Today’s News 25th November 2022

• Cancel Culture's War On History, Heritage, & The Freedom To Think For Yourself
  Cancel Culture’s War On History, Heritage, & The Freedom To Think For Yourself

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “All the time – such is the tragi-comedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible… In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

  – C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

  There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when the very act of thinking for ourselves is not just outlawed but unthinkable.

  We are being shunted down the road to that dystopian future right now, propelled along by politically correct forces that, while they may have started out with the best of intentions, have fallen prey to the authoritarian siren song of the Nanny State, which has promised to save the populace from evils that only a select few are wise enough to recognize as such.

  As a result, we are being infantilized ad nauseum, dictated to incessantly, and forcefully insulated from “dangerous” sights and sounds and ideas that we are supposedly too fragile, too vulnerable, too susceptible, or too ignorant to be exposed to without protection from the so-called elite.

  

  Having concluded that “we the people” cannot be trusted to think for ourselves, the powers-that-be have taken it upon themselves to re-order our world into one in which they do the thinking for us, and all we have to do is fall is line.

  Those who do not fall in line with this government-sanctioned group think—who resist, who dare to think for themselves, who dare to adopt views that are different, or possibly wrong or hateful—are branded as extremists, belligerents, and deplorables, and shunned, censored and silenced.

  The fallout is as one would expect.

  Cancel culture – political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance – has shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs.

  Everything is now fair game for censorship if it can be construed as hateful, hurtful, bigoted or offensive provided that it runs counter to the established viewpoint.

  In this way, the most controversial issues of our day—race, religion, sex, sexuality, politics, science, health, government corruption, police brutality, etc.—have become battlegrounds for those who claim to believe in freedom (of religion, speech, assembly, press, redress, privacy, bodily integrity, etc.) but only when it favors the views and positions they support.

  The latest victim of this rigid re-ordering of the world into one in which vestiges of past mistakes are scrubbed from existence comes from the New York Department of Education, which has ordered schools to stop using Native American references in mascots, team names and logos by the end of the current school year or face penalties including a loss of state aid.

  Citing concerns about racism and a need to comply with the state’s Dignity for All Students Act, which requires schools to create environments free of harassment or discrimination, New York officials are telling communities—many of which are named after Native American tribes—that longstanding cultural associations with their towns’ Indian namesakes are offensive and shameful.

  More than 100 schools in 60 school districts across New York State have nicknames or mascots that reference Native Americans. The cost to divest their communities of such branded names and images will be significant. One school district estimates that the cost to remove its Indians imagery from the gym floor alone will be upwards of $60,000.

  This drive to sanitize New York schools of “offensive” Native American logos and imagery comes on the heels of iconoclastic campaigns to rid the country of anything and anyone that may offend modern-day sensibilities.

  Monuments have been torn down, schools and streets have been renamed, and the names of benefactors stripped from prominent signage in the quest for a more enlightened age.

  These are not new tactics.

  Since the days of the Byzantine Empire, when “Emperor Leo III ordered the destruction of all Christian images on the grounds that they represented idolatry and were heretical,” political movements have resorted to destroying monuments, statues and imagery of the day as a visual means of exerting their power and vanquishing their enemies.

  We have been caught in this intolerant, self-righteous, destructive, mob-driven cycle of book-burning, statue-toppling, history-erasing iconoclasm ever since.

  As art critic Alexander Adams explains:

  “Iconoclasm is an activity evenly distributed between both left and right of the political spectrum, mainly at the extreme ends… The intolerant ideology, which refuses to accept the co-existence of alternative views, takes the stance that…the ideals within the art are no longer utterable or supportable: they are actually injurious and dangerous to the vulnerable… The political activist reserves to himself the right to retrospectively edit our history for his satisfaction by removing monuments, those fixtures of civic life, embedded in the memories of generations… Iconoclasm is an expression of domination and a demonstration of willingness to act—illegally and unethically—to impose the will of one group over an entire population. It asserts control over all aspects of society… The campaigner argues that public art, accumulated piecemeal over 1,000 years of history, must reflect our society and values today—even if that means altering or erasing stories of the values our past society expressed via its monuments, or suppressing evidence of how we arrived at our current situation… The iconoclast believes that it is only the values of today that count—that it is only her values that count. She takes it upon herself to correct history through monstrous acts of egotism. That correction, when it involves destruction, permanently alters the cultural legacy. It shrinks the breadth of human experience available to the generations which follow ours.”

  In such a world, there can be no debate, no journey to understanding, no chance to learn from one’s mistakes or even make mistakes that are uniquely your own; there is only obedience and compliance to the government, its corporate overlords and the prevailing mob mindset.

  Censorship, cancel culture, political correctness, woke-ism, hate speech, intolerance: whatever label you assign to this overzealous drive to sanitize the culture of anything that might be deemed offensive or disturbing or challenging, be assured they are sign posts on a one-way road to graver dangers marked by “suppression, persecution, expulsion and the massacring of people.”

  Whether those smashing monuments and erasing history are doing so for noble purposes or more diabolical reasons, the end results are the same: criminalization, confiscation, imprisonment, exile and genocide.

  “Look at mobs which gather to smash monuments,” says Adams. “These monuments may be the statues of deposed dictators who terrorized populations, causing untold death and suffering. They may be monuments to fallen soldiers who died defending causes that are no longer fashionable. The mob’s anger is the same. The viciousness and triumphant celebrations are the same. Only the causes differ in seriousness, topicality and justification.”

  Adams continues:

  “The Civil War statue destroyers think they are assaulting the posterity of slave owners, but they themselves are in the grip of ideological fervor. They are unaware that they are running a biological code, hardwired in their brains by evolution and activated by political extremists. The activists of today heedlessly erase history they haven’t yet learned to read. They act as the hammer that extremists use to deface the cathedrals and museums our ancestors built.”

  What’s different about this present age, however, is the use of technology to censor, silence, delete, label as “hateful,” demonize and destroy those whose viewpoints run counter to the cultural elite.

  “In the last few years,” writes Nina Powers for Art Review, “what is understood to be contentious has become increasingly broadly defined… The range of what counts as acceptable gets smaller and smaller… [W]e thus find ourselves… in the midst of a new culture war in which the freedom to think, feel and express ourselves comes at the risk of economic impoverishment, social ostracism and mob justice.”

  Where this leads is the stuff of dystopian nightmares: societies that value conformity and group-think over individuality; a populace so adept at self-censorship and compliance that they are capable only of obeying the government’s dictates without the ability to parse out whether those dictates should be obeyed; and a language limited to government-speak.

  This is what happens when the voices of the majority are allowed to eliminate those in the minority, and it is exactly why James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, fought for a First Amendment that protected the “minority” against the majority, ensuring that even in the face of overwhelming pressure, a minority of one—even one who espouses distasteful viewpoints—would still have the right to speak freely, pray freely, assemble freely, challenge the government freely, and broadcast his views in the press freely.

  Freedom for those in the unpopular minority constitutes the ultimate tolerance in a free society.

  The alternative, as depicted in Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, is a world in which individuality and the ability to think for oneself independent of the government and the populace are eradicated, where even the word “I” has been eliminated from the vocabulary, replaced by the collective “we.”

  As Anthem’s narrator Equality 7-2521 explains, “It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. . . . And well we know that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.”

  As I make clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are not merely losing the ability to think critically for ourselves and, in turn, to govern our inner and outer worlds, we are also in danger of losing the right to do so.

  The government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers is just the beginning.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 23:50

• Have Shopping Holidays Jumped The Shark?
  Have Shopping Holidays Jumped The Shark?

  After years of unabated growth, Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales dipped for the first time last year, as many shops spread out deals over the entire Thanksgiving week or even further.

  “With early deals in October, consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday,” said Taylor Schreiner, Director at Adobe Digital Insights.

  As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, according to Adobe’s estimates, U.S. consumers spent $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday last year, slightly down from $10.8 billion in 2020. Black Friday spending also just missed the 2020 record, coming in at $8.9 billion in 2021 vs. $9.0 billion the year before.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The fact that the dedicated shopping holidays didn’t beat spending records last year doesn’t mean that shoppers were cutting back on their holiday spending generally. They merely spread it out throughout the holiday season. Between November 1 and November 29, U.S. consumers spent $109.8 billion online, up 11.9 percent from the same period in 2020. Moreover, 22 days exceeded $3 billion in online sales in November 2021, up from just 9 days in November 2020 and further proof of shoppers spending their holiday cash more evenly than before.

  

  With all that said, do we even need Black Friday and Cyber Monday anymore? Well, it depends. While it certainly feels like the overabundance of discounts throughout the year has watered down the importance of special shopping days, people will always be willing to save money on genuinely good offers. So it’s up to the retailers to counter the deal fatigue with discounts that offer genuine savings instead of just marking down inflated original prices.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 23:15

• War On Cash: India Rolling Out Retail Pilot Program For Digital Rupee
  War On Cash: India Rolling Out Retail Pilot Program For Digital Rupee

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  We recently reported that the Federal Reserve plans to launch a 12-week pilot program in partnership with several large commercial banks to test the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The US isn’t alone in experimenting with digital currency. India is working on developing a digital rupee and recently announced the second phase of testing.

  

  After successfully running a pilot program to test its digital currency at the wholesale level, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced it will test the digital rupee in a retail setting.

  According to the RBI, the central bank digital currency “is a legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. It is the same as a fiat currency and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different.”

  Digital currencies are similar to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They exist as virtual banknotes or coins held in a digital wallet on your computer or smartphone. The difference between a government digital currency and bitcoin is the value of the digital currency is backed and controlled by the state, just like traditional fiat currency.

  As the RBI put it, “Unlike cryptocurrencies, a CBDC isn’t a commodity or claims on commodities or digital assets. Cryptocurrencies have no issuer. They are not money (certainly not currency) as the word has come to be understood historically.”

  According to a report in the Economic Times of India, the National Payments Corporation of India will host the platform for the digital rupee payment system during the testing phase. The Reserve Bank of India wants each commercial bank in the pilot to test retail use of the digital rupee with 10,000 to 50,000 users.

  State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank will participate in the pilot program. If the pilot is successful, the RBI will roll out the program to the entire Indian banking system.

  “The e-rupee will be stored in a wallet, the denominations will be available as per the customer’s request, just like you request cash from an ATM. Banks are launching this only in select cities,” a person involved in the program told the Times.

  In a concept note, the RBI touted the benefits of digital currency.

  It is believed that retail CBDC can provide access to safe money for payment and settlement as it is a direct liability of the central bank. Wholesale CBDC has the potential to transform settlement systems for financial transactions and make them more efficient and secure. Going by the potential offered by each of them, there may be merit in introducing both CBDC-W and CBDC-R.”

  Government-issued digital currencies are sold on the promise of providing a safe, convenient, and more secure alternative to physical cash. We’re also told it will help stop dangerous criminals who like the intractability of cash. But there is a darker side – the promise of control.

  At the root of the move toward government digital currency is “the war on cash.” The elimination of cash creates the potential for the government to track and even control consumer spending, and it would make it even easier for central banks to engage in manipulative monetary policies such as negative interest rates.

  Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from government eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched its digital yuan pilot program, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”

  The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases. Bloomberg described just how much control a digital currency could give Chinese officials.

  The PBOC has also indicated that it could put limits on the sizes of some transactions, or even require an appointment to make large ones. Some observers wonder whether payments could be linked to the emerging social-credit system, wherein citizens with exemplary behavior are ‘whitelisted’ for privileges, while those with criminal and other infractions find themselves left out. ‘China’s goal is not to make payments more convenient but to replace cash, so it can keep closer tabs on people than it already does,’ argues Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion.”

  China launched its digital yuan pilot program last year. The Chinese government-backed digital currency got a boost when the country’s biggest online retailer announced the first virtual platform to accept the Chinese digital currency.

  Economist Thorsten Polleit outlined the potential for Big Brother-like government control with the advent of a digital euro in an article published by the Mises Wire. As he put it, “the path to becoming a surveillance state regime will accelerate considerably” if and when a digital currency is issued.

  Governments around the world have quietly waged a war on cash for years. Back in 2017, the IMF published a creepy paper offering governments suggestions on how to move toward a cashless society even in the face of strong public opposition.

  As with most things the government does, you should be wary of the digital dollar. It has a dark side that you can be sure the mainstream will mostly ignore.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 22:40

• Black Friday Chaos: Amazon Warehouse Workers Set To Strike Across 40 Countries
  Black Friday Chaos: Amazon Warehouse Workers Set To Strike Across 40 Countries

  Thousands of workers across approximately 40 countries are planning to take part in ‘Black Friday’ protests to demand better wages and working conditions in the company’s warehouses, as the global cost-of-living crisis increases

  

  The protests will coincide with the largest holiday shopping season of the year, which means Amazon warehouse workers are going to be very busy for the next week as consumers panic buy deeply discounted items, though there might be a huge problem: less than 24 hours before the big sale begins, Bloomberg reported Amazon warehouse workers across 40 countries are about to strike.

  We would note that the world’s biggest retailer has longstanding ambitions to automate its warehouses – with robots that don’t strike. 

  Amazon workers in the US, UK, India, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and across Europe are set to walk out of warehouses on Friday as they demand higher wages and better working conditions amid the worst inflationary environment the world has seen in decades. 

  The labor action is called “Make Amazon Pay” and is coordinated by an army of trade unions, with support from civil society and environmental groups. 

  “For workers and consumers, the price of everything is going up. And for everyone, the global temperature is rising and our planet is under stress. But instead of supporting its workers, communities and the planet, Amazon is squeezing every last drop it can,” Make Amazon Pay’s website said. 

  Make Amazon Pay is correct by outlining “real wages are going down”… and as we noted not too long ago, have been negative for 19 months — hence why labor unions have gained so much traction. 

  

  “It’s time for the tech giant to cease their awful, unsafe practices immediately, respect the law and negotiate with the workers who want to make their jobs better,” said UNI Global Union general secretary, Christy Hoffman.

  The group also outlines Amazon’s corporate greed, not paying taxes, and polluting the world. It also published a map of all the strike locations. 

  

  The company replied to the protests, saying “While we are not perfect in any area, if you objectively look at what Amazon is doing on these important matters you’ll see that we do take our role and our impact very seriously,” pointing to the company’s green ambitions to reach net zero status by 2040, which is “continuing to offer competitive wages and great benefits, and inventing new ways to keep our employees safe and healthy.”

  Ah, that settles it then.

  Unions in France and Germany – CGT and Ver.di – are spearheading the latest collective action, with coordinated strikes in 18 major warehouses, intended to disrupt shipments across key European markets.

  Monika di Silvestre, head of Ver.di’s Amazon committee in Germany, said that workers were particularly concerned about the way their productivity was closely monitored by computers, with algorithms determining targets, for example for the number of packages they need to handle per hour. -Stars & Stripes

  “The workers are under a lot of pressure with these algorithms,” said di Silvestre, adding “It doesn’t differentiate between workers, whether they are old or have limited mobility. Workers stay awake at night thinking only of their productivity stats.”

  Amazon warehouse employees have been speaking out against working conditions for years – notably complaining of low pay, pressure not to take sick leave when ill, and having to work so many hours they’re forced to urinate in bottles.

  It’s not clear how disruptive the strikes will be for Amazon, but it’s just another reason why the world’s biggest retailer is full steam ahead in automating warehouse (read: “Amazon Unveils Warehouse Robot To Replace Human Pickers Amid Unionization Threats”). 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 22:05

• MIT Reports Breakthrough In Solid-State Lithium Battery Development
  MIT Reports Breakthrough In Solid-State Lithium Battery Development

  By Brian Westenhaus of OilPrice.com

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s new discovery could finally usher the development of solid-state lithium batteries, which would be more lightweight, compact, and safe than current lithium batteries. The growth of metallic filaments called dendrites within the solid electrolyte has been a longstanding obstacle, but the new study explains how dendrites form and how to divert them. This is a goal that’s been pursued by labs around the world for years.

  The key to this potential leap in battery technology is replacing the liquid electrolyte that sits between the positive and negative electrodes with a much thinner, lighter layer of solid ceramic material, and replacing one of the electrodes with solid lithium metal. This would greatly reduce the overall size and weight of the battery and remove the safety risk associated with liquid electrolytes, which are flammable.

  But that quest has been beset with one big problem: dendrites.

  Dendrites, whose name comes from the Latin for branches, are projections of metal that can build up on the lithium surface and penetrate into the solid electrolyte, eventually crossing from one electrode to the other and shorting out the battery cell. Researchers haven’t been able to agree on what gives rise to these metal filaments, nor has there been much progress on how to prevent them and thus make lightweight solid-state batteries a practical option.

  The new research published in the journal Joule in a paper by MIT Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, graduate student Cole Fincher, and five others at MIT and Brown University, seems to resolve the question of what causes dendrite formation. It also shows how dendrites can be prevented from crossing through the electrolyte.

  Chiang said in the group’s earlier work, they made a “surprising and unexpected” finding, which was that the hard, solid electrolyte material used for a solid-state battery can be penetrated by lithium, which is a very soft metal, during the process of charging and discharging the battery, as ions of lithium move between the two sides.

  This shuttling back and forth of ions causes the volume of the electrodes to change. That inevitably causes stresses in the solid electrolyte, which has to remain fully in contact with both of the electrodes that it is sandwiched between. “To deposit this metal, there has to be an expansion of the volume because you’re adding new mass,” Chiang said. “So, there’s an increase in volume on the side of the cell where the lithium is being deposited. And if there are even microscopic flaws present, this will generate a pressure on those flaws that can cause cracking.”

  Those stresses, the team has now shown, cause the cracks that allow dendrites to form. The solution to the problem turns out to be more stress, applied in just the right direction and with the right amount of force.

  While previously, some researchers thought that dendrites formed by a purely electrochemical process, rather than a mechanical one, the team’s experiments demonstrate that it is mechanical stresses that cause the problem.

  The process of dendrite formation normally takes place deep within the opaque materials of the battery cell and cannot be observed directly, so Fincher developed a way of making thin cells using a transparent electrolyte, allowing the whole process to be directly seen and recorded. “You can see what happens when you put a compression on the system, and you can see whether or not the dendrites behave in a way that’s commensurate with a corrosion process or a fracture process,” he said.

  The team demonstrated that they could directly manipulate the growth of dendrites simply by applying and releasing pressure, causing the dendrites to zig and zag in perfect alignment with the direction of the force.

  Applying mechanical stresses to the solid electrolyte doesn’t eliminate the formation of dendrites, but it does control the direction of their growth. This means they can be directed to remain parallel to the two electrodes and prevented from ever crossing to the other side, and thus rendered harmless.

  In their tests, the researchers used pressure induced by bending the material, which was formed into a beam with a weight at one end. But they say that in practice, there could be many different ways of producing the needed stress. For example, the electrolyte could be made with two layers of material that have different amounts of thermal expansion, so that there is an inherent bending of the material, as is done in some thermostats.

  Another approach would be to “dope” the material with atoms that would become embedded in it, distorting it and leaving it in a permanently stressed state. This is the same method used to produce the super-hard glass used in the screens of smart phones and tablets, Chiang explained. And the amount of pressure needed is not extreme: The experiments showed that pressures of 150 to 200 megapascals were sufficient to stop the dendrites from crossing the electrolyte.

  The required pressure is “commensurate with stresses that are commonly induced in commercial film growth processes and many other manufacturing processes,” so should not be difficult to implement in practice, Fincher added.

  Fischer explained that in fact, a different kind of stress, called stack pressure, is often applied to battery cells, by essentially squishing the material in the direction perpendicular to the battery’s plates – somewhat like compressing a sandwich by putting a weight on top of it. It was thought that this might help prevent the layers from separating. But the experiments have now demonstrated that pressure in that direction actually exacerbates dendrite formation. “We showed that this type of stack pressure actually accelerates dendrite-induced failure,” he said.

  What is needed instead is pressure along the plane of the plates, as if the sandwich were being squeezed from the sides. “What we have shown in this work is that when you apply a compressive force you can force the dendrites to travel in the direction of the compression,” Fincher said, and if that direction is along the plane of the plates, the dendrites “will never get to the other side.”

  That could finally make it practical to produce batteries using solid electrolyte and metallic lithium electrodes. Not only would these pack more energy into a given volume and weight, but they would eliminate the need for liquid electrolytes, which are flammable materials.

  Having demonstrated the basic principles involved, the team’s next step will be to try to apply these to the creation of a functional prototype battery, Chiang said, and then to figure out exactly what manufacturing processes would be needed to produce such batteries in quantity. Though they have filed for a patent, the researchers don’t plan to commercialize the system themselves, he said, as there are already companies working on the development of solid-state batteries. “I would say this is an understanding of failure modes in solid-state batteries that we believe the industry needs to be aware of and try to use in designing better products,” he said.

  The research team included Christos Athanasiou and Brian Sheldon at Brown University, and Colin Gilgenbach, Michael Wang, and W. Craig Carter at MIT. The work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

  ***

  Assuming the press release has adequate data for not being certain this work will yield a prototype battery, the odds are that there will be a successful prototype built. How many models are tried and what works in the end is very much in the air for now.

  On the other hand the mechanical formation research result looks quite compelling and actually makes reasoned sense now that it is explained. That raises questions. Does the dendrite formation greatly impede the battery capacity and function or does that added dendrite surface area increase it? Then one wonders how the dendrite formation impacts overall lifespan?

  This effort isn’t over yet. But this is a significant milestone with lots of clues and hints on where further research might go. It looks like solid state lithium metal batteries are just a matter of innovation, insight and creativity away from the market.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 21:30

• Is Mercedes Intentionally Detuning Its EVs To Charge $1,200 Yearly "Acceleration" Fee
  Is Mercedes Intentionally Detuning Its EVs To Charge $1,200 Yearly “Acceleration” Fee

  Mercedes-Benz is the latest auto manufacturer to unveil a subscription fee to unlock perks, such as the ability to boost acceleration. 

  The $1,200 yearly subscription is called “Acceleration Increase” and can be found on Mercedes’ online store. 

  “COMING SOON – Accelerate more powerfully: increase the torque and maximum output of your Mercedes-EQ,” reads the description on the online store. It’s available for all upcoming EQ electric models that will “improvement in acceleration of 0.8 to 1.0 seconds (0-60 MPH).” 

  

  According to The Drive, the performance improvements will only cost owners $1,200 a year. Here’s what owners get: 

  • Mercedes-EQ EQE 350 4MATIC (from 288 horsepower to 349 horsepower/0-60 mph from 6.0 to 5.1 seconds)
  • Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV 350 4MATIC (from 288 horsepower to 349 horsepower/0-60 mph from 6.2 to 5.2 seconds)
  • Mercedes-EQ EQS 450 4MATIC (from 355 horsepower to 443 horsepower/0-60 mph from 5.3 to 4.5 seconds)
  • Mercedes-EQ EQS SUV 4MATIC (from 355 horsepower to 443 horsepower/0-60 mph from 5.8 to 4.9 seconds)

  Is it worth it? Absolutely no. Those 0-60 mph times are awful when compared to other EVs. Plus, you don’t have to pay extra. This might prove that Mercedes intentionally detuned the EQ models to allow such a subscription. 

  This comes several months after BMW introduced the ConnectedDrive Store, a portal for existing owners can download various apps over the air to upgrade features on their vehicle, similar to how Tesla offers upgraded Autopilot subscriptions for a hefty monthly fee. 

  However, BMW sparked social media uproar by charging an $18 monthly subscription in some countries for owners to use heated seats already installed in the vehicle. 

  Subscription fees appear to be the new normal for the automotive industry to slap customers with to unlock extra technology or performance even though the vehicles already have capabilities. These fees sound like a scam. 

  The internet wasn’t too thrilled about this…,

  The most ridiculous part of this is that if you purchase the vehicle, you shouldn’t have to spend any additional money on performance for the BASE vehicle. I feel like this would have to be easy to get around through the ECU.

  — Tyler Sloboda (@A_Username_Here) November 24, 2022

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  In case anyone forgot this is “their” plan for us pic.twitter.com/O0MCBRmhVn

  — A man has no name 🇨🇩 (@CaptainPree) November 24, 2022

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  Microtransactions have come to destroy everything we enjoy https://t.co/oK7uiRsZhI

  — Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 24, 2022

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  Imagine your airbags won’t deploy because you missed a subscription payment 💀

  — BalaSiva (@L3VIfps) November 24, 2022

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  This type of stuff should be made illegal before it’s too late and we’re paying to use our seatbelts

  — AxoLofa (@AxoLofa) November 24, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 20:55

• "If You Don't Know What's On The Thanksgiving Menu, It's You"
  “If You Don’t Know What’s On The Thanksgiving Menu, It’s You”

  By Michael Every of Rabobank

  If you wanted to embody how the turkeys running things react when confronted with the fact that they voted for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it would be Bankman-Fraud being invited to speak at a New York Times event next week alongside Yellen, President Zelenskiy, and Ben Affleck/Batman. Alleged harems, billions of dollars in client money missing, and public accusations it was used as a personal and political piggy bank? Hey – have a seat alongside the global elite (and Batman) to say sorry and tell us about all the good things you did! Madoff obviously wasn’t available.

  

  If only this nonsense were a one-off, but the market heads into the US Thanksgiving holiday in fine mood because ‘the Fed minutes were dovish’, confirming their wrong-all-year view. Yet the compromise between Fed doves, who are there, and Fed hawks, who are running things, is that while the pace of hikes will slow, the ultimate level of rates will be higher. If I carve you with a smaller knife, but more times, is that ‘dovish’? Try ‘turkey-ish’! Philip Marey, well ahead of the Street in calling a 5% peak, has his view here: he thinks 50bp is coming in December, but rates aren’t going down at all until 2024. That’s a sour cranberry, or real stuffing for some turkeys given Treasury yields fell after the minutes, and the dollar sold off.

  Note the RBNZ flirted with 100bp yesterday before going a record 75, and are saying their overnight cash rate needs to hit 5.5%, even at the cost of 3-quarter recession. Yes, rates are contractionary there – and they want them to be: “Spend wisely this Christmas,” said Governor Orr as he signed off, literally encouraging Kiwis to not be turkeys, and to save, not spend. Likewise, the BOC governor just told parliament that Canadian rates need to rise even higher because inflation is not under control. Again, note the absence of turkeys.

  In China, there is buzz about another cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR). There are still turkeys who think this matters despite umpteen RRR cuts already to no effect. As Covid cases soar, lockdowns intensify, and footage of unrest emerges at the world’s largest iPhone factory, Bloomberg asks, ‘Is a Wealth Tax How Xi Fills China’s Empty Coffers?’ Months ago Western investment banks were piling into ‘wealth management opportunities’; now, some are slashing jobs after seeing only ‘poultry’ returns. Relatedly, Bloomberg flagged ‘High-Yield Party Returns to Emerging Markets Too Cheap to Ignore’ earlier this week; how long until the ‘Oops, They Got a Lot Cheaper’ headline emerges?

  In Europe, ECB speakers were generally hawkish. However, European politicians said ‘yelp’ – which is what a turkey says, as well as having the more regular meaning of surprise/panic.

  From January, Germany will start a “double-kaboom” policy. Not losing to two late goals in football, which the rest of Europe would love, but a EUR200bn gas and electricity subsidy, which Europe won’t. Households and SMEs will see gas prices capped at 12 EUR cents gross/KwH for 80% of their previous consumption until April 2024, and electricity at 40 EUR cents/KwH. For industry, the gas cap is 7 EUR cents net for 70% of consumption, and electricity is 13 EUR cents plus taxes, levies, and surcharges. Notably, Germany has already faced EU anger over the fact that it can afford to save itself while others can’t: with Germans looking after Germans in this crisis, which Germans looking after Germans got the EU into, expect EU knives to be sharpened.

  Moreover, Politico says ‘EU plans subsidy war chest as industry faces ‘existential’ threat from US’, noting: “If it weren’t enough that energy prices look set to remain permanently far higher than those in the US thanks to Russia’s war in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden is also currently rolling out a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act. EU officials fear that businesses will now face almost irresistible pressure to shift new investments to the US rather than Europe. EU industry chief Thierry Breton is warning that Biden’s new subsidy package poses an “existential challenge” to Europe’s economy.

  The European Commission and countries including France and Germany have realized they need to act quickly if they want to prevent the Continent from turning into an industrial wasteland… the EU is now working on an emergency scheme to funnel money into key high-tech industries.”

  In short, the EU will resist US mercantilism; which is resisting Chinese mercantilism; which Europe has had no issue with for decades. Yet Europe overlooks that they are the least prepared bloc for such a realpolitik backdrop: talk about turkeys voting for Christmas! Indeed, they are saying they will push back against pro-EU President Biden while:

  • Running large twin deficits, as the German fiscal deficit is about to get much larger due to the “double-kaboom”, which smells like a potential market Cluster-Truss;
  • The EU energy crisis is only being tempered by imports of LNG from the US;
  • The EU are reliant on US weapons to fight the must-win war in Ukraine;
  • The EU are reliant on exports to the US; and
  • The EU are reliant on Eurodollar swaplines from the US to maintain financial stability at a time when the Fed is raising rates, which it still is.

  More realistically, the EU also announced a gas price cap that does not actually cap gas prices; and the G7 announced a Russian oil price cap that does not actually cap the price of Russian oil.

  On energy, gas prices are low now, but will only rise over 2023. Oil prices are sending a clearer signal, but wait and see what happens if the Fed does what the market wants for Christmas. I have kept saying that when we see long US yields go down and commodities tumble it will mean something: we are seeing that now.

  Yet yelp all you want, but that is not compatible with a weaker dollar. If the US is in trouble, try being everyone else with a lag. Mercantilism is a force very much on the US side, and is as much a story for 2023 as any ‘pivots’.

  As they say, if you don’t know what’s on the Thanksgiving menu – it’s you.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 20:15

• "They're Trying To Run Out The Clock": Kari Lake Files 1st Lawsuit After Election
  “They’re Trying To Run Out The Clock”: Kari Lake Files 1st Lawsuit After Election

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Nov. 23 filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County.

  

  Lake sued Stephen Richer, the county’s recorder, and other officials in Arizona Superior Court. She’s asking the court to compel the officials to promptly produce records on the administration of the midterm elections, which featured widespread issues in the state’s largest county.

  “Given instances of misprinted ballots, the commingling of counted and uncounted ballots, and long lines discouraging people from voting, as demonstrated in the attached declarations, these records are necessary for Plaintiff to determine the full extent of the problems identified and their impacts on electors,” the 19-page suit states.

  Maricopa County officials have acknowledged that tabulators across many polling sites stopped working properly on election day. Among the advised solutions was voters placing their ballots into a box to be counted later. Declarations attached to the new suit from poll observers say that workers mixed counted and uncounted ballots in the same container at the end of the night.

  Another solution to the tabulator problem was a voter checking out of a site and utilizing a mail-in ballot. To try to figure out the extent of the problems, the Lake campaign on Nov. 15 requested information such as all records related to voters who checked into a site and who also submitted a ballot by mail. The campaign sent another request on Nov. 16. None of the records have been produced yet, which violates Arizona law that public record requests must be fulfilled “promptly,” the suit states.

  “We need information from Maricopa County,” Lake said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room.”

  “They ran the shoddiest election ever, in history, and we want some information. We’re on a timeline, a very strict timeline when it comes to fighting this botched election. And they’re dragging their feet. They don’t want to give us the information, so we’re asking the courts to force them to give us the information.”

  At present, Lake’s opponent Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who serves as Arizona’s secretary of state, is ahead in the race. Maricopa County is scheduled to canvass the results on Nov. 28, with the state following on Dec. 5. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey this week said he’s working to help Hobbs transition to become governor.

  The suit asks the court to compel the county to produce the records prior to the canvassing. “This deadline (or its substantial equivalent) is, under the circumstances presented, necessary to ensure that vital public records are furnished promptly and that apparent deficiencies can be remedied before canvassing of the 2022 general election,” it says.

  Maricopa County did not return requests for comment on a different lawsuit filed this week by Abe Hamadeh, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, and the Republican National Committee. Its offices were closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

  

  An election worker carries trays filled with mail in ballots to open and verify at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 11, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

  Attorney General

  The office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, recently requested information from Thomas Liddy, the chief of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office’s Civil Division, after receiving hundreds of complaints about issues related to the midterms.

  “These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright wrote.

  “Furthermore, statements made by both Chairman Gates and Recorder Richer, along with information Maricopa County released through official modes of communication appear to confirm potential statutory violations of title 16.”

  The information indicated that the county did not uniformly administer the election, as is required by state and federal law, and that poll workers weren’t trained to check out voters who left sites where the tabulators weren’t working right, she added.

  Wright requested the information on or before the county submits its canvass to the secretary of state because the issues “relate to Maricopa County’s ability to lawfully certify election results.”

  Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, said in a statement that the county would not delay the canvass.

  “Prior to the canvass, the County will respond to a letter from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office requesting information about the administration of the November General Election,” he said at the time.

  “Board members received this letter on Saturday night and had a team working on a response all day Sunday, even as staff continued counting votes. We look forward to answering the AG’s questions with transparency as we have done throughout this election.”

  Brnovich’s office has not indicated that the county has provided the information, nor has the county said it handed over the information.

  Lake said on “War Room” that the county is “trying to run out the clock,” referring to the looming canvass.

  Not the ‘Main Case’

  At least one other lawsuit is in the works, according to Lake.

  “This is not our main case. When our main case drops, they will hear it,” she said.

  Lake reiterated that whistleblowers are coming forward and that officials “better think long and hard” before certifying the election in light of the widespread issues that unfolded in Maricopa County.

  The forthcoming suit may cite findings from nearly a dozen Republican attorneys who observed the election at Maricopa County sites and attested to the tabulator failures being more widespread than county officials presented.

  The issues led to “substantial voter suppression,” attorney Mark Sonnenklar wrote in a memorandum summarizing the findings. Since Republicans voted in larger numbers on the day than Democrats, “such voter suppression would necessarily impact the vote tallies for Republican candidates much more than the vote tallies for Democrat candidates,” he added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 19:10

• The Ridiculous Reality Of The "Russian Oil Price Cap" Debate In One Picture
  The Ridiculous Reality Of The “Russian Oil Price Cap” Debate In One Picture

  By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

  Bloomberg reports EU Talks Stall Over Price Level for Proposed Russian Oil Cap

  The EU’s executive arm proposed a level of $65 a barrel, which Poland and the Baltic nations rejected as being too generous to Moscow, the people said. But several countries with major shipping industries, including Greece, don’t want to go below $70, the upper end of the range put forward by the EU earlier Wednesday.

  $70 is about where Russian oil known as Urals trades right now. 

  

  Reuters reports EU Split on Russian Oil Price Cap Level, Talks to Resume Thursday

  • Representatives of the EU’s 27 governments met in Brussels to discuss a G7 proposal to set the price cap in the range of $65-$70 per barrel, but the level proved too low for some and too high for others.
  • Poland, Lithuania and Estonia believe the $65-$70 per barrel would leave Russia with too high a profit, since production costs are around $20 per barrel.
  • Cyprus, Greece and Malta – countries with big shipping industries that stand to lose the most if Russian oil cargos are obstructed – think the cap is too low and demand compensation for the loss of business or more time to adjust.

  Enforcing the Cap

  The kicker is amusing: “EU diplomats said most EU countries, with G7 members France and Germany taking the lead, were supportive of the price cap, worried only about the ability to enforce it.”

  This brings us back to how any economist can possibly think such a cap might work.

  The Incentive to Cheat

  For further discussion of the obvious that many economists refuse to see, please consider the Carnegie article  The Flaw in the Plan to Cap Russian Oil Prices

  Whenever countries on sanctions lists face difficulties in selling their natural resources, creative minds will find a way to thwart the proposed measures with help from companies prepared to turn a blind eye to the shady elements of ostensibly legal transactions. Oil shipments could be bundled with some symbolic but pricey services, such as customs services, laboratory analysis, or document translation. Another scheme would involve loading a supposedly full 80,000-ton oil tanker with only 50,000 barrels of oil, bringing the cargo price per barrel closer to the market price.

  Such schemes would, of course, require some collusion on the part of intermediary countries, but that is unlikely to be a problem.  In recent months, Malaysia’s oil exports to China have exceeded the country’s actual oil production by one-third. Malaysia also cooperates with Iran and Venezuela in contravention of sanctions regimes. 

  Paradoxically, Russia may get some help from the OPEC countries here. For them, an emerging buyers’ cartel risks potentially manipulating the entire oil market and its prices. If the cartel succeeds in forcing Russia to obey its rules, the Arab countries may be next. If Russia counters the price cap by reducing its output, therefore, Saudi Arabia may be reluctant to increase its oil exports to compensate for the reduction, whether it has sufficient available production capacity or not.

  Finally, the jury is still out on whether India and China, the biggest new buyers of Russian oil, are prepared to join the price cap coalition.

  Western Allies Aim to Agree on Russian Oil Price Cap Wednesday

  The Wall Street Journal reports Western Allies Aim to Agree on Russian Oil Price Cap Wednesday emphasis mine.

  The aim of the plan, which was pushed hard by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, is to crimp Russian energy exports revenue while avoiding a surge in oil prices when a European embargo on Russian oil imports kicks in early next month. Despite European reluctance at the time, the G-7 first agreed on setting the oil price cap in June following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

  Aim of the Plan

  The aim of the plan is to not eat Russian cake while eating Russian cake.

  It’s quite amazing that anyone thinks the plan can possibly work, but president Biden, the EU, Janet Yellen and even prominent economists think the cap is a good idea.

  Q&A Why Not?

  Q: Why not cap the price of everything and end inflation?
  A: Figure it out.

  Q: Is it possible a cap might seem to work?
  A: Yes. If the cap is set high enough it will be meaningless.

  And if by some lucky fate a cap is set where the direction of oil is headed anyway, then the economic illiterates will be hooting and cheering their alleged success.

  Why Won’t Caps Work?

  • China, India and other countries will not go along. That’s enough right there to show the ridiculousness of the idea.
  • Countries in the EU have an incentive to cheat. 

  One of Two Things

  1. The cap will fail and do nothing.
  2. The cap fail spectacularly and drive up the price by re-routing oil headed to the EU to China and India instead. Then the EU will have to get oil from the US or OPEC over longer routes increasing the cost.

  The above two points are in isolation. But things should not be viewed in isolation. Given a pending global recession, oil prices are likely to drop anyway.

  If they do, then as noted above, the economic illiterates will be hooting and cheering the alleged success of caps.

  Related Articles

  • Wild Oil Price Swings on an OPEC Rumor Followed by a Denial
  • The Biden Oil Fiasco Continues With Export Control Threats
  • G-7 Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil Using a Buyer’s Cartel

  That third bullet point is from June 27. The US and EU have been struggling since then trying to get agreement on price caps. The bloc still needs approval from all 27 nations on a precise cap.

  Many of the above points were also in my November 22 post Under Pressure From the US, EU Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil.

  The struggle to get agreement stems from the impossibility of the goal to not eat Russian cake while eating Russian cake. That alone tells you the plan is doomed: this cap idea is so stupid that only economists and politicians are dumb enough to believe it can work. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 18:35

• EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Caps
  EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Caps

  By Alex Kimani of OilPrice.com

  

  Plans to introduce price caps on natural gas prices have hit a dead-end after EU energy ministers on Thursday failed to reach an agreement amid deep divisions. 

  Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela has, however, said that the ministers did manage to agree on other “important measures”, including joint gas purchases, supply solidarity in times of need and expediting the authorization process for renewable energy. Sikela has also revealed that the ministers will meet again In December to try and work out their differences.

  Earlier this week, the European Commission issued a statement whereby it declared what it called a “safety price ceiling” for gas prices set at 275 euros, or $283 dollars, per megawatt-hour.  

  The EC also planned to tie benchmark European gas futures prices to the price of liquefied natural gas on the spot market. The “safety price ceiling” would be triggered automatically, when “the front-month TTF derivative settlement price exceeds €275 for two weeks” and, second, when “TTF prices are €58 higher than the LNG reference price for 10 consecutive trading days within the two weeks”.

  Both moves have caused trepidation amongst gas traders, “Even a short intervention would have severe, unintended and irreversible consequences in harming market confidence that the value of gas is known and transparent,” said the European Federation of Energy Traders this week.

  Earlier in the year, Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, hatched a radical plan to contain the oil price hike. The former European Central Bank president floated the idea of creating a “cartel” of oil consumers at a meeting with Joe Biden in order to increase their bargaining power similar to how the biggest oil-producing nations came together through OPEC to agree annual oil production quotas. The two met at the White House in order to coordinate their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic fallout from the conflict.

  “We are both dissatisfied with the way things work, in terms of oil for the US and in terms of gas for Europe. Prices don’t have any relationship with supply and demand,” Draghi said.

  According to Brussels think tank Bruegel, since September 2021, Germany, France, Italy and Spain–four of the largest EU economies–have each spent €20bn-€30bn to artificially lower energy prices. However, these subsidies are viewed as less than ideal since they help to fund Moscow, drain public finances and harm the environment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 18:00

• Fired AP Reporter Who 'Risked Triggering WWIII' Actually Did Nothing Wrong
  Fired AP Reporter Who ‘Risked Triggering WWIII’ Actually Did Nothing Wrong

  On Tuesday we reported that the Associated Press had fired reporter James LaPorta, two days before his birthday, over an erroneous report which cited a ‘senior US intelligence official,’ who claimed that a Russian missile fired into Poland had killed two civilians.

  If true, the bombshell development could have potentially triggered ‘Article 5‘ – the mutual defense agreement between NATO members, risking WWIII.

  

  AP later retracted the story after it was revealed that Ukraine fired the missile, and the outlet issued the following correction which pinned blame on the anonymous intelligence official;

  In earlier versions of a story published November 15, 2022, The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on information from a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people. Subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.

  Five days after the report, LaPorta was fired. But Slack messages obtained by Semafor reveal that he did nothing wrong – aside from working for AP in the first place.

  The messages begin with LaPorta passing along a tip from a “senior American intelligence official” who was “vetted by Ron Nixon.” Nixon is an Associated Press vice president.

  

  Next, editor Lisa Leff asked if the wire service could run with the narrative despite having a single source – which is against AP‘s rules for anonymous sources.

  “that call is above my pay grade,” LaPorta replied.

  

  Another AP reporter, Vanessa Gera, suggests moving forward with the report, writing, “I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this.“

  

  Leff then asks PaPorta if he is “in position to work up an urgent” – to which he replies, “No, I’m actually at a doctor’s appointment. What I passed is all I know at the moment.”

  

  Then, Gera and Leff decide to run with it.

  

  In short, LaPorta – a former USMC infantryman, was fired after forwarding a tip from a vetted source, and then demurring when asked if he thought they should run with it.

  He has since been ordered not to comment on the situation, saying that he “would love to comment on the record, but I have been ordered by the AP to not comment.” As such, Zero Hedge has not reached out for comment.

  Oddly (or maybe there’s a perfectly good reason for it), journalist John Leichester’s name was also on the byline of the article in question despite being nowhere in the slack conversation – though he wasn’t fired.

  While LaPorta said Nixon had vetted his source, Nixon later said he did not know that the source was being cited for the missile story, according to people who spoke to David Bauder, an Associated Press reporter.

  The Associated Press has taken additional disciplinary action but declined to say against whom that action was taken. There have been no reports of any person besides LaPorta losing a job, including John Leicester, who was also listed on the byline.

  According to Bauder, Leicester was not involved with the anonymously sourced material being placed into the story. –The Epoch Times

  Most importantly, however, who was the anonymous ‘senior US intelligence official’ that fed LaPorta a false narrative which risked WWIII?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 17:45

• Epstein Accusers Sue JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank For Enabling Notorious Pedophile
  Epstein Accusers Sue JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank For Enabling Notorious Pedophile

  Multiple class action lawsuits filed by Jeffrey Epstein accusers accuses JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank of enabling Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse victims by turning a blind eye in order to “churn profits,” Bloomberg reports.

  

  The lawsuits, filed in a New York court, allege the banks had “knowingly benefited and received things of value for assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization.”

  JPMorgan was accused in the suit of “financially benefiting from participating” in the alleged sex trafficking through providing financial support from 1998 to August 2013. Deutsche Bank was accused of knowing that they would “earn million of dollars” from its relationship with Epstein. 

  Both suits are seeking unspecified damages and ask to be certified as a class action. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said the claim “lacks merit” and the bank will present its arguments in court. A spokesman for JPMorgan in London declined to comment. -Bloomberg

  “Epstein and his co-conspirators could not have victimized without assistance from wealthy individuals and financial institutions,” said Bradley Edwards of Edwards Pottinger, one of the firms representing victims. “We will not stop fighting for the survivors until everyone is held responsible.”

  And while Epstein’s client list has remained amazingly concealed during his – and sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell’s trials, the new class-action suits threaten to bring Epstein’s associations back into the spotlight – as a bevy of prominent financiers, entrepreneurs, celebrities, politicians and the British Royal Family have been associated with the dead pedophile (many of whom, like Bill Gates, had no problem hanging out with him after his first conviction).

  The UK’s Prince Andrew had to withdraw from public duties after a disastrous television interview about his ties to Epstein. Jes Staley abruptly stepped down as chief executive officer of Barclays Plc last year after UK regulators shared with Barclays the preliminary findings of their multi year probe into what he told the bank’s board about his relationship with Epstein.

  Staley has said that he knew Epstein since 2000 when he was head of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s private bank and was told to strike up a professional relationship with the financial adviser. -Bloomberg

  “Staley made sure Epstein and his illegal sexual abuse organization was absolutely protected by the bank,” reads the lawsuit, filed Nov. 24.

  Meanwhile, anonymous accusers are being represented by David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner, who represented Virginia Giuffre vs. Prince Andrew in a case which subsequently settled. We’re sure the prominent Democrat attorney wasn’t chosen to protect Epstein’s client list while ensuring Giuffre was also paid.

  Epstein, a prolific pedophile who was, by all appearances, running a honeypot operation on prominent men, “was found dead in his US jail cell in 2019,” Bloomberg reports – which omitted any suggestion that he committed suicide.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 17:25

• Biden Allocates $1.1 Billion To Keep California’s Nuclear Power Plant Operating
  Biden Allocates $1.1 Billion To Keep California’s Nuclear Power Plant Operating

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

  California’s last operating nuclear power plant was given another funding boost Nov. 21 as operators seek to keep it running for another eight years.

  

  The U.S. Energy Department awarded Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant $1.1 billion from the Civil Nuclear Credit Program funded by an infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 2021.

  “This is a critical step toward ensuring that our domestic nuclear fleet will continue providing reliable and affordable power to Americans as the nation’s largest source of clean electricity,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement on Nov. 21.

  

  Nuclear power provides half of the nation’s carbon-free electricity, according to the agency. Since 2013, 13 reactors across the United States have shuttered.

  Final terms of the funding will need to be finalized by the Energy Department, officials said. The plant produces about 15 percent of California’s renewable energy.

  It produced about 9 percent of the state’s energy last year, according to the state’s energy commission.

  Politicians applauded the funding that will help extend the life of the once-doomed power plant located in central California near San Luis Obispo.

  “This investment creates a path forward for a limited-term extension of the Diablo Canyon Power plant to support reliability statewide and provide an onramp for ore clean energy projects to come online,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

  Newsom signed legislation Sept. 1 to reverse plans to terminate the plant, which was scheduled to close in 2025.

  The bill was essential to prevent rolling blackouts and increased electricity prices in California, according to author Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa). It allows Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to continue operating the plant until 2030. It also authorized a forgivable loan of $1.4 billion from the state to help extend the operations.

  PG&E agreed six years ago to close the San Luis Obispo plant amid pressure from environmental groups and the local community.

  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement she welcomed the news.

  “This short-term extension is necessary if California is going to meet its ambitious clean-energy goals while continuing to deliver reliable power,” Feinstein wrote. “This is especially critical as California’s electric grid has faced increasing challenges from climate-fueled extreme weather events.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 16:50

• "Amnesty Begins Next Week": Musk To Reinstate Suspended Twitter Accounts En Masse
  “Amnesty Begins Next Week”: Musk To Reinstate Suspended Twitter Accounts En Masse

  Elon Musk has given politically divided families all the ammunition they need for an epic pie fight this Thanksgiving – announcing ‘general amnesty’ for suspended Twitter accounts as long as they haven’t broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.

  

  On Wednesday, Musk asked in a poll whether Twitter should offer “general amnesty to suspended accounts,” to which 72.4% voted “Yes”.

  “The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted Friday, adding “Amnesty begins next week.“

  “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” he said in closing – a Latin phrase meaning “The voice of the People, the voice of God.”

  The people have spoken.

  Amnesty begins next week.

  Vox Populi, Vox Dei.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

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

  Musk’s decision is sure to piss off even more advertisers, who have been pulling ad spending (as they underperform the market). Advertisers including Audi, General Mills, GM, United Airlines and Pfizer have all paused ads, leading to what Musk described as a “massive drop” in revenue.

  And… it looks like he gives exactly zero f**ks. (Though what of one Alex E. Jones?)

  Let the games begin!

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 16:15

• Socialism Sounds Good On Paper But It Was Deadly For The Pilgrims
  Socialism Sounds Good On Paper But It Was Deadly For The Pilgrims

  Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

  When I was a kid, we used to say some things only “sound good on paper.” In other words, they seem like good plans, but there is no way they’re going to work in the real world.

  That’s socialism in a nutshell.

  

  The Pilgrims found this out the hard way during their first couple of years in North America. Their experiment in socialism turned out deadly.

  Turns out, you can’t just ignore economics and human nature.

  Socialism really does sound good on paper though, right? We’re all going to own everything together and take care of each other. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.“

  It sounds so nice. And we all want to be nice, right? People are emotionally drawn to socialism because it sounds so good. It sounds fair. It sounds — nice.

  But do you know what’s not nice?

  Corpses.

  That’s exactly what happened the Pilgrims got when they took a stab at socialism.

  Most Americans don’t know that the Plymouth colony was originally an experiment in socialist utopianism and were it not for a complete 180 a couple of years in, we probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the bountiful feasts most of us will indulge in today. There would have been no Thanksgiving because there would have been nobody left to give thanks.

  When the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts on November 11, 1620, they placed all their food and provisions in a “common store.” These folks were forward thinkers. They didn’t even have Marx’s scribblings to appeal to. They set things up on the socialist principle of, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

  Things got off to a bad start in the new world. Conditions were miserable, as William Bradford described them.

  That which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months time half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases, so as there died sometimes two or three of a day, in the aforesaid time; that of 100 and odd persons, scarce 50 remained.”

  Now, the Pilgrim’s initial struggles didn’t really have anything to do with socialism. They just had the misfortune of landing in Massachusetts at the onset of winter. If you live in New England, you understand their pain.

  But even after their first summer, things didn’t improve much. The following fall, the Pilgrims harvested their first crops and again, they all went into the common store.

  Now, wasn’t that nice? No greed. Nobody getting any more than they should. Of course, nobody was getting much of anything at all – but still – they had to feel good about themselves, right? Because, after all, the system was fair.

  So, in November the ship Fortune arrived with more than 30 new settlers, mostly young men. More manpower was welcome, but according to accounts, they brought “not so much as a bisket-cake” with them. Now they had a meager supply of food in the common store and even more mouths to feed. The future looked bleak as food supplies ran out and the “planned socialist” community faced starvation yet again.

  The following year, the harvest was poor in spite of the added manpower. Nevertheless, the pilgrims again put the meager harvest in the common store. Because, you know, it’s going to work this time!

  It didn’t.

  That winter, they starved.

  The colonists were learning economics the hard way.

  Richard Grant in his book The Incredible Bread Machine wrote:

  “For two years the Pilgrims faithfully practiced communal ownership of the means of production. And for two years nearly starved to death, rationed at times to “but a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person.” Governor Bradford wrote that “famine must still ensue the next year also if not some way prevented.” He described how the colonists finally decided to introduce private property:

  [The colonists] began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. [In 1623] after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set down every man for his own … and to trust themselves … so assigned to every family a parcel of land. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, … and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little-ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”

  Reflecting on the experience of the previous two years, Bradford goes on to describe the folly of communal ownership:

  “The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Platosand other ancients, applauded by some of later times; — that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young-men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more indivision of victuals and cloths, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice…”

  Woah! Some people resented doing all the work? They didn’t work as hard when they knew they weren’t going to directly benefit?

  Shocking.

  Actually, it’s not shocking at all. It’s human nature. And we all know it.

  Now, we can lament the fact. We can say it shouldn’t be that way. We can finger-point and talk about greed. We can get all holier-than-thou and say we wouldn’t act that way (in other words lie). But people will still be people.

  Here’s a harsh truth: good intentions and feel-good policies can’t trump basic economics. You can dream of unicorns and lollipops all day, but it won’t change reality.

  Scarcity. Human behavior. Incentives. The experience of the Pilgrims vividly demonstrates basic economic principles. Their good intentions could not overpower the cold hard realities of economic principles. They never have. They never will.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 15:40

• Musk Tweets "Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta Now Available To Anyone" In US
  Musk Tweets “Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta Now Available To Anyone” In US

  The wait is finally over for Tesla owners who paid $10,000, or as of recently $15,000, for the controversial driver-assistance system, also known as “Full Self-Driving.” 

  Twitter, SpaceX, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday morning, “FSD Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option.”  

  Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option.

  Congrats to Tesla Autopilot/AI team on achieving a major milestone!

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

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

  FSD is Tesla’s upgraded “Autopilot” driver-assist feature that allows vehicles to navigate highways and city streets autonomously. Until now, some customers who paid the fee were blocked from using it “because they didn’t score high enough on metrics Tesla uses to set insurance rates,” explained Bloomberg. 

  Over the last six months, about 100,000 drivers were granted access to FSB Beta. Musk has promised a broader roll-out of FSD several times, though his timelines were off. In the latest 3Q22 earnings call, he indicated FSD would be available to all North American users who paid the fee: 

  “This quarter, we expect to go to a wide release of Full Self-Driving Beta in North America. So, anyone who has ordered Full Self-Driving will have access to the FSD Beta program this year, probably about a month from now. So – and then obviously, anyone who buys a car and purchases the Full Self-Driving option will immediately have to that available to them,” Musk said.

  The world’s richest man first promised FSD in 2018. Only a small number of “expert and careful drivers” received FSD in July 2021. On the last FSD release, Tesla lowered the requirement for at least 100 Autopilot miles and an 80 safety score, and now anyone who wants it can click a few buttons, sign a waiver, and presto… 

  Just got FSD on a car with 54 score and less than 100 miles on autopilot ! 114 kms 🇨🇦 Wide release here we goo!! pic.twitter.com/57dtzJalQp

  — 🤖FSD & Chill⚡️ (@MateenOmair) November 24, 2022

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

  Just got #FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 here in Toronto. Took it out for a drive in North York and this is the most confident FSD drive I’ve ever had. Zero takeovers within the ~30min drive.The turns are confident and navigation around parked cars on the roads are human-like.🤯10/10! #Tesla pic.twitter.com/JZzpvFqGDm

  — Ruiwen (@RuiwenHe) November 24, 2022

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

  FSD Beta Highway Merge Construction 🚧 @elonmusk $TSLA $Tesla pic.twitter.com/XTn3ADZhWp

  — Kevin Chunilal (@KevinChunilal) November 24, 2022

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

  FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 locked and loaded🙂
  Thank you team @Tesla pic.twitter.com/bSXKBHrmMK

  — Alicia Cryst  (@alicia_cryst) November 24, 2022

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

  However, over the years, we have not just pointed out delay after delay for FSD but also safety concerns around Autopilot.  

  In June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the first report highlighting that Tesla vehicles running on Autopilot were involved in 273 reported crashes over the past year. 

  “These technologies hold great promise to improve safety, but we need to understand how these vehicles are performing in real-world situations,” NHTSA’s administrator, Steven Cliff, told reporters over the summer. 

  Perhaps Musk’s wide release of FSD should make every non-Telsa driver a little bit more cautious when they see a Model S, Model 3, Model X, and or Model Y coasting down the highway or city street while the driver is distracted playing video games on an iPad while the car drives itself. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 15:05

• How To Talk To Family Members About Bitcoin This Thanksgiving
  How To Talk To Family Members About Bitcoin This Thanksgiving

  Authored by Joakim Book via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  I don’t…

  That’s it. That’s the article.

  

  In all sincerity, that is the full message: Just don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

  You’re not an excited teenager anymore, in desperate need of bragging credits or trying out your newfound wisdom. You’re not a preaching priestess with lost souls to save right before some imminent arrival of the day of reckoning. We have time.

  Instead: just leave people alone. Seriously. They came to Thanksgiving dinner to relax and rejoice with family, laugh, tell stories and zone out for a day — not to be ambushed with what to them will sound like a deranged rant in some obscure topic they couldn’t care less about. Even if it’s the monetary system, which nobody understands anyway.

  Get real.

  If you’re not convinced of this Dale Carnegie-esque social approach, and you still naively think that your meager words in between bites can change anybody’s view on anything, here are some more serious reasons for why you don’t talk to friends and family about Bitcoin the protocol — but most certainly not bitcoin, the asset:

  1. Your family and friends don’t want to hear it. Move on.
      
  2. For op-sec reasons, you don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to the fact that you probably have a decent bitcoin stack. Hopefully, family and close friends should be safe enough to confide in, but people talk and that gossip can only hurt you.
      
  3. People find bitcoin interesting only when they’re ready to; everyone gets the price they deserve. Like Gigi says in “21 Lessons:”

  “Bitcoin will be understood by you as soon as you are ready, and I also believe that the first fractions of a bitcoin will find you as soon as you are ready to receive them. In essence, everyone will get ₿itcoin at exactly the right time.”

  It’s highly unlikely that your uncle or mother-in-law just happens to be at that stage, just when you’re about to sit down for dinner.

  1. Unless you can claim youth, old age or extreme poverty, there are very few people who genuinely haven’t heard of bitcoin. That means your evangelizing wouldn’t be preaching to lost, ignorant souls ready to be saved but the tired, huddled and jaded masses who could care less about the discovery that will change their societies more than the internal combustion engine, internet and Big Government combined. Big deal.

  2. What is the case, however, is that everyone in your prospective audience has already had a couple of touchpoints and rejected bitcoin for this or that standard FUD. It’s a scam; seems weird; it’s dead; let’s trust the central bankers, who have our best interest at heart. No amount of FUD busting changes that impression, because nobody holds uninformed and fringe convictions for rational reasons, reasons that can be flipped by your enthusiastic arguments in-between wiping off cranberry sauce and grabbing another turkey slice.

  3. It really is bad form to talk about money — and bitcoin is the best money there is. Be classy.

  Now, I’m not saying to never ever talk about Bitcoin. We love to talk Bitcoin — that’s why we go to meetups, join Twitter Spaces, write, code, run nodes, listen to podcasts, attend conferences. People there get something about this monetary rebellion and have opted in to be part of it. Your unsuspecting family members have not; ambushing them with the wonders of multisig, the magically fast Lightning transactions or how they too really need to get on this hype train, like, yesterday, is unlikely to go down well.

  However, if in the post-dinner lull on the porch someone comes to you one-on-one, whisky in hand and of an inquisitive mind, that’s a very different story. That’s personal rather than public, and it’s without the time constraints that so usually trouble us. It involves clarifying questions or doubts for somebody who is both expressively curious about the topic and available for the talk. That’s rare — cherish it, and nurture it.

  Last year I wrote something about the proper role of political conversations in social settings. Since November was also election month, it’s appropriate to cite here:

  “Politics, I’m starting to believe, best belongs in the closet — rebranded and brought out for the specific occasion. Or perhaps the bedroom, with those you most trust, love, and respect. Not in public, not with strangers, not with friends, and most certainly not with other people in your community. Purge it from your being as much as you possibly could, and refuse to let political issues invade the areas of our lives that we cherish; politics and political disagreements don’t belong there, and our lives are too important to let them be ruled by (mostly contrived) political disagreements.”

  If anything, those words seem more true today than they even did then. And I posit to you that the same applies for bitcoin.

  Everyone has some sort of impression or opinion of bitcoin — and most of them are plain wrong. But there’s nothing people love more than a savior in white armor, riding in to dispel their errors about some thing they are freshly out of fucks for. Just like politics, nobody really cares.

  Leave them alone. They will find bitcoin in their own time, just like all of us did.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 14:30

• Fired Twitter Moderator Reveals "Worries" Over Platform's Free Speech Future
  Fired Twitter Moderator Reveals “Worries” Over Platform’s Free Speech Future

  Take one look at some of the employees fired from Twitter the past two weeks by Elon Musk and it’s easy to understand why the company operated as a far-left echo chamber for so long.  Though company executives claimed that the platform was “politically neutral” for many years, evidence is coming to light which confirms what we already knew – There was a severe leftist bias that permeated every aspect of the social media site which specifically targeted and censored any viewpoints or facts that did not fit with their narrative.

  Hilariously, Musk posted on the discovery of a supply closet at Twitter HQ containing activist swag including stacks of t-shirts which have “#StayWoke” printed on them.  A neutral company?  Not a chance.

  Most interesting of all has been the absolute distress and in some cases rage expressed by long time employees over Musk’s free speech position.  The level of open authoritarianism on display by the political left in the past few years has been astonishing, if not predictable.  The reaction to changes at Twitter solidifies this obsession in crystalline detail.  Here, former contracted Twitter employee (a male identifying as a trans female) hired as a “moderator” (censor) tells NBC about his worries when it comes to the company’s future as a free speech based platform.

  Musk fired over 4000 outside contractors this past week, most of them employed as moderators.  NBC’s message is relatively clear:  Free speech is a negative.  And, such an ideal being applied at Twitter overshadows the great harm being done to the poor innocent leftist employees who were doing God’s work by protecting platform users from unfiltered discussions. 

  The problem is, anyone can block anyone else on Twitter at any time and filter their own social media feeds, which completely debunks the common argument that people will be “harmed” by surprise exposure to politically incorrect discussions.  The next most exploited argument is that “hate speech” will run rampant on the site – But the term “hate speech” has become so diluted by false leftist accusations and fraudulent hype that it is now meaningless.  Even the term “groomer” was banned on Twitter before Elon Musk took over.

  The corporate media has spent the better part of the past week predicting the implosion of Twitter after the firing of several thousand workers.  At any moment the company was going to shut down, they claimed.  This has not happened, revealing a stark truth – The company runs just fine without them.  Those several thousand regular employees and contracted moderators were useless dead weight.  The proof is right there for the world to see. 

  Has the Earth exploded because of less moderation on Twitter?  No.  Has the Third Reich returned because gender identity warriors aren’t sitting on their laptops at home banning people who say Lizzo’s obesity is unhealthy or that men cannot be women, cannot menstruate and cannot have babies?  Nothing has happened.

  This leads us to a singular conclusion – Leftist censorship is about power and control, not about safety  They know it, and we know it.  And now, with Twitter out of their hands their denials can be challenged in an open forum.  It’s the one thing they fear the most.      

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 13:55

• Incoming GOP Congressman Fears Democrats Will Downplay FTX Scandal, Calls for 'Thorough' Investigation
  Incoming GOP Congressman Fears Democrats Will Downplay FTX Scandal, Calls for ‘Thorough’ Investigation

  Authored by John Ransom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A newly-elected GOP representative from New York said that he worries that Democrats will try to downplay potential campaign finance and securities law violations by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried using a lame-duck session of Congress before the new Congress is sworn in.

  

  Republican George Santos, 34, who won New York’s 3^rd Congressional District flipping the seat red, joined his congressional colleagues by calling for a “thorough investigation” when the new GOP Congress takes over next year.

  The spectacular collapse of FTX, a crypto-currency exchange that is headquartered in the Bahamas, which filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11 has left around million customers and other investors facing total losses of billions of dollars. Since then, reports have emerged that Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund established by Bankman-Fried, was trading billions of dollars from FTX accounts without clients’ knowledge.

  

  The House Financial Services Committee said last week it plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the FTX collapse. It said it expects to hear from companies and individuals involved, including Bankman-Fried, FTX, and Alameda Research.

  Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the United States needs “legislative action to ensure that digital assets entities cannot operate in the shadows outside of robust federal oversight.”

  But Santos is not convinced the Democrat-led committee will take robust action.

  “Waters has signaled that she’s not going to investigate Bankman-Fried and FTX as a class. So I’m a little concerned that the Democrats right now as lame-ducks in Congress, will deflect the issue between now and the start of the new Congress,” Santos, who is attending leadership meetings for the GOP this week, told The Epoch Times.

  “That’s something I’m very interested in investigating,” he added.

  Santos, who worked as a financial advisor and has asked for a Financial Services Committee assignment, said that “accountability is mandatory and absolutely necessary.”

  “Nobody should get away with this with impunity,” he added.

  Santos made news last week when he called some planned investigations by the House GOP, such probes of the COVID-19 origins, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of the pandemic, and Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, “hyperpartisan” issues.

  When speaking with the Epoch Times, Santos clarified his remarks, saying he was fine with any investigations, but that as a freshman legislator from New York with a background in financial services, he thought he could leave those decisions in the hands of party leadership.

  “I’m not opposed to investigating. I don’t think you’ll find someone more interested in investigating Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci, than I am” said Santos.

  “But I’ll leave that to the senior members of Congress who know how to do those things better than I do,” he added.

  Santos said that for him these weren’t his main issues, because he felt better versed in financial and economic matters. The incoming congressman confirmed that he has asked for assignments in both the financial services committee and foreign affairs committee.

  “We don’t have the power to just pass legislation, but we also have the power to hold people accountable,” Santos said of the FTX scandal.

  Donations to Democrats

  The FTX matter has taken on added urgency given that Bankman-Fried was the second-largest Democratic donor for the 2021–22 election cycle, donating over $38 million to various Democrat-aligned PACs with another $990,000 going to individual members of Congress.

  Many of the donations came from foreign addresses in Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, and Hong Kong, according to an analysis by the Epoch Times.

  According to data by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), of the 182 donations made by Bankman-Fried this election cycle, two donations came with no address, 16 donations came from a Hong Kong address, 68 came from U.S. addresses and 96 came from two addresses in Nassau, Bahamas.

  It’s legal for American citizens to donate to campaigns from foreign accounts, said attorney John Zakhem, whose practice areas includes federal election law.

  “If he tells you that he’s a U.S. citizen living in the Bahamas, there’s no prohibition against him making a contribution,” Zakem told The Epoch Times, adding that once a campaign checks that box they only worry about the funds clearing the bank.

  There is also no prohibition against Bankman-Fried having donated money to those in Congress who regulate the financial services arena.

  The Washington Free Beacon reported this week, citing FEC records, that Bankman-Fried and his colleagues at FTX donated $300,351 to nine members of the House Financial Services Committee, with “[s]ome of the largest contributions [made] to Democrats on the committee’s Digital Assets Working Group, which worked on regulation of the crypto industry.”

  An Ethics Issue 

  It’s this nexus between Bankman-Fried and the committee members that makes Santos concerned that the Democrats might try to downplay the scandal in the upcoming investigation.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/24/2022 – 13:20

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