Today’s News 26th April 2023

• Russia Attempts Turkey-Syria Normalization In Moscow Summit
  Russia Attempts Turkey-Syria Normalization In Moscow Summit

  Russia is continuing efforts to stabilize Syria and push American influence in the region to the sidelines, as on Tuesday Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu hosted four-way talks which have as their goal the normalization of ties between the Syrian and Turkish governments. The talks involve Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The end result could see American forces squeezed out of Syria.

  “Practical steps were discussed in the field of strengthening security in the Syrian Arab Republic and normalizing Syrian-Turkish relations,” the Russian Defense Ministry stated. This is based on a common perspective that all parties desire win “the fight against all extremist groups in Syria.”

  

  The Turkish defense ministry positively acknowledged the “constructive atmosphere” of the meeting in which “the issue of intensifying efforts to return Syrian refugees to their lands” was examined. All representatives “reaffirmed their respect for Syria’s territorial integrity,” the Turkish ministry said.

  For Syria, high on the agenda is precisely protection of its sovereignty and food and energy resources. Going back multiple years, the United States and its Kurdish-led proxy, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have occupied a huge chuck of oil-and-gas rich northeast Syria, as well as Tanf garrison on the Iraq-Syria border. The US has been widely accused of stealing Syrian oil, ferrying it across the Iraq border, but at the same time the Pentagon says it’s there to fight ISIS.

  Turkish forces have also occupied territory within the Syria’s northern border, and aim to fight Syrian Kurdish groups. Crucially, if Damascus and Ankara strike a deal, this is expected to be key in eventually squeezing out the US occupation. This is also of course what Russia wants to see as well.

  The US-backed SDF has long come under Turkish threat, a threat which would be amplified if suddenly Syria, Turkey and Russia got on the same page.

  Already, US bases have come under sporadic rocket and drone attack over the past several months, which recently led to the death of an American contractor, with US troops suffering injuries. 

  Defense Ministers of Russia, Iran, Syria and Turkey are meeting in Moscow to discuss strengthening of security in Syria and building close ties between Turkey and Syria.

  This follows the meeting by Foreign Ministers of the four countries earlier this month. pic.twitter.com/FlvS0M7Ia3

  — Sentletse 🇷🇺🇿🇦 (@Sentletse) April 25, 2023

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

  Helping the prospect of peace between Damascus and Turkey is the fact that Arab states are rushing back to Assad to reestablish ties, even Saudi Arabia. If Syria is invited back into the Arab League, which Washington vehemently opposes, this would do much in terms of diplomatic normalization with other regional nations as well, such as Turkey and Jordan.

  Any diplomatic breakthrough would also be a huge reputational ‘win’ for Russia at a moment it remains isolated by the West due to the ongoing Ukraine war.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/26/2023 – 02:45

• EU Is In A "Warlike Mood", Warns Hungary's Foreign Minister
  EU Is In A “Warlike Mood”, Warns Hungary’s Foreign Minister

  Via Remix News,

  Hungary is calling for peace even as most European nations are pushing to escalate the war…

  

  Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó. (MTI)

  Europe is pushing for more war and taking measures to not only accelerate arms deliveries to Ukraine but also stamp out pro-peace voices in Europe, said Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó in Luxembourg on Monday.

  “The EU is in a warlike mood, with the vast majority of member states wanting to supply Ukraine with more weapons for more money,” said Szijjártó.

  “This atmosphere of war here also implies that the pro-peace advocates that continue to argue for peace continue to come under severe political and verbal attack, whether from countries present here or not,” he added.

  Reporting on the Luxembourg meeting of European foreign ministers, he said that it had again started with “self-blame,” with many believing that the EU had still not done enough to support Ukraine.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/26/2023 – 02:00

• Can A Woke Military Win Wars?
  Can A Woke Military Win Wars?

  Authored by Roger Kimball via The Epoch Times,

  For a couple of years now, the U.S. military has had a serious recruitment problem.

  

  That isn’t really a surprise.

  Our leaders have injected the entire menu of radical “woke” ideology into the tissues of the military establishment.

  Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, worries about “white rage” and supports teaching critical race theory to the troops.

  When Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin took office under President Joe Biden, he issued a 60-day “stand down” order to the entire military in pursuit of battling “extremism” and achieving “equity” in the military (pdf).

  In March 2022, the Biden administration announced a new policy under which people suffering from gender dysphoria would not only be allowed to serve in the military but also would have their “gender reassignment” surgery paid for by taxpayers.

  Traditionally, conservative families, especially conservative working-class families, supplied a large percentage of military recruits.

  Those families are not thrilled by the intrusion of such politically correct sentiments into an institution hitherto marked by its commitment to traditional moral and martial values.

  They aren’t interested in sending their children to be catechized by anti-American Marxists or apostles of sexual exotica.

  The Biden administration seems blissfully unaware of this reality.

  At least, I assume it’s unaware of what two retired Army generals called “a major threat to our national security.”

  Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain Biden’s recent executive order regarding “environmental justice.”

  According to the White House, the new order is part of the administration’s “whole-of-government effort to confront longstanding environmental injustices and inequities.”

  Of course, we live at a time when everything is potentially racist.

  Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg even argued that highway designs in the United States are “racist.”

  So it should come as no surprise that “environmental justice” is really just an aspect of “racial justice.”

  “For far too long,” the executive order reads, “communities across our country have faced persistent environmental injustice through toxic pollution, underinvestment in infrastructure and critical services, and other disproportionate environmental harms often due to a legacy of racial discrimination including redlining.”

  And let’s not forget the other big-ticket item on the agenda of the left: “climate change.” “These communities with environmental justice concerns face even greater burdens due to climate change,” the White House stated.

  The Department of Defense has even issued an “environmental scorecard” grading itself on its progress toward fulfilling the Green Dream.

  There are bits about “Consultation and Partnership with Tribal Nations,” addressing “environmental justice concerns,” and “institutionalizing” “our country’s bedrock environmental laws.”

  There was nothing about making sure that the U.S. military was an agile and lethal fighting force well-equipped with the most modern and capable weapons.

  Such concerns seem to have been put on the back burner (but not, of course, a burner on a gas stove).

  Once upon a time, people joined the military to serve their country.

  Now they’re being asked to join a therapy group to promote a progressive agenda.

  Increasingly, the answer to that call is, “No thanks.”

  Over the past few years, the world has entered a new and more dangerous phase.

  Vladimir Putin’s adventures in Ukraine are one sign of that yeastiness.

  Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s repeated announcements that he’s “preparing for war” are another.

  Is this really the best time for the United States to hand over its military to the same sort of woke bureaucrats who brought you that notorious Bud Light partnership with transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney?

  Take Biden’s executive order about “environmental justice” and put it next to his attack on the U.S. energy industry, his abandonment of the Southern border, and his reckless economic policies that have dealt a body blow to the middle and working classes.

  Then ask yourself this: If Joe Biden wanted to hurt the United States, to make it poorer, less secure, less safe, what would he do differently?

  Representative James Comer (R-Ky.) recently noted that it is now known that “at least 9 Biden family members sold access for profit around the world.”

  He asked a most pertinent question: “What were our foreign adversaries paying for?”

  I would be interested in learning the answer.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 23:45

• 45% Of Americans Above Age 50 Play Video Games, And Feel Neglected By Industry
  45% Of Americans Above Age 50 Play Video Games, And Feel Neglected By Industry

  A new study by AARP reveals that 45% of Americans aged 50 or older play video games at least once per month, yet are feeling neglected by the industry.

  

  Those polled say gaming is ‘beneficial’ to their lives – helping them to have fun and relax, while staying mentally sharp. Older gamers invest an average of 12 hours per week and $49 within a 6-month time frame on gaming – which could lead to $2.5 billion in biannual spending on the habit, which includes in-game purchases, virtual items, accessories (headsets, controllers, etc.) and the gaming consoles themselves.

  Of the 45% above 50 who say they game, 45% of that group says they game daily – with women leading men by 52% vs. 37%.

  Older adults’ interest in gaming grew noticeably in 2016 and spiked during the COVID pandemic. Today, interest remains fairly consistent; however, about one in three of adults in their 50s (30%), women (30%), and Black adults (37%) say they play more now than they did two years ago. The average number of hours played across devices per week has increased 40% since 2019, up from an 8.5 to 12  hours played per week, not necessarily more frequently but for longer periods of time. 

  Who Plays With Whom

  Solo play is most popular with 81% of those surveyed playing alone. But many remain connected: two-thirds (68%) communicate with other players through in-game chats, texts, app messaging, or by phone.

  When they do play with others, 50-plus gamers’ most common play companions are children or grandchildren (20%). Other companions include adult family members (14%), in person with friends (12%), random people online (10%), siblings (5%), parents (3%), and colleagues (2%). -AARP

  When it comes to which system is most popular, older gamers are using old and new consoles, however mobile gaming continues to dominate – with the #1 gaming device for those polled being the smartphone, which 84% of those polled said was their gaming device of choice.

  Neglect?

  According to AARP: “Our research shows, however, that almost 70% do not feel like the games are made with them in mind,” said director of community and gaming, Maura White, in a statement to Axios, adding that more than half of those polled say they don’t feel that they’re represented in games, nor marketing, and that many games are too complicated.

  “They would like the video gaming industry to create games and features designed to onboard easily, play consistently, and stay challenged,” says White.

  More via AARP:

  Why They’re Playing 

  Those 50-plus engage in gaming for a range of reasons, although most involve fun, mental fitness, and well-being. The top six reasons are:  

  • Have fun, 86%
  • Relax, 79%
  • Stay mentally sharp, 78%
  • To be challenged/solve problems, 74%
  • Reduce stress, 71%
  • Pass the time, 70%

  How Devoted Are Older Gamers?

  The study broke down gamers 50-plus into five segments ranging from those less passionate about gaming to those most passionate. The groups were given identities based on why they play, how often, and what they enjoy most — Dabblers, Mainstreamers, Indulgers, Enthusiasts, and Immersives. 

  Dabblers

  This group represents 15% of 50-plus gamers. They are least passionate about gaming and play infrequently on their PCs or phones to pass the time or relieve boredom. Even though they enjoy puzzle, card, and tile games, they have no desire to play more often. 

  Mainstreamers

  This is the largest group of 50-plus gamers, representing 35%. Mainstreamers have the highest concentration of mobile-only gamers. They may play every day, but they don’t feel very passionate about gaming. They’re in it more for the enjoyment, challenge, and mental stimulation. Wordle is very popular with this group. 

  Indulgers

  This group plays daily on mobile phones and tablets for enjoyment and mental stimulation. They may have a sense of guilt about too much play time, but many find throwing in some casino games into their puzzle, card, and tile games, helps to reduce stress. This group represents 23% of 50-plus gamers. 

  Enthusiasts

  These folks, representing 19% of older gamers, are passionate about gaming and like to become engrossed in energetic and active games. Action, adventure, and fantasy or role-playing games (RPG) help fill their evenings. This group looks for strong storytelling and compelling gameplay. 

  Immersives

  At only 7% of 50-plus gamers, this group is the smallest segment size but most passionate about gaming. Immersives identify as gamers. They are at the forefront of gaming trends and find social interaction integral to their choices of genres like fantasy and make-believe. They’re the only segment where a console, rather than a smartphone, is their top choice of gaming device. 

  Ease of Play Matters

  Ease of play is the most popular feature among all five groups. In order, this is a key priority for Enthusiasts (57%), Mainstreamers (55%), Indulgers (45%), Immersives (41%) and Dabblers (37%). Other features include opportunity to improve over time, scaling of difficulty, set level of difficulty, variety of play and competitive ranks or tiers. 

  Older Gamers See Meaningful Play as Beneficial 

  While players of all ages enjoy gaming for the relief from stress and anxiety, those 50-plus feel gaming is beneficial as they get older, with three in four (77%) seeing play, such as gaming, as an important aspect of healthy aging for them. As for what motivates this group, passing the time still leads the way (54%), followed by mental acuity (39%), pleasure (46%), emotion (23%), immersion (13%), social connection (11%), challenge (10%), and self-improvement (9%). 

  When it comes to challenge, respondents like games that build in intensity over time and require competitive skills. Ease of playing ranked high (49%), while other preferred features include an opportunity to improve over time (35%), variety of play (21%), competitive ranks or tiers (18%), ongoing storylines or narratives (12%), and social aspect of gaming (10%).

  However, 50-plus gamers see ads as a nuisance; for this age group and others, ads impact the enjoyment of the game. Among the other major frustrations: having to watch ads to make progress or make a purchase to continue, and the number and type of notifications in the game. 

  Games Designed Without Older Gamers in Mind

  Seven in 10 (69%) older gamers feel that games are not designed with them in mind. Another 66% said video games are designed with no thought to players 50-plus. Many said the games can at times be too complicated to understand and others noted they need tutorials to play effectively. From not seeing themselves reflected in game marketing (69%) or within the games themselves (64%), older players feel like an afterthought to the gaming industry. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 23:25

• Decision On Trump Indictment To Be Annouced 'In The Near Future': Fulton County DA
  Decision On Trump Indictment To Be Annouced ‘In The Near Future’: Fulton County DA

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

  A Georgia district attorney wrote in a letter dated April 24 that she intends to announce potential indictments resulting from a probe into former President Donald Trump and his associates for alleged interference in the 2020 election with his calls for investigations.

  

  “In the near future, I will announce charging decisions resulting from the investigation my office has been conducting into possible criminal interference in the administration of Georgia’s 2020 General Election,” Fani Willis, District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, wrote in a letter addressed to Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat on Monday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported the letter.

  Willis wrote she would announce the charging decisions between July 11 and Sept. 1.

  

  Details of Investigation

  Willis’s Monday announcement was the latest update in the special-purpose grand jury investigation she launched in 2021 and led thereafter.

  While the grand jury proceedings had occurred behind closed doors, the probe is believed to center on a 2020 phone call between Trump, Trump’s legal team, and Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his team.

  “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” Trump allegedly told Raffensperger during the phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, a transcript of which was released by media organizations.

  Willis characterized Trump’s wording (pdf) during the call as evidence of “criminal disruption” of the 2020 election, and has based her case on charges around that allegation. The grand jury heard testimony from Trump’s former associates, including Rudy Giuliani and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Trump has denied all allegations of wrongdoing on his part.

  The grand jury was discharged in January. In early February, the Fulton County Superior Court released a portion of the jury panel’s report, which did not include the list of names to whom indictments were recommended. Emily Kohrs, the grand jury’s foreperson, told media outlets in February that the group recommended indictments.

  “The long awaited important sections of the Georgia report, which do not even mention President Trump’s name, have nothing to do with the President because President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told CNN in a following statement in February.

  “The President participated in two perfect phone calls regarding election integrity in Georgia, which he is entitled to do—in fact, as President, it was President Trump’s Constitutional duty to ensure election safety, security, and integrity,” Cheung added.

  A Feb. 10, 2021, letter that Willis sent to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp gave hints of potential charges she may pursue, including soliciting election fraud, lying to state officials, and conspiring to interfere with the 2020 election.

  Willis told the local sheriff to prepare for violence that may occur in response to her pending announcement.

  “Please accept this correspondence as notice to allow you sufficient time to prepare the Sheriff’s Office and coordinate with local, state and federal agencies to ensure that our law enforcement community is ready to protect the public,” Willis wrote to Fulton Sheriff Patrick Labat in her Monday letter.

  “Open source intelligence has indicated the announcement of decisions in this case may provoke a significant public reaction,” Willis added. “We have seen in recent years that some may go outside of public expressions of opinion that are protected by the First Amendment to engage in acts of violence that will endanger the safety of our community.”

  Legal Experts Weigh In

  According to Alan Dershowitz, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law School, Willis’s charges would not hold up considering the face value of Trump’s wording during the call with Raffensperger.

  “Because what he said is, ‘We have to find’—not invent, not concoct—‘find.’ Find means that it’s there—just a question of finding them—so that’s not a crime,” Dershowitz told The Epoch Times in an interview in March.

  

  Trial attorney John O’Connor agreed with Dershowitz’s view, adding that the case is undercut by a demonstrable belief on Trump’s part that there was significant fraud in the 2020 election.

  “That charge will never make it,” O’Connor told The Epoch Times in an interview in March. “It was very clear that Trump felt that there were voters who had wrongfully voted, and he was asking the Secretary of State to find which voters had been wrongfully voting, that’s all. So I don’t think there’s anything to that.”

  Trump’s Motion to Quash

  In March, Trump’s attorney Drew Findling filed a motion in the Superior Court of Fulton County to quash the grand jury’s final report, preclude the use of evidence from Willis’s investigation in further proceedings, and disqualify Willis in the case.

  A key objection that Findling raised in his motion to quash (pdf) is regarding media tours taken by Kohrs, Willis, as well as the judge overseeing the case, Robert C. McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County. Findling alleges that these interviews compromised the case legally and judicially.

  “It is not a short list,” Kohrs told The New York Times in February, referring to the currently sealed list of indictment recommendations. Kohrs told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in another interview on Feb. 21 that she also spoke to her boyfriend regarding her experience in the panel’s proceedings.

  According to Findling, the foreperson’s media tour showed that the procedures set forth for the jury panel “failed to protect the most basic procedural and substantive constitutional rights of all individuals discussed by this investigative body.”

  The harm brought by Kohrs’s publicity was compounded by additional exposure by DA Willis herself, Findling said in the filing.

  

  “[Willis’s] media interviews violate prosecutorial standards and constitute forensic misconduct, and her social media activity creates the appearance of impropriety compounding the necessity for disqualification,” he said.

  But even exasperating the situation are interviews conducted by the judge himself, Findling argued.

  “Compounding the harm inflicted by the foreperson’s public comments, the Supervising Judge then gave numerous media interviews despite still presiding over this pending matter,” the filing said of McBurney, who gave media interviews after the jury’s foreperson’s media tour.

  “[T]he foreperson’s and grand jurors’ comments illuminate the lack of proper instruction and supervision over the grand jury relating to clear evidentiary matters which violates the notions of fundamental fairness and due process,” the filing reads. “The results of the investigation cannot be relied upon and, therefore, must be suppressed given the constitutional violations.”

  McBurney ordered that Willis respond to Trump’s motion before May 1.

  Conflict of Interest

  In his March filing, Findling said that DA Willis’s Office must be disqualified from pursuing the case further, citing concerns related to prosecutorial misconduct and conflict of interest.

  The prosecutorial misconduct aspect of Findling’s argument rests on DA Willis’s comments to the press (the motion notes she spoke to the press nearly 40 times) and her social media posts, which Findling said bolstered her profile as a political candidate.

  One such social media post, the filing said, included a cartoon posted on Willis’s campaign Twitter account, which showed the DA fishing a subpoenaed witness, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), out of a swamp, with Trump saying, “I know you’ll do the right thing, Lindsey.”

  

  Findling noted that the cartoon was part of a political campaign threaded throughout Willis’s Georgia investigation, one in which Willis had “personal involvement and interest,” creating a “disqualifying conflict.”

  “[T]he FCDA promoted her own campaign on the shoulders of partisan support for this SPGJ investigation. Within a couple of days, the [Fulton County DA’s] Twitter account increased by approximately 100,000 followers, and requests for campaign donations were retweeted thousands of times,” the filing reads, referring to the alleged effect of Willis’s publicity campaign.

  “On at least three occasions, the FCDA personally inserted herself into this Twitter campaign for ‘followers, tweets and donations’ which specifically referenced this investigation.”

  Findling alleged that Willis’s political interest, in this case, constituted a conflict of interest and thus should bar her from being further involved in the investigation.

  The second reason Willis should be disqualified, according to Findling, is that Willis was ordered to be disqualified from investigating a Georgia senator because of perceived conflict of interest considerations. He argued that this disqualification should extend to the entire case.

  On July 25, 2022, the supervising judge disqualified the District Attorney’s Office from calling then-state Sen. Burt Jones to testify as a witness in the Georgia jury because DA Willis was involved in a political campaign for Charlie Bailey, a then-candidate for Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, who would run against Jones, the then-Republican nomination.

  “She has bestowed her office’s imprimatur upon Senator Jones’s opponent. And since then, she has publicly (in her pleadings) labeled Senator Jones a ‘target’ of the grand jury’s investigation,” the judge wrote in his order, noting that Willis’s singling out of Jones constituted a perceived conflict of interest.

  Findling capitalized on the judge’s disqualification order in the Monday filing, citing a 1987 decision by the United States Supreme Court (Young v. United States), which recognized “the existence of an actual conflict cannot be limited to the investigation or prosecution of one individual but is a conflict that permeates the entire proceeding.”

  In other words, Findling was saying that if the judge finds that the conduct of the prosecutor ought to be disqualified from prosecuting or investigating one witness due to a conflict of interest consideration, that prosecutor must be disqualified from the case altogether.

  “The rights of President Trump, as well as all others impacted by this investigation, are now subject to the prosecutorial discretion and decision-making of a prosecuting body that even the Supervising Judge acknowledged has an actual, disqualifying conflict,” the filing reads.

  “This is simply untenable. For this reason alone, the FCDA’s Office must be removed from any further investigation or prosecution of this matter.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 23:05

• These Are The Most Expensive Sports Team Sales In History
  These Are The Most Expensive Sports Team Sales In History

  After a record-setting year in 2022, professional sports team sales are on an uptick yet again.

  The tentative $6.05 billion Washington Commanders sale, already approved by other NFL owners, will be the highest amount paid for a sports team once completed.

  This graphic from Visual Capitalist’s Sam Parker shows how the Commanders’ April 2023 deal measures up against the biggest sports team sales in history, using data from the Wall Street Journal and CBS Sports.

  

  Washington Commanders Sale vs. Other Franchise Fortunes

  Valuations have become significantly larger in the last couple of years, with the largest sales all occurring after 2010. Here are the 10 most highly-priced sales for a professional sports team franchise globally.

  

  The Washington Commanders sale takes the top spot at $6.1 billion, even though it could still be de-throned. It’s been reported that a $7 billion dollar bid for the team is still in play as well.

  Dan Snyder, the current owner of the team, is one of the world’s richest people in sports. He purchased the team for $800 million in 1999 and, if the $6.1 billion sale completes, will have made a cumulative return of over 650%.

  Chelsea Football Club is the only non-U.S. sale on the list. The sports team was previously owned by Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch who was subject to sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was forced to sell the team.

  Hedge fund billionaire Todd Boehly, who was part of the consortium that purchased Chelsea, is also part owner of number 10 on the list: the LA Dodgers. Boehly is said to have helped with one of the “most dramatic turnarounds in North American sports” through his purchase of the Dodgers in 2012 for $2.0 billion, with the team wining the MLB World Series in 2020.

  Will any sale top the Washington Commanders number? NFL teams specifically are some of the world’s most valuable teams, so the sale of a team such as the Dallas Cowboys or Los Angeles Rams could be worth more.

  Other competition could come from soccer teams, including Chelsea rivals Manchester United or Liverpool. Manchester United’s owners put the club up for sale in 2022, hoping for a valuation of £5 billion to £6 billion ($6.2 billion to $7.5 billion).

  Why Are Sports Team Sale Prices So High?

  Sports teams haven’t always collected such sky-high prices like the Washington Commanders sale. In fact, sports teams used to be the investment of choice for eccentric entrepreneurs and were considered money-losing propositions.

  So what’s changed? There are a number of factors driving high valuations and passionate interest from billionaires:

  • Media deals: Digitization means sports now have a global audience, and broadcast rights have become a major driver of leagues’ revenue growth. For example, the NFL has $115 billion in long-term media rights deals with major TV networks, Amazon, and Google’s YouTube TV.

  • Industry monopoly: There were once a handful of professional baseball leagues, but Major League Baseball earned an exemption from antitrust (pro-competition) laws in 1922. Other sports leagues have conglomerated to become the biggest and best representatives of their sport, making it nearly impossible for new entrants to compete.

  • League benefits: Contracts negotiated at a league level are equally split between every league’s sports team. The Packers, the only NFL team with public financial statements, earned 60% of their income from national sources in 2022. Most leagues also have salary caps which limit player costs.

  • Favorable Taxes: In 2004, the U.S. federal government introduced a rule allowing sports team owners to write off most of their purchase price against team profits over 15 years.

  Beyond these factors, perhaps the biggest driver of sports team value is the prestige associated with owning one.

  “Sports teams are a bit of a vanity asset, like owning a Picasso, and the highest bidder is going to be a very rich person who wants to own the team so they (can) call themselves an owner of a sports team.”

  – STEPHEN DODSON, PORTFOLIO MANAGER OF BRETTON FUND

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 22:45

• Megyn Kelly Responds To Tucker Carlson Leaving Fox News: 'Terrible Move' By Network
  Megyn Kelly Responds To Tucker Carlson Leaving Fox News: ‘Terrible Move’ By Network

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly reacted to Monday’s news that Tucker Carlson would be departing by saying it was a “terrible move” on the network’s part.

  “This is a terrible move by Fox, and it’s a great thing for Tucker Carlson,” Kelly said during an episode of her podcast on Monday.

  

  In a news release, Fox confirmed it is parting ways with Carlson, who was its most popular cable news host and a leading conservative voice. Carlson has not issued a public comment about the matter.

  “I don’t know what drove Fox News to make this decision. And it was clearly Fox News’ decision because they’re not letting him say goodbye,” Kelly said. “That’s my supposition. That’s not inside knowledge … talk about misjudging your audience yet again.”

  Carlson’s last broadcast was on Friday, April 21. During the final on-air segment, Carlson told his Fox viewers that he would be back on Monday.

  Kelly added that the news was “Good for Tucker” and that “trust me, he doesn’t need them.”

  A Fox anchor, Harris Faulkner, said Monday that the two sides had “mutually” decided to part ways. Few details about what happened have been revealed.

  Fox has not issued any comment on Carlson’s leaving the channel beyond a statement stating that it wanted to “thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.” In an article reporting on his departure, Fox News turned off its comments section.

  Kelly, too, was among the most popular Fox News personalities before she left the channel in 2017. Since leaving, she has become critical of the network and hosts a popular podcast.

  After taking Fox News’ 8 p.m. ET timeslot in 2017, Carlson quickly became among the network’s most popular hosts and remained so up until the end. For the week ending April 16, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the most-watched cable news show, averaging 3.389 million viewers, while the next most popular show was “The Five” on Fox News, which averaged about 3 million, according to data from Nielsen.

  

  The timing of Carlson’s departure also appears to be unusual. The Fox News host recently landed two high-profile interviews, including one with former President Donald Trump and another with Twitter and Tesla owner Elon Musk. Nielsen ratings show that the Carlson–Trump interview last week drew 6.7 million viewers.

  Despite the reasons for Carlson’s exit, it signals the biggest shock to Fox News’s lineup since former top host Bill O’Reilly was booted from the channel in 2017. His “O’Reilly Factor”—a long mainstay on cable news—was Fox News’ highest-rated program at the time.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 22:25

• US Waged Years-Long Shadow War Against Wagner Mercenaries In Africa
  US Waged Years-Long Shadow War Against Wagner Mercenaries In Africa

  US special forces and intelligence are running a proxy war aimed at disrupting Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries in the Middle East and North Africa, recently unveiled Pentagon leaks show. 

  The Biden administration has long expressed concern over Wagner’s role not just in Ukraine, where it has been spearheading efforts to gain Russian victory over Bakhmut, but especially its expanding presence in Africa as well.

  

  This shadow war appears to have been going for years even before the Ukraine war, with the classified documents which first showed up on Discord confirming that the US military is actively targeting Wagner fighters in secret operations. 

  The Washington Post was the first to highlight the US intelligence related to Wagner, and reports the following: 

  One document in the trove lists nearly a dozen “kinetic” and other options that could be pursued as part of “coordinated U.S. and allied disruption efforts.” The files propose providing targeting information to help Ukraine forces kill Wagner commanders, and cite other allies’ willingness to take similar lethal measures against Wagner nodes in Africa.

  But, the Post underscores, these operations have done little to degrade Wagner’s presence and operations. Interestingly there’s even mention of a major incident in Libya:

  And yet, there is little in the trove to suggest that the CIA, Pentagon or other agencies have caused more than minor setbacks for Wagner over a six-year stretch during which the mercenary group, controlled by Putin ally Prigozhin, gained strategic footholds in at least eight African countries, among 13 nations where Prigozhin has operated in some capacity, according to one document.

  The only direct military strike mentioned in the files refers to “a successful unattributed attack in Libya” that “destroyed a Wagner logistics aircraft.” The document provides no further detail about the operation or why that single plane — part of a far larger Wagner fleet — was targeted.

  It remains unclear whether the Libya operation was accomplished using US proxy forces on the ground (such as US-trained Libyan militias), or if it was a direct special forces or CIA attack. Likely it was the former scenario, given the extreme risk for American commandos in Libya.

  Russian state media has meanwhile also taken note of the story, with RT writing this week that “A second leaks-based story published by the Post on Monday cites a document alleging that Ukraine’s military intelligence service, the GUR, and its head, Kirill Budanov, planned an attack on Wagner officers in Mali.” Russia is alleging this shows a deliberate campaign to assassination Wagner PMC commanders.

  Wagner Group surges in Africa w/strategic footholds in +8 nations as US influence fades

  …moving aggressively to establish a “confederation” of anti-Western African states

  LEAKED INTEL: US proposed providing assistance to Ukraine & African nodes to assassinate Wagner commanders https://t.co/HyjNoWEsLG pic.twitter.com/mvTinVREui

  — Prodigal (@ProdigalThe3rd) April 23, 2023

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

  The US sees Wagner in Africa as part of broader efforts to expand Russia’s influence on the continent. Wagner has long been active inside Syria following President Assad inviting Russian allied forces into the conflict in 2015. Lately, the West has even blamed the unfolding Sudan crisis on Russia and its mercenaries. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 22:05

• Taibbi: Report On The Censorship-Industrial Complex
  Taibbi: Report On The Censorship-Industrial Complex

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

  Today you’ll find two new #TwitterFiles threads out, one by longtime Racket contributor Matt Orfalea, and another by Andrew Lowenthal, who worked for 18 years defending digital rights at EngageMedia and watched activists in his space slowly be absorbed by what we’re now calling “The Censorship-Industrial Complex.”

  

  The two new threads collectively show the wide political range of revelations in the #TwitterFiles material, which have been slandered — absurdly — as a partisan exercise. Lowenthal, who in his “Insider’s Guide to ‘Anti-Disinformation’” describes himself as a “progressive-minded Australian,” printed a series of exchanges between journalists who attended a summer “tabletop exercise” at the Aspen Institute about a hack-and-leak operation involving Burisma and Hunter Biden, weeks before the actual event. When the actual scandal broke not long after, the existence of that tabletop exercise clearly become newsworthy, but none of the journalists present, who included David Sanger of the New York Times and current Rolling Stone editor Noah Schactman — said a word. Perhaps, as was common with anti-disinfo conferences, the event was off the record. (We asked, and none of the reporters commented). It doesn’t matter. Lowenthal showed how another “anti-disinformation” conference featured the headline speaker Anthony Blinken. He’s currently suspected of having “triggered” the infamous letter signed by 50 intelligence officers saying the Hunter Biden laptop story had the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

  As Lowenthal writes: “See how it works? The people accusing others of “disinformation” run the biggest disinformation campaigns themselves.”

  On the flip side, Orfalea found a document showing that both the Wikileaks account and that of Dr. Jill Stein were algorithmically added by Twitter to a list given the creepy name is_russian. This was one of two buckets of “Russians” Twitter was collecting, one called “A Priori Russians” (usually, accounts identified as Russian by 3rd party researchers), the other “Inferred Russians” (accounts that had “strong,” “medium,” or “weak” “signals” of Russianness, involving language, type of email account, location of IP address, tweet time, etc). Even Twitter’s own analysts noted that any system that “captured” Jill Stein as “Russian” spoke to the “overly broad nature of is_russian.” It was just such a “signals” or “marker”-based methodology that Twitter and other researchers used to identify “Russians” on the Internet, a methodology Twitter internally called one of “educated guesses,” concealing a company secret about identifying accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency: “We have no realistic way of knowing this on a Twitter-centric basis.”

  As Stein noted when I spoke to her yesterday, these unseen algorithmic tweaks to the political landscape have the effect of decreasing the visibility of political independents during a time of “record hunger for political alternatives.” Stein noted a Gallup poll just showed “identification with the Democratic and Republican parties is at an all-time low,” and said such digital meddling is “an outrageous excuse for political repression,” and “more that Joe McCarthy would be proud of.”

  When Stella Assange was told about the is_russian list, she first speculated that any algorithm that demerited users based on location might produce false positives if account holders used, say, the Tor Browser, which could “randomly result in an RU exit node.” Since “Tor is an essential tool for civil liberties and privacy communities,” you could have people being tossed in a “Russian” bucket for the crime of trying to evade surveillance.

  In another part of his thread, Orfalea notes that a Clemson University researcher hailed as a “troll hunter” in the press and used as a source by major media outlets, speculated that an account called @drkwarlord that was sharing a hashtag, #BloombergisRacist because the account was tweeting at odd hours:

  

  That’s the “expert” opinion. Orfalea just called @drkwarlord, who laughed, “I’m a nurse at a hospital in Indiana. In 2020, I worked the night shift.”

  Whether it’s suppression of a news story conservatives care about like the Hunter Biden laptop tale, or deamplification of a left-leaning Green Party candidate like Jill Stein, the #TwitterFiles consistently hit at the same theme, but it’s not partisan. It’s really summed up by something Stella Assange said, about the difference between Wikileaks and the “anti-disinformation” facsimile, Bellingcat. “Wikileaks coined ‘intelligence agency of the people.’ Bellingcat went with ‘for the people.’”

  Civil society institutions, the media, politicians, and government are supposed to maintain distance from one another in democracy. The Censorship-Industrial Complex shows an opposite instinct, for all of these groups to act in concert, essentially as one giant, incestuous intelligence operation — not of the people, but paternalistically “for” the people, or so they believe. Journalists attend conferences where news happens and do not report it, breaking ranks neither with conference organizers, nor with each other. The Trump era has birthed a new brand of paranoid politics, where once-liberalizing institutions like the press and NGOs are encouraged to absorb into a larger whole, creating a single political cartel to protect against the “contagion” of mass movements. As Lowenthal notes, this explains why so many “anti-disinformation” campaigns describe language as a kind of disease, e.g. “infodemic,” “information pollution,” and “information disorder.”

  Surrounded by the “disease” of dangerous political ideas, checks and balances are being discarded in favor of a new belief in banding together. The Guardian’s Luke Harding laid out this idea a few years ago, in a gushing review of a book about Bellingcat by its founder, British journalist Eliot Higgins:

  Higgins thinks traditional news outlets need to establish their own open source investigation teams or miss out. He’s right. Several have done so. The New York Times has recruited ex-Bellingcat staff. Higgins approves of this. In his view, rivalry between media titles is a thing of the past. The future is collaboration, the hunt for evidence a shared endeavour, the truth out there if we wish to discover it.

  Harding makes this sound cheery, but the rivalry of media titles is the primary (if not only) regulatory mechanism for keeping the press honest. If the Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC no longer go after each other for uncorrected errors — like the Hamilton 68 fiasco exposed in the #TwitterFiles, or Harding’s own infamous report that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort managed to have a secret meeting in London’s Ecuadorian embassy with the world’s most-watched human, Assange — they can and will indulge in collective delusions. A “shared endeavour” vision of politics is just a synonym for belief in elite concentration of power.

  As noted in Lowenthal’s thread, the story of the #TwitterFiles and the Censorship-Industrial Complex is “really the story of the collapse of public trust in experts and institutions, and how those experts struck back, by trying to pool their remaining influence into a political monopoly.” The losers in any advancement of this story would include anyone outside the monopoly, and they can be on either the right or the left. The intense negative reaction by traditional press to the #TwitterFiles stories published to date is rooted in a feeling of betrayal. The new media leaders see themselves as doing the same service police officers in the stop-and-frisk era called “order maintenance,” pouncing on visible signs of discord or disruption. They’re gatekeepers, and the #TwitterFiles — classic old-timey journalism that assumes the public has a right to know things — represents an unacceptable breach of the perimeter.

  Orfalea is also releasing today a video he compiled for the “Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex.” Titled “Eleven Minutes of Media Falsehoods, Just On One Subject, Just On One Channel,” it’s what’s left of a more ambitious plan the Racket team tried to put together as part of this wider series, whose first pieces are coming out today. Andrew and Matt’s material is coming out first, but in the next weeks you’ll be reading from a series of contributors in this “Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex,” each looking at this subject from different angles.

  The project started with a question: who’s on this list?

  

  You’re looking at page 7 of a report by the State Department Inspector General from August, 2020, featuring the forgettable title, “Audit of Global Engagement Center Federal Assistance Award Management and Monitoring.” On the first page, the State IG explained it was auditing a new agency, the Global Engagement Center, which was housed in the U.S. State Department and dedicated to the fight against “foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation.” The IG added some history:

  In March 2016, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13721, which required the Secretary of State to establish the Global Engagement Center (GEC). The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2017 then mandated that GEC “lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.”

  The report went on to say that in Fiscal Year 2018, the new anti-disinformation wing of the State Department received $98.7 million, including “approximately $78.7 million in congressionally appropriated funds, and $20 million transferred from the Department of Defense.” That was distributed among 39 different award recipients, whom the Inspector General was kind enough to list. Only, they redacted all but three names, none of which have what one would describe as vibrant online presences today: Park Advisors, the Democracy Council of California, and the CNA Corporation.

  I first read this report in mid-February, roughly three months into the #TwitterFiles project. At the time, I was trying to learn more about Hamilton 68, the reporter-friendly anti-disinformation “dashboard” purporting to track a list of accounts linked to “Russian influence activities.” Internal Twitter emails showed executives reverse-engineered the Hamilton list and found it to be a fraud, mostly tracking not Russians but ordinary people here at home.

  Multiple sources told me to look for Hamilton ties to the GEC. Among those who claimed to help design the site included a writer called J.M. Berger, who told me he’d been on the GEC payroll until about a month before the list’s launch (though he vigorously denied doing work on Hamilton for GEC). Hamilton’s public spokesperson Clint Watts, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, worked at GEC’s predecessor agency, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, or CSCC. The first head of GEC, former Time editor Rick Stengel, lauded the Hamilton 68 project in odd language, saying, “If only we’d had it during the election”:

  

  Trying to answer these questions about a relatively small amount of money and 39 names, I soon realized the “anti-disinformation” world was awash in cash from a range of public and private sources, and we weren’t dealing with dozens of organizations but at least hundreds, many engaged in language-policing at scale. By early February, seeing that keeping track of which group did what was clearly too much work for one person to even begin to take on, I put out an APB for help mainly in trying to answer one question: exactly how big is this new speech bureaucracy?

  #TwitterFiles reporters like Michael Shellenberger, and myself didn’t have much of a hint of what we were looking at until later in the project. That larger story was about a new type of political control mechanism that didn’t really exist ten years ago. In preparation for testimony before the House in March, Shellenberger gave it a name: the Censorship-Industrial Complex.

  The allusion was an unpleasantly perfect fit. America was introduced to the original Military-Industrial Complex on January 17, 1961, in the farewell address of President Dwight Eisenhower. The former Commander of Allied Forces in Europe in WWII warned of something “new in the American experience”: an interlocking network of financiers, extra-governmental organizations and official bureaucracies who were organized around permanent arms production and who collectively wielded more power than kings, presidents, and other such titular authorities.

  Ike forced Americans for the first time to think of power as suffuse, insuperable, and geographically indistinct, less like a king’s scepter than electricity running through a brain. In the context of the Military Industrial Complex, the Oval Office from which Eisenhower delivered his famous farewell was just a room, Eisenhower himself just a recoiling pile of bones and fluids, following a final stage direction:

  The Censorship-Industrial Complex is much the same. Shellenberger coined the term while working with me on a #TwitterFiles project that began with a parallel mystery story: who had the power to muzzle a president?

  We didn’t understand at the time, but the third, fourth, and fifth installments of the #TwitterFiles — about the three days of infighting at Twitter between the Capitol riots on January 6th and their decision to remove Donald Trump on January 8th — served as an introduction for all of us to the major components of a vast new public-private speech bureaucracy, one that appeared to have been founded in the United States, but was clearly global in scope.

  The material you’ll be reading in the next week or so is designed to accomplish two things. The first task we settled on was to create, through interactive lists and other features, a quantitative map of the world Shellenberger described in his written testimony, a censorship industrial complex that:

  Combines established methods of psychological manipulation… with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing.

  In pursuit of that first goal, organized loosely around a thing we’ve been calling “The List,” Racket welcomed people like Lowenthal and Geneve Campbell, (formerly of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard). With their experience in the “anti-disinformation” space, Andrew and Geneve helped a team of journalists and researchers put together what we hope will be an accessible starter kit for everyday readers hoping to acquaint themselves with the biggest organizational names in the “CIC.”

  The second goal had reporters like Aaron Maté, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Susan Schmidt, “The Hunt for Tom Clancy” writer Matt Farwell (a co-worker of my late colleague Michael Hastings), military-veteran-turned-reporter Tom Wyatt, the wonderfully obsessive Racket contributor Orfalea, and others attempt to tell the broader history of the new international censorship phenomenon.

  Each took on different stories under the theme of the CIC, aided by leads from the Twitter Files, like: what was the genesis of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Trump-Russia investigation? How did the post-9/11 counter-terrorism project morph into a post-Trump counter-populism project? How does the development of the CIC fit with the broader history of American “information operations”? Does a CIC that claims to stop “fake news” actually create it — spoiler, it does — and if so, how many media stories need retracting, or at least an editor’s note, in the face of information found in the Twitter Files? Lastly, can the CIC target individuals, and if so, what would one particularly devastating test case look like? These stories will be coming out in the next weeks.

  All the contributors to this report are independents. Many are not formally trained journalists, and some, like the tireless @Techno_Fog, represent a new kind of citizen journalism it seemed important to recognize. A major subtext of the CIC story is that ordinary people are going to have to build their own media and oversight institutions to represent them, as virtually the entire landscape of traditional institutional checks on power seems to have been compromised.

  If the Military Industrial Complex was propped up by an “Iron Triangle” of donors, Congress, and quasi-private interest groups, the “CIC” is more like a four-legged animal: government, “civil society” organizations, tech companies, and a shocking fourth partner, news media. Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, a supposedly independent group that director Alex Stamos said was created in 2020 to fill the “gap” of what government couldn’t do by itself, did us the favor of creating a graphic representation of these four “major stakeholders”:

  

  Note the way reports flow both to and from the media, which has completely rethought its role vis a vis the public. Over and over in the #TwitterFiles, we saw newspapers finking on their own readers instead of advocating for them. The typical progression involved a “civil society” organization like the Britain-based Center for Countering Digital Hate reaching out to reporters with lists of people or accounts deemed to be bad actors, followed by queries from those reporters to Twitter, demanding to know: why hasn’t this group been deleted? These voices? This idea?

  One of the first observations Andrew made when he started looking through the Files was how bizarre it was to see “civil society organizations” holding tabletop exercises about election security with representatives of the military.

  “‘Not the military’ is what civil society is supposed to mean,” he says. “They’re not supposed to be partners.”

  Democracy relies on the dynamic tension between liberalizing institutions like the press, NGOs, and the media, but the CIC seeks to unite these groups and homogenize information flow. This is not only morally wrong, but ridiculous: there’s no way to keep a cap on 8 billion voices forever. The people you’ll be reading about in this series want to try, however. How? Raw numbers. Money. The sheer application of political will and computing power. As you’ll read and see, if they have to build one NGO for every human on earth, they’ll do it.

  Franz Kafka dreamed up the “one gatekeeper per person” idea over a century ago as ironic metaphor in Before the Law, but the modern United States is moving in that direction as political reality. It’s the ultimate convergence of the huge-scale-waste approach to governance as perfected across generations of forever wars and Pentagon spending, and the authoritarian thinking that flowered all over in response to episodes like 9/11, Brexit, and the election of Donald Trump. The core concept is too much democracy and freedom leads to mischief, and since the desire for these things can’t be stamped out all at once but instead must be squashed in every person over and over and endlessly, the job requires a massive investment, and a gigantic bureaucracy to match.

  How gigantic? Read on, starting with today’s threads, and Matt’s mind-boggling video. Stay tuned to this space for more.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 21:45

• WHO Cites "Huge Biological Risk" As Sudan Fighters Seize Lab Containing Deadly Pathogens
  WHO Cites “Huge Biological Risk” As Sudan Fighters Seize Lab Containing Deadly Pathogens

  The World Health Organization (WHO) says there’s a “huge biological risk” after Sudanese rebels of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the country’s National Public Health Laboratory in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday. 

  A US-brokered 72-hour truce deal appears to have already collapsed, given war correspondents widely reported hearing gunfire persist into the evening. The top-ranking WHO official in Sudan, Nima Saeed Abid, called the development “extremely dangerous because we have polio isolates in the lab, we have measles isolates in the lab, we have cholera isolates in the lab.”

  

  CNN is reporting that the RSF is now in control of the lab, citing a a high-ranking medical source, who told the outlet: “There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab in Khartoum by one of the fighting parties.”

  The WHO additionally confirmed that “trained laboratory technicians no longer have access to the laboratory.” This is a serious crisis given the persisting power outages across the capital area throughout the more than week of fighting, which has killed around 500 people and injured thousands more.

  The WHO is warning that there’s a risk of spoilage and potential for leaks of deadly pathogens, given “it is not possible to properly manage the biological materials that are stored in the laboratory for medical purposes.”

  In the most alarming part of the report, the CNN medical source said: 

  The medical source told CNN that “the danger lies in the outbreak of any armed confrontation in the laboratory because that will turn the laboratory into a germ bomb.”

  “An urgent and rapid international intervention is required to restore electricity and secure the laboratory from any armed confrontation because we are facing a real biological danger,” the source added.

  Sudan now stands once again on the brink of full-blown civil war after already having been in a state civil war on and off again for the better part of a half century.

  One wonders what sensitive bio-labs with highly dangerous samples including deadly diseases are doing there in the first place…

  The news is not the Huge biological risk’ after fighters occupy the bio lab. The real information is:

  What on earth is the #US doing, establishing biological labs in #Sudan and #Ukraine and in many more unknown locations worldwide?

  https://t.co/0zVAmVOsYg

  — Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) April 25, 2023

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

  Recently, the safety of biological labs has been a serious question also when it comes to the Ukraine conflict. Thus far, there have been no known disasters relatedly to germs or diseases amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 21:25

• Mother Of 7 Denied Kidney Transplant For Refusing COVID Shot In Georgia
  Mother Of 7 Denied Kidney Transplant For Refusing COVID Shot In Georgia

  Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  On dialysis and potentially facing death, a 41-year-old homeschooling mother of seven young children has been rejected as a candidate for a life-saving kidney transplant by Emory Healthcare Inc. of Atlanta.

  

  The reason? The woman, who has already had COVID-19, refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on religious and medical grounds.

  To protect her privacy, the patient will be referred to in this article as Jane Doe.

  Emory Healthcare did not respond to a request for comment.

  Affiliated with Emory University, Emory Healthcare is one of the leading organ transplant centers in the South.

  According to Liberty Counsel (LC), a national non-profit legal organization helping Doe, she was referred to Emory by her nephrologist after suddenly coming down with end-stage kidney disease.

  The seriousness of Doe’s condition necessitates her undergoing dialysis three times a week to keep her alive.

  Following an evaluation by one of the transplant center’s nurse practitioners, Doe was initially found to be an acceptable candidate for a new kidney, even though Doe reported she had not been vaccinated against COVID-19.

  Life or Death Decision

  Doe’s hopes were soon dashed when, after another consultation with Emory staffers, a social worker informed her that she could not move forward to the transplant program’s “active waiting list” until she took the shot.

  Emory Healthcare is one of 35 percent of the nation’s transplant centers that are still requiring their patients to be vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a Liberty Counsel analysis.

  This is despite the fact that on April 11, President Joe Biden declared the national emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic officially over.

  On April 17, LC sent a letter to Emory Healthcare requesting that no later than April 30, Doe be granted religious and medical exemptions from its COVID-19 vaccination mandate and asked that she be reactivated and placed on the kidney transplant active waiting list.

  Religious Convictions

  The nine-page letter alleges that every available COVID-19 vaccine is associated with aborted “fetal cell lines.”

  It cites evidence from the public health departments of North Dakota and Louisiana as proof.

  Doe, a devout Roman Catholic, is opposed to ingesting or being injected with such vaccines based on her religious beliefs.

  The Liberty Counsel also informed Emory Healthcare that there were strong medical reasons for Doe’s refusal to get the jab.

  Standing on Natural Immunity

  The demand letter stated that Doe had already recovered from a bout with COVID and that her antibody numbers were actually stronger than those found in many people who were fully vaccinated for 90 days.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 21:05

• Is Saudi Arabia Selling Oil To China For Gold?
  Is Saudi Arabia Selling Oil To China For Gold?

  By Jan Nieuwenhuijs of Gainesville Coins

  Rumors are making rounds that Saudi Arabia is selling oil for yuan, which it converts into gold on the Shanghai International Gold Exchange (SGEI). Such a development would make sense as large parts of the world want to de-dollarize, but the renminbi is not suitable to be used as a reserve currency. China has a closed capital account and a weak rule of law. Not using the dollar could be done by using the renminbi as a trade currency and converting yuan revenue into gold on the SGEI. If the rumor is true, Saudi Arabia is buying 1 Kg bars as there is virtually no trading in 12.5 Kg bars on the SGEI. The benefit of 1 Kg bars is that they are more fitting for fully allocated trading.

  

  The SGEI was set up in 2014 for foreigners to access gold trading on the Shanghai Gold Exchange Main Board in the Chinese domestic gold market and trading on the International Board in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SFTZ). Foreigner entities can’t load-in and load-out gold into and from Main Board certified vaults, but they can load-in and load-out gold into and from International Board certified vaults (and thus import into and export from the SFTZ).

  The objective of the International Board is to facilitate “offshore” gold trading in renminbi in the SFTZ, which has almost no effect on China’s current account. This is comparable to offshore gold trading in US dollars in London (offshore dollars pricing internationally traded commodities). Through the SGEI China wants to increase the role of the renminbi in the global economy.

  

  Investment possibilities for foreigners in Chinese financial assets are limited, but there are no restrictions to converting yuan into gold on the SGEI. I will write more on the mechanics of the Chinese gold market in a forthcoming article because this will be important in the coming years with respect to de-dollarization.

  Last week, Christopher Wood from Jefferies mentioned in a note that the Saudis might be converting yuan into gold on the SGEI (full note available to pro subs in the usual place):

  

  If Saudi Arabia would convert yuan into gold on the SGEI, I would expect them to buy large bars weighing 400 ounces (12.5 Kg). Data from the SGE and SGEI, though, reveals there has practically been no trading in 12.5 Kg bars since the SGE was erected in October 2002.

  

  In the above chart volume is shown for exchange trading of 12.5 Kg contracts. Not shown, over-the-counter (OTC) trading in the 12.5 Kg contract on the International Board was zero in the past year. OTC trading in the 12.5 kg contract on the Main Board isn’t reported, which makes me think it’s not existent. All in all, large bar trading on the SGE(I) is extremely low.

  Based on 12.5 Kg contract trading volume on the SGE(I) it’s hard to prove the rumor is true, which doesn’t mean it can’t be true. Saudi Arabia can also buy 1 Kg bars on the SGEI (and SGE, but it wouldn’t be able to export gold traded on the Main Board). Trading in 1 Kg contracts on the SGEI (iAu9999) and SGE (Au99.99) is not subdued. Although, there hasn’t been a significant uptick in trading of iAu9999 recently.

  

  Interestingly, according to my sources, in China’s foreign exchange market (CFETS) all gold traded is settled and cleared through the SGE and is fully allocated. One of the reasons for this is because the underlying assets are the SGE 1 Kg (9999 fine) and 3 Kg (9995) contracts. In Western foreign exchange markets, the underlying for gold trading is usually the LBMA Good Delivery bar that weighs approximately 400 ounces, which is more convenient to trade on an unallocated basis. As an example, exchanging exactly 20,000 ounces in London is easy on an unallocated basis, while it’s difficult to collect a batch of large bars that together weigh precisely 20,000 ounces. Perhaps Asia is shifting to an alternative benchmark and that’s why the Saudis are buying 1 Kg bars? Time will tell.

  Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, visited Saudi Arabia in December 2022 where he pledged to continue buying oil and gas from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, and proposed these trades to be settled in yuan. From Xi:

  China will continue to import large quantities of crude oil from GCC countries, expand imports of liquefied natural gas, strengthen cooperation in upstream oil and gas development, engineering services, storage, transportation and refining, and make full use of the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade…

  Shortly after, in January 2023, Saudi Arabia shared it’s open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister.

  The Wall Street Journal wrote in March 2023 that, “Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan.”

  These statements tell us there is a will in both countries to de-dollarize. Selling oil for yuan and then converting those into gold would be a logical step, given the renminbi’s shortcomings as a reserve currency. But I would like to see more evidence before confirming this trend.

  A few months ago, a person familiar with the matter but who prefers to stay anonymous told me Saudi Arabia is covertly buying gold, though he refrained from saying where it was bought. Perhaps the Saudis are slowly working on a transition; de-dollarization isn’t done overnight.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 20:25

• This Don Lemon Interview With GOP Candidate Was The Last Straw: NYT
  This Don Lemon Interview With GOP Candidate Was The Last Straw: NYT

  The insufferable Don Lemon’s long-overdue ousting from CNN ultimately sprang from his discourse-stifling, race-baiting interview of GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, sources tell The New York Times. 

  Last Wednesday, Ramaswamy appeared on “CNN This Morning,” the show Lemon co-hosted with Kaitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow after his September demotion from prime time.

  

  When Ramaswamy said Lemon was doing a “disserrvice to our country by failing to recognize” the enormous progress blacks have made in securing rights since 1865 and 1964, things went downhill quickly, with Lemon sanctimoniously telling Vivek that he wasn’t authorized to talk about black history. 

  You see, while Ramaswamy is a man of color, it isn’t the right one. “When you are in black skin and then you live in this country…then you can disagree with me,” said Lemon.

  Harlow sat silently, alternately watching the spectacle, looking at her phone and elsewhere. Meanwhile, it appeared CNN producers were trying to pull Lemon back from the cliff — only to receive an on-air scolding. “Please. I cannot keep a thought if you guys are talking in my ear. So hang on one second,” he said, ordering the producers to stop talking as he similarly worked to bring Ramaswamy to heel.  

  If he hadn’t already done so, it’s safe to say Lemon sealed his fate with one particular line down the stretch — as he told Ramaswamy it was “insulting” for him to be “sitting there, whatever ethnicity you are, ‘splaining to me what it’s like to be black in America.”

  according to the NYT this interview that Don Lemon conducted last week with Vivek Ramaswamy played a role in his firing. Note co-host Poppy Harlow sitting silently while Lemon goes after Vivek. pic.twitter.com/Fjx5eX30wU

  — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2023

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  Citing anonymous sources, the Times reported that the segment “left several CNN leaders exasperated.” 

  Lemon had already been on thin ice, having been demoted from prime time to a morning slot six months ago. Even though he was in network rehabilitation mode, he continued piling on reasons for his CNN masters to eject him altogether.  

  In December, the crew of “CNN This Morning” reportedly witnessed an unsettling backstage argument between Lemon and Kaitlin Collins, one of his co-hosts. Lemon had apparently scolded her for repeatedly interrupting him. 

  In February, Lemon said GOP candidate Nikki Haley — at age 51 — “isn’t in her prime, sorry…A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.” When his female co-hosts pushed back, he shut them down by declaring “I’m just saying what the facts are — Google it.” He apologized and submitted to a CNN training program. 

  That reportedly prompted his female co-hosts to storm off for a “well-timed bathroom break.” Sensitive, PC types would have raised a ruckus if a host on any network said what Lemon had said about women — the fact that it happened on CNN made it all the more noteworthy. The same can be said for his “whatever ethnicity you are” line with Ramaswamy.  

  It’s interesting that, between Haley and Ramaswamy, two GOP candidates played central roles in sweeping Lemon off the screen.  

  

  CNN bookers had recently observed that fewer guests wanted to be interviewed by Lemon, just as internal research documented a drop in his popularity. 

  Barring a personality change, moving Lemon to a morning show was a terrible attempt at salvaging a lost cause. As the Times put it:   

  “Mr. Lemon imported [his spiky-exchange and pull-no-punches] persona to “CNN This Morning,” but it was an awkward fit for an hour when many viewers — making breakfast and getting children off to school — want easygoing patter, not thundering monologues.”

  The divorce was already off to a messy start, as Lemon and CNN tweeted contradictory characterizations of how his termination was handled.

  Expect more fur to fly: Lemon has retained Hollywood lawyer Bryan Freedman to advise him on his exit from CNN, where his current contract was to continue until 2026. Big-media litigation makes for strange bedfellows: Tucker Carlson has hired Freedman too. 

  pic.twitter.com/8PyLqvS0d7

  — Don Lemon (@donlemon) April 24, 2023

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

  Don Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate. He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.

  — CNN Communications (@CNNPR) April 24, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 20:25

• Born With It? Dylan Mulvaney Partners With Maybelline, Prompting Calls For New Boycott
  Born With It? Dylan Mulvaney Partners With Maybelline, Prompting Calls For New Boycott

  Trans activist Dylan Mulvaney has scored another paycheck – this time with Maybelline cosmetics.

  Maybe he’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline 💄

  The new face of Maybelline, ladies! pic.twitter.com/rx0EdvOlP3

  — Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 24, 2023

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  And just like the backlash over his ill-fated Bud Light ad, Mulvaney – a biological male whose ditzy female persona is deeply offensive to women – the Maybelline sponsorship has prompted a similar response.

  “Is it really necessary to constantly reduce women to cultural stereotypes and caricatures? Please do better…” wrote one commenter on Mulvaney’s Instagram feed.

  “Womanhood is not a costume you can put on,” wrote another.

  And before anyone goes to their default comment calling anyone who disagrees with them “transphobic”- I’m not afraid of Dylan. I don’t hate Dylan. Dylan seems like a bubbly and sweet person. But Dylan is not a woman, and dressing up in pink clothes and acting like an offensive stereotype caricature of a woman doesn’t make him one. I hope he gets the help he needs. Having the world support his delusions and cater to them isn’t doing him any good. This is a mental health crisis, not a showing of “bravery”. -via Instagram

  The comments continued on Twitter;

  Stop buying toxic products anyway, maybelline is one of the worst, he is so on brand for them.

  — Linda (@Gaia39141231) April 24, 2023

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

  “Maybe she’s born with it”

  … a penis?

  — Tristan Tate (@TateTheTalisman) April 24, 2023

  More via MarketWatch:

  Adding to the ongoing issues: Two Bud Light marketing executives are now on company leave, according to news reports.

  MarketWatch reached out to representatives for L’Oréal OR , the parent company of Maybelline, and Anheuser-Busch BUD , the parent company of Bud Light, for comment, but didn’t receive an immediate response.

  Earlier this month, an Anheuser-Busch spokesperson told MarketWatch that the company “works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics.”

  Make it stop.

  — Kim Shasby Jones (@KimJonesICONS) April 24, 2023

  Mayballiene just put themselves in the toilet.

  — Patricia Koblizek (@patriciakob) April 24, 2023

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

  Sorry feminists, you had a good run.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 20:05

• Ukraine Postponed Attacks Inside Russia Due To US Pressure: Leaked Intel
  Ukraine Postponed Attacks Inside Russia Due To US Pressure: Leaked Intel

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The Washington Post reported Monday that Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, known as HUR, was planning major strikes inside Russia in February that were postponed due to US pressure.

  The report cited documents allegedly leaked by Airman Jack Teixeira. According to a report from the National Security Agency, HUR chief Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov instructed one officer “to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February … with everything the HUR had.” The date marked one year since Russia launched its invasion.

  

  The US became aware of Budanov’s plans as it has been spying on Ukrainian officials. According to a CIA report dated February 22, the HUR had “agreed, at Washington’s request, to postpone strikes.” The Post said it wasn’t clear from the documents how the US pressured Kyiv to push back the operations.

  Throughout the war, Ukraine has launched small drone attacks and conducted other sabotage operations inside Russia. It’s not clear what Budanov meant by “mass strikes.” One plan mentioned by the Post was using TNT to attack the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk.

  The Post report suggests the US didn’t want Budanov to follow through on his plans over concerns of a Russian escalation, but there are indications that the US has helped Kyiv with other attacks inside Russia.

  After Ukrainian drones hit airfields deep inside Russia in December,  NATO military sources told Asia Times that the drones used US satellite GPS data to hit their targets despite Biden administration claims that the US didn’t “encourage nor enable” the attacks.

  Another leaked document that was first reported on earlier this month suggested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would use long-range US weapons to hit targets inside Russia despite assurances that he wouldn’t.

  The document said Zelensky “expressed concern” that Kyiv didn’t possess long-range weapons to hit Russian targets in Rostov during a conversation with Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny and another unnamed official.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 19:45

• McDonald's CEO Says Consumers Starting To 'Push Back' Against Higher Burger Prices
  McDonald’s CEO Says Consumers Starting To ‘Push Back’ Against Higher Burger Prices

  You know the economic storm clouds are gathering whenever McDonald’s becomes unaffordable for the working poor tier of the consumer base. 

  CNBC reports McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said consumers are beginning to push back (in some regional markets) against higher prices and ordering fewer menu items. 

  A $9 burger meal might not be within everyone’s budget.

  McDonald’s diners pushing back against price increases in some markets: CEO

  Paying $9 for a dollar meal hamburger the last straw?

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 25, 2023

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

  Kempczinski said that consumers’ resistance to higher prices has come from going “off script” from the models it uses to determine pricing. 

  “When we execute where we know we have pricing power, we do quite well, but what we do find as we try to take pricing in the areas that are maybe a little bit more sensitive, the consumer pushes back on it,” he said. 

  Additionally, Kempczinski said customers are less likely to add extras to their orders, and items per transaction have fallen by the low single-digits. 

  Kempczinski’s comments come as the consumer confidence index slipped in April as macroeconomic headwinds mount. Consumers have been battered by 24 months of negative real wage growth as inflation crushes households. 

  About 70% of Americans admitted in a recent CNBC survey feeling financially stressed by inflation and lack of savings. Many consumers have maxed out their credit cards, while some are beginning to miss payments. There’s also a rise in home foreclosures, which points to a rapid deterioration of the consumer base. Remember that an increasing number of folks can’t afford their $1,000 monthly auto payment. 

  The first report of consumers trading down items at McDonald’s was nearly one year ago (read: “State Of The US Consumer: McDonald’s Customers Trading Down, Buy Value Items As Combos Increasingly Unaffordable”), and that’s a period when consumers were still flush with stimmy checks and other government handouts. Now it’s gone, and some consumers are already trading down from fast food restaurants to “Dollar Tree Dinners.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 19:25

• Abundant Russian Supply Causes Drop In Refinery Margins
  Abundant Russian Supply Causes Drop In Refinery Margins

  By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com,

  Global refining margins have halved since February as Russian crude exports remain elevated despite sanctions, boosting fuel output from China and India, Reuters has reported, noting the coming boost in global refining capacity.

  

  In March, refinery output from China and India—Russia’s biggest oil clients currently—hit a record and exports of fuels are also up.

  That’s despite price caps on Russian crude oil and fuel exports aimed at curbing revenues. The caps were also widely expected to shrink Russia’s crude oil exports, thus squeezing global supply of crude oil and, consequently, fuels.

  At the same time, Russia is also exporting a lot of ready fuels that are stored at oil hubs, ready for re-exporting, Reuters also noted in its report.

  Refining margins are set for a further slump later in the year as well, as new refineries come online in China and the Middle East, which will further boost fuel output.

  The expected refining capacity increases will also affect U.S. refiners’ margins, Reuters reported separately earlier this week. The U.S. refining industry booked a strong first quarter on robust export demand but this is about to change as competition from Asia intensifies.

  “It’s looking like another really strong quarter for U.S. refiners and their balance sheets are in great shape, but in the second quarter things are really starting to come down,” Tudor Pickering Holt and Co. refining analyst Matthew Blair told the news agency.

  China is now the leader in refining capacity, overtaking the United States last year, with 18.4 million bpd in total. This will grow further this year, cementing it at the number-one spot.

  Last month, Chinese refiners booked record run rates at 14.9 million barrels daily, with the average for the first three months of the year up 5.2 percent on the first quarter of 2022.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 19:05

• Trudeau Slammed After Claiming He Never 'Forced' Anyone To Take COVID-19 Vaccine
  Trudeau Slammed After Claiming He Never ‘Forced’ Anyone To Take COVID-19 Vaccine

  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to Jedi mind trick an audience on Monday at the University of Ottawa, claiming that he never forced anybody to get the Covid-19 vaccine, despite his government legislating some of the strictest vaccine mandates in the world.

  

  “My responsibility is to keep as many Canadians alive as possible and all of the scientists and the medical experts and the researchers, not just in Canada but around the world, understood that vaccination was going to be the way through this,” said Trudeau, adding “Therefore, while not forcing anyone to get vaccinated, I chose to make sure that all of the incentives and protections were there to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated and that’s exactly what they did.”

  New: Justin Trudeau claims he never “forced” anyone to get vaccinated.

  “There are potential side effects… While not forcing anyone to get vaccinated, I chose to make sure all the incentives…were there to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated.”pic.twitter.com/g3fTwTyXt8

  — Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) April 24, 2023

  Except, as True North news noted during the height of the pandemic, Canada was ranked the 10th most restrictive country in the world in terms of government Covid-19 measures, according to the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 Government Response Stringency Index.

  People are calling out Trudeau left and right…

  Internet will always help us remember this moments. Never forget. Never forgive. pic.twitter.com/Nr1g0LfIjl

  — Dr Gon (@drgonc) April 24, 2023

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

  Yes, yes he did. https://t.co/Z6g6ilpMKy

  — Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) April 24, 2023

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

  Extricating himself from awful, unjustified and unethical policy decisions. The truth is that few if any “medical experts” would proudly or publicly support what he did, especially preventing minors from boarding airplanes or trains.

  — Lion Advocacy (@LionAdvocacy) April 24, 2023

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

  Only a progressive in his ivory tower — who’s never had to worry about paying the bills — could sit there and act like firing people isn’t “force.”

  — Sean Thomas (@seanthomas85) April 25, 2023

  I remember…

  Something about Truckers…

  Something about Ottawa…

  Something about a protest…

  Something about freezing and seizing bank accounts…

  Someting about arrests…

  …all over vaccines…

  Must have all just have been a bad dream…

  — Glenn Meyers (@GalahaddeElaine) April 25, 2023

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  It is gaslighting.

  psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem.

  — TiredofBeing Politically Correct. (@IwillFactCheck_) April 24, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 18:45

• RFK Jr. Responds To DNC’s Plans To Skip Primary Debates: 'The System Is Indeed Rigged'
  RFK Jr. Responds To DNC’s Plans To Skip Primary Debates: ‘The System Is Indeed Rigged’

  Authored by Samantha Flom and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Democratic National Committee (DNC) decision to forgo primary debates would serve as confirmation to American voters that the nation’s elections are “rigged,” according to Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  “Debates and town halls are part of the democratic process,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek on April 24. “We’re living in a time when there’s a lot of Americans who believe our democracy is broken. And I think both political parties have to bend over backwards to start restoring faith in democracy and electional integrity.

  “Americans think the entire system is rigged against them,” he added. “And if the DNC goes through with this—its plan to not have debate—I think that will serve as … an unfortunate confirmation to a lot of Americans that the system is indeed rigged.”

  

  ‘Undemocratic’

  Kennedy’s comments came amid rumors that Biden may formally announce his 2024 presidential campaign this week, given that April 25 marks the anniversary of the date he entered the 2020 presidential race in 2019.

  Although Biden has been candid about his intention to run for reelection, speculation as to when a formal announcement might come has been mounting for months. And with two other Democrats—Kennedy and author Marianne Williamson—now in the race, questions about debates have begun to crop up as well.

  However, according to a Washington Post report, the Democratic Party has “no plans to sponsor primary debates,” even with multiple candidates vying for the party’s nomination.

  While declining to speculate on why the party would have made that decision, Kennedy stressed that such a move would defy democracy itself.

  “You need to let the public decide who they want for leadership, rather than party commissars like they did in the Soviet Union or in China,” he asserted.

  Kennedy is not the only Democrat to decry the DNC’s plans. Williamson weighed in on the matter as well.

  “The DNC ‘plans no primary debates,’” she said in a tweet. “As though there simply ARE no other candidates … no other ideas we should discuss about ways to win in 2024, or other ideas we should discuss about ways to repair the country. Too many people are too smart to accept this.”

  Likewise, progressive activist Nina Turner, a former surrogate for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, slammed the decision as “undemocratic,” holding that it “robs the voters of choice.”

  “No one who feels confident in their record and/or ideas would hesitate to stand on them,” she wrote on Twitter. “The DNC should hold debates. This is supposed to be a democratic process.”

  The DNC did not respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times.

  Backing Biden

  At its winter meeting in February, the DNC unanimously expressed its “full and complete support” for Biden’s reelection, just weeks after news broke that he was under federal investigation over his handling of classified documents.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/25/2023 – 18:25

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