- How Societies Are Imprisoned: The Whole World Will One Day Be Like Hollywood?
How Societies Are Imprisoned: The Whole World Will One Day Be Like Hollywood?
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
I rarely write about Hollywood or the film industry, primarily because there is a vast array of analysts and YouTubers in the alternative media that discuss the bizarre behaviors and trespasses of Tinsel Town on a daily basis. They usually have it covered. That said, every once in a while I find that events in Hollywood reflect a much more pervasive dynamic in our culture and that the bigger picture needs to be addressed.
I also want to be clear that when I talk about “Hollywood” I am not only referring to the place; I’m referring to the entire corporate empire. I’m including Netflix and other streaming companies that may not work completely out of LA. They are all funded and run by the same people anyway.
Hollywood and the corporate cabal behind it have long sought to be the center of America’s cultural universe. In other words, they are seeking to pervert the natural dynamic so that life imitates art instead of art imitating life. And, if they control all the art then they control people’s perceptions of life.
The concept of “Manufacturing Consent”, posited by people like Noam Chomsky, plays a role here, but I think it goes far beyond that. Rather, Hollywood seeks to not only manufacture consent from the public, but also to manufacture the public’s relationship to reality. They don’t just want us to keep our heads down and begrudgingly accept their ideological zealotry; they want us to believe that their way is and always was the ONLY way.
What I see in the film industry and in the corporate world in general today is complete and unfettered propaganda. We have moved beyond the phase of subversively hidden manipulations to a new stage in which the propaganda has become blatant and aggressive. Almost every new movie and television series, not to mention most commercials, are rife with leftist distortions. You will be hard pressed to find any content these days that does not push ideas like:
1) Endless feminist platitudes.
2) Mentions of patriarchy and “white privilege”.
3) Ridiculous exaggerations of racism in America (as if nothing has changed since the days of Jim Crow).
4) Oppression of women, rape culture, etc. as if all the tenets of first and second wave feminism have not already been accomplished. Depicting oppression of women where none actually exists.
5) Women consistently portrayed as overtly masculine with traits and abilities that defy their biology.
6) Men consistently portrayed as weak and feminine.
7) Masculinity, strength, competition and merit portrayed as destructive, “toxic” and outdated.
8) Common positive feminine traits (nurturing, child rearing, home making) portrayed as obsolete or oppressive.
9) Forced and unrealistic diversity, which misrepresents the actual statistical racial make-up of the US population and other Western nations.
10) Saturation of gay and Trans representation – A tiny percentage of the population is made to appear as if it is a vast movement that inhabits every person’s daily experience.
11) Older generations cast as confused and ignorant, or removed from film and television completely.
12) Younger people portrayed as wise leaders “cleaning up the messes” of older generations, somehow blessed with extensive knowledge and experience by mere virtue of their youth.
13) History erased and rewritten to reflect modern leftist ideals.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. “Representation” in itself is not a bad thing, but when it becomes a weapon used to twist fundamental truths for political gain, then it is a problem. None of the concepts listed above are an accurate reflection of the real human world. Instead, they seek to make the outliers into the mainstream, and they seek to take normal human biological and psychological standards and portray them as aberrant and wrong.
Yes, there are cases where Hollywood is dabbling in fantasy and science fiction and this could be used to rationalize some of their odd depictions. That’s not what I am talking about here. I am talking about force feeding the public an obvious agenda across the full spectrum of storytelling. These are not just movies. These are not just TV shows. This is not just storytelling; this is brainwashing.
Hollywood is not in the business of making art. They are not even in the business of making money anymore. Rather, they are in the business of indoctrination. Yes, it is a “conspiracy”. Not a conspiracy theory, but conspiracy reality.
Their job is to make the public believe that leftist ideals (or in some cases globalist ideals) are the prevailing ideals. If you see the same lies everyday in every manufactured depiction of life, you might start to think that your more rational, traditional and grounded views are in the minority. You might begin to self censor for fear of being ridiculed. You might even join the other side just to avoid being attacked.
In order to maintain control over the propaganda machine a very important factor is ensuring that the faces on the screen are never allowed to deviate from the party line. Your puppet and pet celebrities need to be kept under lock and key.
Like most people, I recently watched Ben Shapiro’s interview with Gina Carano and it basically confirmed everything I already knew about Hollywood (my brief stint as a screenwriter 20 years ago exposed me to the underlying sell-out culture and I was repulsed by it).
What was striking though was the extent to which the Hollywood corporate elites seek to rape the minds of their employees and force them to submit to the cult. It wasn’t that Carano was fired for posting a historical fact on Twitter, it was everything that happened before that.
We see corporate diversity training such as Coca Cola’s “Be less white” seminars and we are disturbed by the cultism and manipulation. But listen to Carano’s story and you’ll realize that Hollywood is far ahead in their exploitation of social justice controls.
Carano mentions that as soon as she began speaking her mind from a conservative position, Disney and Lucasfilm began to bombard her with representatives, publishing agents, etc. whose mission was to convince her to stay silent or apologize publicly for her personal statements. They even tried to force her to endure a mass admonition in front of 40 trans people because she refused to post her “pronouns” to her Twitter page.
This is often referred to as a “struggle session” in communist circles, a crucible used to berate and destroy people who dare step out of line . It is also used to strike fear in the hearts of anyone else who might be thinking about voicing independent views.
Struggle sessions were the primary tactic employed during the Cultural Revolution in China as a means to pacify the citizenry and erase all ideas that opposed Marxism. The film ‘Red Violin’, produced in 1998, is one of the only films I have seen that accurately depicts the ravages of the communist social sterilization:
This is what happens when big business or government align with the leftist cult. SJWs would have no power at all if it were not for the backing of corporations and government institutions.
You want to know why so many celebrities these days seem desperate to virtue signal online all the time? It might not be because they agree with the leftists. They may just be trying to keep their jobs and avoid being suffocated by a weaponized mob. What the interview with Gina Carono really revealed to me was the extent to which Hollywood corporations are involved in that mob.
Companies like Disney aren’t following the mob’s lead – Instead, they are USING the mob as a tool. They are LEADING the social justice cult, the cult is not leading them, as many wrongly assume.
After finishing the Carano interview I could not stop thinking about a show from the 1960’s called ‘The Prisoner’ starring Patrick McGoohan. It portrays a man who works for the government and abruptly quits, only to be kidnapped by a nefarious unknown organization and transported to a place called “The Village”. The Village is a sprawling complex made to look like a happy seaside vacation town on the surface, but underneath it is a vast surveillance grid.
All the people that live there are trapped, watched constantly and the group that runs The Village uses elaborate mind games to break the prisoners down. The Village operates by turning prisoners into informants and guards; its goal often has nothing to do with making people talk. Instead, the goal is to get prisoners to submit, to get them to love the village and become a part of it. The Village is not a prison, The Village is an experiment, a microcosm of what the elite want for the entire world.
Hollywood IS The Village.
The way Carano was essentially stalked by her own employers and prodded with struggle sessions and mind games, the way that Hollywood operates behind the scenes, is exactly what leftists and corporate elites intend for the rest of us. It is already happening to some extent. How often have we heard conservatives labeled as “insurrectionists, terrorists and racists” in the past year alone? How many conservatives have been censored by Big Tech platforms? How many have lost their jobs because of their opinions, or simply making factual statements?
The social justice cult and the corporations that control them want the world to be Hollywood. They want that environment of oppression and fear to become the standard. They want everyone to be afraid to speak, or to disagree, or to step away from the agenda in any way. Everyone must play their part to perpetuate the fantasy world. Everyone must battle to appear virtuous and pure for the mob. Everyone is an actor, pretending they love their new totalitarian collective.
There is a huge weakness to this strategy, though…
All of it depends on people’s aversion to loss. If you are afraid to lose something, then that something can be used to control you. Carano was not afraid to lose and so she could not be controlled, and I commend her for that. The example she has set for others is far more valuable than any work that she might have done by submitting to the Hollywood Cheka. If only the majority of people would do the same, our civilization could change for the better overnight.
All tyranny is an illusion predicated on fear within the minds of the enslaved. So, do not fear.
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 23:40 - US Army Building World's Most Powerful Laser To Vaporize Drones
US Army Building World’s Most Powerful Laser To Vaporize Drones
The US Army appears to be developing a laser weapon that is a “million times stronger” than anything ever used before – instead of concentrating a beam of light to destroy a target, the new weapon will fire short pulses, sort of like laser beam weapons from science-fiction movies, according to New Scientist.
The Tactical Ultrashort Pulsed Laser (UPSL) for Army Platforms will be designed to fire pulse-like bursts for a brief 200 femtoseconds or one quadrillionth of a second. The laser, firing bullet-like pulses of light would be enough to vaporize a drone, cruise missile, mortar, and or any other threat in its vicinity. UPSL can also function as an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon.
“The sheer amount of intensity in a terawatt pulse laser is able to cause a non-linear effect in the air resulting in a self-focusing filament,” according to the Small Business Innovation Research (or SBIR) posting titled Tactical Ultrashort Pulsed Laser for Army Platforms.
Laser weapons are beneficial when combating enemy drones and missiles. The cost per round depends on the amount of energy available, which is far cheaper than launching costly interceptor missiles.
A UPSL prototype model could be ready by 2022. Under the Trump administration, funding dramatically increased for laser weapon development. Multiple types of continuous-wave laser weapons have been fielded in the past couple of years.
We’ve outlined some of those laser systems that have been fielded, including the high-energy laser (HEL) weapon with various energy output levels measured in kilowatts
The Navy is expected to install the High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) with surveillance sensors aboard an unspecified Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA destroyer in the early 2020s.
The Air Force has mentioned a roadmap to laser weapons for this decade. It plans to mount lasers on stealth jets.
Instead of continuous-wave lasers already in deployment among various services, the Army is preparing to test laser, firing bullet-like pulses as early as 2022.
Lasers, hypersonics, fifth-generation fighters, and autonomous war machines are some of the new technologies already entering some modern battlefields.
Bank of America’s equity strategist Haim Israel recently told clients that the next frontier between major superpowers could outer space.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 23:20 - "Makes Absolutely No Sense" – Biden Cancels Trump's 'Operation Talon' Program Targeting Immigrant Sex Offenders
“Makes Absolutely No Sense” – Biden Cancels Trump’s ‘Operation Talon’ Program Targeting Immigrant Sex Offenders
Biden has made it clear that his number one mission as president is to undo everything the Trump administration accomplished over the last four years.
His newest cancellation simply does not make sense.
Biden’s administration recently cancelled Operation Talon, a Trump administration program aimed at removing convicted sex offenders living in the United States illegally.
Though the program seems to be something everyone should support, it clearly isn’t. Why would anyone want sex offenders to remain in the country?
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined a coalition of 18 state attorneys general to urge Biden to reverse the cancellation, according to ABC 4 News.
“We’re working hard to fight human trafficking and sex crimes in South Carolina and allowing convicted sex offenders who are here illegally to remain in our country makes absolutely no sense,” Wilson said.
“These trafficking and sex crimes are repugnant to human decency generally and to children specifically,” he added.
The letter, directed to Joe Biden, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Acting Director of ICE Tae Johnson, pointed out the problems with this cancellation. The attorneys general argued that canceling Operation Talon could encourage sexual predators to attack.
“The United States’ population of illegal immigrants includes disturbingly large numbers of criminals with prior convictions for sexual crimes,” the letter reads.
“According to data collected by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, during the period from October 2014 to May 2018 ICE arrested 19,572 illegal aliens with criminal convictions for whom the most serious prior conviction was a conviction for a sex-related offense.”
“Meanwhile, an increasing number of illegal aliens are entering the United States after having been previously convicted of sexual offenses,” it continues.
“The cancellation of [Operation Talon] effectively broadcasts to the world that the United States is now a sanctuary jurisdiction for sexual predators. This message creates a perverse incentive for foreign sexual predators to seek to enter the United States illegally and assault more victims, both in the process of unlawful migration and after they arrive. It will also broadcast the message to other criminal aliens who have committed other offenses that any kind of robust enforcement against them is unlikely.”
The letter begs perhaps the most important question:
“If the United States will not remove even convicted sex offenders, whom will it remove?”
In addition to South Carolina, the state attorneys general that signed on to the letter include: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 23:00 - Maryland Set To Tax Online Ads From Facebook And Google
Maryland Set To Tax Online Ads From Facebook And Google
Look out, Google and Facebook.
Maryland is now set to become the first state in the nation to tax online ads. It’s a trend, that if it catches on (and we predict it will), could likely sweep through the nation as money-hungry spend-o-crats look for more ways to finance their respective Green New Deals, government subsidized sex changes and racial equality seminars.
The state’s House of Delegates and Senate both voted to override a veto of a bill from last year that would place a tax on online ads, according to NPR. The tax would apply to companies like Facebook and Google and will range from 2.5% to 10% per ad, depending on the value of the company selling the ad.
It’s expected to net the state $250 million per year, which the state then says it will use to fund an overhaul of public education that is expected to cost $4 billion.
Those advocating for the tax say that it is simply Maryland’s tax code trying to catch up to where the economy has wound up. Gov. Larry Hogan has said it would raise operating costs for businesses, who would then pass the costs on to the state and customers. Hogan has been fighting for the state to uphold his veto of the tax.
Doug Mayer, spokesman for Marylanders For Tax Fairness, a coalition of businesses created to fight the tax, said on Friday: “In Senate President Bill Ferguson’s short tenure as a leader, he has managed to do what no other Senate President has ever done — raise taxes and costs on Marylanders in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. There is no doubt what took place today was a historic event, but not in the way President Ferguson hoped. This tax increase was historically shortsighted, foolish, and harmful to countless small businesses and employees, and Marylanders will remember it that way.”
Ferguson pulled the solution for these criticisms directly out of the Democratic playbook last week: more regulation. He introduced “emergency legislation last week to prohibit Big Tech from simply passing along the costs of the new tax to local businesses,” NPR wrote.
The new tax is likely going to result in lawsuits, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said last year. And the tax isn’t just being considered in Maryland. Washington D.C. has also passed, and then repealed, a similar tax and more states are considering it, the report notes.
Baltimore bookstore owner Benn Ray concluded: “Beyond their infiltration into our daily lives, these big digital firms are further exploiting us by failing to pay taxes on this advertising, grabbing and monetizing our data without just compensation. This legislation is about fairness, making sure those who reap enormous profits in our state help support public services here. It’s also about developing a tax code that keeps up with a changing economy. It’s about ensuring we recognize the value of our personal data – at least as much as corporations do. And it’s about ensuring that Marylanders — and not just large, global corporations – reap the benefits of the landmark economic changes happening around us.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 22:40 - Is COVID-Derangement-Syndrome Real?
Is COVID-Derangement-Syndrome Real?
Authored by Donald Boudreaux via The American Institute for Economic Research,
Over the past two weeks I’ve received emails urging me to tamp down my criticism of restrictions imposed in the name of fighting Covid-19. Most of the correspondents are polite, sincere, and even warm. Each, however, is convinced that I underestimate the threat that Covid poses to humanity. Each correspondent hopes that I come to take this threat much more seriously.
What follows here is part of my response to each of these correspondents. This essay isn’t meant to change their minds but, instead, to better explain why I hold the position that I do toward Covid, as well as toward the public’s and governments’ responses to Covid. For the record, I understand that different individuals have different risk preferences. I genuinely respect these differences.
I understand also that different individuals even have different perceptions of reality. As with the understanding of reality achieved by blindfolded persons each touching a different part of the elephant, reality isn’t revealed to everyone in the same way. Yet I’m sufficiently old-fashioned to believe that there is an objective reality, and that it’s the duty of everyone who comments publicly on that reality to do his or her best to understand it as well as possible, despite the inaccessibility of perfect understanding.
I believe also that, while the range of legitimate differences in this understanding is wide, this range isn’t unlimited. Some understandings are so detached from reality as to be illegitimate – as in, not to be taken seriously. It is for each reader to judge for himself or herself if my understanding of reality, as I express it here (and elsewhere), falls within or outside of the legitimate range.
Below is a list of some of the facts, as I understand them, about Covid-19, as well as about the reaction to this disease. Although some of these facts are more firmly established than are others, I believe that each of the facts detailed below is legitimate, and that my interpretations of them are plausible.
Further, I believe that my understanding justifies my relative lack of anxiety about Covid’s likely impact on me personally and about its impact on humanity. And I believe that the facts as I understand them warrant my description of the media’s, the public’s, and governments’ reactions to Covid as being hysterically excessive.
The Overestimated Dangers of Covid and Underestimated Dangers of Lockdowns
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Covid-19 is disproportionately lethal to the very old and ill, and heavily so. In the United States as of February 17th, 2021, nearly a third (31.8%) of “All Deaths Involving Covid-19” – as defined and reported by the CDC – were of persons 85 years old and older. Nearly 60 percent (59.6%) of these deaths were of persons 75 years of age and older. More than 81 percent (81.3%) were of people 65 years of age and older. Despite media-trumpeted exceptions, serious suffering from Covid-19 is largely an experience for very old people.
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Although Covid-19 is indeed unusually dangerous to very old people, it’s still not close to being a death warrant. The infection fatality rate for 85-year-olds is estimated to be 15 percent; for 75-year-olds it’s estimated to be 4.6 percent. For 65-year-olds, Covid’s infection fatality rate is estimated to be 1.4 percent. For 55-year-olds it’s estimated to be 0.4 percent.
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Covid’s overall lethality compared to that of the seasonal flu is no more than 10 times greater. (Some estimates have Covid’s lethality, compared to that of the flu, to be as low as 3.5 times greater.) Of course, because Covid’s lethality undeniably rises significantly with age, for the elderly Covid is far more than 10 times as deadly than is the flu, and for young people Covid is much less than ten times as deadly. (Keep in mind that the numbers in this and the previous two paragraphs come chiefly from before any vaccines were administered.)
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In the Spring of 2020, hospitals in the U.S. had a financial incentive to inflate their Covid numbers. As reported on April 24, 2020, by USA Today, “The coronavirus relief legislation created a 20% premium, or add-on, for COVID-19 Medicare patients.” Covid inflation occurred outside of the U.S. as well. In Toronto, for example, officials admit that they are inflating the Covid death count: Here’s Toronto Public Health: “Individuals who have died with COVID-19, but not as a result of COVID-19 are included in the case counts for COVID-19 deaths in Toronto.” (I encourage you to read the whole Twitter thread.)
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Lockdowns themselves have negative health consequences. How could they not, even if the only such effect arises because of people’s increased difficulty of visiting physicians for non-Covid-related illnesses and injuries? But there is evidence that negative health consequences of lockdowns extend beyond those that arise from delayed or foregone medical treatments.
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Lockdowns have negative personal and social consequences. Avoiding contact with family and friends, even during holidays. Inability to fraternize at your favorite gym, coffee shop, bar, or restaurant. Restrictions on travel. Even if you believe that these costs are worth paying, you cannot deny that these costs are serious.
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Lockdowns have a severe negative impact on economic activity. How could they not, given that people are prevented from going to work and from engaging in much ordinary commercial activity? There’s debate about how much of the decline in economic activity is caused by voluntary action and how much is caused by the forcible lockdowns. Even in light of the likelihood that people’s fear of Covid is further stoked by the very fact that governments’ resort to the dramatic action of locking us down, evidence exists that a great deal of economic damage was caused by the lockdowns themselves.
Misinformation and Misunderstanding are Rampant
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I never recall the media giving running accounts of deaths from seasonal flu, from auto accidents, from heart disease, or from any other major sources of death. But the media do give such accounts of Covid. The false impression is thus created that the dangers posed by Covid differ categorically from the dangers posed by other of life’s serious risks. I find it incredible to suppose that such out-of-context and biased reporting does not give the general public a terribly distorted and outsized impression of Covid’s dangers – an impression that is then reinforced by people communicating with each other.
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Panic itself is contagious. As Gustave Le Bon observed in 1895, “Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes.” Social media and other sources of 24/7/365 contact with hordes of strangers is a new phenomenon, one that seems to me to have created an unprecedentedly large crowd through which panic spreads.
Panic, in turn, corrupts human decision-making abilities. This corruption is worsened by the echo-chamber feedback within the crowd. Combine these two realities with a third – namely, the difficulty the typical person experiences in expressing disagreement with a dominant narrative – and the overwhelming acceptance of the official fear-ladened account of Covid is unsurprising. But this overwhelming acceptance does not imply its own validity.
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I have encountered in major media outlets too many egregiously misleading accounts about Covid – see, for example, here and here – for me not to severely discount what the media (and government officials) ‘report’ about Covid.
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Decades of following media reports on, and politicians’ statements about, economic reality long ago convinced me that the proportion of misinformation to information is appallingly high. Because I know that most people in the media and in government are pathetically uninformed about economic reality – because I know that these people are largely innumerate and, in many cases, intellectually lazy – because I know that pundits and politicians often ignore facts and explanations that don’t fit their priors – I have every reason to doubt the reports on the numbers, to question the explanations, and to reject the spins that are issued by the media and by politicians.
Justification for my skepticism of the popular narrative about Covid is only enhanced by the resulting panic. Aware that the public is in a state of panic, pundits and politicians who are prone to play fast and loose with the truth in normal times feel even less constrained to speak carefully and accurately during times of panic.
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The reaction to the Great Barrington Declaration alone proves the gross carelessness of too many mainstream voices. This carelessness puts me on yet higher alert against the popular perception of Covid.
For example, Paul Krugman attacked the Declaration with an ad hominem. This Nobel-laureate thinker asserted that the Declaration should be dismissed because of the organization that brought together the three acclaimed scientists who wrote it. That organization, of course, is AIER which – Krugman bizarrely thinks this fact is relevant – is said by Krugman to be “linked to the Charles Koch Institute.” (Not that it matters, but this ‘fact’ is not close – not remotely close – to what Krugman’s wording implies.)
Nor, by the way, does the Great Barrington Declaration advocate a strategy of “let it rip.” But you’d never know this fact by reading many ‘descriptions’ of it. (Googling “Great Barrington Declaration” and “let it rip” – with each of the two terms in quotation marks – pulled up on February 21, 2021, 34,200 results.)
Covid Derangement Syndrome
I could list many other reasons for why I’m convinced that humanity’s fear of Covid-19 springs from profound misinformation about this disease. I could also expand my list of reasons why I believe the public’s precautions are grossly disproportionate to this disease’s actual dangers, and for why I regard the lockdowns, mask mandates, quarantine ‘hotels,’ and other restrictions to be tyranny that is wholly unjustified by the facts. But already I’ve overtaxed readers’ patience.
One doesn’t have to have Covid in order to have a life that’s meaningful and to suffer a death that’s mournful. Yet most of the public, media, and governments have reacted to Covid as if the only deaths that matter are Covid deaths – as if the only lives that matter are the lives of people with Covid – as if the only risk that matters and, hence, the only risk worth reducing is the risk of suffering from Covid.
This lack of proportion – this sudden ignorance that our lives are inescapably filled with many different risks that must be traded off against each other – this treatment of Covid deaths as being categorically worse than are non-Covid deaths – all combined with a blind faith that politicians and bureaucrats will use vast powers wisely, prudently, and effectively – is what I call “Covid Derangement Syndrome.”
I believe this syndrome to be real and deserving of a name that grabs attention. Such attention-grabbing is warranted, because I further believe that this syndrome poses a dangerous risk to humanity that dwarfs the risk posed by SARS-CoV-2.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 22:20 -
- Watch: Flying-Robo Harvester Picks Ripe Fruit, Set To Displace Humans
Watch: Flying-Robo Harvester Picks Ripe Fruit, Set To Displace Humans
It’s no secret by now that the rise of automation and robots is projected to displace millions of jobs in the coming years. Many low-skilled jobs will be wiped out because of robots, sending technological unemployment, the loss of jobs caused by technological change, through the roof.
The latest installment of technological change leading to short-term job loss could soon be seen in the fruit harvesting industry.
Israeli company, Tevel Aerobotics Technologies, has developed a flying autonomous robot (FAR) that works day and night to pick fruit. Artificial intelligence embedded within the FAR determines the ripest fruit to pick through sensors and computer vision.
“The FAR robot can work 24 hours a day and picks only ripe fruit. It uses AI perception algorithms to locate the trees and vision algorithms to detect the fruit among the foliage and classify its size and ripeness. After choosing the right fruit, the robot then works out the best way to approach the fruit and remain stable as its picking arm grasps the fruit,” said Inceptive Mind.
“There are never enough hands available to pick fruit at the right time and the right cost. Fruit is left to rot in the orchard or sold at a fraction of its peak value, while farmers lose billions of dollars each year,” the company’s website said.
Below, FAR robots pick ripe apples instead of humans.
The automated system provides farmers with real-time updates on harvesting progress, time completion, quantity picked, and overall costs. At the end of Tevel’s promotion video, it says, “this is our future.”
Expanding more on the “future” as described by Tevel, one where robots will displace low-skilled workers, a “great transformation” is underway where upwards of 20 million jobs could be lost due to robots by 2030.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 22:00 - Conversation With BLS About Price Mismeasurement For Housing
Conversation With BLS About Price Mismeasurement For Housing
Submitted by Joseph Carson, former chief economist at AllianceBernstein
Recently, I shared my concerns about price mismeasurement for owner-occupied housing with a senior official who works in the Division of Consumer Prices at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The senior official agreed with me, “That, in theory, treatment of owner-occupied housing in a CPI measure sounds easy, but in practice, it is not.” Here’s a summary of the main points of the conversation.
First, the senior official noted the International Labor Organization (ILO) manual of Consumer Prices states: The treatment of owner-occupied housing in consumer price indices (CPIs) is arguably the most difficult issue faced by CPI compilers.
I used to share that view, but no longer. The most challenging problem in price measurement is the pervasiveness of item replacements. It isn’t easy to get a continuous price series when products have a short shelf-life. Technology products create a problem for price measurement as the characteristics of items change frequently. The stock of housing does not change much from year to year, so it’s not an issue.
Moreover, the quality of house price statistics has dramatically improved in the past few decades. Repeat sales series adjusted for the time between sales provides government statisticians with price information that was not available in the past. In the early 1980s, BLS cited poor data quality on house prices as one reason to change the measurement of owner housing costs. Nowadays, there is better data on prices for owner housing than there is for rents.
Second, according to ILO, “Depending on the proportion of the reference population that are owner-occupiers, the alternative conceptual treatments can have a significant impact on the CPI, affecting both weights and, at least, short-term measures of price change.”
But the hard evidence shows that alternative measures have had a significant short-term and long-term influence on reported inflation.
In 1999, BLS adopted an alternative measure for owner-occupied housing. Due to an inadequate sample of homes for rent, BLS decided to use rent data to gauge the owner-occupied housing implicit rents. Before the change, the rate of inflation for owner-occupied rent ran consistently above rent inflation. But after the change, that pattern flipped. Since 1999, the inflation rate for rent for primary residences has always run above what BLS estimated for owner-occupied housing.
That pattern of rents runs counter to market fundamentals. During periods of economic expansion, the vacancy rate for owner-occupied housing is falling, while the rental market’s vacancy rate often moves in the opposite direction. Shrinking supply with rising prices for homes should yield a rent-inflation rate for owner-occupied housing that is much faster than the rent for a primary residence.
BLS data shows that the cumulative increase in rents for a primary residence is 20% greater than that of owners-occupied over the past two decades. It would seem improbable that based on market fundamentals alone, the owner’s rent rate would run below that of primary rents.
The weight of owner-occupied housing accounts is substantial, accounting for approximately 30% of the core CPI. And given its vast scale, the continuous understatement of rent-inflation for owner-occupied housing has created the false impression that cyclical inflation is “flat”. But in reality, it’s not.
Third, the senior official stated that it is not “impossible” to measure owner-occupied implicit rents from rental markets. I said it is.
The two markets are separate. Research has shown that location is an essential factor for housing price, and it makes sense it would also influence rents. Owner housing is of a much higher quality than renter housing. Over 80% of owner homes are detached single-family versus less than 30% for rentals, and owner-occupied homes are much larger in scale. Five states, including two of the largest rental markets (New York and California), have rent control or rent stabilization policies. Trying to match the inflation rate from a partial-regulated rent market with one that is not regulated creates the potential for large-scale price mismeasurement.
Janet Norwood, the legendary BLS Commissioner, stated, “The goal of a government statistical agency must be to produce data that are objective, relevant, accurate, and timely.” BLS measure of owners’ housing costs fails all four.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 21:40 - Goldman Sachs Says Urban Flight To Last For Years
Goldman Sachs Says Urban Flight To Last For Years
Goldman Sachs expects the exodus from cities to weigh on shelter inflation. Goldman’s Jan Hatzius told clients that it could take years for urban vacancies to normalize.
Hatzius’ note, titled “Inflation Signal, Healthcare Noise (Hill),” had some excellent commentary on the urban exodus, aligning with our thoughts from last July when we said city dwellers fleeing metro areas could last for the next 18-24 months.
Here’s what he told clients:
We expect a waning drag from urban flight on shelter inflation by next year. However, we don’t expect upward pressure from this channel (relative to the pre-crisis period), because we believe it is the level of rental vacancies that is the primary determinant of shelter inflation.
We also expect at least some of the suburban relocation to prove permanent. The advent of work from home and the fact that second homes represent less than a third of 2020 home sales growth suggest it could take several years for urban vacancy rates to normalize—even with the relatively quick return to full employment that we forecast.
… and there it is: “several years for urban vacancy rates to normalize.” The hope and hype of urban revivals in a post-pandemic world could get squashed as suburbanization becomes more permanent – hybrid work for white-collar workers is pushing this trend into hyperdrive.
Last month, in a note titled “Rental-Exodus Sparks Surge In Single-Family Housing Starts & Permits,” we continued to outline the supporting trends of booming starts and permits for single-family homes as folks sought shelter in suburbia.
While the boom in the suburbs is still intact but could be experiencing some headwinds, especially with rising mortgage rates, housing recoveries in major metro areas will likely wane as housing supply tops demand.
Hatzius shows rents in suburban zip codes are experiencing upwards pressure due to the exodus. Meanwhile, downtown and high-density zip codes are seeing downward pressure.
Because of the social-economic chaos last summer across major metro areas, violent crime surging, and hybrid work trends due to the pandemic, the shift to suburbia will become more permanent. It will take people some time to realize that the economy will never return to pre-COVID times – a lot of structural changes have already happened in a short period.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 21:20 - Why Not Make The Minimum Wage $150 Per Hour?
Why Not Make The Minimum Wage $150 Per Hour?
Authored by PF Whalen via TheBlueStateConservative.com,
The periodic debate regarding raising the minimum wage has resurfaced once again, only this time the argument is connected to the larger discussion surrounding a sprawling, $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill; for some inexplicable reason. In the bill unveiled by House Democrats last Friday, if passed, the minimum wage would increase incrementally from the current $7.25 per hour to $9.50 per hour this year, and eventually escalate to $15 per hour by 2025. Prominent Democrats across the board have supported the idea, including President Joe Biden.
If we deep-dive the issue in trying to understand its full impact, we can learn a great deal about the pros and cons of increasing the minimum wage; particularly with the cons. But there are two pieces of information that are difficult to come by. How, specifically, did we arrive at the number of $15? And, based on the Democrats’ reluctance to acknowledge the negative impacts of a minimum wage increase, why don’t we just add a zero to the number and increase the minimum wage to $150 per hour?
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was the first influential public figure to float the idea of a $15 minimum wage, having proposed the idea all the way back in 2015. Sanders’ plan pointed out his perceived benefits for those who are being paid the minimum wage. Beneficiaries would see an improved standard of living; the burden on taxpayers from food stamps and Medicaid would be reduced; and an increase in available income would spur economic growth. It sounds like a wonderful plan.
Sanders’ pitch also included the obligatory attacks on salaries for corporate CEOs (because, after all, socialism is the ideology envy), as well as the store everyone on the left loves to hate, Wal-Mart. But if we dissect the details of Sanders’ idea, there’s one critical piece of information missing: how did Sanders arrive at $15 per hour? Would a $14 per hour minimum wage be insufficient to reach those goals? Would a $16 per hour minimum wage be too much, for some reason?
The only conclusion we can draw from Sen. Sanders’ brainchild is that the number ‘fifteen’ was chosen because it’s a nice, round number. Choosing the target of a $15 minimum wage just sounds better than asking for a $13.85 minimum wage. It’s simpler and rolls off the tongue more easily, and is more likely to stick in folks’ heads. But such justification is a lousy way to go about deciding public policy.
Therefore, if the objective is to improve people’s lives, which is a noble endeavor regardless of which party you belong to, why not choose another round number? Why not make it higher, say $20 per hour? Or $50? Or $150? Those are nice round numbers as well, are they not?
Just think of how much those workers would improve their standard of living making $150 per hour. If the burden on taxpayers would be lessened with a $15 minimum wage, imagine how much it would decrease if we multiplied it by ten. And if economic growth would jump with a bump to $15, what’s stopping us from making it $150 so we can see an economic boom? The issue, of course, is that there are substantial negative consequences to increasing the minimum wage; though if we only listened to the leftist Democrats we would think there are no downsides.
The far-left Center for American Progress is fully onboard with a minimum wage increase, contending that such an increase will “boost communities and the national economy and also reduce federal spending.” According to Rosemary Boeglin, one of Biden’s spokeswomen, “ raising the minimum wage reduces poverty and has positive economic benefits for workers, their families, their communities, and local businesses.” And President Biden’s Treasury Secretary Nominee Janet Yellen claims that the increase would have a “minimal” impact on job loss.
The question, therefore, remains: why are they only looking to raise the wage to $15? Why not double or triple it? Or increase it by a full order of magnitude? The answer is obvious… because increasing the minimum wage nationally will cause extensive damage to small businesses, to taxpayers, and to the very individuals the effort is intended to help; minimum wage workers.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, approximately 900,000 Americans would be lifted out of poverty with the wage hike; which is good news. But 1.4 million jobs would be lost in the process. More people would see their wages totally eliminated than those that would see a wage increase. The National Restaurant Association is urging Congress to sit tight on the minimum wage, explaining the measure would “cut jobs, decrease hours, increase menu prices, and close down [restaurants] altogether in some cases.” Increasing the minimum wage would be devastating to small businesses, particularly restaurants.
Perhaps the best argument against a nationwide increase to the minimum wage is the country’s disparities in costs of living (COL) by state. America is a big country, and what makes sense in Oregon doesn’t always make sense in Tennessee.
On average, the state with the highest COL is Hawaii with a COL rating of 196.3, which is more than double that of Mississippi’s 84.8 rating. It’s more than twice as expensive to live in Hawaii as it is to live in Mississippi, so how does it make sense to apply the same national minimum wage? The answer is: it doesn’t. Government is not the solution to all of our problems, and that statement is especially true when it comes to the federal government. A minimum wage increase applied equally across all fifty states will result in an increase in wages for some, but a total elimination of wages for even more.
Labor is a commodity, and commodities are subject to the law of supply and demand. As the supply of labor (workers available) is decreased, the prices or demand for that labor (wages to be paid) is increased. That equation varies by industry, which means it varies by skill set. For example, making sandwiches at the local delicatessen is a low-skill job. There are plenty of people who can perform it, so the supply of labor is very high and the wages are low. Welding machinery to be used at a local factory is a high-skill job. There are not a lot of people who can perform it, so the supply of labor is very low and the wages are high.
Therefore, if someone working at a small town deli is looking to increase their income, they may want to consider improving their skill set by entering a trade school to learn how to become a welder. And if government is intent on improving people’s lives, perhaps they should consider helping that sandwich-maker gain access to that trade school instead of trying to artificially inflate the demand for his or her sandwich-making skills.
No one aspires to work for the minimum wage, except perhaps for a teenager looking to land their first job. For those who are working such a job because of a limited skill set, the key is for them to improve their skills and thereby make themselves more marketable. The solution to lifting people out of poverty is not for the government to intervene by applying a one-size-fits-all minimum wage across fifty, widely varying states. Help those Americans make themselves more marketable by improving their ability to provide value to prospective employers. And help those employers increase their demand for such laborers by giving them a robust economy in which to conduct business.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 21:00 - "Door Is Always Open": China Invites UN Rights Chief To Investigate Uighur Genocide Charge
“Door Is Always Open”: China Invites UN Rights Chief To Investigate Uighur Genocide Charge
While vehemently rejecting widespread reports from the US and Western allies as well as various Europe-based human rights groups of a systematic campaign to ethnically cleanse Uighur Muslims, China is now “welcoming” a United Nations team to come and investigate the allegations.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva at the start of this week via video call. Calling the allegations “slanderous attacks” he later at a news conference touted that “China has sent invitations to the high commissioner of the UN for human rights about a trip to China and Xinjiang.”
Via AFP “The two sides have maintained close communication on this matter,” Wang added. He had told the UN human rights session on Monday that “basic facts show that there has never been so-called genocide, forced labor or religious oppression in Xinjiang.”
It follows the US formally designating it as such during the tail end of the Trump administration, something which Biden has signaled is up for review. There’s long been widespread allegations of on million Uighurs forcibly detained in either labor or ‘reeducation’ camps under Communist authorities.
Wang said he’s issued a personal invitation to UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, after the UN team has long sought access to Xinjiang, where most of the detention camps are said to be. But much like the recent WHO trip to investigate the origins of coronavirus, such an endeavor is likely only to end in further accusations of a highly ‘stage managed’ and choreographed max obfuscation PR exercise.
“The door to Xinjiang is always open. People from many countries who have visited Xinjiang have learned the facts and the truth on the ground. China also welcomes the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang,” Wang said in reference to Bachelet.
Wang’s defense before the UN body centered on “Xinjiang-related issues” ultimately being about “countering terrorism and separatism”, touting further that there’s been zero terror attacks in the region for almost the last half-decade. He also claimed the Uighur population has actually grown, not decreased as would be expected if there were an ongoing “genocide”.
🇨🇳 China at the UN Human Rights Council: “There’s no genocide, forced labor, or oppression in Xinjiang.”
FACT-CHECK: China herded 1 million Uighur Muslims into “reeducation” & labor camps, destroyed mosques, forcibly sterilized Uighur women. pic.twitter.com/jsIj767oz0
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) February 24, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Meanwhile on Tuesday Canada’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding motion on the heels of the prior controversial US designation, calling China’s policy toward Xinjiang and its ethnic minorities “genocide”. Canada is also seeking to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over the issue, something which UK’s Johnson has said his country won’t jump on board with (i.e.: London does not plan to boycott the Olympics). “Genocide is clearly defined in international law which cannot be pinned to China,” China’s embassy in Canada shot back in reaction to what it called a “disgraceful” vote.
The vote was 266-0 in favor of the motion, however PM Trudeau and his cabinet abstained – yet it’s likely the further damage to trade relations is already “done” in Beijing’s eyes on the mere symbolism of the vote.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 20:40 - Ohio Public School Orders Teachers And Students To Lobby For LGBT Legislation
Ohio Public School Orders Teachers And Students To Lobby For LGBT Legislation
By Joseph Backholm of the Family Research Council,
An assistant principal at a Hilliard, Ohio high school sent an email to faculty telling teachers to endorse a controversial piece of legislation and encouraged students to do the same. The Hilliard City Council is currently considering legislation that would include sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) as protected classes in the city.
Similar legislation has been debated around the country for more than a decade, and the flagship piece of SOGI legislation — the Equality Act — was reintroduced in Congress this week.
While the ideas represented in the Hillard City Council legislation are not new, they are highly controversial. Aaron Baer, President of Citizens for Christian Values in Ohio, was on Washington Watch this week to explain the problem. “Not only are they turning students into lobbyists, using taxpayer dollars to force teachers to do something that violates their conscience and students to do the same, but they’re not even telling students what they’re really advocating for.”
Mr. Baer pointed out that the call for activism did not even include a discussion of why the bill was controversial.
“The implications of this bill for women’s privacy and the safety of children are massive. And the teachers and the script that they were given, literally a literal script that they were given to read to students, says nothing about the implications of this bill.”
To their credit, Hillard City Schools has already released a statement recognizing that the actions of the principal were “not appropriate.”
The incident raises questions about where else schools are being turned into progressive political action centers without the awareness of parents. Since the story broke, Mr. Baer acknowledged hearing from other teachers in Ohio Schools who had seen similar communications from their school but were reluctant to object out of concern for their careers.
It also provides a great opportunity for parents to reflect on whether the people they are entrusting with the education of their children are worthy of the trust they’ve been given.
It’s worth noting that the signature block of the principal who sent the email includes the principal’s “preferred pronouns,” which are functionally a public statement of agreement with a set of ideas that are anti-truth, anti-science, and anti-God.
When Christian parents see this from “educators” in their schools, it should serve as their cue to remove their children as quickly as possible.
Think of it as a form of social distancing. When a child is developing their immune system, you don’t put them in situations where they are likely to be exposed to a lot of dangerous viruses. So it is with worldview formation.
Bad ideas function just like a virus, but the consequences are much more serious. The education of your children should expose them to bad ideas, but like a vaccine, they should be exposed to them in ways and in doses that allow them to build up an immunity. The goal of a vaccine is not simply to expose someone to a virus — the goal is to expose them in ways that allow them to defeat the virus anytime they are exposed to it.
Understanding and demonstrating the emptiness of bad ideas should be a primary goal of your child’s education, but this cannot be accomplished by people who have embraced bad ideas.
Once your kids are properly formed, there’s less risk in them being surrounded by people who believe things that aren’t true because they recognize bad ideas when they see them and understand both why people believe those things and why they aren’t true.
In that case, no matter how emotional the appeal or how well-intentioned the messenger, your child will be less likely to be affected because they understand the larger context of the debate and are anchored to reality. That should be the goal of our child’s education, not “getting into a good college.”
But until they have developed that capability, they’re vulnerable. You cannot “fix” in a couple hours a week what your child absorbs for seven hours a day for 12 years, plus college.
The good news is, it’s becoming easier to see where these ideological viruses are in their most advanced stages. Listing preferred pronouns is just one of the symptoms.
Continue to be kind and help if you can. Of course, befriend people who don’t think like you, both because it’s a good example for your kids and because the people most committed to bad ideas are often unhappy and want to figure out why they’re so miserable despite doing everything they’ve been told to do that will make them happy. No one is beyond the reach of the truth, and you’re there to be a depository of truth.
But don’t let them teach your kids. Anything.
Citizens for Christian Values is encouraging families in Hilliard, Ohio to contact their school board to demand an immediate apology for this violation of the public trust, and rightly so.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 20:20 - 68% Of Brazilians Think COVID Vaccines Should Be Mandatory
68% Of Brazilians Think COVID Vaccines Should Be Mandatory
The regional government of Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain, has announced plans to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for all of its 2.7 million inhabitants, threatening hefty fines for “unjustified” refusal to be inoculated. The controversial step was announced by the region’s president Alberto Nuñez Feijóo on Tuesday and is subject to approval by the Galician government.
The subject of how to handle mass vaccinations best in face of the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a lively debate across the globe in recent weeks, but, as Statista’s Feliz Richer notes, no country has issued a nationwide vaccination mandate yet. While it seems likely that fully vaccinated people will eventually enjoy certain privileges, forcing people to take the jab could backfire dramatically as it would play in the hands of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists who suspect foul play behind the global inoculation campaign.
You will find more infographics at Statista
As the chart above, based on data from Ipsos’ Global Attitudes survey, shows, support for mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations ranges widely across countries.
While a majority of respondents in France and Germany opposes such a policy, people in Brazil and South Korea would be widely in favor of mandatory vaccination.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 20:00 - If America Splits Up, What Happens To The Nukes?
If America Splits Up, What Happens To The Nukes?
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Opposition to American secession movements often hinges on the idea that foreign policy concerns trump any notions that the United States ought to be broken up into smaller pieces.
It almost goes without saying that those who subscribe to neoconservative ideology or other highly interventionist foreign policy views treat the idea of political division with alarm or contempt. Or both.
They have a point. It’s likely that were the US to be broken up into smaller pieces, it would be weakened in its ability to act as a global hegemon, invading foreign nations at will, imposing “regime change,” and threatening war with any regime that opposes the whims of the American regime.
For some of us, however, this would be a feature of secession rather than a bug.
Moreover, the ability of the American regime to carry out offensive military operations such as regime change is separate and distinct from the regime’s ability to maintain an effective and credible defensive military force.
Last month, we looked at how even a dismembered United States would be more than capable of fielding a large and effective defensive military force. A politically divided America nonetheless remains a very wealthy America, and wealth remains a key component in effective military defense. In other words, bigness is not as important as the extent to which a regime can call upon high levels of wealth and capital accumulation.
That analysis, however, concentrated on conventional forces, and this leaves us with the question of how the successor states to a post-secession United States would fare in terms of nuclear deterrence.
In this case, there is even less need for bigness than in the case of conventional military forces. As the state of Israel has demonstrated, a small state can obtain the benefits of nuclear deterrence without a large population or a large economy.
In other words, an effective military defense through nuclear deterrence is even more economical than conventional military forces.
After Secession, Who Gets the Nukes?
But how would secession actually play out when nuclear weapons are involved?
One example we might consider is Ukraine’s secession from the Soviet Union the early 1990s.
In 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly to secede and set up an independent republic. At the time, the new state of Ukraine contained around one-third of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. This means there were literally thousands of nuclear warheads within Ukraine’s borders, making Ukraine’s arsenal the third largest in the world. In 1994, Ukraine began a program of denuclearization and today is no longer a nuclear power.
The relations between Ukraine and the new Russian Federation were acrimonious in the early nineties—as now—so this means that the lessons of the Ukraine situation are limited if applied to American secessionist movements. American pundits may like to play up the red-blue division in America as an intractable conflict of civilizations, but these differences are small potatoes compared to the sort of ethnic and nationalist conflicts that have long existed in Eurasia.
Nevertheless, we can glean some insights from that separation.
For example, the Ukrainian secession demonstrates that it is possible for nuclear weapons to pass into the control of a seceding state without a general conflict breaking out. Indeed, Ukraine was not alone in this. Kazakhstan and Belarus “inherited” nuclear arms from the Soviet Union as well. If Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus can all peacefully negotiate a resolution on how to deal with a suddenly decentralized nuclear arsenal, the Americans can pull it off, too.
Nonetheless, the Ukraine situation highlights some of the technical and logistical problems involved in working out who exactly controls nuclear weapons in a postsecession situation.
For example, it was never a simple matter for the Ukrainian regime to assert technical control over land-based nuclear missiles. It is unlikely that Ukraine ever obtained all the tools necessary to actually launch the nuclear missiles within its territory.
It is likely, however, that Ukraine could have eventually gained this power, as it was already developing its own control system for the arsenal in 1993. Not surprisingly, the Soviet Russian regime was unenthusiastic about helping the Ukrainians in this respect.
When it came to using nuclear-capable bombers, on the other hand, it appears Ukraine’s regime had total control.
It is likely the successor states of the US would face similar issues. The use of land-based missiles would be heavily reliant on authorization from whichever faction most recently controlled access and launching authority, even if those missiles are physically located within the borders of a separatist state. It must be noted, however, that the state within which land-based nuclear missiles exist has the ability to prevent usage in most cases. This is because even if the missiles themselves cannot be directly controlled, the personnel that maintains and controls the sites can far more easily be traded out for personnel loyal to the new regime.
When it comes to submarines and bombers, a secessionist US region might find itself better able to assert control in the short term. Where those bombers and subs end up would have a lot to do with the likely chaotic situation in the wake of the independence movement and shifting borders.
Separatist Regions May Be Unwilling to Give Up Nukes
Ukraine had denuclearized in part due to bribes and pressure from both the United States and Russia. Russia wanted Ukraine’s arsenal for obvious reasons. The United States was obsessed with deproliferation, although it naturally insisted on keeping its own massive stockpile.
Neither the US nor Russia had the ability to force Ukraine to denuclearize—short of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, of course. However, Ukraine capitulated to pressure when the Russian Federation, the US, and the UK (and to a lesser extent China and France) pledged in the Budapest Memorandum to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
In 2014, many interpreted this move as a grand folly when Russia annexed the Crimea from Ukraine and none of the other parties to the memorandum intervened. Ukraine had given up its best guarantee against Russian intervention—its nuclear arsenal—in exchange for weak “assurances” from foreign states.
Some foreign policy scholars—most notably John Mearsheimer—had predicted this and advised against denuclearization in Ukraine. Indeed, in 1993, Mearsheimer doubted that Ukraine would cave to denuclearization pressure precisely because reliable assurances from outsiders were unlikely. Even after the Budapest Memorandum became a reality a year later, it was nonetheless a rather weak reed on which to hang denuclearization. As Mearsheimer pointed out, should the Americans fail to provide an effective defense for Ukraine—as ended up being the case with the Crimea crisis—the Americans “would not have to live with the consequences of a Russian attack.” Nonetheless, some Ukrainians insist the Crimea crisis is not evidence of a need for a nuclear deterrent.
Many, Americans, however, may be much less sanguine—even to the point of unwarranted paranoia—about the prospects of foreign intervention on American soil. This is why it is best to proceed assuming that at least some successor states to the current US would insist on retaining a nuclear arsenal. After all, while the Ukraine might have been betting on the US as the enforcer of the international order, such guarantees would be even more unlikely in the wake of an American secession crisis. Postsecession American states, in other words, would need to rely on a self-help system of deterrence.
On the other hand, we should not assume that all successor states to the United States would seek permanent nuclear arsenals. Some would likely give up nuclear programs, just as Sweden and South Africa have abandoned nuclear programs that were well advanced toward assembling arms (Sweden) or had already completed the construction of functioning warheads (South Africa). While the Ukrainian example of voluntary denuclearization may appear to be a blunder to many now, the situation in North America is different. North America is not eastern Europe with its long history of interstate conflict. In North America, Canada and the United States have been at peace for more than two centuries, and Canada has never made much effort to move toward assembling a nuclear arsenal. Rather, Canada’s proximity to the United States shields it from nuclear threats from outside North America. Any conventional or nuclear arrack on Canada from, say, China or Russia is likely to be interpreted as an attack on the United States, with disastrous consequences for the initial aggressor.
In other words, Canada benefits from what Baldur Thorhallsson calls “shelter” in the international arena. Canada requires no nuclear arsenal of its own, because it can use its close alliance with the United States as a substitute.
So long as some successor states of the United States maintain a functioning arsenal, other nonnuclear states in North America will be able to function similarly. It stands to reason that just as the United States in its current form has been at peace with all other former British colonies, it is likely that new North American republics will share a similar fate.
Big States Are Not Necessary: A Deterrent Nuclear Force Is Entirely Feasible for Small States
A new American republic need not be especially large to maintain a working arsenal.
While a sizable economy and population are extremely helpful in terms of building a large conventional military, these factors are not nearly as important when it comes to a nuclear force capable of deterring foreign powers.
As Kenneth Waltz has explained, “Nuclear parity is reached when countries have second-strike forces. It does not require quantitative or qualitative equality of forces.” That is, if a regime can plausibly hide or move around enough nuclear warheads to so as to survive a nuclear first strike, it is able to deter nuclear aggression from other states altogether. Moreover, the number of warheads necessary to achieve this number “not in the hundreds, but in the tens.”
This is why Waltz has concluded that “deterrence is easier to contrive than most strategists have believed” and that “some countries may find nuclear weapons a cheaper and safer alternative to running economically ruinous and militarily dangerous conventional arms races. Nuclear weapons may promise increased security and independence at an affordable price.” In other words, deterrence “can be implemented cheaply.”
The Israeli state is an important and illustrative case. This is a country with a GDP smaller than Colorado’s and a population smaller than that of the US state of Georgia, yet Israel is thought to maintain a nuclear triad of sea, air, and land-based warheads. In other words, this is a small state which has taken full advantage of the relatively economical nature of a small nuclear arsenal (estimated to include approximately eighty assembled warheads).
Clearly, claims that even medium-sized American states—such as Ohio with 11 million people and a GDP nearly as large as that of Switzerland—are too small to possibly contemplate functioning as independent states are quite detached from reality. Moreover, there is no reason to assume any postsecession American state would seek to act alone in the realm of international relations. Kirkpatrick Sale has pointed out what should be regarded as obvious: “Historically, the response of small states to the threat of … aggression has been temporary confederation and mutual defense, and indeed the simple threat of such unity, in the form of defense treaties and leagues and alliances, has sometimes been a sufficient deterrent” (emphasis added).
On the other hand, a continuation of the current trend toward political centralization in Washington—and the growing political domination of every corner of the nation by central authorities—is likely to only harm future prospects for amicable separation and peaceful cooperation on the international stage.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 19:40 - Tanden Pounded By Progressives Over Potential 'Conflicts Of Interest' After Senate Delays Votes
Tanden Pounded By Progressives Over Potential ‘Conflicts Of Interest’ After Senate Delays Votes
On Wednesday, two Senate committees delayed Wednesday votes on President Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Neera Tanden, after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and several GOP senators announced they wouldn’t vote for her – in what the Washington Post described as “probably dooming her selection in an evenly divided Senate.”
Tanden, president of the John Podesta-founded Center for American Progress, has come under fire for a series of now-deleted tweets promoting the Russia hoax as fact, denigrating political foes, and other statements which Manchin deemed ‘overly partisan.’
That’s not all, Tanden reportedly punched a progressive journalist in 2008 who had the audacity to ask then-Sen. Hillary Clinton about voting in favor of the Iraq war.
“Ms. Tanden responded by circling back to Mr. Shakir after the interview and, according to a person in the room, punching him in the chest,” the New York Times reported in 2019, describing the alleged incident from when Tanden served as a top Clinton adviser.
Tanden claims she ‘pushed him.’
On Wednesday, Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) expressed concerns over Tanden, saying ” suggested to the White House that my colleagues were being very critical of the statements, and rightly so and I think some of (the tweets) were clearly over the top,” adding “Apparently I’m going to have to do more looking into what she thinks about me,” after a tweet recently resurfaced in which Tanden attacked Murkowski.
What’s more, a progressive advocacy group, RootsAction, says they’re “heartened” that Tanden’s nomination has stalled and ‘may soon be withdrawn.’
“We are heartened that Tanden’s nomination has stalled. Mainly due to her well-documented coziness with corporate elites, she is the wrong choice to head a federal agency that is vital in the regulatory process. It strains credulity to contend that she would be a true advocate for the public interest after many years of dutifully serving corporate interests,” the group said in a statement.
Why doesn’t RootsAction like Tanden?
“RootsAction opposed her OMB nomination from the outset. With our encouragement, many thousands of constituents wrote to their senators and urged them to vote against confirmation — not because of her ‘mean tweets’ but because of her close funding relationships with corporate titans and foreign governments. What’s stunning is the silence from Senate Democrats about the potential conflicts-of-interest raised by her decade of aggressive fundraising from powerful interests,” according to co-founder Jeff Cohen.
Meanwhile, RootsAction national director Norman Solomon said “Business-as-usual in Washington means that elite donations are inundating think tanks and members of Congress. Tanden epitomizes a pay-to-play view of governance, which helps to explain why the anti-regulation, anti-union U.S. Chamber of Commerce is supporting her nomination. We need an OMB director without corporate ties that bind. Neera Tanden just doesn’t qualify.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 19:20 - Students Demand Removal Of George Washington Statue… At University Of Washington
Students Demand Removal Of George Washington Statue… At University Of Washington
Authored by Angela Morabito via Campus Reform,
The University of Washington’s Black Student Union has garnered nearly 8,000 signatures on a petition that demands the school remove a statue of George Washington, the school’s – and the state’s – namesake.
The petition claims the statue “perpetuates white supremacy and preserves its historical imposition,” because George Washington owned slaves.
The offending statue is part of the university’s history: It is the product of a years-long campaign by the Daughters of the American Revolution, which raised $6,000 by “encourag[ing] schoolchildren from all over the state to contribute their pennies, no more than five cents apiece.” The statue has stood on campus since 1909.
The petition also proposes cutting ties with the Seattle Police Department, disarming the university police, increasing funding for the American Ethnic Studies Department, and hiring more Black faculty members, among other policies.
University leadership responded with incremental measures at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, including cutting the campus police force by 20 percent and reiterating existing hiring initiatives aimed at bringing diverse talent to campus. But it did not pledge to remove the statue – and the BSU isn’t backing down.
The university “commissioned a group of faculty experts to recommend wording for a plaque or other such display that would provide a broader context on the life and impact of George Washington,” which “would include an explicit acknowledgment of his role as a slaveholder.”
The BSU says a plaque isn’t enough.
The University did not comment further on if, and how, it will respond to increasing calls to remove the statue.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 19:00 - Round 2 Of Face-Ripping Short Squeeze Arrives Just As Hedge Funds Pile Into Shorts
Round 2 Of Face-Ripping Short Squeeze Arrives Just As Hedge Funds Pile Into Shorts
One of the key catalysts behind the original round of meme stocks such as GME and AMC surging in late January in “rip your face off” rallies, was targeting companies that were heavily short, in some cases – such as Gamestop – with a synthetic short position that was 140% of the float. Since then, the short interest in all of these original meme companies has collapsed dramatically as hedge funds that were short suffered tremendous, and in some cases, irreparable losses forcing them to cover at any cost (and price).
What is remarkable is that the targeted WallStreetBets raids of heavily shorted stocks took place in an environment where marketwide shorts were actually at the lowest level on record as a result of the endless levitation in the S&P500 thanks to the trillions of Fed monetary generosity, with most industries ranking in the 0 percentile vs history in terms of short interest as a % of market cap (with the exception of energy, where the short squeeze has yet to come at the industry level).
But is that really true? Well, it may have been until about two weeks ago when things changed drastically.
As JPMorgan wrote on Tuesday, while hedge funds were quite positive on markets especially in the US, over the past 6+ months (JPM had seen net buying most days since late July 2020), “following the recent weakness and rotation, we’ve seen HFs react by adding more shorts, which are picking up after the large covering in late Jan”, and remarkably Monday was the largest day of short additions in North America since late June 2020!
Meanwhile, as JPM notes today in its summary of the furious rip higher in Gamestop and AMC, “we may be seeing the beginning of the Retail impulse returning.” Translation: the WallStreetBets “incels” are back for round two and are trying to make lightning strike twice, by focusing on the two more popular shorts of the latest round of short squeezes. That said, we expect all the same mega-squeeze companies that ripped higher a month ago are all set to explode in the coming days.
This means that just as hedge funds reloaded on their shorts expecting a rapid acceleration in the recent market correction… the reddit rippers are back and set to squeeze all those millions in newly layered shorts which are not being picked up in the latest data which is as of two weeks ago, or just as the short flush peaked and a new layer of shorting was starting.
And while one can only dream, it would be truly remarkable if – expecting that lightning will not strike twice – the likes of Melvin Capital doubled down on their GME shorts after suffering catastrophic losses on the same position. While we doubt god can be that cruel, here is an artist’s rendering of “what if”…
Melvin Capital right now after reshorting GME last week pic.twitter.com/Oh9u4g23LV
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 24, 2021
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 18:40 - A Year Later, There's Still No Evidence Showing Governments Can Control The Spread Of COVID-19
A Year Later, There’s Still No Evidence Showing Governments Can Control The Spread Of COVID-19
Authored by Anthony Rozmajzl via The Mises Institute,
As we approach the one-year anniversary of fifteen days to flatten the curve, we have yet to acquire any data suggesting that the past year of life-destroying lockdowns and politicized behavioral mandates has done anything to keep us safe from covid-19. While discussions surrounding the reintroduction of nationwide lockdowns seem to have ceased—it’s impossible to ignore the lockdowns’ disproportionately deadly effects and the numerous studies demonstrating their futility—the media still retain their grip on the narrative that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as mask mandates, curfews, capacity restrictions, gathering restrictions, and others remain necessary to prevail in our fight against covid-19.
Government officials, in lockstep with big tech and nearly all major news outlets, have controlled the NPI narrative to such an extent that its proponents have simply sidestepped the burden of proof naturally arising from the introduction and continued support of novel virus mitigation strategies, happily pointing to the fact that their ideas enjoy unanimous support from the corporate media and government officials all over the world. This seemingly impenetrable narrative rests, of course, on the critical assumption that NPIs, or behavioral mandates, have protected us from covid-19.
The One Chart That Covid Doomsdayers Can’t Explain
If there is one visualization the reader should become familiar with to highlight the ineffectiveness of a nearly a year’s worth of NPIs, it would be the following chart comparing hospitalizations and deaths per million in Florida with those in New York and California, however we will be focusing solely on the comparison between Florida and California.
In light of everything our officials have taught us about how this virus spreads, it defies reality that Florida, a fully open and popular travel destination with one of the oldest populations in the country, currently has lower hospitalizations and deaths per million than California, a state with much heavier restrictions and one of the youngest populations in the country. While it is true that, overall, California does slightly better than Florida in deaths per million, simply accounting for California’s much younger population tips the scales in Florida’s favor.
Florida has zero restrictions on bars, breweries, indoor dining, gyms, places of worship, gathering sizes, and almost all schools are offering in-person instruction. California, on the other hand, retains heavy restrictions in each of these areas. At the very least, Florida’s hospitalizations and deaths per million should be substantially worse than California’s. Those who predicted death and destruction as a consequence of Florida’s September reopening simply cannot see these results as anything other than utterly remarkable. Even White House covid advisor Andy Slavitt, much to the establishment’s embarrassment, had no explanation for Florida’s success relative to California. Slavitt was reduced to parroting establishment talking points after admitting that Florida’s surprisingly great numbers were “just a little beyond our explanation.”
Does Compliance Explain the Discrepancy?
Invariably, the above graph will invoke responses pointing to Californians’ supposed lack of compliance relative to Floridians as justification for their poor numbers. On its face, this claim is patently absurd given that Florida has been fully open since September. But if we dig into the data a bit more, we find some relevant metrics that shed light on how frequently Floridians and Californians are engaging in behaviors that allegedly fuel covid-19 transmission. The following survey data—California is shown in blue, Florida in gray—is taken from Carnegie Mellon University’s Delphi Research Group. Beyond the red vertical line, Florida has had consistently lower hospitalizations and deaths per million than California.
Mask Compliance
Bar Visits
Traveling
Restaurant Visits
We can see that, relative to Floridians, Californians have consistently been doing a better job of avoiding social behaviors that allegedly fuel the spread of covid-19. Moreover, at no point was there a drastic change in behavioral patterns after December 17 indicating that Floridians had suddenly begun avoiding activities purportedly linked to covid transmission.
A quick glance at each state’s “social distancing score” also indicates, yet again, that Californians have been doing a better job avoiding activities meant to facilitate the spread of covid-19. Additionally, Google’s covid mobility reports, as of February 16, 2021, show that Californians partake in fewer retail and recreational visits—restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, theme parks, museums, libraries, and movie theaters—as well as fewer grocery store and pharmacy visits, which include farmers markets, food warehouses, and speciality food shops. Evidently, the whole “noncompliance” schtick is nothing more than a fraudulent excuse for explaining away undesirable trends.
More Metrics Rebutting the Mainstream Covid-19 Narrative
Moving on from the Florida-California comparison, national metrics also highlight the lack of correlation between the intensity of states’ NPIs—methodology for determining this can be found here—and deaths per million.
In fact, if we visualize case trends across all fifty diverse states, each state having varying levels of restrictions, you’ll quickly notice a pattern that presents itself quite similarly across all fifty states: a bump in cases early to midway through the year followed by a much bigger surge in cases during winter months. The following data was retrieved from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Similar case patterns across fifty states is hardly an indicator of a government capable of influencing the course of the virus. Instead, research published in Evolutionary Bioinformatics shows that case counts and mortality rates are strongly correlated with temperature and latitude, a concept known as “seasonality,” which, once recognized, largely explains the failure of the past year’s NPIs.
Meanwhile, we can look at seasonally congruent regions to see whether or not varying degrees of behavioral mandates have had any noticeable impact on cases. What we find, thanks to seasonality, is that regardless of the timing or existence of mask mandates and other behavioral mandates, similar regions follow similar case growth patterns.
For the firm believer in NPIs, these simultaneous and nearly identical fluctuations between cities within the same state and states having similar climates are inexplicable. After accepting seasonality as one of the driving factors behind case fluctuations, we can start speaking of “covid season” as pragmatically as we speak of “flu season.” A helpful visual of what covid season might look like, based on the Hope-Simpson seasonality model for influenza, can be found here.
Update on the Holiday Surge and Recent “Superspreaders”
Some of you may be wondering about the “holiday surges” that were supposed to have ravaged our hospitals following Thanksgiving and Christmas. Well, they never happened. Not only did the rate of covid-19 hospitalization growth decline after Thanksgiving, hospitalizations peaked less than two weeks after Christmas and have been sharply plummeting since! At the very least we should have seen a rapid increase in the hospitalization growth rate in the few weeks following Christmas.
As a bonus for those who like to keep up to date with the latest installments of The Media Who Cried Superspreader, Alabama recently came under heavy fire after thousands of maskless football fans took to the streets to celebrate their team winning the national college football title. FanSided, among others, was quick to label the large celebration as a superspreader event, and health officials were worried that the Alabama superspreader was going to result in a huge case spike. Here’s what really happened.
Miraculously, cases immediately plummeted after Alabama’s “superspreader” event and continue to plummet to this day. If that wasn’t enough, Mississippi, Alabama’s next-door neighbor, followed a nearly identical case pattern despite hosting no superspreader events.
Finally, in our most recent installment of The Media Who Cried Superspreader, we see that two weeks—two weeks being the establishment’s baseline lag time between superspreaders and their consequences—after millions of people gathered with friends and family to watch Superbowl LV, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to plummet.
Despite the scary warnings and grim predictions of Superbowl gatherings, we find, yet again, a gaping hole in the mainstream covid-19 narrative. It would appear safe to conclude that the worst of covid season is behind us.
Data show that from the few weeks prior to February 4, cases have fallen 45 percent in the United States—cases are still declining at a rapid pace despite mid-January warnings that the new variant would create a surge in cases—30 percent globally, and hospitalizations have dropped 26 percent since their mid-January peak. Yet there appears to be a general confusion as to how we’ve achieved these numbers. Did populations around the world unanimously begin complying with covid regulations? Did governments finally get serious about enforcing their mandates? These are some explanations we might hear, but only so long as cases and hospitalizations continue to trend downward.
It is very unlikely, however, that health officials will start pointing to seasonality as an alternative explanation for our continually improving numbers. To do so would be a tacit admission that nearly a year’s worth of heavily politicized behavioral mandates, life-destroying lockdowns, and devastating business closures were all for naught. But the data have spoken, and it is abundantly clear that attempting to socially engineer a respiratory virus out of existence is nothing short of a fool’s errand.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 18:20 - Fed Investigating Massive Outage Of Its Interbank Payment System
Fed Investigating Massive Outage Of Its Interbank Payment System
The Federal Reserve’s critical system for interbank payments which serves as the backbone of virtually all money transfers in the US, went down Wednesday afternoon as trillions in payments suddenly ground to a halt. The outage, similar to two significant disruptions suffered by the Fed in 2019, was widespread across all payment systems maintained by the central bank, including the vital automated clearinghouse system known as FedACH, and the Fedwire Funds interbank transfer service.
ACH is a national system that processes batches of electronic funds transfers such as payroll, social security benefits, tax refunds, corporate payments to vendors and utility payments, according to the Fed’s website. The commercial service handled 62.1 million transactions a day on average in 2019 with an average value of $1,802, the latest year for which data are available.
“A Federal Reserve operational error resulted in disruption of service in several business lines,” Jim Strader, a spokesman for the Richmond Fed, said in an e-mailed statement. “We are restoring services and are communicating with all Federal Reserve Financial Services customers about the status of operations.”
Around 230 pm, FRBservices.org reported that after a roughly hour-long outage, the Fed’s central bank services and FedCash were back to normal operations. While the little used FedMail did not suffer a disruption, all other services are still listed as “service disruption.”
“We are in process of restarting the Fedwire Services and National Settlement Service and expect to resume normal processing this afternoon,” the website says
So… the Great reset, eh?
* * *
Earlier
Update (1400ET): The Fed issued a brief statement:
“The Federal Reserve Bank staff is currently investigating a disruption to multiple services. We will continue to provide updates as soon as they are available.”
Is this The Great Reset?
dear @federalreserve have you tried CTRL-ALT-DEL?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 24, 2021
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* * *
It appears that The Fed is “down” as all FRB Servcies are currently offline including ACH and FedWire…
Translation: the official establishment-sanctioned method of transferring money in America is currently offline!
If only there was an alternative method to transfer value over the internet… for free?
The question is – what is broken at The Fed (and was it the Russians?)
Janet Yellen: #Bitcoin is inefficient.
Today: Federal Reserves payment system Fedwire goes down, freezing wire transfers between banks.#Bitcoin doesn’t go down.
— Bitcoin Archive 🗄🚀🌔 (@BTC_Archive) February 24, 2021
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 18:12 - "Mistakes Were Made": Plan To Rename 44 San Francisco Schools Placed On Hold
“Mistakes Were Made”: Plan To Rename 44 San Francisco Schools Placed On Hold
The San Francisco Board of Education has halted its plan to rename 44 schools until students and teachers are able to return to classrooms, after serious errors were made in the selection process, which was based on cursory Google searches and Wikipedia entries.
“I acknowledge and take responsibility that mistakes were made in the renaming process,” said board Commissioner Gabriela Lopez. in a Sunday night statement, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Separately on Twitter, Lopez said “I also acknowledge and take responsibility,” adding that community input is needed.
I also acknowledge and take responsibility for mistakes made in the building renaming process. We need to slow down and provide more opportunities for community input – that cannot happen until AFTER our schools are back in person.
— Madam President, Gabriela López (@lopez4schools) February 22, 2021
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Lopez’s comments come days after parents began circulating a petition to recall her, along with Vice President Alison Collins and Commissioner Faauuga Moliga for politicizing education, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“We are parents, not politicians, and intend to stay that way,” said organizer Siva Raj in a statement to the Chronicle. “We are determined to ensure San Francisco’s public schools provide a quality education for every kid in the city.”
On January 26, the board announced that dozens of public schools must be renamed for failing to meet their standards. The mostly historical figures on their no-no list include; Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Revere, and Dianne Feinstein..
As The Atlantic noted in January, the decision process was a joke:
The committee’s research seems to have consisted mostly of cursory Google searches, and the sources cited were primarily Wikipedia entries or similar. Historians were not consulted. Embarrassing errors of interpretation were made, as well as rudimentary factual errors. Robert Louis Stevenson, perhaps the most beloved literary figure in the city’s history, was canceled because in a poem titled “Foreign Children” in his famous collection A Child’s Garden of Verses, he used the rhyming word Japanee for Japanese. Paul Revere Elementary School ended up on the renaming list because, during the discussion, a committee member misread a History.com article as claiming that Revere had taken part in an expedition that stole the lands of the Penobscot Indians. In fact, the article described Revere’s role in the Penobscot Expedition, a disastrous American military campaign against the British during the Revolutionary War. (That expedition was named after a bay in Maine.) But no one bothered to check, the committee voted to rename the school, and by order of the San Francisco school board Paul Revere will now ride into oblivion.
The committee also failed to consistently apply its one-strike-and-you’re-out rule. When one member questioned whether Malcolm X Academy should be renamed in light of the fact that Malcolm was once a pimp, and therefore subjugated women, the committee decided that his later career redeemed his earlier missteps. Yet no such exceptions were made for Lincoln, Jefferson, and others on the list.
According to CA governor hopeful Kevin Faulconer, the board’s decision to halt the renaming is a “huge victory.”
“The San Francisco Board of Education’s decision to halt the renaming of its schools is a huge victory not just in the fight against cancel culture, but most importantly for our children,” he told Fox News in a statement. “Now that we’ve stopped this misguided revisionism, we must get our children back in school immediately, something our elitist governor Gavin Newsom refuses to do.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/24/2021 – 18:00
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