- 'Ballot Banishers' – 2023 Democrats & 1861 Confederates
‘Ballot Banishers’ – 2023 Democrats & 1861 Confederates
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,
In the election of 1860, southern Democrats in 10 states of the soon-to-be formalized Confederacy made it almost impossible for their own voters to cast ballots for Abraham Lincoln for President.
In that sense, the Left in Colorado would have felt right at home in the ante-bellum South – erasing the name of a presidential candidate whom they loathed and by whom they were similarly terrified.
In eerie fashion, and also similar to the old ethos of the Confederacy, the Democratic Left now believes in state nullification of federal statutes.
So like the would-be secessionist states of 1860-1, over 550 jurisdictions, almost all in blue states, claim that federal immigration laws no longer apply to them.
Thus they brag that they can breezily be defied. (Not so easily or willfully are federal gun laws, or EPA mandates, or federal endangered species lists, ignored in red-state jurisdictions.)
The essence of sanctuary cities is an arrogant sense that federal law means nothing to morally superior local and state governments.
So they nullify federal immigration laws in the manner of defying tariffs by South Carolina in 1832, or racial integration by Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1963.
Wallace tried to block integration by opposing federal implementation of the Supreme Court’s ruling against segregation of students by race in public schools and universities, as well as President Kennedy’s federalization of the Alabama national guard.
This Confederatization of Leftist values and protocols is uncanny. And I wrote about the phenomenon in a recent New Criterion article” The Old South Shall Rise Again”.
The echoes keep popping up periodically and predictably in the news, as we saw with the Colorado erasure of Donald Trump from Colorado’s primary and likely general election ballot. Take also racial fixations and obsessions. Is the current diversity/inclusion/equity—woke movement based on similar racial essentialism?
Or in Confederate terms, are we back to certifying one’s particular DNA (now by blood tests, but then by genealogists)? Does the South’s old one-sixteenth/one-drop rule (ask Elizabeth Warren) still determine racial status and privilege?
Do our DEI/woke racially segregated campus dorms, segregated safe spaces, segregated graduations, and segregated events echo Wallace’s 1963 Inauguration Address chant—“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”?
Are blue-states becoming like one-dimensional “King Cotton” economies of the past?
Just as a “King Cotton” economy ran the politics of the Old South through its unprecedented wealth, so too our modern leftist magnates are often one-industry “Big Tech” titans—of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google—who more or less by their PAC and foundation “donations” (Mark Zuckerberg alone accounted for $419 million ) warped the work of registrars in many of the key 2020 counties.
One mark of Confederates was the strangling of the southern middle class. A tiny plantationists elite sat atop a vast caste of black slaves and a poor hireling white population.
Yet in terms of aggregate state income and wealth, by 1860 five of the wealthiest ten states in America were slave states and about to secede—given the unquenchable global appetite of the growing Industrial Revolution for southern cotton. (Was the desire for and power of Cotton then like iPhones and Google searches?)
So the sheer power, wealth, and influence of the plantationists remind one of clout and superciliousness of California’s Silicon Valley and its $9-trillion dollars in market capitalization.
Indeed, it is eerie in debates and declarations how California Governor Gavin Newsom brags about California mega-Big Tech success and wealth. Often Newsom talks grandly of his Bay Area, Silicon Valley sector, as if he was Sen. James Hammond, a southern plantation owner, and U.S. Senator from South Carolina, who boasted defiantly in 1858 that “Cotton is King!”
But like Hammond, Newsom then predictably grows silent about the state’s one-fifth of the resident population below the poverty line, one third of all US welfare recipients, the crumbling infrastructure, the dismal schools, the huge multibillion-dollar state deficits, the shrinking and fleeing middle class, the exploding homeless, and the retribalization of the state’s society by race.
Just as King Cotton seemed to ensure palatial homes amid an impoverished general population, poor roads, anemic industry and manufacturing, few rails, and bad public schools, so too does blue-state wealth reside disproportionally in the hands of the few atop a growing class of poor and a vanishing middle class.
In the years before the Civil War and in the ante-bellum Jim Crow South, southern states bled populations fleeing to the new territories in the West or to the manufacturing and industrial boomtowns of the North. They were escaping a fossilized society of have and have nots—eerily representative of the current ethos of the blue-state paradigm.
California has the richest zip codes and greatest number of billionaires, and near highest poverty rate. New York is close; both have largest number of residents escaping their states—ironically to a new South that is becoming as dynamic as the old bygone North.
So the recent ballot erasing of Colorado fits this larger picture of blue-states emulating the values of ante-bellum southern states – erasing ballots, defying federal laws, fixating on race and racial privileges, and catering to a one-dimensional medieval economy and caste, amid a growing underclass struggling with neglected infrastructure, poor schools, and growing poverty.
So what will be the new/old Democratic 2024 election mantra?
“Vote for us—and ballot deletion, states’ rights, federal nullification, racial essentialism and segregation, and a one-party, one-economy plantationist nation”?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/27/2023 – 00:00 - China's Spy Agencies Now Targeting The Country's Economic Pessimists
China’s Spy Agencies Now Targeting The Country’s Economic Pessimists
In a move that we wouldn’t be surprised to see take hold in the U.S., China is now reportedly cracking down on its citizens who have a negative opinion regarding the country’s economy.
A new Nikkei article detailed how the country’s spy agencies have turned their focus to the country’s financial naysayers.
“Various cliches that denigrate the Chinese economy have emerged. False theories about ‘China’s deterioration’ are being circulated to attack China’s unique socialist system,” the country’s Ministry of State Security said at China’s recent annual conference to set economic policy.
When the Ministry opened its WeChat account in summer of this past year, its first post on August 1 simply read: “We need to mobilize the entire Chinese society to crack down on and prevent espionage.”
The revelation that the spy agency has been so openly active on WeChat was unexpected, the report says. While its main functions include targeting spies and engaging in counterintelligence operations, protecting China’s economy is not typically within its scope.
However, the agency’s recent posts following the Central Economic Work Conference on December 11-12, along with similar communications after a significant economic policy meeting in late October, suggest that the ministry is broadening its range of responsibilities.
“How strange that China’s economic policies for next year, ones that have just been adopted, were first explained by the Ministry of State Security,” one Chinese economist told Nikkei.
The spy agency’s recent social media activity, coinciding with growing online skepticism about the government’s optimistic economic narrative, implies a crackdown on those providing objective yet critical analyses of China’s faltering economy.
Experts highlighting issues like the exodus of foreign companies and declining consumer confidence, often with detailed economic data, are particularly at risk. These analyses typically avoid directly contradicting the government’s assertion of achieving a 5% growth target, reflecting caution under China’s strict speech regulations.
The Ministry of State Security, traditionally focused on counterintelligence, is now venturing into economic discourse – a shift that suggests the Chinese government views overly realistic or negative economic assessments, which it considers influenced by foreign narratives of decline, as threats to national security. This indicates potential repercussions for those with pessimistic viewpoints, the report noted.
Read the full report here.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 23:30 - 17 Individuals On FBI Terror Watch List Caught Attempting Entry At Southern Border
17 Individuals On FBI Terror Watch List Caught Attempting Entry At Southern Border
Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times,
Border Patrol officers in the month of November identified 17 individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list attempting to illegally enter the United States outside an established port of entry on the southern border.
The 17 were processed by law enforcement agents after crossing into the United States, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). There has been an increasing trend in the number of known terrorists found to be entering the U.S. southern border beyond ports of entry, with a record 169 individuals detected in Financial Year 2023.
A record number of individuals of interest on the watch list have also been attempting entry at U.S. ports of entry on either the northern or southern border, with 564 individuals detected at ports in FY 2023.
The 17 individuals last month add to 13 entries by individuals on the watch list caught outside a port of entry in October. Another 49 individuals were apprehended attempting entry at a U.S. port of entry since October for FY 2024.
The federal dataset maintained by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center includes the identifying information of known and suspected terrorists and terrorist groups, as well as the information of their affiliates.
“Encounters of watchlisted individuals at our borders are very uncommon, underscoring the critical work CBP Agents and Officers carry out every day on the frontlines,” the CBP website says.
The increase in individuals on the terror watch list attempting to enter the United States is of concern, as they only represent the ones processed by Border Patrol. It is possible that other individuals on the list may have attempted entry and evaded law enforcement, being among the many “gotaways” getting through the porous and underresourced border.
The terror watch list figures also come as Members of Congress voice concern about a heightened risk of terrorists entering the United States following Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the resulting war.
Illegal Immigration Crisis
FY23 broke the record for illegal immigrant encounters.
Over 242,000 illegal immigrants were processed by Border Patrol at the southern border in November—the third-highest monthly record. Nearly 80 percent of these apprehensions were for border crossings outside of legal ports of entry.
Historic CBP data indicates U.S. border officials had never logged more than 80,000 encounters in any given November prior to 2022.
Of the 191,113 November Title 8 apprehensions, more than 6,300 were illegal immigrants attempting another entry to the United States after already being removed by law enforcement for failing to meet the necessary requirements for asylum.
These figures do not include the 43,000 immigrants who followed the U.S. immigration process and have been granted parole through the CBP One app.
December totals are expected to easily surpass the November totals, as agents have been consistently overwhelmed by more than 12,000 encounters each day at the southern border, particularly at the Ports of Entry in Lukeville, Arizona, and Eagle Pass, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security itself warned in its October threat assessment that, with agents reporting an increasing number of attempted entries from the terror watch list, there is a greater risk that “terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.”
“Individuals with terrorism connections are interested in using established travel routes and permissive environments to facilitate access to the United States,” the assessment also said.
Funding for Border Security
Congress is currently negotiating a $105 billion supplemental funding bill that ties together funding for the border with funding for Israel’s war against Hamas and support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
The Biden administration has allocated $14 billion towards beefing up border personnel and staff to process asylum claims. However, Republicans want to see the Biden administration act on border security without conditions, and in a manner that tackles what they say are the underlying problems causing the mass surge in illegal immigration. They are pushing for stricter border security measures, completion of the border wall in gaps between ports of entry, and limits on the use of humanitarian parole, as well as policies to dissuade illegal border crossings and frivolous asylum claims.
“We are facing a serious challenge along the southwest border and CBP and our federal partners need more resources from Congress—as outlined in the supplemental budget request—to enhance border security and America’s national security,” senior official performing the duties of the commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement on the need for immediate border funding.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 23:00 - Watch: Chinese Rocket Booster Nearly Destroys House
Watch: Chinese Rocket Booster Nearly Destroys House
A dramatic video shared on social media platform X captures the moment a booster from a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket plummets from the sky, crashes into a hillside forest and explodes feet away from a house.
Chinese state-run media outlet Global Times reported the Long March-3B rocket with a Yuanzheng-1 upper delivered two Beidou satellites into medium Earth orbit on Tuesday morning from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the country’s Southwest Sichuan Province.
🚀. Long March 3B with Yuanzheng-1 upper stage launched 2 Beidou MEO backup satellites from Xichang on December 26 at ~03:26UTC. pic.twitter.com/VLBzPTK32f
— China ‘N Asia Spaceflight 🚀𝕏 🛰️ (@CNSpaceflight) December 26, 2023
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The launch was deemed a success, with the 57th and the 58th Beidou satellites added to the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System, China’s mega constellation of satellites.
However, video footage of the rocket’s booster falling from the sky and crashing into a hillside emerged hours after the launch on Chinese social media, then shared with X.
It’s raining men..ah..boosters.
Long March 3B booster coming down near Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
source:https://t.co/Qma13Griwl h/t: @AJ_FI pic.twitter.com/YIjNimmpzM
— Susanne Auer🇪🇺 (is also on Bluesky) (@AuerSusan) December 26, 2023
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Another video shows the crash site, with very toxic hypergolic propellant rising from the ashes. The booster landed just feet from a house.
Long March 3B launch on 26.12.2023, the aftermath: pic.twitter.com/AMFPWJcY0j
— Susanne Auer🇪🇺 (is also on Bluesky) (@AuerSusan) December 26, 2023
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Given China’s ability to copy technology, one might wonder why they haven’t yet deployed a self-landing booster similar to SpaceX’s technology developed by Elon Musk.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 22:30 - "Not A Plan B Person", Ramaswamy Says On Rejecting The Idea Of Joining Trump Administration
“Not A Plan B Person”, Ramaswamy Says On Rejecting The Idea Of Joining Trump Administration
Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he is not a “plan B” kind of guy, when asked about the possibility of taking a job in a possible second Trump administration.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times) In an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Mr. Ramaswamy said he was focusing on his presidential campaign, despite trailing the Republican frontrunner former President Donald Trump.
“I think that I’m not a plan B person,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “I didn’t get to where I am—I’m 38 years old, I’ve found multiple multi-billion dollar companies, we’re blessed with the American dream to be able to self-fiance and lift this campaign up.”
“I didn’t get to where I am, and Apoorva didn’t get to where she is by being ‘plan B people,’” he added, referring to his wife Apoorva Ramaswamy.
Mr. Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, expressed confidence going into the Iowa caucus, which is scheduled on Jan. 15.
“So I’m actually confident we’re going to overdeliver massively at the Iowa caucus,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.
“Many of the people supporting us are first-time caucus-goers, some of them young people, some of them America-first patriots or libertarians who haven’t thought of themselves as traditional Republicans who are coming out in droves,” he added. “I think we’re going to have a major surprise on January 15.”
There’s been speculation that Mr. Ramaswamy could be President Trump’s running mate for 2024. In August, President Trump indicated that he was open to the idea of having Mr. Ramaswamy as a potential vice president.
Also in August, Mr. Ramaswamy praised the former president as “the best president of the 21st century,” during the first GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee.
“I respect Trump and his accomplishments for this country,” he said. “Unlike a lot of the other candidates, I’m not sitting here Monday morning quarterbacking some decision he made.”
If elected, Mr. Ramaswamy believes he would be well-suited to lead the country.
“But I believe we are the right people to take our America-first agenda to the next level. I think it’s going to take somebody with fresh legs. Somebody from the next generation if I may say it to lead the next generation,” he said. “I believe we will be successful in this.”
It is not the first time that Mr. Ramaswamy has made such a remark about himself.
In November, during a podcast interview with Patrick Bet-David, host of Valuetainment, Mr. Ramaswamy also said he was not a “plan B person,” when asked about the prospect of being President Trump’s vice president.
“I’m not a plan B person,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “I didn’t get to where I am in life by having plan A goals and then setting up your bifurcated backup plans on the important things.”
“When you’re guided by your mission and purpose, and you set out and you accomplish plan A. If you fail, then you figure out then,” he added. “I think it would be fake to just sort of say, ‘Under any Scenario, I’m not gonna run in 2028’ or ‘I’m not going to, you know, if I don’t win or whatever.’”
Despite Mr. Ramaswamy’s optimism, he recently finished fourth in the latest Emerson College poll in Iowa. The poll, conducted from Dec. 15 to Dec. 17, found Mr. Ramaswamy with 8 percent of support, trailing President Trump (50 percent), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (17 percent), and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (15 percent).
A national poll released by Echelon Insights, conducted from Dec. 12 to Dec. 16, found President Trump in a commanding lead with 70 percent of support, with Ms. Haley in second place with 10 percent. Mr. DeSantis finished in third place with 9 percent, followed by Mr. Ramaswamy with 5 percent.
In a head-to-head matchup, President Trump defeated Ms. Haley 76 percent to 20 percent.
However, President Trump picked up 47 percent of support, trailing President Joe Biden by one percentage point in a two-way matchup.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 22:00 - Bill Barr Calls On Supreme Court To 'Smack' Down Colorado Trump Ruling
Bill Barr Calls On Supreme Court To ‘Smack’ Down Colorado Trump Ruling
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that the U.S. Supreme Court should strike down a ruling issued by the Colorado Supreme Court that barred former President Donald Trump from the state ballot.
Ivanka Trump listens to Attorney General Bill Barr during a meeting on human trafficking at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on Aug. 4, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images) Last week, a majority of judges on Colorado’s high court said that the former president is ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot. Some analysts said that it’s likely that the former president would appeal the decision to the high court.
The U.S. Supreme Court “has to smack this down very quickly,” Mr. Barr told Fox News last week, responding to the decision.
And Mr. Barr—who served in the Trump administration but has become a frequent critic of President Trump after leaving office and has disputed claims about 2020 election fraud—added that “the legal argument here for it is ridiculous.”
“Even more importantly, it is highly destructive, and it’s exactly the kind of tactics by the left that created Donald Trump in the first place,” he said.
The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate. It overturned a ruling from a district court that said he could not be barred from the ballot because it was unclear that the provision was intended to cover the presidency.
“A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” the court wrote in its 4–3 decision. The dissenting justices argued that the ruling violated the former president’s due process rights.
The court stayed its decision until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots.
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the court’s majority wrote. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
Other state high courts have rejected similar arguments lodged by left-wing groups claiming that President Trump cannot appear on ballots due to the insurrection clause. Although the former president has been charged with crimes in several jurisdictions in the past year, he has not been charged with or convicted of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.
In a statement last week, Trump legal spokeswoman Alina Habba said that “this ruling, issued by the Colorado Supreme Court, attacks the very heart of this nation’s democracy. It will not stand, and we trust that the Supreme Court will reverse this unconstitutional order.”
Other than Mr. Barr, a number of legal experts and even some Democratic officials have disputed the legitimacy of the 14th Amendment-based attempts to block the former president from running.
The case was brought by a group of Colorado voters, aided by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who argued that President Trump should be disqualified because, according to the group, he was trying to obstruct the transfer of presidential power to President Biden after the 2020 election on Jan. 6.
CREW President Noah Bookbinder, who currently serves in the Department of Homeland Security’s advisory council and was appointed by current Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said in a statement that the court’s decision is “not only historic and justified but is necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country.”
Meanwhile, some pollsters and consultants have predicted that the ruling may only bolster President Trump’s chances in the 2024 election. According to a RealClearPolitics average, the former president’s lead in the GOP primary has only increased since the court’s ruling.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 21:30 - "This Is Our Town" – Inside A Small-Town Battle Against A Giant Chinese Battery Plant
“This Is Our Town” – Inside A Small-Town Battle Against A Giant Chinese Battery Plant
Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Two common signs stood out on the front lawns and street corners of Manteno, Illinois, on Dec. 13: “Keep Christ in Christmas,” sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, and “Choose Manteno: No Go on Gotion!”
Ten miles south of where Chicago’s suburban sprawl finally peters out, Manteno is the latest battleground over Chinese companies coming to middle America—in this case, the electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer Gotion Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of China’s Gotion (or Guoxuan) High-Tech Co.
While a recent Manteno board decision to rezone a manufacturing site favorably to Gotion came as a setback for opponents, the war for the industrial future of Manteno—and America—is far from over.
The recently formed group Concerned Citizens of Manteno fired back with a lawsuit against Gotion and the village on Dec. 22.
In Manteno and towns like it, Americans are steeling themselves for a struggle.
“The Chinese government does not like us. Look what happened with the coronavirus. … But this is our town, not theirs, and we’re going to fight to save it,” Gotion opponent Ryan McHeffey told The Epoch Times.
The story begins in early September, when Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, came to Manteno and revealed that Gotion would site a $2 billion EV battery plant in the community.
The proposed location was a 100-plus acre property at 333 S. Spruce St. that includes a former Kmart distribution center. The parcel lies on the west side of Interstate 57, the north–south artery that cleaves Manteno in two as it whooshes down to the Missouri Bootheel.
The deal came with $536 million in incentives from the state of Illinois. Kankakee County has also offered the company a 30-year property tax abatement. The project could also be eligible for federal green energy tax credits.
The project will deliver “2,600 new good-paying jobs in Manteno,” Mr. Pritzker said in a statement.
Mayor Timothy Nugent, who has ruled the village with little opposition since the mid-2000s, described the Gotion announcement as a “huge win.”
Although there were rumblings about Gotion in the weeks beforehand, Mr. Pritzker’s September announcement caught many by surprise—and it galvanized opposition.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker speaks during a ceremonial groundbreaking at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Sept. 28, 2021. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) “All of a sudden, everybody heard about it,” Manteno resident Julie Holda told The Epoch Times.
Ms. Holda is one of numerous locals campaigning against Gotion.
Manteno activists who spoke with The Epoch Times cited a range of worries, including over highly toxic materials employed in lithium battery production, the use of taxpayer subsidies for a foreign company, possible threats to flora and fauna, destabilizing development of the sleepy village, and the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In a September letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requesting an in-depth look at Gotion by the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and other Republican officials describe those alleged ties.
“Li Zhen, the company’s founder and chairman, is a member of the Anhui Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce, which is part of the CCP’s United Front system and takes direction from the CCP. His son, Li Chen, who is also Guoxuan’s CEO, is a member of the Baohe District Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee, which is an advisory body of the CCP,” the lawmakers wrote.
Annette LaMore, a retired postal carrier and anti-Gotion activist, told The Epoch Times, “We are inviting our enemies into our town.”
Mike Barry, an area football coach, questioned the impact of the property tax cap on homeowners as well as the project’s long-term effect on property values.
“How am I going to sell my house … with a lithium battery factory?” he asked.
Michael Barry (L) and other opponents of the proposed Gotion factory in Manteno, Ill., on Dec. 13, 2023. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times) A Town Divided
November polling by a center-right group, Cor Strategies, revealed that a majority of Kankakee County residents oppose the development, with just 27 percent in support. The results suggest that Gotion critics have most of the area’s public on their side.
But Manteno residents who spoke with The Epoch Times acknowledged that the issue has raised tensions in the town.
At one point, while leading The Epoch Times’ reporter through a business in town, activists explained why they were so circumspect.
“This is literally the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s right now. We just walked into the McCoy’s territory,” one of them said.
Manteno resident Marina Fisher said: “It hurts so bad. This has really divided this town.”
She spoke to The Epoch Times with her 13-year-old son, Emilio, and her 1-year-old boy, Evers. Evers is her “rainbow baby”—a child born after a miscarriage.
Like others who spoke with The Epoch Times, Ms. Fisher came to Manteno to get away from all the problems in Chicagoland.
Now, she’s worried that toxic materials at the plant could make her new home unsafe. At issue are lithium, the base material for the batteries, and other chemicals used in battery manufacturing.
In a 2023 review on the health risks of lithium-ion batteries, Polish researchers noted that lithium has long been prescribed to patients with bipolar disorder, meaning that scientists have some insight into lithium toxicity in people. The health of the kidneys, thyroid gland, and parathyroid gland can all be jeopardized. Lithium has also been linked to birth defects.
Locals are particularly concerned about another chemical, N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), that may or may not be at play in Manteno.
Robert Dube, an attorney involved in the Manteno lawsuit, told The Epoch Times that Gotion “could not confirm” whether it would use it in its proposed facility.
Marina Fisher, with her sons, Evers, 1, and Emilio, 13, says she will move away if Gotion’s lithium battery plant comes to town, in Manteno, Ill., on Dec. 16, 2023. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded in 2020 that the use of NMP in lithium-ion battery manufacturing presents “unreasonable risks.” It has linked NMP exposure to kidney toxicity, liver toxicity, neurotoxicity, and more.
Pollution, including water pollution, is nothing new to the region. Northern Illinois is dotted with superfund sites designated by the EPA. In places such as Ms. Fisher’s old neighborhoods in Chicago, Back of the Yards and McKinley Park, a map developed by University of Illinois researchers reveals dangerous levels of lead, a neurotoxin, in the soil.
In June, ABC reported that residents in nearby University Park still stick to bottled water four years after lead was found in the drinking water. The water was supplied by a private utility, Aqua Illinois, at about the time it began sourcing from the Kankakee River rather than wells. Aqua Illinois is the same utility that supplies water to Manteno (reporting from the period doesn’t indicate that lead pollution affected Manteno).
Village of Manteno officials have said that “residential water supply will not be affected by the water needs from the Gotion plant,” citing assurances from Aqua Illinois. It stated that the plant’s wastewater will be low risk after some level of pre-treatment of the sort common for “other manufacturing plants in the area.”
But Ms. Fisher isn’t satisfied. She worries that air and water pollution could sicken her and her young children.
“Not everybody can afford cases of water,” she said.
Like some others in Manteno, she feels that she “would be forced to move” if Gotion comes to town.
Lithium batteries are displayed in the workshop of a lithium battery manufacturing company in Anhui Province, China, on Nov. 14, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) Mrs. LaMore is also concerned about the health hazards to Manteno residents. She pointed out that the proposed facility isn’t far from residential subdivisions on both sides of Interstate 57.
“If there’s a leak, and it gets into our water, we’re doomed,” she told The Epoch Times.
Locals also worry about what the prevailing westerlies could carry into town from the Gotion facility. The proposed plant is on the west side of town and almost directly west of an elementary school.
Another Gotion critic, Bob Forsythe, questioned the safety of operating a lithium battery plant so close to rock quarry blasting activity.
Shannyn Dockery, known as the “butterfly lady,” fears that wastewater from the plant could imperil endangered or otherwise significant plants and animals in the region. Those unique flora and fauna include the Kankakee mallow, a flowering plant with a native range restricted to a single island in the Kankakee River, Langham Island.
“We are also talking about monarch butterflies,” she said, noting that monarchs regularly migrate through the area.
“My house is a monarch waystation. I have plants specifically for the monarchs.”
Ms. Dockery worries that Mr. Pritzker’s power over the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board could affect how the state assesses those potential threats as it moves closer to approving Gotion’s plan. Board members are appointed by the governor.
Fran Ludwig and Bob Forsythe, two of the many local residents who have organized against a proposed Gotion electric vehicle battery plant, in Manteno, Ill., on Dec. 13, 2023. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times) Wider Opposition
Manteno isn’t the first place Gotion and its political sponsors have met with citizen resistance.
The company already faced backlash from residents in Green Charter Township, Michigan, where township board members were recalled in November over a Gotion battery plant proposal.
Jeff Peticolas, a Michigander who opposes the plant there, told The Epoch Times that he’s upset that the Gotion plans have been “dropped on unsuspecting little townships and villages, towns that didn’t see it coming.”
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 21:00 - New Headwind For 'Gender-Affirming Care' For Children: Soaring Malpractice Insurance Costs
New Headwind For ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ For Children: Soaring Malpractice Insurance Costs
Where the controversy over so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors is concerned, government regulation commands most of the attention. However, as any well-read libertarian will tell you, market forces can also impose their own powerful form of regulation. Happily, we’re beginning to see market forces create a major impediment to the practice of irreparably altering the bodies of confused adolescents.
Those forces have emerged in the form of soaring malpractice insurance premiums for clinics that use hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries to address gender-confused children. Many insurers are refusing to offer coverage at any price.
That’s what The Project of the Quad Cities found. The Illinois practice was ramping up its capabilities at its clinic on the Iowa border, with a goal of catering to Iowa minors who could no longer receive gender-altering services in their own state after they were banned in March.
The Project of the Quad Cities location in Moline, Illinois near the Iowa border (Project of the Quad Cities photo) Then they tried getting insurance. “I didn’t anticipate that it was going to be a big deal,” the clinic’s Andy Rowe told Time. However, a long list of medical malpractice insurers threw cold water on their ambitions.
“The first one specifically excluded gender-affirming care for minors. The next response was the same. And the one after that. By early November, more than a dozen malpractice insurers had declined to offer the clinic a policy.” – Time
When the clinic finally found an insurer willing to provide coverage, Rowe was hit with sticker shock. He’d anticipated a premium of $10,000 at most. The actual price: $50,000. Appealing to donors, the clinic has almost raised enough funds to absorb that cost. In the meantime, its vision of a border clinic bustling with Iowa children hasn’t been realized.
Insurers’ mounting unease comes as a growing number of suits are being filed by individuals against doctors they accuse of rushing them — as children — into permanently altering their bodies rather than addressing adolescent angst over puberty.
Isabelle Ayala and attorney Jordan Campbell are suing doctors and the American Academy of Pediatrics (Independent Women’s Forum via New York Post) This month, now-20-year-old Isabelle Ayala sued her Rhode Island doctors and others described in her suit as “a collection of actors who prioritized politics and ideology over children’s safety, health, and well-being.” One of them is alleged to have determined in a single, one-hour visit that she should be given cross-sex hormones, overlooking factors that included autism, ADHD and PTSD from being sexually assaulted as a child. Ayala told the New York Post:
“I just really don’t want this to happen to other vulnerable young girls. I don’t want puberty to be the enemy. I don’t want our natural biology to be the enemy.”
To some extent, the insurance-premium mechanism of market-driven regulation reflects changes in government regulation: Several states have extended the statute of limitations for filing malpractice lawsuits springing from gender-altering therapies and surgeries. In Arkansas, for example, the threat of a suit will now hang over the insurer of a gender-transition practice for 15 years after minor patients turns 18. That’s a sharp contrast to the typical requirement that a suit be filed within one to three years of injury.
“If state laws increase the risk of civil liability for health professionals, premiums will be adjusted accordingly and appropriately to reflect the level of financial risk incurred by the insured,” the Medical Professional Liability Association’s Mike Stinson told Time.
Insurers, acting out of their own self-interest, are disincentivizing a risky activity that some governments allow and many even encourage: Chalk up another benefit to society delivered by what Adam Smith called “the invisible hand.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 20:30 - India Deploys Three Warships To Waters Near Iran After Tanker Attack
India Deploys Three Warships To Waters Near Iran After Tanker Attack
The Indian Navy has deployed three guided missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea in response to an alleged drone attack on an Israeli-linked chemical tanker last week. New Delhi also uses long-range maritime patrol aircraft for “domain awareness,” the defense ministry reported Monday night.
On Saturday, the Liberian-flagged MV Chem Pluto, a Japanese-owned tanker traveling 370km off the coast of India, was reportedly hit by a kamikaze drone, according to the Pentagon.
Illustrative: iStock photo The Israeli-linked tanker had been on its way from Saudi Arabia to India, according to maritime security firm Ambrey. The Indian Navy says they are examining the specifics of the attack on the MV Chem Puto, which managed to anchor in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Although Indian officials say a preliminary evaluation suggests a drone strike, they emphasize that additional forensic and technical examinations are necessary to determine the exact method of attack.
Washington blamed the attack on Iran, saying the drone had been launched “directly” from the Islamic Republic. “We declare these claims completely worthless,” said Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, on Monday.
“Such claims are aimed at projecting, distracting public attention, and covering up for the full support of the US government for the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” he added.
Saturday’s drone attack came less than a week after the US announced the formation of the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, described by US officials as a new “coalition of the willing” that seeks to counter the threat posed by Yemen in the Red Sea.
Although the Yemeni armed forces have been conducting the attacks against Israeli-linked vessels of their own accord, the Pentagon insists Iran is somehow involved.
Iran’s navy showed off new cruise missiles after the Pentagon said that a drone launched from Iran struck a chemical tanker in the Indian ocean https://t.co/sTftGpsgH7 pic.twitter.com/ocHv7ssbxJ
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 24, 2023
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“The [Yemeni] resistance has its own tools […] and acts by its own decisions and capabilities,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri told Mehr News Agency on Saturday.
“The fact that certain powers, such as the US and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement […] should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region,” he added.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 20:00 - Robert Shiller Warns Of 'Cataclysm' For US Dollar Reserve Status If Confiscated Russian Assets Given To Ukraine
Robert Shiller Warns Of ‘Cataclysm’ For US Dollar Reserve Status If Confiscated Russian Assets Given To Ukraine
If the United States shifts frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, it would be cataclysmic for the US Dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, says Nobel Prize winning Yale professor, Robert Shiller.
“If America does this to Russia today… then tomorrow it can do this to anyone,” he told Italian news outlet La Repubblica in an interview published Sunday.
“This will destroy the halo of security that surrounds the dollar and will be the first step towards de-dollarization, which many are increasingly confidently leaning toward, from China to developing countries, not to mention Russia itself,” Schiller continued.
The US, EU, and allies have frozen some $300 billion of Russian foreign exchange reserve assets since last year after slapping the Kremlin with sanctions over the Ukraine war. Over the past year, various ideas have been tossed around regarding using the funds to aid Ukraine.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times described doing so as “a radical step that would open a new chapter in the west’s financial warfare against Moscow.”
“I can’t convince myself that this [confiscation of Russian assets] is the right way,” said Schiller, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013, and is known for his expertise in behavioral economics and macroeconomics. He was named one of Bloomberg’s ’50 most influential people’ in global finance.
“In addition to the fact that this will be confirmation for the Russian leader that what is happening in Ukraine is a proxy war, it could paradoxically turn against America and the entire West,” he continued, adding that giving confiscated Russian assets to Ukraine would become “a cataclysm for the current dollar-dominated economic system.”
Russia has called the confiscation unlawful, and warned that any country considering participating in sanctions should expect a mirror response from Moscow.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 19:30 - The Guardrails That Once Prevented Wars Are Failing
The Guardrails That Once Prevented Wars Are Failing
Authored by Abishur Prakash via Politico.eu,
The Israel-Hamas war is an ominous message to the world: The guardrails that long stopped wars from breaking out are now effectively failing.
Of course, Ukraine was the first sign of this. After Russia invaded the country, it quickly became the worst conflict in Europe since World War II. Except, at the onset, the world didn’t know what to make of it. Was this a “one-off” event or the start of something else?
The latest flareup in the Middle East answers this question.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas signals that a new era has begun — one where wars are no longer black-swan events that occur every decade or so. Rather, they are becoming a regular occurrence, representing the most significant transformation to global affairs since 9/11. This is a pivotal moment in history, as it signals that whatever stood in the way of conflicts erupting is now falling by the wayside. Nations are no longer scared to throw punches, and war has become acceptable again.
While the spotlight is on Israel-Hamas, there’s also the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh; soldiers at heightened readiness on the border between Serbia and Kosovo; military coups spreading throughout Africa from Gabon to Niger; and frequent clashes between India and China. Then, alongside all this, there’s the potential for the current Hamas war to spread across the region.
This new era is shaking the foundation the world has stood on since World War II. And it represents global “structural change,” which will affect everything from connectivity to technology and sustainability.
Firstly, as wars break out, they are starting to fragment the neighborhoods around them, accelerating vertical globalization — creating an environment filled with walls and barriers. Whatever integration existed, and was being nurtured, is now being reversed.
In the Middle East, for example, Saudi Arabia has now “frozen” normalizing relations with Israel — a step that was being brokered by the United States. And if the Arab world once again starts to view Israel as the “black sheep,” it will fracture the new economic connections that have been forming — like those between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — and are reliant on a unified, stable Middle East.
Additionally, as this new era of war unfolds, the world will start to view the West differently — especially the U.S. As more conflicts erupt, many nations may begin questioning whether the Western camp is losing its power to call the shots and steer the world. And if the threat of Western sanctions is no longer paralyzing to nations, it will likely cause countries to start managing wars in their own unique ways.
We are already seeing examples of this. For instance, when the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October, the Saudi crown prince dialed his Iranian counterpart to discuss the conflict. This is unprecedented — and it represents this new era’s “geopolitical nuances.”
Furthermore, when it comes to bringing “peace” to conflicts, newly emerging diplomatic forums will also start to compete with established ones. Of course, the United Nations remains pivotal, but it is no longer the only diplomatic option — there is the recently expanded BRICS bloc and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) too. And in some cases, governments are shunning diplomacy entirely. So, which one of these competing geopolitical blocs will nations at war turn to?
Israeli tank drives near Gaza, as viewed from the Israeli side of the border on December 21, 2023 | Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Finally, there is a new group of “problem solvers” emerging as well — nations attempting to stop war and offer “postwar solutions.” In the case of the Ukraine war, the new broker is Qatar, hoping that Arab neutrality can bring Moscow and Kyiv to the negotiating table. And, of course, countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Singapore stand ready to do the same. These nations will continue to bring their own formula and ideas to this new era of war, shaping what regions and economies look like post-conflict.
For anybody who truly wants to see, the writing is on the wall. The next decade or so could be filled with more fighting and upheaval than the world has seen in almost a century. And the barriers that stopped wars from breaking out in the past — from Western sanctions to citizen uprisings — have all eroded severely.
And as these existing guardrails break down, new ones aren’t being built to replace them, which means we may be entering a period akin to the Wild West. Moreover, as nukes begin to spread on the back of wars and flashpoints — like Russian nuclear warheads in Belarus, or South Korea wanting to host American nuclear weapons — a new game of “nuclear chess” has begun.
Thus, the most pressing challenge facing the world now is to change the global architecture in such a way that when wars do break out, new solutions exist to contain them and maintain a certain status quo. One such idea would be an agreement between the G20, stating that nations who start the next wars will lose their ability to trade with the group’s members.
Otherwise, as nations and businesses are busy running from fire to fire, from war to war, the forces that have the potential to truly transform the world (and humanity) — from climate change and AI to demographic crisis — will start to unleash chaos without limits.
* * *
Abishur Prakash is the founder of The Geopolitical Business, Inc. He is a global keynote speaker and the author of five books. His latest book is called “The World Is Vertical.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 19:00 - Navalny 'Reappears' At Harsh Arctic Prison In Remote Siberia
Navalny ‘Reappears’ At Harsh Arctic Prison In Remote Siberia
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny starting two weeks ago was reported “missing” by his team of lawyers and supporters, as he had disappeared into the Russian prison system after a transfer.
He had up until early December been held at a prison some 150 miles east of Moscow. But he’s now reestablished contact with his lawyer and is at a very remote Siberian penal colony. “We have found Alexey,” his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X.
Kharp, in Siberia. Image via Russian Federal Penitentiary Service via AP. He’s now serving his 19-plus year sentence in a remote place called Kharp, in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, which lies almost 2,000 miles from Moscow and is difficult to even reach:
Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, said the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp where Navalny is now being held, known as “Polar Wolf,” is “one of the northernmost and most remote colonies.”
“The conditions there are harsh, with a special regime in the permafrost zone. It is very difficult to get there, and there are no letter delivery systems,” Zhdanov wrote on X.
Navalny said in a multi-part message posted to XI: “I’m fine… I’m totally relieved that I’ve finally made it.” He described, “Well, I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (a traditional Russian winter footwear).” He noted too: “I have grown a beard for the 20 days of my transportation.”
For various countries’ prison systems, including Russia’s, it’s normal that when an inmate is transferred there’s some degree of a lapse in time before family members or lawyers are then later informed where they were moved to.
Weeks ago, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged it off as but a normal part of the Russian administrative system surrounding prisoners and penal colonies. When peppered by questions from reporters, Peskov had responded, “No. I repeat again: we do not have the capacity, or right, or desire, to track the fates of those prisoners who are serving sentences by order of a court.”
We found Navalny. He is alive. He was transported to a penal colony in the town of Kharp. It is one of the most remote prisons in Russia located in the far north, beyond the Arctic Circle. Daylight there currently lasts less than two hours. pic.twitter.com/yyrj7S9tgY
— Maria Pevchikh (@pevchikh) December 25, 2023
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Navalny’s legal team and supporters have long waged a somewhat successful PR campaign to keep his name in the news. For example, Navalny ally Maria Pevchikh had pressured the United Nations Human Rights Committee to help find his exact whereabouts. “What is happening with Alexey is, in fact, an enforced disappearance and a flagrant violation of his fundamental rights. Answers must be given,” she said earlier in December.
His supporters have claimed Navalny has the potential to disrupt Putin’s 2024 reelection plans, however, it remains that the opposition activist barely has name recognition inside Russia. In August, he was handed an additional 19 years in prison for charges of “extremism” on top of the 11 and a half he was already serving.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 18:30 - Marjorie Taylor Greene Complains About FBI’s Inaction After Being Swatted For The 8th Time On Christmas Day
Marjorie Taylor Greene Complains About FBI’s Inaction After Being Swatted For The 8th Time On Christmas Day
Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,
Authorities are investigating a Christmas Day swatting attempt at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s residence in Rome, Georgia, but the Republican congresswoman says enough isn’t being done to catch the offenders. A swatting call is a dangerous prank in which the perpetrator reports a severe crime to police to lure swat teams to the victim’s home in a forceful law enforcement response.
“I was just swatted. This is like the 8th time. On Christmas with my family here. My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn’t have to deal with this,” Greene wrote in a post on X.
As Greene has been the victim of repeated swatting incidents, the Rome Police Department was able to quickly ascertain that the call was a hoax and didn’t send officers to her home, a department spokesperson told CBS News.
According to Rome PD spokesperson Kelly Madden, the call came from a man in Rome, New York, who called the suicide hotline just before 11 a.m. Monday. The man claimed he’d shot his girlfriend at the address of Greene’s home and was going to kill himself next, Madden said.
Police contacted Greene’s private security detail to confirm she was safe and that there was no emergency at her residence, the Department said. When the call was determined to be a swatting attempt, the police response was canceled en route, Madden told reporters.
“We determined before our personnel could get to her location that there was no emergency and there was no reason to respond,” she said. “Her security detail had it all under control, and there actually was nothing going on.”
A Republican U.S. congressman in New York was also reportedly targeted with a swatting call on Christmas Day.
The Cayuga County Sheriff’s office said it received a false report of a shooting at Rep. Brandon Williams’s house in central New York and sent officers to confirm that there was no present danger.
“Our home was swatted this afternoon,” Williams wrote. “Thanks to the Deputies and Troopers who contacted me before arriving. They left with homemade cookies and spiced nuts! Merry Christmas everyone!”
My home was “swatted” on Christmas. Someone hoped police might accidentally kill me and my family.
Today local “news” doxxed us by publishing a photo of my home, why? To make it easier to target my family?
You put my family’s lives at risk. Shame on you https://t.co/3nKMK8Yty7 https://t.co/GBTy1SOoPE
— Rep. Brandon Williams (@RepWilliams) December 26, 2023
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MTG blasted the FBI for allowing the swatting attempts against herself to continue without any arrests.
“And after today, I have been swatted 8 times but the FBI can’t seem to figure out who is responsible for the swatting and says the law doesn’t allow them to track them down,” she wrote on X.
“The FBI can do so many things, has even abused FISA to spy on hundreds of thousands of Americans, but can not figure out who wants me killed by a hail of bullets fired by a SWAT team responding to murder suicide calls supposedly coming from me,” she complained.
Thankfully my local police are far too smart, know me well, and know exactly what these swatting calls are. I know there are good FBI agents that are completely sick and tired of the Biden administration they work under.
Swatting is extremely dangerous and people have been killed as a result from swatting calls. It’s also a waste of police time and resources and harassment. I will be introducing legislation to track down swatters. Thank you to everyone who has sent well wishes for me and my family. I will never stop fighting for what is right and I will always put America first! No matter what or who attacks me.
Merry Christmas!! Christ is KING!!!
Madden confirmed that Greene has been the target of roughly eight swatting attempts.
The latest swatting attempt came just a few days after Greene’s life was threatened in a text message sent to her boyfriend Brian Glenn, the program director for Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN).
“Thursday Dec. 21, we received this death threat where this man is saying I will be shot in the head and skinned to make a “parasol” making a reference to Gein, who was a psychopath killer who would make things out of his victim’s skin,” MTG explained on X. “He also says he would like to smash Pres. Trump’s and Brian’s heads on a curb,” she added.
Ed Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was a serial killer and body snatcher who committed horrific crimes in the 1950s around Plainfield, Wisconsin.
“Have a nice time looking over your shoulder shitbag,” the message from Ben McLean read. “Tell Marjorie that a high velocity projectile will soon find its way into her cranium.”
When told his menacing communications would be reported to the FBI, McLean seemed to suggest he’d had a prior relationship with the Bureau, and understood it to have an anti-conservative bias.
“If you do … Agent Priest. I like him, McLean wrote. “Because surely the FBI wouldn’t be on your side.” The disturbed individual then expressed a desire to “curb check” former President Trump’s “baby soft skull.”
He added, “they’re recruiting me!” next to a middle finger emoji.
I was swatted this morning on Christmas Day and a few days ago – Thursday Dec 21st. we received this death threat where this man is saying I will be shot in the head and skinned to make a “parasol” making a reference to Gein, who was a psychopath killer who would make things out… pic.twitter.com/iW8JvOSJLa
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 25, 2023
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MTG complained in a subsequent post on X that McLean has not yet been arrested. The Capitol Police contacted him and merely asked some questions over the phone, Greene said, going on to say it was “shocking” that the kook was not in police custody yet.
“They simply called him on the phone and [Capitol] Police sent us this email about what he said,” she wrote.
“The outright absurdity of this email response and the fact that they have not arrested this guy is shocking, thankfully I’m a gun owner,” Greene wrote.
But compare it to how the FBI and DOJ treats J6’ers, Pres Trump, and their political enemies. Why doesn’t the FBI just call J6’ers on the phone, like the man who says he wants to shoot me in the head and use my skin to make a parasol, and just ask them about what they said on January 6, 2021 instead of hunting them down and locking them up doing the bidding of the DOJ who continues to issue arrest warrants almost everyday for people who said the 2020 election was stolen.
Incredible double standard.
MTG also expressed concern that McLean claimed to have a contact at the FBI.
“Also, if you read McLean’s messages he says he knows the FBI, names an agent, says he likes them, and says the FBI is recruiting him,” she wrote. “Is the FBI recruiting a man who is threatening to kill a member of congress and crush the skull of President Trump?”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 18:05 - Spot Bitcoin ETF Inflows Could Dwarf All 150 Crypto ETPs Today
Spot Bitcoin ETF Inflows Could Dwarf All 150 Crypto ETPs Today
Authored by Tom Mitchelhill via CoinTelegraph.com,
Newly compiled data from BitMEX Research estimates there are 150 crypto ETPs available today, with $50.3 billion in assets under management…
United States-approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) could end up dwarfing the entire $50 billion crypto-related ETF market today.
According to new data from BitMEX research, the current global market for crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) includes approximately 150 products totaling $50.3 billion in assets under management.
Complete List of Cryptocurrency Related ETPs
In anticipation of the SEC approving the spot Bitcoin ETFs, we present what we believe to be a comprehensive list of all the existing crypto related exchange traded products
We have found 150 products with $50.3bn of assets, as at 22… pic.twitter.com/cFUxtuvXgd
— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) December 25, 2023
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The list includes spot and futures funds, and typically track the performance of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The largest ETP on the list is Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust — which is currently attempting to be converted into a spot ETF product.
Market commentators believe the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF — widely pegged to be approved by the SEC as early as Jan. 10 — could eventually double the amount of money invested in crypto ETPs.
On Dec. 14, crypto investment fund Bitwise predicted that spot Bitcoin ETFs would be the most successful ETF product ever launched, expecting them to capture some $72 billion in assets under management within the next five years — more than doubling the current market.
Offering a more sober outlook, global fund manager Van Eck estimated that roughly $2.4 billion would flow into a spot Bitcoin products in the first quarter of 2024.
While a spot Bitcoin ETF has never been approved in the U.S., such a product is far from a brand-new development in a global context. Several countries including Canada, Australia, and Germany, already allow investors to buy shares in spot Bitcoin ETFs.
The optimism around spot Bitcoin ETF reflects a wider trend of institutional investment in crypto investment products over the past few months.
A Dec. 21 report from ETF research firm ETFGI revealed that crypto ETFs listed across the globe had attracted year-to-date net inflows of $1.6 billion, with $1.31 billion of that sum being added in November alone. This total investment is nearly double the $750 million net inflows into crypto ETPs in 2022.
$1.3 billion was added to crypto ETFs in November alone. Source: ETFGI
Of the 150 crypto funds, the top 20 ETFs attracted the largest volume of investment, with a total of $1.3 billion flowing into them over the course of 2023.
The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) — launched during a crypto bull market in October 2021 — witnessed the largest individual inflows, capturing an additional $278.7 million in 2023.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 17:15 - Netanyahu Urges Troops 'Do Not Stop' While Calling Biden's Post-Hamas Plan "A Pipe Dream"
Netanyahu Urges Troops ‘Do Not Stop’ While Calling Biden’s Post-Hamas Plan “A Pipe Dream”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Tuesday visit to troops fighting in Northern Gaza delivered a message of “do not stop” in their mission to eradicate Hamas. The past weekend was particularly bloody for the Israel Defense Forces, as at least 17 Israeli troops were killed. Some 250 Gazans have been killed in the last 24 hours, according to regional reports.
Netanyahu vowed to see the operation through “to the end” – at a moment there are still some 130 Israeli and foreign hostages that remain held in the Gaza Strip. Domestic pressure and pushback against his administration has only intensified, led by kidnap victims’ families, who are angry that more hasn’t been done to secure their release in a possible second-round ceasefire.
Egypt on Monday proposed the most comprehensive peace plan of the Gaza war yet; however, Netanyahu followed this by publishing an op-ed written in English in The Wall Street Journal wherein he rejected the prospect of achieving a permanent peace so long as Hamas remains intact.
Via AP. In the op-ed, he laid out his three-fold plan for pacifying Gaza and bringing permanent peace, as Israel sees it. He said that for Israel to succeed: 1) Hamas must be destroyed, 2) Gaza must be demilitarized, and 3) Gaza must be ‘deradicalized’ and free of hardline Islam.
All of this strongly suggests that not only has Israel rejected the Egypt-proposed peace plan, but is also still resisting the Biden administration’s calls to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to eventually govern Gaza after Hamas is defeated. The issue has remained an open point of contention, during which time Biden has issued some rare criticisms of Israel, including earlier this month highlighting the “indiscriminate” bombardment of civilian areas of Gaza.
In the WSJ op-ed, the Israeli leader is emphatic that the PA under Abbas will never be able to achieve demilitarization. Netanyahu wrote:
The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. Not surprisingly it has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza. It failed to do so before Hamas booted it out of the territory in 2007, and it has failed to do so in the territories under its control today. For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza.
Elsewhere in the op-ed Netanyahu appealed to Washington security concerns by underscoring that Hamas is a “key Iranian proxy.” This as Israel has just taken out an IRGC general in an airstrike on a Damascus suburb. Radhi Mousavi was reportedly assassinated in a Monday strike, and he was believed to be Iran’s top commander in Syria.
The prime minister explained that if Hamas survives, this will only empower Iran further, and “more war and more bloodshed” will be guaranteed…
First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end. Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again.” That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.
Biden’s refusal to pressure Israel to end its rampage in Gaza has encouraged Israel to instigate a regional war with Iran, and ceded US influence over events to Netanyahu, Gallant and Ben Gvir https://t.co/1UeEHisOec
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 26, 2023
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He also took the opportunity to address growing international pressure related to the soaring death toll in the Strip. Palestinian sources say that deaths have surpassed 20,000 – a horrific and tragic figure mostly comprised of civilians.
“Unjustly blaming Israel for these casualties will only encourage Hamas and other terror organizations around the world to use human shields,” the prime minister wrote. “To render this cruel and cynical strategy ineffective, the international community must place the blame for these casualties squarely on Hamas. It must recognize that Israel is fighting the bigger battle of the civilized world against barbarism.”
He vowed ultimately to press forward undeterred until Hamas is no more. “Once Hamas is destroyed, Gaza is demilitarized and Palestinian society begins a deradicalization process, Gaza can be rebuilt and the prospects of a broader peace in the Middle East will become a reality,” Netanyahu wrote. However, this could take months or more likely even years, given Hamas numbers in the tens of thousands, and can hide in the extensive tunnel network under Gaza while waging a guerrilla campaign above.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 16:50 - 2024 – The Year Of Our Reckoning
2024 – The Year Of Our Reckoning
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
We should remember the now modern proverb of Nixon-era economic advisor Herb Stein to the effect that what cannot go on (without destroying the nation), simply will not go on.
In some sense, the country for recent years has been cruising on the fumes from prior and likely better wiser generations and institutions. In 2024, the tab for our current apathy, toxic politics, and incompetence will come due.
So next year we will likely see the climax to a number of current dangerous ideas, events, and forces, which finally will either overwhelm us or be addressed and remedied. We live in a Neronian age but can recover if we first understand how we got here and the nature of the suicide we are committing.
In 2023, it became clear, to even the most loyal supporters of the Biden administration, that the U.S. has simply lost or indeed forfeited American deterrence abroad. Our enemies do not fear us; our friends do not trust us; and neutrals do not care either way.
After the 2021 Kabul debacle, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 2023 brazen Chinese spy balloon’s uncontested trajectory over the United States, the recent Hamas invasion of Israel, the serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on U.S. installations in the Middle East, and the terrorist Houthis’ veritable absorption of the Red Sea, many of America’s opportunistic enemies drew conclusions and adopted strategies that would have been previously unthinkable.
Either adversaries will be so emboldened to start regional wars—an impotent Iran now brags it will block the entire Mediterranean—or a United States will be shocked into action and have to deter Iran, the Houthis, and Islamic terrorism, while dealing with an opportunistic China eager to annex Taiwan, and Russia determined to finish off Ukraine.
Those challenges will force the military to staunch its recruitment hemorrhaging, rectify low morale, and rearm. Such rebooting in turn will require discarding the woke agenda, stopping the DEI proselytizing and virtue signaling, and returning to a meritocracy focused on military preparedness and battlefield efficacy.
Since January 2021, the Biden administration has flagrantly and unapologetically dismantled federal immigration law. It destroyed the border as we once knew it. It has already greenlighted more than 8 million illegal entrants—with another quarter-million entering each month.
No one in government has offered any projected costs to states and federal agencies of offering health, food, housing, legal, and education subsidies to millions—who broke the law by entering the U.S. and continue to do violate it while residing unlawfully here. Is that the sign of a promising American citizen—that the first thing he does upon entering America is to break his host’s law?
Incredibly, no one has even explained to Americans why millions of illegal aliens are exempt from the vaccine mandates, background checks, and adherence to the law that is demanded of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. We will soon demand “real” IDs of American citizen airline travelers, while we fly illegal aliens all over the states without any identification?
In fact, those who blew up the border can’t honestly even explain to the American people why they did so. Was it to ensure future (or even present) political constituents? Cheap labor? To ensure higher taxes to pay for more government services and to “spread the wealth?” Obeyance to the diversity/equity/inclusion lobbies? To make up for fleeing blue-state population?
The United States has now exceeded, both in real numbers and in percentages, all past numbers of non-native born American residents—at a time when civic education, the idea of the melting pot, and adherence to assimilation have never been more under assault.
In 2024, either the border will close, or the United States will suffer radical political realignments, sheer chaos in our major cities, protests from Americans furious over the complete flaunting of federal law by their own elected officials, and a likely impeachment of Joe Biden for deliberately forsaking his oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.”
The October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel and premodern massacring of nearly 1,200 Jews—and the virulent anti-Semitism that swept our elite campuses and big cities even before the October 27 Israeli Defense Forces’ retaliatory invasion of Gaza—was a wakeup call about the racialized hatred and anti-Semitism now endemic on the Left.
Campus protestors dropped the prior protestations that they were not anti-Semitic in their hatred of Israel. Instead, they now call out Jews by name. They disrupt their homes and businesses, regardless of their views on Zionism. Pro-Hamas protestors feel free to harass Jews, and with impunity and arrogance chant genocidal chants promising the destruction of Israel and its Jewish population.
The main campus culprits for these sudden unabashed hatreds are tripartite.
First, wealthy, mostly white leftist students – increasingly as ignorant of history as they are arrogant in their zealotry – feel it pays psychological and careerist dividends on campus to mouth orthodoxies of hating Israel and de facto siding with the Hamas killers.
Most have no idea of the Hamas charter, where flows the Jordan River, or what the British Mandate for Palestine or the Balfour Declaration were. Few of the loudest could never even find Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza on a map. No matter: being heard and seen on campus hating Israel is considered a necessary fad like 1970s bellbottoms or pet rocks.
Second, huge numbers of full-tuition-paying Middle-Eastern visiting students and green-card holders, along with Gulf-fueled and endowed faculty, assume that they are exempt from any legal consequences.
So they often deface the federal monuments of their hosts, shut down traffic, swarm Jews on campus and in the street, break the law, and battle with police—with absolute impunity.
Third, just as startling are the undisguised hatreds emanating from radical diversity/equity/inclusion students and faculty. As the declared oppressed, they too feel exempt from any charge that they are mouthing racist and anti-Semitic venom, as they conflate Israel with the now maligned stereotyped “white” people.
The apogee of such extremism was evident in the congressional testimony of three ethically challenged Ivy-League presidents. They reminded the nation that no campus president would unequivocally condemn, much less punish, any anti-Semites on a campus, who openly called for the destruction of Israel and its Jewish population. And they lied about “free speech” constraints on their punishment of mainstreaming anti-Semitic and genocidal threats—given they routinely expel, censure, and variously punish all sorts of “hate speech,” but only if it is directed against their own DEI constituencies.
All this is not tenable.
Our top universities are facing a perfect storm. Declining pools of students, crushing student loan debt, spiraling tuition and room and board costs, administrative bloat, defecting donors, and the public’s distrust of such people being entrusted with their children’s higher education, will all soon lead to a general reexamination of the very need of these universities in the first place, at least as they are presently constituted.
Their racialist admissions, hiring, retention, and promotion protocols are destroying meritocracy. Their mediocre curricula, grade inflation, and campus polarization have convinced the public that they are no longer deserving of the many taxpayer indulgences that shield campuses from market realities—such as massive federal research grants and subsidies, tax-free billions of dollars in private donations, tax-free endowment income in the tens of billions of dollars, and taxpayer subsidized $2 trillion in student loans.
So insulated are these atolls of privilege that they cannot recognize growing public anger over the damage they are doing to the country. Iconic Harvard University cannot even fire its DEI president Claudine Gay, despite serial instances in her own past of plagiarism (which prompted Harvard’s sycophantic board to defend her by embracing a new euphemism— “duplicative language” as if to signify the tiny clerical lapse of stealing the ideas and prose of others).
In 2024, radical changes in university administration and values will begin to be made, or higher education will face a reckoning from the public and a newly elected government.
Currently, Colorado has tentatively removed Donald Trump from its 2024 ballot on the specious grounds that he is an “insurrectionist.” Thus, the state insists that he is subject to the 14th Amendment, Section 3 clause of 1868, that calls for the disbarment from future government employment or service those former federal officials and employees who had joined the Confederacy.
Aside from the misapplication of the spirit and letter of that post-Civil War legislation, those responsible for erasing Trump know that he has never been charged with, much less convicted of “insurrection. And he never will be.
They understand that half the country knows the January 6 “riot” was the work of unarmed, overzealous, and buffoonish protestors, who broke the law by entering the Capitol, but otherwise had no master insurrectionary plan. And the majority surrounding the Capitol did in fact obey the president’s call to protest “peacefully” and “patriotically.”
The left privately understands that their latest weaponization of government follows their “Russian collusion hoax,” their “laptop disinformation” farce, their two politicized impeachments, their performance-art Mar-a-Lago documents raid, and thus are all part of a systematic degradation of our campaigns, elections, and political customs, tradition, and discourse.
A jaded public knows too well that such punitive measures never applied to the 2016 Hillary Clinton crimes of destroying subpoenaed emails and devices, or the FBI’s illegal alteration of FISA documents or its contracting out social media to suppress news stories, or its hiring of a foreign national Christopher Steele, who compiled a fake “dossier” to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump.
A majority of Americans further know that had Donald Trump not chosen to run for office in 2024, state and federal prosecutors such as the publicity-seeking and partisan Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Jack Smith, and Fani Willis would never have indicted him.
All privately know that the entire Biden family, including the President, could just as easily be indicted on state and local felonies, but the Biden consortium finds itself exempt both for its leftist ideology and its current control of the Department of Justice.
What then do the campaign and election of 2024 foreordain?
We will be in entirely new and completely dangerous territory. The likely Republican nominee who currently leads incumbent president Joe Biden will be for most of 2024 the constant target of a coordinated state and local Soviet-like effort to destroy his candidacy before the voters can even vote for or against him in the November election.
The United States 2023 annual budget deficit is about $1.7 trillion; the nation is burdened by a $34 trillion national debt—even though the federal government since 2021 has raised all sorts of new income and excise taxes.
The era of printing money, zero interest rates, “modern monetary theory,” and spending wildly is drawing to a close. The mounting interest on the national debt is now crowding out optional but soon essential annual federal spending. At some point soon, one generation of Americans is going to have to exercise spending restraint or accept a continuing decline in its living standards.
In sum, in 2024, we will either see the destruction of presidential electoral politics as we have known them or a complete repudiation of lawfare. The current new normal that the party in power indicts the leading candidate of the opposition is not sustainable or compatible with the idea of America.
Either the military will have to deter dramatically our growing number of opportunistic enemies, or it will descend into something like the French army between the world wars—plagued by ideology, ossified brass, corruption, mediocrity, misplaced investments, and bankrupt strategies.
If there are not radical changes in higher education, our Ivy League and self-identified elite campuses will go the way of Bud-Light, Disney, and Target—once premier brands reduced to red ink and laughing-stock caricatures.
The United States is cracking under 8 million illegal entries; it cannot sustain another year and 2 million more illegal entrants—or a total of 55-60 million foreign-born residents, with no idea of how many are U.S. citizens, illegal aliens, or green card holders–or how many are employable, or free of criminal records or in need of massive federal and state subsidies.
In 2024, the U.S. will begin to see that to meet its spiraling debt, it will either keep inflating its currency, or slash spending, or raise even further taxes to the degree that even the lower middle class will have to pay 50 percent of their income in state and federal taxes, or renounce its debt, and thus go full-Third World.
Will we meet these challenges or ensure the ongoing decline?
If what we saw after October 7, or the wild and out-of-control reign of weaponized local and state prosecutors, or what we watch nightly on television at the border, or the paralyses we witness abroad of our military, or the breezy way in which our officials promise groups here and abroad billions of dollars in easy money, continues into 2024, then the country as we knew it will become unrecognizable.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 16:25 - 'Biggest Losers', Bullion, & Black Gold All Bid On Boxing Day
‘Biggest Losers’, Bullion, & Black Gold All Bid On Boxing Day
The S&P 500 is now up over 15% since October 27th. And the Santa rally markets have been experiencing since just before Thanksgiving continues even after he dropped his presents around the world on Monday and faces the Boxing Day hangover.
As Goldman’s Chris Hussey notes, a combination of…
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strong consumer spending in stores (12/14 – Retail sales accelerate in November on sequential basis),
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a rapid deceleration of inflation (12/22 – Core PCE Inflation falls further), and
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a dovish tilt from the Fed (12/13 FOMC dots and the market shrugging off the post-FOMC jawboning)
…have all contributed to an extremely market-friendly backdrop for stocks – especially when you consider that US growth remains resilient as captured by the strong November labor reports.
Today’s economic data only added to the favorable narrative. The S&P Case-Shiller home price index increased in line with consensus expectations in October. The Chicago Fed National Activity Index jumped back above trend, the Philly Fed Services survey soared back into expansion, and the Dallas Fed manufacturing index for December came in higher than expected.
Source: Bloomberg
Small Caps continued to explode higher today, significantly outperforming the rest of the US majors today (which all managed solid 0.5%-ish gains) amid a low liquidity holiday week. Some late-day selling spoiled the party though…
‘Most Shorted’ stocks surged back up to erase last Wednesday’s 0-DTE-driven pukefest…
Source: Bloomberg
The previous biggest losers continue to dominate the gains as financial conditions have eased dramatically…
Source: Bloomberg
And the dash for trash continues…
Source: Bloomberg
VIX was smashed lower to within a tick of a 12 handle…
Treasuries were unchanged on the day but not after selling pressure overnight which was erased after a strong 2Y auction…
Source: Bloomberg
The 2Y yield was the biggest swinger…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar dipped back to Friday’s lows amid very low liquidity in FX land…
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin was clubbed like a baby seal, once again seeming stalling out around $44k…
Source: Bloomberg
Spot gold prices rallied back above $2060…
Source: Bloomberg
Oil prices surged today with WTI back above $76 for the first time since Dec 1st…
Which appears to have put a local low in the price of wholesale and retail gasoline…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, this is odd…
Source: Bloomberg
Americans are spending more despite being considerably less confident.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 16:00 -
- Blinken's Visit To Mexico Focuses On Optics As Migration Crisis Hits Biden's Polls
Blinken’s Visit To Mexico Focuses On Optics As Migration Crisis Hits Biden’s Polls
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss a new agreement with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to control the surge of migrants flooding the southern border.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will join Blinken in discussions with AMLO about “unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere,” a US Department of State press release read.
NEW: Lukeville, AZ right now. Only 2 Border Patrol agents here to move this mass of hundreds of illegal immigrants from around the world to a processing area. We continue to see enormous numbers of men from Africa who tell us they are going to sanctuary cities around the US. pic.twitter.com/zTSVLJFTGp
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 22, 2023
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The goals of the meeting will include “identifying ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges, including actions to enable the reopening of key ports of entry across our shared border,” the press release continued.
Blinken’s visit is nothing more than optics for an administration that has promoted disastrous open southern borders, allowing millions of illegals to flood the nation ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.
A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, shared with The Hill, shows only 38% of voters approved of Biden’s handling of immigration, down from 46% in November.
“Based on the polling on immigration, this is one of the key issues dragging down the president’s reputation, and he needs to make progress on this issue or face increasing consequences,” said Mark Penn, chairman of the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll.
According to a new Gallup poll, Biden’s approval rating is lower than any of his seven predecessors at the same point in their first term.
The polling data is clear that millions of Americans are fed up with radical progressives in the White House who have flooded the country with illegals, some of whom are military-age men from countries that call death to the West.
New US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows encounters on the southern border were nearly a quarter million last month. This figure is the highest November number and the third-highest monthly total ever.
And now this…
#BREAKING CBP sources confirm migrant encounters have surpassed 250k for the month of December—On pace to break the previous record set in September of 269,735.
The majority, 66k+ have entered through Arizona’s Tucson sector (Lukeville) this month—While 60k+ entered through… pic.twitter.com/0lDpvPy3PN
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) December 26, 2023
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Days ago, the new website Muckraker revealed a treasure trove of “mass migration blueprints,” handed out by a network of NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, who seem to be playing a powerful role in coordinating the large-scale invasion of illegals.
Illegal Alien Invasion Maps Exposed – CRITICAL THREAD EXPOSING NUMEROUS MASS MIGRATION BLUEPRINTS
Muckraker has obtained multiple maps, handed out by non-government organizations across South and Central America, that detail the routes to take to the U.S. and where to cross the… pic.twitter.com/wt0DDslM4w
— Muckraker.com (@realmuckraker) December 23, 2023
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Meanwhile, the Biden administration is handing some of these NGOs millions of dollars to assist illegal aliens once in the US.
“A lot of NGOs are helping Biden open the border to unlimited illegal crossing. But none of this could happen without the president’s approval,” Byron York, the chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, said.
Blinken’s visit to Mexico is merely a distraction by the administration to save Biden’s imploding polling numbers.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 15:45 - This Year, Americans Have Become Hungrier, Lonelier And More Desperate
This Year, Americans Have Become Hungrier, Lonelier And More Desperate
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
The ominous trends that we see all around us are taking us somewhere.
Needless to say, 2023 was not a good year for our country. Hunger and homelessness have been absolutely exploding, the suicide rate just continues to go even higher, and there is chaos in the streets on an almost nightly basis. It is in this environment that the election of 2024 will happen. I expect election season to add an additional level of strain to our society, and I don’t think that our society will be able to handle it. We are headed for a nightmare, and at this point everyone should be able to see that.
When conditions deteriorate, it is often those at the bottom of the economic food chain that feel it first.
And right now food banks all over the nation are dealing with a tsunami of hunger…
Food bank leaders from all corners of the country tell USA TODAY their neighborhood pantries are serving more people while using less resources, as economic pressures continue to ravage the budgets of low-income Americans and service providers alike.
Since pandemic-era boosts to government food aid ended earlier this year in many states, families are turning to food banks to close a gap in need that feels like it has no end in sight.
Susannah Morgan, the president of Oregon Food Bank, says that she is literally witnessing “the worst rate of hunger in my career”…
“This is the worst rate of hunger in my career,” said Morgan, who has worked at food banks in Boston, San Francisco and Anchorage, Alaska. “It’s so large, it’s hard to wrap your head around.”
I don’t know what I have to do to convince some people that things really are this bad.
I keep sharing fact after fact in my articles, but some people out there are just not convinced.
One out of every five children in the U.S. does not have enough food to eat, but the reality of the suffering that is now taking place just isn’t sinking in for many of those that are still living the high life.
Meanwhile, homelessness in the U.S. is increasing at the fastest rate ever recorded…
The United States experienced a dramatic 12 percent increase in homelessness as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said Friday.
About 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness during the January snapshot. That’s the highest number since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007 to count the homeless population.
There are many out there that feel that such people need to “get a job” or “work harder”, but the truth is that most Americans are living on the verge of economic disaster because most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
At the same time, Americans continue to get even lonelier.
According to USA Today, “Americans are lonely and it’s killing them”, and at this point things are so bad that this crisis is being called “a new epidemic”…
America has a new epidemic. It can’t be treated using traditional therapies even though it has debilitating and even deadly consequences.
The problem seeping in at the corners of our communities is loneliness and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is hoping to generate awareness and offer remedies before it claims more lives.
“Most of us probably think of loneliness as just a bad feeling,” he told USA TODAY. “It turns out that loneliness has far greater implications for our health when we struggle with a sense of social disconnection, being lonely or isolated.”
It is especially bad during this time of the year.
There are so many people out there that are deeply, deeply hurting because they are so lonely.
They are trying their best to face a world that has gone completely mad, but that can be really difficult to do when you don’t have anyone to lean on for support.
Speaking of a world gone mad, retail theft has absolutely skyrocketed in many of our largest cities since 2019…
Crime-ridden New York City has seen the biggest impact with a 64 percent increase in retail theft, followed by Los Angeles with a 61 percent jump and Virginia Beach, Virginia, which has seen a 44 percent rise.
Each month, more Americans are descending into poverty and more Americans are turning to crime.
And it certainly doesn’t help that vast hordes of illegal immigrants are constantly being added to the mix.
Chaos in the streets has become an almost constant state of affairs in this country, and this year in Oakland there was even rioting on Christmas Eve.
Of course our leaders continue to exist in a bubble where none of these problems constitutes a serious crisis.
To them, everything must be just fine because they are doing such a wonderful job.
When he was recently confronted about the reality of the economic crisis that we are now facing, Joe Biden bluntly told the press to “start reporting it the right way”…
President Biden criticized news coverage of the U.S. economy as he faces growing backlash from voters over his handling of inflation.
In brief remarks Saturday before boarding the presidential helicopter, Biden expressed confidence in the economy and ripped the reporters for the way it has been portrayed.
“All good. Take a look. Start reporting it the right way,” Biden said when asked about his economic outlook for 2024, according to a transcript released Sunday by the White House.
He wants the press to continue to spin things in a way that will make him look good as they always have done in the past.
But we have reached a stage where all of the charades are finally crumbling.
Conditions are bad now, and they are going to get even worse in 2024.
So brace yourself for what is ahead, because we are going to experience so much chaos during the year that is in front of us.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/26/2023 – 15:25
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