Today’s News 27th August 2023

• From COVID To Climate Change: Vehicles For Global Authoritarianism
  From COVID To Climate Change: Vehicles For Global Authoritarianism

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  As I have noted in the past, the western world came within a knife’s edge of being completely subjugated and placed under perpetual medical tyranny by a coalition of government officials, globalist interests and corporate partners. Liberty movement analysts have talked often of “open conspiracy,” but it was not until the pandemic response that we truly witnessed the mask come off and the greater agenda revealed.

  

  Not more than five years ago the most common retort from skeptics was that such a conspiracy was “impossible” because it was “too elaborate to organize.” Today these people look rather foolish. It is undeniable – There is a cabal of power elites, they are highly organized around the globalist ideology and they want total centralized control of society. It is an immutable fact supported by endless proof. The debate is over. The covid response ended it.

  The list of crimes against civil liberties is long. The establishment and the political left (with the help of a handful of Neocons) tried to implement unprecedented authoritarian measures from business and church shutdowns to forced masking (studies show the masks are useless) to forced vaccination using experimental mRNA products with no long term safety testing. In some countries (including New Zealand and Australia) covid camps were actually built to imprison not just citizens traveling overseas, but non-traveling citizens as well. Legislation to build such camps was pushed in the US.

  A large percentage of Democrats in polls supported even more extreme policies, including:

  55% of Democrats wanted fines for unvaxxed Americans.
  59% of Democrats wanted the unvaccinated forcefully confined to their homes.
  48% of Democrats wanted prison time for anyone that questioned the vaccines.
  47% of Democrats were in favor of government tracking of the unvaxxed.
  29% of Democrats were in favor or taking children away from the unvaxxed.

  So, if someone tells you there “are no sides” and that the conflict is an illusion created by the “false left/right paradigm,” you know they are full of manure. There are definitely sides and the globalists are not our only concern. And though there are always nuances to take into consideration, exceptions to the rule do not change the rule.

  As many leftists openly admitted during the mandates, the goal was to make life so miserable for the unvaccinated that they would eventually comply in order to survive. In this way, establishment elites and leftists could claim that people “volunteered” for the vaccines and no one was forced. What they really meant was, no one was forced at gunpoint, but we all knew that threat was coming next.

  Keep in mind that all of these measures were rationalized in the name of “saving lives.” No lives were saved by the mandates. The official median infection fatality rate of covid is a mere 0.23%. In other words, all of these constitutional violations were attempted over a virus that 99.8% of people would inevitably catch and easily survive. I continue to suspect that the establishment expected covid to kill far more people than it did – When lab created diseases get out into the wild they change rapidly, usually evolving to be more infectious but less deadly.

  The cabal is not all powerful and certainly not infallible. They make mistakes often. The covid agenda relied on multiple disjointed factors that were difficult to predict and most of them had to work in tandem. One of those factors was the dependency on the political left (a group of weaklings) to act as useful idiots and mob enforcers. Frankly, leftists just aren’t frightening enough to inspire compliance.

  Another factor was the assumption that the response of conservative and independent free thinkers would be limited and easy to control. Finally, most if not all state governments in the US had to enforce the mandates for the duration.

  Globalists seem to have greatly underestimated the potential resistance to their agenda, specifically in the US where 50 million+ armed citizens were ready to go to war over the draconian restrictions. I think the vaccine passports were the KEY to the scheme; vax passports would have given the establishment full spectrum dominance of the economy with people unable to get jobs or purchase necessities without submitting to the mandates.

  It was here that many conservatives, independents and dozens of red states (to my surprise) made their stand, and suddenly, like magic, the covid hysteria vanished. The media propaganda campaign went quiet (compared to the previous two years), and the mandates were abandoned in most places around the world. The globalists were not ready to risk a fight against a massive insurgency.

  It has been suggested that the covid agenda is about to make a comeback with a new hyped up strain of the virus. If this is the case, then the attempt will hit a wall. With even more Americans aware of the pointlessness of the mandates and the masks it is unlikely to gain much traction. Of course, as long as the people behind these schemes remain unpunished, they will be free to try again and again until something sticks.

  Government agencies and officials like Anthony Fauci remain unpunished for their numerous covid lies. Joe Biden remains unpunished for his attempts to supplant the Bill of Rights. The mainstream media and Big Tech companies remain unpunished for their collusion in propaganda and censorship efforts.

  And, let’s not gloss over the fact that Donald Trump promoted the fast-tracked mRNA vaccine programs (I will admit that as far as I know he never called for people to be forced to comply).

  He also placed many technocrats and globalists within his own cabinet who would later go on to help institute authoritarian policies. How much these people influenced him or lied to him is up for debate, but his current prosecution does not negate his role leading up to the lockdowns. If there is an election in 2024 and Trump re-enters the White House, remember that no president is going to save us from this fight, we must save ourselves.

  The goal of the globalists will be to move swiftly into other crisis events, whether real or fabricated, to bring the population to heel. Enter today’s climate change hysteria…

  The covid agenda and the climate change agenda are very similar in that they rely on a core fallacy. The lie is that these events are actually dictated by human behavior, and thus human behavior must be controlled in the name of the “greater good.” The idea goes beyond this, though, into the realm of collectivism; for the globalists and leftists assert that each individual action affects the lives of the rest of the population in a great and unedning hive. Therefore, every single person must have their lives micromanaged by the state to prevent some kind of chain reaction that leads to catastrophe for the precious bug colony.

  This was the claim during the covid farce, and it’s also the claim for climate change and carbon restrictions. They have fabricated yet another excuse for eliminating personal freedoms. For covid it was the air we each breath out that would supposedly destroy public health, and for climate change it is once again the air we breath out that will supposedly destroy the world. Coincidence? I think not.

  During the lockdowns, numerous globalists and globalist connected climate researchers publicly expressed joy at the suggestion that covid lockdowns could be useful for reducing carbon emissions. The phrase “climate lockdowns” started circulating around major conferences and in various globalist funded studies.

  These studies obviously show a precipitous drop in human based carbon emissions during the lockdowns, but still do not provide any evidence that man-made emissions actually cause climate changes. This remains the underlying con game of the climate narrative – Climate researchers with access to billions in government funds and think-tank funds happily operate on the ASSUMPTION that emissions cause warming, when in fact they have zero evidence to support this position. Correlation is not causation.

  This summer, the media has been relentlessly pounding the climate propaganda drum to a degree that mimics the covid propaganda of a couple years ago.  The nihilistic reports of impending “global boiling” are built upon a house of cards.  Almost all climate crisis claims are based on records of a little over 100 years old. The Earth’s climate history is vast and there have been numerous warming periods much hotter than today. All of these warming events occurred during periods of ample animal and plant life and without human industry to blame.

  

  he climate bogeyman is nothing more than another covid-like fraud, a vehicle for grabbing power and erasing our freedoms. There is no threat, and even if there was there is nothing that human beings could do about it since we have no bearing whatsoever on the course of the Earth’s temperatures. The world’s climate has been changing for millions of years, and there is no difference between the changes of today vs the changes of the past.

  The globalists know that to achieve the “new world order” or the “great reset” they desire, a large percentage of the population has to be onboard. And since most people have a measure of conscience as well as self interest, their enslavement has to be presented as a positive.  Tthey must be made to believe that by embracing slavery they are saving the planet and the lives of others.

  None of this is true of course, but as long as the populace thinks they are doing good they can often be manipulated into supporting immense evil.

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 23:30

• Friend Or Foe? How BRICS Partners View China
  Friend Or Foe? How BRICS Partners View China

  While the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa tried to demonstrate unity at the 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg, the group is not as tightly knit as this week’s event and the lofty rhetoric employed afterwards would suggest. “BRICS has embarked on a new chapter in its effort to build a world that is fair, a world that is just, a world that is also inclusive and prosperous,” South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa said, describing the bloc as “an equal partnership of countries that have differing views but have a shared vision for a better world.” Although it remains to be seen how equal the partnership will be considering the economic dominance of China within the group.

  However, as Statista’s Felix Richter notes, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest Global Attitudes Survey, China is seen quite critically in some fellow BRICS countries, with Indians in particular having a very critical view of their powerful neighbor. 50 percent of Indian respondents claimed to have a very unfavorable opinion of China, with another 17 percent viewing China somewhat unfavorably. Relations between the two countries have been worsening for several years over tensions along their ill-defined 2,100-mile border in the Himalayan region. 48 percent of Indians claimed to have no confidence at all in Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs, while 58 percent said that wouldn’t take Indian interests into account when making international policy decisions.

  Brazilians showed similar levels of suspicion with respect to cooperation with China. While 50 percent of Brazilian respondents said that China wouldn’t take their country’s interest into account, 67 percent expressed little to no confidence in Xi Jinping to do the right thing at the global political stage. That translates to 48 percent of Brazilian respondents having a very or somewhat negative opinion of China, up from just 27 percent in 2019.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 23:00

• 7 Reasons Why 'The China Crisis' Has Finally Arrived
  7 Reasons Why ‘The China Crisis’ Has Finally Arrived

  Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  As predicted in my book, “The China Crisis,” China’s economic structure is proving to be unsustainable.

  In my last post, I argued why the China Evergrande bankruptcy is not the end of the economic crisis in China but just the beginning.

  Knowing that such predictions have been made in the past by China observers, including yours truly, why should anyone think that it’s happening today?

  A bit of historical context helps provide an answer to this question.

  

  In 2012, I was asked by Wiley & Sons to write a book on China’s economic structure from my contrarian point of view. You may or may not recall that, at the time, China was the economic marvel of the world. Unlike most observers, I could see several critical problems with China’s political economy model and wrote about them in “The China Crisis.”

  I identified seven key areas—given the basis upon which China or, more accurately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operated—that made China’s economic model unsustainable. I wasn’t the first to see this. Gordon Chang wrote about it in 2001 in his book, “The Coming Collapse of China.” Mr. Chang predicted a collapse by 2011, which, of course, did not occur. This is an update of sorts.

  Instead, China’s economic clout and technological prowess continue to grow and develop. That explains why, at that time and for the next seven years, all kinds of terms were coined to describe China’s burgeoning economic status. There was the “Beijing Miracle,” “The China Model,” “Chinese State Capitalism,” and other glowing pronouncements that gave near-unanimous affirmation of China’s progress and prognosis for a bright future.

  In fact, many experts, economists, and observers were predicting that China’s state capitalism would be the model for emerging nations around the world because of how fast it had transformed China’s economy. It was also predicted that China would soon eclipse the United States in GDP and replace it as the global hegemon.

  Regarding this last prediction, it’s important to acknowledge that it appears as if it’s actually coming to fruition. In that regard, however, keep in mind that it’s mostly due to U.S. policy failures rather than what China is doing.

  But even our leaders’ traitorous actions that have aided our adversaries in Beijing can’t compete with or prevent the venal nature and deleterious policies that the CCP has inflicted upon the Chinese people for many decades. The United States and other Western nations’ financial and technological investments have certainly delayed the inevitable but won’t stop it.

  At its root, of course, is the corrosive nature of corruption. For the CCP, corruption in the form of political graft, wholesale theft from the private sector, and abuse of the financial system are the means to maintain control and gain wealth. Obtaining absolute power is the end goal, not a healthy economy.

  Below is a brief look at how seven factors erode the social and economic sustainability in China.

  1. Excessive Overuse of Factors of Production

  When greasing the palms of Party officials is the main requirement for a project or policy, waste and fraud are not only unavoidable but lead to inefficiency in leveraging factors of production. In 2013, China used 10 times more factors of production than the United States to produce the same product. Has that improved? It’s hard to say, as accurate statistics that reflect poorly on the CCP and Xi Jinping, in particular, are difficult to find.

  2. Inefficient Allocation of Economic Goods, Activity

  This is related to No. 1 and is manifested in many ways, such as the theft of profitable companies by the Party and turning them into inefficient, debt-ridden “zombie” state-owned enterprises that destroy value and efficiency. It also transfers wealth from the middle class to the Party elite.

  3. Stifling Innovation in Middle Class

  Lack of freedom of information and the punishment of violators stifles innovation and creativity. Individuals are not allowed to solve problems by themselves. Successful private firms can count on being confiscated by the state at some point. Successful entrepreneurs who speak out about the abuses of the CCP are disappeared and reeducated. This engenders total fear of and reliance upon the state, both of which are what the CCP wants. Crushing individual creativity and innovation stifles a nation’s greatest resource—its people.

  

  4. Lack of Enforcement of Regulations, Standards

  From critical areas such as food production to pharmaceuticals, corners are cut, and quality is compromised. Over the years, this not only negatively impacts the health and safety of the people, but it undercuts the authority and legitimacy of the Party.

  5. A False Economy: Debt-based ‘Growth’ Is a Cancer on Economy

  In a capitalist economy, most development is based on market need, which is determined by local prices and market conditions, which then attract capital. Distorted “development” driven by political expediency isn’t development but a waste of time, money, and resources.

  The Evergrande collapse is a prime example of the CCP’s distortion of the economy. China’s overreliance on overdevelopment could be compared to healthy growth in muscle tissue from working out versus that of a cancerous tumor from exposure to toxicity. The former builds up strength and vitality; the latter destroys it. Thus, at some point, even state-owned debt from a state-owned central bank becomes unsustainable.

  6. Rampant Pollution Making China Unlivable, Causing Social Unrest

  China is one of the worst polluters in the world. For example, it is rapidly losing its arable land to toxicity from mining, manufacturing, and desertification. This is happening because decades of state ownership have led to indifference about what happens to the natural resources, also known as the “tragedy of the commons.” Losing arable land by either toxicity or desertification is not easily reversible and leads to greater dependence on external food sources to feed itself.

  

  Water pollution is another environmental disaster brought about by the CCP. When I wrote “The China Crisis,” about 40 percent of China’s waterways either could not sustain life or were unsafe for human consumption. Today, that number is up to 70 percent. Moreover, 80-90 percent of its groundwater is undrinkable.

  China’s air pollution is known for being the worst in the world, responsible for millions of premature deaths. State officials claim that air pollution is decreasing in China. Yet, at the same time, China is adding more coal mines for energy production, leading to more pollution, not less. The CCP’s inability to address its pollution crisis reveals its economic model’s failures, adding to civil unrest rather than social support.

  7. Dystopian Depression Among Young Generation

  When young people lose faith in their nation, they lose faith in their future. One outcome of that pessimism is the decision not to have children. China is not alone in this phenomenon, but like South Korea and Japan, it’s a big problem. Without the energy, drive, creativity, and belief of the young, the fall in population and its effects on consumption, taxes, and other economic factors make China’s economic future bleak.

  Unfortunately, its unbalanced social and economic structure will lead to more excessive actions, internally and externally, as economic and social conditions worsen.

  James R. Gorrie is the author of “The China Crisis” (Wiley, 2013) and writes on his blog, TheBananaRepublican.com. He is based in Southern California.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 22:30

• Young High Income Earners Are Flocking To Florida And Texas, New Study Shows
  Young High Income Earners Are Flocking To Florida And Texas, New Study Shows

  This month, financial advisors SmartAsset examined the most recent publicly available IRS data in order to try and determine where young professionals (aged 26-35) who earn $200K per year or more have been moving. 

  The study considered data from all 50 states and Washington DC, defining “high-earning households” as ones with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. Specifically, the study looked at 

  • Inflow of young tax filers making $200,000 and above. This is the number of tax returns for people aged 26 up to 35 with adjusted gross incomes of at least $200,000 who moved into a state. Data comes from the IRS and for tax year 2021.

  • Outflow of tax filers making $200,000 and above. This is the number of tax returns for people aged 26 up to 35 with adjusted gross incomes of at least $200,000 who moved out of a state. Data comes from the IRS and for tax year 2021.

  What they found was that rich young people are flocking to New Jersey and Connecticut. Across all age groups, New Jersey lost 2,617 high-earning tax filers in 2021. However, the state netted 1,048 new rich young professionals in the same year. This was the most dramatic reversal from the aggregate trends. Connecticut saw a similar, though less drastic, trend, the report showed.

  Smartasset also found that high earners are youngest in Washington. Whether it’s compared with the rich population of all ages or the population as a whole, Washington has a disproportionately large number of young rich people. More than 13% of those making at least $200,000 in this state are between the ages of 26 and 35. 

  Despite losses, Washington DC remains exceptionally young and rich, the report said. DC lost nearly 700 high-earning tax filers aged 26 to 35, but still maintains a relative population higher than any state. More than 16% of people making over $200,000 fall into that age bracket.

  And to the surprise of likely no one, Florida and Texas are once again No. 1 and No. 2.  Florida gained a total of 2,175 high earners aged 26 to 35 after accounting for both inflows and outflows, while Texas gained a net 1,909. Despite the losses, New York (-5,062) and California (-4,495) still have the highest count of young high earners of any state by a wide margin.

  

  The top 10 locations that high income young people are moving, per SmartAsset, are:

  1. Florida: Florida gained a net of 2,175 high-earning tax filers between ages 26 and 35. While 3,391 were added in the state, 1,216 either moved or fell out of the income bracket. Most recently, there are 23,537 tax returns with over $200,000 income for this cohort. Florida is one of the nine states that doesn’t charge an income tax. 

  2. Texas: Texas actually saw more raw inflow of young, rich professionals than Florida, with 4,048 new filers in the given age bracket. But outflows were also higher at 2,139 filers, for a net migration of 1,909 into the state. Of nearly 700,000 tax returns with more than $200,000 income in Texas, 7% are for people aged 26 up to 35. Texas does not charge income tax at the state level.

  3. New Jersey: New Jersey had the most drastic reversal of the migration trend across all age groups. While high earners generally left, the mix of high earners leaned more into the 26 to 35 crowd. 3,311 new tax filers fell under the $200,000 bracket in this age range, while 2,263 left. 

  4. Colorado: Like Texas and New Jersey, those ages 26 to 35 make up a particularly high percentage of people earning over $200,000 (7%). A net 754 tax filers in this income bracket was added to the state after 1,681 migrated in and 927 migrated out.

  5. North Carolina: North Carolina had a total of 13,621 tax returns filed for high earners aged 26 to 35. This demographic makes up 5.9% of all people earning over $200,000 in the state. Across all age ranges, North Carolina had the third-highest net migration of high income earners.

  6. Connecticut: Young people making over $200,000 increased in Connecticut more than the rate across all age groups. Out of 8,274 tax filers in this group, 660 were net additions after a 1,404 inflow and 744 outflow.

  7. Washington: Washington state has the benefit of no state income tax and the highest proportion of young high-earners when compared with the $200,000+ cohort as a whole. A net 464 new high earners were added to the state thanks to a 2,660 inflow and 2,196 outflow.

  8. Tennessee: With a total of 7,345 high earners filing in Tennessee between the ages of 26 and 35, the state added a net of 441 new high earners in this group. 868 high-earning young people moved into Tennessee, while 427 moved out. Tennessee also does not charge state income tax.

  9. Arizona: Arizona gained a net 321 new filers with greater than $200,000 in income between the ages of 26 and 35. While 832 new tax filers in this cohort came to the state, 511 left.

  10. South Carolina: South Carolina rounds out the top 10, with 318 net new young high-earners in the state, for a total of 95,584. Six hundred and one new tax returns were filed at this level, while 283 moved out of state.

  You can read the full study here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 22:00

• Patient Advocates, Physicians Say "Don't Give In To Fear" About New COVID Variant
  Patient Advocates, Physicians Say “Don’t Give In To Fear” About New COVID Variant

  Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The headlines have returned: a new COVID variant may lead to the renaissance of enthusiasm for mask mandates.

  

  Though some may be thinking, “Not again,” there are many who never stopped living as they did in those two years when fear—symbolized by the face covering worn alone while driving vehicles and even when exercising—became a religion heralded by media and public health officials.

  However, Priscilla Romans, a former nurse and now a patient advocate, told The Epoch Times that there’s a better way.

  “People need to be empowered to take their health care back into their own hands so that they can make informed decisions,” Ms. Romans said.

  Most importantly, she said, don’t give in to fear.

  “When people ask me, ‘Is this really going to start happening all over again,’ my comment to them is, ‘I don’t know if this is real or not, but I do know that fear makes people sick,’” Ms. Romans said. “So, when we empower people, we infuse them with hope so that they don’t have to be afraid.”

  Hope, Ms. Romans said, is a medicine not to be underestimated.

  She’s witnessed hope’s benefits firsthand in her patient-advocacy business, Graith Care, which provides patients with alternatives to being solely dependent on the “white coats” of the “medical industrial complex” to determine the right course of treatment.

  “People not only get sick from fear but also can make bad decisions and listen to people they can’t trust, which is why I’m very passionate about them getting proactive and having a patient advocate to show them alternatives instead of relying on pharmaceuticals with potential adverse reactions,” Ms. Romans said.

  ‘They Are Scared of Going Back’

  Graith Care began when many patients and medical professionals were seeing how broken the system really was long before COVID-19 brought its corruption to the surface.

  “I launched Graith Care from my own home not knowing what was around the corner with all the vaccine mandates, protocols, and the use of drugs like remdesivir that, in many cases, have been deadly,” Ms. Romans told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.

  Since then, she’s expanded her business to help people throughout the United States and internationally.

  To help those who can’t afford patient advocacy care, she’s set up a nonprofit called Graithful Giving for donations.

  

  In her work, she’s seen the worst of what COVID policies had to offer, from hospital treatment protocols to vaccine injuries.

  “My concern with these headlines coming out is that people are still fearful,” she said. “Right from the beginning, people were told to isolate when they shouldn’t have been isolating.”

  Some of them went to hospitals and were put on drugs like remdesivir, which only made them sicker, and was fatal in many cases, she said.

  “We tended to see more males get caught up in the hospital system,” Ms. Romans said. “Those wives are struggling and have PTSD from having to see their husband dying in a hospital bed. They are very scared of going back.”

  A patient advocate, she said, can help navigate the hospital system if one needs to be admitted, but also keep them out of the hospital with other treatments.

  Later in the pandemic, people were told to take a vaccine from which Ms. Romans is still seeing injuries, she said.

  “It’s happening a lot,” she said. “People’s immune systems have been compromised by this vaccine.”

  

  ‘A Slippery Slope’

  Morris Brown College in Atlanta and the film company Lionsgate led the way to mandating masks this week as news reports and editorials preached about the “uptick” in cases, while several hospital systems followed suit.

  Meanwhile, the resurgence of excitement over face coverings is promoted on media platforms where public health officials and academics like Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas, responded with a resounding “yes” to a question from PBS NewsHour on whether people should be wearing masks—in crowded places and at home—while encouraging social distancing and vaccines.

  “My question is, what happens next? These headlines are a slippery slope, and we want to make sure people are better educated, stay ahead of the eightball, and not panic,” Ms. Romans said. “We want people to think on their own instead of just saying ‘yes’ to everything. We prefer that people are empowered with the information to make informed decisions.”

  ‘History Repeating Itself’

  Dr. Richard Bartlett, a physician of 30 years in Texas who was involved in the effort to get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data released by the Food and Drug Administration, told The Epoch Times that though he has seen an increase in COVID cases over the past five days, their symptoms are on par with flu cases rather than the severity of the Wuhan and delta variants of COVID.

  “This is clearly history repeating itself as far as an attempt to control the masses,” Dr. Bartlett said.

  “There was never any science to back up the multifaceted campaign forced on the American people: masks, lockdowns, social distancing, and later the vaccines. There were no randomized control trials saying this was safe and effective just as there were no randomized control trials for the medical tyranny over the last three years.”

  Because of COVID policies, people died alone in hospitals without loved ones at their side being able to say goodbye, Dr. Bartlett recalled.

  “That might have been acceptable in a communist regime, but we have patient rights that have been abused, and there were no randomized control trials saying that this was a good idea,” Dr. Bartlett said. “They put plastic bags over patients’ heads as a COVID protocol when someone tested positive for COVID. This was never backed up by randomized control trials saying that was safe and effective.”

  Basic patient autonomy—or “your body, your choice”—was trampled, he remembered.

  Informed Consent

  Physicians and public health officials pushed vaccines on the American public without giving informed consent, not only regarding the financial conflicts of interest the officials had with the companies that made them but also regarding their potential adverse reactions.

  “I think this is another power grab, and I’m concerned that we’re going to see more of the same unless the people demand basic patient rights for their children, parents, and spouses,” Dr. Bartlett said.

  

  Dr. Bartlett referenced a 1995 speech made by former President Bill Clinton on a final report on human radiation experiments conducted by the federal government between 1944 and 1974.

  The speech, he said, should have been remembered during this time when American citizens once again became the subjects of an experiment, but this time with novel vaccine concoctions.

  President Clinton apologized for the experiments conducted by departments such as the U.S. Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Public Health Services, along with the help of several universities such as Vanderbilt.

  “Informed consent means your doctor tells you the risk of the treatment you are about to undergo,” President Clinton said in the speech. “In too many cases, informed consent was withheld. Americans were kept in the dark about the effects of what was being done to them. The deception extended beyond the test subjects themselves to encompass their families and the American people as a whole, for these experiments were kept secret and they were shrouded not for a compelling reason of national security, but for the simple fear of embarrassment. And that was wrong.”

  Trying to Mask Children

  Dr. Eric Hensen, a Texas physician who’s still facing repercussions from not complying with the now widely discredited mask mandates issued during the pandemic, studied how masks negatively affect health.

  Echoing Dr. Bartlett, he said the masks are about control.

  “It’s ridiculous and I’m already seeing that they’re trying to put them on kids again, but it’s just going to retard their growth and development, not to mention their social development,” he told The Epoch Times.

  

  Yet public health officials avoid discussing the harms that masks, lockdowns, and vaccines have caused.

  “There’s politics at play,” Dr. Hensen said. “I think there are a lot of doctors who bury their heads in the sand and do as they are told to keep their jobs. Eighty percent of doctors work for someone, so they have what’s called the golden handcuffs. If they break out of the narrative, they get fired.”

  Dr. Hensen is an independent physician and has maintained an unrelenting defiance of the mask mandates at the cost of a continued legal battle with the Texas Medical Board that charged him with “unprofessional or dishonorable conduct that is likely to deceive or defraud the public” based on a complaint that he wasn’t wearing a mask while treating a patient in 2020.

  “Being an experienced ear nose and throat, head and neck surgeon with extensive knowledge and training in the upper airway, I was well aware of the limitations of wearing a facial covering of any kind and aware of the dangers of wearing these face coverings,” Dr. Henson told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.

  ‘You Have All the Authority’

  Dr. Hensen has never seen credible evidence of masks stopping transmission of COVID, he said, but he has seen what harm they’ve caused.

  “They make symptoms worse by increasing the viral load into the nasal cavity, which makes you sicker,” he said. “People get ‘mask mouth’ which leads to gingivitis and dental diseases. They cause respiratory problems from breathing harder, thus sucking the virus deeper into their lungs, as well as breathing in the polypropylene plastic fibers, which can cause lung cancer.”

  One study (pdf) Dr. Hensen referenced presented “the Foegen effect theory,” which posited that “deep re-inhalation of hypercondensed droplets or pure virons caught in facemasks as droplets can worsen prognosis and might be linked to long-term effects of COVID-19.”

  People who wear masks also experience a weakened immune system caused by an increase in blood carbon dioxide levels and a drop in blood oxygen saturation levels, leading to increases in heart and respiratory rates, he said.

  “They become much more prone to infections,” he said.

  To those who don’t want to play along this time with the authoritarian health policies, Dr. Hensen said it’s important to remember the concept of individual sovereignty forgotten during the pandemic.

  “You have all the authority,” he said. “That’s what our forefathers established for us. We’re not under a king, and our representatives and public health officials work for us, not the other way around.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 21:30

• Alabama Ready To Be First To Kill Inmate By Forced Breathing Of Nitrogen
  Alabama Ready To Be First To Kill Inmate By Forced Breathing Of Nitrogen

  Alabama is ready to pioneer a new means of executing convicts — by forcing a condemned man to breathe pure nitrogen. 

  That man is Kenneth Eugene Smith. Now 58, Smith was convicted in 1988 for killing the wife of a preacher — in a murder-for-hire scheme initiated by that preacher, who hoped to cash in on a life insurance policy and pay off his debts. The victim, Elizabeth Sennett, was found dead in the couple’s home on Coon Dog Cemetary Road in rural Colbert County, having been bludgeoned with a fireplace tool and stabbed nine times in what was supposed to look like a home invasion.  

  Smith and his partner in crime carried out the murder for payments of just $1,000 each. That partner was executed in 2010. The preacher spared everyone the legal hassle: After investigators honed in on him, he confessed to his sons and their families that he’d had an affair and hired the killers — then immediately strolled to his old pickup truck, sat in the front seat and shot himself, fatally. 

  

  An attempt to execute Smith via lethal injection in 2022 was called off when executioners struggled to insert an IV tube into his vein. Now the Alabama attorney general is ready to give it another go, this time using “nitrogen hypoxia.” On Friday, AG Steve Marshall asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set a date. 

  While colorless, odorless nitrogen comprises 78% of the air we breathe daily, breathing 100% nitrogen will theoretically cause the prisoner to first pass out and then die.

  “Placed into a pure nitrogen environment, the convict would be unconscious within a minute (possibly even after a breath or two) and would be dead soon after,” Charles Blanke, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, told Fox News. “Its failure rate, that is, cases in which the prisoner survives, would likely be much lower than what we see with current death penalty methods.”

  

  Alabama has yet to provide details on its planned methodology — for example, whether inmates would be placed in a gas chamber or simply fitted with a special mask. If it’s the latter, a good seal is essential to ensure the death isn’t prolonged by oxygen in the execution room. 

  The nitrogen hypoxia method has been on the books in Alabama since 2018.  Oklahoma and Mississippi have likewise authorized the method, but none have used it yet. Lethal injections have proven increasingly problematic, owing to shortages of the drugs used in the process.

  Those shortages are driven in part by manufacturers not wanting their product used to kill people — even the most evil ones. In 2011, Hospira, the only domestic producer of one of three lethal-injection ingredients — sodium thiopental — stopped making it. In 2012, the FDA made it illegal to import the drug to be used in executions. 

  

  Given its novelty, nitrogen hypoxia will be ripe for legal challenges on behalf the condemned.  “No state in the country has executed a person using nitrogen hypoxia and Alabama is in no position to experiment with a completely unproven and unused method for executing someone,” Equal Justice Initiative attorney Angie Setzer told Associated Press.

  Alabama doesn’t have to prove the humanity of nitrogen execution. “The burden is on the condemned inmate to show that it is torturous rather than the burden being on the state to show that it’s not,” said Richmond University law professor Corinna Barrett Lain in an interview with Scientific American. Lain’s choice for most humane method? Firing squad. 

  Alabama death row inmates are literally lining up to be polished off via nitrogen. In legal action dating back five years, several inmates have sued to be killed that way, rather than lethal injection. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 21:00

• Biden Admin Invests $24 Million In mRNA Technology To Treat Cancer, Other Diseases
  Biden Admin Invests $24 Million In mRNA Technology To Treat Cancer, Other Diseases

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration is investing up to $24 million to develop messenger RNA-based (mRNA) platforms and technology aimed at more effectively fighting cancer and other diseases.

  

  The administration’s new biomedical research agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), is providing the $24 million investment in the “Curing the Uncurable via RNA-Encoded Immunogene Tuning” (CUREIT) project, according to an Aug. 23 statement from the White House.

  CUREIT will be led by a team at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

  The funding will be granted over a three-year period.

  The latest investment is part of President Biden’s “Unity Agenda” announced during his 2022 State of the Union address; which the president says is aimed at bringing both Republicans and Democrats together to make progress on issues such as combating cancer, and tackling the opioid epidemic and mental health crisis.

  “Last year, as part of his Unity Agenda, President Biden worked with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to establish and fund ARPA-H to drive breakthroughs to prevent, detect, and treat cancer and other diseases,” the White House statement reads. “Through CUREIT, ARPA-H is now moving aggressively to deliver on their mission, and to advance the goals of the Biden Cancer Moonshot and the President’s Unity Agenda,” the statement continues.

  According to the White House, the aim of CUREIT is to create a “toolbox of mRNA and related technologies that could be used to ‘turn on’ helpful immune responses,” such as prompting immune cells to target and attack cancerous tumors.

  The technologies could also extend to autoimmune disorders, transplants, and infectious diseases, the White House said.

  

  Vaccines ‘Saved Millions’

  Multiple COVID-19 vaccines, including those from Pfizer and Moderna, have been developed using mRNA technology platforms.

  The White House said those vaccines have saved “millions of lives in the United States and around the world” and that a “toolbox” of mRNA platforms could help ” transform the fight against cancer and other difficult diseases.”

  Various experts, including doctors and professors, have raised concerns over mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

  Retsef Levi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Epoch Times in February that the shots are causing “an unprecedented level of harm, including the death of young people and children.”

  Multiple studies have also linked the messenger RNA vaccines with myocarditis, a potentially life-threatening inflammation of the heart, as well as vascular and organ damage.

  The virus itself also can cause myocarditis.

  According to a statement from Emory University, many types of cancer—as well as other debilitating diseases— have dysregulation of the immune system at their core. This impairs the body’s ability to control the immune response, leaving patients more vulnerable to the disease.

  “Immune modulation is a way to enhance the body’s immune response,” the university said. “The conventional methods of immune modulation—vaccines, antibodies, small molecules, and cell-based therapies—face limitations in their ability to engage immunity and manufacturing complexity,” university officials wrote.

  

  ‘Potential Breakthrough in Treating Cancers’

  To overcome these limitations, researchers at the University’s Santangelo lab will develop a “novel class of mRNA-based drugs” to precisely “turn on or turn off” genes in individual immune cells. In other words, the mRNA-based drugs will directly target immune cells within the body, prompting the creation of target proteins that may improve immune function and fight against cancer.

  Researchers will also combine messenger RNA-expressed antigens and gene modulators “outside the body” to prevent and treat diseases.

  “By combining mRNA-encoded antigens with gene modulation technology, we will be able to radically enhance specific immune responses,” said Philip Santangelo, PhD, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Institute of Technology.

  “This technology, which operates transiently without modifying DNA, can offer a potential breakthrough in treating cancers, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases,” he added.

  In a statement Thursday announcing the new multi-million dollar investment, President Biden called it “an important step forward” in achieving his ambitious goal to create breakthroughs in how to prevent, detect, and treat cancer and other diseases.

  “I’ve long said that America can be defined by a single word: Possibilities. My Unity Agenda is bringing both parties together in that spirit — to get big things done for the American people. There is more work to do, but there’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together,” the president said.

  “A skilled team at Emory University in Atlanta will work to adapt these technologies to turn more cancers into curable diseases,” he continued. “This is a bold endeavor that has the potential to transform the fight against cancer and other difficult diagnoses,” President Biden concluded.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 20:30

• High Earners 50-And-Older Get 2-Year Break On 401(k) Catch-Up Rule
  High Earners 50-And-Older Get 2-Year Break On 401(k) Catch-Up Rule

  The Internal Revenue Service on Friday announced that it would postpone enforcement of a law that would require high-earners to exclusively allocate “catch-up” contributions to Roth-style investment accounts — rather than pre-tax accounts that confer an immediate income tax benefit.  

  The change in the law, inflicted by December 2022’s SECURE 2.0 Act, stipulated that, starting in 2024, 401(k) participants making catch-up contributions by virtue of being age 50 or older must put those contributions in Roth accounts if their prior-year Social Security wages were more than $145,000. Friday’s announcement means people fitting that description can allocate catch-up contributions to pre-tax accounts for another two years.  

  

  Unlike traditional pre-tax contributions, Roth contributions do not reduce a participant’s current-year taxable income and thus don’t provide immediate tax relief. The Roth payoff comes later, as qualified distributions are income-tax-free. Conversely, pre-tax contributions are full taxable when distributed. 

  Some higher earners anticipate being in a lower tax bracket when they start tapping their 401(k) in retirement, compared to the bracket they’re in today. That means they’re more enthused about reaping current-tax-year savings from pre-tax contributions rather than the tax-free treatment in retirement. 

  For 2023, the regular 401(k) contribution limit is $22,500. Participants who are 50 and older can contribute another $7,500 in catch-up contributions, for a total of $30,000. Vanguard says 16% of eligible participants made catch-up contributions in 2022.  

  A participant in the 35% tax bracket can cut his income tax bill an extra $2,625 by making a $7,500 pre-tax, catch-up contribution — in addition to tax savings from the other regular contribution.  

  

  “The administrative transition period will help taxpayers transition smoothly to the new Roth catch-up requirement and is designed to facilitate an orderly transition for compliance with that requirement,” the IRS said. The widely-despised instrument of government theft also clarified that the SECURE 2.0 Act doesn’t bar anyone from making catch-up contributions, regardless of income, in 2023 or beyond. Some feared a textual error had accidentally banned catch-up contributions altogether.  

  The new and now-postponed rule about catch-up contributions only applies to 401(k) and similar accounts, not to Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). 

  Given the uncertainty of future tax rates — imposed by a government that’s hurtling toward insolvency — many advisors say it’s a good idea to diversify the tax flavor of your retirement accounts. Having a substantial bucket of Roth money provides flexibility in managing your tax bills in retirement…assuming Uncle Sam doesn’t pull a Darth Vader and “alter the deal” by revoking the tax-free treatment for “wealthy” Americans. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 20:00

• China Aims To Catalog The Genes Of 1.4 Billion People Every Five Years
  China Aims To Catalog The Genes Of 1.4 Billion People Every Five Years

  Authored by Shawn Lin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Beijing has embarked on an ambitious strategy that includes taking a nationwide genetic survey of its 1.4 billion people every half-decade. The new plan has sparked concerns over the authoritarian regime’s violation of personal privacy, and its possible anti-humanitarian motives.

  

  China’s Ministry of Science and Technology recently promulgated regulations for the management of China’s human genetic resources, effective July 1. Almost buried in wordy statements about “filing, prior reporting, supervision, and inspection” of human genetic resources is the mandate that a “national survey of human genetic resources shall be carried out every five years and may be carried out according to actual needs when necessary.”

  According to the ordinance, human genetic resources comprise “materials”—substances like organs, tissues, and cells that contain human genes; and “information”—data generated from the use of the “material.”

  Political commentator Zhuge Mingyang spoke to The Epoch Times on Aug. 15 about China’s genetic plan.“Overseeing the Chinese people in terms of bioengineering and genetics and then threatening the whole world: this is [CCP’s] ultimate purpose,” he said.

  Mr. Zhuge believes that research into human genetics could affect health care, biosecurity, the economy, national defense, and many other areas. However, he said that past evidence suggests that the CCP’s aims may be even more sinister or controversial.

  Massive Arbitrary DNA Collection

  The new guidelines mandate that those who collect genetic information must “respect and protect the privacy and rights of providers and obtain written informed consent.” However, that sort of transparency under the CCP’s rules has long been questioned.

  In September 2016, CCP mouthpiece CCTV claimed that China has the world’s largest national gene bank. This suggests that China has long been collecting genetic data without seeking the consent of the people concerned, experts say.

  A report released in 2022 by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) indicated that a massive arbitrary collection of DNA from residents had taken place in all seven prefectures or municipalities of the Tibet Autonomous Region, covering the western part of the Tibetan Plateau.

  “The reports Human Rights Watch studied indicate that DNA was to be collected from all residents of these areas, including temporary residents,” HRW reported. “None of the reports indicate any conditions under which a resident could refuse to provide a sample.”

  HRW condemned the arbitrary collection as a severe violation of human rights and privacy, citing a report from a Tibetan township in Qinghai province in December 2020 that stated that “DNA was being collected from all boys aged five and above.”

  “The authorities are literally taking blood without consent to strengthen their surveillance capabilities,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at HRW.

  ‘Bio-Atomic Bombs’

  On Nov. 10, 2017, the People’s Liberation Army newspaper published an article (pdf) titled “How Genetic Weapons Affect Future Wars,” saying that the 21st century has entered the era of genetic weapons.

  The military article emphasized the advantages of a genetic weapon: “Since a genetic weapon is a new virus ‘cut’ with a genetic code known only to the designer, it is difficult for the opposite to decipher and develop a new vaccine against it in time.”

  Moreover, as vaccine research and development races to keep up with the pace of genetic weapons, there will be a constant need for new genetic weapons.

  The article also said that with the rapid development of genomics, the complete gene sequences of more and more disease-causing microorganisms had been discovered, and these microorganisms could cause a “biochemical crisis.”

  “As long as a breakthrough in the genetic code is found, it will be easy to transform them into ‘bio-atomic bombs’ with great destructive power to achieve military purposes without using a single soldier,” it said.

  

  In 2015, a Chinese military paper discussed the weaponization of SARS coronaviruses. Chinese military scientists predicted a third world war would be fought with bioweapons.

  In late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, ultimately killing millions of people around the world. The virus source is suspected to be linked to a virus research institute in Wuhan, China.

  The Times published an investigative report on June 10, alleging that Wuhan scientists were involved in the creation, dissemination, and cover-up of the COVID-19  virus, in collaboration with the Chinese military.

  U.S. investigators believe the Chinese military intended to turn the COVID-19 virus into a biological weapon.

  Chemically Synthesized Life

  China’s leading genetic science company, BGI Genomics, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. government as a “Chinese military company operating in the United States,” asserted on its official website that it could provide a wide range of complete gene synthesis services, including artificially designed DNA sequences.

  In 2017, Wang Jian, co-founder and chairman of BGI, said at a business conference, “We can chemically synthesize any life in the next 5 to 10 years,” Chinese state media The Paper reported.

  As for chemically synthesized life, Wang Jian warned that it would spawn social, ethical, religious, philosophical, and legal problems.

  Genetically Edited Babies

  In November 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls, had been born in China. The edit targeted a pathway used by the HIV virus to enter cells, and was hoped to give the babies immunity to HIV.

  The case sparked debates worldwide, both about whether the approach could ultimately realize AIDS immunity, and also about the ethical implications of Mr. He’s actions.

  Critics said Mr. He’s action seriously breached scientific ethics; the modified gene would be passed on from generation to generation, with immeasurable potential risks. Further, the technology was used to change specific characteristics of human beings, “opening Pandora’s box,” according to Mr. Zhuge.

  On the Way to Digital Totalitarianism

  Mr. Zhuge noted that the CCP already has the world’s largest stockpile of surveillance cameras. Facial recognition technology and big data are a way of life in China. With the addition of a national gene pool, the CCP will undoubtedly be on its way to digital totalitarianism, he said.

  In July 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce placed 11 Chinese companies on a list of “entities” subject to export controls, accusing them of cooperating with CCP authorities in human rights abuses, massive arbitrary detentions, forced labor, and mandatory collection of biometric data from ethnic minorities. Two subsidiaries of BGI Genetics were listed.

  In June 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute released a report alleging that China “is building the world’s largest police-run DNA database in close cooperation with key industry partners across the globe.”

  Unlike the managers of other databases used for criminal identification, however, the CCP government deliberately collects DNA samples from tens of millions of people with no criminal record.

  “Unconstrained by any checks on the authority of its police, the Chinese Government’s police-run DNA database system is extending already pervasive surveillance over society, increasing discriminatory law enforcement practices and further undermining the human rights and civil liberties of Chinese citizens,” the report said.

  According to the report, beginning in 2013, state authorities obtained biometric samples of almost the entire population of the Tibet Autonomous Region (3 million inhabitants) under the guise of free annual medical examinations.

  HRW disclosed in December 2017 that the Xinjiang authorities collected DNA samples, fingerprints, scans, and blood type information from residents between 12 and 65 through a free “annual physical” program.

  Living Organ Banks

  “The mandatory data banking of a whole population’s biodata, including DNA, is a gross violation of international human rights norms, and it’s even more disturbing if it is done surreptitiously, under the guise of a free health care program,” said HRW’s Ms. Richardson.

  The China director also criticized Xinjiang authorities for collecting DNA and other biometric data from ethnic minorities to track individuals, update facial recognition technology, or target other family members.

  The collection of biological information may also be used to fill the organ banks of the communist regime, which profits from live organ harvesting from imprisoned political dissidents, prisoners of conscience, and ethnic and religious minorities.

  

  Since March 9, 2006, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong has made public hundreds of recorded pieces of evidence about the CCP’s mass genocide of Falun Gong adherents. Detained practitioners of the peaceful meditation practice are frequently killed by live organ harvesting.

  Falun Gong is a peaceful spiritual practice that is popular around the world and has been persecuted by the CCP for 24 years, ever since its former leader Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution in July 1999.

  Many pro-democracy activists, petitioners, ethnic minorities, and religious people have been forced to undergo blood draws after being arrested in China.

  Chen Xiaojun, an adherent of Falun Gong who has been arrested several times in China for his beliefs, fled China and came to New Zealand in 2015.

  Mr. Chen told The Epoch Times that in many places in China, once arrested, “the first thing they [the police] do is to take a tube of blood from the detainee.” He suspects that the police enter all the biological information of the victim into a database to screen for organ harvesting.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 19:30

• 51 Year Old Indiana Man On Meth Pulled Over For DUI In Kids Power Wheels Jeep
  51 Year Old Indiana Man On Meth Pulled Over For DUI In Kids Power Wheels Jeep

  Today in “your tax dollars at work” news, an Indiana man was arrested for driving under the influence last week as he made his way down the road in a child’s Power Wheels Jeep. 

  An officer was on patrol at about 9PM when he spotted the kids car with “no lights or reflectors” that was “difficult to see”, the police said in an official release. The officer then pulled the vehicle over, according to the NY Post. 

  That was when they noticed 51 year old driver John McKee showing “signs of impairment”. McKee then promptly failed a field sobriety test and was taken to a local hospital where toxicology reports showed that he was under the influence of methamphetamine and marijuana.

  

  “Mattel’s Power Wheels Jeeps are battery-powered, ride-on vehicles made for children. An owner’s manual for one model lists a weight capacity of 130 pounds and warns never to use the toy at night or in any roadway where cars may be operating,” Fox 59 added. 

  He had been previously convicted of operating a vehicle while impaired, the report noted. 

  He faces a felony charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated with a prior conviction and has been placed in Knox County Jail, the Post reported. 

  Additional reporting was provided by WSAZ. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 19:00

• Why The House Has No Alternative To An Impeachment Inquiry Into President Biden
  Why The House Has No Alternative To An Impeachment Inquiry Into President Biden

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column in The Messenger on the expanding evidence in the Biden corruption scandal and the need for Congress to take commensurate action to investigate the matter. After this column ran, Fox’s Brian Kilmeade conducted an interview with Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin. What was striking about the interview is not just the contradiction with other accounts (like insisting that he was investigating Burisma and the investigation was expanding when he was fired), but that he claimed that Kilmeade was the first to seek to interview him. This is just Shokin’s account and many question his veracity. However, it is astonishing that this is the first interview that I have seen of one of the key figures in this scandal. It highlights the need to still fully investigate a scandal that the media has largely avoided in prior years.  However, the greatest case for an impeachment inquiry was made by Attorney General Merrick Garland himself.

  

  Here is the column:

  When Congress returns next month, it has little alternative but to launch a long-discussed impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. For House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the case for an inquiry came from a most unlikely source: Attorney General Merrick Garland.

  The debacle in the Hunter Biden investigation has left most objective legal analysts in disbelief, with one CNN analyst calling it an “unholy mess.”

  Even before the collapse of a widely condemned “sweetheart deal” with Hunter, the investigation headed by U.S. Attorney David Weiss was a growing concern for many observers. In prior years, I wrote about Garland’s refusal to appoint a special counsel despite the obvious conflicts posed by the potential involvement of President Biden in his son’s alleged influence-peddling scandal. I also raised the problem of an investigation that remained ongoing for years as the statute of limitations expired on major potential crimes.

  It turns out that the same concerns were being raised within the Weiss team. Two IRS whistleblowers recently confirmed that the expiration of potential tax felony crimes was raised with Weiss and the Department of Justice (DOJ). There reportedly was an agreement to extend that period, including on the violations tied to the most controversial alleged payments from sources in Ukraine and other countries. The two witnesses testified that the Justice Department instead allowed the statute of limitations to expire.

  These two whistleblowers — and, more recently, a former FBI agent — said that the DOJ tipped off the Biden team on attempts to interview Hunter and to conduct searches. They describe an investigation that was anything but the “routine” matter described by congressional Democrats in seeking to block House investigations.

  What followed has bordered on the burlesque. Weiss cut a deal with Hunter’s legal team that was widely derided. After years of investigation, he and the DOJ agreed to a couple of tax misdemeanors, a papered-over gun charge, and no risk of jail time for the president’s son. The deal disassembled in court after a few questions from the presiding judge about sweeping immunity language and other curious elements. When District Judge Maryellen Noreika asked the prosecutor if he had ever seen any agreement like this one, he replied “no.”

  House Republicans had previously demanded that Weiss and his team answer questions about the investigation and the plea bargain. And an appearance before a House committee was planned when Garland suddenly preempted that by doing what many of us have demanded for years: He appointed a special counsel. To the amazement of many, though, he appointed the one prosecutor who should have been categorically excluded — David Weiss.

  Section 600.3 of the DOJ’s code on special counsels requires an appointment from outside the Justice Department, for obvious reasons. While another prior special counsel, John Durham, also came from within the Justice Department, Durham was retiring from the department at the time of his appointment. Not only did Garland have to ignore his own regulations to appoint Weiss but he also had to ignore the main qualification: The appointed outside counsel should be someone with “a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making.”

  Weiss could well have a legitimate defense to Republican complaints that he ran a fixed investigation into Hunter or accusations that he made false statements to his own team. However, he clearly remains under suspicion by many people. That is reflected in an ABC News/Ipsos poll in which almost half of Americans lack trust that the DOJ will conduct the Hunter Biden investigation in a “fair and nonpartisan manner.”

  In addition to this controversial appointment, Garland again refused to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to include influence-peddling allegations involving President Biden.

  Even some liberal pundits are mystified by these moves and why Garland would not simply appoint someone in compliance with the regulations who could guarantee a new and full investigation.

  So Weiss is now investigating crimes that continue to dwindle in number due to the long delays in prosecution. It is like waiting for winter to go goose hunting in Canada, long after the geese have flown South. Everyone just gets dressed up and fires aimlessly into an empty sky.

  While Hunter still can be charged on the same meager grounds (and possibly the addition of a Foreign Agents Registration Act charge), the alleged fix remains in the Biden investigation.

  Now, however, Congress will have a more difficult time getting answers out of Weiss because he can claim he is engaged in an ongoing special counsel investigation, and he can use the eventual special counsel report as much to defend his own actions as to detail any potential crimes.

  At the same time, the Biden administration still is resisting the sharing of information with the House, including records held by the National Archives.

  For months, I have discussed a potential impeachment of the president with Republican House members and have encouraged them not to repeat the abuses of House Democrats in the use of “snap impeachments” and the discarding of fact hearings in the House Judiciary Committee.

  Garland, however, has effectively forced their hands.

  While Garland seems incapable of imagining any crime involving the president, he has made a conclusive — if unintended — case for an impeachment inquiry.

  With the investigative impediments created by the Weiss appointment and by Garland’s refusal to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to the allegations of Biden family influence-peddling, there is little choice but to commence an impeachment inquiry. The authority of the House is at its apex when carrying out its duties under the impeachment clause.

  Whatever interest — or ability — remains to prosecute Hunter Biden, Congress has a separate duty to confirm any high crimes and misdemeanors committed by President Biden. Indeed, the Democrats themselves established precedent for carrying out retroactive impeachments for prior offices, including any which may have occurred when Biden was vice president.

  With the current state of the Hunter Biden investigation and the baffling conduct of Attorney General Garland, there is no alternative for the House but to launch the impeachment inquiry.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 18:30

• Yale Cop Union Scares New Students With Grim Reaper Crime Flyers
  Yale Cop Union Scares New Students With Grim Reaper Crime Flyers

  Yale University is rushing to reassure freshman students and parents after the school’s police union, which in the midst of contract negotiations, distributed flyers with stark warnings about high crime in New Haven, Connecticut — complete with a graphic of a grim reaper. They warned incoming students to avoid walking alone and avoid public transport. Forget night life: Student should stay in their dorms and “off the streets after 8 PM.” 

  

   

  Presented by the Yale Police Benevolent Association as “A Survival Guide for First-Year Students of Yale University,” the flyers were distributed on freshman move-in day. “The incidence of crime and violence in New Haven is shockingly high, and it is getting worse,” the flyers warned. “During the seven month period ending July 23, 2023, murders have doubled, burglaries are up 33% and motor vehicle thefts are up 56%.”

  A city spokesman confirmed the numbers are accurate. However, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker condemned the union, saying the flyers were “totally offensive” and cherry-picked data to create a “false and scary” impression. He countered that violent crime has decreased by 29.2% since 2020. However, it seems Elicker did his own cherry-picking: The New York Times notes New Haven homicides are up over that same span. 

  The union is in the midst of renegotiating its contract, but its lawyer, Andrew Matthews, denied that the flyers were a negotiating tactic. “They have motor vehicles chasing each other down the streets of New Haven shooting at one another. If you or your children were to go to Yale, wouldn’t you want to know that?” asked Matthews.

  

  Undermining Matthews’ denials about the intent, the flyers state that “the New Haven and Yale Police Departments are understaffed,” and suggests the situation puts students at risk: “Do not be mislead by ‘Blue Phone cameras.’ They are not monitored.” They warn students not to expect help after dark: “If you restrict your travel to daylight hours, police personnel are best able to provide adequate protection.” 

  The flyer painted a grim picture of New Haven’s Union Train Station, noting that separate shootings and stabbing incidents occurred there just last month. The leaflet also says “theft has become so great a problem that Yale University is urging students to engrave identifying numbers on all property.” The school is giving out free steering-wheel locks to any Yalie who owns easily-stolen Kia or Hyundai vehicles. 

  Yale police chief Anthony Campbell joined the condemnation. “We do not support this and, to be quite frank, I’m really disgusted that they have chosen to take this path,” he said at a press conference with the New Haven mayor. “Young people are coming to the city for the first time. That’s appalling. You don’t try to scare them into getting a better contract,” added New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobsen. 

  While accurately describing bleak conditions in New Haven may not amount to fearmongering, the Yale union is guilty of an academic sin: plagiarism. Many passages in the flyer and the grim reaper graphic are directly copied from a notorious flyer handed out by a New York cop union in 1975.

  Titled “Welcome to Fear City,” the New York flyers concluded, “The best advice we can give you is this: Until things change, stay away from New York City if you possibly can.” On an ostensibly cheerier note clearly not meant to be received that way, the Yale police flyer acknowledged that “some Yalies do manage to survive New Haven and even retain their personal property.” 

  

  With freshmen and parents rattled by the reaper, we get to savor the spectacle of Yale University’s leftist administration condemning heavy-handed labor-union tactics. The school posted a statement noting the pending negotiations and accusing the union of using “disturbing and inflammatory rhetoric…aimed at creating fear among new students and their families.” Yale reprimanded the union for casting a pall over the school’s move-in day, which “has always been special and memorable for students and their families.”

  Well, the cops certainly did their part to make it memorable. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 18:00

• Biden's 'Booze Czar' Floats New Possible Guidance Of Only Two Beers A Week
  Biden’s ‘Booze Czar’ Floats New Possible Guidance Of Only Two Beers A Week

  In yet another example of the nanny state’s intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, President Biden’s so-called ‘alcohol czar’ revealed to Daily Mail that the United States Department of Agriculture could soon revise its booze guidelines to a meager two drinks a week. 

  George Koob, director of the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said the current alcohol intake guidelines are up for review in 2025, which recommend women can have up to one bottle of beer, a small glass of wine, or a shot of liquor per day while men can have two. 

  

  Koob was asked in what direction would the current guidelines change. He responded, “I mean, they’re not going to go up, I’m pretty sure,” adding the USDA could revise its alcohol recommendations to match Canada’s guidelines, where people are advised to two drinks per week. 

  While these new guidelines are being discussed, he said updated versions might not be published until 2025. 

  “The debate about whether alcohol is good in low amounts has been around for decades, but increasingly studies show that even a small amount can harm your health,” Daily Mail said. 

  Koob’s interview comes after a study recently published in JAMA Network Open found an increasing number of Americans are drinking themselves to death. 

  … and it’s not just booze. Since Covid, middle-aged adults 35 to 50 (prime-age workers) have been consuming higher and higher amounts of marijuana and hallucinogens. 

  Koob pointed out there were “no benefits” to drinking alcohol in terms of improving overall health. He said: 

  “Most of the benefits people attribute to alcohol, we feel they really have more to do with what someone’s eating rather than what they’re drinking.

  “So it really has to do with the Mediterranean diet, socio-economic status, that makes you able to afford that kind of diet and make your own fresh food and so forth.

  “With this in mind, most of the benefits kind of disappear on the health side.”

  Good luck getting the majority to comply with these guidelines since ‘Bidenomics’ has driven many working-class folks to the bottle.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 17:00

• Parents Can't Opt Children Out Of LGBT Lessons: Judge
  Parents Can’t Opt Children Out Of LGBT Lessons: Judge

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Parents are not able to opt their children out of lessons featuring LGBT content, a federal judge has ruled.

  

  Parents sued Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland over the lessons after officials revoked their opt-out policy over the large number of opt-out requests. Parents said the failure to provide opt-outs forced them to give up their religious beliefs or seek alternative schooling.

  U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, though, said the parents had not shown the policy would “result in the indoctrination of their children or otherwise coerce their children to violate or change their religious beliefs.”

  “With or without an opt-out right, the parents remain free to pursue their sacred obligations to instruct their children in their faiths,” Judge Boardman, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said in a 60-page ruling denying a request for a preliminary injunction. “Even if their children’s exposure to religiously offensive ideas makes the parents’ efforts less likely to succeed, that does not amount to a government-imposed burden on their religious exercise.”

  Montgomery County Public Schools is one of the largest school systems in the country, with some 160,000 students.

  Montgomery County officials said in a statement that the school district “remains committed to cultivating an inclusive and welcoming learning environment and creating opportunities where all students see themselves and their families in curriculum materials.12 hours ago.”

  “We also will continue to adhere to our responsibility to include instructional materials that reflect the diversity of the local and global community by exploring the aspirations, issues, and achievements of women and men, people with disabilities, people from diverse racial, ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds, as well as those of diverse gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation,” officials said.

  Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who adhere to Islam or Christianity, said the ruling was wrong.

  “The court’s decision is an assault on children’s right to be guided by their parents on complex and sensitive issues regarding human sexuality,” Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, and one of the lawyers, said in a statement. “The School Board should let kids be kids and let parents decide how and when to best educate their own children consistent with their religious beliefs.”

  Plaintiffs plan to appeal Judge Boardman’s ruling and expect oral arguments to take place at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the fall.

  Judge Boardman said that the appeals court has not yet addressed whether mandatory lessons in public schools might burden the religious exercise of students or parents, but that rulings from other courts support the idea that “the mere exposure in public school to ideas that contradict religious beliefs does not burden the religious exercise of students or parents.”

  That includes Mozart v. Hawkins County Board of Education, a 1987 decision in which an appeals court found that students were compelled to violate their religious convictions but that they were not required to affirm their belief or disbelief in any of the ideas, like evolution, promoted in the curriculum.

  More on Case

  Montgomery County officials introduced 13 new books featuring LGBT characters at the start of the 2022–23 school year. They said the books were introduced because a review of its curriculum found it lacked representation of LGBT people.

  The books have been used in lessons for children as young as 3, prompting concerns from parents, teachers, and principals.

  “It is problematic to portray elementary school age children falling in love with other children, regardless of sexual preferences,” a group of principals said in a memorandum to the district that was revealed in the litigation.

  “Family life isn’t taught until fifth grade, but a second grade book uses terminology such as cisgender or transgender,” the memo also stated.

  Teachers were also instructed to tell students that “when we’re born, people make a guess about our gender” and that sometimes, the guess is “wrong,” according to other documents made public in the case.

  Judge Boardman acknowledged that the guidance document for teachers contained answers that “could be interpreted to promote a particular view as correct,” but added, “they are not required answers, and they are outliers among the suggested answers that do not promote a particular view.”

  Parents were able to have their children excluded from lessons featuring the books initially, but officials informed them on March 23 that further requests would not be entertained “for any reason.”

  The change stemmed from the large number of parents who requested opt-outs, Niki Hazel, a district official who oversees curriculum, said in a court filing.

  “Individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment and undermining MCPS’s educational mission,” Ms. Hazel said.

  Other officials have said that children who are LGBT or have LGBT family members were hurt when other students left the classroom when the controversial materials were read.

  Plaintiffs argued that revoking opt-outs violated state law and the U.S. Constitution and that hurt feelings were not an adequate reason to change the policy.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 16:30

• These Are All The Investigations And Lawsuits Against Trump (For Now)…
  These Are All The Investigations And Lawsuits Against Trump (For Now)…

  With the indictment and booking of Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, on election interference charges, a fourth criminal case against the former president is now active. Trump appeared in an Atlanta jail this week and famously had his mug shot taken.

  

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, the stream of litigation (flippant or not) just grows and grows and the Georgia case on election interference has sparked more public interest than previous ones.

  As seen in Google Trends data, Trump’s first criminal indictment and arraignment in late March and early April at the Manhattan Criminal Court caused the biggest public interest so far. The former president is being accused in the case brought by the state of New York of falsifying business records in order to conceal crimes. Subsequent indictments – two by the Justice Department’s Special Counsel Jack Smith brought in Miami and Washington D.C. to do with Trump’s handling of classified documents and the January 6 Capitol riot – sparked less interest. Google search volume only reached 51-64 percent of the week of Trump’s first criminal indictment for the Miami case in early June and only 37 percent for the D.C. case in early August. As of the early morning of Aug. 25, search interest was predicted to rise sharply again this week in the aftermath of the Georgia booking.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In June and July, Special Counsel Jack Smith had in the name of the Justice Department also brought 40 felony counts against Trump and his former assistants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira in the case of classified documents found at Trump’s estate Mar-a-Lago.

  In early August, a second Justice Department indictment concerning Trump’s conduct in relation to the January 6 Capitol riots followed.

  Another criminal case against Trump is pursued by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which indicted and arraigned the candidate for the Republican Party’s nomination in the 2024 presidential election in March and April on 30 fraud counts in connection with a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.

  The office has been investigating Trump’s finances since 2019, when three House committees had initially subpoenaed Trump’s banks and accounting office.

  In early 2023, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was already sentenced to five months in jail for tax fraud and grand larceny, while the organization was ordered to pay $1.6 million for tax crimes in New York courts. Trump lost a second court case in May when we was found liable of sexual abuse and defamation of columnist E. Jean Carroll and ordered to pay $5 million in damages. There have been repeated reports that the legal costs Trump is facing have diminished his campaign funds, while they don’t seem to have hurt his polling.

  As seen in information by the Just Security Litigation Tracker, there are currently also 12 civil suits (some of which are being argued jointly) against Trump or his organizations, alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act and of civil rights statutes as well as financial fraud, defamation, copyright infringement and once again Trump’s role in January 6, among others.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Trump is currently being sued by columnist E. Jean Carroll for repeated defamation, 12 D.C. police officers, 11 Democratic Congresspeople, the Michigan Welfare rights Organization, the New York attorney general, a group of plaintiffs pursuing a class action lawsuit and his former attorney Michael Cohen, who appealed the dismissal of his case.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 16:00

• Biden Admin Blocks Millions Of Acres To Oil And Gas Drilling
  Biden Admin Blocks Millions Of Acres To Oil And Gas Drilling

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration has blocked off millions of acres of federal waters from a planned oil and gas lease sale after settling with environmental groups over habitat protections for a rare species of whale.

  

  The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said in an Aug. 23 notice that, as part of Lease Sale 261, it will offer around 67 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.

  That is around 9 percent, or 6.4 million acres, less than BOEM’s original proposal, following a settlement with environmental groups that pauses ongoing litigation over environmental protections in the Gulf of Mexico in exchange for excluding Rice’s whale habitat from any lease sales.

  Environmental groups praised the exclusions, while representatives of the oil and gas industry called the carveouts “unfounded” and said the restrictions would needlessly hamper domestic energy production.

  Some lawmakers also objected to the exclusions, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

  “This Administration continues to kowtow to radical environmentalists at the expense of American energy security and costs to American families,” Mr. Manchin said in a statement obtained by The Epoch Times.

  Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered marine mammal species on the planet, with an estimated population of just 51 individuals, around 100 scientists told the Biden administration in an open letter (pdf) last year.

  Arguing that the loss of even a single whale threatens the survival of the entire species, the scientists urged the Biden administration to disallow oil and gas drilling in and around the whale’s habitat.

  Settlement With Environmental Groups

  In order to proceed with the gas lease sale as required by provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden administration agreed to settle with environmental groups that sued the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) over what they said was a flawed biological opinion that failed to sufficiently protect endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.

  In 2020, environmental law organization Earthjustice filed a lawsuit (pdf) against NMFS on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration.

  The lawsuit challenged a Trump-era biological opinion on oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico, with the groups saying that the legally binding opinion failed to require sufficient safeguards for endangered species, including Rice’s whale (identified in the complaint as Bryde’s whale, an alternate name for the species).

  Under a settlement agreement (pdf) that was approved on Aug. 24 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, the groups agreed to pause their litigation. In exchange, BOEM said it will exclude Rice’s whale habitat from any lease sales that occur during a 13-month period that the case is on hold while federal agencies reevaluate the 2020 biological opinion.

  More Details

  As the lawsuit made its way through the courts, BOEM said it decided to reinitiate consultation with the NMFS regarding an oil-spill risk analysis and ways to incorporate certain previously developed mitigation measures to protect Rice’s whale habitat.

  On Aug. 23, BOEM said in a document that provides key information about the sale to potential bidders (pdf) that, as talks continue with the NMFS and as the agency awaits a new or amended biological opinion, it decided to add “certain interim measures to the ‘Protected Species’ Stipulation to provide additional protections for Rice’s whale while the reinitiated consultation is ongoing.”

  The temporary measures include designating temporary whale-safe zones between 100 and 400 meters in depth across the northern Gulf of Mexico, eastward from the Mexican border with Texas, and westward from Rice’s whale core area (as identified in the biological opinion that is the subject of ongoing litigation).

  These interim protective measures for Rice’s whales are basically what accounts for the 6 million or so fewer acres made available as part of BOEM’s lease sale.

  At the same time, efforts are underway to permanently designate waters between 100 and 400 deep in the Gulf of Mexico as “critical habitat” zones that are “essential to the conservation of the Rice’s whale,” according to a July proposal by NOAA Fisheries. The proposal is open to public comment until Sept. 22, 2023.

  In addition to the whale habitat zone exclusions, the settlement also includes a requirement for any oil and gas vessel to reduce its speed to 10 knots when traveling through the habitat area.

  Reactions

  BOEM’s announcement of the 6 million acre carveout for the oil and gas lease was lauded by environmental groups but met with disdain by the fossil fuel industry.

  “The simple protective measures in this agreement recognize the first rule of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging,” Steve Mashuda, Earthjustice managing attorney for Oceans, said in a statement. “If we’re going to save Rice’s whales, we need to first stop dropping more oil rigs and more ships in their habitat and making the problem worse.”

  The American Petroleum Industry (API), a fossil fuel industry lobby, took a dim view of the settlement-related exclusions to the lease sale.

  “While the Department of the Interior announced a much-needed offshore lease sale today, the Biden administration continues to throw up roadblock after roadblock to American energy production, prioritizing their campaign promise to stop American oil and natural gas development in federal waters over their duty to meet Americans’ energy needs,” Holly Hopkins, API vice president of Upstream Policy, said in a statement.

  “This action defies Congress’s mandate in the Inflation Reduction Act, jeopardizes U.S. energy security and violates the Biden administration’s energy obligations to the American people,” Ms. Hopkins added.

  The Inflation Reduction Act includes provisions that reinstate previously halted oil and gas lease sales.

  Mr. Manchin, who fought for the oil and gas lease provisions in the legislation, denounced the Biden administration’s lease exclusions.

  “Let me be clear, the exclusion of more than 6 million productive acres from the upcoming offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico based on a settlement reached in the name of protecting Rice’s whale while conveniently only targeting oil and gas is yet another example of this Administration’s intentional undermining of the strong energy security provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Mr. Manchin said.

  “The IRA required lease sales to get oil and gas leasing back on track to reduce the cost for working families to cook, heat their homes and fill their gasoline tank,” Mr. Manchin added.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 15:30

• El Nino Threat Puts US Solar Power Output At Risk This Winter
  El Nino Threat Puts US Solar Power Output At Risk This Winter

  The Biden administration’s rapid push to decarbonize power grids with solar and wind while squeezing fossil fuel plants into early retirement could spark grid stability risks this winter as a new report sheds light on the possibility of “below average irradiance across most of North America” due to the impacts of El Niño producing more cloud coverage.

  Solar-focused news publication PV Magazine said, “Solcast, a DNV company, predicts that El Niño will likely bring lower than normal solar power production through winter in the United States. Its analysis is based on data collected from previous El Niño events.” 

  El Niño threatens US winter solar generation: In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, predicts that El Niño will likely bring lower than normal solar power production through winter in… #renewableenergy #solarenergy #sustainability https://t.co/C4fI1F0sis pic.twitter.com/dyAgaG1DAT

  — pv magazine (@pvmagazine) August 25, 2023

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  Here’s more from the report:

  This coming winter is more likely than not to see below average irradiance across most of North America, as the impacts of El Niño bring cloudier, wetter conditions across the continent. Analysis of Historical Time Series data from El Niño years using the Solcast API, shows that irradiance is significantly impacted in these years.

  The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared that we are in El Niño’s Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phase, and that there is a 90-95% probability this will continue into the upcoming winter.

  NOAA has further forecast a 60% chance that this will be a “strong event,” so solar producers across the continent should be anticipating this to change their expected performance through the winter.

  Analysis of December-February months from previous El Niño events (2006-07, 2009-10, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2018-19) shows the historic impact on global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI). This image shows a comparison of the average GHI in the El Niño episodes with the neutral and La Niña phases of the ENSO climate cycle.

  

  The clear observation is that most of the Continental US experienced reduced irradiance during El Niño winters. California, the Midwest, Southern states, and Mexico in particular see higher precipitation, as well as cloudier conditions.

  Conversely, the North-eastern USA and neighboring Canadian provinces depict the opposite. These regions experienced increased irradiance during El Niño intervals.

  This trend correlates with decreased precipitation during such periods, another trend these regions might expect in the coming winter.

  As the solar energy sector leads into the lower-producing winter months, El Niño is likely to bring even lower than normal production through winter. The increased rain may result in decreased dust soiling for panels that aren’t already being cleaned regularly.

  Numerous power grids across the US have warned about the growth of power demand, while decarbonization policies have led to a mismatch between power sources due to the early retirement of fossil fuel power generation. We’ve pointed this out in America’s Largest Power Grid Faces Worsening Reliability Risks and A Crisis Is Looming For The US Energy Grid. 

  Solar and wind are unreliable; these power sources are useless if the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. 

  Meanwhile, a soaring number of Americans want reliable and clean nuclear power… 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 15:00

• Where's The Beef? Ranchers Take Stand Over Synthetic 'Meat' Label
  Where’s The Beef? Ranchers Take Stand Over Synthetic ‘Meat’ Label

  Authored by Matthew Lysiak via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  American cattlemen are readying for a fight to protect the definition of the word meat from producers of synthetic cellular-based beef alternatives.

  “It’s a red line. It isn’t right that these factory-made products should be able to market and sell their products off the backs of the cattleman,” Justin Tupper, President of the United States Cattlemen’s Association, told The Epoch Times.

  “We are talking about chemical-laced cell-cultured products that can in some ways simulate meat, but they aren’t meat, and the American consumer needs to understand that,” added Mr. Tupper.

  

  The synthetic “meat” market has already arrived in America.

  Last year, the USDA gave two producers the green light to start producing and selling their lab-grown chicken-like products in the United States.

  While a decision over the labeling of the product has yet to be announced, the cattle industry plans on being aggressively proactive in both discussions with the USDA and, if needed, litigation after having learned a valuable lesson from the dairy farmers.

  “The milk industry really dropped the ball,” said Mr. Tupper. “They never believed that anyone would think that almond milk was actual milk, so they brushed it off at the time. Now there are hundreds of items with milk in the name but with no milk in the product, and it has really hurt the entire dairy industry.”

  “In the same way that you can’t milk an almond, you can’t get meat from a lab, only an animal, and we are not going to allow them to use our name to promote their product.”

  Synthetic meat-like products are created by taking cells acquired from animals and placing them in a warm, sterile area, usually, a metal vat, where they are then combined with a solution of chemicals that causes the cells to double once a day.

  

  The demand for synthetic meat has been spurred largely by corporate entities and government agencies working in tandem with the environmental movement.

  Bill Gates, an investor in Upside Foods, one of the two synthetic meat producers approved by the USDA, believes meat alternatives are needed to save the world from upcoming catastrophic climate events caused by greenhouse gasses.

  In a 2021 interview with Technology Review, Mr. Gates said that all well-off nations need to switch to be completely weaned off of living, breathing cows.

  “All rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” Mr. Gates told the interviewer. “Eventually that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the people or use regulation to totally shift demand. So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it’s possible.”

  A switch from animal meat to a laboratory-grown substitute would eliminate the need for animals to be bred and slaughtered—in the U.S. alone, around 9 billion chickens and 32 million cattle are killed every year.

  However, beef cattle production constitutes only a small fraction of the gasses that many environmentalists claim have had a negative impact on the planet.

  Just 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from beef cattle production, while energy production and transportation produce a combined 54 percent of emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

  

  Italian Ban

  American ranchers aren’t the only ones raising the alarm. After two million Italians signed a petition calling for a ban against synthetic meat products, the Italian Senate passed a bill earlier this week, becoming the first country to make it illegal to produce or market the food, highlighting health concerns as the primary reason.

  Ettore Prandini, President of Coldiretti, the largest association representing Italian agriculture, touted the vote as a legislative victory for the Italian people over corporate powers, telling the media that “the products in the laboratory in the authorization processes are not equated to food but rather to products of a pharmaceutical nature.”

  An April 2023 report by the United Nations on the safety of “cell-based food products” cited 53 potential health hazards, including “the potential for expression of novel toxins, toxic metabolites, or allergens or a change in expression of toxins, toxic metabolites, or allergens as a result of genomic instability.”

  The report concluded with a call for additional research and funding in order to draw more definitive conclusions.

  Transparency Needed

  Mr. Tupper isn’t calling for a ban on synthetic foods, only transparency, and believes that despite the large push for meat alternatives coming from corporate leaders and government agencies, the American cow is here to stay.

  “The simple truth is that the taste of real beef cannot be replicated and, more importantly, when people discover the chemical storm that is actually in this product they are trying to pass off as meat, consumers are going to come to the conclusion that beef should come from a cow, not from a laboratory.”

  “Our hopes are that the USDA will label this product for what it is, a cellular-based derivative of chemicals,” added Mr. Tupper.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 14:30

• "Yes, They Were Being Bribed": Fired Ukraine Prosecutor Corroborates Biden Corruption
  “Yes, They Were Being Bribed”: Fired Ukraine Prosecutor Corroborates Biden Corruption

  Victor Shokin, the fired Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Biden family corruption (that Donald Trump was impeached for asking about) has spoken out for the first time since 2019 – and says the Bidens did it.

  

  To review – Shokin had an active and ongoing investigation into Ukrainian energy company Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, according to a 2020 US Senate Committee report.

  Zlochevsky, who hired Hunter Biden to sit on his board, granted his own company (Burisma) permits to drill for oil and gas in Ukraine while he was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. Shokin stated in a 2019 deposition that there were five criminal cases against Zlochevesky, including money laundering, corruption, illegal funds transfers, and profiteering through shell corporations while he was a sitting minister.

  Now, Shokin tells Fox News that be believes the Bidens were taking bribes.

  “I do not want to deal in unproven facts. But my firm personal conviction is that yes, this was the case. They were being bribed,” Shokin told the outlet. “The fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal – my firing – isn’t that alone a case of corruption?” he asks in another clip.

  Viktor Shokin – The Ukrainian Prosecutor Joe Biden BRAGGED about getting FIRED speaks out

  SHOKIN: “The fact that Joe Biden gave away one billion dollars – in exchange for my dismissal, my firing. – Is that alone a case of corruption?” pic.twitter.com/gy3VCc6JqE

  — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 25, 2023

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  The full interview with Shokin will air Saturday evening at 8pm ET with Brian Kilmeade.

  According to the White House, Fox News is giving a “platform to lies” by airing the interview.

  Republicans, meanwhile, aren’t letting this one go.

  What skill did Hunter have to earn millions of dollars from the corrupt energy company Burisma?

  Once Viktor Shokin started investigating Burisma, Biden made sure he was fired.

  The evidence exists, and no spin from the Biden administration can change obvious facts. pic.twitter.com/vSohuVthGk

  — Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) August 25, 2023

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  Earlier this week we noted that memos obtained by Just the News via FOIA request reveal that the Obama Administration was still actively communicating with Shokin after Biden’s December 2015 threat to withhold $1 billion in US aid unless then-President Petro Poroshenko fired him.

  The memos reveal:

  • Senior State Department officials sent a conflicting message to Shokin before he was fired, inviting his staff to Washington for a January 2016 strategy session and sent him a personal note saying they were “impressed” with his office’s work.
  • U.S. officials faced pressure from Burisma emissaries in the United States to make the corruption allegations go away and feared the energy firm had made two bribery payments in Ukraine as part of an effort to get cases settled.
  • A top U.S. official in Kyiv blamed Hunter Biden for undercutting U.S. anticorruption policy in Ukraine through his dealings with Burisma.

  Meanwhile, nobody else seems interested in what Shokin has to say.

  Brian Kilmeade just said on Fox that Viktor Shokin told him in the interview that no one had asked him for an interview despite his central role in the alleged Biden corruption scandal…

  — Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 25, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/26/2023 – 14:00

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