- Escobar: Gaza – A Pause Before The Storm
Escobar: Gaza – A Pause Before The Storm
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,
The US and its allies will continue backing Israel’s war on Gaza after a brief truce. But as the case for ‘genocide’ grows stronger, the new multipolar powers will have to confront the old hegemons and their Rules-Based Chaos.
While the world cries “Israeli genocide,” the Biden White House is gushing over the upcoming Gaza truce it helped broker, as though it’s actually “on the verge” of its “biggest diplomatic victory.”
Behind the self-congratulatory narratives, the US administration is not remotely “wary about Netanyahu’s endgame,” it fully endorses it – genocide included – as agreed at the White House less than three weeks before Al-Aqsa Flood, in a 20 September meeting between Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe “The Mummy” Biden’s handlers.
The US/Qatar-brokered “truce,” which is supposed to go into effect this week, is not a ceasefire. It is a PR move to soften Israel’s genocide and boost its morale by securing the release of a few dozen captives. Moreover, the record shows that Israel never respects ceasefires.
Predictably, what really worries the US administration is the “unintended consequence” of the truce, which will “allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.”
Real journalists have been working in Gaza 24/7 since October 7 – dozens of whom have been killed by the Israeli military machine in what Reporters Sans Frontieres calls “one of the deadliest tolls in a century.”
These journalists have spared no effort to go all the way to “illuminate the devastation,” a euphemism for the ongoing genocide, shown in all its gruesome detail for the entire world to see.
Even the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), itself relentlessly attacked by Israel, revealed – somewhat meekly – that this has been “the largest displacement since 1948,” an “exodus” of the Palestinian population, with the younger generation “forced to live through traumas of ancestors or parents.”
As for public opinion all across the Global South/Global Majority, it “turned” long ago on Zionist extremism. But now the Global Minority – populations of the collective west – are watching raptly, horrified, and bitter that in just six weeks, social media has exposed them to what mainstream media hid for decades. There will be no turning back now that this penny has dropped.
A former Apartheid state leads the way
The South African government has paved the path, globally, for the proper reaction to an unfolding genocide: parliament voted to shutter the Israeli embassy, expel the Israeli ambassador, and cut diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv. South Africans do know a thing or two about apartheid.
They, like other critics of Israel, better be extra wary moving forward. Anything can be expected: an outbreak of foreign intel-conducted “terra terra terra” false flags, artificially induced weather calamities, fake “human rights abuse” charges, the collapse of the national currency, the rand, instances of lawfare, assorted Atlanticist apoplexy, sabotage of energy infrastructure. And more.
Several nations should have by now invoked the Genocide Convention – given that Israeli politicians and officials have been bragging, on the record, about razing Gaza and besieging, starving, killing, and mass-transferring its Palestinian population. No geopolitical actor has dared thus far.
South Africa, for its part, had the courage to go where few Muslim and Arab states have ventured. As matters stand, when it comes to much of the Arab world – particularly the US client states – they are still in Rhetorical Swamp territory.
The Qatar-brokered “truce” came at precisely the right time for Washington. It stole the spotlight from the delegation of Islamic/Arab foreign ministers touring selected capitals to promote their plan for a complete Gaza ceasefire in Gaza – plus negotiations for an independent Palestinian state.
This Gaza Contact Group, uniting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine, made their first stop in Beijing, meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and then on to Moscow, meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. That was definitely an instance of BRICS 11 already in action – even before they started business on January 1st, 2024, under the Russian presidency.
The meeting with Lavrov in Moscow was held simultaneously with an extraordinary online BRICS session on Palestine, called by the current South African presidency. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, whose country leads the region’s Axis of Resistance and refuses any relations with Israel, supported the South African initiatives and called for BRICS member states to use every political and economic tool available to pressure Tel Aviv.
It was also important to hear from Chinese President Xi Jinping himself that “there can be no security in the Middle East without a just solution to the question of Palestine.”
Xi stressed once again the need for “a two-state solution,” the “restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine,” and “the establishment of an independent state of Palestine.” This should all start via an international conference.
None of this is enough at this stage – not this temporary truce, not the promise of a future negotiation. The US administration, itself struggling with an unexpected global backlash, at best, arm-wrestled Tel Aviv to enact a short “pause” in the genocide. This means the carnage continues after a few days.
Had this truce been an actual “ceasefire,” in which all hostilities came to a halt and Israel’s war machine disengaged from the Gaza Strip entirely, the next-day options would still be pretty dismal. Realpolitik practitioner John Mearsheimer already cut to the chase: a negotiated solution for Israel-Palestine is impossible.
It takes a cursory glance at the current map to graphically demonstrate how the two-state solution – advocated by everyone from China-Russia to much of the Arab world – is dead. A collection of isolated Bantustans can never coalesce as a state.
Let’s grab all their gas
There has been thundering noise all across the spectrum that with the advent of the petroyuan getting closer and closer, the Americans badly need Eastern Mediterranean energy bought and sold in US dollars – including the vast gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
Enter the US administration’s energy security advisor, deployed to Israel to “discuss potential economic revitalization plans for Gaza centered around undeveloped offshore natural gas fields:” what a lovely euphemism.
But while Gaza’s gas is indeed a crucial vector, Gaza, the territory, is a nuisance. What really matters for Tel Aviv is to confiscate all Palestinian gas reserves and allot them to future preferential clients: the EU.
Enter the India-Middle East Corridor(IMEC) – actually the EU-Israel-Saudi Arabia-Emirates-India Corridor – conceived by Washington as the perfect vehicle for Israel to become an energy crossroads power. It fancifully imagines a US-Israel energy partnership trading in US dollars – simultaneously replacing Russian energy to the EU and halting a possible export increase of Iran’s energy to Europe.
We return to the 21st century’s main chessboard here: the Hegemon vs. BRICS.
Beijing has had steady relations with Tel Aviv so far, with lavish investment in Israeli high-tech industries and infrastructure. But Israel’s pounding of Gaza may change that picture: no real Sovereign can hedge when it comes to real genocide.
In parallel, whatever the Hegemon may come up with in its various hybrid and hot war scenarios against the BRICS, China, and its multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that will not alter Beijing’s rational and strategically formulated trajectory.
This analysis by Eric Li is all one needs to know about what lies ahead. Beijing has mapped out all relevant tech roads to follow in successive five-year plans, all the way to 2035. Under this framework, BRI should be considered a sort of geoeconomics UN without the G7. If you’re outside of BRI – and that concerns, to a large extent, old comprador systems and elites – you’re self-isolating from the Global South/Global Majority.
So what remains of this “pause” in Gaza? By next week, the western-backed cowards will restart their genocide against women and children, and they will not stop for a good long while. The Palestinian resistance and the 800,000 Palestinian civilians still living in northern Gaza – now surrounded on all sides by Israeli troops and armored vehicles – are proving that they are willing and able to bear the burden of fighting the Israeli oppressor, not only for Palestine but for everyone, everywhere, with a conscience.
Despite such a terrible price to be paid in blood, there will eventually be a reward: the slow but sure evisceration of the imperial construct in West Asia.
No mainstream media narrative, no PR move to soften the genocide, no containment of “public opinion turning on Israel” can ever cover the serial war crimes perpetrated by Israel and its allies in Gaza. Perhaps this is just what the Doctor – metaphysical and otherwise – ordered for mankind: an imperative global tragedy, to be witnessed by all, that will also transform us all.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/25/2023 – 00:00 - UAE Enforces Stricter Rules on Russian Firms In Clamp Down On Sanctions Evasion
UAE Enforces Stricter Rules on Russian Firms In Clamp Down On Sanctions Evasion
By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has become an attractive destination for Russian business after the invasion of Ukraine, has increased checks and enforced stricter banking rules on Russian companies amid rising U.S. pressure on the UAE to help clamp down on sanctions evasion.
Russian companies, which initially enjoyed easy money transfers and business dealings in the UAE, especially in Dubai, are now facing tougher rules and the need for more documents and proofs, entrepreneurs and consultants have recently told Bloomberg.
The UAE is looking to come off the so-called ‘grey list’ for financial crimes of the Financial Act Task Force (FATF). Therefore, the Gulf state is unwilling to be linked with risks related to sanctions, including the Western sanctions on Russian businesses, money transfers, and the energy industry.
The banking for Russian firms in the UAE has become more difficult, and the number of rejections from UAE banks have increased, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
The clampdown on Russian firms in the UAE comes as the West is considering toughening up the sanction enforcement on evaders of the price cap on Russian oil, almost none of which now trades below the ceiling of $60 per barrel.
Last month, the United States took a tougher stance on the sanctions against Russia and sanctioned two vessels for violating the price cap.
Just last week, the U.S. imposed sanctions on three maritime companies based in the UAE and three vessels owned by the companies for shipping Russian oil sold above the price cap.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 23:30 - Troops Discharged Over COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Sue US Government For Billions In Lost Wages
Troops Discharged Over COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Sue US Government For Billions In Lost Wages
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The former military members are seeking backpay, damages, and other compensation.
A Navy member prepares a COVID-19 vaccine dose at a vaccination site in a file image. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II via The Epoch Times) Nicholas Bassen, an Army sergeant who was discharged in 2022 for not getting a vaccine, wants compensation of at least $120,000.
The suits, filed in recent months, argue that when Congress compelled the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to rescind its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, lawmakers carefully chose their wording.
“Congress expressly chose the term ‘rescind’, rather than more customary language such as ‘repeal’, ‘amend’, or ‘clarify’, to direct the DoD and the courts that the rescission should be applied retroactively,” one states.
To support their argument, lawyers pointed to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s Jan. 10 memorandum, in which the retired general rescinded the mandate and ordered military leaders to remove adverse actions pertaining to vaccine refusal from the records of members still serving.
Mr. Austin also said that former members could lodge petitions to request corrections to their records.
“Secretary Austin acknowledged the Congressional directive to apply the Rescission retroactively by, among other things, committing to correct all of the paperwork and adverse personnel actions resulting from non-compliance with the now voided mandate and orders issued pursuant to it,” one of the suits states.
“We think there’s some pretty strong precedent in in our favor, because when Congress repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ they use the word ‘repeal’. When they did this, they use the word ‘rescind’,” Dale Saran, one of the attorneys representing the former members, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Everybody should be made whole again,” Mr. Saran added later. “They should be right back in the position they were before.”
Mr. Saran estimated that, if the suits are successful, then billions of dollars would go to former members.
He noted that the money was already appropriated by Congress for pay and other compensation before the military discharged more than 8,000 personnel for refusing to receive a vaccine.
Tens of thousands of National Guard personnel, meanwhile, were denied pay for being deemed out of compliance with the mandate.
All three class-action suits were filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Former members interested in joining the suits can go to militarybackpay.com.
U.S. Army soldiers prepare Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines at the Miami Dade College North Campus in North Miami on March 9, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Government Responds
Military leaders have resisted calls to award backpay to people affected by the mandate, and in court filings the government urged judges to dismiss the suits.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2023, which featured the language on rescinding the mandate, does not mandate money being awarded to affected members and former members, government lawyers told the courts.
In a section of the act, Congress said that “the secretary of defense shall rescind the mandate that members of the Armed Forces be vaccinated against COVID-19.”
“Nothing in the language of section 525 can be interpreted as mandating compensation retroactively for service members affected by the vaccination requirement retrospectively or prospectively,” the lawyers said in one filing. “Indeed, the language does not contemplate, much less mandate, any compensatory rights for service members.”
Even if plaintiffs were correct, Congress did not intend to award backpay, the lawyers said, referencing how a proposed amendment that would have clearly awarded compensation to discharged members was voted down.
“Such an amendment would have been unnecessary if the word ‘rescind’ already required the military to provide the monetary relief the plaintiffs seek,” they said.
Judges in the cases will rule in the future on the government’s motions to dismiss. If successful, appeals could be lodged. If judges rule against the government, then the cases will advance.
In a reply to the government, lawyers for the former members said that the defense act was a “money mandating” law, pointing to court decisions finding provisions such as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were money-mandating provisions.
“To the extent Congress left any discretion, the 2023 NDAA, in conjunction with the 2023 Appropriations Act, the Military Pay Act, and other federal laws and regulations identified in the complaint, are money-mandating because they provide clear standards for payment; state the precise amounts for payment; and set forth eligibility conditions for such payments,” they said.
Other Restoration
In addition to awarding backpay, the courts should order the military to correct the records of those discharged, according to the suits.
Lawyers for the former members also want the military ordered to restore retirement benefits and points, which are earned during duty.
Efforts to take money from members, such as the recoupment of enlistment bonuses, should also stop, the lawyers said.
“We’ve got clients who are getting debt collectors coming after them,” Mr. Saran said. “For example, say you are a guy who did a four-year hitch, and you got a signing bonus to reenlist, and you’re two-and-a-half years in when the mandate comes down. Then they kick you out and they go, ‘oh, you owe us that $25,000 signing bonus, too.’ So we got guys in collections.”
Mr. Bassen, for example, has been asked by the military to repay his signing bonus while a plaintiff in another one of the suits, Georgia Army Guard Sgt. First Class Brian Taylor, was forced to pay health insurance premiums after being barred from drilling and denied compensation.
Mr. Taylor, lawyers said, “seeks a return of the money illegally extracted from him by the U.S. government in [insurance] premiums, for the indebtedness the government created by its own unconstitutional acts and orders.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 23:00 - Tiny Fraction Of Global Elites Emit As Much Carbon As Bottom Two-Thirds Of Humanity
Tiny Fraction Of Global Elites Emit As Much Carbon As Bottom Two-Thirds Of Humanity
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Critics who rail against the hypocrisy of wealthy global elites jet-setting on carbon-spewing private planes while pontificating about the need for the rest of us to cut our climate footprints just got a boost from a new study.
Jets airplanes are parked at the Dubendorf Air Base, east of Zurich on Jan. 18, 2023. (Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images) It turns out that the world’s richest 1 percent emit about the same amount of carbon as the world’s poorest two-thirds, according to an analysis from the nonprofit Oxfam International.
This means that a small sliver of global elites, or 77 million people, have produced as much carbon as the 5 billion people that make up the bottom 66 percent by wealth, per the study.
The study also estimates that it would take roughly 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 percent to produce as much carbon as the wealthiest billionaires do in just one year.
The study was based on research compiled by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and examined the emissions of various income groups up to 2019. In summary, it suggested that the private jet-setting class of global leaders and policymakers, who take private planes to lead summits addressing the assumed dangers of climate change, may warrant charges of hypocrisy.
The analysis was published as global leaders prepare to meet for climate talks at the COP28 summit in Dubai later in November, where, much like other climate conferences, some elite participants will likely pontificate on the need for ordinary folk to end their reliance on cheap fossil fuel energy to make their ends meet.
‘Ludicrous Hypocrisy’
Global leaders and policymakers fixated on fighting the supposed ills of carbon emissions because of models predicting dangerous climate change have often drawn criticism for their use of carbon-spewing private jets.
For instance, private jet use during last year’s meetings in Davos, Switzerland, pushed up carbon emissions by four times over the average week.
During the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos between May 22, 2022, and May 26, 2022, 1,040 private jets flew in and out of airports serving Davos, according to a January report by Greenpeace.
The number of jets going in and out of Davos doubled during that week, resulting in 9,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to roughly 350,000 average cars.
The majority of these jets were attributed to private flights undertaken by participants for the WEF meeting.
Klara Maria Schenk, a transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s European mobility campaign, called the private jet use at Davos a “distasteful masterclass of hypocrisy,” given that the WEF claims to be committed to the Paris Climate Target of keeping climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Davos has a perfectly adequate railway station, still these people can’t even be bothered to take the train for a trip as short as 21 [kilometers]. Do we really believe that these are the people to solve the problems the world faces?” Ms. Schenk said.
It was much the same story for the 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where about 400 or so global leaders showed up on private jets, according to the Daily Mail.
“All this for ‘climate’ negotiations that obviously could have been done just as easily over Zoom or something similar for the negligible results that emerge,” award-winning novelist Roger L. Simon, a contributor to The Epoch Times, wrote in an op-ed titled “The Ludicrous Hypocrisy of Climate Conferences Continues.”
‘Climate Czar’ In Crosshairs
Private jets are estimated to emit 10 times more carbon dioxide per person compared to commercial flights and roughly 50 times when compared to trains. In total, aviation accounts for roughly 2 percent of carbon emissions globally.
Criticism over his use of a private jet to fly to climate summits may have been a factor in the decision of the family of John Kerry, special climate envoy of President Joe Biden, to sell the family’s private airplane.
Mr. Kerry drew criticism when, in 2019, he flew on a private jet to Iceland to accept an award for his climate leadership. According to some estimates, a round trip to Iceland by private jet would emit about 90 tons of carbon. By comparison, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that a typical passenger vehicle produces about 4.6 tons of carbon in a year.
Mr. Kerry’s family quietly sold off its Gulfstream G-IV jet last summer.
However, Mr. Kerry has defended his use of a private jet while being a prominent figure seeking to draw attention to climate change. In 2021, Mr. Kerry defended his decision to fly to Iceland to accept the climate change leadership award.
“If you offset your carbon, it’s the only choice for somebody like me, who is traveling the world to win this battle,” Mr. Kerry said at the time.
The president’s special climate envoy drew criticism from Republican lawmakers.
“I’m not sure flying across the world in a private jet while simultaneously trying to put the workers who supply your fuel out of a job is a winning strategy as climate czar,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) wrote in a post on X, referring to reports about Mr. Kerry’s remarks.
Naveen Athrapully and Ryan Morgan contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 22:30 - Has America Been Set Up As History's Ultimate "Bumbling Villain"?
Has America Been Set Up As History’s Ultimate “Bumbling Villain”?
Authored by Brandon Smith via off-guardian.org,
Editor’s Note: It’s not often we publish an article written before OffG even existed, but this one – written over a decade ago in September 2013 and brought to our attention by Mark Gresham – is both interesting and prescient.
It discusses the decline of US power, the rise of BRICS, and plans for a global currency seven years before COVID brought all those plans center-stage. It also warns of a false or exaggerated US-Russia binary and Putin’s globalist tendencies.
* * *
The high priests of academic and “official” history love a good villain for two reasons: First, because good official villains make the struggles and accomplishments of good official heroes even more awe-inspiring. And, second, because nothing teaches (or propagandizes) the masses more thoroughly than the social or political lessons inherent in the documented rise and fall of the world’s most despicable inhabitants.
We get shivers of fear and excitement when we discuss the evils and the follies of ancient monsters like Nero, Attila the Hun, Caligula, etc, or more modern monsters, like Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Goebbels, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and so on. We take solace in the idea that “we are nothing like them”, and our nation has “moved beyond” such animalistic behavior.
But even more fascinating popcorn-style history is found not in the destruction of tyrants, but the destruction of empires.
When an entire culture steps off the edge of the abyss into the realm of societal psychosis, the world often changes forever and in ways that, at least on the surface, seem to bring humanity a little closer together. The fall of Rome led to the eventual rise of a dominant Catholic theocracy and the rulership of royal blood lineage that lasted for centuries in Europe.
The flames of World War I and the destabilization of the Kaiser’s Germany led to the formation of the League Of Nations; a first attempt at a global governing authority designed to “maintain world peace”. World War II and the fall of the Third Reich resulted in considerable horrors, which the establishment of the United Nations was supposedly meant to prevent from ever occurring again.
The decline of the British Empire saw the implosion of cultural colonialism, and the rise of corporate colonialism, which centralized immense power into the hands of the banking class as the new official oligarchs of our modern era. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the abandonment of the Soviet Union was lauded by then U.S. President George Bush as the beginnings of a “New World Order” – an ideological concept which heralds the final deterioration of the idea of economic and political sovereignty as a mainstay of human civilization.
When examining the approved version of historical conflict, one gets the overwhelming impression that the villains of our past, through their hubris, their greed, and their insanity, seem to inspire a sudden surge of unification as their ashes are cleared from the air. One might even come to believe that the “natural progression” of conflict is leading us towards a future in which the only solution is the dissolution of all boundaries and the adoption of a one world narrative. Wouldn’t it be glorious if the deaths of these malevolent tyrants and societies finally inspired the birth of a single human system in which no conflict is possible because we are all on the same side?
Perhaps it would be glorious, if you have adopted the childish notions of history common to the mainstream. For those who have not, the story, and the ultimate solutions to the ills of mankind, become a little more complicated…
America’s Villainous Mustache
Mainstream history tends to follow the motions of a play or film, in that archetypes and symbolic figures are consistently created in order to satisfy the natural flow of a particular fiction. The bad guy wears a mustache (not always, but it is strange and disturbing to see how often this archetype materializes in the mainstream world view.
Just look at Hitler, Stalin, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, etc. We love mustached villains). His criminal successes make him imposing and frightening. He acts without conscience, or, he wrongly believes his terrible actions are justified in the name of the “greater good”. His inevitable mistakes make his final failure ironic and satisfying in the face of the iconic hero, who defeats the enemy while the citizenry stands back and watches in awe and wonder as helpless spectators.
The villain is indeed evil, and deserves to be dethroned, but the assumption many people make is that the other side is diametrically good.
This is not always the case…
America is used to playing the role of the hero in the epic tale of modern Earth. Our nation began with an act of defiance and victory so unexpected and so poetic, it cemented our cultural identity as freedom fighters for centuries to come. Over time, our government, turning progressively corrupt, has exploited this cultural identity in order to lure Americans into committing atrocities in the name of our traditional sense of “heroism”. We have, in fact, become the very antagonists we thought we were fighting against (there’s the delicious irony needed to round out our fairytale).
Our government’s actions surrounding Syria, for instance, have made America appear not just bloodthirsty, but also ridiculous. The Obama Administration has taken us to the brink of World War III and left us there to stare out over the chasm. The slightest breeze could send us plummeting. All to generate military support for Al-Qaeda, the same organization designated by the establishment as our mortal enemy.
In the meantime, our economic system now survives solely on the whims of the Federal Reserve, a private central bank that answers to NO ONE, and writes fiscal policy without oversight. The government is not only seeking to trigger world war, it also wants to pay for that war with money we do not have, riding debts we cannot pay, to foreign creditors we will piss off in the process of unleashing our unfunded laser guided hell.
Never has the U.S. been slathered in so much absurdity all at once. Now, we wear the mustache…
Most of us in the Liberty Movement would agree that our country is being poisoned from within, and that our government for many decades has become an enemy of all free peoples. But there is a very important question that we seem to have overlooked:
If America has been written as the villain, then who is meant to be the hero?
Putin Is Not Your Buddy
Lets step back from the global stage for a moment and examine the situation from a different perspective. What if the U.S. is not just a product of corruption for corruption’s sake? What if our new identity as the next historical evil-doer is part of a greater script, and America’s fall from grace is meant to be used to foment the success of fantastic (but fake) protagonists in an engineered fight for a “better and more centralized world”?
How many of us in the Liberty Movement cheered the diplomatic and strategic prowess of Vladimir Putin, for example, in the days leading to Obama’s “red line” attack on Syria? We cheered because his position was correct, and his demeanor made our government look homicidal by comparison.
We cheered his letter to TIME Magazine because we are tired of being the only people pointing out the vicious parasite our political body has become, and it was exciting to be vindicated by an outside source. We cheered his protection of Edward Snowden, a truly courageous whistle blower that exposed the terrifying Orwellian nature of the NSA. We watch video reports from Russia Today (RT) because they give a far more accurate accounting of the facts in the U.S. than all American media entities combined.
It is easy for us to get caught up in the idea that since the West has become the bad guy, the East must now be the good guy.
The problem is, we are being played yet again.
Putin has long called for the end of the dollar’s world reserve status and the creation of a new “global structure” and a “global currency” revolving around the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/at-g20-kremlin-to-pitch-new-currency/375364.html
Is it just coincidence that Putin wants the same centralized global economy and global governance that the IMF and multiple banking elites have been calling for for years?
The same elites who created the debt crisis and currency crisis we now face in America? Is it just coincidence that Eastern economic and political dominance over issues like Syria perfectly benefits the IMF plan for a financial shift to the BRICS nations and away from the U.S. greenback? The same plan promoted by many American financial moguls?
Russia is a model for despotic socialized society posing as “civilized society”, and yet, our government has made America so ugly that Russia looks noble by comparison. Putin is placed on the cover of TIME magazine everywhere in the world except the U.S., and the Washington Times responds by stating that such behavior is a sign of “America’s downward spiral in the global community”, as if we are about to be shunned from the world at large:
While RT produces fantastic journalistic pieces that are critical of American government, rarely if ever do they turn a discerning eye to Russia, and this is not just oversight.
Look carefully at the narrative that is being constructed here. Putin is NOT our buddy. He represents exactly what our own government now represents; globalism and naked centralized government aggression against the individual. However, as mainstream history is being written, the story will be told that it was nations like Russia and China, and organizations like the IMF, that tried to hold back the tide of catastrophe while America, the last empire, steamrolled into thick-skulled oblivion surfing on a shockwave of fiat money and brute military vanity.
The Washington Aristocracy Is Scum, But Don’t Let That Fool You…
Most people with an extensive Liberty Movement education are well aware that false paradigms are used in politics by establishment elites in order to control social discussion and to divide the population against each other. The Left/Right debate has been and always will be a farce, being that the leadership on both sides of the aisle have identical goals when it comes to the most important aspects of the American structure.
The elites of the Democratic and Republican parties, regardless of rhetoric, will BOTH strive for greater government power, less individual liberty, the erasure of economic sovereignty and free markets, and a dependent and enslaved public. On these pursuits, they completely agree.
In one week, our faux leadership is to decide once AGAIN on the possibility of a debt ceiling increase that will bring us ever closer to a debt and currency avalanche event. During past debates, much fanfare is given to the supposed conflict between the interests of the Democrats and the GOP, up until the last moment when the GOP caves in completely and allows the debt ceiling to be vaulted. Will the same happen again in this case?
It depends on how quickly the establishment wants to bring entire roof down on our heads.
A freeze of the debt ceiling would eventually mean default on our Treasury Bonds, since our government must take on exponential debt in order to receive the benefits of the Federal Reserve’s printing press, as well as pay off our foreign creditors.
A government shutdown could slow the growth of some liabilities, but it does not account for the liabilities already in circulation, thus, we can still default. Not to mention, our debt and currency standing could easily come into question, resulting in a bond dump or loss of reserve status.
The only option that does not result in a fast moving firestorm through our financial system is a debt ceiling increase, and how much longer can we get away with kicking the can down the road? In any case, America is about to change for the worse, and the decision on when this is to happen was made a long time ago. The Washington aristocracy is blatantly guilty in the instigation of our current dilemma, and my theory is, they want you to know they are the culprit, as long as you continue believing they are the ONLY culprit.
They want you to forget all about the IMF, the corporate elites, and Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the larger plan. They want you to cheer when international banks and what’s left of the G20 rescue us after years of fiscal disaster and institute centralized global economic governance. They want to be the only authors of this story, and what author doesn’t want to see himself placed in the role of the champion?
Just as there are false political paradigms, there are also false international paradigms. The Liberty Movement is the wild card; an unknown quantity. We aren’t fighting for one side or the other – we are fighting for particular principles and beliefs. The establishment’s best strategy is to co-opt our momentum by convincing us to focus on alternative opposition, or place our trust in fabricated advocates.
No matter how epically monstrous our government becomes, and no matter how satisfying their ultimate demise will be, our battle does not end with them. It only begins with them.
Originally published by alt-market.us, you can contact the author via brandon@alt-market.com, or follow him on gettr or parler.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 22:00 - American Prepper Culture Spreads To Taiwan Amid Fears Of Chinese Invasion
American Prepper Culture Spreads To Taiwan Amid Fears Of Chinese Invasion
There are people who prepare for disaster in nearly every country on Earth, but it’s not unfair to say that the US is the nation that gave birth to modern prepper culture. Interest in survival planning and training skyrocketed in 2009 after the credit crash nearly took down global debt systems, and ever since then the movement has continued to grow. The realization that governments often cannot or will not save the general populace from full spectrum collapse has given rise to vast numbers of people seeking to become more self reliant.
Over the years preppers have been approached with ridicule and skepticism. The media became overtly hostile to the idea of independent thinkers organizing to survive and fight, and others simply treated these groups as a novelty – A curious area of interest but nothing to be taken seriously.
Then came the lockdowns and the panic driven by covid hysteria, and suddenly many of those same skeptics became preppers overnight. Mobs of people caught asleep and without provisions rushed into their local Walmart and Costco to fight over toilet paper and bags of rice. Prices on necessities doubled, many items were hard to find and there was no knowing how long the supply chain disruptions might last.
The preppers and “conspiracy theorists” were right. In fact, they’ve been proven right so frequently the past few years that it’s now humorous to find anyone who still uses the term “conspiracy theorist” as a derogatory remark. Not only were they right about stockpiling essential goods, but they have also been proven right about training for self defense in combat scenarios.
The Russian war with Ukraine sparked surprising discussion within the mainstream media about the usefulness of civilian militias. Had the Ukrainian government not been so hostile to the notion of an armed and trained citizenry they might have had an edge when the conflict with Russia started. At the drop of a hat, Ukraine leaders were racing to arm civilians and teach them how to shoot. Of course, this was too little too late.
This past month the world witnessed the Hamas terror strikes on Israeli civilian targets. Thousand of unarmed non-combatants died in the attack. The world was bewildered as to how the Israeli government had failed so completely in it’s surveillance of Hamas. Analysts asked why Israeli citizens were unarmed if the threat was so dire? Once again there was a rush to arm the public and make sure they had the means to defend themselves.
Now, the media is reporting a burgeoning movement in Taiwan to prep for disaster before it happens. Many of them adopting standards developed by American patriots for decades. Their main concern? An imminent invasion by the communist Chinese.
The BBC being decidedly establishment and decidedly British, it’s not shocking to find an atmosphere of doubt surrounding their report. The interviewer even tells the Taiwan people they can’t win. And if they can’t win, why prepare? One has to wonder, though, if the BBC told the Ukrainian people the same thing? Or, did they encourage arming up and conscripting civilians to fight the Russians?
A false suggestion is also made that China has no history of aggression and therefore preparations to fight are unnecessary. China flooded North Korea with troops during the Korean War. They invaded and ethnically cleansed Tibet. And, they embedded over 300,000 troops along with heavy weaponry in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. This is setting aside all the authoritarian horrors the CCP has visited upon their own people.
Taiwan’s situation is unique in some ways because of the small size of the country and its unfortunate close proximity to the Chinese mainland. An invasion of Taiwan may not be the first strategy chosen by the CCP, but it is on the table. A naval blockade of the island would be the most cost effective method, but if starving the population of Taiwan and crashing their economy did not work, then direct military intervention would be next.
Then there is the potential involvement of the US in the matter, though a Ukraine-like proxy war would be even less useful in Taiwan. In any case, Taiwan officials are beginning to recognize that their limited military capability would need to be supported not just by foreign allies, but also by the civilian populace.
Does this mean the government will change gun laws and arm the public. That’s doubtful. Like Ukraine and Israel, they will wait until the enemy is at the gates before they hand out weapons. That said, the prepper movement is clearly spreading well beyond American shores and this can only be a good thing. Global instability a sad fact of life in the 2020s, but at least it is taking the survival mindset mainstream.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 21:30 - Biden's ATF Push For Universal Background Checks: An Overview
Biden’s ATF Push For Universal Background Checks: An Overview
Submitted by Aidan Johnston of Gun Owners of America,
Biden and his cronies in the White House have cooked up a new unconstitutional gun control “rule” for ATF to enforce.
ATF is trying to eliminate the private sale of firearms without background checks and registration paperwork. They’re essentially accusing anyone of selling a gun of being “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms and requiring a federal gun dealer license.
ICYMI📢
We hate to say we told you so, but it’s official.
The Justice Department announced a new rule to amend ATF regulations and expand the definition of a firearms dealer to include those who sell even a single firearm. 🤯 https://t.co/HIpxe0xYv6
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) September 5, 2023
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You might think that you’d actually have to meet some threshold of firearms sold to need a license—hit the benchmark and you’re no longer just a lemonade stand on the side of the road; you’ve got to get a business license and obey local regulations.
Well, in 1979, ATF decided against “establishing a threshold number” on the theory that gun-owning patriots like you could simply stay below the threshold and “avoid obtaining a license….” This is a bit like saying that it would be a bad idea to post a speed limit because drivers might actually go under the speed limit.
Instead, ATF’s new rule says you might not be allowed to sell even one gun to your family member without getting a government license and filling out the proper registration paperwork. Also, ATF thinks you can be engaged in the business without ever acquiring or selling a single firearm!
So, does ATF have any legal footing to stand on? Let’s take a look at the statute.
The statutory definition of “engaged in the business as applied to a dealer in firearms,” is:
a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business to predominantly earn a profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.
That doesn’t sound like it covers you selling a gun to your cousin at Thanksgiving, does it?
You’re right! Contrary to ATF’s proposed rule that a person can be engaged in the business without ever making a business deal, the statute enacted by Congress contains at least six clear indicators that more is required.
ATF is flat-out wrong when it says that “even a single firearm transaction or offer to engage in a transaction [without any actual transaction], when combined with other evidence, may be sufficient to require a license.” Let’s briefly prove just how wrong ATF is on each of these six counts:
1. The Statute Discusses “Firearms” in the Plural.
When writing the statute, Congress was clearly thinking about a business that sold more than one firearm (and certainly more than zero). The plural “firearms” appears repeatedly throughout the statute, so obviously dealing means more than one “firearm.”
2. A “Regular Course” Is a Series of Events Demonstrating an Activity Is Occurring.
The statute clearly requires a dealer’s conduct to be part of a “regular course of trade or business.” This means a series of events demonstrating an overarching business purpose and mindset.
On the other hand, isolated events—like a mere offer to sell or even a single completed transaction—do not prove regularity or a course of business.
3.”Repetitive” Obviously Means More than Once.
In order to be “engaged in the business,” one must also engage in the “repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.” Of course, repetition means more than once, that is, “the act or an instance of repeating” something. Purchases and resales must be repetitive.
For example, a gun owner who scrolls through some online ads and happens upon a great deal on a firearm (or perhaps even a group of firearms), even if he purchases and then resells that firearm with the intent to profit, still does not constitute a firearms dealer, because his activity is a one-off far from “repetitive,” and certainly not a “regular course” of activity.
And that is supported by this Senate report that accompanied the passage of this statute. Congress expressly intended its “legislation to limit Federal regulation to those involved in more than isolated activities.”
4. Actual Dealers Must “Purchase and Resell” Firearms.
Not to beat a dead horse, but the statute also requires the repetitive “purchase and resale of firearms.” Thus, firearms must be purchased “and” resold – a far cry from the ATF claim that “there is no minimum threshold number of firearms purchased or sold that triggers the licensure requirement.”
For starters, sales alone are not enough, nor are mere purchases of firearms. Both resale and purchase have to happen. And it has to be repetitive, so there must be more than one “purchase” and more than one “resale”—more than two each, in fact!
Now, ATF points to one guy they prosecuted for unlicensed dealing without any evidence of any sales having taken place. But failing to require a “resale” in addition to a “purchase” (never mind requiring each to be “repetitive”) reads the word “resale” right out of the statute. Who cares what ATF did once to some guy in violation of the law while some anti-gun judge looked the other way?
5. A “Resale” Is Something More than a “Sale,” and Is Done Simultaneously.
The statute does not require merely “purchases” and “sales”—something any gun owner might do. Congress actually used the word “resale”—meaning “the act of selling something again” such as “buying used cars for resale to overseas markets.” Thus, embedded within the word “resale” is a requirement that firearm purchases and resales must be linked together within a short enough timeframe of each other to constitute business activity.
ATF tries to eliminate this definition of resale, essentially defining it as a sale, but Congress chose its words carefully, and ATF needs to respect that. No one would say that a collector who buys rare cars, maintains them in his garage for decades, and subsequently offers them at auction has been “buying used cars for resale to overseas markets.”
Well, that’s just as true for gun stores. No firearm dealer (at least none that wants to stay in business) purchases large quantities of firearms only to hold them in inventory for a long period of time, as does a firearm collector or even investor. A private collector might purchase large numbers of firearms (even of the same make and model) with the intent that they increase in long-term value, a dealer’s profit incentives are much more short-term, out of necessity.
6. The Statute Exempts Non-Business “Sales, Exchanges, or Purchases” in the Plural.
The statute contains explicit exceptions – a statutory safe harbor – to being “engaged in the business” based on the “occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby.”
Each of these terms used in this part of the statute is plural. This means multiple sales, multiple exchanges, or multiple purchases can be made by gun owners without rising to the level of “dealing.”
No one could amass a “collection” without accumulating multiple firearms, and probably getting rid of some as well. Congress was well aware that “many firearm hobbyists sell or trade firearms from their collections,” and Congress never intended for ATF to start prosecuting gun owners for such private sales.
Who could have guessed it? Biden’s ATF is totally overreaching this latest ATF rule. The plain text of the statute proves at least six ways that ATF’s final rule is a load of crap!
Under the Administrative Procedures Act, when agencies like ATF make rules, they must first submit the rule for public comment on the Federal Register.
During this period, citizens can give their thoughts on the rule and describe their unique situations as to how it will affect them.
Please submit comments here on the Federal Register.
* * *
We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 21:00 - Dear Santa, Can I Pay Later This Year?
Dear Santa, Can I Pay Later This Year?
With credit card debt at record highs and more and more (young) consumers falling behind on their credit card payments, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services are expected to see record spending levels this holiday season.
Statista’s Felix Richter reports that according to Adobe Analytics, BNPL spending could climb to $17 billion this holidays season (Nov. 1-Dec. 31), up 17 percent from $14.5 billion last year.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Total online spending during that period is expected to grow by less than 5 percent compared to 2022, illustrating the growing importance of BNPL in times of high inflation and equally high interest rates.
“Buy Now, Pay Later has become increasingly mainstream and will make it easier for shoppers to hit the buy button, especially on mobile devices where over half of online spending will take place,” Patrick Brown, vice president of growth marketing at Adobe, said.
According to Statista Consumer Insights, young Americans are particularly likely to use BNPL services, with delayed payments and interest-free installments the most popular BNPL benefits.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 20:30 - Crime In San Francisco Is So Bad, There's Now Actual Pirates In The Bay
Crime In San Francisco Is So Bad, There’s Now Actual Pirates In The Bay
Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former harbormaster of Oakland Brock De Lappe doesn’t like to use the word “piracy” to describe waterborne crime on the Oakland/Alameda Estuary.
“People have this romantic view of pirates—Johnny Depp; Pirates of the Caribbean—argh! Avast ye, matey!” said Mr. De Lappe, a marine consultant who was also Alameda’s harbormaster before his retirement.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik) The reality is anything but romantic. The so-called pirates are nothing like the “Real Oakland Raiders,” as one newspaper headline put it.
“These people are just common criminals,” living on illegal “anchor-off” vessels committing robberies within the San Francisco Bay, he said. Anchor-offs, or anchor outs, are boats that are illegally anchored without a permit.
This past summer, a spree of robberies plagued the 800-foot-wide estuary involving stolen motor boats that were used to prey on larger vessels and marinas.
An elevator is decorated with a poster of actor Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow from “”Pirates of the Caribbean,”” in Hollywood on April 15, 2011. (GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images) In one instance, thieves made off with three inflatable dinghies from an Alameda yacht club. Burglars hit at least four other Bay Area yacht clubs, a sailing center, and several owners living on their boats.
Mr. De Lappe, 74, said that while the city of Alameda has been diligent in keeping illegal anchor-offs at bay, Oakland continues to struggle with derelict boats, currently at around 20.
“There’s a criminal element that shows up that’s not just living on these boats anchored out,” Mr. De Lappe told The Epoch Times. “They get really aggressive, going out at night into marinas and stealing equipment off boats, stealing boats out of marinas.”
“Alameda has never allowed this to become a problem on their shoreline. They’ve been victimized. These pirates have gone into Alameda marinas. They’re feeling the brunt of it. But they don’t have the anchor-out vessels on their [Alameda] side.”
Outboard Motor Shop owner Craig Jacobsen said thieves struck two of his boats at his business in Oakland and made off with thousands of dollars in parts and electronics.
“We recovered it at the same [anchor-off] flotilla. I know of about 20 [boats] stolen,” Mr. Jacobsen told The Epoch Times. “They’ve all been found in the same place.”
“For a couple of months, it was serious. We got calls every day about people having their boats stolen. They’d go into the marinas at night, take the small inflatables and stuff, and take them over to their homeless encampment,” he said.
Former Oakland Marinas and Alameda Harbormaster Brock de Lappe points to a group of illegally anchored derelict boats along the Oakland Estuary on Nov. 13, 2023. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) “It’s just homeless people living on boats. For some reason, nobody wants to deal with it. The [Oakland] police say it’s Alameda’s issue. The Alameda police say it’s the [Oakland] side of the estuary.”
Mr. Jacobsen said it makes no difference in installing security fencing and cameras to deter crime.
Criminals always find a way in.
“Twice at night, people came into my yard. One night, I saw people in hoodies going through a boat in the back of my yard. I chased them off. Who knows what’s happening at night when we’re not here,” he said.
The police are short-handed, he said, so calling 911 doesn’t necessarily prompt a fast response.
“We called 911 the morning we found our stuff and were told the officers were tied up with violent crime. We had to deal with it ourselves,” Mr. Jacobsen said.
Tracy Reigelman is the assistant commodore at the Oakland Yacht Club in Alameda. In his role, he’s been dealing with crime related to homelessness for months—not just from so-called pirates but shoreline criminals as well.
“The reality is there is a very lax structure around crime and prevention around here,” he said. “The real issue is that we have these organized crime units, which consist of anchor-out pirates and shoreside crime.
A homeless man brings his small boat alongside a derelict vessel anchored illegally in the Oakland Estuary on Nov. 13, 2023. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) “The amount of crime on the water—when people use the term pirates—is high. But what people don’t realize is people on the shoreside within 100 or 200 feet of the shore, it’s just as high,” he said.
“We’ve had physical assaults at the restaurant right here. We’ve had just last weekend three cars stolen from the parking lot here.”
“The last three months, we probably had a dozen or more stolen vehicles. We’ve had trespassing, thefts, harassment. Last night—Sunday—we had SWAT here in the parking lot. A person in the hotel next door, which is currently housing [homeless], had locked himself in a room.”
Mr. Reigelman told The Epoch Times the yacht club has tried to work with Alameda city and county officials to find a solution, but “it hasn’t worked out at all.”
“There is a jurisdictional issue and control, and it runs right down the middle of the estuary. The cooperation between the agencies—there is none,” Mr. Reigelman said.
Areas recently targeted by estuary pirates include the public docks at Jack London Square and the Jack London Aquatic Center in Oakland. There is also the estuary channel west of the Bayside Hotel and Union Point Park.
Simon Greaves, 56, a Sausalito resident from the United Kingdom, is the owner of the sailboat Sun Odyssey, equipped with an inflatable dinghy moored at Jack London Square.
Simon Greaves of Sausalito, Calif., stands next to his sailboat anchored at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2023. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) While he’s anchored his sailboat for more prolonged periods along the Oakland Estuary, he’s hesitant to do so now because of rising property crime.
“From what we heard, it wasn’t like that when we were here probably eight months ago, and we started to hear about it a lot. So yes, it’s definitely increased, but I haven’t heard anything recently. I don’t know whether they’re on top of it. It was more this [Oakland] side,” he said.
Mr. Greaves also noticed an increasing number of anchor-offs, and kept the engine on the dinghy separate to prevent theft. He suspects the electronic security gates that keep criminals out of the public marinas encourage thieves to use boats instead.
“So, when we go to this marina, they give you a special key. That key allows you to get in—it’s the same with our docking in Sausalito,” he told The Epoch Times.
The term “pirates” is a fair term, he said.
Mark, who lives on his skiff in the Oakland Estuary, said he felt personally violated after one of his backup gas tank was stolen as he was going through “tough times.”
“When you get robbed, it’s pretty bad. All you can do for the most part is keep an eagle eye and make sure you don’t see strangers who look like they don’t belong,” Mark told The Epoch Times.
“It’s like a nomadic thing. Guys come in and start stealing stuff. It’s sporadic.”
“There was a guy over here causing a lot of problems. He jumped on a boat a gal was living on like he was going to do something. I would say they’re probably addicted to something and have to support their habit somehow.”
A vandalized car is flipped upside down as protesters face off against police in Oakland, Calif., on May 29, 2020. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images) According to the Oakland Police Department (OPD) crime report for Sept. 4–10, robberies had increased by 20 percent in 2023, with 348 reported incidents compared with 291 the year before.
The city saw a whopping 44 percent increase in burglaries, with 2,137 reported incidents compared to 1,670 in 2022.
Crime overall is up 25 percent year over year, the report added.
An OPD spokeswoman told The Epoch Times that since August, there have been “very few incidents” on the Oakland Estuary, “except for a two-week span that included thefts ranging from small items to a large vessel.”
“OPD received three separate stolen item reports during the above two-week span,” the spokeswoman said.
“The crimes were generally committed at night or during early morning hours. Victims are boat owners who have their boats stored in local marinas. There were no weapons used during the two-week span of crime.”
So far, police have arrested a transient man charged with stealing an outboard motor.
Mr. Reigelman said it’s difficult to assess the exact percentage of crimes committed by the homeless because their victims aren’t always willing to report them.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 20:00 - Still Hungry? These Are The Fast-Food Brands With The Most US Locations
Still Hungry? These Are The Fast-Food Brands With The Most US Locations
The fast food industry has become a behemoth in the U.S. from humble beginnings in Wichita a century ago, when the first White Castle store opened. Now, nearly 200,000 U.S. fast food brands make up an industry worth more than $300 billion.
Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao provides an overview of America’s fast food landscape, visualizing the top 15 companies with the most stores in the country. In this graphic, we use data from QSR Magazine, an industry magazine that focuses on the quick-service segment of the restaurant industry.
Which Fast Food Brands Have the Most Stores?
Ranked first, Subway is the only fast food brand with over 20,000 locations, even after a net reduction of 576 stores in 2022.
The previously family-run business is now owned by Roark Capital (which has substantial stake in other familiar names on this list including Arby’s and Sonic), and is mid-transformation, with 3,600 stores being remodeled in 2023.
Here’s the full breakdown of the top 50 fast food brands by number of U.S. locations in 2022.
Rank Company Locations Change in Locations (YoY) 1 Subway* 20,576 -571 2 Starbucks* 15,873 +429 3 McDonald’s 13,444 +6 4 Dunkin’ 9,370 +126 5 Taco Bell 7,198 +196 6 Burger King 7,043 -61 7 Domino’s 6,686 +126 8 Pizza Hut 6,561 +13 9 Wendy’s 5,994 +56 10 Dairy Queen 4,307 -32 11 Little Caesars* 4,173 -14 12 KFC 3,918 -35 13 Sonic Drive-In 3,546 -6 14 Arby’s 3,415 +6 15 Papa Johns 3,376 +37 16 Chipotle 3,129 +211 17 Popeyes
Louisiana Kitchen2,946 +169 18 Chick-fil-A* 2,837 +153 19 Jimmy John’s 2,637 -26 20 Jersey Mike’s 2,397 +297 21 Panda Express 2,393 +87 22 Baskin-Robbins 2,253 -54 23 Jack In The Box 2,180 -38 24 Panera Bread* 2,102 -33 25 Wingstop 1,721 +187 26 Hardee’s 1,707 +45 27 Five Guys 1,409 +19 28 Tropical
Smoothie Café1,198 +159 29 Firehouse Subs 1,187 +23 30 Papa Murphy’s 1,168 -72 31 Carl’s Jr. 1,068 +1 32 Marco’s Pizza 1,067 +65 33 Whataburger 925 +52 34 Zaxby’s 922 +11 35 Culver’s 892 +56 36 Church’s Chicken 812 -91 37 Checkers/Rally’s 806 +28 38 Bojangles 788 +15 39 Qdoba 728 -11 40 Crumbl Cookies 688 +363 41 Dutch Bros 671 +133 42 Raising Cane’s 646 +79 43 Moe’s 637 -21 44 Del Taco 591 -9 45 McAlister’s Deli 525 +20 46 El Pollo Loco 490 +10 47 Freddy’s Frozen
Custard &
Steakburgers456 +36 48 In-N-Out Burger* 379 +12 49 Krispy Kreme* 352 +44 50 Shake Shack* 287 +44 *Figures estimated by QSR and Circana.
At second place, Starbucks has nearly 16,000 locations around the country, with California alone accounting for nearly 3,000 of them. The coffee chain is also going through a major shift as a result of post-pandemic trends. This includes a greater focus on drive-thru locations and overall speed and efficiency.
Ranked third, McDonald’s, grew its U.S. footprint for the first time in eight years, after adding six new locations. The brand has grown its global sales by nearly $20 billion since the beginning of the pandemic, even after exiting Russia in 2022.
Dunkin’ (dropped the “Donuts” in 2019) and Taco Bell round out the top-five with more than 9,000 and 7,000 locations respectively.
Notably there was only one ranking shift in the top 20 since last year, with Jersey Mike’s, a sandwich chain, moving past Panda Express to claim 20th place.
However the same list looks a little different when ordering by revenue earned in 2022.
Ranked: Fast Food Brands by 2022 Revenue
The Golden Arches take the golden crown for most revenue earned in 2022, easily beating out the competition. McDonald’s made nearly $48 billion in sales last year, 74% more than the next big brand.
Here’s the full ranking of most revenue earned by fast food brands in 2022.
Revenue Rank Company Revenue (USD millions) Change from
Locations Rank1 McDonald’s $48,734 +2 2 Starbucks* $28,100 0 3 Chick-fil-A* $18,814 +15 4 Taco Bell $13,850 +1 5 Wendy’s $11,694 +4 6 Dunkin’ $11,279 -2 7 Subway* $10,372 -6 8 Burger King $10,278 -2 9 Domino’s $8,752 -2 10 Chipotle $8,600 +6 11 Panera Bread* $6,787 +13 12 Pizza Hut $5,500 -4 13 Sonic Drive-In $5,499 0 14 Panda Express $5,149 +7 15 KFC $5,100 -3 16 Popeyes
Louisiana Kitchen$5,001 +1 17 Dairy Queen $4,579 0 18 Arby’s $4,535 -4 19 Jack in the Box $4,111 +4 20 Papa John’s $3,698 -5 21 Little Caesars* $3,520 -10 22 Whataburger $3,340 +11 23 Raising Cane’s $3,118 +19 24 Culver’s $2,830 +11 25 Jersey Mike’s $2,680 -5 26 Wingstop $2,382 -1 27 Zaxby’s $2,380 +7 28 Jimmy John’s $2,364 -9 29 Five Guys $2,204 -2 30 Hardee’s $2,020 -4 31 Bojangles $1,600 +7 32 Carl’s Jr. $1,555 -1 33 Dutch Bros $1,163 +8 34 Firehouse Subs $1,154 -5 35 In-N-Out Burger* $1,125 +13 36 Tropical
Smoothie Café$1,075 -8 37 El Pollo Loco $1,039 +9 38 Crumbl Cookies $1,004 +2 39 Qdoba $1,002 0 40 Shake Shack* $994 +10 41 Krispy Kreme* $991 +8 42 Marco’s Pizza $968 -10 43 Del Taco $957 +1 44 McAlister’s Deli $956 +1 45 Checkers/Rally’s $858 -8 46 Freddy’s Frozen
Custard &
Steakburgers$808 +1 47 Church’s Chicken $765 -11 48 Papa Murphy’s $753 -18 49 Moe’s $705 -6 50 Baskin-Robbins $685 -28 *Figures estimated by QSR and Circana.
Starbucks holds on to the second spot, but Chick-fil-A shoots up 18 positions to third place by revenue, despite being closed on Sundays.
Raising Cane’s, which specializes in chicken fingers and Panera Bread, a bakery competitor to Starbucks, see similar upward trajectories, climbing 19 and 13 spots respectively on the revenue rankings.
On the other hand, Papa Murphy’s and Baskin Robbins have seen a steep drop, making between $600–700 million in 2022, putting them at the bottom of the sales rankings.
What’s Next for Fast Food?
QSR Magazine signals that automation is transforming the restaurant industry as businesses leverage robotics to ease staffing challenges that surged during the pandemic.
Some changes—increasing drive-thrus and apps for example—have already become commonplace but robot cooks and automated delivery vans may also soon proliferate.
With nearly eight out of 100 people in the American workforce involved in the food industry, these changes may cause significant shifts in employment patterns, potentially requiring upskilling for workers in this evolving landscape.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 19:30 - All Quiet On Lebanon's Border: Hezbollah Halts Attacks As Gaza Truce Holds
All Quiet On Lebanon’s Border: Hezbollah Halts Attacks As Gaza Truce Holds
A cautious calm overtook the Lebanese border on Friday as Gaza entered its first day of ceasefire. “A precarious calm reigned on the southern border, with the humanitarian truce in Gaza coming into effect at 7:00 in the morning (0500 GMT),” Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Friday.
An AFP journalist said gunfire could be heard from the southern village of Marjayoun just ten minutes before the ceasefire went into effect at 7:00 AM, but that silence prevailed soon afterward.
IDF tanks deployed in the Upper Galilee, AFP/Getty Images A resident of the southern Lebanese village of Alma al-Shaab, which Israel has heavily bombarded since the war began last month, reported that the situation was calm and that he could no longer hear the sound of drones and aircraft.
The day before the truce took effect, Hezbollah launched numerous successive attacks against Israeli settlements and military sites, carrying out 16 operations throughout the morning and afternoon of Thursday.
In a single attack, 48 Katusha missiles were launched on the Ein Zeitim base near the city of Safed.
In another, Hezbollah struck and destroyed a building “above the heads” of four Israeli soldiers, as one of its statements read on Thursday.
Israel pounded several southern villages with airstrikes and illegal white phosphorus attacks in response. The Hezbollah attacks against Israeli forces on the border have been daily since October 8.
Hezbollah release video of ATGM attack destroying building in which 4 “Israeli” soldiers were present#فلسطين_الان #Hezbollah pic.twitter.com/fT5UzHOgkT
— Hamdan News (@HamdanWahe57839) November 24, 2023
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A Hezbollah official was cited by Al-Jazeera on 22 November as saying that the Lebanese resistance “was not part of the negotiations related to the truce agreement and prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel.”
The source added that “any Israeli escalation in southern Lebanon or Gaza during the truce would be met with a response from Hezbollah,” suggesting that the group is planning on scaling back its activity.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said in recent speeches that the situation on Lebanon’s border would depend on whether or not things were escalating in Gaza, confirming that the group’s operations aim to relieve pressure on the resistance in the besieged strip.
📹 Hezbollah released footage of their attack on Metat military base on the Lebanese border. pic.twitter.com/wpw1Exu0Re
— War Watch (@WarWatchs) November 24, 2023
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Israel has not made any public statement regarding whether or not it will attack Lebanon during the four-day truce.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 19:00 - Kim Jong Un Boasts He's Reviewing Images Of US Bases In Guam After Spy Satellite Launch
Kim Jong Un Boasts He’s Reviewing Images Of US Bases In Guam After Spy Satellite Launch
On Tuesday the South Korean and other regional governments urgently reported that an unknown projectile had been launched from North Korea. Soon after, it emerged that this was the highly sanctioned country’s first ever successful launch of a military spy satellite into orbit.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is now hailing a “new era of a space power” with the Malligyong-1 now reportedly in orbit. Crucially, Pyongyang is claiming that within a mere hours after the launch, Kim was reviewing images of American military bases in Guam.
Kim Jong Un attended a celebration banquet with his daughter hailing the satellite launch, via Reuters. “During a visit to a satellite control center in Pyongyang, Kim observed satellite images of Andersen Air Force Base, Apra Harbor and other major U.S. military bases, reported the official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA,” as cited in US-funded VOA News.
KCNA quoted Kim as saying the launch was a “full-fledged exercise of the right to self-defense” and which is necessary to protect North Korea from the “dangerous and aggressive moves of hostile forces.”
The DPRK is openly celebrating the launch, clearly meant as a thumb in the eye to the West and its far-reaching sanctions regimen:
The launch, banned under United Nations sanctions designed to rein in the nuclear-armed country’s ballistic missiles programme, has further ratcheted up tension on the peninsula with Seoul partially suspending and Pyongyang completely suspending the 2018 joint military agreement that was supposed to stabilize cross-border relations.
This marked the third launch this year, with the prior two having failed. But Kim now says he wants to see “many more” spy satellites, which he envisions will be placed on “on different orbits” for the purpose of better monitoring US and other foreign forces in the region.
Given the recent meeting in September of Kim and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and the series of top-level visits and exchanges of military delegations, there are suspicions that Pyongyang is receiving help from Moscow for its spy satellite program.
North Korea’s state media aired footage of its first spy satellite being launched, which it claimed was successfully placed in orbit https://t.co/yLpuhlC8jH pic.twitter.com/MLSbiEIQ32
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 23, 2023
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While the West has condemned North Korea’s several attempted satellite launches, Pyongyang has in turn been outraged at the US parking nuclear-powered naval assets in regional waters and in South Korean ports. For example, the US nuclear-powered submarine USS Santa Fe is currently docked at a South Korean port. And this week, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier arrived at Busan.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 18:30 - The Progressive Globalist Suicide Cult Exposed
The Progressive Globalist Suicide Cult Exposed
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
“… this is not confined to the Right — popular sentiment in Israel is shifting from liberal-secular, to biblical-eschatological.”
– Alastair Crooke
If we can agree on nothing else, you must grant that Western Civ needs to have its head examined. The war of Israel upon Gaza springs from the vast limbic netherworld where all the phantoms, myths, gods, and devils abide. What’s going on in the Bible lands now is a demonstration that the wrath of Yahweh is a match for the wrath of Allah. The West appears to abhor this battle, as it derives from the deepest and darkest sector of the West’s own psychology – a place the West fears to go. Having spurned the Judeo-Christian God lo these many decades, the West is horrified to see that dreadful figure step back onstage hurling lightning bolts and roaring.
Western Civ is like a Sarah Lawrence grad with a nose-ring, trained up to despise her own history and culture, trafficking with the incubi of barbarism – the romance of “edginess” – while playing with razor blades in anticipation of her own glorious suicidal psychodrama. There, I have explained The New York Times and The New Yorker Magazine to you, and thus exactly what is wrong with them trying to explain the world to you.
There is, of course, endless and seemingly irreconcilable misunderstanding between Western Civ and its adversaries, but the salient point of the current world mess is a failure to comprehend the meaning of Never Again. And among the many ironies of recent years is that the state-of-mind calling itself Progressive Globalism is obsessed with eradicating boundaries while the two crisis points of the present moment broke out precisely because boundaries were violated.
Whatever you think of Mr. Putin — and I refuse to join the stupid ritual chorus of his supposed “thuggery” — he couldn’t have made it clearer to the USA and its Euroland sisters that Russia would not accept Ukraine as a NATO member, right up against its border — meaning that NATO would be able to base missiles, bombers, and troops there. You may have lost count of how many times Russia has been invaded across the vast plain of Ukraine, but the Russians have not forgotten and their attitude about it is synonymous with the phrase Never Again. What part of that did the USA, Germany, France, and the rest not understand?
Yet they undertook this deranged project to arm poor Ukraine to the teeth — a people who have shown no aptitude for war, historically trampled over, with deeply schizoid allegiances to whomever dominates them from one century to the next — and sent it on a suicide mission that is now nearly complete. You understand that the sacrificial suicide of Ukraine for no good reason is just an enactment of Western Civ’s own apparent suicidal wish fulfillment. Like I said: this is a dark and deep psychodrama.
Accordingly, the West affects to be chagrined by Israel’s refusal to join the West’s new gnostic suicide cult. Here, too, is a failure to comprehend the phrase Never Again. We know where that succinct slogan comes from — the West’s previous suicide attempt, 1939 to 1945, in the course of which the annihilation of Europe’s Jews was a featured set-piece. And when Western Civ finally woke from this nightmare war, all the contesting nations were mortified by what had happened, including especially Germany, the nation that perpetrated that particular enormity.
And so, the new supposedly world-saving organization, the United Nations, that cohered after that cataclysm — led, of course by the victors of the Second World War — felt obliged to create a State of Israel in the Bible lands where so long ago, past memory for many in the modern world, there was a place called Israel where the Jews once dwelt. That was Zion, Jerusalem and its precincts, and it was the long-held wish of the Jews scattered about the world to return to Zion, and that is all that the term Zionist means — despite the attempts of the many other Semitic tribes in the region, and their demented allies in the Ivy League — to color it as some sort of demonic host out to swindle the world.
Western Civ, driven by the Progressive Globalist suicide cult, wishes to dissociate itself from Israel now while jihadis seek mayhem and murder in the streets of Berlin, Paris, London, Milan, Amsterdam and even the little towns of the provinces. And in the USA, too. The governments of Western Civ refuse to stop the flood of migrants pouring out of North Africa, the Middle East, and myriad stans of the greater Asian Stans-land. The USA, too, with its long borders being violated at a fantastic scale with the consent of “Joe Biden” & Co. It’s as though they are intent on allowing Western Civ to be overrun and defeated.
Israel, being part of Western Civ, in some ways the beating heart of its heritage, is also deeply conflicted in its own politics. But Mr. Netanyahu refuses to join the suicide cult, to the great consternation of so many inside and outside Israel. He could not be more alone among all the other elected heads of Western Civ nations. Even “Joe Biden” is ragging on him. But hark, as it is said in Western Civ — especially this Christmas season — as in something momentous approacheth. Just in one week past, Argentina elected an anti-Globalist, Javier Milei, by a huge margin, and the Netherlands elected (surprise) a party led by Geert Wilders quite vocally disenchanted with Jihad in his country. Something is up. Mark my words: Germany is next. Western Civ is going to get its mind right after all.
America’s psychodrama has been equally deep and dreadful as Europe’s, but we are heading toward our own political reckoning, and many here have had enough of a life without boundaries in every sense of the word. “Joe Biden” has been the perfect embodiment of no boundaries. And his party is in the process of being destroyed by that before they can complete the destruction of our country. The battle is here, too. And it is joined. Stand back and watch.
* * *
Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 18:00 - Small Bank Deposit Outflows Continue As Fed Bailout Fund Usage Jumps To Another New Record High
Small Bank Deposit Outflows Continue As Fed Bailout Fund Usage Jumps To Another New Record High
Total domestic US banks saw inflows last week on a SA and NSA basis…
Source: Bloomberg
But, while large banks saw $16.5BN (SA) in deposit inflow, small banks suffered another weekly deposit outflow (of $3.3BN SA) last week…
Source: Bloomberg
This pulled total deposits down to their lowest since September after rising (on a Fed magically-adjusted basis) for six months…
Source: Bloomberg
And as deposits flow out of small banks, usage of The Fed’s emergency funding facility for the banks increased to a new record high again, above $114BN…
Source: Bloomberg
Meanwhile, the amount of money that investors are parking at The Fed’s reverse repo facility has accelerated since breaking below $1 trillion to its lowest since July 2021. Some 94 counterparties parked $865.9 billion at the Fed’s overnight reverse repo facility, the lowest since July 2021, from $931.6 billion the prior session. The roughly $66 billion decrease is the largest drop since Oct 12.
Source: Bloomberg
As we previously noted, this marks a steep decline from a record $2.554 trillion stashed on Dec. 30, and some are starting to worry about the consequences.
Wrightson ICAP economist Lou Crandall said in a note Monday that the Fed should stop paring its bond holdings before the facility is completely emptied to make sure that banks’ cash buffers don’t get too lean and increase pressure on short-term funding markets.
“We think banks should be encouraged to hold deep liquidity buffers, so our preference would be to adopt a generous definition of ‘ample,’” Crandall wrote.
“Surplus cash sitting in the RRP facility can be redeployed by money funds into the repo market in the event of a spike in financing needs.”
Reserve scarcity has caused overnight lending rates to jump in the past, notably in 2019, when the Treasury increased its borrowing and the Fed stopped buying as many Treasuries for its balance sheet.
The Fed’s balance sheet shrank very modestly last week, down by just $4.2BN
Source: Bloomberg
Loan volumes increased last week (after two weeks of declines) with large bank loans up $7.1BN and small bank loans up $9BN (odd given the deposit outflows)…
Source: Bloomberg
Equity market cap continued to bounce back along with an increase in bank reserves at The Fed…
Source: Bloomberg
All of which is a problem, as the key warning sign continues to trend ominously lower (Small Banks’ reserve constraint), supported above the critical level by The Fed’s emergency funds (for now)…
Source: Bloomberg
As the green line shows, without The Fed’s help, the crisis is back (and large bank cash needs a home – blue line – like picking up a small bank from the FDIC?).
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 17:30 - Professors: Free Speech And Intellectual Diversity Are Not Essential To Higher Education
Professors: Free Speech And Intellectual Diversity Are Not Essential To Higher Education
Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,
In “The Indispensable Right,” I discuss how academics are now leading an anti-free speech movement on campuses that challenges the centrality (or even the necessity) of free speech protections in higher education. The latest such argument appeared this month in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Two Arizona State University professors — Richard Amesbury and Catherine O’Donnell — wrote that free speech concerns yield too much to the “right wing” and that free speech should not be given the protection currently afforded by universities and colleges. Indeed, they argue that free speech may be harming higher education by fostering “unworthy” ideas.
Amesbury teaches religious studies and O’Donnell teaches history at ASU. They wrote an article titled “Dear Administrators: Enough with the Free Speech Rhetoric! It Concedes Too Much to the Right-Wing Agenda.”
The two academics challenge the long-held view of the centrality of free speech to higher education. Notably, many of us have been alarmed by the erosion of free speech on our campuses, but Amesbury and O’Donnell seem to worry that there is still too much protection for opposing views. Worse yet, they suggest that the free speech objections are often part of a right-wing funded agenda.
In fairness, to the two professors, they do not reject the overall value of free speech, but challenge “the assumptions that free speech is a cardinal virtue of higher education, and that colleges should aspire to a diversity of opinions.” They insist that higher education is about finding truth and that means that false ideas are inimical to our mission as educators. Indeed, they question the need for “intellectual diversity”:
Our contention is that calls for greater freedom of speech on campuses, however well-intentioned, risk undermining colleges’ central purpose, namely, the production of expert knowledge and understanding, in the sense of disciplinarily warranted opinion. Expertise requires freedom of speech, but it is the result of a process of winnowing and refinement that is premised on the understanding that not all opinions are equally valid. Efforts to “democratize” opinion are antithetical to the role colleges play in educating the public and informing democratic debate. We urge administrators toward caution before uncritically endorsing calls for intellectual diversity in place of academic expertise…
A diversity of opinion — “intellectual diversity” — isn’t itself the goal; rather, it is of value only insofar as it serves the goal of producing knowledge. On most unanswered questions, there is, at least initially, a range of plausible opinions, but answering questions requires the vetting of opinions. As some opinions are found wanting, the range of opinion deserving of continued consideration narrows.
As a threshold matter, what is so striking about this argument against intellectual diversity is that it is made at a time with little such diversity in most departments. Seeking a wider range of viewpoints on departments does not “concedes too much to the right-wing agenda.” It acknowledges a growing problem across higher education, It is an educational agenda that has prompted many of us to raise the reduction of intellectual diversity.
We have already seen faculties purged of conservative and libertarian colleagues. We previously discussed how surveys at universities show a virtual purging of conservative and Republican faculty members. For example, last year, the Harvard Crimson noted that the university had virtually eliminated Republicans from most departments but that the lack of diversity was not a problem. Now, a new survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
Likewise, a study by Georgetown University’s Kevin Tobia and MIT’s Eric Martinez found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools. Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. Another study found that 33 out of 65 departments lacked a single conservative faculty member.
Compare that to a recent Gallup poll stating, “roughly equal proportions of U.S. adults identified as conservative (36%) and moderate (35%) in Gallup polling throughout 2022, while about a quarter identified as liberal (26%).”
Even with this purging of departments, Amesbury and O’Donnell still worry that intellectual diversity could be maintained as a goal in higher education. They are not alone in this view. As we have previously discussed, some professors reject the notion that campuses should protect the free speech rights of those who are . . . well . . . wrong.
For example, after many of us expressed disgust at the treatment of a federal judge shouted down by Stanford law students, Professor Jennifer Ruth wrote a column in the Chronicle of Higher Education heralding their actions. It is an extension of her book It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (with Penn State Music Professor Michael Bérubé) declaring certain views as advancing “theories of white supremacy” and thus having “no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever.” Once declared as harmful, it is no longer free speech and therefore worthy of censorship or cancellation. It is that easy.
These academics reject the long-held view that higher education rests on the preservation of intellectual diversity and free inquiry, as discussed in the famous Kalven Report.
In 1967, the University of Chicago assembled a committee to study academic freedom and free speech that would become one of the most important projects in modern higher education. It became known as the “Kalven Committee” after its chair, the great law scholar Harry Kalven, Jr. The report contained an eloquent and profound defense of diversity of thought and expression that seems utterly abandoned by many today. It was cited by the Stanford Law Dean in her letter to the law students and stated in part:
“From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.”
Amesbury and O’Donnell reject the precept that departments should foster intellectual diversity since “accepting this role for the humanities and social sciences, however, means that their faculties risk losing the ability to judge any ideas (or proposed curricula or public programming) unworthy of sponsorship.”
It is a rationalization for the current echo chamber of higher education. Of course, many of these academics would be outraged if conservatives were to take hold of faculties and start to exclude their views as “unworthy.” Indeed, that was once the response to far left professors like critical legal scholars and socialists. Now, however, the left has control of these departments and has declared opposing views to be unworthy of protection.
One can certainly understand the appeal of this argument to many faculty and publications like the Journal of Higher Education. By simply declaring opposing views “unworthy” or wrong, you relieve yourself of any obligation to allow such opposing views on faculties or in publications.
We saw the impact of this orthodoxy during the pandemic.
For example, the media, academic departments, and government agencies allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist or racists or racist conspiracy theorists. Academics joined this chorus in marginalizing anyone raising the theory. One study cited the theory as an example of “anti-Chinese racism” and “toxic white masculinity.”
As late as May 2021, the New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory as “racist.” Conversely, one former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade chastised his former colleagues for ignoring the obvious evidence supporting a lab theory as well as Chinese efforts to arrest scientists and destroy evidence that could establish the origin.
Others in academia quickly joined the bandwagon to assure the public that there is no scientific basis for their theory, leaving only racism or politics as the motivation behind the theory. In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front.
The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”
No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him for repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”
In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.”
Academics were stripped of their positions on leading boards and suspended from social media, including professors who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now recognizing the basis for those views and questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdowns as well as the efficacy of masks or the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination. Federal agencies now accept the lab origin theory. Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a couple years ago and their views were deemed “unworthy” by many for schools or publications.
The problem with rejecting intellectual diversity is that it fosters orthodoxy and ignorance. Rejecting opposing views certainly can advance careers. There are more opportunities for the compliant or the orthodox. Professors face less challenge or contradiction in their own writings. Promotions, speaking engagements, and publishing opportunities are certainly enhanced with the elimination of colleagues with opposing views.
However, the result is the gradual death of higher education. It is evident in the rising intolerance shown on our campuses for opposing views and increasing demands for censorship and blacklisting. It is the triumph of the majority, but it looks more like an academic mob. Once all of the “unworthy” thoughts and faculty are purged, what is left appears more like indoctrination than education.
Update:
Professor O’Donnell has responded to this column and I appreciate her willingness engage us on the blog. I also wanted to share a response to her arguments.
Here is her comment:
“I appreciate your attention to the piece Richard and I recently wrote. Our argument is not that free speech is unimportant. Nor do we argue against a diversity of ideas. And we certainly never suggest that ideas should go unquestioned: to the contrary, we make the same point that you do, which is that ideas must face scrutiny, competition, and skepticism if knowledge is to advance. Our argument is two-fold. First, that universities should have a more modest sense of their role in society. Free speech is important, we argue, for a vibrant public sphere. The distinguishing value of higher education, however, is academic freedom – the freedom to participate without hindrance in the disciplinary processes by means of which knowledge can be sifted from mere opinion.
This means that rather than seeking to be an all-encompassing speech forum, universities should instead embrace their limited role as places of scholarship, learning, and teaching, with the pursuit of truth at their core. Second, we argue that “free speech” and “intellectual diversity” – exactly because one is so easily chastised for questioning them – have become gates through which unexamined orthodoxies, buoyed by government or donor influence, enter universities and take root. Imperfect as academia is, we’ve found that our critics come up with examples of how, when disciplinary processes are pursued, knowledge does advance. You observed that legal theories that were once absent from academia entered the mainstream; new legal theories will emerge to displace those now at center stage if disciplines undertake their role of questioning and vetting. That displacement can’t happen if their adherents can simply appeal to “intellectual diversity” for their protection. Another critic pointed out that eugenics was once important to some university departments. Precisely, we say. Scholarship informed by the tragic moral understanding that followed WWII, eventually displaced eugenic pseudoscience. Eugenics could now be reinserted into universities under the banner of free speech or intellectual diversity. We can all surely agree that this is not desirable. And if we agree to that, perhaps we can move past the assertion that the mere invocation of free speech and intellectual diversity must always capture the moral and intellectual high ground.”
I must confess that I remain skeptical. Professor O’Donnell explains that “[t]his means that rather than seeking to be an all-encompassing speech forum, universities should instead embrace their limited role as places of scholarship, learning, and teaching, with the pursuit of truth at their core.”
This is a common defense against academic diversity. No one is seriously questioning the role of universities as places of scholarship or learning. The issue is the dramatic reduction of conservative, libertarian, or even dissenting faculty at many schools. While raising such concerns can be dismissed as “a right-wing agenda,” there are a host of polls and surveys showing students and faculty are reporting a lack of tolerance or diversity of thought in classrooms. When these concerns are raised, the mantra is that we have not hired conservative or libertarian scholars because their views lack merit or intellectual vigor.
For example, Above the Law Senior Editor Joe Patrice ddefended “predominantly liberal faculties” and argued that hiring a conservative professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach.
Professor O’Donnell also notes that “we argue that ‘free speech’ and ‘intellectual diversity’ … have become gates through which unexamined orthodoxies, buoyed by government or donor influence, enter universities and take root.” The dominance of the left found in these surveys is not due to “unexamined orthodoxies.” It is due to the dismissal of opposing views as “unworthy” and not “intellectually rigorous.” That rationale has been used to purge faculties of most conservatives. Most faculties run from the left to the far left. There is no explanation other than to claim that no sufficiently qualified conservative, libertarian, or dissenting candidates applied. Years go by for many schools without a single qualified candidate with conservative or dissenting views on major issues. In the meantime, states are expected to continue to fund schools that often exclude the values and views of the majority of the taxpayers.
The disconnect defies logic. For example, half of the judges and roughly half of the populace hold fairly conservative views on constitutional issues. Half of Congress hold such views. However, only a small percentage of conservative faculty (if any) can be found at most law schools. That is not due to these views being “unexamined.” Likewise, it is relatively rare to have opposing views on gender identity, climate control, abortion, social justice issues found on many campuses. Indeed, faculty with such views have been subject to cancel campaigns and university investigations.
Professor O’Donnell adds that “You observed that legal theories that were once absent from academia entered the mainstream; new legal theories will emerge to displace those now at center stage if disciplines undertake their role of questioning and vetting.” However, this blog is full of accounts of dissenting faculty being removed from publications, societies, and faculties. The political orthodoxy that has taken hold of our campuses has made it far less likely that such views can be fairly presented.
None of this is, as claimed, is offered to use of free speech or intellectual diversity to push a “right-wing agenda.” These are questions that have long been raised and remain, even after this column, unanswered.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 17:00 - US Guns May Already Be Arming West Bank Settlers
US Guns May Already Be Arming West Bank Settlers
When Israel’s National Security Minister Itamir Ben-Gvir started handing out assault rifles to civilians last month, there was a swift reaction from Washington. Reportedly outraged, US officials were said to have threatened to halt arms shipments, including 24,000 new rifles that Ben-Gvir’s ministry had ordered from American companies.
The guns pictured at well-documented public events weren’t American or reportedly American-supplied. State Department officials and US lawmakers, however, were concerned that the new rifles could be given to settlers and used against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank where settler violence has jumped since 7 October from what were already record highs.
A group of settlers in the occupied West Bank village of Atuwani shout at residents while wielding guns in October 2023 (Courtesy of Mohammad al-Huraini). More than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in that time by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Despite Israeli assurances that the guns would go to units under Israeli National Police control, inside the Green Line, the US has reportedly delayed the delivery of 4,500 M-16 rifles.
At least, this is what can be gleaned from Israeli and American media reports. The State Department on Thursday said it declined to comment on direct commercial sales and private diplomatic conversations.
But a former State Department official told Middle East Eye that it is “almost a certainty” that American guns are already being used by settlers in the West Bank. And even if the weapons aren’t in settler hands, US guns exported to Israel, either financed with US military aid or bought commercially, will have freed Israeli guns to be handed to them, arms control experts say.
“Some of the guns that the US will have exported will have gone through license to the Israeli Defense Forces and, of course, most military age settlers are reservists,” said Josh Paul, who was a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs until he resigned last month. “So they will have their guns from the IDF regardless of whether or not they are being handed out by Ben-Gvir in most cases.”
MEE asked the State Department if it shared Paul’s concern that US guns are likely already in the hands of settlers in the West Bank. A spokesperson did not directly answer the question but said that governments that received US arms are responsible for complying with the conditions of the transfers and obligations under international law, including those related to human rights.
The spokesperson also said that equal resources should be dedicated to preventing extremist violence and bringing those responsible to justice, including members of the IDF and security forces, such as the Israeli National Police, who stand by or fail to intervene.
How many and what types of American guns have made their way to Israel over the years are questions that stump even seasoned arms control experts. The most detailed publicly available information shows that US exports to Israel of revolvers, pistols and certain kinds of rifles have jumped significantly in the first nine months of this year compared to the previous three.
But without full public data, it is impossible for US taxpayers and even lawmakers to gauge the scale of US gun exports to Israel and, critically, how much of that is underwritten by the US government.
“If all of these sales were completely transparent to Congress and to the public especially, I think there would be a lot more outrage,” Lillian Mauldin, a founding board member of Women for Weapons Trade Transparency and a research fellow at the Center for International Policy, told MEE. “It’s in corporate interests for arms sales to be incredibly difficult to track down, even for people who have been in the arms control research field for decades.”
Meanwhile, experts say the US government programmes which monitor arms exports are not set up to track small arms after they are shipped. “Once they are gone, they are gone,” Paul said. This leaves Palestinians in the West Bank like Mohammed al-Huraini with questions.
‘Made in the USA’?
Al-Huraini is from Atuwani, a 500 or so-person village tucked between mountains in the south Hebron Hills, among a dozen in Masafer Yatta. Here residents have faced expulsion threats and demolition orders since the Israeli army designated their land as a firing zone in 1981.
As the Israel-Hamas war rages on in Gaza, settler violence is driving Palestinians in West Bank from their homes. pic.twitter.com/5LffN3SwqT
— DW News (@dwnews) November 23, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Now 19, Huraini has never known a time when he and his family weren’t under pressure to leave Atuwani. His grandmother, Fatemah, can’t see out of one eye after soldiers struck her during a protest in 2006. Last September, settlers broke both of his father Hafez’s arms.
But since 7 October, Huraini says the situation in the village, captured in footage seen by MEE and described to him by friends and family who remain there while he attends university in Ramallah, has noticeably shifted. Settlers have stepped up attacks on residents, raiding homes and threatening to kill anyone who doesn’t leave. They are wearing military uniforms and all of them are armed.
“It wasn’t like that before. The people now are afraid to confront [the settlers] because they don’t have anything in hand or anything to support them,” he said. His cousin, Zakaria al-Adra, was shot by settlers at close range on 12 October with exploding ammunition that ripped through his stomach. He has since had five operations.
The Huraini’s home was also raided and the family’s vegetable garden, which they had been growing for six years, was bulldozed and replaced with a tent. They are unable to move around on their property or travel to get groceries without being targeted, he said. “If you step 20 meters from my house, they will immediately start to shoot,” he said.
“Before at least you didn’t feel that you will be killed in cold blood. It’s easier now.” Last year, after a weeks-long attack by the Israeli military and settlers on his village, Huraini found a tear gas canister outside his house that said “Made in USA” on it.
It wasn’t the first time he had seen a canister like that, but it was the first time he’d clocked the writing on it. “We are being crushed under the power of US money and weapons,” he wrote at the time. “American citizens should know where their taxes go and what they fund.” Now he wonders if any of the guns that have proliferated in recent weeks are American too.
Leahy shortcomings
Any US guns financed with or given as US military aid should be subject to the Leahy Law, named for Patrick Leahy, the former Democratic senator from Vermont, who sponsored the legislation in 1997. Under the law, the US defense and state departments are prohibited from giving security assistance to foreign governments facing credible accusations of rights abuses.
But both Paul, the former State Department official in the bureau which oversees arms transfers, and Leahy himself have said the law has not been applied to Israel. “Over the years, I’ve complained to both Republican and Democratic administrations about the need to apply the law in Israel,” Leahy told the News & Citizen, a weekly newspaper in Vermont, last week.
“These administrations have argued that Israel has an independent judiciary, so it doesn’t really need to. We’ve seen the efforts recently to make the judiciary even less independent than it had been.”
Paul told MEE that inside the State Department, Israel is treated differently than “almost any other country in the world” when it comes to the Leahy Law. “Rather than pre-vetting units before they get this stuff, we send the stuff and then we look out for human rights violations,” Paul said.
He has previously said that the department has found “many” examples of Israeli units suspected of gross violations of human rights, but has never been able to come to any conclusions which require senior officials to sign off.
A State Department spokesperson did not comment directly on Paul and Leahy’s observations but told MEE that any country that receives US security assistance is expected to use it consistent with international humanitarian law and human rights law, and consistent with the agreements that govern its use. Israel, they said, is no exception.
Opaque details
The American public, meanwhile, has limited information about the types and volume of guns that are exported to Israel, either through military aid or commercial sales. The lack of transparency around US arms sales and military aid to Israel – the biggest recipient of US military aid worldwide – is well-documented.
The contrast between US government fact sheets on weapons it has given Ukraine, down to first aid kits and bandages, and the dearth of information about what is sent to Israel is stark. This opaqueness is also true about guns sent to Israel: US firearm export data, whatever country is at the receiving end, is notoriously hard to come by.
This is, in part, because there are legal restrictions, written by fee-funded regulators, on what information can be provided about certain sales. Congress, for example, is only told about arms sales valued above monetary thresholds which vary depending on sale type, but are higher for Nato countries and five others, including Israel.
This means that sales of small arms, which are less expensive relative to other weaponry, are particularly prone to flying under threshold and has left billions of dollars worth of sales “unreported to Congress and the American public”, Mauldin has said. Details are also regularly withheld by US government departments overseeing arms export licensing because they argue that it is proprietary information that could undermine US companies.
The most detailed information MEE was able to find were figures from the US Census Bureau which show that the total value of guns and related parts exported from the US to Israel have jumped in five different categories in the first nine months of this year alone compared to totals of the previous three.
The value of exported items that have increased significantly include revolvers and pistols, certain kinds of rifles, shotgun and rifle accessories and parts, and cartridges.
Seth Binder, director of advocacy with the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington, DC, said the spike suggested by the data isn’t a huge surprise given the intensity of settler attacks in the West Bank and the loosening of laws in Israel in recent years to allow more gun licences to be granted.
“How much of that is coming from foreign military financing? It would be pretty interesting to know, but that information isn’t available,” Binder said. He’s right: US Census Bureau data doesn’t tell you whether US financing was provided to assist the Israeli government or companies with these purchases or if any were transferred without charge.
So while the figures show that there has been a steep increase in military weapon parts and ammunition this year, how much of that has been underwritten by the US government – or taxpayer – is unclear. But from bombs to guns, knowing the details matters, said Paul.
“There is an inherent US taxpayer interest here, first of all in how taxpayer dollars are being spent and whether the way they are being spent provides a net positive for US foreign policy,” he said. In Israel, where American weapons tip the balance of the conflict, this is especially true.
“Small arms and light weapons can cause more harm than people give them credit for, in a more under the radar way,” said Mauldin. “But the larger issue is that of course US funding will disproportionately affect the conflict when we give billions of dollars – basically a grant for Israel to buy whatever they would like from the US, including those small arms and light weapons.”
Limitations on monitoring
And there is another mystery: where are the US guns and parts already in Israel? Neither the State Department, which monitors commercial sales, nor the Defense Department, which monitors military sales, are geared to track small arms.
The State Department’s Blue Lantern program does end checks on about 2 percent of arms export licenses annually, usually focusing on new entities that pop up in license requests or areas where there are specific intelligence-driven concerns. “So for firearms to Israel, they would be very unlikely to do any kind of end-use checks assuming it is to the Israeli government and via known logistics entities,” Paul said.
The Defense Department’s Golden Sentry programme typically focuses on much larger weapons and is more of a check that weapons are in the arsenal where a foreign military says they are located. Arm experts MEE spoke with in recent weeks have said the most straightforward way to trace US guns to the West Bank at this point would be through photo analysis.
But there’s also another way of looking at all of this: even if you can’t trace exactly where US firearms have ended up or that they are being used by settlers in the West Bank, the US is still implicated. “We are providing $3.8bn in military aid. That’s $3.8bn that the Israeli government doesn’t need to use on military equipment because we are providing it,” Binder said.
Giving American guns to Israel – through military aid or commercial sales approved by the US government – operates the same way. “Israel has its own domestic industry and so, as they are making guarantees that they are not going to provide US guns to Israeli settlers, it does, in fact, free up Israeli guns to go to settlers,” he said.
It would be important and troubling if US-made weapons were being used by settlers right now, he said. “Nonetheless, if the Israeli military or whoever inside Green Line Israel is using US weapons and suddenly settlers are using Israeli ones, does that really matter?”
Huraini, who is preparing to return home to visit his family in Atuwani, said he is no gun expert and can’t be sure whether settlers are using American firearms in the footage he has collected over recent weeks. But he finds it hard to understand how Americans would tolerate any spending. “The people are, in reality, supporting genocide, war crimes and violations of human rights by spending their money,” he said. “I don’t know where it went exactly, for what help. But in the end, it is supporting this apartheid regime that committed everything against the people.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 16:00 - CNBC's Climate Desk Melts Away
CNBC’s Climate Desk Melts Away
CNBC has ‘dismantled its climate desk’ and will no longer have staff dedicated to covering the topic – posing a potential blow to the Democrat party’s various ‘green’ schemes, including their so-called Green New Deal.
“CNBC has dismantled its climate desk and will no longer have staff dedicated to covering climate change,” wrote Bloomberg‘s Akshat Rathi, posting a link to now-former CNBC climate innovation and tech reporter’s announcement on X, which reads:
“Personal news, as they say: A layoff, heartbreak, and finding my truth wandering through the streets of Istanbul…”
CNBC has dismantled its climate desk and will no longer have staff dedicated to covering climate change. https://t.co/XXoc3HgsSD
— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) November 21, 2023
Liberal tears flowed for Clifford:
Thank you so very much, James. This means more than you will ever know!
— Catherine Clifford (@CatClifford) November 21, 2023
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Thank you so much, Brad. I appreciate this more than you will ever know. I follow your coverage closely, and I think you do fantastic work, too.
— Catherine Clifford (@CatClifford) November 21, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“It is a sad day when a major news publication decides to cut jobs that provide essential coverage of a planetary crisis,” said Rathi, adding “The science is clear, the impacts are here, and many world leaders are taking it seriously. So why does a media publication not see a business case?”
Rathi suggested CNBC must be losing money, and therefore need to figure out how to ‘grow the number of users.’
Folks on the business side of journalism have their work cut out. If per user revenue is low, there are two solutions. Grow the number of users and grow how much each user is worth. On both those things readers who care can help!
— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) November 21, 2023
The ‘dismantling’ comes on the heels of several legitimate publications challenging prevailing climate science. For example:
- Bombshell Claim: Scientists Find “Man-made Climate Change Doesn’t Exist In Practice”
- Over 1,600 Scientists Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration
- Why Did Bill Gates Make Sudden U-Turn On Climate Doom Narrative?
- $50 Trillion For What? Kennedy Dumbfounds Biden Climate Peddler In Fiery Exchange Over ‘Carbon Neutrality’
And so on…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 15:30 - Los Angeles Leads 2023 National Shoplifting Spree
Los Angeles Leads 2023 National Shoplifting Spree
Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Shoplifting in Los Angeles spiked 109 percent in the first half of 2023, according to a new study by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), “Shoplifting Trends: What You Need to Know.” The CCJ is a nonpartisan and independent think tank supported by grants from philanthropies. That was the highest rise of any city, with Dallas in second place at 73 percent.
On the positive side, shoplifting dropped 35 percent in San Francisco, similar to a 31 percent drop in Seattle. Unfortunately, Los Angeles and San Francisco were the only two Golden State cities monitored of 24 nationwide. The study included several interactive graphs. This screenshot isolates the two California cities. Los Angeles is the black line, and San Francisco the brown one:
(Council on Criminal Justice/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) Notice San Francisco’s spike in late 2021 and early 2022, just before left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled by voters on June 7, 2022.
Then look at the black line for Los Angeles. The rise began in the middle of 2021, sparking another recall effort against another radical, District Attorney George Gascón. But that effort failed in August 2022 when proponents failed to gather enough signatures. After that, as the graph shows, shoplifting just kept going up and up to its current heights.
However, Mr. Gascón is facing a tough reelection bid next year. A poll released Nov. 6 by FM3 Research showed Mr. Gascón losing, 48 percent to 23 percent, to Eric Siddall, a career Los Angeles prosecutor. It concluded, “In sum, this survey shows Eric Siddall to be well-positioned for the LA County District Attorney March primary election. In a large field of candidates that includes an incumbent that most voters regard negatively and do not support, Siddall’s profile distinguishes him.”
A FiveThirtyEight survey of FM3’s polls found its forecasts for the 2022 election were 68 percent accurate, which is pretty good.
On his campaign website, Mr. Siddall pledges, “I’ll make it clear to any and all criminals that the George Gascón party is over. Too many working families, seniors, women, young people and marginalized communities are living in fear for their safety.”
Other Los Angeles Crime Rates
The CCJ study also produced this graph of five crime factors since 2018. Los Angeles is isolated from the other cities.
Again, shoplifting (green line) stands out for its sharp rise after the drop during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when most stores were closed. Other larceny (black line) rose in the middle of 2021, but since has declined. Holding steady or declining a little during this period were vehicle theft (purple line), robbery (gold line), and burglary (gray line).
Here’s something else interesting the CCJ study found. In New York and other cities, there’s a seasonality to shoplifting. It rises in the spring and summer, I think because the weather becomes nice, then drops in the winter. Criminals don’t want to ply their trade any more than honest folks when it’s zero degrees outside and the wind is howling with a snowstorm.
“In Los Angeles, by contrast, there is no clear seasonality,” the study found. That also was true for another generally warm coastal city, “In Virginia Beach, there is also no clear seasonal pattern.”
What Causes Crime Increases?
As to causes, here’s what the study suggested: “Bail reform is one possible explanation, yet the timing of the reform (at least in New York) does not align with the shoplifting increase, and research suggests that bail reform likely has no association with increased larceny.
“Another possibility is a change in the rate at which stores report shoplifting to police. This analysis is based solely on reported shoplifting incidents; the underreporting of shoplifting has yet to be systematically analyzed. However, data from the Anaheim (California) Police Department indicate that a major retailer reported 8 percent of shoplifting incidents in 2022 and 20 percent in 2023. According to one report, a spike in San Francisco shoplifting may have resulted from increased reporting.”
That seems to me an inadequate explanation. If stores are closing, or locking up all their goods, then there’s not just a “reporting” problem, but a real problem.
Guns and Crime
I suggest a different reason, which needs more investigation: The lack of an increase in crime in some of these areas has something to do with America’s strong gun culture. Robbery and burglary involve violence, which can be thwarted by gun-wielding victims shooting the assailants. Criminals know this, and when gun ownership increases, they switch to easer crimes, such as looting drug and grocery stores.
The June 2022 Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the personal right to carry a firearm. Since then, gun ownership has soared.
According to an NBC poll released Nov. 21, “More than half of American voters—52 percent—say they or someone in their household owns a gun, per the latest NBC News national poll.
That’s the highest share of voters who say that they or someone in their household owns a gun in the history of the NBC News poll, on a question dating back to 1999.” That’s up from 43 percent in 2013.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been attacking Americans’ Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” during his five years in office. Despite the Bruen decision, he signed six more anti-gun bills on Sept. 26. And he has proposed a 28th Amendment to eviscerate the Second Amendment. He’s clearly out of step with Californians, and certainly with the national electorate.
Conclusion: Voters are Taking Action
Even in liberal California, voters don’t like getting mugged, or seeing their stores close from shoplifting. And they’re taking action. They’re arming themselves with guns. And they’re ousting district attorneys who tolerate lawlessness.
At the state level, Mr. Newsom is term limited and is now running a shadow campaign for president. So all his actions are directed there.
California crime goes in cycles. The “permissiveness,” as it was called, of the 1960s and 70s led to the crackdowns of the 1980s and 90s, especially 1994’s Proposition 184, the Three Strikes and You’re Out Law. That cut crime, but it also led to a large prison overpopulation problem, leading to the intervention of federal courts starting in 2009.
In the past decade, the state has passed such reforms as Proposition 47 in 2014, which reduced sentences for many crimes.
Currently, it seems the need is to get rid of the radical district attorneys, replacing them with officials who enforce the current laws. We’ll see in a few years how that works.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 15:05 - 'You Won't Hear This On NYT': US Forest Fire Burn Acreage Plunges To Multi-Decade Lows
‘You Won’t Hear This On NYT’: US Forest Fire Burn Acreage Plunges To Multi-Decade Lows
We penned a note in August titled, Is It Time To Fact-Check Corporate Media’s ‘Climate Hysteria’ Over “Hottest Day Ever?”
Climate alarmists in corporate media pushed a disinformation campaign with sketchy climate math this past summer that even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to run away from.
NOAA runs away from ‘hottest day’ claim.https://t.co/BQv0VpuE5r pic.twitter.com/IaeOIGj5xE
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) July 7, 2023
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Remember the climate doom headlines in corporate media?
By late summer, 1,609 scientists and professionals worldwide had signed a declaration, including 321 from the United States, dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide benefits Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative.
Also, remember this idiot child making climate doom prophesies…
The latest data from the National Interagency Fire Center reveals wildfire burn acreage across the US is the lowest in decades.
Climate change contrarian Tony Heller was the first to point out this inconvenient truth, indicating on social media platform X, “Burn acreage in the US this year was the lowest of the century. This will not be reported by the @nytimes , @CNN or @NPR – because it doesn’t suit their #ClimateScam agenda.”
Heller also pointed out this data in July.
US forest fire burn acreage through July 7 is at historic lows and less than one-third of the ten year average. You will not hear this reported by @NPR or the @nytimes #ClimateScamhttps://t.co/4A3JpCSyzt pic.twitter.com/XJIO91FbIk
— Tony Heller (@TonyClimate) July 9, 2023
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Meanwhile, corporate media and their billionaire pals want to ban cow farts and fossil fuel cars for the masses while they enjoy a life of luxury.
Al Gore
Michael Bloomberg
Climate fear has been a multi-decade scheme…
It’s time to demand corporate media to report climate truth instead of climate fear that is backed by sketchy math.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/24/2023 – 14:40
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