Today’s News 27th April 2022

• Can Africa Offer An Alternative To Russian Gas?
  Can Africa Offer An Alternative To Russian Gas?

  Europe is turning to Africa for help with weaning them off their dependence on Russia’s natural gas supply, as the war in Ukraine continues to escalate.

  It’s a move supported by Akinwumi Adesina, the head of the African Development Bank, who said in March, “Europe is looking for alternative sources of gas supply. This can be in Africa.”

  Now, Italy is conducting a diplomatic campaign to discuss the possible diversification of its energy imports, having carried out visits to Algeria and Egypt before Easter, followed by Congo and Angola this month.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck details in the infographic above, the continent’s largest natural gas exporters by far are Algeria and Nigeria, each with between 35,000 and 40,000 million cubic meters shipped abroad in 2020 (ranked 7th and 8th globally). Last year, these countries were the only two African suppliers of gas to the European Union, accounting for 17 and 4 percent of the EU’s natural gas imports, respectively.

  The other major players in the region are Egypt, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola.

  While countries in sub-Saharan Africa have gas reserves, they have not had the interest from abroad and investment needed for the industry to open up access to Europe, according to Al Jazeera.

  Three pipelines currently bring natural gas from Africa to Europe:

  • the Transmed, which allows the export from Algeria to Italy (via Tunisia),

  • the Medgaz, which connects Algeria to Spain under the sea,

  • as well as the Greenstream, more modest in capacity, which connects Libya to Sicily.

  Due to diplomatic tensions with Morocco, Algeria closed the Maghreb-Europe (GME) pipeline, which passes through its neighbor’s territory, last October.

  From 2027, the NIGAL pipeline is expected to transport natural gas from Nigeria (which exports mainly by sea), but construction of this pipeline has not yet begun.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/27/2022 – 02:45

• Finland, Sweden Plan To Apply To Join NATO In May: Reports
  Finland, Sweden Plan To Apply To Join NATO In May: Reports

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Finland and Sweden have agreed to both apply for NATO membership next month, local media outlets from the two Scandinavian countries reported on Monday.

  According to the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, Sweden suggested the two countries “indicate their willingness” to join the Western military alliance on the same day and Finland agreed “as long as the Swedish government has made its decision.”

  

  The Swedish newspaper Expressen later cited Swedish government sources who confirmed the Iltalehti report. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and her Swedish counterpart, Magdalena Andersson, are set to meet during the week of May 16 and are expected to announce their intention to seek a NATO membership after that.

  However, following the reports Finland tried to reign in speculation on a specific timetable: 

  Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto has said it would be “useful” for Sweden and Finland to launch joint Nato membership bids.

  But he said that no fixed date had been set for any potential application.

  The comments came as Nordic media reported the countries could launch a simultaneous bid to join the security bloc next month.

  Earlier this month, Marin and Andersson met in Stockholm to discuss the possibility of joining NATO, a discussion prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After the meeting, Marin said Finland would decide on whether to apply to join NATO in “weeks, not months”.

  NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said he believes all 30 members of the military alliance would welcome Sweden and Finland. “If they decide to apply, I expect that all allies will welcome them,” Stoltenberg said in early April. “We know that they can easily join this alliance if they decide to apply.”

  Separately on Monday, the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that Sweden had received promises from the US and Britain of an increased military presence in the region and “strong political support” from NATO members during the application process.

  

  Sweden and Finland joining NATO would significantly increase tensions with Russia in the region as Moscow has warned it will bolster its forces along the over 800-mile border it shares with Finland. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, has hinted Russia could deploy nuclear and hypersonic missiles in response.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/27/2022 – 02:00

• Global Military Spending Tops $2 Trillion For First Time In History
  Global Military Spending Tops $2 Trillion For First Time In History

  Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams, 

  Global military expenditures surpassed $2 trillion for the first time ever last year, with the United States spending more on its war-making capacity than the next nine nations combined, according to new data published Monday.

  The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in worldwide military spending for 2021, a 0.7% increase from 2020 levels and the seventh straight year of increased expenditures. 

  

  “Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels,” SIPRI senior researcher Diego Lopes da Silva said in a statement. “There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%.”

  Tori Bateman, policy advocacy coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, said that “this year, we’ve seen how military spending fails to keep us safe. It’s shameful that governments, especially the United States, continue to destabilize our world with more weapons, while failing to address climate change, public health, and other true global crises.”

  “It’s time for the United States, and world leaders everywhere, to cut military spending and commit to solving our problems for real,” she added.

  With $801 billion—or 38% of total global military spending—the United States spent more in 2021 than the next nine nations combined: China ($293 billion), India ($76.6 billion), the United Kingdom ($68.4 billion), Russia ($65.9 billion), France ($56.6 billion), Germany ($56 billion), Saudi Arabia ($55.6 billion), Japan ($54.1 billion), and South Korea ($50.2 billion).

  U.S. funding for military research and development increased by nearly a quarter between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement expenditures fell by 6.4% over that same period, a trend that “suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies,” according to SIPRI researcher Alexandra Marksteiner.

  “The U.S. government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the U.S. military’s technological edge over strategic competitors,” she added.

  The latest SIPRI analysis comes weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden rejected progressive lawmakers’ calls for Pentagon spending cuts and asked Congress to green-light more than $813 in new military spending for the next fiscal year—a $31 billion increase from current levels.

  World military expenditure reached an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in 2021, the seventh consecutive year that spending increased. New SIPRI data out now.

  Press Release ➡️ https://t.co/9dsFAulApR
  French ➡️ https://t.co/UfndNpD5Cr
  Swedish ➡️ https://t.co/x7yN1Pg3DJ#GDAMS2022 pic.twitter.com/6cV9U1ykw0

  — SIPRI (@SIPRIorg) April 25, 2022

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

  That amount includes nearly $146 billion for the procurement of new weaponry, including Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, Northrup Grumman B-21 bombers, and Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast attack submarines manufactured by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

  The new SIPRI report also comes as some of the largest U.S. weapons makers are gearing up for what is expected to be a big earnings week as the West’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine—providing Ukrainian forces with billions of dollars in weaponry—fuels arms industry profits. Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, recently noted that “spending 12 times as much on our military as Russia didn’t prevent a war in Europe. It just deprived us of resources at home.”

  “Even during a pandemic, supply chain crisis, and painful inflation, we’ll put more resources into the military and war than public health, education, green jobs, affordable housing, scientific and medical research, child care, and every other domestic need—combined,” she wrote. “This special treatment for the Pentagon recklessly squanders precious resources that could be used to strengthen our families and communities against our compounding crises at home.”

  Last week, an analysis by In These Times and Zain Rizvi at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen revealed that the U.S. has spent 7.5 times more money on nuclear weapons than on global Covid-19 vaccine donations, despite Biden’s pledge that “America will become the arsenal of vaccines as we were the arsenal of democracy during World War II.”

  “What’s keeping us safe,” asked Koshgarian, “Is it maintaining this huge nuclear stockpile or delivering these vaccines?”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 23:40

• US Army To Test "Largest Drone Swarm Ever" In Utah Desert
  US Army To Test “Largest Drone Swarm Ever” In Utah Desert

  A swarm of military drones will be launched over the Utah desert as part of an international field training exercise later this month, according to a report published by The War Zone. The swarm will comprise of 30 small drones for a dual air-assault mission.

  “I think what you’re going to see is an expansive use of electronic warfare and an expansive use of our interactive drone swarm,” Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, head of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, told The War Zone. 

  “We feel like we’re going to be flying the largest interactive drone swarm ever in partnership with DARPA and our science and technology experts out of Aviation and Missile Command,” Rugen said. 

  The test will occur at the Army’s 2022 Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise, which runs from April 25 to May 12 at Dugway Proving Ground near Salt Lake City, Utah. The service will use a combination of ALTIUS 600 and Coyote drones by Raytheon. 

  ALTIUS 600’s range is about 276 miles and can operate for four hours. Depending on payloads, the drone weighs 20-27 pounds and can be outfitted with a warhead head for offensive missions. Meanwhile, Coyote drones provide reconnaissance. 

  The drones will be launched from an assortment of aircraft and ground vehicles. 

  “We’ll be launching them pretty much, you know, Monster Garage-style, anyway we can,” Rugen said. “Which again shows, in my mind, just the flexibility of our air-launched effects initiatives because we can launch it from the air. We can launch it from the ground. We can launch from fixed-wing, rotary-wing, any type of ground vehicle.”

  The drones will form a swarm where surveillance ones with infrared sensors and electronic warfare payloads will detect and relay intelligence to human operators overseeing the operation. Humans will decide how to engage the enemy targets, whether through suicide drones or other firepower means. 

  Earlier this month, the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center released a short animation of a similar drone swarm scenario.

  Judging by the Biden administration’s speed in transferring small high-tech drones to Ukraine, these new drone swarms could make their way to the war-torn country in the near term. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 23:20

• The Coming Removal Of The Mandate Of Heaven, Part 3: Political Infighting
  The Coming Removal Of The Mandate Of Heaven, Part 3: Political Infighting

  By Eric Mertz of the General Crisis Watch Substack,

  Read The Coming Removal Of The Mandate Of Heaven, Part 0: China’s Founding Myths here…

  Read The Coming Removal Of The Mandate Of Heaven, Part 1: Food here…

  Read The Coming Removal Of The Mandate Of Heaven, Part 2: Water here…

  A journey into the hall of mirrors which is modern Chinese politics

  

  I want to preface this article by stating everything I say here could be wrong.

  Modern Chinese politics is a hall of mirrors, and the true allegiance of every player in the game is known only to themselves. As such, we on the outside are left with no choice but to try and interpret what we see and understand it using logic and critical thinking – and all the while knowing it’s entirely plausible our own biases are warping what we’re seeing.

  So take all of this with a grain of salt and do your own research.

  Until then, let’s break out the thumbtacks and string.

  Chinese Communist Party

  Economic Stakes

  Before we can talk about the factions within the Party, we need to clear up a common myth.

  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP, officially the Communist Party of China in English translations) is not actually communist. It hasn’t been since Deng Xiaoping lifted the boot of the state off the collective throats of the Chinese people in December of 1978 enough for the Chinese people to breathe.

  This lessening of pressure on the Chinese people was just enough for China to transition from Communism to Fascism.

  Such an allegation is going to be a tough sell, so let me point you to the Foundation for Economic Education’s definition and after you’ve finished reading it, come on back for a discussion of the arguments in favor of Deng turning China into a fascist state.

  Corporatism

  The one core aspect of fascism you will find anywhere is the tendency to corporatism. As the FEE points out, this usually manifests in the existence of a single organization that represents all interests within a given constituency, which is very true of the Chinese economy and what passes for a civil society. These organizations have an appointed leader chosen by the Party, and they subordinate the interests of the group to that of the State and by extension the Party.

  These groups maintain sufficient autonomy to pursue the directives handed down by the State in the most efficient manner they’re allowed so they can solve the issues the State tried – and failed – to solve under Mao. To that extent, 1,400 such organizations exist throughout China – with 19,600 provincial branches and 160,000 county-level branches for these organizations.

  Protectionism and Autarky

  Fascism is the marriage of socialism to nationalism, and in economics this manifests in the form of protectionism and autarky. China has shown its willingness to engage in this through its deliberate manipulation of the Yuan to manipulate the balance of trade and the extensive subsidies granted to domestic firms as a means of choking out foreign firms when it comes to competition both at home and abroad.

  Suppression of Labor Unions

  In China, every trade union is legally required to be a member of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, with their interests subordinated to the state via a ban on the collective bargaining tactics protected in law in Western nations and the appointment of labor union leaders by external powers rather than through an election by members of the association.

  Overview of the Faction System

  The factional system discussed below originated out of the concerns for the legitimacy of the party moving forward after the death of the leadership who fought the Chinese Civil War and defeated the Kuomintang and the National Resistance Army after the CCP hid in the mountains and sold opium during the war against the Japanese.

  To that end, the new party leadership claimed legitimacy on the basis of two pillars – the growth of the economy and the improvement of the standard of living, and the creation of patronage systems that would guarantee jobs for educated young men and women. This patronage would bind ambitious young party apparatchiks into a chain of command where they would act as clients within the Party and State of their patrons – and by extension see a 30% higher chance of being promoted once a spot opened up.

  When Deng Xiaoping took power and announced he was going to share power to prevent the disaster which was the Mao era from reoccurring, two factions emerged – the Shanghai Clique and the Communist Youth League Clique. The Shanghai Clique had undisputed hegemony over the Party from 1989 and the ascension of Jiang Zemin until Hu Jintao was able to secure his first term as President in 2002.

  Hu Jintao and his ally, Li Keqiang, struck a deal with Jiang Zemin wherein the two factions would share power and trade positions in turn. Certain positions within the cabinet of the executive branch would be set aside for each clique in the opposition’s government – each seat associated with the political base which the clique represented – to ensure both groups worked together and neither felt threatened.

  Within this structure, the Communist Youth League Faction was a populist organization that represented the rural provinces and the internal illegal migrants who were flocking to the cities looking for work despite the fact they lacked the hùkǒu (household registration permit which allows an individual to live in a given location) or dān wèi (work unit which created a de facto caste system within the Chinese economy and controlled what job one was legally allowed to work and where). In contrast, the Shanghai Clique represented the coastal regions and the State-Owned Enterprises and large cartels on the coasts who were the primary source of hard currency by which China imported food and coal.

  After Hu served his two terms, it was decided the CCP needed to prevent either clique from establishing full hegemony over the State or the Party, so the choice was made to place Xi Jinping as the next President of the People’s Republic of China.

  This proved to be a mistake.

  Tsinghua Clique

  Based out of Beijing, the Tsinghua Clique has as its core a cadre of students and teachers from Tsinghua University. Tsinghua is a member of the C9 League (the Chinese equivalent to the Ivy League) and a Double First-Class University (a designation of the university’s priority in terms of funding to ensure it is able to compete academically on the world stage).

  As with the Shanghai Clique, the Tsinghua Clique is a complex network of interpersonal relationships between patron and client, with Xi Jinping and President of the Central Party School and Vice-Minister for Education Chen Xi at their center.

  The Tsinghua Clique has effectively shut down the Communist Youth League Clique as a faction within Chinese politics, with large numbers of loyal party members from rural provinces such as Fujian and Shaanxi and sidelining the Premier of the People’s Republic of China (the de facto Head of Government) who had been placed as Xi’s second in command by the CCP as part of the initial plan to share power between the Shanghai and CYL Cliques.

  However, the rapid expansion of the Tsinghua Clique has come with very real concern regarding competency. Xi has reportedly personally played a role in promoting men known for their loyalty rather than their competency, with very real concerns of a looming disaster should they hit a disaster they are not ready to face.

  Such as the outbreak of a global pandemic.

  Part of this rapid consolidation of power has been the placing of key personnel in the Military, Domestic Security Services, Party, and Economy, and, perhaps most importantly, in the Party Organization Department. In the case of the economy, this has gone as far as completely cutting the Premier out of his normal role as manager for the Chinese economy – a de facto role which dates back to Deng Xiaoping’s “liberalization” of the economy; while in his role as Head of the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party Chen has been placed in charge of staffing every Party Organ and State Agency.

  Combined with the strict hierarchy within the party, this has meant serious problems for the rival factions within the party. Chen has moved rapidly to use his position to staff any opening with either an ally of his and Xi’s, or with clients thereof, often rapidly promoting individuals up the chain as new positions come open. The two have also worked together to wield greater control over the workings of their subordinates both within the Party and in the State, in direct contrast to Hu Jintao’s more hands-off approach.

  Meanwhile, Xi and Chen were instrumental in moving their allies into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support Minister of Foreign Affairs and State Counselor Wang Yi, and helped set a radical change of direction in terms of foreign policy.

  Under Deng Xiaoping, China chose a more conciliatory foreign policy to ensure a peaceful rise to prominence without presenting a threat to the world, using the language of cooperation to court foreign investment that the CCP could use to gain strength and attain some level of prosperity. Instead, China under Deng and Jiang would seek to work behind the scenes, influencing other nations covertly through the use of bilateral relations and occasionally trade deals.

  The Tsinghua Clique began to radically change this course in 2017, when they began to take a more belligerent tone with the rest of the world. Billed as a response to growing hostility towards the CCP abroad, Xi claimed it was time for China to step out of the shadows and take a more assertive place on the world stage.

  This new diplomatic stance would be dubbed “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” after the 2017 film “Wolf Warrior 2”.

  Xi Jinping

  

  The most powerful man in China, Xi Jinping is the son of the former top Propaganda Minister and Mao’s former number two before he was purged at Mao’s order for supporting the publishing of a biography of a party martyr which Mao’s internal security chief claimed was a front to rehabilitate Gao Gang. When all education above that of the primary level was abolished and students were ordered to bring their teachers forward for struggle sessions, Xi was in Middle School. His home was ransacked, his sister Xi Heping committed suicide due to the militant nature of the student radicals and Xi’s mother was dragged before the people and forced to denounce her husband as an enemy of the people and of the revolution.

  Xi would be sent to a village in rural Shaanxi and forced to live in a cave house as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement. There, he worked as a Secretary for the village party where he was required to assist in the activities of the Cultural Revolution before he ran away to Beijing. He was eventually caught, placed in one of the detention facilities run by the Red Guards, and returned to the village he’d “deserted” to dig ditches before he was “allowed” to return to white-collar work with the party for seven years before he was able to bribe his way into party membership.

  This lack of formal education is noticeable in his speech, where Xi speaks with a middle-school level of fluency in Mandarin and often finds himself struggling to discuss more technical issues. Despite this, Xi was able to make sufficient connections to get himself a position at Tsinghua University, where he studied political science and Marxist theory – graduating with a doctorate in the field.

  It was here that Xi would meet the allies who would help propel him to become the most powerful man in China since Jiang Zemin.

  Xi’s Titles include:

  • Paramount Leader

  • President* of the People’s Republic of China

  • Chairman of the Central Military Commission

  • General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

  *Although the position has been translated as “President” since 1982, the Chinese title for the Head of Government “Guójiā Zhǔxí” is the same as that used for the Chairman of the Central Military Commission “Zhōngyāng Jūnwěi Zhǔxí”. The change in 1982 was a result of China’s shift away from the Soviet Union in favor of closer ties to the US. However, the translation of “Chairman” is a more accurate translation than that of “President”, which is best translated into Chinese as “Zǒngtǒng”.

  Shanghai Clique

  The other major player, though far weaker these days, is the Shanghai Clique established by Jiang Zemin during his rise to power following the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

  With a power base in China’s Special Economic Zones along the coast, the Shanghai Clique has a reputation within China as a party of corrupt elitists who’re primarily interested in using foreign trade as a means to enrich themselves. From the Shanghai Clique’s perspective, this foreign trade is the lifeblood of China, and the wealth gained from exports is the only thing keeping China moving and fed. This is an accurate perspective, as China is heavily dependent on imports to provide food, coal, and oil.

  Traditionally, members of the Clique sought positions in Shanghai as it was the training and testing grounds where they could attain higher positions in the nation as a whole. Positions within Shanghai were thus highly sought after, and Jiang and his allies would use their patronage network to find the best candidates from across the country to cycle them through the city. This had the double effect of creating a patronage network that would, in theory, live beyond Jiang’s retirement – or even his death.

  Jiang Zemin

  

  An unlikely leader of China, Jiang Zemin was the compromise candidate to fill Zhao Ziyang’s position as General Secretary of the CCP after Zhao was forcibly vacated from the seat for having supported the Tiananmen Square protests.

  Before this, Jiang had been one of the most powerful CCP officials in the south, and was Deng’s point man for the liberalization of the Chinese economy from Communism to Fascism.

  As a child, Jiang was raised by his uncle and aunt – Jiang Shangqing and Wang Zhelan – due to the infertility of their marriage. Until, that is, Shangqing was killed fighting the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Jiang would grow up in Nanjing under the governance of the Imperial Japanese Army, managing to gain an education despite the horrors imposed by the IJA in the city.

  After college, he joined the CCP and was named Economic Minister of the Central Committee of the CCP in 1983 before being sent to Shanghai to serve as mayor. It was here Jiang would truly step up as the point-man of Deng’s economic reforms and establish his power base.

  His elevation to the Party Secretary for Shanghai in 1987 brought with it an automatic seat in the Politburo, just in time for the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Widely regarded as little more than a potted flower*, the various factions who sought to fill Zhao’s vacated seat eventually agreed to him as a compromise as they stepped back to reconsolidate their powerbases and forge alliances.

  This proved to be a tactical mistake.

  Jiang used Tiananmen Square as an example of Deng’s failure to properly pursue ideological training of the youth, with a heavy focus on staffing the propaganda ministry with loyalists. Supporters of the political liberalization movement in general – and of democracy in particular – were thoroughly purged from positions within the Party propaganda organs.

  When Deng died, Jiang took the country in a new direction. Viewing the widening gap between provinces in terms of GDP as a threat to the legitimacy of the party, especially with the sheer level of corruption (estimated to be consuming an average of 10% of the economy) which had accompanied it along the coast. Unemployment in some areas rose to 40% at this point, State-Owned Enterprises were shuttering due to an inability to compete, the Iron Rice Bowl** was broken, organized crime began to spread rapidly, and rural peasants were streaming into the cities.

  Jiang began to crack down on the economy of the coastal regions during this era, and began to move clients within the party who were patronized by his allies into higher positions whenever a new position opened. This placed him in the perfect position to claim the title of Paramount Leader when a new “threat emerged”.

  In 1992, the practice of traditional stretching and breathing exercises known as Qigong began to take China by storm. Initially, this had considerable support from the CCP as it was perceived to promote the health of the people – something which would translate into greater productivity. However, within 3 years the various qigong groups – of which Falun Gong had become the largest – were viewed as having too much power within the Party and by extension the government after the leadership within the State mandated Qigong Associated rejected being co-opted by the party.

  Jiang ordered the practice suppressed, banning books and publications in the process. State-owned media began to refer to Falun Gong as “peasant superstition” and proclaimed the religious aspects were at odds with China’s status as an officially atheist state.

  On April 22, 1999, a group of Falun Gong practitioners staged a sit-in protest in Tianjian against the government’s policies of repression. They were beaten and arrested, with onlookers told the orders came from the Ministry of Propaganda in Beijing.

  Three days later, 10,000 practitioners descended on Beijing to peacefully assemble to demand the release of those who had been arrested.

  It was the largest mass protest action since Tiananmen Square and the first one to ever occur at the government compound.

  Jiang responded by constructing an entirely new extrajudicial organ of repression, the 610 Office, to persecute Falun Gong practitioners at home and abroad.

  *Potted flower is an insult in Chinese which indicates one is ornamental but ultimately useless.

  **The Iron Rice Bowl was a series of guaranteed jobs in State-Owned Enterprises, the military, and the civil service. The individual holding the rice bowl may be shuffled around within the organization, but couldn’t be fired.

  Communist Youth League Clique

  The former rival faction to the Shanghai Clique, the Communist Youth League Clique was formed from the adult leadership of the CYL at the time of Deng Xiaoping’s decision to transfer to a system of collective leadership.

  Originally founded with the idea of training new cadres who could take over running the country as the revolutionary cadre retired, the refusal of the old revolutionaries to retire frustrated their ambitions. The CYL Cadre likely would have remained in the political wilderness if Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang hadn’t taken advantage of Deng’s move to open the governance of the country.

  The cornerstone of the CYL Clique was a populist opposition towards the coastal bias at the expense of the hinterlands. With growing inequality between the rural hinterlands and the industrial and commercial coastal regions, the rural region had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo.

  Politicians associated with the CYL Clique have focused on steering investment in the economy towards the rural areas, and were the only politicians in the CCP who expressed interest in dealing with the environmental issues which have been plaguing the country (see Part 2 for more on this). They also placed a strong emphasis on shared power and responsibility, refusing to consolidate their power when they had the chance.

  However, the CYL Clique’s hands-off attitude towards management and redirection of funds from the coastal areas to the hinterlands caused severe corruption issues and drove dissatisfaction with their leadership. Dissatisfaction which was compounded by the failures in how Hu and his associates failed to respond appropriately to the SARS outbreak.

  Failures which the CCP would repeat when SARS reared its ugly head again in 2019.

  Red Aristocracy

  Less a faction than a strata within Chinese society, the Red Aristocracy is the highly unofficial but very real collection of the children and grandchildren of high-ranking officials from the early years of the CCP. Lacking formal leadership or any kind of unity, the Red Aristocracy is less a faction than a loose collection of vaguely aligned interests centered in the military with little representation in politics.

  This lack of unity or formal leadership means they lack the patronage systems which help the members of more formally defined cliques. It has allowed the ascendant Tsinghua Clique to cut their power – cutting their seats on the Politburo and the Central Committee by half. When Xi, himself a Princeling, came to power, he did so with the backing of the Red Aristocracy within the military’s various State-Owned Enterprises.

  The increasingly technocratic nature of the CCP has further sidelined the PLA from the factional games, largely due to the lack of any cross-training between the military and the civil administration.

  Infighting

  Current Politburo

  -Xi Jinping – Tsinghua Clique

  -Li Keqiang – CYL Clique

  -Li Zhanshu – Tsinghua Clique

  -Wang Yang – CYL Clique

  -Zhao Leji – Tsinghua Clique

  -Han Zheng – Shanghai Clique

  -Wang Huning – Shanghai Clique

  Political Warfare

  Anti-Corruption Drive

  One of the most important things Xi has done was the merger of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection with several other independent organizations into the National Supervisory Commission at the cabinet level in 2018. Corruption has been rampant in the era when Hu Jintao was running the country, and the investigations into corrupt officials are likely valid. However, lacking an independent judiciary, any convictions handed down by a Chinese court are not.

  This is not helped by the fact we know several high-ranking members of the Shanghai Clique have been purged – only to have their positions replaced by loyal members of the Tsinghua Clique. This has occurred in every institution over which Xi has authority over; the Party, the State, the People’s Liberation Army, the State-Owned Enterprise cartels, and the various Internal Security apparatuses.

  This has even resulted in the execution of officials such as former Director of Public Security for Inner Mongolia, Zhao Liping, and Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of a State-Owned Enterprise named China Huarong Asset Management Co., Ltd., Lai Xiaomin. Over 170 high-ranking party officials have been expelled from the CCP, with a significant number of them having been given significant prison sentences – including 35 high-ranking members of the Central Committee, former head of China’s domestic surveillance apparatus, Zhou Yongkang, and even former Politburo member, Sun Zhengcai.

  Poverty Alleviation

  If you recall from the section on the Communist Youth League Clique, their rise to power was largely fueled by populist discontent over the imbalance in economic investment. While the coast is full of shining cities which glisten in the sun, the Chinese hinterlands are deeply impoverished. Peasant families rely on coal-fire stoves built into the base of their beds to stay warm, dilapidated houses are common, and poverty is widespread.

  Recognizing the potential threat this poses to the Tsinghua Clique’s hold on power, Xi decided to steal Hu Jintao’s playbook and ran with it. In 2012 alone, Xi ensured the rural hinterlands received twice the amount of money that these regions received in all of Hu Jintao’s second five-year term. Combined with attacks on the Communist Youth League Clique in media as elitists who’re only using the rural communities for power, and cut financial support for the organization which gave the Clique its name by half.

  Party Games

  Meanwhile, Xi has cut the membership of the rival organizations in both the Central Committee and the Politburo by half. These dismissed individuals have been replaced with members of the Tsinghua Clique, or in some cases simply not-at-all. Acceptance into the party has been cut by half, with the CCP shrinking as a percentage of the population for the first time since the end of the Chinese Civil War.

  Meanwhile, the Tsinghua Clique has managed to use expulsions and reshuffling of positions within the Party and the State to place their people in control of the cities of Tianjian, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Guangzhou. This has created an anocratic nightmare, where the Shanghai Clique or the Communist Youth League Clique are competing with the Tsinghua Clique within the governing structure of the State.

  It is widely speculated among China Watchers that this is playing a role in the disaster which the world is watching unfold in Shanghai right now.

  Those purged have been subjected to torture, forced confessions, and even coerced suicide.

  Bloodshed

  However, these party games are nothing compared to the blood which has been shed.

  Xi has reportedly survived six assassination attempts on his life by rival cliques.

  Primarily carried out by Communist Youth League Clique partymen, these assassination attempts include an instance where Xi’s car was deliberately struck by another vehicle twice on the same day in September of 2014 and what appears to have been a coup attempt in March 2012 which was only quashed by the PLA. The Shanghai Clique, meanwhile, reportedly attempted to use police officials to kill Xi using police officers in a city in the south. In both instances, Xi has responded with extensive purges, often targeting security personnel and replacing them with members of his Clique.

  There have even been accusations of terrorism having been carried out by rival groups.

  On August 12, 2015, two explosions ripped through the Port of Tianjian. 800 metric tons of ammonium nitrate which had been sitting at the port awaiting export exploded late in the evening, killing 173 people and injuring hundreds more. Toxic substances such as sodium cyanide were released in the explosion, and toxic gases were present at dangerous levels for weeks after. When it rained six days later, the streets of the Beijing suburb were covered in white foam, and residents who were out and about complained of rashes and burns from caustic chemicals in the rain.

  Officially, the cause of the explosion was listed as auto-ignition of nitrocellulose which had been stored close to the ammonium nitrate. The hot weather had reportedly caused the wetting agent in the nitrocellulose to evaporate away, resulting in an explosion.

  However, reports indicate Xi has decided this wasn’t an accident.

  Unverified reports indicate PLA munitions were found at the site, with serial numbers tracing back to armories under the control of PLA officers loyal to Jiang Zemin.

  Military Role

  The PLA has not been spared. Xi has reportedly purged 165 General or Flag Officers from the PLA for corruption connected to State-Owned Enterprises in the PLA orbit – either directly owned by the PLA, by the Central Military Commission, or which are suppliers to the PLA.

  Despite this, the growing professionalism of the PLA and the growing bifurcation between the Administrative and Military branches of the CCP has resulted in both becoming more technocratic and reducing the cross-training which was more common in the era of Mao and Deng.

  This has prevented much of the head-counting and factional games which were present in previous eras and have served to sideline the Princelings from the power games of the administrative portions of the CCP. Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was largely assumed this meant a succession crisis was unlikely, as the PLA was unlikely to take a hand in choosing Xi’s successor unless China suffered a serious crisis that harmed the internal harmony of the State or weakened China’s economic growth.

  Xi’s Zero COVID policies have done both, and have brought the PLA into the heart of every major city in China. There, they have become enforcers of lockdowns and the sole means to distribute food to the people as private avenues for the distribution of food has been shut down.

  Economic Front

  Xi has recently cracked down on Big Tech firms connected to Jiang Zemin and the Shanghai Clique, with Jack Ma’s Ant Group being the standout example. One of the key board members of Ant Group is Jiang Guofei, the grandson of Jiang Zemin, and a member of the Shanghai Clique’s private sector branch. It is widely speculated the recent move to prevent Ant Group is connected to this link, along with the perception Jack Ma was a supporter of the Shanghai Clique’s more radical economic wing.

  The latter is an easy charge to make given the fact Alibaba had created a shadow banking, investment, and payment system within China which was only nominally answerable to the control of the People’s Bank of China*.

  However, while the use of the State to rein in Ant Group and force Jack Ma out in favor of a more pliant and reliable CEO has received the most attention from the press, Xi has been busy elsewhere.

  As of 2015, 115 Sate-Owned Enterprises had been purged of members of the Shanghai and Communist Youth League Clique leadership. Chen Xi, and before him Zheo Leji, has used his role as the Head of the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party to fill new vacancies with employees who were private sector clients of high ranking members of the Tsinghua Clique.

  When the oligarchs connected to the Party realized they were in danger, Xi cracked down on their ability to move money overseas. This has created a thriving black market where wealthy and corrupt businessmen in China will purchase a luxury travel package to a casino and resort in Macau where they will play a sufficient number of hands of high-stakes baccarat – sacrificing their losings to pay off the owner – and then convert the chips into a foreign currency. Xi has cracked down on this method of capital outflow as well, even going so far as to have the man who helped facilitate these outflows arrested.

  This has moved the money laundering operations overseas, where Triads in Vancouver – to name a rather interesting example – have set up a racket where oligarchs and corrupt politicians have been able to avoid the long arm of the Chinese law. Using casinos that are owned by the government of British Columbia, dirty money obtained from bribes, no-show jobs, patronage deals, and other corrupt means are then laundered from Yuan into Canadian Dollars and used to buy assets in Canada.

  *People’s Bank of China is China’s central bank. Unlike the Federal Reserve, the PBoC is under the direct control of the central government and has limited freedom to act on its own initiative to pursue monetary policy.

  Propaganda Front

  Jiang Zemin’s use of the propaganda offices to shape thought was vital in cementing the Shanghai Clique as the dominant force in China’s factional contests. As a former member of the Shanghai Clique Xi knew how important this was. Which is why he has so heavily focused on it in the run-up to the March 2023 election to determine whether he will serve a third term.

  To this extent, Xi has radically overhauled the education system.

  For all that China claims to be a new entity, the Confucian emphasis on education and literacy as a path into the bureaucracy and thus to wealth and power still holds – including the use of an entrance exam to determine whether a given student will even be able to attend a higher level of education. Students are only guaranteed education for their compulsory period up through the age of twelve, after which the family must pay for the schooling themselves. This has created a system of private tutoring akin to the cram schools found in Japan for the purpose of passing their high school entrance exam program.

  Or rather, it had.

  With the educational reform program, Beijing has placed these private systems under such strict control as to have effectively banned the program.

  Meanwhile, the CCP is planning to remove English from the core curriculum to make room for the mandatory classes in Xi Jinping Thought. It’s worth noting that this is only the second time in the history of the CCP since a leader’s ideology has been granted the title of Thought – the highest rank recognized under the party constitution – and only the third time propaganda of this time has been mandated as part of the curriculum.

  Hello the West world, it’s your time to be afraid and prepared – China is embracing Maoism (or shall we call it Xi-ism) again.
  Source: https://t.co/gruA7YMf49 pic.twitter.com/xNUX41PAs2

  — The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动官方推号 (@TGTM_Official) April 25, 2022

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  Combined with a ban on foreign textbooks and a de facto ban on learning foreign languages in favor of Xi’s ideology, this creates a closed ideological loop that makes it far more difficult to question the official ideology of the ruling clique and will help cement their control. This situation is even worse in the Red Army schools which are run by the Red Aristocracy to ensure students will be unquestionably loyal to the Party. A development that Xi has strongly supported as they will help cement his control over the Party – and by extension the State.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 23:00

• Harvard Creates $100 Million Fund To Address Racist Past
  Harvard Creates $100 Million Fund To Address Racist Past

  Harvard University plans to commit $100 million to a new endowment fund to address its historical ties to slavery. 

  Harvard President Lawrence Bacow published a letter to the Harvard Community addressing the school’s uncomfortable truth: its “history includes extensive entanglements with slavery.” 

  “And the truth is that slavery played a significant part in our institutional history. Enslaved people worked on our campus supporting our students, faculty, and staff, including several Harvard presidents. 

  The labor of enslaved people both far and near enriched numerous donors and, ultimately, the institution.

  Some members of our faculty promoted ideas that gave scholarly legitimacy to concepts of racial superiority. 

  And long after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States in 1865, Harvard continued discriminatory practices that sharply limited the presence of African Americans on our campus,” Bacow said.  

  “Harvard was the first institution of higher learning in America, founded in 1636. Slavery and the slave economy thread through the first 150 years of its history. Slaves made beds and meals for Harvard presidents”https://t.co/TwCjS2u7p2

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 21, 2020

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  The letter from the president contained a hyperlink to a +100-page report detailing the Ivy League university’s strong connections to slavery, segregation, and discrimination. 

  Slavery was “integral to Harvard,” the report said, adding that segregation and discrimination were typical on campus through the 1900s.  

  The report urged the university to support descendants of those Harvard enslaved, establish a Legacy of Slavery Fund, and work more with Black colleges and universities. Here’s the complete list of recommendations the report laid for how Harvard should spend the money: 

  Recommendation 1: Engage and Support Descendant Communities by Leveraging Harvard’s Excellence in Education 

  Recommendation 2: Honor Enslaved People through Memorialization, Research, Curricula, and Knowledge Dissemination 

  Recommendation 3: Develop Enduring Partnerships with Black Colleges and Universities 

  Recommendation 4: Identify, Engage, and Support Direct Descendants

  Recommendation 5: Honor, Engage, and Support Native Communities 

  Recommendation 6: Establish an Endowed Legacy of Slavery Fund to Support the University’s Reparative Efforts Recommendation 7: Ensure Institutional Accountability

  Recommendation 7: Ensure Institutional Accountability

  Bacow said the new fund would be infused with $100 million, indicating “some of these funds will be available for current use, while the balance will be held in an endowment to support this work overtime.” 

  “Slavery and its legacy have been a part of American life for more than 400 years … the work of further redressing its persistent effects will require our sustained and ambitious efforts for years to come,” he said.

  A $100 million might sound like a lot of money, but it’s peanuts compared to Harvard Management Company, otherwise known as Harvard’s Endowment fund, which has a massive AUM of $53.2 billion (as of the latest figures from 4Q21).

  

  Maybe in the age of ‘wokeness,’ the school has found an easy way to virtue signal its way out of its very racist past. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 22:40

• Cause Of Spike In Homeless Deaths In LA During First Year Of Pandemic Revealed
  Cause Of Spike In Homeless Deaths In LA During First Year Of Pandemic Revealed

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

  There was a more than 50 percent spike in deaths among Los Angeles County’s homeless population during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to recently released data, which found that it was mainly driven by overdoses—not COVID-19.

  

  Los Angeles County, which has been dominated by Democratic executives and elected officials for years, said that between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, some 1,988 overall deaths among the homeless were recorded. That’s up about 56 percent from 1,271 deaths during the same time period one year earlier, said a report from the LA Department of Public Health, dated April 22.

  As a result, the county concluded that drug overdoses remained the top cause of death among homeless individuals during that timeframe. Overdose deaths also increased 78 percent “from the pre- to post-pandemic onset year,” the country wrote.

  There were 402 fatal overdoses in the pre-pandemic year, the country said. That “nearly doubled” to 715 in the first year of the outbreak, LA County said.

  “The findings in this report reflect a true state of emergency,” said LA County First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said in a statement. “In a civil society, it is unacceptable for any of us to not be profoundly disturbed by the shocking needs documented in this year’s homeless mortality report.”

  

  

  Heart disease was the second leading causing of death—increasing 29 percent year-over-year—and COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, said the report. Traffic injuries and homicide were the fourth and fifth leading causes of death, respectively, during that time period, according to officials.

  “The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on people experiencing homelessness has clearly extended beyond the immediate effects of this new and deadly virus,” Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “The pandemic has exacerbated stressors already burdening this vulnerable population.”

  Los Angeles, which has favorable weather conditions, is home to the city’s notorious Skid Row district, which has been home to a significant number of homeless people for years now. Recent video footage uploaded to YouTube shows the area dominated by tents, cardboard shelters, old RVs, plywood structures, and other makeshift living quarters strewn about sidewalks and in parking spots.

  A study of San Francisco homeless deaths that was released in March 2022 revealed a similar trend. There were some 331 total homeless fatalities between March 2020 and March 2021, more than twice the previous year, according to findings posted by the University of California San Francisco and the city’s Department of Public Health. They found that drug overdoses were the leading cause of death during the first pandemic year.

  Meanwhile, a study released last week by the University of California-Los Angeles found that the overall quality of life in Los Angeles has dropped to its lowest levels in years.

  The so-called Quality of Life Index survey dipped to an overall rating of 53 out of 100, down five points from last year, according to UCLA.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 22:20

• Pentagon Blasts Russia's Nuclear War Rhetoric & Charge Of Proxy War As "Dangerous"
  Pentagon Blasts Russia’s Nuclear War Rhetoric & Charge Of Proxy War As “Dangerous”

  On Tuesday journalist Glenn Greenwald warned, “Whatever your views on the moral dimensions of this war, it’s hard to deny this is the most dangerous moment in US foreign policy in two decades. Every week, US/NATO involvement in the war intensifies, as Russia explicitly warns of nuclear war. For what?“

  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday in his most alarming comments yet on the Ukraine war warned there is now “considerable” risk of armed conflict spreading beyond Ukraine’s borders. He blasted NATO’s ramped up arms shipments to Kiev as part of its “proxy war” against Moscow, warning further that the possibility of a lead-up to nuclear war “should not be underestimated.” 

  “The risks now are considerable,” Lavrov said of the possibility for nuclear conflict, according to a Russian foreign ministry transcript. “The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it,” he added. “NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”

  

  This kind of maximalist talk out of Moscow of the worst-case scenario appears to have completely undeterred Washington or its allies. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the same day promised Ukraine’s government to “keep moving heaven and earth” to ensure its Ukrainian military has whatever it needs to take on the invading Russian forces.

  “My Ukrainian friends: We know the burden that you all carry and we know, and you should know that all of us have your back,” Austin said.

  And on Tuesday, responding specifically to the now widespread reports of Lavrov’s ‘nuclear warning’ – Austin called this talk “dangerous and unhelpful”. He further suggested it’s mere “bluster”:

  “Rattling of sabers and dangerous rhetoric is clearly unhelpful and something that we won’t engage in,” Austin told reporters at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, after hosting the first of what what will become a regular meeting of allied and partner countries known now as the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group in support of the embattled former Soviet state.

  “Any bluster about the possible use of nuclear weapons is dangerous and unhelpful,” Austin said later. “Nobody wants to see a nuclear war, and nobody can win that.”

  Asked today at a press conference in Germany if he is not afraid of a nuclear war and the spread of the war beyond #Ukraine, US Secreatary of Defense Lloyd Austin called “the speculations”. as he said, about the use of nuclear weapons “unhealthy” and “dangerous”, a “bluster. ” pic.twitter.com/SRdwXWlOZa

  — Suzana Starikov (@Intetyst) April 26, 2022

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  The day prior the Pentagon chief had said the US wants to see a “weakened” Russia due to its Ukraine war. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said at a news conference just after traveling to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

  Meanwhile, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby was also asked about Lavrov’s nuclear rhetoric, responding that “It’s obviously unhelpful, not constructive, and certainly is not indicative of what a responsible [world power] ought to be doing in the public sphere.”

  Virtually every week, Biden announces new massive aid of cash and weapons to Ukraine. Every week, US/NATO announce greater involvement that, weeks earlier, was deemed unthinkable. It’s a full-on proxy war. The risks are mind-boggling. What is being achieved that warrants this? pic.twitter.com/V2cQoFcvca

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 26, 2022

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  Kirby said further according to Reuters, “A nuclear war cannot be won and it shouldn’t be fought. There’s no reason for the current conflict in Ukraine to get to that level at all.”

  Interestingly, it seems the Russian side would agree, and appeared to dabble in rhetoric of nuclear warnings as a way to stave off such a nuclear-armed showdown. But ominously, it seems both sides also agree they are inching toward this almost unimaginable scenario. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 22:00

• Reaction To Musk Offer Suggests Content Moderation More About Control Than Safety
  Reaction To Musk Offer Suggests Content Moderation More About Control Than Safety

  Authored by Kalev Leetaru via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

  The reaction among the press and tech communities to Elon Musk’s efforts to purchase Twitter has been nothing short of apocalyptic. A common theme has been that democracy itself would be under threat if unelected billionaire oligarchs controlled what was allowed online. Yet this is precisely how social media works today. The Musk controversy, like the Cambridge Analytica story before it, highlights the real issue: the fight over content moderation is less about online safety and more about who controls the digital public square.

  

  Only a year ago, the media cheered the unilateral decisions by a handful of billionaires to effectively banish then-President Donald Trump from the digital public square. Lawmakers and media outlets alike proclaimed the societal benefits of private companies controlling the digital public square beyond the reach of government. In contrast, the possibility of a libertarian-leaning billionaire like Musk wielding that same power has been presented as nothing short of an attack on democracy itself.

  In January, the Washington Post argued that oligarchs banning Trump wasn’t censorship; now it  warns of the “risks of social media ownership.” Former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos argued, “If you want people to be able to interact, you need to have basic rules” for speech. Former FCC chair Tom Wheeler went further, proposing a “First Amendment-respecting process in which the government doesn’t dictate content but does cause there to be an acceptable behavioral code.” In short, tech billionaires enforcing speech rules that align with Democratic Party priorities is a benefit to society; Republicans or libertarians wielding that same power is a threat.

  This double standard has been in place for some time. Consider how it played out a few years ago, in the Cambridge Analytica “scandal” involving the Trump campaign.

  After Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection victory, the media had heralded his campaign’s “groundbreaking” “dream team” of “masterminds” that “built a database of every American voter” by mass-harvesting their personal data from Facebook. As a campaign lead later put it, “We ingested the entire U.S. social graph … We would ask permission to basically scrape your profile, and also scrape your friends, basically anything that was available to scrape. We scraped it all.” They even scanned users’ photographs, “looking for who were tagged in photos with you, which was a really great way to dredge up old college friends – and ex-girlfriends” in their attempts to reach voters. These efforts were combined with offline data “showing which [television] channels they were watching, sometimes on a second-by-second basis” in order to build a holistic view of the American electorate. The Obama campaign’s own analytics director later conceded the scale of personal information acquired was “creepy.”

  Despite the campaign’s downloading of a measurable fraction of the data Facebook held on the American public, Facebook took no action, allegedly telling campaign staffers that “they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”

  When Facebook rolled out new policies in 2014 that would limit the ability of future campaigns to replicate the Obama campaign’s mass downloads, media coverage lamented the loss of such a powerful political targeting tool. Concern focused on how future campaigns would be able to construct such detailed voter data, rather than on the privacy and societal implications of mass-harvesting people’s data without their consent. As the 2016 campaign drew to a close, with Hillary Clinton the expected winner, media coverage touted her campaign’s adroit use of mass data harvesting and analysis, while scoffing at the Trump campaign’s apparent failure to incorporate big-data analytics.

  All that changed in 2018, when the story broke that Trump’s campaign had almost exactly replicated Obama’s strategy of mass-harvesting Facebook data. Suddenly, the mass download of social media data was a “scandal” involving the “dangerous” “misuse” of “surveillance” technology that “exploited” voters’ privacy and represented a “serious breach of the law.”

  How did the work of Obama’s “masterminds” become “misuse” in the hands of Trump’s campaign?

  On a technical level, the two campaigns had done exactly the same thing: recruit supporters to allow them to harvest the data of their friends to build a massive database of Americans. The difference, as a Facebook spokesperson later clarified, was that the Trump campaign had acquired the data from a third party – Cambridge Analytica – while the Obama campaign had harvested the data itself. According to the spokesperson, if Trump’s campaign had downloaded the data itself instead of receiving it from Cambridge Analytica, it would not have been in violation of any Facebook policies. Despite demanding that Cambridge Analytica delete all of the Facebook data it had downloaded, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the Obama campaign would be allowed to keep all the data it had harvested and continue to use it for future Democratic campaigns because there was nothing wrong with what it had done.

  In short, the “scandal” was merely that the Trump campaign had contracted out the data collection instead of using its own staffers to download it. In the eyes of the media, however, Trump’s use of Facebook data had undermined democracy. Across the media, condemnation was swift and furious, with calls for new rules governing the use of social media data for campaigning.

  In the end, the battle over Elon Musk controlling Twitter has nothing to do with oligarchs or online safety, just as the Cambridge Analytica controversy had nothing to do with a technical distinction between contractors and employees. Instead, it is merely the latest chapter in the battle over who controls the digital public square – and which political party determines its rules.

  RealClear Media Fellow Kalev Leetaru is a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security. His past roles include fellow in residence at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 21:40

• Farm Crisis Hits Dakotas As Floods Delay Plantings, May Trigger US Food Shortage 
  Farm Crisis Hits Dakotas As Floods Delay Plantings, May Trigger US Food Shortage 

  In the last several weeks, farmers in the Northern Plains have been battered by blizzards, winter storms, high winds, and extreme flooding. These weather phenomena have delayed farmers from plantings in high-producing crop regions. Every week plantings are delayed, the harvest yield shrinks, and this comes at a precarious time as the global food supply chain is fracturing. 

  Private weather forecasters and ag specialist BAMWX warned about delayed plantings across the Northern Plains to Midwest to the Ohio Valley. Some farmers might not be able to plant until at least May as widespread above-average moisture, and widespread well below average temperatures inhibit farmers from working their fields. 

  BAMWX shows the most above-average precipitation occurred in The Dakotas. 

  

  Much of the Northern Plains to Midwest to the Ohio Valley experienced below-average temperatures. 

  

  BAMWX’s chief meteorologist Kirk Hinz provides a weather model looking out two weeks and shows more of the same: below-average temperatures and higher precipitation. The risk is that delayed plantings could extend well into the first half of May. 

  

  

  Spring has so far been filled with chaos and uncertainties for American farmers. Many cannot work in their fields because tractors would get stuck, fields are underwater, and saturated soils make for a bad growing environment. Also, cold weather disrupts plant nutrient intake and can damage seedlings very early in the growing cycle, which may cause premature death. 

  Given this uncertainty from the weather and how America’s food supply chain could be at risk. CBoT trader Tommy Grisafi (also risk advisor at commodity trading firm Advance Trading Inc), with ag clients throughout The Dakotas, provided this warning of what’s happening on the ground: 

  “As I sit in my office in Mayville, North Dakota, I’m starting to wonder how the Upper Midwest farmer will get all the crops planted in a timely fashion. Below average temps are forecasted for the next ten days; combine that with above-average snow and rainfall, which only means more delayed plantings. 

  “Upper Midwest farmers are running out of time as prevent plant dates could soon be triggered. North Dakota’s first prevent plant date is May 25th for certain parts of the state — this will mean farmers will file a prevented planting claim on their crop insurance and not plant.” 

  One significant reason plantings are delayed in North Dakota is flooding.

  Welcome to North Dakota #flood2022 pic.twitter.com/DYrWqoHa4G

  — AGBULL (@AgBullMedia) April 24, 2022

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  Grisafi said, “North Dakota, Montana, and Canada are famous for growing specialty crops.” 

  “We often forget how these products are in everyday foods we consume. The Ukraine war was like throwing gas on an already hot fire. The Great drought of 2021 depleted supplies. The world is now dependent on the Northern hemisphere for major food needs. The US must grow record crops just to meet average demand. If not, this could add to the biblical food shortage coming down the pipe,” he said. 

  Grisafi has spent three decades on the CBoT and said fertilizer shortages plus delayed plantings suggest harvests could be severely impacted. “If only our government had a strategic fertilizer reserve,” he said. 

  He is in contact with hundreds of North Dakota farmers and various end-users, indicating many of these folks “will have trouble sleeping at night” because of the agricultural crisis emerging. 

  Here’s an aerial shot of one of Grisafi’s clients. The fields are completely flooded. 

  

  Grisafi’s Ag Bull podcast has recently stated, “planting delays and production problems in the US are moving markets.” Last month, we cautioned that the mainstream media fails to address how the US is careening towards a food crisis. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 21:20

• The "Gentlemen's Agreement": When TV News Won't Identify Defense Lobbyists
  The “Gentlemen’s Agreement”: When TV News Won’t Identify Defense Lobbyists

  Authored by Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea via TK News,

  When is a TV news interview not just an interview?

  Leon Panetta was the nation’s top security official under Barack Obama, famous for his hangdog eyes and soft-spoken, equivocating defenses of torture and assassination of Americans while serving as both Secretary of Defense and CIA director. That was years ago. Today, he’s a senior counselor at Beacon Global Strategies, which represents a host of security companies, including famed munitions maker Raytheon. In Matt Orfalea’s booming video above, we see Panetta on a recent CNN broadcast stumping for Raytheon products like Javelin and Stinger missiles, with host Bianna Golodryga saying only that he “was America’s defense secretary and CIA director.” Orfalea goes on to capture how Panetta and other military “experts” chant WEAPONS WEAPONS WEAPONS over and over like they’re trying to open magic treasure chests, their commercial ties never revealed.

  As war rages, there will be officials on TV with sincere opinions about how the U.S. can help Ukraine. Very often, however, what you’re watching is a paid lobbyist plugging for a weapons maker.

  Joe Biden last week authorized another $800 million in military aid to Ukraine. This second major tranche of weapons came on the heels of weeks of passionate advocacy from former national security officials calling for heavy spending on reinforcements. Somewhere in the past, these commentators usually have impressive credentials. However, the more recent jobs of these commentators are often paid gigs helping military contractors “achieve their business objectives.” This phenomenon was embarrassing before Iraq, but the last months have seen near-total saturation of the airwaves by such figures.

  TK News subscribers can click here to read the rest…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 21:00

• Former EBay Exec Pleads Guilty To Harassment Campaign Against Newsletter Critical Of The Company
  Former EBay Exec Pleads Guilty To Harassment Campaign Against Newsletter Critical Of The Company

  A former eBay executive has plead guilty to a role in a cyberstalking campaign, according to a new release by the Department of Justice this week. 

  On Monday, the DOJ announced in a release that the executive had a role in a “cyberstalking campaign targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter that eBay executives viewed as critical of the company.”

  The executive, 47 year old James Baugh, was eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety & Security. He “pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit stalking through interstate travel and through facilities of interstate commerce, two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through facilities of interstate commerce, two counts of witness tampering and two counts of destruction, alteration and falsification of records in a federal investigation”, according to the release.

  He was charged in 2020, along with David Harville, eBay’s former Director of Global Resiliency, the DOJ wrote. 

  

  The DOJ alleges that between August 2019 and August 2020, Baugh “agreed to engage in a harassment campaign targeting a husband and wife in Natick, Mass. for of their roles in publishing a newsletter that reported on issues of interest to eBay sellers”.

  Executives at eBay had become “frustrated with the newsletter’s tone and content, and with the tone and content of comments posted beneath the newsletter’s articles,” the DOJ release reads. Baugh allegedly engaged in a three part harassment campaign against the victims that included:

  • sending private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter’s content and threatening to visit the victims in Natick
  • traveling to Natick to surveil the victims and install a GPS tracking device on their car
  • delivering items to the victims’ house including a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and live insects

  Threatening Twitter messages were disguised as being from eBay sellers who were unhappy with the victims’ coverage in the newsletter, the DOJ alleges. 

  “Baugh and co-conspirators allegedly traveled from California to Natick to surveil the victims and to install a GPS tracking device on the victims’ car,” the release reads. It also alleges he made false statements to police and internal investigators as the situation began to unravel. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 20:40

• Democrat Efforts To Disqualify House Republicans For 'Insurrection' Was Just Dealt Crippling Blow
  Democrat Efforts To Disqualify House Republicans For ‘Insurrection’ Was Just Dealt Crippling Blow

  Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  An Arizona judge’s ruling against efforts to keep two Republican congressmen and a state representative off the November ballot due to their alleged Jan. 6, 2021, “insurrection” roles at the U.S. Capitol likely foreshadows the outcome of similar efforts in other states, according to the attorney who argued the case.

  

  Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled against motions brought by plaintiffs seeking the removal of U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and state Rep. Mark Finchem, a Republican, saying the 14th Amendment’s Disqualification Clause requires congressional action to remove an elected official, not a suit brought by private citizens in a state court.

  “The express language of the United States Constitution controls this issue. The Disqualification Clause creates a condition where someone can be disqualified from serving in public office. However, the Constitution provides that legislation enacted by Congress is required to enforce the disqualification pursuant to the Disqualification Clause,” Coury ruled.

  “Aside from criminal statutes dealing with insurrection and rebellion which Congress has enacted (lawsuits which require the government, not private citizens, to initiate), Congress has not passed legislation that is presently in effect which enforces the Disqualification Clause against the candidates,” Coury said.

  

  He was referring to Section 3 of the 14th amendment as the “Disqualification clause” approved by Congress following the Civil War to bar former officials of the Confederacy from holding office under the U.S. Constitution.

  Coury noted that “legislation that proposes to enforce the Disqualification Clause currently is pending in the United States Congress, but has not yet been enacted. Therefore, given the current state of the law and in accordance with the United States Constitution, Plaintiffs have no private right of action to assert claims under the Disqualification Clause.”

  The 11 plaintiffs, all individual Arizona citizens, who filed the complaint against Gosar, Biggs, and Finchem were represented by attorneys with Free Speech for People (FSP), an Austin, Texas-based left-wing advocacy group.

  An FSP spokesman told The Epoch Times the plaintiffs reject the judge’s reasoning and are planning to file an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

  “This ruling is contrary to the law. Arizona is not exempted from the mandate of Section Three of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A candidate who has taken an oath of office and then engaged in insurrection has no place on a future Arizona ballot. We will be appealing this decision to the Arizona Supreme Court.”

  

  The FSP is also involved in related litigation against Representatives Madison Cawthorne (R-N.C.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

  In their complaint, the plaintiffs claimed Finchem—who is now seeking the Secretary of State position in the November election—was an active January 6 participant and coordinated his actions with Gosar and Biggs.

  “Finchem was engaged in efforts to intimidate Congress and the Vice President into rejecting valid electoral votes and to subvert the essential constitutional function of an orderly and peaceful transition of power,” according to the complaint.

  “Finchem was engaged with the January 6 attack by being in close contact with the planners of the Wild Protest, including throughout the day on January 6, and by participating in the attack with the advance knowledge that it was substantially likely to lead to the attack,” the complaint said.

  “Finchem promoted the events of January 6 ahead of time. He coordinated many of his efforts with U.S. Representatives Paul Gosar and Andrew Biggs, and agreed with them on a plan to first delegitimatize, then challenge, and finally overturn the 2020 presidential election,” the complaint continued.

  George Wentz, an attorney representing Gosar, told The Epoch Times that “the 14th amendment establishes the disqualification of people that have been engaged in insurrection or given aid and comfort to the enemy. Right there, in the 14th amendment, it says Congress shall decide how this will be enforced. And if only Congress can determine this, then certainly a state cannot.”

  Wentz said he believes the attorneys representing the plaintiffs are “trying to bypass the Department of Justice, they are trying to appoint themselves as a self-appointed, unaccountable to the people prosecutorial arm of the government, but they are trying to do [it] through a state law in a state civil court using [the] standard of the preponderance of the evidence.”

  But under the federal law approved by Congress, such prosecutions must be done in federal criminal courts using a standard of clear and convincing evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, Wentz pointed out.
  Congress did so, he said, by approving a law that directs the President of the United States, through the Department of Justice, to enforce the Disqualification Clause by initiating action in federal court in appropriate cases.

  “So they’re trying to do an end-run around the 14th Amendment itself,” Wentz said.

  A scheduling conference was held today between the parties, and appeal briefs are expected to be filed beginning next week, with a decision coming perhaps as early as mid-May.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 20:20

• Tone-Deaf MSNBC Pundit Says Musk-Run Twitter Could Be Manipulated For Political Reasons
  Tone-Deaf MSNBC Pundit Says Musk-Run Twitter Could Be Manipulated For Political Reasons

  MSNBC‘s Ari Melber may be the most tone-deaf pundit on the planet, after suggesting an Elon Musk-Run Twitter could be ‘manipulated’ to change political outcomes in favor of Republicans by suppressing stories that might harm a conservative candidate – exactly what Twitter did to Donald Trump during the 2020 US election.

  

  “If you own all of Twitter or Facebook or what have you, you don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t even have to be transparent. You could secretly ban one party’s candidate or all of its candidates, all of its nominees, or you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else,” said Melber. “And the rest of us might not even find out about it until after the election. Elon Musk says this is all to help people because he is just a free speech, philosophically clear, open-minded helper.“

  Watch what Jonathan Turley described as almost a clinical (if not comical) example of transference:

  Twitter manipulating the reach of stories for political reasons during an election? Nah, that could never happen.pic.twitter.com/fkls7RzDf3

  — Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) April 26, 2022

  To review, Twitter suppressed perhaps the biggest bombshell in US politics in October 2020 when it banned the New York Post for truthfully reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop – which contained revelations of shady Biden family business dealings involving Joe Biden.

  Yes, agreed.

  Thank you. https://t.co/zEGZ3RBEiw

  — Emma-Jo Morris (@EmmaJoNYC) April 26, 2022

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

  In addition to damning emails, the laptop also contained a cache of text messages, photos and financial documents which revealed that Joe Biden absolutely lied when he said he had no knowledge of Hunter’s dealings – and may have been collecting 10% of Hunter’s income.

  I fear Elon Musk could undermine the ideological diversity, equity and inclusion at Twitter which currently maintains a careful balance of 98.7% for one side. pic.twitter.com/I6JeTuTx9k

  — Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 25, 2022

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

  More via The Post Millennial:

  Emma Jo Morris, who broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in the Post, shared the Melber clip, saying “@AriMelber that would be crazy. Hey, similar thing actually already happened tho- next time you’re in New York I’ll show you this hard drive I got that belongs to Joe Biden’s corrupt son and that Twitter banned my reporting about 3 weeks before the last presidential election.”

  The New York Times, NPR, Politico and the Washington Post, worked to suppress the story, with the Times by publishing an article calling the report “unsubstantiated” in September 2021, then editing the story without publishing a formal correction notice.

  Recently, several of those same outlets have recently confirmed the legitimacy of the content of the laptop.

  A poll previously released by the Media Research Center showed that 16 percent of voters who were unaware of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal would have switched their minds and not voted for Joe Biden, had they known about it at the time.

  According to a December 2020 Rasmussen poll, a majority of Americans believed that the media purposely buried the Hunter Biden laptop story to influence the 2020 election.

  After the election, Hunter Biden revealed that he was under a federal investigation. Hunter Biden has been under investigation for failing to pay taxes since Joe Biden was US Vice President. In 2018, the inquiry expanded to investigate how Hunter’s international business dealings connected with President Biden’s political career. There are even reports that Hunter could be under as many as four investigations.

  Republicans have repeatedly criticized Twitter over alleged bias against users who politically lean conservative. Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-AR), was locked out of his account after tweeting about the Black Lives Matter riots in June 2020.

  During a 2019 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), questioned a Twitter executive regarding the alleged bias.

  Twitter admitted to me today that they have protocols they use to determine when speech is offensive. So release the protocols! Make them public. If you aren’t biased, what do you have to hide? pic.twitter.com/rEG94cq2Ly

  — Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 10, 2019

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

  During the testimoney, Twitter Director of Public Policy and Philanthropy Carlos Monje Jr., apologized to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), for the company’s decision in October 2017 to block one of her campaign ads.

  The Libs of Tik Tok account, which highlights videos liberals post of themselves to the social media app TikTok, was locked out for “hateful conduct” by Twitter twice in one week. The company did not explain which tweet contained “hateful conduct.”

  Congressional Republicans such as Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), have been censored for tweeting on transgender issues.

  Twitter also banned President Donald Trump following the January 6 riot in 2021, but allows well known bigots, antisemites, dictators and users who’ve been accused of murder full access to tweet.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 20:00

• ATF Director Demotion Shows Who’s Really in Charge
  ATF Director Demotion Shows Who’s Really in Charge

  Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,

  How much control does the anti-gun lobby have over the ATF? From the looks of the most recent shakeup at ATF HQ, a lot. 

  According to reports, the Biden administration has moved to demote Marvin Richardson. Richardson is the current acting director of ATF. The Biden admin intends to replace Mr. Richardson with Gary Restaino, the US Attorney from Arizona, until Biden’s nominee to head the ATF, Steve Dettelbach, is confirmed.

  

  Why the change in leadership? Well, the Biden administration has come under heavy criticism recently by gun control advocates in the New York Times and failed ATF director nominee David Chipman.

  In a March 4th article, the New York Times blasted Marvin Richardson for being “too friendly” with the firearms industry. This statement should be ironic to gun owners or anyone who follows our reporting on ATF.

  While the ATF isn’t necessarily “friendly” to gun owners, Richardson has attempted to work with the firearms industry from his side of the fence. In 2022, ATF made an appearance at SHOT show, the largest expo for the firearms industry, and took questions from the National Shooting Sports Foundation on how the firearms industry and ATF can work together to stop burglaries of gun shops, among other things.

  The New York Times used this interview to disparage Richardson, painting a picture of an agency under his leadership that is too friendly with the industry it’s supposed to be regulating.

  More recently, David Chipman was interviewed by Slate, where he criticized the ATF for having a “comfortable and cozy, non-confrontational, relationship with the gun industry.” Chipman also took the time to criticize the senator who sunk his confirmation, Angus King of Maine. Apparently, according to Chipman, Sen. King said, “you have to also understand that I can’t vote for you because you don’t have the endorsement of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which is the lobby of the gun industry.” No wonder Chipman has it out for the NSSF. 

  It’s very interesting that before Mr. Richardson’s demotion, anti-gun groups, their allies in the media, and their key spokespeople all start to use the same talking points. John Feinblatt, the President of Everytown for Gun Safety (Michael Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun group), was quoted saying, “ATF needs a top-to-bottom overhaul, that starts with the administration making sure the agency has the resources and leadership it needs to regulate an industry that has consistently prioritized profits over public safety.”

  But why would anti-gun groups want ATF not to work in conjunction with the industry it is tasked with regulating? Wouldn’t that be comparable to asking the FAA not to work with Airlines? Federal Firearms License holders are not the ones out committing gun crimes or enabling them. In fact, in Richardson’s interview with NSSF, he admits that much of ATF’s best information to stop gun trafficking comes directly from FFLs.

  Could it be that the goal of anti-gun groups is to get rid of guns entirely? The answer, of course, is yes.

  This demotion announcement also follows President Biden’s half-baked “Ghost Gun” Rule, which seemingly did not go as far as the anti-gun lobby wanted. This is partly due to the enormous outpouring of comments from law-abiding gun owners and average citizens on the federal register.

  During Biden’s speech announcing this ghost gun rule, the President called on Congress to enact more gun control legislation. Likely because the ghost gun rule has shown the limits of how far executive fiat, or as Biden likes to call it- “Regulatory Authority,” can go without actual legislation to back it up.

  It’s obvious now that Mr. Richardson’s demotion stems directly from the wishes of gun control advocates, who in turn have pressured the Biden Administration. But it also shows that those same people, David Chipman, Gabby Giffords, and others, are the ones seeking control over the ATF itself.

  This pressure from gun control advocates is why Biden has nominated a no-name corporate lawyer, Steve Dettelbach, to head ATF and, in the meantime, has appointed Gary Restaino to fill in. Dettelbach serves as a milquetoast, unoffensive pick, meant only to get past the confirmation process, where he will lead the ATF however his handlers in the gun-control lobby wants. 

  Speaking to FOX News, former CIA analyst Buck Sexton had this to say about the change at ATF: “What you see here is the Biden administration wants someone running the ATF who is going to give them the soundbites — talking points that they want to make it seem like they’re taking action on crime in general, more specifically on gun control issues.”

  It’s evident from the moves that the Biden administration has been making with ATF that they intend to weaponize the agency into taking a very adversarial stance against gun owners. This hostile stance is precisely what the anti-gun lobby has wanted for years and something they almost accomplished with the nomination of David Chipman to head the ATF.

  Additionally, with 2022 being a midterm year, the Biden administration is looking for anything to raise their falling poll numbers. As we’ve reported previously, Biden and his allies in the corporate media have been waging a campaign on his lousy poll numbers, using topics like “ghost guns” and gun control as fodder as their inability to tackle any real issues affecting everyday Americans like soaring gas and food prices.

  

  While it certainly looks like Steve Dettelbach will have an uphill battle towards confirmation, it is likely that with or without a permanent director of the ATF, the agency is being weaponized against the firearms industry and law-abiding gun owners.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 19:40

• Biden Senior Adviser Called 'Squad' Members 'F**king Idiots' According To NYT Reporters
  Biden Senior Adviser Called ‘Squad’ Members ‘F**king Idiots’ According To NYT Reporters

  The Director of Public Engagement for the White House and senior Biden adviser Cedric Richmond called two members of the so-called ‘squad’ “fucking idiots,” according to a new book by a pair of New York Times reporters seen by Fox News.

  

  According to the book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future” by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, Richmond was referring to leftist Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), during the 2020 election as the progressive wing of the Democratic party looked to be staging a mutiny – cutting off the party’s nose to spite its face.

  

  Richmond had been targeted by the progressive activist group the Sunrise Movement over his fossil fuel industry ties and was not too happy with Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and the other “Squad” members, going as far as to call them “f—ing idiots.”

  Counselor to the President Steve Ricchetti also had words for “the Squad,” albeit less harsh than Richmond, telling a Capitol Hill Biden ally that the “problem with the left is they don’t understand that they lost.” -Fox News

  The new book also highlights first lady Jill Biden’s anger over Kamala Harris being tapped for VP despite attacking Joe Biden during the 2019 Democratic primary debates.

  “There are millions of people in the United States,’ she began, according to the book. “‘Why,’ she asked, ‘do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe,'”

  Unfortunately for Dr. Jill, Ron Klain – Biden’s current Chief-of-Staff, was behind Kamala’s rise.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 19:20

• How 22 Celebrities Reacted When They Learned That Elon Musk Had Just Bought Twitter…
  How 22 Celebrities Reacted When They Learned That Elon Musk Had Just Bought Twitter…

  Authored by Michael Snyder,

  He did it! 

  Elon Musk actually bought Twitter, and I am absolutely thrilled. 

  It is about time that one of these billionaires did something good with their money.  The major social media platforms are where we all used to go to debate the issues of our day, but in recent years a wave of extreme censorship has changed everything.  Now Elon Musk has liberated Twitter, and that is a victory that we should all celebrate. 

  

  Without the ability to speak freely, our system of government simply cannot work.  So I am very hopeful that Musk will follow through on the promises that he is now making.  In the statement that was released announcing the purchase, he made some pretty bold pronouncements…

  “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Mr. Musk.

  “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

  A great place to start would be to remove all shadow bans.

  My account has been under a shadow ban for so long that I can’t even remember what it was like to have a normal account.

  

  Needless to say, countless other Twitter users are also looking forward to brighter days ahead.  Meanwhile, hordes of pro-censorship denizens are absolutely horrified by what just transpired. 

  

  The following is how 22 celebrities reacted when they learned that Elon Musk had just bought Twitter…

  Tucker Carlson

  We’re back.

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 25, 2022

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

  Ice Cube

  Free at last! @elonmusk take off my shadow ban homie…

  — Ice Cube (@icecube) April 25, 2022

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

  CNN’s Brian Stelter

  CNN’s @brianstelter on Musk’s Twitter takeover:

  “If you get invited to something where there are no rules, where there is total freedom for everybody, do you actually want to go to that party or are you going to decide to stay home?”pic.twitter.com/uymSPHgY2w

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 25, 2022

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

  Marc Andreessen

  WHO DID THIS pic.twitter.com/M7mIOr1hLm

  — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) April 25, 2022

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

  John Rich

  🙂 pic.twitter.com/zNcwsNdzem

  — John Rich (@johnrich) April 25, 2022

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

  Senator Marsha Blackburn

  Today is an encouraging day for freedom of speech. I am hopeful that Elon Musk will help rein in Big Tech’s history of censoring users that have a different viewpoint.

  — Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) April 25, 2022

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

  Jimmy Failla

  Elon Musk is buying Twitter and everyone freaking out drives a Tesla. There’s never been a dumber time to be alive.

  — Jimmy Failla (@jimmyfailla) April 25, 2022

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

  Tim Allen

  The little twitter bird has a new owner. Wonder how long it will take for the new shadow ban council to prevent me from saying stuff like: Hunter Biden laptop. Or even more provocative: Tesla in-car fart app? (Love it when driving my Mom.)

  — Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) April 25, 2022

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

  Erick Erickson

  We need to thank all the progressives who bought Teslas for making this possible.

  — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 25, 2022

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

  Avi Yemini

  I’m GAINING followers for a change.

  Thank you, Elon Musk!

  — Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) April 26, 2022

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

  New York Times Columnist Charles M. Blow

  Looks like I’m about to say goodbye to Twitter as well. I’ve been pulling back a bit from social media anyway. This will be just the push I need to go all the way on this app. https://t.co/QkwIsYy6zS

  — Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) April 25, 2022

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

  Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene

  Prepare for blue check mark full scale meltdown after @elonmusk seals the deal and I should get my personal Twitter account restored. pic.twitter.com/MKBQvHCoAH

  — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) April 25, 2022

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

  Jack Posobiec

  And here. We. Go. https://t.co/JuuedCw9Jh

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 25, 2022

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

  Journalist Michael Tracey

  Dark days ahead. There is only one man who should be celebrating Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter — Vladimir Putin. My latest in the New York Times:

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 25, 2022

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

  Texas Governor Greg Abbott

  .@elonmusk. Bring Twitter to Texas to join Tesla, SpaceX & the Boring company.

  — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 25, 2022

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

  Matt Oswalt

  people worried Elon Musk will ruin Twitter, a website whose major accomplishments over 16 years are creating then destroying Chrissy Teigen and getting Brooklyn Nine-Nine a 6th season

  — Matt Oswalt (@MattOswaltVA) April 25, 2022

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

  Congressman Lance Gooden

  Elon Musk is buying Twitter.

  CNN+ is shutting down.

  Disney is being reined in.

  It’s a bad time to be woke.

  — Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) April 25, 2022

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

  Mike Drucker

  If Elon Musk buys Twitter, I’m never signing in again until five minutes later when I’m bored and open the app without thinking

  — Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) April 25, 2022

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

  Ice T

  It would kinda dope if Musk bought Twitter and just shut it off…. Lol

  — ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) April 25, 2022

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

  Dave Portnoy

  Instagram next! https://t.co/ryrK8dVXYt

  — Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 25, 2022

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

  Jack Dorsey

  In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.

  — jack⚡️ (@jack) April 26, 2022

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

  Elon Musk

  I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022

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

  And then there’s this…

  The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

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

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 18:20

• Bolsonaro Asks WTO Not To Sever Russian Trade As 27 Fertilizer Ships Inbound 
  Bolsonaro Asks WTO Not To Sever Russian Trade As 27 Fertilizer Ships Inbound 

  The latest example of G-20 countries not bowing down to US pressure to halt trade relations with Russia comes from South America. 

  On Tuesday, in response to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s request for Brazil to increase more food exports, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked the WTO not to sever trade flows with Russia. He said there are 27 Russian vessels hauling fertilizer to Brazil. 

  Now, why would Bolsonaro go against the wishes of the US and EU politicians to eliminate trade with Russia? 

  Well, the South American country imports more than 85% of its fertilizer demand. Russia is its top supplier, and Belarus provides 28% of the total. 

  Restraining fertilizer consumption would be absolutely disastrous, crush harvest yields, and threaten the world’s food security. The country is a top exporter of coffee, sugar, soybeans, manioc, rice, maize, cotton, edible beans, and wheat. 

  This is more evidence that G-20 countries, such as Brazil, India, and China, widely known as BRICs, disregard US pressure to halt trade with Russia. Many of these countries are dependent on Russia and Belarus for commodities. In one chart, here is Russia’s commodity reach:

  

  Defiant G-20 countries imply the old economic order, in which the dollar’s centrality to global trade remains king, is fading. Numerous countries are already trading outside the dollar system (see & here) because Western sanctions isolated Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. This has given rise to commodity-based currencies. 

  It remains to be seen if South American traders will use a Brazilian real-Russian ruble payment system for the fertilizer purchases. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 18:00

• Ron Paul: The Ukraine War Is A Racket
  Ron Paul: The Ukraine War Is A Racket

  Via The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity, 

  “War is a racket,” wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. .”It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

  Gen. Butler’s observation describes the US/NATO response to the Ukraine war perfectly.

  The propaganda continues to portray the war in Ukraine as that of an unprovoked Goliath out to decimate an innocent David unless we in the US and NATO contribute massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine to defeat Russia. As is always the case with propaganda, this version of events is manipulated to bring an emotional response to the benefit of special interests.

  

  One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that ‘s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”

  He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The US has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.

  By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.

  Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the US and other western NATO countries.

  While many who sympathize with Ukraine are cheering, this multi-billion dollar weapons package will make little difference. As former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report last week:

  “I can say with absolute certainty that even if this aid makes it to the battlefield, it will have zero impact on the battle. And Joe Biden knows it.”

  What we do see is that Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and even using them to kill more Ukrainians. What irony. Also, what kinds of opportunities will be provided to terrorists, with thousands of tons of deadly high-tech weapons floating around Europe? Washington has admitted that it has no way of tracking the weapons it is sending to Ukraine and no way to keep them out of the hands of the bad guys.

  War is a racket, to be sure. The US has been meddling in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War, going so far as overthrowing the government in 2014 and planting the seeds of the war we are witnessing today. The only way out of a hole is to stop digging. Don’t expect that any time soon. War is too profitable.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/26/2022 – 17:40

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