- To Cut, Or Not To Cut?
To Cut, Or Not To Cut?
Health organizations are currently divided on whether male circumcision is beneficial or not.
Some research suggests it can lower the rates of urinary tract infections and improve overall penile health, but the procedure can also lead to infection and can be seen as unnecessary.
And as Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, culturally as well, regions of the world are starkly divided on the practice and we visualize this by mapping out the rates by country.
Data for this map is sourced from the “Estimation of Country-Specific and Global Prevalence of Male Circumcision”, a paper published on BioMedCentral in 2016. It is the latest complete data available on this topic.
A Regional Breakdown of Circumcision Rates
Male circumcision is more common in countries where Islam and Judaism emphasize it as a religious practice.
Consequently, in North Africa and the Middle East, 99% of men aged 15 and older are circumcised.
Country ISO Code Male Circumcision
Rate (Men Aged 15+)🇦🇫 Afghanistan AFG 99.8% 🇦🇱 Albania ALB 47.7% 🇩🇿 Algeria DZA 97.9% 🇦🇴 Angola AGO 57.5% 🇦🇷 Argentina ARG 2.9% 🇦🇲 Armenia ARM 0.1% 🇦🇺 Australia AUS 58.0% 🇦🇹 Austria AUT 5.8% 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan AZE 98.5% 🇧🇭 Bahrain BHR 81.2% 🇧🇩 Bangladesh BGD 93.2% 🇧🇾 Belarus BLR 0.3% 🇧🇪 Belgium BEL 22.6% 🇧🇿 Belize BLZ 0.1% 🇧🇯 Benin BEN 92.9% 🇧🇹 Bhutan BTN 1.0% 🇧🇴 Bolivia BOL 0.1% 🇧🇦 Bosnia &
HerzegovinaBIH 41.6% 🇧🇼 Botswana BWA 15.1% 🇧🇷 Brazil BRA 1.3% 🇧🇳 Brunei BRN 51.9% 🇧🇬 Bulgaria BGR 13.4% 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso BFA 88.3% 🇧🇮 Burundi BDI 61.7% 🇰🇭 Cambodia KHM 3.5% 🇨🇲 Cameroon CMR 94.0% 🇨🇦 Canada CAN 31.9% 🇨🇫 Central African
RepublicCAF 63.0% 🇹🇩 Chad TCD 73.5% 🇨🇱 Chile CHL 0.2% 🇨🇳 China CHN 14.0% 🇨🇴 Colombia COL 4.2% 🇨🇷 Costa Rica CRI 0.1% 🇭🇷 Croatia HRV 1.3% 🇨🇺 Cuba CUB 0.1% 🇨🇾 Cyprus CYP 22.7% 🇨🇿 Czechia CZE 0.1% 🇨🇩 DRC COD 97.2% 🇩🇰 Denmark DNK 5.3% 🇩🇯 Djibouti DJI 96.5% 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic DOM 13.7% 🇹🇱 East Timor TLS 6.4% 🇪🇨 Ecuador ECU 0.1% 🇪🇬 Egypt EGY 94.7% 🇸🇻 El Salvador SLV 0.1% 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea GNQ 87.0% 🇪🇷 Eritrea ERI 97.2% 🇪🇪 Estonia EST 0.3% 🇸🇿 eSwatini SWZ 8.2% 🇪🇹 Ethiopia ETH 92.2% 🇫🇰 Falkland Islands FLK 0.1% 🇫🇯 Fiji FJI 55.0% 🇫🇮 Finland FIN 0.8% 🇫🇷 France FRA 14.0% 🇬🇦 Gabon GAB 99.2% 🇬🇲 Gambia GMB 94.5% 🇬🇪 Georgia GEO 10.6% 🇩🇪 Germany DEU 6.7% 🇬🇭 Ghana GHA 91.6% 🇬🇷 Greece GRC 4.7% 🇬🇱 Greenland GRL 0.1% 🇬🇹 Guatemala GTM 0.1% 🇬🇳 Guinea GIN 84.2% 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau GNB 93.3% 🇬🇾 Guyana GUY 12.0% 🇭🇹 Haiti HTI 6.2% 🇭🇳 Honduras HND 0.1% 🇭🇰 Hong Kong HKG 28.0% 🇭🇺 Hungary HUN 0.8% 🇮🇸 Iceland ISL 0.1% 🇮🇳 India IND 13.5% 🇮🇩 Indonesia IDN 92.5% 🇮🇷 Iran IRN 99.7% 🇮🇶 Iraq IRQ 98.9% 🇮🇪 Ireland IRL 0.9% 🇮🇱 Israel ISR 91.7% 🇮🇹 Italy ITA 2.6% 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast CIV 96.7% 🇯🇲 Jamaica JAM 14.0% 🇯🇵 Japan JPN 9.0% 🇯🇴 Jordan JOR 98.8% 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan KAZ 56.4% 🇰🇪 Kenya KEN 91.2% 🇽🇰 Kosovo KOS 91.7% 🇰🇼 Kuwait KWT 86.4% 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan KGZ 91.9% 🇱🇦 Laos LAO 0.1% 🇱🇻 Latvia LVA 0.4% 🇱🇧 Lebanon LBN 59.7% 🇱🇸 Lesotho LSO 52.0% 🇱🇷 Liberia LBR 97.7% 🇱🇾 Libya LBY 96.6% 🇱🇹 Lithuania LTU 0.2% 🇱🇺 Luxembourg LUX 2.4% 🇲🇬 Madagascar MDG 94.7% 🇲🇼 Malawi MWI 21.6% 🇲🇾 Malaysia MYS 61.4% 🇲🇻 Maldives MDV 98.4% 🇲🇱 Mali MLI 86.0% 🇲🇹 Malta MLT 0.3% 🇲🇷 Mauritania MRT 99.2% 🇲🇺 Mauritius MUS 16.6% 🇲🇽 Mexico MEX 15.4% 🇲🇩 Moldova MDA 0.5% 🇲🇳 Mongolia MNG 4.4% 🇲🇪 Montenegro MNE 18.5% 🇲🇦 Morocco MAR 99.9% 🇲🇿 Mozambique MOZ 47.4% 🇲🇲 Myanmar MMR 3.5% 🇳🇦 Namibia NAM 25.5% 🇳🇵 Nepal NPL 4.2% 🇳🇱 Netherlands NLD 5.7% 🇳🇨 New Caledonia NCL 50.0% 🇳🇿 New Zealand NZL 33.0% 🇳🇮 Nicaragua NIC 0.1% 🇳🇪 Niger NER 95.5% 🇳🇬 Nigeria NGA 98.9% 🇰🇵 North Korea PRK 0.1% 🇲🇰 North Macedonia MKD 33.9% 🇳🇴 Norway NOR 3.0% 🇴🇲 Oman OMN 87.7% 🇵🇰 Pakistan PAK 96.4% 🇵🇸 Palestine PSX 99.9% 🇵🇦 Panama PAN 0.9% 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea PNG 10.1% 🇵🇾 Paraguay PRY 0.1% 🇵🇪 Peru PER 3.7% 🇵🇭 Philippines PHL 91.7% 🇵🇱 Poland POL 0.1% 🇵🇹 Portugal PRT 0.6% 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico PRI 0.1% 🇶🇦 Qatar QAT 77.5% 🇷🇸 Serbia SRB 3.7% 🇨🇬 Congo COG 70.0% 🇷🇴 Romania ROU 0.3% 🇷🇺 Russia RUS 11.8% 🇷🇼 Rwanda RWA 13.3% 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia SAU 97.1% 🇸🇳 Senegal SEN 93.5% 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone SLE 96.1% 🇸🇬 Singapore SGP 14.9% 🇸🇰 Slovakia SVK 0.1% 🇸🇮 Slovenia SVN 8.5% 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands SLB 95.0% 🇸🇴 Somalia SOM 93.5% 🇿🇦 South Africa ZAF 44.7% 🇰🇷 South Korea KOR 77.0% 🇸🇸 South Sudan SDS 23.6% 🇪🇸 Spain ESP 6.6% 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka LKA 8.5% 🇸🇩 Sudan SDN 39.4% 🇸🇷 Suriname SUR 15.9% 🇸🇪 Sweden SWE 5.1% 🇨🇭 Switzerland CHE 5.9% 🇸🇾 Syria SYR 92.8% 🇹🇼 Taiwan TWN 8.3% 🇹🇯 Tajikistan TJK 99.0% 🇹🇭 Thailand THA 11.9% 🇧🇸 The Bahamas BHS 0.2% 🇹🇬 Togo TGO 95.2% 🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago TTO 5.8% 🇹🇳 Tunisia TUN 99.8% 🇹🇷 Turkey TUR 98.6% 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan TKM 93.4% 🇺🇬 Uganda UGA 26.7% 🇺🇦 Ukraine UKR 2.3% 🇦🇪 UAE ARE 76.0% 🇬🇧 UK GBR 20.7% 🇹🇿 Tanzania TZA 72.0% 🇺🇸 U.S. USA 80.5% 🇺🇾 Uruguay URY 0.6% 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan UZB 96.5% 🇻🇺 Vanuatu VUT 95.0% 🇻🇪 Venezuela VEN 0.3% 🇻🇳 Vietnam VNM 0.2% 🇪🇭 Western Sahara SAH 99.6% 🇾🇪 Yemen YEM 99.0% 🇿🇲 Zambia ZMB 12.8% 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe ZWE 9.2% 🌎 World Average N/A 38.7% Meanwhile, South America and Europe have low rates, as do parts of Asia where Islam is not a majority religion.
However, there are some interesting standouts in this map. For example, South Korea, the U.S., and Australia have male circumcision rates above 50%, but all have combined Muslim and Jewish populations under 5% of the overall total.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the WHO recommends voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) to reduce HIV risk for heterosexual men in high-incidence areas like Eastern Africa. However, it also states it is one of many prevention methods, alongside condom use and post-exposure treatment.
Islam is the second-largest religion in the world with nearly 1.8 billion followers. Check out Charted: The World’s Largest Religions to see where Judaism ranks.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 23:00 - Utah Culls More Than 100,000 Turkeys After Detecting Bird Flu
Utah Culls More Than 100,000 Turkeys After Detecting Bird Flu
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,
Utah culled a large number of turkeys recently after confirming the presence of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and is taking action to prevent the infection from spreading, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Food.
“Between November 10 to 19, 2024, three turkey farms in Piute County totaling 107,800 turkeys and one backyard flock of 253 birds in Salt Lake County were confirmed positive for HPAI,” a Nov. 22 update from the agency stated.
Officials are currently conducting genetic sequencing of the strains involved in these outbreaks, it said.
“Though the overall risk to public health remains low, HPAI is a serious disease, requiring rapid response, including depopulation of affected flocks as it is highly contagious and fatal to poultry,” the agency said.
“Affected birds were depopulated within 24 hours of diagnosis at each site to limit further disease spread. Overall impacts to the food supply are anticipated to be limited at this time.”
Authorities have decided on an on-site burial for disposing of the culled poultry at Piute County.
All personnel attending the site are required to wear personal protective equipment and all equipment is disinfected to contain the virus within the site.
“Poultry owners should practice strong biosecurity and monitor flocks for signs of illness and report any sick birds immediately to the State Veterinarian’s Office,” the agency said.
“Individuals who work in close contact with infected animals may be at higher risk for contracting HPAI/H5N1 and should take precautions including using recommended personal protective equipment.”
The state saw another outbreak last month in which more than 1.85 million birds in Cache County were affected. At present, five poultry farms operating in Utah are in quarantine, the department said.
The current HPAI outbreak in the United States began in February 2022. Over the past 30 days, infections have been confirmed in 47 flocks nationwide that together account for 6.05 million birds, according to data from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Many of the cases are in California, which alone accounted for 25 flocks totaling more than 5.21 million birds. Infections among flocks have been reported in other states including Arizona, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, South Dakota, and Illinois.
Avian Flu in Humans
There have been 55 confirmed avian flu cases among U.S. citizens, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Again, California accounted for most of the infections, with 29 cases, followed by Washington with 11 and 10 in Colorado. Michigan reported two incidents, while Missouri, Oregon, and Texas registered one case each.
The largest source of exposure of these infections was cattle, accounting for 32 cases. Poultry was responsible for 21 incidents.
The agency said in a Nov. 18 update that the immediate risk posed by avian flu to the general public is low. However, “people with exposure to infected animals are at higher risk of infection,” it said.
“All recent cases have occurred in workers on affected farms. All available data so far suggest sporadic instances of animal-to-human spread. These farm workers all described mild symptoms, many with eye redness or discharge (conjunctivitis),” it said.
The CDC also recently confirmed a case of bird flu infection in a child, the first incident in a minor. The child, from California, exhibited mild symptoms and was in recovery, according to a Nov. 22 update from the agency. None of the family members tested positive for the virus.
“To date, there has been no person-to-person spread identified associated with any of the H5N1 bird flu cases reported in the United States,” the CDC noted.
Meanwhile, the first case of avian flu in a pig was confirmed recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The pig, from Oregon, had previously shared space with infected poultry. Officials euthanized five pigs on the property and put the place under quarantine.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 22:35 - Trump Announces 25% Tariff For Canada, Mexico; Ramps Up Promised Tariffs On "Drug-Pushing" China
Trump Announces 25% Tariff For Canada, Mexico; Ramps Up Promised Tariffs On “Drug-Pushing” China
Just when you thought his choice of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary had tamped down the market’s “tariff tensions”, President-Elect Trump reminded everyone who is in charge tonight with drugs and open borders as his main focus.
In a statement on his Truth Social account, Trump swung the hammer against Mexico, Canada…
“As everyone is aware, thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before.
Right now a Caravan coming from Mexico, composed of thousands of people, seems to be unstoppable in its quest to come through our currently Open Border.
On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders.
This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country! Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem.
We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!”
…and of course China…
“I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail.
Representatives of China told me that they would institute their maximum penalty, that of death, for any drug dealers caught doing this but, unfortunately, they never followed through, and drugs are pouring into our Country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before.
Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
As a reminder, Fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid, has been linked to around 100,000 deaths annually in the United States, with much of the flow of the deadly drug coming from south of the border.
A damning report released earlier this year by the U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party found that the Chinese regime was facilitating the proliferation of fentanyl in the United States.
Additionally, Trump has previously vowed to end China’s most-favored-nation trading status and impose tariffs in excess of 60 percent on China-made goods.
The initial reaction to Trump’s threatening posts was a surge higher in the dollar, erasing the weekend’s losses (following Bessent’s appointment) with the peso and loonie both tumbling along with the offshore yuan…
Stocks also dropped in Japan, Australia and SouthKorea, with US futures modestly higher. Goldman’s research team suggests this FX reaction is perhaps a little overdone:
This seems to be more eased vs. what market has generally expected… and the less hawkish pick of Treasury head also said to roll out the tariffs in layers (which means the 10% mentioned by Trump just now is indeed a beginning but still more gentle than market expectation).
Their baseline expectation remains (via Goldman’s Hui/Lisheng/Xinquan):
- Assume that 20% additional US tariffs on Chinese goods in 2025, expect USDCNY to rise to 7.4/7.5 in 3/6 months, continued RRR/policy rate cuts and augmented fiscal deficit to widen by 1.8pp of GDP in 2025 vs. 2024;
- While our 2025 growth forecast (4.5%) is in line with the consensus, our inflation projections are notably below (CPI 0.8%; PPI 0.0%);
- Expect exports to be relatively stable, declines in property investment to continue, and consumption (especially goods consumption) to outperform. Growth of government consumption and investment is likely to accelerate.
The Goldman analysts estimate that the impact on MSCI China earnings would be as follows:
However while they state that this seems softer than expected the lack of details means the actual impact remains uncertain.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 22:33 - Where Child Marriage Is Still Common
Where Child Marriage Is Still Common
An often overlooked form of violence against women is child marriage, which is considered a fundamental violation of human rights.
As Statista’ Felx Richter reports, the right to ‘free and full’ consent to marriage is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whereby it is widely agreed that consent cannot be ‘free and full’ when one of the parties involved is not sufficiently mature to make an informed decision about a life partner. According to UNICEF, child marriage often has long-lasting, mostly adverse effects on a girl’s development, including teen pregnancy, early exit from education and social isolation.
Globally, roughly one in five women aged 20 to 24 was married by the time she turned 18 and 4 percent were married before the age of 15.
That’s according to the latest estimates from UNICEF, which found stark regional differences in the prevalence of child marriage.
You will find more infographics at Statista
In Sub-Saharan Africa, almost one in three girls gets married or enters a cohabiting relationship before the age of 18. 9 percent of Sub-Saharan women who are now 20 to 24 years old even entered such a union before the age of 15.
In South Asia, one in four young women were married by the age of 15, while it was one in five in Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to UNICEF, the term “child marriage” is used to refer to both formal marriages and informal unions in which a person lives with a partner for some time before 18 years old.
Child marriage often takes place through an informal union, in which girls live with a partner rather than marry, oftentimes because laws prohibit an official union. Child marriage is tied to poverty, school dropouts, teenage pregnancy and violence.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 22:10 - "We Can Forget Business As Usual": One Bank's Forecast For The US Economy Under Trump 2.025
“We Can Forget Business As Usual”: One Bank’s Forecast For The US Economy Under Trump 2.025
This morning, Deutsche Bank published its World Outlook for next year entitled “Navigating Trump 2.025” (available to pro subscribers in the usual place). It includes all of the German bank’s global economic and asset price forecasts for 2025.
As summarized by Jim Reid, the bank’s head of thematic research, the election result means we can forget “business as usual” and a wider range of outcomes has opened up for the global economy and financial markets. These span from a potentially much more positive US outlook on the one hand, to a much more negative European outlook on the other. President-elect Trump has several potentially conflicting economic policy goals, and how he weights them in office will influence global growth and asset prices in 2025 and beyond.
If the primary focus of the new administration is boosting growth, there’s every chance that this can be very positive for the US, with spillovers elsewhere across the globe. But that would likely require less of a focus on campaign promises like the deportation of undocumented immigrants and on tariffs.
The main downside risks are more likely to emerge if greater weight is put on aggressive trade and immigration policies. This could be more negative for growth and push up inflation. That would lead the Fed to cease the cutting cycle and possibly even contemplate restarting rate increases which would likely put upward pressure on bond yields. This would have implications for the US and even more so to the rest of the world. A maximalist Trump trade agenda and a Europe constrained to act because of fragmentation is a huge but realistic risk for the continent. Looking ahead, the German election in February will be a pivotal event.
DB’s base case for 2025 is stronger US growth and inflation and a higher Fed terminal rate than previously expected with the opposite conditions for Europe. This is driven by the assumption of modest US tax cuts, a strong deregulation push, and more supportive financial conditions. On trade the German bank assumes a 10% increase in the tariff rate on imports from China in the first half of the year (ratcheting up a further 10% in H2) and an equalization of tariff rates on motor vehicles with Europe. The forecast also assumes a 5% universal baseline tariff, though that is more likely to be implemented late 2025/early 2026.
More in the full DB note “Navigating Trump 2.025”, available to pro subscribers in the usual place
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 21:20 - Trump Could Prompt Supreme Court Ruling On Birthright Citizenship
Trump Could Prompt Supreme Court Ruling On Birthright Citizenship
Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Among President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for immigration is a move to end a longstanding practice of granting something known as “birthright citizenship” to children whose parents are illegally present in the United States.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on July 1, 2024. Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images Last year, he vowed to sign an executive order directing agencies to abandon that practice, if reelected.
How exactly Trump will change policies within agencies is unclear, but experts indicate he has options.
Regardless, revoking birthright citizenship could impact waves of new illegal immigrants and change the incentives for so-called birth tourism, wherein an expectant mother arrives in the United States just before giving birth.
During his first term, Trump attempted to combat the phenomenon through a policy targeting the country’s temporary visa program.
However Trump chooses to end birthright citizenship will likely provoke a legal battle of constitutional proportions and with a case that could reach the Supreme Court, as Trump predicted during his first term.
The concept of birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment, which states in part: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Lora Ries, who serves as director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that Trump could start by directing the State Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to interpret the 14th Amendment in a particular way.
“I don’t believe that a statute is necessary” or that a “constitutional amendment is necessary,” said Ries, who also served as the deputy chief of staff for DHS during Trump’s first administration.
Illegal immigrants, including a pregnant Haitian woman seeking to give birth in the United States, are apprehended by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Yuma, Ariz., on Dec. 7, 2021. John Moore/Getty Images Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has introduced legislation that would end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.
Immigration Reform Law Institute director of litigation Chris Hajec indicated, however, that a Supreme Court decision will be necessary to effect long-term change.
“A law from Congress wouldn’t be enough,” he told The Epoch Times, noting that Trump’s executive policies and any act of Congress would likely end in the courts.
It’s unclear how many individuals will seek validation of birthright citizenship in the future but the Pew Research Center estimated in 2016 that around 4 million children in the United States had illegal immigrant parents.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to “reduce the negative impact of uncontrolled immigration,” said last year that taxpayers annually spend “approximately $182 billion to cover the costs incurred from the presence of more than 15.5 million illegal aliens and about 5.4 million citizen children of illegal aliens.”
While Hajec expects a Supreme Court decision on the issue, he doubts the court would somehow retroactively revoke birthright citizenship for individuals who already have it.
“I think the court would just say whether this prospective, forward-looking regulation of the Trump administration was lawful,” he said.
The court could allow Trump’s birthright citizenship policy by dismissing a challenge that arises from a lower court’s approval of it.
It could also agree to take up the lower court’s decision, likely prompting a re-examination of a longstanding precedent from the 19th century.
Supreme Court Precedent
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a majority of the court held that the 14th Amendment granted birthright citizenship to a Chinese man whose parents were legally present in the United States.
Some have questioned whether the reasoning in that decision applies to children of the illegal immigrants who have crossed the southern border.
“The court only held that a child born of lawful, permanent residents was a U.S. citizen,” former Federal Election Commission member Hans von Spakovsky said in 2018.
A draft of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in 1866. The concept of birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment. MPI/Getty Images “That is a far cry from saying that a child born of individuals who are here illegally must be considered a U.S. citizen.”
Many other groups disagreed, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has vowed to combat Trump’s agenda.
The organization said earlier this year: “Theories that attempt to carve children out of this guarantee [of citizenship] based on the immigration status of their parents are legally wrong, morally repugnant, and dangerous attacks on a core civil right.”
The finer points of interpreting that decision could be determined by whoever sits on the Supreme Court when Trump’s policy lands there.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 20:55 - Russia May Deploy New Missile Units In Asia If US Missiles Appear There
Russia May Deploy New Missile Units In Asia If US Missiles Appear There
The Pentagon has been engaged in recent discussions involving the potential for deploying missile units to southeast Asia, and specifically Japan, as a contingency in the scenario that China moves militarily against Taiwan. Japan’s Kyodo News reported Sunday that this would involve the US Marine Corps’ multiple-launch High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has responded to these reports, outlining Monday that Moscow has not ruled out sending medium- and shorter-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region in order to mirror the United States.
HIMARS system, US Army/Wiki Commons It’s also the case that earlier this year Washington deployed a new intermediate-range land-based missile system to the Philippines. The system, called Typhon, is able to fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles – and has gotten both Russia’s and China’s attention.
Such a Russian deployment would be in retaliation, and would likely have the blessing of Beijing in such an escalation scenario. “Of course, this is one of the options that has also been repeatedly mentioned,” Ryabkov explained.
“The appearance of such US systems in any region of the world will determine our next steps, including in the field of organizing a military and military-technical response.”
Ryabkov then stressed in the remarks to reporters that all of this depends entirely on the US policy. He urged against the expansion of missile systems to the Pacific region.
“[Russian] President [Vladimir Putin] said what he said. The issue of placement is exhaustively reflected in his statement,” he said.
“As before, what is happening depends entirely on the choice that our opponents will make at this extremely alarming, very dangerous moment, and on the line that they will pursue,” the deputy foreign minister added.
Ryabkov further noted that at the moment there are no restrictions on the deployment of Russia’s new Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile, which have been touted as hypersonic and capable of reaching over Mach 10, under existing international obligations.
Source: www.middlebury.com, CIA 2003 Moscow has also long warned that the US pullout of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) was a major mistake, and will lead to bigger proliferation of dangerous and provocative missile systems globally among nuclear-armed powers.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 20:30 - Lott: Illegal Migrants Less Likely To Commit Crime? Guess Again…
Lott: Illegal Migrants Less Likely To Commit Crime? Guess Again…
Authored by John R. Lott Jr. via RealClearInvestigations,
In June, Victor Martinez-Hernandez was charged with the murder of Rachel Morin, a mother of five in Maryland. Police in Oklahoma tracked the accused repeat offender down with a sample of his DNA recovered from a Los Angeles home invasion in which a nine-year-old girl and her mother were assaulted. Police say he came to the U.S. illegally to escape prosecution for at least one other murder in his native El Salvador in December 2022.
“That should never have been allowed to happen,” said Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, referring to the numerous missed red flags the case presented. His office apprehended Hernandez in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Like the member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua sentenced to life in prison last week for the murder of Laken Riley in Georgia, Hernandez’s case is shining a light on the federal government’s failure to properly vet and keep track of lawless migrants.
These gaps have led to broad claims that illegal immigrants have less involvement with the criminal justice system than native-born Americans. A review of the available data, however, shows that the criminal records of millions of migrants – the ones President-elect Trump vows to prioritize for deportation – remain unknown due to illegal crossings, lax enforcement, and lax data collection by federal and “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
In addition, an analysis of the available statistics by RealClearInvestigations suggests that the crime rate of noncitizens is vastly understated. A separate RCI analysis based on estimates developed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) suggests that crime by illegal aliens who entered the U.S. by July 21, 2024 cost the country some $166.5 billion. These criminals disproportionately entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.
The problem begins with incomplete initial vetting by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The criminal histories of migrants from far-flung countries with often shoddy record-keeping are somewhat hard to determine. It is also impractical to hold each person until they have passed a rigorous background check. As a result, ICE routinely releases many illegals into the country on their own recognizance and then discovers afterward that many had criminal records in their home countries.
In response to a request from Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, ICE reported this summer that it has released 7.4 million such “non-detained” noncitizens into the U.S. during the last four decades or so. ICE reports that these include 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories – 435,719 individuals with criminal convictions in their home countries and another 226,847 with pending criminal charges. These precise figures, however, do not say whether the crimes of the latter group were committed in the accused’s home country or the U.S.
In the July 21 letter to Rep. Gonzales, ICE reported that 13,099 of these non-detained individuals have convictions for homicide, with 1,845 facing criminal homicide charges. Another 9,461 have convictions for sex offenses (not including assault or commercialized sex), and 2,659 face pending charges. The convictions include other crimes such as assault (62,231), robbery (10,031), sexual assault (15,811), weapons offenses (13,423), and dangerous drugs (56,533).
These figures are only suggestive of the extent of crime because they only list the most serious crime committed by each individual. A murderer, for example, who also committed a sex offense, is only counted as a murderer. It does not include the fact that millions of migrants are violating the law because of their presence in the U.S. It also does not account for the lawbreaking involved in working without proper authorization or the widespread use of stolen Social Security numbers to secure employment.
The 662,566 convicted and likely criminals make up 9% of the 7.4 million released noncitizens.
The statistics miss much of the relationship between crime and illegal aliens. Noncitizens in the “national docket data” either surrendered to border agents or were apprehended at the border. Those who avoid surrender likely have reasons to evade authorities, such as a criminal background. But there are others who avoided being caught and won’t be in these numbers. That group includes “gotaways” – individuals observed crossing the U.S. border illegally but not apprehended or turned back. With up to 38% of border agents shifted from monitoring to processing duties and 30% of surveillance cameras not functioning, millions more likely entered the U.S. undetected, potentially including the most dangerous individuals.
The Customs and Border Protection Agency estimates that some two million such “gotaways” have entered the country since 2021.
The data on migrants who have been processed also understates the problem. Criminals rarely commit just one crime. For example, from 1990 to 2002, in the 75 most populous U.S. counties, 70% of those convicted of a violent felony had a prior arrest, and 56% had a prior criminal conviction. In 2023 in Washington, D.C., the average homicide suspect had been arrested 11 times before committing a homicide. Data for 30 states shows that 60.1% of criminals released from prison in 2005 had been arrested again within two years, and 73.5% had been arrested within four years. The ICE data set provides a single entry for each individual.
Most violent crimes don’t result in an arrest, so looking at arrests or convictions in these other countries will underestimate whether illegal aliens are criminals. Across all U.S. cities in 2022, only 35.2% of violent crimes resulted in an arrest. While 50.6% of murders resulted in an arrest, just 24.1% of rapes produced an arrest, 22.7% of robberies, and 39.9% of aggravated assaults.
As the Laken Riley and Rachel Morin murder cases make clear, it is difficult to calculate all the victimization costs of crime to families and society.
Using tools developed by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), RCI did estimate what is likely the bare minimum economic costs of illegal alien crime. It arrived at its estimated cost to victims in dollar terms by assuming that each of the 662,566 “non-detained” noncitizen offenders on ICE’s list committed just once in the U.S. the crime for which they have been previously accused.
ICE presented Rep. Gonzales with numbers on 42 different types of crime, but the NIJ only calculated the cost to victims for eight types of crime. Professor Mark Cohen at Vanderbilt University, who co-authored the original NIJ report, updated the list with 15 of the crime categories reported by ICE: murder, sexual assault, sexual offenses, robbery, assault, arson, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, weapon offenses, drugs, fraud, liquor offenses, gambling, and stolen property. Cohen’s updated numbers provide estimates for the damage from child abuse, drunk driving, and vandalism, but ICE did not collect numbers on those crimes.
NIJ’s estimated losses from crime victimization include: medical care/ambulances, mental health care, police/fire service costs, social/victim services, property loss/damage, reduced productivity (at work, home, and school), and nonmonetary losses (fear, pain, suffering, and lost quality of life).
Murders account for almost $153.8 billion of the $166.5 billion in estimated criminal victimization costs (a breakdown of the costs of crime for each type of crime is available here). Another $6 billion involves sexual assaults/offenses, and an additional $5.2 billion comes from sexual assaults and sexual offenses.
Half of the crimes these non-detained individuals commit don’t have cost estimates. These crimes include kidnapping, embezzlement, extortion, smuggling, traffic offenses, and weapon offenses.
These criminal illegal aliens entered the U.S. under multiple administrations, but the size of the problem was likely larger under the Biden administration. That isn’t just because so many more illegal aliens were entering the country. Under the Trump administration’s remain-in-Mexico policy, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) performed background checks on immigrants. That included contacting immigrants’ countries of origin.
ICE agents cannot access the same databases to check on the immigrants, and they don’t contact the immigrant’s home country. Plus, the massive inflow of immigrants has overwhelmed the system. The Deputy Director for ICE blames the “enormous workload” agents face, so they haven’t been able to do even the limited background checks they are doing. There are so many coming in that the government can’t house these immigrants until their backgrounds are properly checked.
ICE has been processing criminals as they enter the country, but without identifying them as criminals. So, under the Biden administration, they have simply been released into the country. Now, they are walking freely in the United States, and no one knows where they are.
As bad as these numbers are, the reality may be even worse. The Biden-Harris administration is accused of presenting the border crisis so that it does not look as bad as it is. In mid-September, retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitk testified how the Biden administration ordered him not to publicize the arrests of illegal border crossers who they identified as having terrorist ties.
The American Immigration Council, which strongly opposes President-elect Donald Trump’s deportation policies, estimates that it could cost $88 billion to deport one million illegal immigrants. But if we accept its estimate and ignore the various government benefits that these individuals might be receiving, ICE’s number of 662,556 illegal criminal immigrants implies a cost of $58.3 billion to remove them – just over one-third of the conservative estimate given here of the cost of the crimes by these criminals.
The estimate of over $160 billion in costs from criminal illegal aliens is very likely an underestimate of the true costs. It assumes the average criminal coming into the country commits only one offense similar to what he committed in his home country. We are also not counting the costs of half of criminal illegal aliens.
John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor to RealClearInvestigations, focusing on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 20:05 - These Are The Countries That Triggered Democrats Are Moving To After Trump's Resounding Victory
These Are The Countries That Triggered Democrats Are Moving To After Trump’s Resounding Victory
As triggered Democrats sought to deal with the PTSD of a Trump election victory, Visa website La Vida reported a dramatic 2,300 percent increase in U.S. site traffic on election day, according to Newsweek.
This figure was more than five times the increase observed after the 2020 election, which itself saw a 4.5-fold rise in visitor numbers.
And we know where residents from Democratic-leaning states are most likely to consider moving. A study using Google analyzed search trends over the past 12 months to examine how political inclinations influence relocation interests.
Google Trends data revealed a 400 percent increase in searches for “how to move to Canada” by 8 p.m. ET on election night, with a 200 percent rise in searches for legal migration methods to Canada.
The Newsweek report said that Canada ranks as the top relocation destination for residents in blue-majority states, with 89.47% of the 19 states studied favoring it in searches.
It said that in Colorado, searches for “move to Canada” and similar terms average 693.33 per month, while Connecticut logs 327.50 searches, far outpacing second-place Brazil at 205.83. Even smaller states like Maine show strong interest, with 230.83 searches monthly for Canada.
Japan is the second most-searched destination, appealing with its modern cities and rich cultural heritage. It ranks first in Hawaii and California, where it averages 378.33 and 4,821.67 searches per month, respectively.
Regional preferences also emerge in the data. Vermont favors Ireland as a second choice after Canada, with 89.17 and 131.67 monthly searches, respectively.
In Washington state, New Zealand takes third place with 483.33 searches. Illinois also prioritizes Canada, leading with 1,086.67 searches, followed by Japan and Brazil with 676.67 and 556.67 searches. Unique trends appear in Minnesota, where Kenya ranks second, highlighting distinct preferences among state
Marc Porcar, CEO of QR Code Generator PRO S.L. commented: “With its proximity and cultural similarities, Canada has emerged as the clear favorite for Americans considering a move abroad.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 19:40 - Walmart Nukes DEI As Anti-Woke Crusader Robby Starbuck Sends "Shockwaves Across Corporate America"
Walmart Nukes DEI As Anti-Woke Crusader Robby Starbuck Sends “Shockwaves Across Corporate America”
Anti-woke crusader Robby Starbuck has been on a mission to shift the corporate landscape in America from insanity and rainbows to what he considers “sanity and neutrality.” He has successfully pressured companies such as Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Lowe’s, Ford, Coors, Stanley Black & Decker, Jack Daniel’s, DeWalt Tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing, and Toyota to move away from toxic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices.
Now, Starbuck is at it again. He wrote on X that America’s largest employer, Walmart, has decided to end its woke policies after he “had productive conversations to find solutions” with management.
He stated that the changes Walmart committed to “will send shockwaves throughout corporate America,” adding that their executives deserve “major credit” for wanting to end corporate wokeness.
“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck said.
Here are the changes Walmart committed to:
-
Surveys: Walmart will no longer participate in the HRC’s woke Corporate Equality Index.
-
Products: Monitor the Walmart marketplace to identify and remove inappropriate sexual and / or transgender products marketed to children.
-
Funding of Grants: Review all funding of Pride, and other events, to avoid funding inappropriate sexualized content targeting kids.
-
Equity: We will not extend the Racial Equity Center which was established in 2020 as a special five-year initiative.
-
Supplier Diversity: We will evaluate supplier diversity programs and ensure they do not provide preferential treatment and benefits to suppliers based on diversity. We don’t have quotas and won’t going forward. Financing eligibility will no longer be predicated on providing certain demographic data.
-
LatinX: Walmart will no longer use the term in official communications.
-
Trainings: Walmart will discontinue racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute.
-
DEI: Walmart will discontinue the use of DEI as a term while ensuring a respectful and supportive environment. Our focus is on Belonging for ALL associates and customers.
Starbuck continued:
Remember, Walmart is the #1 employer in America with over 1.6 Million Employees and they have a market cap of nearly $800B. This won’t just have a massive effect for their employees who will have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected but it will also extend to their many suppliers.
We’ve now changed policy at companies worth over $2 Trillion dollars, with many millions of employees who have better workplace environments as a result. I’m happy to have secured these changes before Christmas when shoppers have very few large retail brands they can spend money with who aren’t pushing woke policies. Companies like Amazon and Target should be very nervous that their top competitor dropped woke policies first. I think Target specifically will suffer serious sales problems as a result and Walmart will benefit.
Our campaigns are now so effective that we’re getting the biggest companies on earth to change their policies without me even posting a story outlining their woke policies. Companies can clearly see that America wants normalcy back. The era of wokeness is dying right in front of our eyes. The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality. We are now the trend, not the anomaly.
We are winning and one by one we WILL bring sanity back to corporate America.
MASSIVE news: Walmart is ending their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing and how it happened.
Last week I told execs at @Walmart that I was doing a story on wokeness there. Instead we had productive conversations to find solutions.
Below are the… pic.twitter.com/BD02xJQ0X2
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 25, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
As DEI initiatives are being eliminated across corporate America, just wait until Trump steps into the White House in mid-January. A massive overhaul is expected to strip toxic woke policies from all facets of government — including the military.
Swapping out DEI for “MEI”: Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence … will move America forward.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 19:17 -
- Contentious And 'Bitter' COP29 Summit Ends With Nearly 200 Countries Agreeing To Climate Finance Deal
Contentious And ‘Bitter’ COP29 Summit Ends With Nearly 200 Countries Agreeing To Climate Finance Deal
Striking a ‘climate finance’ deal at this year’s COP29 summit wasn’t easy, capping off a summit in Azerbaijan that was fraught with unenthusiastic participants and reports of counterintuitive dealmaking.
When all was said and done nearly 200 countries agreed to triple funding to help developing nations address climate change, with wealthy nations pledging at least $300 billion annually by 2035 through various sources, according to Bloomberg.
The deal aims to mobilize $1.3 trillion annually, primarily from private funding. In a compromise, rich nations committed an additional $50 billion beyond a previous draft and tied the agreement to reaffirming last year’s COP28 pledge to transition away from fossil fuels.
Bloomberg wrote that the $300 billion annual pledge by 2035 falls short of the trillions developing nations need to combat climate change, with many calling for more grants and affordable financial support rather than loans that increase debt.
While some criticized the outcome as inadequate, others viewed it as a vital step in sustaining multilateral efforts. The agreement will guide future emissions-cutting pledges for 2035 and set the stage for the next UN climate summit in Brazil.
Opposition led by Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations resulted in the final agreement avoiding direct mention of fossil fuels, merely reiterating the previous commitment. Despite protests from countries like India, which called the funding “too little, too distant,” the deal was adopted.
Recall we wrote days ago that Saudi Arabia was reportedly “leading a push back” on restating climate commitments to transition away from fossil fuels put into place last year.
Saudi Arabia was reportedly using “a mix of delaying tactics and outright blocking maneuvers” to resist these efforts.
Last year, COP28 marked the first inclusion of a fossil fuel phase-out in its final agreement, with the UAE securing support from Saudi Arabia and other oil producers. Developed and climate-vulnerable nations see any weakening of that language as a significant setback.
This year’s COP29 negotiations are focused on scaling up climate finance to over $1 trillion annually, pressuring nations like Saudi Arabia to contribute more, while also solidifying commitments made last year to phase down fossil fuels and accelerate renewable energy.
We also wrote earlier this month that a senior COP29 official in Azerbaijan reportedly used his role as heading up the fight on climate change…to secure meetings with potential investors in the country’s oil and gas sectors.
SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, reportedly responded to a fake investment group, indicating interest in meeting, according to Global Witness. In the meeting, COP29 head and Azerbaijan’s Deputy Energy Minister Elnur Soltanov discussed the event’s goals, stating that COP aims to “solve the climate crisis” by “transitioning away from hydrocarbons.”
Still, he expressed openness to oil and gas investments, pointing to Azerbaijan’s gas expansion plans and new pipeline infrastructure. This marked the second year a petro-state has used its COP presidency to promote fossil fuel interests, raising questions for the UN on oversight.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 18:50 - Disrupt, Defund, Deport, Deny, Destroy…
Disrupt, Defund, Deport, Deny, Destroy…
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
“At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.”
“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”
In 1805, only a few short years after the creation of our nation, Thomas Jefferson boasted that he had reduced the size and cost of government by eliminating useless offices, allowing him to discontinue unnecessary taxes and halt the government bureaucracy in its tracks. Jefferson hated big government, but most of his successors loved growing the government bureaucracy and taxing us directly through the hundreds of income, property, sales, and myriad of other taxes and fees, while taxing us indirectly through Federal Reserve purposely created inflation.
In addition, the government lies to us every time they issue their monthly reports about inflation, employment, economic growth and government spending. Anyone living in the real world knows everything the government proclaims is a bold-faced lie.
We know for a fact the average price of a new vehicle is up 130% ($48k vs. $21k) since 2000, while the government reported increase reflected in the CPI is 25% – because you can now push a button and heat your ass. You know the mega-food corps have reduced the amount of chips in the bag they are selling you by 20%, while charging more, but the government does not calculate this shrinkflation into their manipulated excel spreadsheet models. It is crucial for them to hide the truth, so they can underpay your granny in her monthly SS pittance. Whenever I see a government report I’m reminded of the scene from Clint Eastwood’s Outlaw Josey Wales.
“Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”
There have been very few presidents in our 235 years of existence who made any attempt to restrain, let alone reduce, the size of government, with only Andrew Jackson and the Gingrich/Clinton years coming to mind. The weeks since the election of Trump have been a whirlwind of cabinet announcements, regime media hysterics, and Deep State traitors (Brennan, Schiff, Cheney, Bolton, et al) vehemently attacking Trump’s selections in order to deflect focus away from their treasonous coup against Trump. It has been fascinating to observe the wide range of reactions to Trump’s election and his subsequent appointments to his cabinet.
As Mises pointed out 80 years ago, there is nothing more dangerous than a menacing government of incompetent, corrupt, vile men (now includes women). It’s as if he was describing Biden, Harris, and their entire degenerate administration. Now we get to find out if the 2nd Trump administration is different than the 1st. We know it can’t be as horrific as the last four years of criminality, degeneracy, debt creation, societal chaos, DEI and trannie absurdity, warmongering and denial of reality.
There are those who will claim Trump is controlled opposition playing his part in this theater of the absurd. They allege he is just the pendulum swing of the uni-party to keep the masses entertained, hopeful, and distracted, while the real controllers continue to pillage the wealth of the masses, and increase their control over our lives through threats, intimidation, and fear. Has he been purposely installed to enable the next phase of their malevolent plan? Maybe.
On the other hand, there are a large percentage of Trump voters who are on Cloud 9 regarding his victory, believing he will transform the country, putting us back on the path to prosperity. He will deport the illegal invaders, build the wall, end the wars, cut the budget, end inflation, bring back good paying jobs, and make America great again – Again. They heartily applaud every cabinet selection, believe Elon and Vivek will cut $2 trillion of government waste, Putin and Xi will acquiesce to his demands, the lunatic Democrat party will be vanquished for a generation, and the Deep State will be defeated by RFK Jr., Tulsi, Pam and the rest of the MAGA army.
The celebratory spirit and tremendous enthusiasm for his agenda among his ardent supporters is at a crescendo level. They really believe this time will be different. When Trump won the 1st time I was reminded of the final scene in the 1972 movie – The Candidate. Redford’s character shockingly won a Senate race and was totally unprepared for the prospect of being a Senator. He asks the question, but no one answers him.
Trump admitted he was completely unprepared when he won the first time. He was asking the same question as Redford. And he got rolled. He listened to the advice of Washington insiders, neocons, and traitorous RINOs. Surrounding himself with the likes of Sessions, Barr, Pence, Wray, Haley, Pompeo, Bolton, Kelly, Mattis, Esper, Milley, Fauci, Birx and thousands more deceitful Deep State snakes, guaranteed his administration would accomplish little of the agenda he ran on.
With RINO establishment whores, McConnell and Ryan, controlling Congress, his border wall and ending Obamacare were DOA. At the outset of the Covid scamdemic his initial instincts told him the fear mongering was overdone, but again, he naively believed the “experts” and Big Pharma captured “scientists” and “doctors” regarding a flu that ended up having a lower mortality rate for those under 40 years old than the annual flu. Hospitals, reaping millions by playing along with the scam killed more people by putting them on vents and giving them Fauci’s Remdesivir, than the actual virus. The average age of death was 85.
In my opinion, Trump’s worst sin during his first term, and one which he has failed to repent for, was his warpspeed support for an untested Big Pharma gene altering concoction, marketed as a vaccine, which failed to keep anyone from contracting or spreading the virus, and has killed and continues to kill and disable millions across the globe, while reaping obscene profits for Big Pharma, Big Media, and the entire Sickcare complex.
Natural immunity, along with existing safe, cheap and effective treatments ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine would have sufficed, with no masks, no social distancing, and no lockdowns. This was a test by our overlords to see how far they could push us and treat us like cattle before we would resist and push back. The test was a resounding success, as over 80% of Americans took the knee, taking the jab, masking, imprisoning themselves in their homes, and never questioning why it was safe to go to Wal-Mart but not Joe’s Steak shop. And Trump still openly boasts about his warpspeed jab, saving the lives of hundreds of millions. He hasn’t learned anything from the disastrous debacle he allowed to happen on his watch. This fact alone should make you question his judgement and motives.
We are less than two months from Trump’s inauguration and the raging battle between diehard Trumpers and the “Trump is a Nazi” loonies never subside on regime media outlets and the Twittersphere. I’m already tired of the shtick before his administration even launches. Trump’s cabinet level picks may not meet the requirements of those looking for perfection in an imperfect world, but compared to the woke diverse nutjobs who would have inhabited a Harris administration, this bunch has the potential to be the disruptors this country needs. I’m sure many are disappointed about the number of neo-cons, vaccine supporters, Soros acolytes and Israel advocates inhabiting his cabinet. I’m also disappointed in several picks, worried the Swamp has rolled him again.
The real question is whether his key picks will do what Trump wants them to do. Gabbard, Hegseth, Bondi, and RFK Jr. need to ruthlessly purge the top ranks of their departments and install competent, loyal, courageous patriots into key positions. The middle level bureaucrats are the lifers who throw sand in the gears of change whenever those above them attempt to reform or cut anything in their bloated departments. They need to go. The Deep State will use every Machiavellian method at their disposal to derail the nominations of Trump’s key disruptors and/or infiltrate their organizations with moles to undermine everything they try to accomplish.
The Deep State blob is profoundly entrenched and will not be extinguished without an epic battle. My fear is that Gabbard, Hegseth, Bondi, and RFK Jr., even if they can get confirmed by a RINO dominated Senate, will not be ruthless enough in purging the traitors within their departments. I do think Elon and Vivek are ruthless enough and rich enough to not care about what the Swamp thinks about their recommendations. We’ll see how much authority and backing Trump gives them when the rubber meets the road. I consider it a long shot that there will be substantive cuts in this $7 trillion bloated rancid pig of a deeply rooted bureaucratic state. Defeating the Deep State will require cold blooded, brutal disregard for the malevolent parasites governing the Swamp.
The chart below is a visualization of the government since 1950. It never shrinks. It grows ever larger like a blood sucking organism, adding more regulations, laws, rules, codes, and taxes to pay for their freedom destroying, soul crushing demands upon its citizenry. Those who oppose chopping away at these rules and regulations, while drastically reducing the cost of government, hysterically rant about the tragedies which await if government control over our lives is reduced. This is a laughable argument as the weight of these regulations crushes small businesses, while benefiting the mega-corps who help write the regulations and can afford to comply with them.
As I mentioned previously, our beloved bought off politicians are spending approximately $7 trillion per year, while only bringing in approximately $5 trillion, for a deficit of about $2 trillion, funded by Federal Reserve created debt and heaped upon the backs of future generations. The regime media, mouthing the Deep State narrative they have been paid to spew, predict a nation destroying disaster if Musk’s DOGE cuts of $2 trillion are enacted. The horror!!! And a huge percentage of the NPC ignorant masses believe the drivel they are fed without the slightest hint of skepticism. Critical thinking skills, concern for the truth, and appreciation of mathematical facts are non-existent among these clueless drones.
I wonder how many far-left Trump haters and their dying regime media talking head nitwit propaganda chiefs know Federal spending in 2017 during Trump’s 1st year in office was under $4 trillion. It surged to almost $8 trillion during the covid plandemic and still hovers in the $7 trillion range. Has the $3 trillion increase in Federal spending since 2017 benefited average Americans in any way?
Is your life better than it was in 2017 when the Feds “only” spent $4 trillion? This is how it works every time. They create a crisis (2008 Financial crisis, 2020 Covid crisis), create trillions of new spending and debt to “solve” the emergency, and then purposely keep the spending at “emergency” levels permanently – until the next manufactured crisis. Cutting $2 trillion of government spending will not gut the Federal government. It would just be eliminating the bullshit Covid spending, which was supposed to be temporary.
Cutting $4 trillion of unnecessary military, social welfare, and foreign aid would be a good start. The Department of Education and Department of Energy were both created in 1979 under the previous worst president in history. National education scores have plummeted, and the cost of energy has soared since 1979. The 20,000 government drones in these two agencies should be fired ASAP. The reality is there are more than 12 million Federal government employees/contract workers and over 20 million state and local government workers, representing 24% of all employed Americans.
There are millions more, mostly working for the monstrous arms dealers, who are totally dependent upon the Federal government teat. This is why lispy Lindsey Graham thinks the Ukraine and Middle East wars are good for business, and WW3 would really create a BOOM!! The only way to confront our crushing debt problem is to stop digging, defund agencies, defund wars, defund illegal immigrants, defund diversity bullshit, defund climate nonsense, and defund worthless government drones in mass quantities by firing them. If you don’t fund something, it withers and dies.
One of the main reasons Trump was elected was border security and the invasion of illegal dregs who are raping, killing and sucking our social welfare systems dry. The dying legacy media decry the cost of deporting millions of illegal vermin and the poor families who would be broken up. The sob stories will be never-ending, while they ignore the rapes and murders of American citizens at the hand of these animals. They ignore the never-ending cost of allowing them to stay, the drug and child trafficking piggybacking on the invasion, and the fact it has been mostly young military age men from around the world invading our country for the last four years.
The key to stopping this invasion and deporting the invaders is actually funding a real border wall, funding border patrol and letting them do their jobs, and most importantly, defunding every benefit being handed out to these leeches. And if the Democrat governors and mayors refuse to cooperate with the defunding and extraction of these scum from their urban shithole cities, their federal funding needs to be cut off. Money talks. When the spigot of welfare goodies gets turned off, self-deportation will commence. Tom Homan will take care of the rest at the point of a gun. Illegal means illegal.
What I truly don’t understand are the Trump acolytes, right wing Twitter influencers, and right leaning websites, caring so much about the reaction of MSNBC, CNN, The View, and Hollywood elite to Trump’s victory. Who cares what they think? They need to be shunned and turned off. Their ratings have plummeted, their credibility is shot, and mass layoffs are in the works. The only visibility these left-wing lunatics get is when popular right wingers post their unhinged rants on Twitter.
We need to deny they even exist and let them bloviate in obscurity. Their networks and shows will wither and die, as advertisers flee. Harris and her shadowy handlers spent $1.2 billion trying to convince Americans she wasn’t a dim witted, vacuous, diversity trollop, and she lost in a landslide, despite their best vote rigging efforts. Let them labor in the land of oblivion, wailing and gnashing their teeth, as normal Americans support Trump’s efforts to reverse the degeneracy and deviancy, they glorified during the Biden reign of terror and error.
I’m a highly skeptical individual who isn’t prone to over-optimism when it comes to government reform and promises of politicians. Despite a number of questionable cabinet picks, I do believe Trump does want to accomplish much of what he ran on. It is just unlikely he will succeed, given Thune and McConnell despise him and will install roadblocks every step of the way, and Johnson is a weak-kneed RINO with a minuscule majority in the House. Of course, there are likely to be far bigger events which will propel the next four years than the slow walking machinations of Congress critters.
We have entered the most dangerous, and potentially bloody, time frame of this Fourth Turning. Violent upheaval and the destruction of the existing social order is in the cards. The Deep State, after spending $1.2 trillion and two assassination attempts to stop Trump, are capable of anything when it comes to retaining control over the levers of government power and the obscene wealth generated by such control. Would they even be willing to start World War 3 in order to derail Trump’s agenda before he even takes office? It certainly appears they are doing their utmost to goad Putin into retaliating in a manner which would ensure a global conflagration.
Since Putin is the only adult in a room filled with low IQ lunatic woke western politicians, he will likely disappoint their ambitions to draw him into WW3. He knows Trump will work towards peace if given the chance. But will they give him the chance? His cabinet choices have insured the military industrial complex, surveillance state, and sickcare complex consider him the enemy. And they consider Vance an even more dangerous enemy.
Having Trump and Vance at the same venue would be a high-risk proposition with this many enemies aligned against them. The Deep State is controlled by actual psychopaths in suits who will stop at nothing to win this battle. We know Fourth Turnings never de-intensify and peter out. They build towards a climactic violent resolution, with much bloodshed. I would be entirely satisfied if Trump could just end the wars, close our southern border, eliminate the DEI gibberish, and make some cuts in the size of government. But a vaster societal altering fate is in our foreboding future.
The self-destruction of the American Empire has been underway since the start of this century and is poised to accelerate during Trump’s last term. I would love it if he actually made America great again, but it is too late to accomplish that arduous task. With $36 trillion of debt, $2 trillion annual deficits, $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities, global conflict imminent, and the social cohesion of the country destroyed, Trump may end up being the patsy for when it all goes to hell.
The Civil War Fourth Turning ended in 1865, amidst mass carnage. Exactly 80 years later, the Great Depression/WW2 Fourth Turning ended in 1945, with 65 million deaths. If this Fourth Turning were to follow suit and end 80 years later in 2025, I fear the outcome, which would bring about such an abrupt ending – nuclear war – would result in billions of deaths. I am a realist who believes there are too many roadblocks and entrenched enemies, on both sides of the aisle, for Trump to achieve his stated agenda, but I hope for the best, while preparing for the worst.
“Humans are wired to advance. Humans do whatever it takes. And yet, nuclear war zeros it all out. Nuclear weapons reduce human brilliance and ingenuity, love and desire, empathy and intellect, to ash.”
Storm clouds are building, and the next four years will be fraught with danger. Batten down the hatches and choose your friends and allies carefully. May God be with the good guys.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 18:25 - New York To Close 12 Migrant Shelters Ahead Of Trump Deportation Agenda
New York To Close 12 Migrant Shelters Ahead Of Trump Deportation Agenda
New York is set to shutter 12 migrant shelters before the end of the year, marking a significant shift in its response to the city’s ongoing migrant crisis. The closures, announced just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office for a second term, highlight the strain on resources and the political tensions surrounding immigration policies.
As Mike Shedlock of MishTalk.com noted in June, 20% of NYC hotels have become migrant shelters, driving up the cost of hotel rooms elsewhere for paying customers.
Two hotel-based shelters, the Hotel Merit in Manhattan and the Quality Inn JFK in Queens, have already been closed. An additional 10 facilities across the state – including in Albany, Dutchess, Erie, Orange, and Westchester counties – will cease operations by December 31, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office. The sprawling Randall’s Island shelter, which was designed to accommodate up to 3,000 migrants, is slated to close by February 2025, shortly after Trump’s inauguration.
A Crisis of Scale and Cost
Since the spring of 2022, more than 223,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in New York City – roughly half the population of Albany. The city has struggled to house and support this influx, operating 210 city-run shelter sites across the five boroughs. Currently, 58,000 migrants remain in taxpayer-funded shelters, costing the city an estimated $352 per migrant per night. Only $130 of that amount goes directly to housing costs, with the rest allocated to social services, food, and cleaning.
Row NYC is a luxury hotel housing illegal migrants The NYPD has spent $21 million on public safety and security related to the migrants.
The eye-popping figures, listed on the city’s online asylum-seeker funding tracker, shows the city overall spent $4.88 billion combined through fiscal years 2023 and ‘24. Based on the rate of spending, the city likely exceeded more than $112 million since the start of the new fiscal year beginning July 1, or will soon, cracking $5 billion.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has even projected the cost could double, hitting $10 billion over the three year period ending June 30, 2025. -NY Post
Without policy changes, the crisis is projected to cost New York taxpayers $12 billion over the next three fiscal years, according to city estimates. Mayor Adams praised efforts to consolidate shelter operations and reduce costs, noting a 19-week decline in the migrant census.
“Over the past two years, our teams have accomplished the Herculean task of providing compassionate care for a population twice the size of Albany and saving taxpayers billions of dollars,” Adams said. “The new policies we’re implementing today will build on our successes, save taxpayers millions, and help even more migrants take their next steps towards fulfilling their American Dream.”
Meanwhile, an audit released in August found that NYC overpaid upstate hotels by millions of dollars for sheltering illegal immigrants.
Of the questionable payments, $2.5 million were for unauthorized security, medical, and social services, $1.7 million for vacant rooms, and $230,000 for inflated food bills, according to the audit.
In another example, a Newburgh hotel billed a total of $57,000 for hundreds of unoccupied rooms in early May, for which DocGo got an additional $40,000 in commissions.
Tensions Over Shelter Evictions
Despite efforts to ease the burden on the system, the city’s shelter eviction policies have sparked controversy. Families issued a second 60-day eviction notice are now allowed to stay in their assigned shelters if they need more time, a move Adams touted as cost-saving and beneficial for children’s schooling continuity.
Hundreds of illegal immigrants or asylum seekers lined up outside of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City on June 6, 2023. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images) However, adult migrants face stricter rules, with a policy permanently evicting them from city shelters after 30 days. The policy has drawn criticism from activist groups, including Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, which staged a protest at City Hall during a hearing on the issue.
“Immigrants are welcome here – Trumpian policy is not!” protesters chanted, accusing the city of violating its decades-old right-to-shelter rule, originally established to address homelessness. Activists called the eviction policy “cruel and destabilizing” before being removed from the chamber.
A Changing National Landscape
While the flow of migrants into New York has slowed, with fewer arrivals and a reported 101,790 encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in September—the lowest since February 2021—concerns persist about potential surges before Trump’s border policies take effect. A caravan of 1,500 migrants in southern Mexico, near the Guatemala border, is reportedly attempting to cross before Trump’s inauguration.
Trump has pledged to implement strict immigration measures, including sealing the southern border, carrying out a large-scale deportation operation, and ending Biden administration parole programs and the CBP One app. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been appointed as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, with former ICE Director Tom Homan named “border czar.”
As New York City consolidates its migrant operations, Adams has a tough road ahead. The closures signal a pivot in the city’s approach but also underscore the broader national debate on immigration policy.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 18:00 - New FOIA Emails: NIH Silenced Own Expert On COVID Origins
New FOIA Emails: NIH Silenced Own Expert On COVID Origins
Authored by Jeff Carlson & Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is hiring a new chief for their virology section. That the federal government should not be hiring anyone, especially not senior staff, during the lame-duck period is self-evident. But what is in many ways even more notable about this appointment is that it reveals that the NIH has a virology section. One certainly could not have guessed this based on the people trotted out by Anthony Fauci during the pandemic, all of whom were from outside the NIH. Curiously, there has been no interest whatsoever from the media as to why that might be, especially since, as we can now all see, the NIH has its own virology branch.
This latest revelation aligns perfectly with newly released emails from January 2021, which gives us an insight into how NIH leadership was not only censoring critical voices in academia, such as that of Jay Bhattacharya, President-elect Trump’s likely pick as new NIH head, but also actively censoring its own experts. In one email, obtained last week by Jimmy Tobias after a years-long Freedom of Information Act battle, Carrie Wolinetz, the senior advisor to the director of the NIH, demanded outright censorship of an in-house NIH expert.
The expert, David Resnick, who works in the NIH’s bioethics section, co-authored a paper discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of gain-of-function experiments. This worried Wolinetz because it might have prompted questions about the origin of Covid and the potential role the NIH may have played in the virus’s creation:
“I have some global concerns with the notion that an NIH employee would be providing what amount to critiques of HHS policy that is implemented by NIH, or suggestions that contradict messaging by NIH leadership.”
The “HHS policy” which Wolinetz felt compelled to protect from any criticism, according to her own email, was based on a blog post by her superior, the then head of the NIH, Francis Collins. In his blog post, dated March 26, 2020, Collins expressed his strong opposition to the lab leak theory, which he called “outrageous.” The sole basis for Collins’ post was the fraudulent Proximal Origin paper, published just a few days earlier. Collins failed to acknowledge that he, along with Fauci, played a significant role in orchestrating the publication of this fraudulent paper, which explicitly aimed to promote the natural origin theory while discrediting the lab leak theory. Wolinetz’s justification for silencing a prominent colleague was so flimsy that the only reasonable conclusion one can draw from her actions is that she was helping Collins and Fauci to cover up their involvement in seeding the pandemic, which included outsourcing gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Notably, Wolinetz’s email had only one recipient: Lawrence Tabak, the then principal deputy director of the NIH, who would soon become the acting director, a position he held until 2023. In his reply, Tabak agreed to meet Wolinetz to talk about silencing Resnik.
Even more notably, it took another three and a half years years for Resnik to finally publish his article in July 2024, by which time the NIH’s deceitful natural origin narrative had largely collapsed. In the published article Resnik stated:
“the idea that a biosafety lapse at the WIV—or some other laboratory for that matter—could have caused the COVID-19 pandemic is a very real possibility that has significant bioethical and public policy implications.”
It is no wonder that NIH leadership was so eager to silence him.
The implications of Wolinetz’s actions are significant. She pervasively infringed upon academic freedom, as well as on Resnik’s First Amendment rights. Typically, the media experiences a total meltdown when there is even just a suggestion that a government scientist has been silenced; in this instance, we have airtight evidence that this actually occurred. However, since the scientist in question may have made remarks that could be interpreted as mildly critical of Collins and Fauci, the media has completely overlooked the story.
There are additional implications to consider, and this brings us back to the NIH’s recruitment of a new chief virologist. The broader issue, which goes directly to the heart of the Covid origin cover-up, is that despite receiving in excess $60 billion annually from taxpayers and employing over 20,000 staff—many of whom are highly compensated scientists—Collins and Fauci completely disregarded their in-house experts regarding the origins of Covid. Instead, they brought in several conflicted scientists whose careers were entirely dependent on funding from Fauci.
The scientists were subsequently tasked with writing the fraudulent Proximal Origin paper, along with other actions to further the cover-up, such as promoting the false natural origin narrative in the media. Not coincidentally, two of the scientists brought in by Fauci and Collins, Kristian Andersen and Robert Garry, had previously worked in a lab in Kenema, Sierra Leone, which is suspected to be the origin of the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Their expertise in covering up suspected lab leaks may explain why they were chosen. Notably, Andersen had no prior experience with coronaviruses.
These external scientists, employed by Fauci to obscure the true origin of Covid, later collectively received over $50 million in grant allocations from Fauci. Andersen, the lead author of the fraudulent Proximal Origin paper, had an $8.9 million grant awaiting approval on Fauci’s desk as he was tasked with leading the cover-up.
As a general proposition, we were already aware that NIH’s own scientists had been excluded from the Covid origin issue. This was evident because the only names that consistently appeared in connection with Fauci and Covid’s origin were those of his hand-picked group of conflicted scientists, who relied on his financial support. However, the full extent of this exclusion was not revealed until the latest batch of emails was obtained. As is often the case in matters of government corruption, particularly regarding the cover-up of Covid’s origins, the truth is even worse than we initially believed. Rather than merely ignoring or neglecting internal scientists, they were actively silenced by the director’s office.
It cannot be overstated that, although the silencing of Resnik is a serious issue, it is likely just one of many such cases—for which we happen to have obtained incriminating emails. Who else has been silenced? How toxic must the work culture at the NIH be if no one, including Resnik himself, has spoken up?
This entire episode further underscores the urgent need for a total overhaul of the NIH, or perhaps even its complete dissolution. Instead of being dedicated to scientific advancement, the $60 billion organization has become a hub of politics, cover-ups, and corruption. The new Trump administration cannot arrive soon enough.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 17:40 - William Blair Survey Finds One-Third Of Shoppers Plan Gift Shopping At Walmart
William Blair Survey Finds One-Third Of Shoppers Plan Gift Shopping At Walmart
The trade-down phenomenon has transformed Americans into Walmart shoppers. Goldman confirmed this last week, noting that Walmart’s competitors, such as Target and Dollar stores, suffered market share losses. The reality is that Walmart offers the best deals at a time when consumers are buckling under the weight of record credit card debt, and personal savings have plunged to all-time lows as inflation remains elevated and interest rates sky high.
“For yet another year, we would call out the strong competitive positioning of the off-price channel, the membership club model, and Amazon, which are all still likely in the middle innings of a decadeslong runway for expansion,” wrote Sharon Zackfia, an analyst at William Blair, in a note quoted by Barron’s.
The team of analysts led by Zackfia polled 585 consumers about their spending trends this holiday shopping season. They found a third-ranked Walmart as the top destination for gift buying, followed by Amazon.com at 25% and Costco Wholesale at 21%, adding that TJX, Ross Stores, and Burlington Stores were also popular choices.
Zackfia’s findings come days after Goldman’s consumer specialist Scott Feiler declared Walmart the “winner” in this challenging consumer environment. Feiler’s note was published shortly after Target reported dismal earnings last week.
The takeaway here is that whether they’re grocery shopping or gift buying, consumers think Walmart is the best retailer to find deals. We first revealed this in mid-July.
In markets, owning these retailers, such as Walmart… Well, Goldman’s Eric Mihelc told clients Monday that shares “aren’t cheap.”
Here’s more from Mihelc:
The problem for investors is that the shares of these companies aren’t cheap. All trade for more than 20 times next year’s earnings, well above the average of about 14 times for the SPDR S&P Retail exchange-traded fund. Bulls say the premium is worth it because all of these companies have been doing well. Investors looking for a better deal may want to scout the small- and mid-cap aisles, where valuations tend to be lower. DKS, RL, TPR, JWN, ANF are among the stocks favored by Dana Telsey, CEO of Telsey Advisory Group. All five companies have delivered steady revenue and earnings growth in recent quarters, and could continue to do so in 2025. And, all five trade for under 20 times earnings.
In markets, Walmart is the big winner…
A nation of Walmart shoppers also signifies the implosion of the standard of living through reckless gov’t money printing, which ignited the inflation timebomb. Great job, DC elites!
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 17:20 - VDH: The Immorality Of Illegal Immigration
VDH: The Immorality Of Illegal Immigration
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
Donald Trump will not be president for almost another two months… Yet Democrat politicians, both federal and local, vie to be the most strident in denouncing his plans to begin deporting millions of foreign nationals who, over the last four years, have entered the U.S. illegally. Trump pledges to focus initially only on the 400,000 to 500,000 current felons and some 1.4 million additional aliens who have ignored legal summons for their deportation.
Weekly we read of thousands of illegal immigrants arriving from areas controlled by violent Mexican cartel gangs or failed, strife-torn South American countries that have emptied their jails to send their felons northwards. Hundreds of thousands of them have been committing violent crimes while demanding still more free housing and support from strapped American taxpayers.
Big-city left-wing mayors and city councils boast that they will do all their best to nullify federal immigration laws, even as their cities face near insolvency housing, feeding, and monitoring the influx. More specifically, they brag they will continue to order local and state authorities to resist all efforts of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. They scream about possible “massive deportations” to come under Trump, callously ignoring that their own advocacy has fueled rising crime waves of unaudited illegal aliens. And they appear absolutely indifferent to the social costs imposed by illegal immigration upon their own poor and middle-class constituents.
Virtue-signaling Democratic governors and mayors have so far not dared to utter a word of criticism about what has been the Biden administration’s truly historic “massive importation” of illegal aliens into the U.S. over the last four years.
Why?
Largely because these political grandees and media demagogues have the money, connections, zip codes, and influence to be immune from the fallout of their own performance-art advocacy of illegal immigration.
They take for granted that the baleful consequences of open borders always falls upon the distant and vulnerable Other.
Again, consider the left-wing logic:
it is deemed moral to dismantle the border, disrupt the social fabric of the country, and destroy federal immigration laws.
But:
it is immoral to restore U.S. sovereignty, secure the border, stop the flux of lethal cartel-supplied fentanyl and child sex trafficking, and follow the law?
In this regard, the party that prides itself as progressive is regressively adopting the states’ rights arguments of 19th-century southern states that boasted they would resist all federal enforcement of tariffs. By the late 1850s, these future Confederates were asserting that the national government had no jurisdiction in their state domains. Such brazen nullification would lead to the Civil War.
Note the left assumes that conservatives will not emulate their tactics and thus declare swaths of federal firearms or environmental laws null and void within their red state and county jurisdictions. They know that doing so would start a cycle of lawlessness that would eventually result in either civil war, total anarchy, or both.
The open-borders-left’s more immediate spiritual predecessors are states’-rights-resisters like former segregationist Governor George Wallace. He boasted that federal civil rights legislation had no sway over his own state’s laws. Wallace, remember, in a historic moment, was removed from blocking the entry of black students to the University of Alabama by federal troops.
Given that nullification now has been turned upside down, will California Governor Gavin Newsom or New York Governor Kathy Hochul block the entrance to their state jails to prevent federal agents from sending home murderers and rapists who arrived in the U.S. illegally?
The left has learned nothing and forgotten nothing from the recent election and decisive Trump victory. The defeat of left-wing candidates was a result most prominently of the Biden administration’s deliberate destruction of the southern border and the illegal welcoming of some 12 million foreigners without legal sanction or health and criminal background audits.
This lawlessness ensured that Kamala Harris, who had sanctioned it, was going to lose the election. The daily sight of thousands swarming the border with impunity, coupled with Orwellian assertions of President Biden, “Border Czar” Vice President Harris, and Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas that the border was absolutely “secure,” doomed the Biden and then Harris campaigns.
Violating U.S. sovereignty and laws while sending millions into already frayed health, food, housing, medical, legal, and education social services designed to help American citizens was never a winning campaign strategy.
Yet almost nothing could deter the Biden-Harris administration from their fixation with undermining the border and federal immigration law while seeking to change the very demography of the American southwest. The resulting influx of illegal aliens within just three years proved comparable in size to the creation of some 12 American cities, all the size of San Francisco.
The mass crossings resulted from an effort by Joe Biden to utterly disregard his oath to faithfully execute the laws of his country. He was also helped in his lawlessness by some 600 state and local “sanctuary city” jurisdictions that subverted federal law by using their own offices to thwart immigration enforcement. Indeed, left-wing state and local officials pledged their own greater fealty to the welfare of the illegal millions who ignored the law and swamped the border than to their own overtaxed and underserved American citizen constituents.
Finally, on November 5, the people said no more. In historic fashion, traditional Democratic constituencies of the working class and minorities turned on their own left-wing politicians who had first turned on them.
Yet the cynicism of the left had known no bounds. As the presidential campaign had heated up, and the polls, first for Biden and then for his surrogate Harris, began to erode, both began to lie that their vanished border was in fact “secure.”
In other words, they knew they had permanently alienated the American public, knew that it would cost them the election, and so then frantically first tried to deny the truth they had welcomed in millions of illegal aliens. Then they pivoted and sought belatedly to stop the public relations disaster at the border for a few weeks before the election, vainly hiding the sheer cynicism of such an insincere effort.
Earlier, they had tried blaming border hawk Republicans for not signing onto a false border “bipartisan,” red-herring bill. The left introduced it in Congress solely to allow blanket amnesties for millions of illegal aliens while still allowing 4,000 illegal aliens daily to enter the U.S.
The great majority of sane senators who did not sign the Trojan Horse bill were then immediately demonized for the mess by Biden and Harris themselves, who deliberately created the catastrophe.
Now that the election is over, an enfeebled Joe Biden has two months left on his presidency and no longer worries about reelection. So, in its final gasp, the left is again trying to invite in more illegal aliens. Apparently one final huge caravan is forming south of the border and plans to make its way northward just days before Trump takes office and begins to fulfill his promises to the majority of voters to close the border.
Finally, why did illegal immigration explode to levels never seen before?
One, the left saw millions of desperately poor foreign nationals as a natural long-term constituency for their big-government, anti-poverty programs. They felt that some 20-30 million illegal aliens over the last 50 years, along with their children, had flipped California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado—and soon Arizona—from blue to red as planned. Of course, should the sudden Hispanic backlash against the immigration insanity of bicoastal elites persist, then the left might turn on their Hispanic voters as illiberal or brainwashed by the right—and ironically move to close the border to preclude more MAGA boosters.
Two, Mexico and Latin America received some 120 billion dollars per year in remittances, mostly sent by their own citizens residing illegally in the U.S. and reliant on American government services that free them up to send billions into the coffers of our own increasingly hostile neighbors. Mexico further sees its 20 million expatriate illegal aliens as a strong lobby group to promote Mexico City’s agendas. The more Mexico exports its impoverished citizens, the more it saves on social services for them, while cynically noting that the more distant and longer their citizens reside away from Mexico, the more they romanticize it, safely from afar.
Three, corporate employers like cheap labor from Latin America, especially when the U.S. government subsidizes such workers with massive housing, food, transportation, and health social services.
On the other side of the ledger, the left cares little that an open border is destroying support for legal immigration and de facto punishes immigrants who wish to follow our laws. A cynic might argue that the left also may fear legal immigrants applying under meritocratic standards, as too independent, self-supporting, educated, skilled, and law-abiding to become its predictably loyal constituents at the polls.
So, what might change to close the border and stop the massive influx?
Donald Trump won the electoral college and the popular vote with a mandate to restore border security and immigration sanity. He received a near-record number of minority voters for a Republican candidate, given they believed that most often must deal with the realities of what elites have unleashed.
In other words, the proverbial people are on to the no-borders elites. They suffer firsthand from their utopian bromides and are tired of being smeared as racists and xenophobes for simply wishing the United States to follow the law, restore secure borders, and end illegal immigration.
And now they have the power and mandate to do all of that.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 17:00 - Blinken Comes Under Fire Over State Department 'Therapy Sessions' After Trump Win
Blinken Comes Under Fire Over State Department ‘Therapy Sessions’ After Trump Win
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has come under fire after the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this month that the State Department held therapy sessions for employees who couldn’t handle President-elect Trump’s election win.
“I am concerned that the Department is catering to federal employees who are personally devastated by the normal functioning of American democracy through the provision of government-funded mental health counseling because Kamala Harris was not elected President of the United States,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) in a letter to Blinken last week.
According to the Free Beacon, two alleged therapy sessions were held after Trump’s victory, with sources telling the outlet that one session amounted to an information “cry session,” Fox News reports.
Meanwhile, a State Department email sent to agency employees touted an “insightful webinar where we delve into effective stress management techniques to help you navigate these challenging times.”
“Change is a constant in our lives, but it can often bring about stress and uncertainty,” reads the email. “Join us for an insightful webinar where we delve into effective stress management techniques to help you navigate these challenging times. This session will provide tips and practical strategies for managing stress and maintaining your well being.”
Issa slammed the reported sessions as “disturbing,” adding that “nonpartisan government officials” should not be having a “personal meltdown over the result of a free and fair election.”
While the Republican lawmaker acknowledged that the mental health of the agency’s employees was important, he questioned the use of taxpayer dollars to counsel those upset about the election, demanding answers on how many sessions have been conducted, how many more are planned, and how much the sessions are costing the department.
Issa also raised fears that the sessions could also call into question the willingness of some of the State Department’s employees to carry out Trump’s new vision for the agency. -Fox News
“The mere fact that the Department is hosting these sessions raises significant questions about the willingness of its personnel to implement the lawful policy priorities that the American people elected President Trump to pursue and implement,” Issa said. “The Trump Administration has a mandate for wholesale change in the foreign policy arena, and if foreign service officers cannot follow through on the American people’s preferences, they should resign and seek a political appointment in the next Democrat administration.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 16:40 - "If These People Had To Be Honest, It Would Be All Over…"
“If These People Had To Be Honest, It Would Be All Over…”
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Substack,
The End of The World Frolics
“If these people had to be honest, it would all be over.”
– Mike Benz
“Now that our cheques are bouncing and we are starting to default on our debts, our entire civilization appears to be manifesting suicidal behavior in an effort to control the firing squad.”
– Luke Dodson
“Joe Biden” is feeling blue. Not a joke. In the lurid sunset of his dwindling term-in-office, the long shadow of his legacy points toward a gigantic glowing cinder where North America used to be.
Such are the grievances of the outgoing president.
I pass unto you and your legions of white supremacist slobs the ashtray that was once our mighty nation. Fix that!
But, as Sir Mick Jagger observed some time ago: you can’t always get what you want. “Joe Biden,” in despair, sinks deeper into his McTeer power recliner and slips back into the bitter dream of his nemesis, a beast named Chrump…
It’s such a chewy name: Chrump, a fricative fiesta! The tongue briefly presses against the alveolar ridge before releasing, then curls back, and the jaw opens slightly to form this vowel sound, the lips close to let the sound resonate nasally before releasing air. Chrump Chrump Chrump. Like, what your mouth would feel like working through a bowl of Froot Loops. So satisfying! The outgoing Party of Chaos can’t stop chanting it on the cable news networks, as if trying to invoke the ancient furies, ghastly, terrifying figures with snakes for hair, dogs’ heads, blood-red eyes, and bat-wings, brandishing torches and scourges to mortify their enemy.
Otherwise, fantasy aside, they are in paralysis as this enemy, Mr. Trump, marshals his pieces on the gameboard:
Musk, Vivek, Bobby Jr, Tulsi, Bondi, Hegseth . . . . Ay-yeeeeee!
They are coming to get us. . . . Somebody. . . do something. . . !
Okay, then, who, exactly, in the shadows behind the half-conscious ghoul in the White House, thinks that now is a great time to commence an ATACMS (Attack’ems) missile barrage on Russia as the very thing to salvage our Ukraine project? You’d naturally turn first to Blinken and Jake Sullivan, those gold-dust twins of overseas jiggery-pokery. Or, is it the geniuses at Spook Central, worried about the fumigating operation incoming with Mr. Ratcliffe? Or perhaps it’s the men-in-skirts over in the Pentagon, seeking to punish humanity because of the clerical error inflicted on them by the desk up-yonder that handles sexual assignments at birth. Blow it all up!
The psychopathic wrath of this gang is really getting out-of-hand. Can Mr. Putin make it any clearer? FA and FO. Hence, many of us are a little concerned that the Thanksgiving birds might not make it to table this year, or ever again, if “Joe Biden” and company keep it up. One more sortie of ATACMS or British Storm Shadows and the satellite targeting and navigation installations for these missiles will get vaporized, along with the NATO member technicians on duty there. What’s your next move, “Joe”? ICBMs? I think we all know what that means.
Let me tell you a few things about this Russia Russia Russia business.
It’s been thirty years since the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a bold political experiment running a society by means contrary to human nature, and after an impressively long run, seven decades, if finally flopped, bankrupt in every sense of the word. It took a while for the dazed Russians to get their minds right after that long misadventure, but they have come around to embrace the idea of being a normal European nation. That is, a country whose citizens are at liberty to do business, travel freely, enjoy a rule-of-law (rather than a rule of despotic personalities). That is, much like we are supposed to be.
Surely, Russia under Mr. Putin has its imperfections, at least as viewed through the lens of America’s Woke-crypto-Marxist-Neocon/psychopath lens. Mainly, it won’t do what we tell it to do: roll over and die! But as often is the case with illnesses of the mind, the American cabal projects its own perverse thoughts on its adversary. Russia, we keep insisting, wants to take over the world! Is it news to you that this does not comport with reality? (By now you know that news in the USA does not comport with reality.) Rather, America acts like we want to take over the world. Hegemony: power over everyone and everything, an increasingly sick notion, given how things are going in this world. Sorry to tell you: that dream is over.
Since 1990, Russia has tried like hell to establish normal relations with western Europe and the USA. Our blob wouldn’t allow that. Russia even asked to join NATO some years ago. Russia wanted to trade with Germany, France, Italy, and the rest. Our blob had to stop that. Finally, the blob geniuses decided that they could put Russia out of business altogether, bust it up to make it helpless, and then own all its mineral and energy resources.
Ukraine would be the means to accomplish that — plus we’d end up with all the goodies in Ukraine, too: the breadbasket lands, the ores. BlackRock, Halliburton, and many other companies lined up to benefit from this scheme, which is now a smoldering wreck. Mr. Trump, wants to terminate that stupid, wicked project. Going back even further, to 2016, he proposed to try making friends with Russia. The benefits were obvious, principally, keeping them on our side against the rising power of the CCP. Russia, no longer under communism, had interests in common with Western Civ — hell, it was part of Western Civ, really, its literature, music, science, manners.
The blob couldn’t abide what Mr. Trump was proposing, so they turned around and burnt his ass with the Russia Russia Russia flamethrower. . . and after that there could be no more talk of friendship between the USA and Putin Putin Putin. Mr. Putin must marvel at how much America under “Joe Biden” is loving the old Soviet Union — since we’re doing everything possible to emulate its workings. We’ve got censorship. We’ve got an FBI-turned-KGB swatting citizens guilty of nothing and a DOJ stuffing them in our gulag. We’ve got a senile president every bit as non compos mentis as Konstantin Chernenko was. We’ve neatly managed to bankrupt ourselves.
Do you see yet what has been going on in our country?
In about fifty-odd days we are going to start correcting all that – if “Joe Biden” doesn’t conjure up nuclear Armageddon.
This Thanksgiving, direct your prayers to averting that outcome, and give thanks for better days to come.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 16:20 - Warren Buffett To Make $1.14 Billion Donation Of Berkshire Shares To Four Family Foundations
Warren Buffett To Make $1.14 Billion Donation Of Berkshire Shares To Four Family Foundations
As is usually the case, Warren Buffett is making a shrewd financial move and getting praised as a philanthropist for it.
This time he’s not lending a vote of confidence to a struggling U.S. bank by dealing himself preferred stock, he’s making a $1.14 billion donation of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares to four family foundations, according to Bloomberg.
The investing legend plans to convert 1,600 Berkshire Class A shares into 2.4 million Class B shares, gifting 1.5 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and 300,000 each to his children’s foundations: Sherwood, Howard G. Buffett, and NoVo.
Buffett’s Berkshire Class A shares have dropped to 206,363, a nearly 57% decline since his 2006 pledge. In 2010, Buffett, along with Bill and Melinda Gates, launched the Giving Pledge, committing to donate his fortune during his lifetime or after.
Since 2006, he has made significant donations to the Gates Foundation and his children’s foundations.
In June, Buffett stated the Gates Foundation would no longer receive funds after his death, with his children managing a new charitable trust. He also pledged 13 million Berkshire Class B shares to family foundations and the Gates Foundation.
Buffett said in a letter to shareholders: “Susie and I had long encouraged our children in small philanthropic activities and had been pleased with their enthusiasm, diligence and results.”
“At her death, however, they were not ready to handle the staggering wealth that Berkshire shares had generated. Nevertheless, their philanthropic activities were dramatically increased by the 2006 lifetime pledge that I subsequently made and later expanded,” he continued.
Bloomberg writes that with a net worth of $150.2 billion, Buffett ranks as the world’s seventh-richest person.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2024 – 15:45
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
