vax damage.

  Those studies have been showing with fair consistency that the jab was indeed detrimental – both short-term and long-term. At this point, scores of studies have come to this conclusion, and even many prominent doctors who initially supported vaxxing are now stating emphatically, “We were lied to.”

  So, we might expect that those who filed into clinics like cattle to get the jab would now have learned three important lessons –

  • Don’t trust Big Pharma

  • Don’t trust the media as regards Big Pharma

  • Don’t trust the authorities as regards Big Pharma

  And yet these lessons, with few exceptions, do not seem to have been learned.

  Some people are still getting tested whenever they get cold symptoms. When asked why, they don’t seem to have a clear answer.

  When asked if they would trust those who pushed the vaccines again, their eyes tend to glaze over. Again, they don’t really have an answer.

  Most people who got the jab don’t seem to have advanced their thinking in the last year. Their learning curve appears to have halted the moment the media stopped talking about COVID.

  But why should this be? Surely, the evidence of deception by Big Pharma and its support group is self-evident at this point. One only has to read the results of post-COVID studies that have been undertaken to arrive at the conclusion that the evidence is overwhelming: A major con has been played on the world – a con that netted tens of billions of dollars for Big Pharma.

  The answer to the question, I’m afraid, may well be harder to face than the fact that the majority of people bought into the vaccine charade. The answer as to why very few people have advanced their understanding of what’s been done to them has more to do with human nature than medical perceptions.

  It’s unfortunately true that, back when we went to school, we were taught almost entirely by rote. We weren’t asked to learn why the world believed that warfare was necessary; we were only told to memorise the names of the generals and the dates that the wars took place.

  If we were asked to read the works of great writers, we weren’t expected to develop an understanding of their insights; we were merely expected to memorise some famous quotes by them.

  And, once we had passed our exams, it was perfectly acceptable for us to forget what we’d memorized.

  In short, a primary principle of “normal” education was that all that mattered was that we could parrot back whatever we had been fed most recently.

  No surprise, then, that, in adulthood, we do the same. Of course, adults tend to study less than when they were in school. They rely instead on the evening news to keep them informed. We hear the latest urgent breaking news, and we pay careful attention. We then follow the instructions we receive from the “experts” doing the speaking and wait until the following evening to receive further indoctrination and instructions.

  Along the way, we also hear “non-authoritative” information and are careful to classify such information as “conspiracy theory.” Such information enters the temporal lobe only briefly. In most cases, the human brain has been trained to delete such information, as it has no value with regard to following instructions. Worse, it makes us question that instruction. The temporal lobe becomes adept at deleting such information as though it had never been received.

  And, here, we have a basic function of the human brain that affects the great majority of people – indeed, all people who have not, at some point in their lives, become independent thinkers:

  Respond to controlled input and ignore peripheral input

  For those who questioned the COVID scam early, a great deal was learned even as it was playing out. But the question remains, why did others, who bought into it, not learn from the plethora of studies that have been released over time?

  After all, the controlled input regarding COVID ceased to be pushed a year or more ago. What that translates into is that those who simply memorise information and do not significantly question it now have nothing to go on. They’re stuck in neutral. They’re receiving occasional peripheral input that negates the controlled input, but they interpret it as peripheral input and, in a trained knee-jerk reaction, ignore it on each and every occasion. They don’t ever consider its totality, as they’re not programmed to think in that fashion.

  As unpleasant as it is to consider, this inability is the norm, even for people who are otherwise intelligent and/or educated. Like hamsters on a wheel, they’re under the impression that they’re in forward motion, but in truth, they won’t move an inch forward until they receive controlled input instructing them to do so.

  The COVID masks have been taken off, but an understanding of the fraud that has been perpetrated has, for the majority of people, not been understood.

  It could be argued that the discussion presented above could be seen as being academic – pointless – as the COVID scare is now over, and the masks are gone.

  But, in fact, unless we pay attention to what researchers have been concluding in the last year and, indeed, if we return to our well-ingrained training not to question, but merely to respond to immediate input, we’re primed to get suckered again.

  If we and the majority of the people we know, once again, respond to the controlled input and ignore the peripheral input, we won’t merely have missed the boat on the reality of the COVID scam.

  We’re primed to be fooled again.

  *  *  *

  The wave of political correctness and liberal group-think has taken the US by storm. The effort to silence opposing viewpoints and free speech will continue to accelerate. That’s why Doug Casey has prepared a timely video on surviving this modern American trend. In it Doug exposes the lies and mainstream bias that’s poisoning America… Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/23/2023 – 18:30

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