Aug 25

Today’s News 25th August 2023

  • Spain Is The Most Worried About Data Use Online
    Spain Is The Most Worried About Data Use Online

    In August 1991, the world’s first ever web page was published online.

    Now, more than three decades later, the internet is estimated to serve some 5.16 billion people, with a global internet penetration rate of 64.4 percent.

    But, as Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, along with the many benefits of the online world and our increased interconnectivity also come risks.

    This includes phishing, when bad actors try to obtain private data such as banking details from users by sending bogus emails that impersonate companies or public bodies, as well as attempts to breach and leak databases that hold personal information for subsequent identity theft or scams using credit cards.

    The following chart uses data from Statista’s Consumer Insights survey to show where the question of the misuse of their personal data is a common concern.

    Infographic: Which Country Is Most Worried About Data Use Online? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    It reveals that out of the selected countries, a bigger share of Spanish respondents were concerned (56 percent) than the other polled countries, followed by Chile (50 percent), and Mexico (48 percent).

    Meanwhile, under a third of respondents shared the same concern in the United States (27 percent), South Africa (28 percent) and the United Kingdom (28 percent).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/25/2023 – 02:45

  • Britain's Asylum Backlog Hits Record 175,000 As Applications Last Year Reached Two-Decade High
    Britain’s Asylum Backlog Hits Record 175,000 As Applications Last Year Reached Two-Decade High

    Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

    There are more than 175,000 people living in Britain awaiting a decision on their asylum applications, the highest figure reported since records began in 2010, Home Office data published on Thursday showed.

    The asylum backlog had extended to 175,457 individuals awaiting an initial decision by the end of June this year, up 44 percent from June 2022.

    Similarly, the number of asylum applications submitted this year reached a two-decade high, with 78,768 applications relating to 97,390 people, up 19 percent from the previous year.

    “This is higher than at the time of the European migration crisis (in 2016) and is the highest number of applications for two decades,” the Home Office stated.

    The most common nationality of applicants was Albanian with 11,790 applications, followed by Afghans with 9,964 applications, double the number received from the country in the previous year.

    A total of 71 percent of all decisions made in the year to June granted refugee status or humanitarian protection, more than double the percentage granted prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to clear the legacy asylum backlog — i.e., asylum applications made up to June last year — by the end of this year, but Home Office officials have only cleared an average of 2,061 cases a month.

    With another 67,870 cases remaining, the government faces the seemingly impossible task of processing over 11,000 cases every month for the rest of the year to meet its target.

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

    Irregular immigration into Britain has also skyrocketed this year, with 52,530 migrants detected entering the U.K. without permission in the year ending June 2023, up 17 percent from the previous year. A total of 85 percent of these arrived via small boats across the English Channel.

    The vast majority of these are being accommodated in hotels across the country, with an estimated cost of £6 million per day to U.K. taxpayers. A total of 47,518 migrants were being housed in hotels in March 2023, rising to 50,546 by June despite the government making pledges to reduce this figure.

    According to the Home Office data, the government’s annual spending on asylum has almost doubled from £2.12 billion in 2021-2022 to £3.97 billion in 2022-2023.

    “The Tories have failed us all on immigration,” conservative broadcaster Nigel Farage posted in response to the figures, while Labour’s Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock said the statistics “set out in stark terms the complete chaos the Tories have created in the immigration and asylum system.

    “Only 1 percent of last year’s 45,000 small boats cases have received a decision, and the number of failed asylum seekers being returned is also down a whopping 70 percent since 2010. This is a disastrous record for the prime minister and home secretary,” he added.

    Despite Labour’s protestations, the party has regularly refused to commit to reducing immigration levels should they come to power as expected at the next general election.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/25/2023 – 02:00

  • Visualizing The Future Global Economy By GDP In 2050
    Visualizing The Future Global Economy By GDP In 2050

    According to a recent report from Goldman Sachs, the balance of global economic power is projected to shift dramatically in the coming decades.

    More specifically, analysts believe that Asia could soon become the largest regional contributor to world GDP, surpassing the traditional economic powerhouses grouped together in the Developed Markets (DM) category.

    In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes Goldman Sachs’ real GDP forecasts for the year 2050 using a voronoi diagram.

    Data and Highlights

    The following table includes a regional breakdown of expected real GDP in 2050. All figures are based on 2021 USD.

    Based on these projections, Asia (ex DM) will represent 40% of global GDP, slightly ahead of Developed Markets’ expected share of 36%. This would mark a massive shift from 50 years ago (2000), when DMs represented over 77% of global GDP.

    Asia

    Focusing on Asia, China and India will account for the majority of the region’s expected GDP in 2050, though growth in China will have tapered off significantly. In fact, Goldman Sachs expects annual real GDP growth in the country to average 1.1% through the 2050s. This is surprisingly slower than America’s expected 1.4% annual growth during the same decade.

    The fastest growing economies in Asia during the 2050s will be India (3.1% annually), Bangladesh (3.0% annually), and the Philippines (3.5% annually). These countries are expected to thrive thanks to their high population growth rates and relatively low median age, which translates into a larger work force.

    Latin America

    Turning our attention to Latin America, we can see that the region will account for a relatively small 7% of global GDP in 2050. According to Goldman Sachs’ previous projections from 2011, many Latin American countries have underperformed over the past decade. For example, Brazil’s real GDP shrank from $2.7 trillion in 2010, to $1.5 trillion in 2020.

    Because of these setbacks, Goldman Sachs believes Indonesia will be able to overtake Brazil as the world’s largest emerging market before 2050.

    That said, Brazil’s economic ranking is still expected to climb above France and Canada by then, if these projections prove to be accurate.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 22:45

  • "Election Interference": Trump Returns To Twitter After Georgia Booking
    “Election Interference”: Trump Returns To Twitter After Georgia Booking

    Update (2145ET): After more than two-and-a-half years without tweeting, Trump has finally returned to the platform following Thursday’s booking in Georgia.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s already selling t-shirts with the mugshot. Great job Fani, you may have just cost Biden the election.

    And the meme magicians are already at it…

    *  *  *

    Update (2025ET): After about 20 minutes to take a mugshot Trump left the Fulton County jail.

    “It’s election interference. … I want to thank you for being here. We did nothing wrong at all. And we have every right, every single right to challenge an election that we think is dishonest. So we think it’s very dishonest,” he told reporters at Atlanta’s airport, before leaving.

    *  *  *

    Former President Donald Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail on Thursday on state charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

    According to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Trump is 6’3″ and 215 lbs (which he was allowed to pre-report to ‘speed up the process,’ so who knows).

    Watch Live:

    Meanwhile, Trump supporters have been waiting for hours outside the jail:

    Trump and 18 other people were indicted last week after being accused by Fulton County DA Fani Willis of participating in a scheme to flip the results of the election – many of whom have already turned themselves in, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis on Wednesday and John Eastman and Mark Meadows on Tuesday.

    As the Washington Times reports;

    the scene outside the jail was anything but normal Thursday.

    It included supporters of the former president such as Cliff MacMorris, 66, from Naples, Florida, who held a flag that read, “Trump Won Save America.”

    He and his wife, Georgine, spent the night in Atlanta.

    “You don’t have the right to persecute somebody unjustly,” Cliff MacMorris said.

    His wife said the indictments against the former president were politically motivated because of the four years of “prosperity, safety, freedom” that Trump achieved in the White House.

    “They must be worried about him for some reason,” she said.

    Sharon Anderson, 67, from east Tennessee, was outside the jail for a second straight day. She had spent the night in a car with the air conditioning running.

    “I’m here to support Donald J. Trump. I want him to see some of the millions that show up at the polls for him.”

    Trump faces 13 separate counts in Georgia, including a racketeering charge and several fraud and false statement count. Trump had until Friday to turn himself in.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 22:25

  • "Yet Another Case Of Weaponization": Musk Responds After DOJ Sues SpaceX For Not Hiring Refugees
    “Yet Another Case Of Weaponization”: Musk Responds After DOJ Sues SpaceX For Not Hiring Refugees

    On Wednesday, Elon Musk threatened to sue organizations funded by left-wing financier George Soros for falsely claiming “hate incidents” are on the rise, in order to justify censorship. Less than a day later, Biden’s ‘not weaponized’ DOJ slapped SpaceX with a lawsuit for not hiring asylum seekers and refugees.

    According to the lawsuit – which has been brewing since 2020, the DOJ found that “SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” according to Kristen Clarke, assistant AG of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

    SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

    “SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company,” according to the complaint.

    According to data SpaceX provided, the DOJ said that over a nearly four period and across more than 10,000 hires, the company “hired only one individual who was an asylee and identified as such in his application.”

    That lone hire came about four months after the DOJ notified SpaceX of its investigation.

    SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The suit was filed in the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division of the DOJ that adjudicates immigration cases. –CNBC

    SpaceX and other rocket companies have for years asserted that its hiring practices were dictated by the  International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) law, which regulates the export of regulated technologies, such as rocket parts. An “export” is deemed to have occurred if technology is disclosed to a foreigner, even in the U.S.

    Musk responded Thursday night, tweeting “SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense,” adding “This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.”

    The Biden administration’s lawsuit seeks to win “fair consideration and back pay for asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX due to the alleged discrimination,” along with civil penalties and policy changes from the company.

    Will the DOJ go after Northrop, Lockheed and Boeing for the same thing?

    Read the lawsuit below:

    DOJ SpaceX Lawsuit Aug. 24,… by CNBC.com

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 21:55

  • Catholic School System Asks Students To Use Biological Pronouns And Names
    Catholic School System Asks Students To Use Biological Pronouns And Names

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

    A young girl at the annual New York City Pride March in New York City on June 25, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    A Catholic school system in Massachusetts under the Diocese of Worcester is asking students to behave in accordance with their sex, including while using pronouns and names.

    “All students are expected to conduct themselves at school in a manner consistent with their biological sex,” the Diocese said in an Aug. 15 announcement. “School practice shall consider the gender of all students as being consistent with their biological sex, including, but not limited to, the following: participation in school athletics; school-sponsored dances; dress and uniform policies; the use of changing facilities, showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms; titles, names, and pronouns; and official school documents.”

    Official documents, including school records, transcripts, and diplomas shall reflect the student’s biological sex as determined at the time of their birth and enrollment.

    The new policy prohibits students from engaging in advocacy, celebration, or expression of same-sex attraction in ways that cause “confusion or distraction” to the function of the school like classes, events, and other activities.

    It also prohibits bullying, harassment, threats, or acts of violence against students on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

    “While some schools had policies in place, others did not. Individual situations were arising which underscored a need for a single policy which clearly states Church teaching and provides consistent application of that teaching across all our schools,” said David Perda, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the diocese.

    The new policy, titled “Catholic Education and the Human Person,” was approved by Bishop Robert McManus in late June and was sent to all Catholic schools to include them in school handbooks this fall. The Diocese is located roughly 45 miles west of Boston.

    Some Schools Not Implementing New Rules

    The Diocese of Worcester’s new policy is expected to affect 21 Catholic schools in Worcester, with over 5,000 students coming under the purview. However, some schools have indicated that they may not adopt the new guidelines.

    In an Aug. 11 letter to Bishop McManus, Xaverian Brothers General Superior Brother Daniel Skala and Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur Sister Patty Chappell said that the boards of trustees of their religious orders had reviewed the policy, according to Patch.

    Demonstrators listen to the speaking program during an “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza in the District of Columbia on June 23, 2022. The rally, organized by multiple athletic women’s groups was held to call on President Joe Biden to put restrictions on transgender females and “advocate to keep women’s sports female.” (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    The boards have decided not to implement the new policies in student handbooks at the two schools the orders sponsor—the all-girls Notre Dame Academy in Worcester and all-boys St. John’s in Shrewsbury.

    “We support our respective boards’ recent determination to uphold their established practices, guided by the principles of our Church and Religious Orders, instead of incorporating the [new policies] into their handbooks,” the letter stated.

    Schools under the Diocese of Worcester that do not follow the new policy on gender ideology could face punishment.

    Last year, Bishop McManus stripped the affiliation of Nativity School in Worcester, asking that it stop identifying itself as a Catholic school after the institution refused to take down LGBT and Black Lives Matter flags.

    Bishop McManus had also prohibited the school from performing Mass ceremonies.

    Pope Mixes Messaging

    The Diocese of Worcester’s new policy is based on various Biblical sources and references the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the teachings of Pope Francis.

    Pope Francis has “repeatedly stressed the importance of a proper understanding of our sexuality, warning of the challenge posed by ‘the various forms of an ideology of gender that denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual difference,’” the policy states.

    “As Pope Francis notes, we must always respect the sacred dignity of each individual person, but that does not mean the Church must accept the confused notions of secular gender ideology.”

    Though the policy cites Pope Francis while dismissing gender ideology, the Pope has given mixed messages regarding the issue over the past years.

    Back in 2013 when asked about the sexual orientation of priests, the Pope replied, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” according to AP.

    In 2015, Pope Francis criticized gender ideologies, comparing such theories to nuclear weapons and genetic manipulation.

    In 2021, Pope Francis came under criticism from the gay community after the Vatican stated that the church cannot bless same-sex unions. In an interview with AP in January this year, the Pope said homosexuality was “not a crime,” but that it is a “sin.”

    The Diocese of Worcester’s decision to ban preferred pronouns comes as several institutions are imposing pronoun use and punishing people who do not comply with such measures. Teachers have been expelled from schools for not using such pronouns due to their religious beliefs.

    In a recent interview with The Washington Examiner, Tyson Langhofer, a senior counsel at advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), suggested that as the issue of pronoun use becomes widespread, SCOTUS may have to intervene.

    “I do believe that the Supreme Court is going to have to weigh in on this if schools continue adopting these policies, which it appears that they’re doing,” he said.

    “This issue is very [common] … And I think it’s because there’s a lot of misinformation out there from outside advocacy organizations, which are pressuring schools, telling them what they can and can’t do.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 21:30

  • Pentagon To Send Ukrainian Pilots For F-16 Training To Texas & Arizona
    Pentagon To Send Ukrainian Pilots For F-16 Training To Texas & Arizona

    A US official has informed The New York Times on Thursday that the Pentagon plans to begin training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets inside the US, as part of a program which could start as early as September.

    Already a program has been kicked off in the Netherlands and Denmark, which Kiev has complained has been too slow to get off the ground, also given it only includes six Ukrainian pilots. At this rate, the expected date that Ukraine could be piloting the US-made jets in battle keeps getting pushed back – from estimates of next summer to now perhaps end of 2024.

    US Air Force image

    “[We’re] open to training existing pilots if capacity is reached in Europe,” a Pentagon spokesperson had initially previewed days ago, on Monday.

    “That’s the condition. So, if Denmark and the Netherlands are taking the lead on training, if they just do not have the capacity … to train as many pilots as Ukraine wants to send or plans to send, then we will… help train stateside,” the earlier statement added.

    But on Thursday more details have come out, apparently with a fuller US commitment, which will see training locations which includes Texas and Arizona.

    The NY Times details, “The pilots will first receive English language training in Texas and then begin months of flight training in Arizona, said the U.S. official who addressed the issue on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss future training plans.”

    Currently Denmark and the Netherlands have pledged quantities of their own Lockheed produced F-16s. The Biden White House earlier this month made the key decision to allow export of its fighters from third-parties, but has yet to commit its own, which could still be coming.

    Ukrainian officials have all along bitterly complained it’s becoming too little, too late in terms of F-16s aiding the failing counteroffensive. Kiev very obviously lacks any level of air superiority, which would be strategically necessary toward liberating territory. Many analysts are seeing the F-16 program as more about Ukraine’s future defense, post-war.

    Given the Europe-based pilot training program has a mere half-dozen Ukrainian pilots enrolled, it’s not expected that the US program will host a large group of potential pilots.

    As for precise location within Texas, the Ukrainians would likely be placed somewhere at one of the multiple Air Force facilities in San Antonio. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 21:05

  • Not All Legislators Use The Poor And Minorities For Political Gain
    Not All Legislators Use The Poor And Minorities For Political Gain

    Authored by Dave Trabert via RealClear Wire,

    Hypocrisy — claiming to have beliefs to which one’s behavior does not conform — has long been a defining characteristic of many politicians. But a few brave souls recently have bucked the official party line to stand up for their beliefs and constituents.

    Georgia state legislator Mesha Mainor recently announced she is leaving the Democrat party to become a Republican, saying, “For far too long, the Democrat Party has gotten away with using and abusing the black community. For decades, the Democrat Party has received the support of more than 90% of the black community. And what do we have to show for it?  I represent a solidly blue district in the city of Atlanta. This isn’t a political decision for me. It’s a moral one.”

    Minor says her Democrat colleagues crucified her when she decided to stand up for disadvantaged children in support of school choice.  

    Kansas Democrat Marvin Robinson hasn’t changed party affiliation, but he is taking a lot of abuse from Democrats for supporting school choice for disadvantaged kids and protecting biological women’s right to compete in the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. He says one female Democrat in the Legislature told him he should die.

    Mainor says, “The most dangerous thing to the Democrat Party is a black person with a mind of their own.”  

    Kansas Democrats also pressure members to vote against children and for the unions.  

    Rep. Brad Boyd, an Olathe, Kansas Democrat who serves on the Olathe School Board, says school choice “targets black and brown kids, who can’t afford to attend some of these prestigious private institutions when we take money away from public schools.”

    School choice programs do target minorities and low-income students, but quite the opposite of how Boyd contends. First, seven of the eight studies on the effect of choice programs on integration found positive impacts; the other showed no visible impact. That’s because minorities comprise a disproportionate share of student enrollment in choice programs.  Second, most studies show that public school students have better outcomes after the introduction of choice programs.

    Despite these irrefutable facts, Rep. Boyd and other choice opponents want to keep students trapped in public schools and condemn them to a lifetime of underachievement because that is the will of the teacher unions and other education officials. Only 13% of Black high school students in Boyd’s Olathe district are proficient in math, and more than half are below grade level.  

    Shockingly low proficiency for Black students isn’t just a Kansas issue; it runs rampant nationwide. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows 62% of Black eighth-graders are below basic in math, and only 9% are proficient, for example.

    Kansas Republican Mark Schreiber justifies his opposition to choice by saying the state should focus on providing more early childhood education programs. That might seem plausible at face value, but people like Schreiber who are familiar with the workings of the Kansas public school system know that won’t help low-income kids. Legislators have provided more than $5 billion in incremental funding to help those kids since 2005, but state audits consistently find that public school officials refuse to spend that money as state law requires. And the State Board of Education lets them get away with it.

    Kansas legislators who oppose school choice know that the public system is consciously leaving behind poor kids in general and Black students in particular, but they refuse to talk about it. State Rep. Valdenia Winn (D-Wyandotte) sees it firsthand as a member of the Kansas City, Kansas, school board, which refuses to follow state law on spending at-risk funding and conducting student needs assessments. Sill, she contends that choice would “kill public education.”  

    Choice has existed in states like Florida and Arizona for decades and has not ‘killed’ public education. Just look at 4th-grade reading results for low-income kids. Florida students were trailing the national average in 1998; today, they have the highest proficiency level in the nation. Arizona students were three points below the national average, but now they meet the national average.

    Politicians know that the public education system harms the low-income families they purport to represent and who would benefit from school choice. Yet they use them as pawns to protect the party and institutional interests.

    School choice is perhaps the most bipartisan issue in the nation today, with solid support from parents of all political persuasions. Legislators in both parties should stop protecting education systems and pass universal school choice in every state so that students can get a good education and succeed in life.

    Dave Trabert is CEO of Kansas Policy Institute, a nonprofit research and education organization that promotes economic and educational freedom and protects constitutional rights.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 20:40

  • Visualizing All Of China's Trade Partners
    Visualizing All Of China’s Trade Partners

    China stands as a formidable player in the global trade arena, wielding its influence as the world’s largest goods exporter.

    With a complex network of trade partnerships spanning more than 200 countries, regions, and territories, the world’s second-largest economy has significant economic relationships with both allies and adversaries.

    By using 2022 trade data from China’s General Administration of Customs, this chart from Visual Capitalist’s Truman Du and Omri Wallach breaks down the nation’s top trading partners through imports and exports by destination.


    China’s Imports and Exports by Country in 2022

    Over the course of 2022, China saw exports totaling $3.57 trillion and imports totaling $2.71 trillion, giving it a massive trade surplus of $857 billion.

    ℹ️ Note: For products manufactured in two or more countries, China records the place where the last substantial working or processing occurred as the place of origin, including China itself.

    Country Imports (2022 USD) Exports (2022 USD) Balance (2022 USD)
    🇺🇸 United States $177.7B $578.8B +$401.1B
    🇭🇰 Hong Kong $7.8B $295.2B +$287.4B
    🇳🇱 Netherlands $12.5B $117.4B +$104.9B
    🇮🇳 India $17.5B $117.7B +$100.3B
    🇲🇽 Mexico $17.4B $77.3B +$59.8B
    🇬🇧 United Kingdom $21.8B $81.0B +$59.2B
    🇻🇳 Vietnam $88.0B $144.4B +$56.4B
    🇸🇬 Singapore $33.9B $80.0B +$46.1B
    🇵🇭 Philippines $23.0B $63.9B +$40.9B
    🇵🇱 Poland $5.1B $38.0B +$32.9B
    🇪🇸 Spain $9.8B $41.6B +$31.9B
    🇹🇷 Türkiye $4.5B $33.9B +$29.4B
    🇧🇪 Belgium $8.7B $35.5B +$26.7B
    🇧🇩 Bangladesh $1.0B $26.7B +$25.7B
    🇮🇹 Italy $27.0B $50.5B +$23.6B
    🇹🇭 Thailand $56.5B $77.7B +$21.1B
    🇳🇬 Nigeria $1.6B $22.1B +$20.5B
    🇵🇰 Pakistan $3.4B $22.9B +$19.5B
    🇪🇬 Egypt $1.0B $17.1B +$16.0B
    🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan $0.1B $15.3B +$15.3B
    🇨🇿 Czechia $5.4B $18.2B +$12.8B
    🇰🇭 Cambodia $1.8B $14.0B +$12.2B
    🇬🇷 Greece $0.8B $12.9B +$12.1B
    🇵🇦 Panama $1.2B $12.6B +$11.4B
    🇨🇦 Canada $42.3B $53.4B +$11.1B
    🇫🇷 France $35.6B $45.5B +$9.9B
    🇨🇴 Colombia $7.0B $15.5B +$8.5B
    🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates $45.4B $53.5B +$8.1B
    🇰🇪 Kenya $0.3B $8.2B +$7.9B
    🇱🇷 Liberia $0.0B $7.5B +$7.5B
    🇮🇱 Israel $9.0B $16.4B +$7.4B
    🇹🇿 Tanzania $0.5B $7.7B +$7.1B
    🇸🇮 Slovenia $0.6B $6.8B +$6.3B
    🇬🇭 Ghana $2.3B $7.8B +$5.5B
    🇭🇺 Hungary $5.0B $10.5B +$5.4B
    🇺🇿 Uzbekistan $2.3B $7.4B +$5.1B
    🇩🇿 Algeria $1.1B $6.2B +$5.1B
    🇯🇴 Jordan $0.7B $5.7B +$4.9B
    🇲🇦 Morocco $0.9B $5.7B +$4.8B
    🇩🇪 Germany $111.4B $115.9B +$4.5B
    🇩🇰 Denmark $5.7B $10.2B +$4.4B
    🇷🇴 Romania $3.1B $7.4B +$4.3B
    🇦🇷 Argentina $8.6B $12.7B +$4.1B
    🇲🇴 Macao $0.1B $4.2B +$4.1B
    🇬🇹 Guatemala $0.6B $4.3B +$3.8B
    🇩🇴 Dominican Republic $0.5B $4.3B +$3.7B
    🇸🇳 Senegal $0.3B $4.0B +$3.7B
    🇲🇭 Marshall Islands $0.0B $3.5B +$3.5B
    🇱🇰 Sri Lanka $0.5B $3.7B +$3.2B
    🇩🇯 Djibouti $0.1B $3.2B +$3.1B
    🇮🇷 Iran $6.4B $9.4B +$3.0B
    🇹🇬 Togo $0.2B $3.1B +$2.9B
    🇵🇹 Portugal $3.0B $6.0B +$2.9B
    🇨🇮 Cote d’Ivoire $1.0B $3.5B +$2.5B
    🇨🇲 Cameroon $0.7B $3.1B +$2.5B
    🇱🇧 Lebanon $0.1B $2.5B +$2.4B
    🇸🇪 Sweden $9.1B $11.4B +$2.2B
    🇻🇪 Venezuela $0.8B $3.0B +$2.1B
    🇾🇪 Yemen $0.6B $2.8B +$2.1B
    🇭🇷 Croatia $0.2B $2.3B +$2.1B
    🇲🇿 Mozambique $1.3B $3.2B +$1.9B
    🇲🇲 Myanmar $11.5B $13.4B +$1.9B
    🇹🇯 Tajikistan $0.4B $2.2B +$1.8B
    🇵🇾 Paraguay $0.1B $1.9B +$1.8B
    🇪🇹 Ethiopia $0.5B $2.2B +$1.8B
    🇱🇹 Lithuania $0.1B $1.8B +$1.7B
    🇳🇵 Nepal $0.0B $1.6B +$1.6B
    🇹🇳 Tunisia $0.3B $1.9B +$1.6B
    🇧🇬 Bulgaria $1.3B $2.8B +$1.6B
    🇭🇳 Honduras $0.0B $1.6B +$1.5B
    🇧🇭 Bahrain $0.3B $1.8B +$1.5B
    🇰🇿 Kazakhstan $14.8B $16.3B +$1.5B
    🇧🇾 Belarus $1.8B $3.2B +$1.4B
    🇧🇯 Benin $0.3B $1.7B +$1.4B
    🇸🇻 El Salvador $0.2B $1.7B +$1.4B
    🇲🇹 Malta $0.6B $2.0B +$1.4B
    🇸🇩 Sudan $0.9B $2.0B +$1.1B
    🇨🇾 Cyprus $0.0B $1.2B +$1.1B
    🇬🇪 Georgia $0.1B $1.2B +$1.1B
    🇸🇴 Somalia $0.0B $1.0B +$1.0B
    🇦🇿 Azerbaijan $0.1B $1.1B +$1.0B
    🇯🇲 Jamaica $0.0B $1.0B +$1.0B
    🇺🇬 Uganda $0.1B $1.1B +$1.0B
    🇲🇺 Mauritius $0.0B $1.0B +$0.9B
    🇷🇸 Serbia $1.4B $2.2B +$0.8B
    🇲🇬 Madagascar $0.6B $1.4B +$0.8B
    🇰🇵 Korea, DPR $0.1B $0.8B +$0.7B
    🇳🇮 Nicaragua $0.0B $0.7B +$0.7B
    🇪🇪 Estonia $0.3B $0.9B +$0.7B
    🇱🇻 Latvia $0.4B $1.0B +$0.6B
    🇭🇹 Haiti $0.0B $0.6B +$0.6B
    🇦🇱 Albania $0.2B $0.7B +$0.5B
    🇦🇫 Afghanistan $0.0B $0.6B +$0.5B
    🇲🇱 Mali $0.1B $0.6B +$0.5B
    🇫🇯 Fiji $0.0B $0.5B +$0.5B
    🇲🇻 Maldives $0.0B $0.4B +$0.4B
    🇸🇾 Syria $0.0B $0.4B +$0.4B
    🇬🇲 Gambia $0.0B $0.4B +$0.4B
    🇧🇫 Burkina Faso $0.1B $0.5B +$0.4B
    🇧🇸 Bahamas $0.0B $0.4B +$0.4B
    🇳🇪 Niger $0.3B $0.7B +$0.4B
    🇨🇷 Costa Rica $2.0B $2.4B +$0.4B
    🇷🇼 Rwanda $0.1B $0.4B +$0.3B
    🇧🇿 Belize $0.0B $0.3B +$0.3B
    🇸🇷 Suriname $0.0B $0.3B +$0.3B
    🇲🇼 Malawi $0.0B $0.3B +$0.3B
    🇷🇪 Réunion $0.0B $0.2B +$0.2B
    🇱🇺 Luxembourg $0.3B $0.5B +$0.2B
    🇧🇴 Bolivia $0.9B $1.1B +$0.2B
    🇲🇪 Montenegro $0.0B $0.2B +$0.2B
    🇧🇹 Bhutan $0.0B $0.2B +$0.2B
    🇵🇸 Palestine $0.0B $0.2B +$0.2B
    🇵🇫 French Polynesia $0.0B $0.2B +$0.1B
    🇹🇱 Timor-Leste $0.1B $0.3B +$0.1B
    🇧🇧 Barbados $0.0B $0.2B +$0.1B
    🇲🇩 Moldova $0.1B $0.2B +$0.1B
    🇼🇸 Samoa $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇮🇸 Iceland $0.2B $0.3B +$0.1B
    🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇧🇮 Burundi $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🌏 Other Oceanian Territories $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇸🇨 Seychelles $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇨🇻 Cabo Verde $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇻🇺 Vanuatu $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇧🇲 Bermuda $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇸🇿 Eswatini $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇬🇵 Guadeloupe $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇰🇲 Comoros $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇦🇼 Aruba $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina $0.1B $0.2B +$0.1B
    🇨🇼 Curaçao $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇾🇹 Mayotte $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇹🇴 Tonga $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇲🇰 North Macedonia $0.2B $0.2B +$0.1B
    🇰🇾 Cayman Islands $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🌎 Other Latin American Territories $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇵🇼 Palau $0.0B $0.1B +$0.1B
    🇲🇶 Martinique $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇰🇮 Kiribati $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇬🇫 French Guiana $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇱🇸 Lesotho $0.0B $0.1B +$0.0B
    🇱🇨 Saint Lucia $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇩🇲 Dominica $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇹🇻 Tuvalu $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇫🇲 Federated States of Micronesia $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇨🇫 Central African Republic $0.0B $0.1B +$0.0B
    🇧🇶 Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇬🇩 Grenada $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇦🇩 Andorra $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇬🇮 Gibraltar $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇸🇹 Sao Tome and Principe $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🌍 Other European Territories $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇳🇷 Nauru $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇨🇰 Cook Islands $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇹🇨 Turks and Caicos Islands $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇲🇫 Saint Martin $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🌏 Other North American Territories $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇸🇲 San Marino $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🌍 Other African Territories $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇮🇨 Canary Islands $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇼🇫 Wallis and Futuna $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇳🇫 Norfolk Island $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇪🇭 Western Sahara $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🌏 Other Asian Territories $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇲🇸 Montserrat $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇪🇺 Ceuta $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇻🇦 Holy See $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇪🇺 Melilla $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇵🇲 Saint Pierre and Miquelon $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇧🇶 Bonaire $0.0B $0.0B +$0.0B
    🇲🇨 Monaco $0.0B $0.0B -$0.0B
    🇨🇺 Cuba $0.5B $0.4B -$0.0B
    🇳🇦 Namibia $0.6B $0.6B -$0.0B
    🇸🇸 South Sudan $0.2B $0.2B -$-0.1B
    🇸🇧 Solomon Islands $0.3B $0.2B -$-0.1B
    🇫🇴 Faroe Islands $0.1B $0.0B -$-0.1B
    🇱🇮 Liechtenstein $0.2B $0.1B -$-0.1B
    🇧🇼 Botswana $0.4B $0.2B -$-0.2B
    🇿🇼 Zimbabwe $1.3B $1.1B -$-0.2B
    🇸🇱 Sierra Leone $0.8B $0.6B -$-0.2B
    🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago $0.8B $0.5B -$-0.2B
    🇲🇷 Mauritania $1.2B $0.9B -$-0.2B
    🇦🇲 Armenia $0.8B $0.5B -$-0.3B
    🇪🇷 Eritrea $0.5B $0.1B -$-0.3B
    🇵🇷 Puerto Rico $1.3B $1.0B -$-0.3B
    🇬🇱 Greenland $0.4B $0.0B -$-0.4B
    🇪🇨 Ecuador $6.8B $6.3B -$-0.6B
    🇱🇾 Libya $2.9B $2.4B -$-0.6B
    🇫🇮 Finland $5.3B $4.5B -$-0.7B
    🇬🇾 Guyana $1.3B $0.6B -$-0.7B
    🇹🇩 Chad $1.1B $0.3B -$-0.8B
    🇺🇦 Ukraine $4.3B $3.3B -$-1.1B
    🇱🇦 Laos $3.4B $2.3B -$-1.1B
    🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea $1.5B $0.2B -$-1.3B
    🌏 Unknown Countries (Territories) $1.4B $0.0B -$-1.4B
    🇧🇳 Brunei $2.2B $0.8B -$-1.4B
    🇺🇾 Uruguay $4.5B $3.0B -$-1.5B
    🇳🇨 New Caledonia $1.9B $0.2B -$-1.7B
    🇬🇳 Guinea $4.5B $2.3B -$-2.3B
    🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea $3.8B $1.4B -$-2.4B
    🇳🇴 Norway $8.0B $5.2B -$-2.8B
    🇦🇹 Austria $8.2B $5.1B -$-3.1B
    🇸🇰 Slovakia $7.7B $4.4B -$-3.3B
    🇬🇦 Gabon $3.9B $0.6B -$-3.4B
    🇨🇬 Congo $5.6B $1.0B -$-4.6B
    🇿🇲 Zambia $5.7B $1.0B -$-4.8B
    🇲🇳 Mongolia $9.3B $2.9B -$-6.5B
    🇳🇿 New Zealand $16.0B $9.1B -$-6.8B
    🇮🇩 Indonesia $77.9B $70.9B -$-7.0B
    🇿🇦 South Africa $32.4B $24.0B -$-8.4B
    🇹🇲 Turkmenistan $10.3B $0.9B -$-9.5B
    🇵🇪 Peru $24.1B $13.4B -$-10.7B
    🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of Congo $16.6B $5.1B -$-11.5B
    🇯🇵 Japan $184.4B $172.5B -$-11.9B
    🇮🇪 Ireland $18.1B $5.7B -$-12.4B
    🇲🇾 Malaysia $109.9B $92.2B -$-17.7B
    🇶🇦 Qatar $22.6B $3.9B -$-18.6B
    🇦🇴 Angola $23.2B $4.0B -$-19.2B
    🇰🇼 Kuwait $26.5B $4.9B -$-21.6B
    🇨🇱 Chile $44.4B $22.4B -$-22.0B
    🇮🇶 Iraq $39.4B $13.8B -$-25.6B
    🇴🇲 Oman $36.2B $4.2B -$-32.1B
    🇰🇷 Republic of Korea $199.1B $161.3B -$-37.8B
    🇷🇺 Russia $114.4B $75.6B -$-38.7B
    🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia $78.1B $37.7B -$-40.4B
    🇨🇭 Switzerland $49.7B $7.6B -$-42.1B
    🇧🇷 Brazil $109.4B $61.8B -$-47.6B
    🇦🇺 Australia $142.1B $78.5B -$-63.6B
    🇨🇳 China $121.9B N/A -$-121.9B
    🇹🇼 Taiwan $237.2B $81.5B -$-155.8B

    China had individual trade surpluses with the overwhelming majority of its trade partners: 174 of the 234 countries and territories listed.

    These trade surpluses are especially visible in China’s trade relationships with many of the world’s largest economies, including the U.S. and India, with $401.1 billion and $100.3 billion surpluses respectively.

    Meanwhile, a good sum of the country’s trade deficits are with major Asian economies. Its largest deficit is with Taiwan, primarily coming from integrated circuit imports. China also has deficits with Japan (-$11.9 billion) and South Korea (-$37.8 billion), the region’s second and fourth-largest economies respectively, largely due to electronics and machinery imports.

    The country’s other trade deficits stem from fulfilling strategic needs. For example, China has deficits with oil-producing countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia. It also has a trade deficit with Australia, a key supplier of raw goods such as iron, gold, lithium, and liquefied petroleum gas.

    China’s Evolving Trade Partner Relationships

    China’s trade relationships extend far beyond just economic considerations; they reflect historical, geopolitical, and strategic factors as well.

    Taiwan’s major role in the semiconductor market, for example, makes it both a valuable trade partner and a contentious rival. China considers Taiwan a part of its territory, while Taiwan operates as a separate, self-governed entity.

    Likewise, China’s increasing investments in infrastructure across parts of Asia and Africa are starting to reflect growing trade balances with developing countries set to become major trade partners in the future.

    As the Chinese economy evolves (and potentially weakens), its relationships with both allies and potential enemies may only grow more complex.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 20:15

  • Governor Josh Shapiro's Wrong Approach To Grid Reliability
    Governor Josh Shapiro’s Wrong Approach To Grid Reliability

    Authored by Gordon Tomb via RealClear Wire,

    Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has asked regional power grid operators to enhance the electricity system’s dependability—and he’s got ideas about how to do it. But his premises are flawed, and his suggestions misguided. Shapiro wants reliable power, yet he’s banking on unreliable sources to provide it. That approach isn’t just wrongheaded; it’s a recipe for failure.

    “Here in the Commonwealth, we are embracing the advantages that cheaper, lower carbon fuel sources offer,” Shapiro wrote in a letter to the management of PJM Interconnection, the non-profit which maintains the electric grid for Pennsylvania and a dozen other states.

    The governor was referring to wind and solar power, which aren’t cheaper than traditional fossil fuel plants and can, in some cases, increase overall carbon emissions. In short, they add costs for consumers and undermine reliability. This scenario has played out dramatically in places like Europe and California, where power outages and soaring prices are undisputed facts. Pennsylvanians have, so far, avoided the worst of this because wind and solar still account for only a small amount of PJM’s power supply—low single-digit percentages.

    That changes if Shapiro gets his way. His letter effectively urges PJM to expedite the installation of new wind and solar projects to prevent shortages caused by the expected retirement of coal-fired power plants—closings currently accelerated by the governor’s refusal to remove the threat of a carbon tax on fossil fuels.

    PJM sees its surplus generating capacity, reserved for meeting peak demand, falling significantly below the federal requirement in the coming years. PJM has warned that energy rationing might become necessary by 2026 to manage supply shortages. In other words, Pennsylvanians could expect rolling blackouts in the near future.

    While Shapiro is right to worry about the power grid, his solution worsens the problem because wind turbines and solar panels are woefully inadequate replacements for coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants.

    David Stevenson, an energy analyst with the Caesar Rodney Institute, explains that each lost gigawatt of baseload electricity generated by coal and natural gas—as well as by nuclear fuel—requires three gigawatts of wind and solar to replace it. To replace the 40 gigawatts of baseload generation to be retired by 2030, we’d need to build 120 gigawatts of wind or solar power.

    That’s far more than the 94 gigawatts in the pipeline.

    “PJM experts report that wind and solar projects entering the queue for acceptance into the grid historically have only a one in twenty chance of being built,” said Stevenson. “Developers literally submit 20 projects when only one is planned for construction because of uncertainties of available transmission capacity and uncertain local zoning approval. PJM currently has 94 gigawatts of wind and solar awaiting approval, but only about five gigawatts will likely be built—or about two gigawatts of baseload power.”

    In other words, plans exist for only 2% of the new “renewable” generation needed.

    Wind and solar require many times the material and land area to produce equivalent amounts of electricity from traditional sources. Expecting to replace efficient, reliable sources of electricity with expensive, unreliable technologies is a “lopsided” transition that defies logic.

    Shapiro also calls on PJM to reform market procedures for reliability but ignores a fundamental flaw that prevents the most reliable energy sources—baseload fossil fuel plants and nuclear power—from adequate compensation. Annual payments to ensure reliability have collapsed from $8.3 billion to $2.2 billion in the last three years. Meanwhile, penalties for just one day of non-performance during a cold spell last December were $1.8 billion, nearly equal to an entire year of capacity revenue.

    The decline in these revenues is largely the result of state and federal policies that provide subsidies to wind and solar, and the long-term impact of those policies is emerging.

    PJM’s failure to “keep the lights on” with as little drama as reasonably possible during December’s cold snap is just the beginning of the reliability issues Pennsylvanians will face if the grid operator continues to accommodate more “renewable energy” while endorsing policies that speed the retirement of nuclear or fossil fuel baseload capacity.

    Meredith Angwin, in her book Shorting the Grid, explains mandates for renewable energy “will not succeed in building grids that are 100% renewable” but instead will make “the grid more fragile and more expensive.”

    Decades of programs like Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards, which subsidize expensive and unreliable energy and discourage the development of reliable fossil fuels, are failing Pennsylvanians. Shapiro should end energy subsidies and allow free markets to determine the path to cheap, clean, and sustainable power.

    Gordon Tomb is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank, and a senior advisor with the CO2 Coalition in Arlington, VA.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 19:50

  • Americans Panic Search "Live Off Grid" As Housing Crisis Worsens And Democrat Cities Implode
    Americans Panic Search “Live Off Grid” As Housing Crisis Worsens And Democrat Cities Implode

    What’s piqued our interest is the sudden panic by some Americans searching ‘live off grid’ on the internet, hitting the highest level in five years. The driving force behind finding a rural piece of land for dirt cheap, buying or building a tiny home, installing solar panels, and sourcing your own food and water might have to do with the worst inflation storm in a generation while Democrat cities implode under the weight of soaring violent crime. 

    We’re not going to speculate on the exact cause, but we’ll give readers an understanding that a combination of the worst housing affordability crisis in decades plus out-of-control crime in progressive-run cities could be some of the largest drivers pushing people to explore living in the ‘sticks.’ 

    With the introduction of SpaceX’s Starlink in 2019, remote workers no longer have to live in crowded, dirty, and dangerous metro areas — many found this out during the exodus of major cities during Covid. 

    Capitalizing on off-the-grid living is Home Depot, which now sells tiny homes called “Getaway Pad.”

    We’ve also seen the RV Industry Association report multiple times this year that parked mobile home shipments are surging on a monthly basis versus the same months last year — yet another indication of housing affordability issues. 

    Living off the grid can have many benefits, including financial independence, self-sufficiency, preparedness, and security, as well as promoting an active lifestyle, better sleep, and a healthier diet (no need for a Peloton bike or Eli Lilly’s fat drug “Ozempic”). 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 19:25

  • 200 Million & Counting… Trump Triumphant, Ramaswamy Runner-Up, DeSantis Dud
    200 Million & Counting… Trump Triumphant, Ramaswamy Runner-Up, DeSantis Dud

    Update (1235ET): Make that over 200 million views and still going…

    Watch:

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

    *  *  *

    Authored by Paul Ingrassia and Matthew Boose via American Greatness,

    “Focus on the signal, not the noise,” is a phrase that might as well have been coined by Steve Bannon given how frequently he and his acolytes make use of it. At this stage in the game, it should be the mantra of the MAGA movement writ large; for the hour is already late, there is a mountain of work left to do to haul President Trump over the finish line: navigating a corrupt, weaponized justice system; dealing with rigged election procedures; combatting both soft and overt censorship by mainstream networks and social media – and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Which is why – given the enormity of the collective hole we have dug ourselves in – the idea of a normal politics-as-usual primary season was ridiculous from the start. The 2020 presidential election was undeniably the most unfair election in modern history – it necessarily produced an illegitimate outcome. That Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie (and the rest) are behaving as if all of that does not matter, or that somehow the problems that got us in this dire situation as a country would miraculously vanish if Trump were removed from the picture is the ultimate indictment of their credentials. The other candidates are not serious contenders for the presidency for the simple purpose that they do not seriously care about America’s interests: if they realized the gravity of the crisis, they would have immediately stepped aside and thrown whatever miniscule political capital they harness upon the 45th President, knowing that he alone has a shot at achieving the near-insurmountable feat of winning the presidency.

    In short, the primary process – personified above all by Ron DeSantis and his pitiful excuse for a campaign – is a colossal distraction and timewaster from where our focus needs to be.

    Poll after poll has Trump with leads of 30, 40, 50+ points above his nearest competitor.

    Even in the absolutely most competitive primary states, like Iowa, Trump’s lead is well over the 20-point mark, the largest such lead for that state’s Republican caucus in over two decades. Trump won this battle before the first shot was ever fired because grassroots voters can viscerally intuit just how high the stakes are this time around; that for America, 2024 is truly the make-or-break moment.

    The candidates who did appear on the debate stage in Milwaukee last evening presented an image of betrayal to the American people. That the first debate was on Fox News, the network responsible for prematurely and recklessly calling Arizona for Biden in 2020, added a poetic touch to the general feeling of impotence surrounding the whole spectacle.

    Perhaps even more poetic was who Trump instead chose to spend the evening with: Tucker Carlson, the most famous talk show host in America before he was sent to the slaughterhouse earlier this year by the powers-that-be at Fox in a sacrificial offering to the woke deities. Both Trump and Carlson are unified in being corporate media pariahs – maybe the only person more detested by the Murdoch’s than Donald Trump is Tucker Carlson; the fact that the two combined their influences against their shared enemy in Fox, which is now bloodletting viewership seemingly by the day now, is a powerful signal to the forces in this country that otherwise hope to shut down Donald Trump, and the populist furor both he and Carlson represent, for good. 

    Those who tuned into Wednesday night’s debate received a depressing look into the GOP’s past – and what lies in its future without Trump: timid, boring, and ineffectual “leaders.” The frontrunner’s absence was keenly felt in the lack of energy, vigor, and vision on the stage.

    Vivek Ramaswamy was the only spark of life.

    The candidates smothered viewers with platitudes about new leadership, stopping Putin, liberal tax and spend policies, and how bad Biden is – something all Republicans already agree on. It could have been a debate from 2012. Fox beclowned itself with a segment on climate change, and dedicated just a few minutes to the issue of the day: the persecution of the opposition leader, Donald Trump.

    On that question, the only candidate to defend Trump was Ramaswamy.

    DeSantis and Tim Scott dodged with abstractions about “the weaponization of justice,” all without mentioning public enemy number one. DeSantis refused to say whether Mike Pence was correct to certify Biden’s bogus victory. Instead, DeSantis said Biden loves that Republicans are still talking about January 6th, and it’s time to move on. The political prisoners languishing in the D.C. gulag would like a word.

    On Ukraine, Vivek was, again, the only candidate to unequivocally state that America must not prioritize the European backwater over its own people.

    DeSantis continued to muddy waters on this key foreign policy issue. Across the board, the bogus tough guy persona fell apart, and DeSantis showed himself to be serpentine, weak and equivocating. When the issue of supporting Trump as the nominee came up, DeSantis scanned the stage and then half-heartedly raised his hand, only after seeing Ramaswamy had done so.

    DeSantis, after weeks and weeks of crashing and burning, desperately needed to make a recovery. But he was an afterthought.

    No one bothered attacking him. He didn’t attack anyone either, only briefly jabbing at Trump on COVID, although he was too timid to use Trump’s name. He grabbed a hold of the words “American decline” and never let go.

    [ZH: “August 23 2023 in Milwaukee, Wis., is the day that the DeSantis for President campaign died,” senior Trump adviser Chris LaCivita said. “You can’t win a debate by making a cameo appearance.”]

    Pence and Scott took turns gushing with hokey optimism about an America that no longer exists.

    The insincerity and fundamental lack of seriousness of the whole spectacle was overpowering – between Nikki Haley’s girlboss routine, Tim Scott’s Martin Luther King impression, and DeSantis’ fake bravado.

    We’ve heard a lot about “Trumpism after Trump.” The GOP without Trump looks a lot like the GOP before him. Coming on the very same day that Rudy Giuliani had his mugshot taken, and just a day before Trump is expected to endure the same humiliation with his arraignment in Georgia, the debate could not have been a more out of touch spectacle.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to ditch the debate and Fox News for Tucker Carlson on X (formerly known as Twitter) proved to be an act of political genius. 

    As of this publication, Tucker Carlson’s interview garnered more than 150 million views within hours of being posted. This already ranks the Trump interview as the most watched television interview in history, breaking the record set by Carlson and Andrew Tate from earlier this summer.

    This fact alone shows Trump’s pulse is on the cultural trajectory of this country in ways that cannot be replicated by the other candidates. Indeed, despite the unfortunate news of this latest arraignment, Trump’s poll numbers are higher than ever: his margins over his nearest opponents now are upwards of 50 percentage points or higher, making his famous prophecy from earlier this month – that he would only need “one more indictment” to win the 2024 election true. Indeed, even the legacy media seems to be coming around to this conclusion: both CNN and Time Magazine ran pieces over the last week gearing their readers for the possibility – perhaps inevitability – of another Trump administration.

    Trump is the protagonist of this evil chapter of American history.

    His inconsequential challengers, lacking the talent to become forces in history themselves, fancy themselves above the “drama” of history, when the truth is they are pursuing a station destiny has closed off to them. They play off their inertness and aversion to “drama” as a virtue.

    But Trump’s war with the Deep State, which now threatens to destroy the very foundations of the republic, is inextricably woven with the nation and its fate. It is the main event, as even his enemies must acknowledge. Should the worst-case scenario happen and his mugshot be taken, hardly anyone will remember the sideshow in Milwaukee. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 19:11

  • States Unite To Protect Minors From Brain-Altering Pornography
    States Unite To Protect Minors From Brain-Altering Pornography

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

    A screen displays a “no under-18s” sign with the logo of a pornographic website, as regulators consider requiring such sites to ensure they are preventing minors from being exposed to their content. (Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images)

    Graphic, violent, deviant, and harmful online pornography that can permanently affect brain development can be easily accessed by children.

    And the federal government is doing little to stop it, experts and lawmakers told The Epoch Times.

    Although showing pornography to children is illegal under federal law, federal rules don’t require porn websites to verify the age of users.

    But recently, bipartisan efforts in state legislatures have intervened to protect children in a handful of states.

    It’s important—and urgent—because watching violent porn damages children, therapist Jon Uhler and psychologist Amy Sousa told The Epoch Times.

    “Being shown violence alongside a reward system is incredibly problematic because it is sending the body a signal that this violence is pleasurable,” Ms. Sousa said.

    By teaching children to associate sexual pleasure with pain, she said, pornography can rewire a viewer’s brain to want pain or want to inflict pain.

    This rewiring undoes the body’s natural response of feeling distressed when seeing someone get hurt, she explained.

    And porn-watching is more common than many might realize.

    Porn gets more yearly “watch hours” than all Hollywood, Netflix, and Viacom programming combined, Ms. Sousa said.

    Psychologist Amy Sousa speaks at a “Save Women’s Sports event in Nashville, Tenn., on April 27, 2023. (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times)

    Normalizing Violence, Creating Psychopaths

    “Eighty-eight percent of porn videos contain violence against women, which basically translates to 5.1 billion of those visits per month,” Ms. Sousa said.

    “Porn represents a massive propaganda arm that is normalizing and desensitizing violence against women.”

    Viewing pornography teaches men to see women as objects, said Mr. Uhler, who has 15 years of counseling experience and thousands of hours of experience in treating sex offenders.

    Children who admit to watching porn also admit to feeling guilty about it, he said.

    Over time, repeatedly engaging in behavior that violates one’s conscience can turn a person into a psychopath, he said.

    “As you impact conscience, you will negatively impact remorse and empathy,” he said. “Those three things are the basis of psychopathy.”

    And this, he said, can open the gateway to becoming a sexual predator.

    In counseling thousands of sexual predators, Mr. Uhler has seen a pattern. For all of his patients, the road to sexual deviancy involved viewing porn, he said.

    “A lot of good researchers have looked at the effects that pornography has on the brain,” Mr. Uhler said.

    “It’s identical to drugs, literally in terms of the impact on the structure itself and the way it processes.”

    With an unprecedented number of boys watching violent porn, Mr. Uhler said, the future will likely yield a massive crop of men who have learned from childhood to defy their conscience.

    “We are in uncharted territory.”

    Conflicting Views on Restrictions

    Despite these dangers, the federal government has done little to prevent children from accessing online porn, Sousa, Uhler, and lawmakers said.

    “The federal law [banning pornography access for children] is not enforced,” Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler, a Republican, told The Epoch Times.

    Ian Andrews, a spokesman for Pornhub, told The Epoch Times that the company supports measures to restrict children from viewing porn by verifying the age of users. But he doubts new laws requiring age verification of users will help protect minors. Pornhub is the world’s 12th-most-visited website, with more than 2.5 billion visitors yearly, according to the consumer research firm Similarweb.

    Mr. Andrews argued that the laws may have the opposite effect.

    “We hypothesized for years that, if only certain platforms were forced to verify user age, or if a law is not regulated properly, the results would see users flocking to the platforms that do not verify age,” he said.

    “This is no longer hypothetical. Since we became one of the few platforms in Louisiana to comply with the law and institute mandatory age verification, we have seen an approximately 80 percent drop in our traffic in the state.”

    Amping Up Laws

    Lawmakers in some states are determined to amend state laws to block children from viewing porn. 

    In May, Utah passed a law requiring pornographic websites to verify that users from that state are at least 18. Louisiana, which enacted a similar law in 2022, was the first state to demand age-verification measures to access pornographic websites, Mr. Weiler said.

    “We made a few minor tweaks, but we basically copied Louisiana’s” law in Utah, he said.

    The Louisiana law demands that porn websites perform “reasonable age-verification methods” for Louisiana users.

    For Mr. Weiler, the fight to protect children from porn websites began in 2016.

    “I ran the first resolution in the country to declare pornography to be a public health crisis,” he said.

    While the resolution declared that child viewing of pornography was a public health crisis, resolutions don’t have the force of law or any law enforcement effects.

    “And since that time, about 15 other states have basically copied” the resolution, Mr. Weiler said.

    Five states have joined Utah and Louisiana in going farther.

    Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, Montana, and Arkansas have added age-verification laws for pornography websites.

    Arizona, California, South Carolina, Minnesota, and New Jersey all have bills for age verification under consideration, according to data gathered by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC).

    Support for the bills is largely bipartisan, Mr. Weiler said.

    “This is not just a Republican issue,” he said. “I think many Democrats agree that children shouldn’t be viewing this content.“

    Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, South Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, and Tennessee have considered bills requiring age verification for porn users, but they failed to pass, according to FSC. 

    Relying on Honest Answers

    According to federal law, the crime of  “knowingly” using computer services to display obscenity to minors is punishable with imprisonment, fines, and sex offender registration.

    But the word “knowingly” provides a loophole, Mr. Uhler said.

    Under federal law, if a teen lies about his or her age to access porn, porn distributors can’t be blamed for believing the age verification information provided by the child, he said.

    “Like a kid who wants to access porn is going to be honest,” Mr. Uhler said wryly.

    This system puts the responsibility on minors to be truthful, rather than on porn website operators to ascertain the truth, Mr. Weiler said.

    Companies have “taken steps to make sure that 14-year-old girls in Topeka, Kansas, aren’t accessing online gambling sites,” he said. “They’ve taken steps to make sure that 14-year-old girls in Topeka, Kansas, aren’t buying vaping and nicotine products online. And those companies are not directly shipping wine to 14-year-old girls.”

    But the porn industry hasn’t received the same regulatory pressure to protect children from its products, he said.

    Any company actually interested in blocking minors from accessing the porn it offers could use a third-party company to screen users before they’re allowed to access the site.

    “The technology’s there,” Mr. Weiler said. “It would take about 30 seconds” to verify a would-be user’s identity and age.

    Utah’s laws demand that verification on porn websites require more proof than simply a user’s assertion that he or she is 18 or older.

    Still, there are ways tech-savvy children can get around it, Mr. Weiler said.

    But even if new measures don’t stop all minors from accessing porn, he said, it will at least protect the youngest and most vulnerable children from seeing graphic images that can do them permanent harm. 

    A Generation of Porn-Watchers

    Pornhub works like YouTube, the online video-sharing platform. Anyone can upload videos, and anyone can watch them. In 2021, the company says it removed more than 53,000 videos because they contained child sex abuse, 6,000 videos that included incest, more than 1,000 videos for animal abuse, and more than 5,000 videos for other obscene content too graphic to describe.

    To her horror, sexual-abuse victim Victoria Galy discovered that footage of her rape had been posted to Pornhub and viewed 8 million times.

    Ms. Galy told the Canadian House of Commons ethics committee in February that Pornhub made it difficult for abuse victims to take down videos of crimes against them.

    To delete some of the videos, she testified, Pornhub requested a copyright infringement notification from her.

    According to Pornhub’s policy, anyone asking for a video’s removal must give the site his or her name, postal address, telephone number, and email address.

    Teens often are the consumers viewing pornographic videos, according to a survey by Common Sense Media. Researchers found about 70 percent of teens ages 13-17 admitted to watching porn online.

    The survey asked more than 1,300 participants in that age group about their experience with porn. The average teen admitted to encountering porn by the age of 12, the survey found. Some started watching as young as 10.

    A majority of porn-viewing teens have watched violent porn showing rape, choking, or pain, survey results showed.

    While 45 percent of teens said that porn gives “helpful information about sex,” about 50 percent reported feeling ashamed about the porn they watch, the survey found.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 19:00

  • Netanyahu Forbids Israeli Defense Chief From Meeting Biden Officials During US Trip
    Netanyahu Forbids Israeli Defense Chief From Meeting Biden Officials During US Trip

    Via The Cradle,

    Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been forbidden from meeting with US government officials during his current trip to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israeli media reports.

    Gallant set off for the US capital overnight on Thursday where, according to his official agenda, he will meet with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan.

    “Minister Gallant will hold a security briefing for the ambassadors of the member states of the UN Security Council and will visit the procurement delegation of the Ministry of Defense in New York,” Galant’s office said in a statement. 

    However, no meetings with US officials are part of Gallant’s agenda, as Netanyahu reportedly imposed a veto with the directive, “if I’m not invited to Washington, no one gets a meeting there.”

    Since his return to power late last year, Netanyahu has been left out in the cold by US President Joe Biden, who has refused to invite the Israeli premier to the White House in a public show of discontent with the policies pursued by Jewish supremacist authorities from Israel’s governing coalition.

    Israel’s Channel 12 news reported in March that Netanyahu vetoed two US visits to which Gallant was invited as he awaited his own invite.

    Nonetheless, Gallant has previously met with senior US officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on the sidelines of a NATO gathering in Brussels in June and earlier in the year in Israel. He also met with the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, in Israel this week.

    No information was made available about their discussion; however, last week, western media reports revealed that Milley was traveling to Israel to “assess the army’s fitness and readiness” in the wake of widespread mutiny by volunteer reservists who oppose Tel Aviv’s planned judicial overhaul.

    Meanwhile on the extreme opposite side of Biden’s Israel snub…

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

    Gallant and Netanyahu publicly butted heads over the judicial overhaul in March, as Gallant publicly called on the premier to scrap the contentious legislation. One day later, Netanyahu announced his decision to dismiss the defense minister.

    However, Netanyahu had to walk back his decision two weeks later. “I decided to put the differences we had behind us,” he said during a televised speech on 10 April. “Gallant remains in his position and we will continue to work together for the security of the citizens of Israel.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 18:40

  • Military Members Kicked Out For Refusing COVID Vaccine Seek To Have Their Discharges Upgraded
    Military Members Kicked Out For Refusing COVID Vaccine Seek To Have Their Discharges Upgraded

    Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A member of the U.S. military receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Foster in Ginowan, Japan, on April 28, 2021. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

    Service members who received general discharges when separated from the military for their refusal to obey the vaccine mandate say their transition to civilian life has been hampered because they were not given honorable discharges.

    The majority of service members kicked out over their refusal to get vaccinated received general discharges. With a general discharge, service members lose all educational benefits, reemployment rights, and civil service retirement credit.

    Hayden Robichaux, donor relations coordinator for the Mighty Oaks Foundation, is one such service member. He had to build a career in the Marine Corps. He spent his initial two years serving as the military equivalent of a firefighter. But life as a Marine was interrupted by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s announcement of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in August 2021, he told The Epoch Times.

    Robichaux refused the vaccine and sought religious exemption.

    “But it seemed like everybody who sought religious exemption was denied,” he said. Months later, a leaked June 2021 memo by the Pentagon watchdog revealed the department may have been violating standards in its process of denying religious exemption requests for the COVID-19 vaccine.

    In addition to his religious conviction against the vaccine, he took objection to the fact that the only vaccines offered to service members at the time were labeled as authorized for emergency use, rather than having full FDA approval. This argument stems from the wording of the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, which covers “COVID-19 vaccines that receive full licensure from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in accordance with FDA-approved labeling and guidance.” Robichaux and others believe that this means the mandate did not apply to any vaccines issued under emergency use authorization (EUA), such as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

    They argue that the military mainly offered service members EUA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, rather than the FDA-approved Cominarty vaccine, and thus could not compel personnel to take them. They also argued that a Pentagon policy that says the Cominarty and EUA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are interchangeable was illegal.

    “With each denial,” Robichaux said, “I kept putting in appeals and each was denied; they were brushed off.” As he continued to refuse the vaccine, he said his leadership became “pissed.” In October 2021, he was given 10 days to get the jab. He soon faced the threat of Article 15, a form of nonjudicial punishment that can be imposed by a commander, that would “put a stain” on his career.

    “Because of this,” he said, “I almost changed my mind, telling them that I was going to get it.” Members of his immediate family have collectively served in the military for over 80 years since the Vietnam War. “And I wanted to continue the legacy that we have under our name,” he said.

    In the end, Robichaux maintained his religious objection to the vaccine and did not take it. Not only did he receive an Article 15, but he was also denied a promotion to corporal. While he admits he may have disobeyed the command to take the vaccine, he said, “I don’t believe it was a lawful command, as I should have never been forced to take an EUA product.”

    Robichaux was discharged from the Marine Corps in February 2022. “My commanding officer recommended me for an honorable discharge, but once it went up the chain of command, it came back as a general discharge,” he said. His discharge was characterized as being connected to the commission of a serious offense. Domestic battery, murder, rape, terrorism, and drug use are considered typical commissions of a serious offense.

    Since leaving the Marine Corps, he said, “I’ve only met one person that received an honorable discharge.” This, he said, is concerning when one considers the thousands of service members who were separated from the military. One day, Robichaux would like to have his discharge upgraded.

    More of the Same

    The Epoch Times also spoke to Private First Class Derrick Wynne, who joined the Army in July 2020. Nearly two years later, he was discharged from service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine once mandated by Defense Secretary Austin.

    Wynne described himself as a “hard refusal,” as he didn’t apply for an exemption. He refused because “they were offering vaccines issued under emergency use authorization,” which he considered as legally distinct from the fully FDA-approved vaccines service members were mandated to take.

    In November 2021, for refusing to get the jab, he received a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand, an administrative letter of reprimand placed on his service record. In addition, he was also told by several people in leadership and many of his peers that “they were going to make my life hell for refusing the vaccine.”

    At this time, Wynne was informed that he would be discharged for refusing to take the vaccine.

    “When they finally kicked me out on June 28, 2022, it began as a long, drawn-out process, but when it finally happened, I was only given a two-week notice,” Wynne said. “Many of the programs put in place to aid me in a healthy, successful transition to civilian life were pushed to the side.”

    “It was a general discharge, labeled under the violation of a serious offense,” Wynne said. “To anyone who doesn’t know the whole story,” he said, “I sound like I was the one who knowingly broke the law.” But he argued that it was the military that was offering an illegal vaccine by only providing vaccines issued under EUA.

    “After skimming through my chapter (administrative separation) packet four or five times before speaking with Trial Defense Services, I noticed that there was no option for an honorable discharge.” When he mentioned this to his legal counsel, he also “made a note in the packet for brigade legal to, at least, add the option for an honorable discharge.”

    Brigade legal told him that once his commanding officer gave his recommendation, they would add the option for an honorable discharge before sending it up to the next level of decision. To his surprise, he said, “After my Commander gave his recommendation for an honorable discharge, once it went up the chain of command, there was no option for it.”

    When he realized there was no chance for an honorable discharge, Wynne said he was not surprised due to what he described as the department’s recent history of “shady coercion tactics.” He said that “at the time, the military was doing everything they could to paint us [vaccine refuses] as criminals who were knowingly disobeying ‘lawful’ orders, without even taking the time to hear out our legitimate grievances.” For Wynne, “There was a blatant heavy hand on the scale, coming from the top down.”

    The Epoch Times spoke to other service members who agree with Wynne. Some of them are being processed out of the military, today, for disobeying a “lawful” order mandated nearly two years ago. Most of them are receiving general discharges. The vaccine mandate was officially rescinded in January, but this did not affect the thousands of service members who had already been discharged over the vaccine.

    Demand for Congressional Action

    Once he was forced to leave the Army, Wynne’s reason for separation was labeled, like Robichaux, as a “misconduct (serious offense),” making subsequent job interviews more difficult, he said.

    “The lack of an honorable characterization ripples outwards and is affecting thousands of us [service members] as a whole—not just from a bureaucratic perspective, but from a moral, principled aspect as well,” he said.

    “I lost the education benefits I earned through my service, which would come in handy during my new career search,” he said. Within two months of being discharged, Wynne appealed the Army’s decision to the Army Discharge Review Board.

    “Nearly nine months have gone by, and I’ve heard nothing,” he said. “I know Congress has the power to put in an inquiry and help soldiers like myself.”

    Over the course of the last several months, wanting to address the issue of FDA-approved vaccines versus those made available through Emergency Use Authorization, Wynne has reached out to multiple congressmen to no avail.

    “I was passed around from one elected official to another for months, and no one wanted to do anything to get answers to my questions,” Wynne said. “Every time a politician refuses to help me,” he said, “I feel like I’m being told: you’re a piece of trash; you should have gotten the vaccine.”

    Proposed Legislation

    In April 2022, Wynne was put in contact with Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Tex.) office. Although he remains frustrated about the lack of action in holding the Department of Defense (DOD) to account for the vaccine mandate, Wynne became aware of the Senator’s effort to ensure that those discharged under a General discharge could be designated as Honorably discharged through the AMERICANS Act.

    Sen. Cruz and 18 original cosponsors introduced the Allowing Military Exemptions, Recognizing Individual Concerns About New Shots (AMERICANS) Act of 2023 (S.29) in January. The bill would require the department to offer reinstatement to service members who were separated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

    For Wynne, Robichaux, and the multitude of other service members like them, it also states “any administrative discharge of a member on the sole basis of a failure to receive a COVID-19 vaccine must be categorized as an honorable discharge, and DOD is prohibited from taking any adverse action against such a member for that reason.”

    A spokesperson for Cruz told The Epoch Times the senator is fighting for passage of his AMERICANS Act [to] bring justice to servicemembers terminated or otherwise punished because of their COVID-19 vaccine status.”

    “He is also fighting for them legislatively, authoring the statutory language to ban the Department of Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which became law in December 2022,” the spokesperson said.

    The senator “has taken the lead in calling out the Biden administration for COVID-19 overreach and fighting to protect Texas servicemembers from vaccine mandates,” the spokesperson added.

    Marine Corps and Department of the Army officials did not return requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 18:20

  • Corporate America Panics As 'Student Loan' Chatter Hits Record On Earnings Calls
    Corporate America Panics As ‘Student Loan’ Chatter Hits Record On Earnings Calls

    Corporate America is panicking this earnings season as the prospect of more than 40 million Americans carrying student debt will have to start making payments in October after a three-year-long payment forbearance that had artificially boosted disposable incomes by tens of billions of dollars.  

    Using the ‘Document Search’ function on Bloomberg, the phrase “student loan” in all second-quarter earnings calls soared to a record high of 151 mentions. 

    During earnings calls, companies in the financials, consumer discretionary, and consumer staples sectors had the most mentions. Consequently, these sectors are poised to face the greatest exposure when consumer spending decreases.

    In June, Barclays economist Adirenne Yih wrote in a note to clients (available to pro subscribers in the usual place), explaining the restart of student loan payments would be a $15.8 billion monthly headwind — or a $190 billion per year — to the US economy as the average student debt holder sees an incremental monthly payment of — $390 beginning this fall.

    With the return of these payments for 40 million Americans, the threat of consumer spending sliding is high. We’ve asked: Student Loan Repayments – Will It Start The Recession?

    … and comes as the latest revolving credit (i.e., credit card debt) data shows consumers are nearing a breaking point as the spending binge wanes with interest rates at 22-year highs. 

    Analytics company Earnest Insights wrote in a note that Frontier Airlines, Pleoton, and Old Navy will be some of the hardest-hit companies come October. 

    Student loan payers who suspended payments during Covid will have to resume those payments come October. That cohort of shoppers made up more than 10% of spending at several national brands in 2022 (above the dotted line). Their spending also outperformed non-borrowers at several brands (left of the solid line), suggesting that their lack of payments may have buoyed their spending in recent years. That leaves dozens of national brands that benefited meaningfully from the pause in student loans, and that may be more exposed to that shopper base as payments resume.

    Within Travel, Frontier Airlines was the most sensitive to the Covid-Suspended cohort in 2022, with 11% share and 2 points of outspending from the cohort. In contrast, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines both had 7% share and 10 points of under-spending. Airbnb had a high 11% share from the cohort but with 4 points of underspending.

    Within the Home sector, Peloton was most sensitive, with 13% share and 11 points of outspending from the Covid-Suspended cohort; Sherwin Williams had 6% share and 10 points of under-spending. IKEA, Ashley, HomeGoods, Wayfair, and Lowe’s all had 10%+ share from the cohort but the cohort also underspent Non-Borrowers by ~5 points. 

    Most Apparel and Department Stores had over 10% share from the Covid-Suspended cohort: Old Navy had the highest share at 14%; Nordstrom Full Price had the lowest share at 8%. Old Navy and Burlington each had 3 points of outspending from the cohort, while most others saw minimal to underspending. 

    Earnest shows companies in the top left quadrant are most exposed to the student loan-paying cohort.

    Company execs have already warned investors what’s about the incoming spending cliff:

    Target’s CFO Michael Fiddelke

    “The upcoming resumption of student loan repayments will put additional pressure on the already strained budgets of tens of millions of households … We remain cautious in our planning.”

    Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh

    “It’s not going to help us … The consumer is already under pressure and this is just going to ratchet that up even further.”

    Macy’s CFO Adrian Mitchell

    “The expiration of student loan forgiveness beginning in October, higher interest rate levels, and lower new job creation are all new pressures on the consumer.” 

    A looming consumer spending cliff has corporate America in a panic. This seems deflationary.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 18:00

  • US Approves $500 Million Arms Sale To Taiwan
    US Approves $500 Million Arms Sale To Taiwan

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The State Department on Wednesday approved a potential $500 million arms sale to Taiwan for infrared search and track systems for the island’s F-16 fighter jets.

    The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the sale is to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the US, as Washington and Taipei don’t have formal diplomatic relations. The principal contractor for the deal is Lockheed Martin.

    File image: Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon

    The State Department’s approval begins a period where Congress could block the potential deal, but there is widespread bipartisan support for arming Taiwan and virtually no opposition.

    The approval came almost a month after the Biden administration provided Taiwan with $345 million in military aid using the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to send weapons straight from Pentagon stockpiles, the primary way the US has been arming Ukraine.

    Using the PDA to arm Taiwan is unprecedented as the US has sold weapons to Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 but has never financed the purchases or provided arms free of charge. China issued several stern rebukes to the new form of US support for Taiwan.

    The deal approved on Tuesday will also draw a rebuke from Beijing as China opposes all US arms sales to Taiwan. In 1982, the US and China issued a third joint communiqué on their freshly normalized ties regarding US arms sales to Taiwan.

    The communiqué said that the US government intended “gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.” But US officials at the time made clear they were leaving the commitment open to their own interpretation.

    On the same day the communiqué was issued, President Reagan said in an internal memo that “the US willingness to reduce its arms sales to Taiwan is conditioned absolutely upon the continued commitment of China to the peaceful solution of the Taiwan-PRC [People’s Republic of China] differences. It should be clearly understood that the linkage between these two matters is a permanent imperative of US foreign policy.”

    In recent years, China has increased military pressure on Taiwan, but the activity has primarily been a response to the US increasing its diplomatic and military support for Taiwan, which Beijing views as a violation of the conditions of the US-China normalization.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 17:40

  • Forget CPI: Inflation In Necessities Has Skyrocketed Since 2020
    Forget CPI: Inflation In Necessities Has Skyrocketed Since 2020

    When mainstream economists and politicians cite “improvements” to the inflation problem in the US in recent months, what they are commonly referencing are changes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  However, the CPI is not a measure of total inflation, rather, it is a median snapshot of prices at a particular point and time.  True inflation is cumulative – A 10% increase one year and a 5% increase the next year is not a win, it means that you are now paying 15% more on average for everything you buy in the span of only two years.   

    When CPI falls this does not mean that prices on goods and services are going down, it only indicates that prices are rising slower than they were the month or the year before.

    Another misconception about CPI is that it measures the inflation rate accurately for regular consumers on common purchases.  In reality, the CPI represents mean average price rate increase for a vast basket of goods; over 94,000 items and services with over 200 separate categories.  Most of these items and services you will never use or rarely purchase in the span of a year.  In other words, inflation declines in uncommon goods can dilute the numbers, making it seem like inflation is dropping while prices on daily necessities continue to spike.  

    The CPI is weighted according to consumer spending patterns, which is where the calculations can be “adjusted” to a certain extent in an arbitrary manner.  Then there is outright government manipulation through various means.  As we witnessed recently with the Biden Administration’s claims that “Bidenomics” has defeated the inflation threat, what these reports don’t mention is that Biden has been dumping US strategic oil reserves on the market for the past year.  And since energy prices effect the inflation of so many other categories, Biden has artificially manipulated the CPI down using one key resource.  

    Now that his ability to dump oil reserves has ended, CPI will rise once again along with energy prices.

    The point is, it’s impossible to get a sense of the real damage from inflation without looking at the cumulative inflation in necessities (the goods and services that people are required to purchase on a regular basis to live day to day).  If we throw out the CPI distraction and look at common necessities since 2020, the economic picture is far more bleak.  

    Overall food prices have soared by 25%-30% in only three years (again, this means that you are now paying 30% more this year for food than you were paying at the beginning of 2020). Chicken is up from $3 per pound to $4 per pound.  Beef is up from $3.50 to $6 per pound.  Corn is up from $3.50 per pound to $4.70 per pound.  Wheat is up from $5 per pound to $7 per pound.  In 2019 the average American household was spending $8100 on food annually; with a 30% increase, in 2023 Americans will be spending at least $10,500 per household.          

    By the end of 2019, the average rental price of a single family home was around $1450 per month.  This year the price is around $2000 per month.  At the beginning of 2020, the median cost of a home was $320,000; by 2023 the price skyrocketed to an average of $416,000.  

    For gasoline, the price in early 2020 was around $2.50 per gallon.  The price has fluctuated dramatically due to Biden’s manipulation of the market using strategic reserves, but still remains high today at $3.80 per gallon.  

    The cost of electricity has risen swiftly, holding steady around .13 cents per kilowatt hour for a decade, then spiking to at least .17 cents per kilowatt hour by 2023.

    Remember, most of these costs are static and are difficult to reduce through household spending cuts.  These are not items that are easily removed from a monthly budget and the expenditures add up to considerable pressure on consumer accounts.  This is probably why around 74% of the public in polls say that the economy is getting worse, not better.  It’s because government statistics are not highlighting the true inflationary crisis.

    When we look at the cumulative climb of prices in necessities since before the inflation crisis officially began, the truth is that Americans now have to increase their wages by at least 25%-30% on average to maintain the same standard of living they had three years ago.  This is a disaster not seen since the stagflationary event of the 1970s and early 1980s.  If you have a strange feeling like your bank account is being rapidly drained in recent months, that’s because it is.    

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 17:20

  • Double Jeopardy
    Double Jeopardy

    Authroed by Paul Ingrassia via Paul Ingrassia’s Substack (subscribe here…)

    The following article is an excerpt from a series offering a comprehensive legal analysis discussing the second Jack Smith indictment against President Donald Trump.

    Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution reads “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Therefore, President Donald Trump had executive power vested in him through his presidential office. From that power flows certain privileges and indeed executive immunities. Among these privileges are those expressly delineated in the Constitution itself. The impeachment process, for example, as stated in Article II, Sec. 4, requires that for all “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” the President “shall be removed from Office.” 

    In other words, the Constitution lays out a process by which presidents of the United States are to be prosecuted—through impeachment. The reason impeachment, rather than traditional prosecution (and attendant punishments like incarceration), applies to the president is because of the uniqueness of the office itself. The president exposes himself to outsized publicity, controversy, and risk as a result of his office. Therefore, the punitive measures that uniquely attach to the executive officeholder are consonant with the duties and powers of the office itself. In addition, there is a special constitutional prerogative, one might say, in safeguarding the integrity of the presidential office, no matter the character and fitness of its occupant. Specifically, that would mean not imprisoning the officeholder or former occupants of the office based on alleged criminality done within the officeholder’s official capacities as president. It is for this reason that the Department of Justice has confirmed, “to wound [the President] by a criminal proceeding is to hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs.” (Memorandum from Robert G. Dixon, Jr., Asst. Att’y Gen., O.L.C., Re: Amenability of the President, Vice President, and Other Civil Officers to Federal Criminal Prosecution While in Office 30 [Sept. 24, 1973]). How far-reaching the scope of those capacities cover while in office should give way to a liberal construction due to the catastrophic impact such charges would necessarily have on the political fabric of the country.

    In any event, and for the purposes of what is relevant in Jack Smith’s two indictments, the factual grounds on which President Trump allegedly committed crime(s) within his official duties as president have already been twice considered by the House of Representatives, for which the President—in conformance with Article II, Sec. 4—was acquitted both times by the Senate. Because the Senate voted not to convict President Trump of his alleged crimes, any and every remedial measure afforded by the constitutional process has already been exhausted. Therefore, to continue to bring charges against the President for the asserted crimes on which he has already been prosecuted is by definition an abuse of the judicial power and an expressed violation of the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment: “…nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb…” 

    Notably, the Impeachment Judgment Clause of the Constitution, Art. I Sec. 3, reads as follows: “a person convicted upon an Impeachment, shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.” A plain reading of the clause allows for the subsequent indictment after a person is convicted and convicted only. This is in agreement with the longstanding judicial canon of construction, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, “the expression of one is the exclusion of others,” which provides that because the text excludes the term “acquittal” from the relevant clause, the framers’ intent was that only convicted officeholders would be open to additional prosecution, and not officeholders that were already acquitted based on constitutional procedure for their alleged crimes, therefore exhausting the constitutional remedy in toto. United States v. Wells Fargo Bank, 485 U.S. 351, 357 (1988). 

    This construction is likewise supported by common sense: any officeholder who is convicted while in office, based on constitutional procedure, is necessarily removed from office – it is inconceivable that any officeholder would remain in office after being convicted of a crime. But the reason a post-conviction prosecution, as opposed to an acquittal, runs a lesser risk of being in violation of double jeopardy, and is therefore expressly licensed by Article I, Sec. 3, is because, upon removal from office, there is a natural continuity in the prosecutorial function – indeed, additional time may be required to prosecute the case to the fullest extent of the law. The conviction, pursuant to constitutional procedure, is just the first step of the criminal trial. In contrast, if an officeholder were acquitted for an alleged crime and served the remainder of his or her term in office, it would not make sense to resume a criminal trial based largely on the same factual grounds on which the acquittal was based, once the acquitted officeholder left his or her post – in particular, after some time elapsed in which the officeholder was acquitted, served out the duration of his or her term, and then became a private citizen – only then to resume the criminal trial for which that officeholder had been acquitted. The latter scenario poses an obvious risk to double jeopardy (and flies in the face of common sense). 

    While the question is still occasionally debated, there is a great deal of support for the latter view in several important early legal commentaries and court decisions. For example, St. George Tucker, an editor of Blackstone’s Commentaries, raises the strong possibility that because “a conviction upon an impeachment is no bar to a prosecution upon an indictment, so perhaps, an acquittal may not be a bar.” (1 St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries 337 & n* [Philadelphia, William Y Burch et al. 1803, reprint 1996]). Even stronger authority for this view is found in Justice Story’s 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution, wherein Justice Story expresses his conviction in the above stated construction of double jeopardy: “In case of an acquittal,” he wrote, “there cannot be another trial of the party for the same offence in the common tribunals of justice.” (2 Story’s Commentaries). This point of view agrees with other state charters that predate the federal Constitution, but nevertheless provided interpretative guidance, such as the 1784 New Hampshire Constitution, which contained the first bill of rights to explicitly adopt a double jeopardy clause. Within the New Hampshire constitution’s double jeopardy clause, acquittal – which extended to acquittal by the Senate – is accounted for: “No subject shall be liable to be tried, after an acquittal, for the same crime or offence.” Art. I, Sec. XCI, 4 F. THORPE, THE FEDERAL AND STATE CONSTITUTION, reprinted in H.R. Doc. No. 357, 59th Congress, 2d Sess. 2455 (1909). 

    More recently, an OLC memo from 2000 acknowledges that an acquittal by constitutional impeachment exhausts every single legal remedy for redressability, and therefore, to subsequently bring charges against that officeholder runs in flagrant violation of double jeopardy. On this theory, the OLC memo conceded: “Even if one took the view that the Impeachment Judgment Clause’s reference to ‘the party convicted’ implied that acquitted parties could not be criminally prosecuted, that implication would naturally extend only to individuals who had been impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate.” (Whether a Former President May Be Indicted and Tried for the Same Offense for Which He Was Impeached by the House and Acquitted by the Senate, 24 Op. O.L.C. 110, 112 n.2 [2000]).

    The Supreme Court has affirmed “the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits merely punishing twice, or attempting a second time to punish criminally, for the same offense.” Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U.S. 391, 399 (1938). Because the President has already been prosecuted—twice—for the asserted crimes underlying both of Jack Smith’s indictments, the legal remedy has already been applied: there is simply no other form of legal redress that is tolerable under the Constitution. 

    In conclusion, Jack Smith’s claims are ill founded; to the extent they have any merit at all, they have already been prosecuted to the fullest extent the Constitution allows, and on each count, President Trump has already been acquitted of any and all criminal wrongdoing. 

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    A slightly modified version of this piece was originally published in The American Mind, and can be found here.

    Paul Ingrassia is a Law Clerk at The McBride Law Firm, PLLC. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022 and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club. He was also a two-time Claremont Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, and Rumble.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 08/24/2023 – 17:00

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