Sep 24

Today’s News 24th September 2022

  • The US Empire Is Accelerating Toward Global Conflict On Two Fronts: Johnstone
    The US Empire Is Accelerating Toward Global Conflict On Two Fronts: Johnstone

    Authored by Caitlin Johnsone via Medium,

    Vladimir Putin has announced that referenda will be held in four regions of the eastern part of Ukraine whose populations will now vote on whether to join the Russian Federation, much like the Crimea referendum of 2014 which resulted in Russia’s annexation of that territory. Putin announced that 300,000 additional troops will be mobilized for the war to help facilitate this action, which is a major escalation in the conflict by any measure.

    Putin also issued a stern nuclear warning that’s being hysterically spun by empire managers as a shocking and unprecedentedly bellicose threat, but if you read what he actually said it’s clear that he’s really reminding the west of the same principles of Mutually Assured Destruction that have been in place for generations, and isn’t expressing any position that western nuclear powers don’t also hold:

    Nuclear blackmail was also launched. We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia — nuclear weapons.

    To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries. And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.

    The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured, I emphasize this again, with all the means at our disposal. And those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can also turn in their direction.

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    So while this war is indeed insanely dangerous, it’s not because of any of the words coming out of Vladimir Putin’s mouth.

    Westerners who are expressing shock and astonishment at Putin’s frank acknowledgement of what’s at stake in Russia’s increasingly direct confrontation with the US empire are really just admitting that they haven’t been paying attention. The risk of nuclear war is why sensible people have spent years calling for de-escalation and detente between the US and Russia while tensions have been steadily building since long before the invasion of Ukraine. Now there are western officials who say the world is actually at greater risk of nuclear war than it ever was during the last cold war.

    A nuclear conflict could be sparked by either side making a calculated decision to use nuclear weapons (and you’re fooling yourself if you believe the US is any less trigger happy in that regard than Russia), but it can also be sparked by either side due to a mistake resulting from a technological malfunction, miscommunication, misunderstanding or miscalculation, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war. The more things escalate, the more likely both such possibilities become.

    And, clearly, things are escalating.

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    And that’s just Russia; tensions are rapidly escalating between the US-centralized empire and China as well. In an article for Antiwar.com titled “There’s Little More Washington Can Do To Convince China To Invade Taiwan,” Andrew Corbley describes the frighteningly extensive provocations the US has been pouring into another massive geopolitical powderkeg just in the past few weeks.

    “In the last 50 days, the executive and legislative branches in Washington have done more than in the last 50 years to convince China that America’s imperial policy is simply relentless, and must be met with force,” Corbley writes. “That’s not to say it’s by any means a given that the People’s Republic of China will invade its cross-straits neighbor of Taiwan, but that is to say that if strategic planners in Washington sat down and created a bulleted list of how to facilitate such an invasion, they would have probably gone through all the bullets by now.”

    Corbley notes the incendiary visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi (which has since been followed by a deluge of additional US officials), President Biden’s repeated and increasingly explicit commitment to plunge the US into direct hot war with China if there’s an attack on Taiwan, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s insanely escalatory Taiwan Policy Act. When you look at the brazenness, ferocity and aggression of these provocations between two nations who logically should never go to war with each other, it really does look as though the empire is putting the pedal to the metal in acceleration toward global conflict.

    On paper it looks completely irrational for the US empire to be ramping up aggressions against two powerful military and economic forces simultaneously, but it’s undeniable at this point that that is what’s happening. Clearly our rulers have some kind of strategy for how they’re going to see this through, though it remains to be seen whether that strategy is the desperate Hail Mary pass of a dying empire or a potentially highly effective plan using tools that aren’t currently visible to the public.

    Either way, it looks like it’s probably a good time to relish human life on this planet while it’s here to be relished.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 09/24/2022 – 02:00

  • House Passes Election Bill That Makes It Harder To Decertify Presidential Results
    House Passes Election Bill That Makes It Harder To Decertify Presidential Results

    Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    The House of Representatives on Sept. 21 passed an election law bill designed to address President Donald Trump’s legal efforts to decertify some electoral slates in 2021.

    The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Dec. 29, 2020. (Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images)

    The bill, dubbed the Presidential Election Reform Act, passed in a mostly-party line vote with a handful of GOP defections. The final vote, coming in at 229–203, included the support of 221 Democrats and nine Republicans.

    During the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump was trying to determine how to move forward on his claims of widespread election fraud, lawyer John Eastman was among the attorneys in Trump’s inner circle who supported an effort to refuse to certify electoral slates from states where concerns of election fraud were most prevalent.

    The 12th Amendment

    Eastman’s position—that Vice President Mike Pence had the power under the 12th Amendment to reject some electoral slates—was heavily taken to by Trump, who tried to convince Pence to refuse to certify some electoral slates.

    Specifically, the effort centered on an ambiguous line in the 12th Amendment, passed after the near-crisis of the election of 1800 which saw Congress go through dozens of ballots before finally declaring Thomas Jefferson the winner.

    That line reads “the President of the Senate [i.e., the vice president] shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.”

    Eastman proposed that Pence could legally refuse to count the ballots of states deemed most at risk of election fraud.

    Opponents of Trump’s 2021 effort have said that the Constitution only intends for the vice president’s role in the Jan. 6 certification of electoral slates to be a “ceremonial” one, while proponents of the effort have pointed to similar events in the past, particularly in regards to the presidential elections of 1800, 1876, and 1960. However, there is no hard-set legal consensus on the issue either way.

    Ultimately, the effort was unsuccessful, as Pence refused to use his role to deny certification of contested electoral slates.

    ‘Opening the Door to Mass Litigation’

    Though there is no consensus among legal experts as to the lawfulness or validity of the effort, altering the electoral certification process has been a key focus for many of Trump’s adversaries during the 117th Congress. The focus on the issue has intensified since the beginning of the Jan. 6 Committee hearings, which presented Trump’s efforts as criminal and undemocratic.

    The bill passed by the House on Wednesday was sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and co-sponsored by outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Both members serve on the House Jan. 6 panel.

    In addition to naming the vice president’s role in electoral certification a ceremonial one, the bill would up the number of lawmakers needed to sustain an objection to a state’s reported electoral slate.

    Currently, a vote on the validity of electoral slates can be forced by a single member of the House and a single member of the Senate, causing the House and Senate to have to vote to sustain or strike down the objection. Under the new bill, that figure would be upped to one-third of the House and one-third of the Senate before a vote on an objection could move forward.

    Cheney fell into the camp of those who claim the role is purely ceremonial, saying on the House floor in Washington that the bill would guarantee that Jan. 6 is “as the constitution envisioned, a ministerial day.”

    Further, Cheney said that it will “ensure that in the future our election process reflects the will of the people.”

    “The American people are supposed to decide an election, not Congress,” Lofgren said, echoing Cheney.

    Jan. 6 panel member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) portrayed the bill as a necessary one to update the rules of the Electoral College, which has long been targeted by Democrats, who often portray the system as undemocratic. The party has long hosted calls for the total abolition of the college and movement to a popular vote basis for electing the president.

    However, most House Republicans are critical of the bill.

    House Administration Committee Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) said that the bill is “opening the door to mass litigation.” In addition, Davis argued that the legislation tramples state sovereignty over election law.

    Davis added that Democrats are “desperately trying to talk about their favorite topic, and that is former President Donald Trump.”

    In his opening speech on the bill delivered on the House floor, Davis argued that, despite efforts to present the contrary perspective, the 12th Amendment has long been used by members of both parties to ensure the legitimacy of an election’s results.

    Davis describes the mechanism as one that preserves the checks and balances of the three federal branches on each other.

    Contrary to the position espoused by Democrats, Davis said, lawmakers challenging election results when they see something suspicious “is not an affront to democracy—it’s democracy in action.”

    Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who has faced accusations from the Jan. 6 Committee of leading reconnoitering missions into the Capitol in the days before Jan. 6, also blasted the bill, saying that Congress’s focus should be on pressing contemporary issues like inflation and energy costs rather than on Jan. 6.

    Democrats, by contrast, spent much of their time speaking on the floor by relating the bill to the events of Jan. 6 and the future of American democracy.

    In a statement indicative of this approach, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) insisted that the bill was not a partisan issue, but “a democracy issue.”

    “There are ambiguities in our electoral system and they can jeopardize our democracy—that’s what this bill is about,” Hoyer added later.

    The party also spent a great deal of time applauding Cheney for her role in pushing for the bill.

    “President Abraham Lincoln would be standing with Liz Cheney if he were on this floor,” said Hoyer, who called Cheney “as Republican as anyone” in the House.

    12th Amendment Issue Remains Contested

    John Eastman, the Trump attorney who was most supportive of the 12th Amendment scheme, disagreed about the legality of the effort.

    Eastman told The Epoch Times before the vote that discussing the role of the 12th Amendment out of the context of the situation on the ground at the time is mistaken.

    He noted that the Constitution gives states the power to make their own election laws and determine the manner in which states will choose their electoral slates. In every U.S. state at this point, the popular vote is the method for choosing this slate.

    But Eastman also pointed to several last-minute changes by secretaries of state, executive orders from governors, and county clerks that changed or overshot the statutorily-required, legislature-approved legal regulations like deadlines and signature verification.

    “Those election codes were violated, there’s no dispute about that,” Eastman contended. “That means the election was not constitutionally conducted. How big the impact was is hard to say.”

    He added, “It was rather extraordinary, the illegality of it.”

    The use of the 12th Amendment and the vice president’s role, Eastman argued, was a last resort—albeit a legal one—stemming from the unwillingness of courts to consider the legal issues involved and the unwillingness of governors to call legislatures into special sessions to address the concerns.

    Finally, Eastman turned to the issue of the 12th Amendment.

    “It seems a little odd that [the Founders] would waste a whole amendment on just a ceremonial thing,” Eastman argued, shunting the claim that the vice president’s role is merely ceremonial. “That’s not the way the Founders typically operate.”

    Eastman further argued that the electoral process was designed in large part to ensure that Congress does not have the final say in choosing the president, as such a system would “destroy the separation of powers.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 22:55

  • Hiding In Plain Sight: The Looming Health Care Cost Fight
    Hiding In Plain Sight: The Looming Health Care Cost Fight

    Authored by Donald Trigg & Jarrett Lewis via RealClear Wire,

    In the 1992 campaign, the always colorful James Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton’s Little Rock headquarters with three key messages. And if “It’s the Economy, Stupid” became the iconic election-cycle takeaway, Carville’s third dictate bears a 30th anniversary reminder: “Don’t Forget Health Care.”   

    The Conference Board’s closely watched gauge of consumer sentiment released on August 30th  found that consumer expectations for the next 6 months were 75.1. While the data showed month-over-month improvement, the index remained well below 80, suggesting as the Conference Board wrote last week that “a recession risk persists.”

    Rising inflation has been at the heart of declining consumer expectations. Over the course of election-year 2022, it also has been a tactical focus for both political parties ranging from the Democratic push to pass the Inflation Reduction Act earlier this month to a flood of Republican advertisements in key swing districts blaming President Biden and Congressional leaders for fueling inflation.

    If this political posturing is unsurprising, a surprising election-year consensus in both parties is: health care is only a modest concern for voters this fall. Nothing arguably tells that story more than the most recent CBS News survey. The nonpartisan poll conducted July 27-29 did not even ask voters about health care as a top issue. It was missing from the “most important issue facing the country” list altogether. But alas, as Carville admonished, “Don’t Forget Health Care.”

    Declining health care affordability will be a defining political issue this decade. It is hiding in plain sight —and very few in Washington are positioning to solve it.

    When asked specifically about health care costs, the saliency of the issue jumps from the page. A Pew Research Center survey in April found 55% believe “affordability of health care” is a very big problem – receiving a higher share than all other issues tested except for inflation. A Public Opinion Strategies (POS) survey in March found 52% believe “health insurance costs and coverage” is “extremely important” to determining which candidate to support this November.

    Beyond the Beltway, health care cost concerns have driven voters to act. Since 2017, six Republican states have expanded Medicaid through ballot initiatives. South Dakota is set to vote on expansion in November. Moreover, voter concerns on health care also have spurred legislative action. In 2019, Virginia legislators voted to approve Medicaid expansion; and efforts to expand coverage are afoot in North Carolina, with the state Senate voting overwhelmingly 44-2 in June in favor of expansion.

    The political opportunity for the party that effectively tackles the cost curve is a generational one. Leadership success is grounded in a single question that must be asked about every potential statute or regulatory rulemaking: does this change hold the promise to decrease costs for individuals and families? If you are on the right side of that question, you are working on solving the number one health care concern for voters.

    Importantly, as we look beyond the off-year election cycle, there is sound reason to believe health care costs will move materially higher. Health care pricing is typically a laggard. Government programs like Medicare are set on an annual basis. Commercial rates are tied to a plan or calendar year. As a result, increased costs elsewhere in the economy around things like labor costs and supplies have not yet been reflected in the health care pricing structure. As former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote last month, “large nursing shortages, COVID burdens, deferred elective procedures and financial problems for hospitals” should set an expectation that medical inflation will accelerate going forward.

    Rising medical inflation will further challenge families already struggling with the cost of care. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey from March found 43% of Americans live in a household where someone has postponed receiving medical care over the past year due to cost. Two-thirds of Americans express concern that an illness or medical emergency in their family would force them into bankruptcy. The latter number alone represents more than 130 million voters. And yet, just 6% of voters across the country express confidence their member of Congress will take action to lower the cost of health care over the next 12 months.

    During the Clinton-era debate on health care reform, James Carville said, “I like being on the side of the health care consumer.” The individual is the decision-maker on issues of health and care, accelerated by the experience of Covid-19. Health care affordability is their great challenge. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can afford to forget that as they navigate the fall campaign.

    Donald Trigg is the CEO of apree health and co-author of ‘The New Health Economy: Ground Rules for Leaders’ (Georgetown University Press). Jarrett Lewis is a Partner at national opinion research firm Public Opinion Strategies (POS).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 22:25

  • Psychopathic Leftist Intolerance And The Death Of Cayler Ellingson
    Psychopathic Leftist Intolerance And The Death Of Cayler Ellingson

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    One of the go-to accusations of the political left against conservatives is the notion that we are “intolerant” of others to the point of being hateful and dangerous. There is very little actual evidence to support this claim. We continue to hear about how we are racists and extremists, yet the only event leftists are ever able to cite as an example is the January 6th protests – An event which did involve rioters, violence and injuries, but also zero deaths actually caused by conservative protesters. You would think a supposed insurrection attempt would involve plenty of guns, bombs, fire and murder, but nothing close to this occurred. Amazing what little damage has been caused by such a group of “extremists.”

    In comparison, the progressive BLM and Antifa riots of the past couple of years have led to dozens of deaths and billions in property damage across the nation. This was not called an “insurrection,” it was called a “peaceful but fiery protest.” In fact, the media continues to deny the deaths and the extent of the destruction caused by BLM and still refuses to refer to the violence as “riots.”

    Keep in mind that BLM and other leftist social justice groups received billions of dollars from corporate America and globalist institutions like the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, etc. One could argue that BLM would not exist without the constant flow of cash from the power elites. BLM also had the full support of the corporate media. BLM leaders even allegedly embezzled millions upon millions of dollars while members COMPLAINED that corporate America should be giving them MORE MONEY.

    But somehow, conservatives are called dangerous “pawns of capitalism?” In reality, leftist groups are the very villains that they claim to be fighting against.

    What we have here is a combination of problems – Leftist projection as well as leftist gaslighting combined with radicalization by the media and certain politicians. Leftists are so convinced of the righteousness of their ideology and the “evil” of anyone that disagrees with them that they believe they are justified in any action, including murder.

    There is an ancient word for this kind of behavior: Zealotry.

    The swirling atmosphere of political elitism and rage that leftists have produced makes all people who oppose them into monsters; not enemies, but “monsters.” The level of vitriol and animosity expressed not only against conservatives, but also moderate democrats that refuse to toe the line is astonishing. It is something you might see in the old world, in places where religious fundamentalism dominates all of society. The kind of seething hatred that leads to mob mentality and the crushing boots of tyrants.

    It is here that we have to address the recent murder of an 18-year-old named Cayler Ellingson at the hands of a 41 year-old leftist named Shannon Brandt. I feel the need to cover this situation in part because the mainstream media is barely talking about it.

    The details are still limited and the case is still unfolding, but much of what we know was openly confessed by Brandt himself. Cayler Ellingson, participating in a local street dance in the small town of McHenry North Dakota, apparently found himself in a political argument with Brandt. The specific cause of the debate is not yet known. Brandt proceeded to assault Ellingson by punching him.

    Brant said that the teen then made a phone call, which he believed was to make contact with an “extremist group,” and that this group was going to come after him. In reality, Ellingson was calling his mother to see if she knew who Brandt was. The self professed leftist then got into his car and ran Ellingson down, injuring him to the point of near death, and then left him in the street.

    Brandt later called the police, telling the dispatcher that he “struck a pedestrian because the pedestrian was threatening him,” but it was too late. He later admitted to running down the teen in his vehicle because he thought Ellingson was part of a “Republican extremist group.” Investigators say that they have found no evidence that Ellingson was a part of an any such group, not that it matters.

    Brandt was charged with manslaughter and released on $50,000 bail. Compare this to Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed armed leftists in self defense and was charged with multiple counts of murder and given a bail of $2 million. He was also called a “racist extremist” by the media even though the people he shot were white.

    The core danger of zealotry is not only that it radicalizes normal people into doing horrible things, it also opens the door for naturally psychopathic people to do evil under the cover of social justification. They can now commit all the atrocities they dream of committing, that they enjoy committing, while claiming to be acting in the best interests of a particular movement.

    Imagine that this event was now flipped – A middle aged conservative gets into an altercation with an 18-year-old blue haired progressive, then punches him and kills him with his car. The media firestorm would be endless, we would be hearing about it for the next year and numerous conservative politicians would have to come out publicly to admonish the behavior as not representative of our principles.

    Where is the firestorm over the death of Cayler Ellingson? Where are all the leftist leaders coming out to make things right and offer a diplomatic hand of consolation? They are nowhere to be found because they don’t care and they know the media is on their side.

    Joe Biden’s recent “Red Rant” speech in which he proclaimed that tens of millions of American conservatives are enemies of democracy that threaten the very foundations of our country is partially to blame. It was a clear provocation, an open declaration of war against conservatives. The hypocrisy in his statements is mind boggling and they represent deliberate gaslighting designed to demonize his political opponents.

    The foundations of our country were built on rebellion against tyranny and injustice, and the only group perpetuating tyranny and injustice in the US today is the political left. Biden, operating under the direction of a host of elitist advisers, was nearly instrumental in the complete destruction of our constitutional freedoms through his covid restrictions and vaccine passport executive order. The mandates and lockdowns were resoundingly supported by the political left as blue states suffered months of oppression well after conservative red states abandoned the mandates as useless.

    As noted, it was leftists that were setting fire to cities across America while calling for the destruction of our founding values and the replacement of our current system with a more socialist oriented framework. They do not care about the foundations of our country. Rather, they despise what our nation represents and want to see the erasure of our past to make way for their delusional Utopian future.

    Real conservatives stand for constitutionalism, the Bill of Rights, protection of innocent life, limited government, private property, sound money and free markets, equality of opportunity, meritocracy and decentralization. We stand against collectivism, socialism/communism/globalism, the forced equality of outcome and false notions of equity, big government authoritarianism, identity politics and victimhood grifting, entitlement culture, mob rule and centralization.

    At the root of it all, though, is the fact that conservatives represent a choice outside of the mainstream narrative that in order for the world to progress we must continue to give up more and more of ourselves and our rights.

    Leftist claim we “live in a society” and thus we are required to sacrifice for the greater good. But, who made them the arbiters of the “greater good?” Who said we want to live in their vision of a society? Why is their ideology suddenly the ideology of the future? Maybe, their ideology is actually old, outdated and totalitarian. They don’t represent the future, they represent an archaic and villainous past.

    As the political left drives headlong into zealotry there will be more events like the death of Cayler Ellingson. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Maybe Brandt’s attack on Cayler was politically motivated, or maybe it was just a story he made up to explain away his crime. Regardless, the details of the story he chose matter. He painted a tale of Ellingson as a Republican extremist for a reason. He did it because he believed that when people heard this it would vindicate the attack, and in the case of many leftists he is probably right.

    This kind of ideology always ends the same way – With moral relativism and the attempted elimination of a group’s ideological detractors. It is in the nature of zealots to destroy what they cannot control. It is also in their nature to attack people and then accuse those same people of being the aggressors.  Leftists cannot live with any other group in peace, they will seek to absorb or eliminate, this is what they do, and in the process many people will end up hurt or dead.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 21:55

  • Grassroot Election Integrity Movement Sweeps Battleground States
    Grassroot Election Integrity Movement Sweeps Battleground States

    Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    At ten past five in the morning on Election Day in 2021, retired construction company owner Warren Jenkins slid into his business-casual attire in a panic, knowing he had to get to the polling station in 20 minutes. He was the only Republican poll watcher at an important precinct.

    Cleta Mitchell speaks at the “Election Integrity Summit” in Harrisburg, Pa., on Aug. 20, 2021. (Courtesy of Cleta Mitchell)

    Jenkin’s wife, prescient, pre-made lunch for her husband, who then arrived at the polls to begin his 15-hour shift—from 5:30 a.m. to about 9 p.m.—just in time.

    As a volunteer poll watcher in Virginia, Jenkins would run back and forth between the outdoor ballot box and the in-door voting place, observe the conduct of the election, and report irregularities and violations of the Election Code, if any, to election officials.

    For his entire life, Jenkins has been somewhat of a model American man: he served in the army, built houses, and loves spending his weekends at church and with family and friends—and wasn’t into politics, at all.

    But as the battleground blaze simmered at the conclusion of the 2020 election lawsuits, Jenkins still had in his mind the lingering silhouette of Zuckerbucks (private funding in election administration that was allowed in 2020 and now banned in some states), whispers of faulty mail-in ballots, and alleged—later court-confirmed—election law-flaunting. He then thought he could do more for the country as an American.

    “With the Trump-Biden election, there was so much press on the dishonesty in the election. I thought I would see for myself,” Jenkins told The Epoch Times. “I’m retired now—and I thought, it was time to roll up my sleeves and to go out and to help out.”

    “I felt like being a poll watcher—even though we didn’t get paid—was an important role,” Jenkins said. “I didn’t really care about the money.”

    A poll watcher monitors the counting of ballots at the Allegheny County elections warehouse in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Nov. 6, 2020. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

    Jenkins is one of many who saw themselves as a part of a movement to defend the integrity of America’s elections, concerned that the 2020 election was not conducted well.

    Some offered explanations for what went wrong in 2020—some had substantial proof—but none seemed to be able to convince the courts to rule in favor of what they were proposing, which often consisted of flipping the election results for a district, or the Biden presidency altogether.

    Many realized this, so they pivoted forward.

    They formed a movement, driven by the belief that citizens should participate in the election process to give rise to transparency, and that accompanying the right to vote is the right to have every legal vote counted—and faulty vote trashed.

    Ground-up Movement

    Jenkin’s resolve to act proved fortuitous, because just as Republicans like him across the country decided to become more involved in elections, roads were built to help them do exactly that.

    Cleta Mitchell, who fought alongside former President Donald Trump in one of the 2020 election lawsuits disputing the election results in Georgia, was getting a lot of calls—and a lot of ideas—following the 2020 election.

    “What has happened in 2020 was that many people across the country realized that things were not right, and that the election was not conducted according to law in many cases,” Mitchell told The Epoch Times. “And so a lot of people have said, ‘What can I do to help? What can we do to make sure this doesn’t ever happen again?’”

    “As somebody who spent a lot of time in a lot of different aspects of the election, I’ve tried to say, here are things you can do: You can go to rallies and have somebody get yelled at,” Mitchell said. “Or, we can train you. We can tell you what you need to do to make sure it never happens again. And there’s plenty to do.”

    Mitchell, a seasoned lawyer with a swath of experience in all corners of election issues (and a Democrat-turned-Republican), leads the Election Integrity Network, a project of the Conservative Partnership Institute, a Washington-based non-profit.

    Since its launch, the network developed into a nationwide mobilization base and knowledge-sharing platform that operates at national, state, and local levels to work on election integrity initiatives, such as pushing legislation for voting security, hiring more poll watchers and election officials, and examining potential loopholes in election administration processes.

    Through training and discussion “summits,” the network has kicked off state-level “coalitions” across the country, and these state coalitions would then become the headquarters of mobilizing precinct-level task forces in that state to work on election integrity projects.

    “Ultimately, all elections take place at the local level,” Mitchell said when asked about her vision for launching the network. “We are asking people to become involved in apparatus at their local level, because that’s where the elections take place. And that’s where many of the problems occur, because that’s where the voting takes place.”

    Getting to Work

    The Election Integrity Network started humbly with weekly telephone calls, during which state coalition leaders in various battleground states would bounce ideas off of each other on how to improve election security and share the issues they spot.

    But things quickly picked up speed when Lynn Taylor, a regular on these calls who leads Virginia Fair Elections, a state-level coalition in Virginia, saw that time is cutting short for her state.

    “Virginia is one of two states that have statewide elections every year, Virginia and New Jersey,” Taylor said in an interview with The Epoch Times, sharing how she was concerned about the way the 2020 election was run and wanted to help improve the security of the 2021 election—the question now is how.

    “The idea came from Cleta when she and I were on the phone together, and she said, ‘you really need a summit,’” Taylor said, recounting her conversation with Mitchell. “I said, ‘I don’t have the budget for that,’ and she said, ‘I do.’ Two and a half weeks later, we had a summit.”

    “This was very different from the way that things had been done,” Taylor said. “You know, people have been having summits for ages, but this is the first one in my years that we actually use it for training purposes.”

    With the help of Mitchell and the Election Integrity Network, Taylor organized the network’s first “Election Integrity Summit” in August 2021 in Virginia. The two-day event featured election integrity training and information for grassroots who wanted to help improve election security. These included poll observers’ recruitment, scheduling, training, and administration; a project to document potential illegal voter registrations; and a discussion on the alleged influence of private funding in the 2020 election.

    During the summit, people who had already been working on related initiatives—improving security around the ballot box, analyzing election data for potential anomalies, or pushing for election integrity legislation, for example—found others scattered across Virginia working on similar things, and quickly fused into local work groups called “Election Integrity Task Forces” and began collaborating on projects on a county basis.

    “The coalition was how you get involved. You work on a county basis. Then you come up to the state coalition to bring your questions … to see if other counties are running into the same things,” Taylor said, recounting how there were a little more than a dozen task forces in the state during the time of the summit, a number that quadrupled to more than 50 in a few months.

    “I’ve been doing this for 26 years, and I’ve never seen people come together where they all left their logos at the door,” Taylor said. “They are more interested in the election integrity issue—and making sure that there are free and fair elections—than they are in promoting their own agenda. It is the first time I have ever seen this—in the 26 years that I’ve been working in the nonprofit arena.”

    Shelley Oberlander, a Republican Precinct Captain for ten years, was leading a local election integrity task force in the Virginia coalition. After learning from the summit about the election integrity projects that she could start in her county, Oberlander started to expand her team.

    After the summit, Oberlander connected with other county-level task forces and had weekly conference calls to share their experiences. Within a year, Oberlander’s team grew from a few members to six work groups, each specializing in areas of election integrity including legislation, education, data analysis, election technology, and voter administration.

    “We brought it home, we put it in practice, and we got it going,” Oberlander said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

    A Helpful Hand

    The backstory to Oberlander’s involvement in this grassroots election integrity movement is illustrative of the other driving force behind the movement: the Republican National Committee (RNC).

    As a member of a county-level GOP, Oberlander started the local election integrity team in the Loudoun County GOP at the calling of the state-level GOP, the Virginia GOP, which operates joint forces with the RNC earlier this year and started an election integrity program. Earlier this year, the Virginia GOP sent out a marching order to county-level Republican units in the state asking them to start election integrity teams.

    “The RNC and Virginia GOP are encouraging unit chairs to hone in on local election integrity efforts,”  Emma Vaughn, an RNC spokesperson, told The Epoch Times in a statement.

    In other words, Oberlander, as a part of the Republican Party, was able to utilize resources within the GOP establishment, as well as the Election Integrity Network to expand her task force and knowledge base.

    But the RNC wasn’t always able to do this, as its hands were only recently freed.

    The RNC, the powerhouse and teller machine of Republican initiatives, was legally barred from organizing and sponsoring ballot security operations like poll watching from 1982 to 2018, due to a 1982 consent decree (pdf) issued by Dickinson R. Debevoise, a judge appointed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

    This has been consequential. The consent decree meant that for nearly 40 years, the Democratic National Committee had a structural advantage over the RNC in strategizing and developing election administration infrastructure in accordance with its vision of how voting should be done.

    “Because of the DNC v. RNC Consent Decree, the RNC had been shut out of most election integrity efforts for nearly four decades, which led to a lack of institutional knowledge to conduct election integrity operations,” the RNC’s 2021 election integrity report reads (pdf).

    After the consent decree expired in 2018, the RNC began building infrastructure around election integrity projects. This includes spending more than 30 million on election protection efforts in battleground states across the country during the 2021 cycle, and continued building election security infrastructure for the 2022 cycle, Vaughn told The Epoch Times.

    “The RNC has made a multi-million-dollar investment for the 2022 cycle, including 17 state Election Integrity directors, 35 in-state election integrity counsels, and in recruiting over 43,000 poll workers and poll watchers in battleground states across the country,” Vaughn wrote in a statement.

    “The RNC works with other groups who have an interest in promoting election integrity but the party’s efforts are independent from any outside organization,” Vaughn wrote.

    The Movement Ripples

    The Election Integrity Network’s success in Virginia, which Mitchell calls the “Virginia model,” was promptly replicated in other states. By mid-2022, the Election Integrity Network held summits in eight battleground states—Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina—and mobilized thousands to start election integrity projects at the local level, according to Mitchell.

    “What we are focused on is building out the infrastructure—creating state coalitions and local election integrity task forces,” Mitchell said. “We really are measuring our success by the number of states who are up and running with statewide election integrity coalitions.

    “We measure that by helping them bring together the various groups to have weekly calls, then getting their local task forces going and then getting a framework for recruiting and training poll workers, election officials and starting the working groups within each state,” Mitchell said.

    According to Marshall Yates, Executive Director of the network, the network’s state-level conference calls in North Carolina, Michigan, and Georgia had over 75 in attendance, and Arizona and Pennsylvania had about 40 in attendance. The attendees are like Oberlander: they mostly consist of task force leaders who would put what they learned in the calls into practice at their local counties.

    Even Congress hopped on.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 21:25

  • Victor Davis Hanson: Martha's Meltdown Model
    Victor Davis Hanson: Martha’s Meltdown Model

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

    Martha’s Vineyard has been all over the news.

    The tony resort community so loves aiding and comforting the undocumented immigrants who were flown in from Florida that it hugged them — for all of 48 hours.

    Oddly, the Left became unhinged when red-state governors — whose states the last two years were flooded with some 3 million people who entered the country illegally — finally decided to spread welcoming chores among affluent blue-state communities.

    It was a natural fit.

    Most, like Washington, D.C., and New York, were on record as sanctuary city jurisdictions. In the abstract, they endorse open borders and celebrate diversity — from the serenity of thousands of miles away.

    The uproar at Martha’s Vineyard prompted the Democratic hierarchy to do some explaining. Why had it not earlier objected to the federal government night flights of tens of thousands of border-crossers to red-state communities that had opposed illegal immigration?

    And why be angry with governors who were only emulating that policy by flying in a mere 50 newcomers — in the light of day — to a far wealthier and liberal-minded sanctuary resort?

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gave the nearly all-white, rich vacation spot an opportunity to match noble words with even nobler deeds. But in response, the 1 percent screamed that their small community could not possibly cope with a mere 50 new arrivals.

    So far, wealthy progressive enclaves in Malibu, Aspen, and Napa have not stepped up to alleviate the “burden” put on their Martha’s Vineyard brethren.

    They should ask how does a poor Yuma or El Paso sustain hundreds of thousands crossing illegally into their communities — once Joe Biden effectively rendered federal immigration law null and void?

    The Martha’s Vineyard vacation mansion of the Obamas is currently vacant, as are most of his neighbors’ estates. Their sizable and expansive grounds could still serve as ideal centers for hundreds of immigrants to camp out.

    Almost all arrivals would surely prefer the Obama estate, scenery, and view than crowding among the impoverished at the border.

    Here where I live in southern Fresno County, California, often ground-zero for those arriving without documentation, receptive communities try hard to make space for immigrants.

    On my avenue, small farmhouses are now rented to landlords who often manage to accommodate 20 or 30 immigrants on their small lots.

    In fact, almost all farmhouses in my environs are surrounded by trailers, shacks, and sheds where hundreds of the undocumented live — to the total indifference of the state and utter neglect of California’s left-wing elite.

    Instead, our apartheid living elite virtue signal that increased crime, gangs, drug smuggling, prostitution, and child trafficking do not accompany open borders.

    From personal experience, I can attest that many have found otherwise.

    But, to be fair, Martha’s Vineyard could serve as a permanent way station for border-crossers. That way it might offer a more disinterested long-term assessment of the impact of illegal immigration on U.S. social services and communities.

    The Vineyard could also offer the nation a test case to ascertain whether the frantic panic of its privileged reveals their xenophobic racism and stereotyping — or if those are all too understandable reactions to the politically driven, reckless, and inhumane open-borders policies of the Biden administration.

    This new idea of redirecting undocumented immigrants from swamped communities on the border to more supportive sanctuary well-off cities might also serve as an ethical model for us all on a variety of other issues.

    For those who object to establishing grounds for the homeless far away from urban parks and downtowns, might they instead offer their own yards to help spread the burden among the entire community?

    For those who mocked the efficacy of border walls, might they take a vow not to erect walls around their own estates?

    For those who decry the inordinate carbon footprints of the consumer classes, might they pledge not to fly in private jets until catastrophic climate change abates?

    For those who believe that natural gas is too carbonized a fuel to generate electricity or warm homes, can they pledge not to heat swimming pools or cool down their homes below 78 degrees?

    For those who supported defunding the police and decriminalizing an array of previous misdemeanors and felonies, might they highlight the ensuing safety and security by not hiring private security guards?

    For those who call for extensive gun control and decry the ubiquity of handguns, might they pledge not to hire armed security details?

    For those who feel that charter schools undermine the public schools as much as unionized faculty empower them, might they eschew private prep schools?

    The Martha’s Vineyard experience marks a unique opportunity for modern bicoastal progressivism.

    View it as a landmark teachable moment to prove to the nation that leftists’ loud theories and Utopian agendas merely reflect — rather than are at odds with — their own prior concrete and well-lived experiences.

    Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Case for Trump. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 20:55

  • Biden Family Worked To Sell American Gas To China, GOP Lawmaker Says Citing Whistleblower
    Biden Family Worked To Sell American Gas To China, GOP Lawmaker Says Citing Whistleblower

    Authored by Eva Fu and Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Biden family was selling U.S natural gas to China long before Joe Biden became president, who was aware of how his son Hunter Biden was making the sale possible, according to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, citing documents and information provided by a whistleblower.

    President Joe Biden, right, and his son Hunter Biden walk to a vehicle after disembarking Air Force One upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Aug. 16, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

    Hunter Biden had a Chinese Communist Party member as his assistant while dealing with the Chinese side for the shipping of American natural gas to China in 2017, and the Biden family was promising business associates that they would reap rewards once Biden became president, said Comer in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dated Sept. 20.

    “The President has not only misled the American public about his past foreign business transactions, but he also failed to disclose that he played a critical role in arranging a business deal to sell American natural resources to the Chinese while planning to run for President,” Comer wrote.

    Joe Biden, Comer said, was a business partner in the arrangement and had office space to work on the deal, and a firm he managed received millions from his Chinese partners ahead of the anticipated venture.

    While part of what Comer stated had previously been reported in the news, the letter, citing whistleblower testimonies, as well as emails, a corporate PowerPoint presentation, screenshot of encrypted messages, and bank documents that committee Republicans obtained, provides a more complete picture suggesting Biden’s knowledge and involvement in the plan from at least 2017.

    From 2017 to 2021, the Bidens promised business associates that Joe Biden would run for president in 2020 and those who worked with them from 2017 onward would “reap the rewards in a future Biden administration,” according to Comer’s recount of a whistleblower testimony to Oversight Committee Republicans.

    “As America now struggles in an energy crisis, it is critical to understand why the Biden family was selling American energy reserves to the Chinese, if that is affecting President Biden’s decision making today, and why President Biden has never disclosed his relationship with the Chinese to the American public,” Comer wrote to Yellen.

    “If President Biden has worked to enrich not only himself but his family by promising, in exchange for millions of dollars, access or policy influence in a future Biden Administration, Congress and the American people are entitled to that information.”

    ‘Good for Both the United States and China’

    Emails attached in the letter show that Hunter Biden was actively facilitating the natural gas deal with top executives from the now-defunct CEFC China Energy, at the time one of the largest energy firms in China.

    In a November 2017 email to CEFC executive Dong Gongwen, Hunter told his partner he had sent information regarding liquified natural gas opportunities in Louisiana.

    “We began to investigate the opportunities in United States well before the public announcement by the Chinese government of its interest in Natural Gas imports from around the world,” Hunter wrote. He offered the prospect of contracts for large quantities of liquified natural gas “at very competitive rates” in the short term, as well as the possibility of acquisition or partnership in a promising natural gas project in Louisiana that would advance CEFC’s long term goals.

    Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, attends an event at the White House in Washington on April 18, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    “The proposal I have shared with you has the added benefit of being good for both the United States and China simultaneously,” he added.

    According to the letter, Hunter’s Chinese assistant, Bao Jiaqi, who previously worked as the research assistant at China’s macroeconomic management agency National Development and Reform Commission, sent him a detailed presentation containing political and topography maps, along with Chinese annotations, carving up America based on natural gas reserves. The 30-page presentation made particular emphasis on Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

    The emails that accompanied the slides revealed a plan to advance a natural gas sale to China through Hudson West III LLC, a company set up by Hunter and CEFC officials, according to the letter.

    Joe Biden’s Alleged Role

    By one whistleblower’s account, Joe Biden was an “obfuscated partner” in the transactions with the Chinese, and his son would hold 10 percent of the joint venture to hide his involvement, according to Comer’s letter. The same information was previously confirmed by former business associate Tony Bobulinski to The Epoch Times.

    “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when [you] are face to face, I know [you] know that but they are paranoid,” an associate for Hunter told another partner on May 20, 2017, in a WhatsApp conversation, a screenshot of which was attached in the letter.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 20:30

  • Who's Responsible For Space Junk?
    Who’s Responsible For Space Junk?

    It turns out that, after polluting our planet, we are now polluting space. Thousands of pieces of debris from broken down satellites, rocket boosters and weapons tests that we’ve launched over the years have got stuck in orbit, creating clutter, which could not only crash into the active satellites we need for monitoring the Earth but also release harmful chemicals into the atmosphere as they burn up on re-entry, depleting the ozone layer, as well as potentially creating problems for future launches and space exploration.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, most space junk comes from three countries: Russia, the U.S. and China.

    Infographic: Who’s Responsible for Space Junk? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Last November, Russia blew up one of its old satellites using an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon, sending thousands of pieces of debris into orbit and risked hitting the International Space Station. The Secure World Foundation estimates at least 16 debris-creating ASAT weapons tests have been carried out to date, with the most potentially damaging carried out by China in 2007, as the country downed one of their own satellites, creating an estimated 3,000 pieces of debris. However, it was the U.S. that created the first ASAT test, back in the 1950s, and according to Data Center Dynamics, has since conducted at least three ASAT debris-creating tests; two in the mid-1980s and one in 2008.

    According to the OECD, active debris removal faces several “technological, geopolitical and economic challenges.”

    Manufacturing and launching debris removal vehicles is expensive and, if it goes wrong, there’s the risk of simply creating further debris.

    On top of this, OECD analysts explain:

    “the retrieval of debris could involve sharing potentially sensitive data about the debris object’s design that could involve national security, foreign policy, intellectual property, etc. Therefore, countries would realistically be limited to removing their own satellites or those of close military allies.”

    Despite this, a number of space missions are planned over the next few years, including the European Space Agency’s ClearSpace-1 and the Japanese Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) mission. According to the OECD, possible solutions that are being worked on include space or ground based lasers to “nudge” objects out of the way, as well as the possibility to create an “artificial atmosphere” to divert its orbit. The organization’s analysts conclude: “All legal, technological and economic hurdles aside, these approaches depend on a much more accurate capability of space situational awareness and space tracking than exists today.”

    Evidently the issue of space debris will need to be solved soon as companies such as Boeing Co. and SpaceX get set to launch some 65,000 spacecraft into low-Earth orbit, upping the likelihood of more collisions and even further debris in the future.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 20:05

  • US Marine: "I Didn't Join The Military To Fight For Taiwan"
    US Marine: “I Didn’t Join The Military To Fight For Taiwan”

    Authored by 13-year military veteran Dan McKnight,

    Are you ready to go to war to “protect” a place, thousands of miles away from our nation, which we have no treaty alliance with and no overriding national interest? I’m not talking about Ukraine, even though we continue to pump that country full of billions of dollars in weapons and supplies in a proxy war against Russia.

    I’m talking about Taiwan, located off the coast of China in the Pacific Ocean. Joe Biden just promised to defend it with the full military might of the United States. When I joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, and later the Idaho Army National Guard, I signed up to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights—not Taipei.

    File image: US Marines/We Are The Mighty

    Here’s the story.

    After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, and Chairman Mao consolidated the rule of the Communist Party in Beijing, a small collection of anti-communists flew the coop and established themselves on the island of Formosa, about 100 miles from the mainland.

    That’s where they’ve been ever since, developing from a military dictatorship to a parliamentary democracy with two major parties. One wants closer integration with Beijing, the other wants full independence. Both Taipei and Beijing claim to be the legitimate government of all of China.

    In the 1970s, our government normalized relations with the Chinese mainland, and de-recognized the “Republic of China” in Taiwan, severing diplomatic relations and abrogating a defense pact.

    For over 40 years since then our foreign policy has been guided by “strategic ambiguity.” We recognize there is “One China,” but that there’s some creases we’d like to see ironed out peacefully and without violence.

    That’s why Nancy Pelosi’s visit last month to the island was so explosive. It was a high-level American leader playing recklessly with our diplomacy for the cameras. Now on Sunday, when 60 Minutes asked President Biden…

    “…to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?”

    “Yes,” he answered.

    You don’t get any clearer than that.

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    The administration has attempted to walk back the statement, and claims there’s been no change to “strategic ambiguity.” This is the third or fourth time the White House communications department has had to “correct” the commander in chief about our relationship with Taiwan.

    So who’s actually guiding policy in our country? It’s not Joe Biden and his rapidly decking cognitive abilities. It’s the War Party, the same group that’s been dictating U.S. foreign policy for over seventy years.

    That includes Republicans like Mitt Romney too. That carpetbagger just voted for a new bill slithering through Congress called the “Taiwan Policy Act,” which among other things will give the island $6,500,000,000 in military aid.

    “We’re doing something that’s highly provocative and bellicose,” Romney said, not to disparage but to praise the legislation. Then there’s Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, as faux conservative as they come. She says the American people have to fight for Taiwan and Ukraine on behalf of “international democracy.”

    You know what I call that? Globalism.

    Our soldiers are not cannon fodder for these imperial, one-world government schemes. They’re patriotic men and women who committed their lives to protect and defend our liberties and our borders.

    I say let the Chinese, on the mainland and on Formosa, work out their own problems in their own neighborhood while we Americans focus on building the strongest and freest economy in the world. That’s America First.

    But I’m not in charge.

    Left to their own devices, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney, and Marsha Blackburn will start World War III and try to fight Russia and China at the same time. They’ll destroy our country and leave us to pick through the rubble.

    That’s why you need to stop them.

    Read the rest at The Libertarian Institute

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 19:45

  • A 'Significant Threat To National Security': China Has Been Embedding Scientists At Los Alamos For Decades
    A ‘Significant Threat To National Security’: China Has Been Embedding Scientists At Los Alamos For Decades

    At least 154 Chinese scientists who worked on government-sponsored research at Los Alamos National Laboratory have been recruited by China to perform scientific work over the past two decades – including helping advance China’s military technology that now threatens America’s national security, according to a new private intelligence report obtained by NBC News.

    The report, by Strider Technologies, describes what it calls a systemic effort by the government of China to place Chinese scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons were first developed.

    Many of the scientists were later lured back to China to help make advances in such technologies as deep-earth-penetrating warheads, hypersonic missiles, quiet submarines and drones, according to the report. -NBC News

    The scientists – paid as much as $1 million – were recruited through Chinese government “talent programs” designed to funnel them back to China.

    As Peter Schweizer wrote last week, The Chinese approach is to “capture” elite institutions and individuals in the US: politicians, leading universities, large pension funds, social media, and Hollywood among them. My latest book, Red Handed, documents this capture in the areas of politics, diplomatic and business consulting, Big Tech, academia, and on Wall Street. There is insight in the Soviet-era statement, attributed to Lenin, about capitalists “selling us the rope with which to hang them.” Yet, it is the Chinese that understood how to sell the rope at a good price.

    Much as they are doing with products such as solar panels, the Chinese realize that cornering the market in an area where reach equals access is critical to their long-term plans to dominate. Their pattern includes stealing technology they cannot create themselves and using any means available to aid in that theft. Therefore, every bit of access to information they can scour is of more value to them than the product used to get it.

    Understanding these patterns is crucial to recognizing that the Chinese do this to their own people as well. As Gordon Chang’s recent piece for the Gatestone Institute discusses, the Chinese Communist Party maintains tight control of Chinese people overseas through many different forms of what we may baldly call blackmail. The many stories of intimidation of Chinese students and academics in the US who speak up about human rights abuses by China, or in support for democracy in Hong Kong and Taiwanese independence, all demonstrate this.

    Universities have put up with this in exchange for foreign funds for decades. They are only recently being confronted by the costs of this indulgence. For example, the former chairman of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department was convicted by a federal jury for lying to federal authorities about his affiliation with the People’s Republic of China’s Thousand Talents Program and the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in Wuhan, China, as well as failing to report income he received from WUT.

    * * *

    According to Greg Levesque, co-founder of Strider and the lead author of the report, China’s talent transfer “poses a direct threat to U.S. national security,” adding “China is playing a game that we are not prepared for, and we need to really begin to mobilize.”

    Current and former US intelligence officials tell NBC that the Strider report shows how the Chinese government has been acquiring insights into US technology in order to strengthen their military – and in a way which poses a ‘significant threat to national security.’

    In 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that “Through talent recruitment programs like the Thousand Talents, China pays scientists at American universities to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China — including valuable, federally funded research,” adding “To put it bluntly, this means American taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for China’s own technological development.”

    Read the rest of the report here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 19:20

  • South Korean Leader's Hot Mic "F**kers" Moment After Biden Handshake Goes Viral
    South Korean Leader’s Hot Mic “F**kers” Moment After Biden Handshake Goes Viral

    South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol was caught in an embarrassing hot mic moment on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York this week. The incident happened immediately after a meeting with President Joe Biden at a conference for the Global Fund on Wednesday. He was heard referring to US lawmakers collectively as “f**kers” in Korean, and suggested that Biden is being humiliated:

    “How could Biden not lose damn face if these f**kers do not pass it in Congress?” he said. Prior to his insulting remarks, Biden pledged $6 billion to fight HIV and tuberculosis. The aid would need the approval of Congress. “F**kers,” was the top trending topic on South Korean Twitter this Thursday.

    Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference in New York City on September 21, via AFP

    According to CNN, “The YouTube clip – which has not yet been taken down – has been viewed more than four million times since it was uploaded and drawn tens of thousands of comments.”

    The report notes further that President Yoon has been facing an avalanche of criticism, also related to his traveling to the UK for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral: “While in London, Yoon’s opponents accused him of disrespect because he missed the chance to view the queen’s coffin lying in state – which he blamed on heavy traffic.”

    The hot mic moment included the words uttered in Korean, and was published by a South Korean broadcaster, where the clip went viral (captured at the end of the below clip):

    Yoon has only been in office since May, and his viral gaffe comes amid increased US-South Korea military ties. He’s been cold toward the idea of seeking diplomacy with Pyongyang, as the North ramps up its weapons testing, even teasing the potential for an upcoming nuclear test.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 18:55

  • "No Longer Employed": Administrator At $60K Per Year NYC School Out After Project Veritas Exposé
    “No Longer Employed”: Administrator At $60K Per Year NYC School Out After Project Veritas Exposé

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Jennifer ‘Ginn’ Norris, then-director of student activities at Trinity School in New York City, speaks with an undercover journalist of Project Veritas in a video dated June 12, 2022. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    An administrator at a private $60,000-a-year New York City school located in the city’s Upper West Side is “no longer employed” just under a month after Project Veritas published a video of her admitting to “promoting an agenda” in the classroom.

    In a letter to parents on Sept. 21, Trinity School announced that Jennifer “Ginn” Norris is “no longer employed” there.

    It is unclear whether her departure was voluntary or if she was fired.

    Undercover news organization Project Veritas had on Sept. 1 published footage of Norris talking about how she and other teachers were working together to promote political agendas and left-wing ideology in the classroom.

    At the time, Norris was Trinity School’s director of student activities.

    “There’s always groups of teachers who want to do these [activist] things but the administration just wouldn’t let us,” Norris is seen in a video dated June 12, 2022 telling an undercover journalist. “So, we’ve been just sneaking things in [through] the cracks.”

    She was also captured on video complaining about “white boys” who don’t align with her worldview.

    “Unfortunately, it’s the white boys who feel very entitled to express their opposite opinions and just push back. There’s a huge contingent of them that are just horrible,” she told the undercover journalist.

    “We need to find some, like, Dexter, sort of like a vigilante, taking people out. You know the show ‘Dexter?’ … We just need some vigilante Dexters. Like, ‘Here’s your community of targets,’” she also said.

    Norris had been placed on paid leave on Sept. 2 following publication of the Project Veritas video.

    John Allman, the head of Trinity School, and David Perez, the president of the Board of Trustees, told parents in the Sept. 21 letter that the school has “retained independent counsel to investigate the matter” and that the probe into comments made by Norris is underway.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 18:30

  • US Eases Iran Tech Sanctions To Make Way For Musk's Starlink Amid Protests
    US Eases Iran Tech Sanctions To Make Way For Musk’s Starlink Amid Protests

    It’s not often these days that the US administration announces it is easing sanctions on Iran, but that’s what the US Treasury Department unveiled on Friday.

    It appears a strategy for encouraging protests by freeing up communications and social media platforms. The anti-government protests have now been raging for a full week: “The Treasury Department announced exceptions to Iranian sanctions Friday to allow companies to provide more online services in the country after Iran’s government cut internet access for most of the country amid protests,” The Hill reports.

    Protests in Tehran this week: WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

    “With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the government’s efforts to surveil and censor them,” Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo explained of the new measure.

    Specifically the partial sanctions rollback applies to US and international tech companies which are in a position to help the Iranian population access outside secure platforms and services, in the hopes of the freer flows of information, especially on social media platforms. According to the new US Treasury text: 

    “As courageous Iranians take to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, the United States is redoubling its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “

    “Today, Treasury is announcing the expansion of Iran General License D-2, which will expand the range of internet services available to Iranians. With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the government’s efforts to surveil and censor them. In the coming weeks, OFAC will continue issuing guidance to support the Administration’s commitment to promoting the free flow of information, which the Iranian regime has consistently denied to its people.”

    The Islamic Republic reportedly blocked Instagram and other popular sites this week as part of a broadening crackdown on anti-hijab protests in the wake of the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini.

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    The young woman from Iranian Kurdistan reportedly died due to being beaten by police for “unsuitable attire” – or not conforming to Islamic Republic standards of a hijab. She was said to have fallen into a coma after being beaten in police custody. Social media videos have shown protests in various cities spiraling into increased violence, with Western pundits promoting this as a full-on anti-regime “revolution”.

    US Treasury action appears to have been hastened after Elon Musk urged a lessening of anti-Iran tech restrictions particularly for Starlink shortly after the protests broke out. Musk said days ago he would pursue an exemption to US sanctions on Iran to supply Starlink internet access to the highly sanctioned Mideast country:

    “Internet access is an important tool for protesters and activists in Iran, which blocks many services like YouTube and many foreign media outlets in an effort to impose what the country describes as a halal internet, or one that conforms to its interpretation of Islamic law,” wrote WSJ. 

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    The billionaire businessmen suggested he was looking to bring Starlink satellite internet service to Iran at a moment internet speeds were being throttled by Iranian authorities across most parts of the nation as they sought to quell protests:

    Earlier this week, Musk announced on the social media service: “Starlink is now active on all continents, including Antarctica.” After reading Musk’s tweet, Iranian-born science reporter Erfan Kasraie then posted his own message to the SpaceX chief.

    “I’m sure you won’t answer it Mr Musk, but is it technically possible to provide Starlink to Iranian people?” Kasraie asked. “It could be a game changer for the future.”

    Musk did answer Kasraie. He wrote, “Starlink will ask for an exemption to Iranian sanctions in this regard.” The sanctions he commented about are linked to Iran’s nuclear activities. The restrictions bar a wide range of U.S. companies from doing business with Iran.

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    Bipartisan lawmakers have reportedly been pressuring Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to act following Musk’s statements.

    Tehran has denied the opposition narrative surrounding Amini’s death, describing that she had a heart attack and fell and hit her head. On Thursday the US Treasury sanctioned Iran’s hardline morality police as more and more women take off their headscarves in public displays of defiance.

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    Iranian state TV has confirmed that at least 26 have been killed after a week of clashes with police, but some external rights monitor say it’s actually more. What is clear from emerging and widely circulating videos is that the demonstrations are growing fiercer, triggering a more brutal police and security force response. The Iranian government says that some among the casualties are from security services.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 18:05

  • Newsom Signs Legislation To Protect Workers Who Use Cannabis Outside Work
    Newsom Signs Legislation To Protect Workers Who Use Cannabis Outside Work

    Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at California State University Long Beach on March 3, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    California employers will soon be prohibited from firing—or not hiring—workers over their use of cannabis outside of their workplace and work hours.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom put his signature on Assembly Bill 2188 Sept. 18 to prevent employers from discriminating against a person in hiring, termination, or terms and conditions of employment based on a drug screening test finding the presence of non-psychoactive cannabis metabolites in their system or for the person’s off-duty use.

    Recreational use of cannabis is legal in the state.

    AB 2188 was part of a series of legislation signed by the governor to “strengthen California’s cannabis laws, expand the legal cannabis market and redress the harms of cannabis prohibition,” according to a Sept. 18 statement by Newsom’s office.

    “For too many Californians, the promise of cannabis legalization remains out of reach,” Newsom said. “These measures build on the important strides our state has made toward this goal, but much work remains to build an equitable, safe and sustainable legal cannabis industry. I look forward to partnering with the Legislature and policymakers to fully realize cannabis legalization in communities across California.”

    The California state capital building in Sacramento on April 18, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The legislation’s author, Assemblyman Bill Quirk (D-Hayward), said the measure was “long overdue.”

    “Thank you to the advocates and sponsors for your continued support,” Quirk wrote on Twitter after the signing. “I applaud the Governor for his commitment to redress the harms of cannabis prohibition.”

    The law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024, and exempts those working in building and construction, and job positions that require federal background clearances.

    The Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legal marijuana organization co-founded by George Soros, advocated for the bill’s passage.

    “CA employees deserved the same rights as workers in other states like [New York and Nevada] that already passed laws protecting against workplace punishment for legal marijuana use off-the-clock,” the alliance wrote on Twitter.

    California NORML, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting and expanding cannabis consumers’ rights, sponsored the bill. The group told legislators workers have a right to engage in legal activity while away from the job, yet workers and applicants are losing job opportunities or being fired because they test positive for marijuana use.

    Customers shop for marijuana products at Catalyst Cannabis Dispensary in Santa Ana, Calif., on Feb. 18, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The California Cannabis Industry Association told The Epoch Times in a previous interview the bill still allows employers to use tests to determine “whether someone is under the influence of cannabis while actively on the job.”

    “The bill does not prevent employers from drug-testing employees but rather states that a test for non-psychoactive cannabis metabolites linger in the body for up to months after someone uses cannabis, is not grounds for hiring or termination,” the association’s Executive Director Lindsay Robinson said.

    The California Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill, saying it will still risk workplace safety and “create a protected status for marijuana use in [Fair Employment and Housing Act].”

    “California employers may face liability when they take legitimate disciplinary measures against their employees,” the California Chamber of Commerce said, according to a bill analysis. “If California policymakers wish to force a shift towards newer testing technologies—that is one thing. But we do not believe marijuana should be elevated to a legally protected status above comparable drugs (like alcohol).”

    A file photo of a cannabis sample in Santa Ana, Calif., on Feb. 18, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The governor also signed several other cannabis-related bills, including the following:

    • SB 1186 preempts local bans on medicinal cannabis delivery, expanding patients’ access to legal, regulated cannabis products.
    • AB 1706 allows Californians with old cannabis-related convictions to have them sealed.
    • SB 1326 creates a process for California to enter into agreements with other states to allow cannabis transactions with entities outside California.
    • AB 1885 allows veterinarians to recommend cannabis for pets.
    • AB 2210 allows venues hosting temporary events to obtain both liquor and cannabis licenses as long as the sale and consumption of marijuana and alcoholic beverages occur separately, according to Quirk, who is also the author of this legislation.
    • AB 1186, dubbed the Medicinal Cannabis Patients’ Right of Access Act, prohibits a local jurisdiction from restricting the retail sale of medicinal cannabis by delivery to patients or their primary caregivers by licensed medicinal cannabis businesses.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 17:40

  • Crash
    Crash

    No cute videos today, just one photo summarizes the absolute carnage today, this week, this month and this year.

    A week that started off with a huge chip on its shoulder after last week’s dramatic post-CPI plunge, and which was the worst since June, only got worse, as stocks tumbled a jarring 5% this week, which together with last week’s 4.7% means that in just the past two weeks the S&P has lost 10% of its value (it could have been worse if spoos had not bounced modestly off their June, and YTD, lows of 3,660).

    And while the catalyst for the plunge is clear – and as highlighted on the chart below it was all about the unexpectedly hawkish FOMC meeting on Wednesday where the 2024 dot came in at 4.6%, hotter than even the biggest hawks had expected – the result was a non-stop liquidation scramble as Powell finally made it clear that he will keep hiking well into the recession and beyond.

    To be sure, we’ve had powerful selloffs before in 2022, but today was the first time since June that the VIX finally spiked above 30. For it to achieve that when everyone in the institutional community is super-hedged with puts, is certainly remarkable.

    Today’s selloff was so broad-based and uniform that not only was everything deep red…

    … but TICK barely made it above 0.

    While everything was red, not every sector was pummeled equally – energy stuck out like a sore thumb….

    … and the XLE plunged by almost 7%, its second biggest drop since May 9, when oil unexpectedly crashed in what appeared like a government-mandated intervention.

    Today’s plunge in energy was driven not only by the now-certainty of a looming recession – even as most energy stocks now trade as if oil was priced in the low $50 – but also by the sudden collapse in the price of oil, which saw WTI tumble below $80 for the first time since January, and on pace to lose all of 2022’s gains!

    The plunge in oil was also a direct result of the now laughably exponential surge in the US dollar, where one look at the Bloomberg dollar index – where the USD is hitting new record highs every single day – shows all one needs to know.

    It wasn’t just the Fed’s tightening plans that were behind the relentless surge in the dollar, which alone were enough to push the market’s pricing of the May Fed Funds rate to a whopping 4.7%…

    … there was another key catalyst: today’s “mini budget” unveiled by the Liz Truss cabinet in the UK, which proposed the biggest tax cuts since the 1970s funded mostly with new debt sales, sent both gilts and the cable crashing…

    … with the former tumbling to 1.0872, or levels not seen since February 1985. And with whispers of parity getting louder, it’s only a matter of time before we test new record lows for the british currency.

    While it was sterling that stole the currency spotlight today, yesterday it was the yen’s turn, as the Japanese currency plunged after the BOJ affirmed it will keep buying billions in bonds for years to protect YCC, only to then turn around and intervene in the FX market for the first time since 1998, selling an unknown amount of dollars in the tens of billions for an intervention that has barely achieved anything at all!

    Of course, the FX fireworks also meant lots of excitement in the US bond market, where the 10Y yield today briefly spiked to the highest level since April 2010, when it touched a high of 3.8248% before retracing most of the move.

    And as the 10Y yield keeps rising, so does the real 10Y, which just hit 1.32%, well above the 2018 highs when the Fed was forced to pivot. And since the fwd P/E tracks the real rate, this suggests there is much more downside for stocks as the following chart shows.

    Meanwhile, the 2Y remains sticky, and is now trading around 4.20%, which means that the 2s10s is now inverted some -52bps…

    … and just shy of a new record inversion, one which screams not recession but full-blown depression.

    And speaking of the coming depression, remember, the Fed won’t stop until it breaks something…

    … and after this week there are so many more things that “something” can be: Japan, the UK (which may be locked out of the market sooner even than Italy), as well as things closer to home such as Junk bonds or even Investment Grade securities: don’t look now, but the LQD just took out its March 2020 covid crash lows when the Fed stepped in to bail out corporate debt by buying it directly…

    … or maybe it will be a certain bank again that catalyzes the next crash…

    … or just maybe the next mega-crash will be the 640 trillion yuan panda in the room.

    And until we wait, well… there’s always Joe Biden’s “greatest recovery ever”…

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 17:11

  • Watch: Sparks Fly From United Flight After Takeoff At Newark Airport
    Watch: Sparks Fly From United Flight After Takeoff At Newark Airport

    The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into a mechanical issue that resulted in sparks shooting out from the bottom of a United Airlines flight on Wednesday night from Newark Liberty International Airport. 

    United Airlines Flight 149 departed from Newark around 2300 ET Wednesday, headed to Sao Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport with 256 passengers on board. Moments after takeoff, the Boeing 777-200ER suffered a “mechanical issue,” United said in a statement indicating that an initial maintenance inspection pointed to a failed hydraulic pump. 

    A photographer on the ground captured video of sparks shooting out the back of the Boeing 777. 

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    Here’s what appears to be some of the metal debris that fell from the passenger jet. 

    United said Flight 149 “remained in the air to burn fuel and then landed safely.” 

    Flightaware data shows the plane went hundreds of miles off the coast of New York City to burn fuel before returning to Newark. 

    FAA released this statement about the incident:

    “United Airlines Flight 149, a Boeing 777-200, landed safely at Newark Liberty International Airport shortly before 1 a.m. local time today after the crew reported an emergency. The flight departed Newark and was headed to So Paulo, Brazil before it returned. The FAA will investigate.”

    The photographer who caught the incident on video told ABC7 New York: “Never I would’ve imaged that I would witness one in real life… I was pretty shocked.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 16:50

  • Trump Special Master Reveals New Plan After Appeals Court Ruling
    Trump Special Master Reveals New Plan After Appeals Court Ruling

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

    U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie presides over his first public hearing since his appointment as special master to review documents seized last month by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, at a courtroom in New York on Sept. 20, 2022. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)

    The judge designated as the special master in former President Donald Trump’s records case has proposed that a government official swear that the government properly listed items taken from Trump’s home in August.

    U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master, also left open the possibility of recommending the government be ordered to return some of the seized materials.

    Dearie outlined the plan on Sept. 22, following an order that blocks him and Trump’s lawyers from accessing materials with classified markings that were taken from Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

    Dearie, a George W. Bush appointee, was chosen by Trump attorneys and Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers and put into place by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee. Trump and the DOJ can object to components of the plan; Cannon would adjudicate any objections.

    Declaration

    Dearie’s case management plan starts with having a government official “with sufficient knowledge of the matter” submitting a declaration or affidavit regarding an inventory list DOJ officials have released.

    The official would attest that the list “represents the full and accurate extent of the property seized from” from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence.

    If the plan is put into place, Trump would then respond with a list of any items listed by the government that were not seized from Mar-a-Lago.

    Trump would also detail items that were seized but not included in the inventory.

    “This submission shall be Plaintiff’s final opportunity to raise any factual dispute as to the completeness and accuracy of the Detailed Property Inventory,” Dearie said.

    The government would then be allowed to respond to Trump.

    Seized Materials

    Based on an appeals court order, Cannon earlier Tuesday blocked Dearie and Trump lawyers from viewing the roughly 100 materials that were marked classified and seized from Mar-a-Lago.

    Dearie and the Trump attorneys are still poised to review each page of non-classified materials taken from the resort.

    Dearie wants the government to list each document and say whether the government filter team identified the document as potentially covered by a form of privilege, such as attorney-client privilege. Trump’s team has already received an initial set of potentially privileged documents, according to Dearie. After Trump’s team reviews the materials, they would specify any privilege claims, including any claims for documents that were not deemed potentially privileged by the government. Dearie will resolve any disputes on privilege.

    The final log of privilege designations is due to Dearie on or before Oct. 21.

    Delay on Ruling

    The special master will not decide whether Trump shall receive any of the seized materials back until after Cannon rules on any objections to his plan.

    Trump has already motioned for the return of property.

    Trump must submit a brief in support of the motion no less than seven days after Cannon finishes ruling on the case management plan and any objections. The government will then respond, and Trump can respond to the government’s response.

    Either party can request an oral argument.

    Dearie said that he will “promptly issue a report and recommendation after briefing and oral argument has been completed.” Cannon has the final say on the motion.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 16:25

  • No Charges: Gaetz Sex-Trafficking Case Crumbles As Prosecutors Doubt Witness Credibility
    No Charges: Gaetz Sex-Trafficking Case Crumbles As Prosecutors Doubt Witness Credibility

    Career Justice Department prosecutors have recommended against charging Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in connection with a long-running sex-trafficking investigation.

    According to the Washington Post, prosecutors told DOJ superiors that a conviction would be unlikely – in part because of credibility issues with the two central witnesses, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Senior department officials have not made a final decision on whether to charge Gaetz, but it is rare for such advice to be rejected, these people told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations. They added that it is always possible additional evidence emerges that could alter prosecutors’ understanding of the case. -WaPo

    As such, it’s unlikely that Gaetz will face charges in an investigation which began in late 2020 over allegations of involvement with a 17-year-old girl.

    DOJ investigators were probing whether Gaetz paid to have sex with a then-17-year-old in violation of federal sex-trafficking laws.

    The 40-year-old lawmaker has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, and said that the only time he’s had sex with a 17-year-old is when he was also 17.

    Earlier this year, Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend testified to a federal grand jury in Orlando, who went on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas along with several other women – including the accuser (who was 18 or older by that time), and Gaetz. According to people familiar with the case, the accuser is one of two people whose testimony has issues that veteran prosecutors don’t think would fly with a jury.

    The other witness is a former friend of Gaetz’s, former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty last year to sex trafficking a minor, along with several other crimes.

    Greenberg was first charged in 2020 with fabricating allegations and evidence to smear a political opponent, but prosecutors continued to investigate and added additional charges to his case. He ultimately agreed to plead guilty to six criminal charges, including sex trafficking of a child, aggravated identity theft and wire fraud.

    In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the other 27 counts Greenberg faced and recommend a term within federal sentencing guidelines, which are often far less than the statutory maximum penalties. They also agreed to recommend other possible sentencing breaks. -WaPo

    According to Greenberg’s plea agreement, prosecutors might ask a judge to lower his minimum required penalty in exchange for “substantial assistance” in building other cases. He is set to be sentenced later this year. 

    After investigating Greenberg, prosecutors claim to have found evidence potentially implicating Gaetz in sex trafficking, and have since been probing whether Greenberg paid women to have sex with Gaetz – as well as whether the two shared sexual partners, including the 17-year-old girl in question.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 15:45

  • Hurricane Fiona Barrels Toward Canada; New Caribbean Storm Threatens Southeast US
    Hurricane Fiona Barrels Toward Canada; New Caribbean Storm Threatens Southeast US

    After battering Puerto Rico earlier this week with torrential rain and strong winds, Hurricane Fiona is now a Category 3 storm barreling towards northeastern Canada. There’s also a new tropical storm developing in the Caribbean and forecasted to become a threat to Southeast US next week. 

    As of Friday morning, Fiona’s center was passing northwest of Bermuda with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm was downgraded from a Category 4 hurricane. 

    Now Fiona sets sights on northeastern Canada, where hurricane warnings are in effect for Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the Magdalen Islands, and the coast of Newfoundland. 

    NHC forecasts the storm to be a “large and powerful post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds,” as it’s expected to make landfall across parts of Nova Scotia on Saturday. 

    “This storm is shaping up to be a severe event for Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec,” the Canadian Hurricane Centre said on its website. 

    Hurricanes making landfall in Canada are relatively rare because colder waters tend to weaken the storms. 

    “This could be the storm of a lifetime for some people,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said.

    There are several fuel refineries in the storm’s path. 

    GasBuddy chief petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan pointed out that a major refinery in New Brunswick is in the storm’s path. However, forecast models show that the storm will make landfall east of the facility. 

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    Meanwhile, Tropical Depression Nine formed in the Caribbean Sea and could become a hurricane threat for the western Caribbean and Southeast US by mid-next week. 

    Tropics are lighting up with activity as hurricane season peaked earlier this month. 

    Fiona and Tropical Depression Nine are two storms to monitor into the weekend. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/23/2022 – 15:45

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