- Escobar: Five Variables Defining Our Future
Escobar: Five Variables Defining Our Future
In the late 1930s, with WWII in motion, and only months before his assassination, Leon Trotsky already had a vision of what the future Empire of Chaos would be up to.
“For Germany it was a question of ‘organizing Europe’. The United States must ‘organize’ the world. History is bringing mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism…Under one or another pretext and slogan the United States will intervene in the tremendous clash in order to maintain its world dominion.”
We all know what happened next. Now we are under a new volcano that even Trotsky could not have identified: a declining United States faced with the Russia-China “threat”. And once again the entire planet is affected by major moves in the geopolitical chessboard.
The Straussian neocons in charge of US foreign policy could never accept Russia-China leading the way towards a multipolar world. For now we have NATO’s perpetual expansionism as their strategy to debilitate Russia, and Taiwan as their strategy to debilitate China.
Yet in these past two years, the vicious proxy war in Ukraine only accelerated the transition towards a multipolar, Eurasia-driven world order.
With the indispensable help of Prof. Michael Hudson, let’s briefly recap the 5 key variables that are conditioning the current transition.
Losers Don’t Dictate Terms
1.The stalemate:
That’s the new, obsessive US narrative on Ukraine – on steroids. Confronted with the upcoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the battlefield, the White House and the State Dept. had to – literally – improvise.
Moscow though is unfazed. The Kremlin has set the terms a long time ago: total surrender, and no Ukraine as part of NATO. To “negotiate”, from the Russia point of view, is to accept these terms.
And if the deciding powers in Washington opt for turbo-charging the weaponization of Kiev, or to unleash “the most heinous provocations in order to change the course of events”, as asserted this week by the head of the SVR, Sergey Naryshkin, fine.
The road ahead will be bloody. In case the usual suspects sideline popular Zaluzhny and install Budanov as the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU will be under total control of the CIA – and not NATO generals, as it’s still the case.
This might prevent a military coup against the sweaty sweatshirt puppet in Kiev. Yet things will get much uglier. Ukraine will go Total Guerrilla, with only two objectives: to attack Russian civilians and civilian infrastructure. Moscow, of course, is fully aware of the dangers.
Meanwhile, chatterbox overdrive in several latitudes suggest that NATO may even be getting ready for a partition of Ukraine. Whatever form that might take, losers do not dictate conditions: Russia does.
As for EU politicos, predictably, they are in total panic, believing that after mopping up Ukraine, Russia will become even more of a “threat” to Europe. Nonsense. Not only Moscow couldn’t give a damn to what Europe “thinks”; the last thing Russia wants or needs is to annex Baltic or Eastern European hysteria. Moreover, even Jens Stoltenberg admitted “NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its territories.”
2.BRICS:
Since the start of 2024, this is The Big Picture: the Russian presidency of BRICS+ – which translates as a particle accelerator towards multipolarity. The Russia-China strategic partnership will be increasing actual production, in several fields, while Europe plunges into depression, unleashed by the Perfect Storm of sanctions blowback against Russia and German de-industrialization. And it’s far from over, as Washington is also ordering Brussels to sanction China across the spectrum.
As Prof. Michael Hudson frames it, we are right in the middle of “the whole split of the world and the turning towards China, Russia, Iran, BRICS”, united in “an attempt to reverse, undo, and roll back the whole colonial expansion that’s occurred over the last five centuries.”
Or, as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defined at the UN Security Council this process of BRICS leaving Western bullies behind, the changing world order is like “a playground scuffle – which the West is losing.”
Bye Bye, Soft Power
3.The Lone Emperor:
The “stalemate” – actually losing a war – is directly linked to its compensation: the Empire squeezing and shrinking a vassalized Europe. But even as you exercise nearly total control over all these relatively wealthy vassals, you lose the Global South, for good: if not all their leaders, certainly the overwhelming majority of public opinion. The icing in the toxic cake is to support a genocide followed by the whole planet in real time. Bye bye, soft power.
4.De-dollarization:
All across the Global South, they did the math: if the Empire and its EU vassals can just steal over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves – from a top nuclear/military power – they can do it to anyone, and they will.
The key reason Saudi Arabia, now a BRICS 10 member, is being so meek on the genocide in Gaza is because their hefty US dollar reserves are hostage to the Hegemon.
And yet the caravan moving away from the US dollar will only keep growing in 2024: that will depend on crucial crossover deliberations inside the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and BRICS 10.
5.Garden and jungle:
What Putin and Xi have essentially been telling the Global South – including the energy-rich Arab world – is quite simple. If you want improved trade and economic growth, who’re you gonna link to?
So we’re back to the “garden and jungle” syndrome – first coined by imperial Britain orientalist Rudyard Kipling. Both the British concept of “white man’s burden” and the American concept of “Manifest Destiny” derive from the “garden and jungle” metaphor.
NATOstan, and hardly all of it, is supposed to be the garden. The Global South is the jungle. Michael Hudson again: as it stands, the jungle is growing, but the garden isn’t growing “because its philosophy is not industrialization. Its philosophy is to make monopoly rents, meaning rents that you make in your sleep without producing value. You just have a privilege of a right to collect money on a monopoly technology that you have.”
The difference now, compared to all those decades ago of an imperial free lunch, is “an immense shift of technological advance”, away from North America and the US, to China, Russia and selected nodes across Asia.
Forever Wars. And No Plan B
If we combine all these variants – stalemate; BRICS; the Lone Emperor; de-dollarization; garden and jungle – in search of the most probable scenario ahead, it’s easy to see that the only “way out” for a cornered Empire is, what else, the default modus operandi: Forever Wars.
And that brings us to the current American aircraft carrier in West Asia, totally out of control yet always supported by the Hegemon, aiming for a multi-front war against the whole Axis of Resistance: Palestine, Hezbollah, Syria, Iraqi militias, Ansarullah in Yemen, and Iran.
In a sense we’re back to the immediate post-9/11, when what the neocons really wanted was not Afghanistan, but the invasion of Iraq: not only to control the oil (which in the end they didn’t) but, in Michael Hudson’s analysis, “to essentially create America’s foreign legion in the form of ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq.” Now, “America has two armies that it’s using to fight in the Near East, the ISIS/al-Qaeda foreign legion (Arabic-speaking foreign legion) and the Israelis.”
Hudson’s intuition of ISIS and Israel as parallel armies is priceless: they both fight the Axis of Resistance, and never (italics mine) fight each other. The Straussian neocon plan, as tawdry as it gets, essentially is a variant of the “fight to the last Ukrainian”: to “fight to the last Israeli” on the way to the Holy Grail, which is to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (copyright John McCain) and provoke regime change.
As much as the “plan” did not work in Iraq or Ukraine, it won’t work against the Axis of Resistance.
What Putin, Xi and Raisi have been explaining to the Global South, explicitly or in quite subtle ways, is that we are right in the crux of a civilizational war.
Michael Hudson has done a lot to bring down such an epic struggle to practical terms. Are we heading towards what I described as techno-feudalism – which is the AI format of rent-seeking turbo-neoliberalism? Or are we heading to something similar to the origins of industrial capitalism?
Michael Hudson characterizes an auspicious horizon as “raising living standards instead of imposing IMF financial austerity on the dollar block”: devising a system that Big Finance, Big Bank, Big Pharma and what Ray McGovern memorably coined as the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) cannot control. Alea jacta est.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 23:40 - Here's Every EV Qualified For US Tax Credits In 2024
Here’s Every EV Qualified For US Tax Credits In 2024
This year, the list of qualified electric vehicles (EVs) for U.S. tax credits is relatively small.
Many popular models like the Nissan Leaf, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and some Tesla Model 3s are missing – largely due to new battery sourcing rules. With stricter rules coming into effect, the number of models is dropping from 43 to 13.
Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu created the following graphic to show the qualifying EV models in 2024, based on data from FuelEconomy.gov.
Which EVs Made the List?
Here are the EVs that are eligible for a U.S. tax credit of up to $7,500 at the point of sale:
Car Vehicle Type Credit Amount Manufacturer’s Suggested
Retail Price LimitChevrolet Bolt EUV EV $7,500 $55,000 Chevrolet Bolt EV EV $7,500 $55,000 Chrysler Pacifica PHEV Plug-in Hybrid $7,500 $80,000 Ford Escape PHEV Plug-in Hybrid $3,750 $80,000 F-150 Lightning* EV $7,500 $80,000 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe Plug-in Hybrid $3,750 $80,000 Jeep Wrangler 4xe Plug-in Hybrid $3,750 $80,000 Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring Plug-in Hybrid $3,750 $80,000 Rivian R1S* EV $3,750 $80,000 Rivian R1T* EV $3,750 $80,000 Tesla Model 3 Performance EV $7,500 $80,000 Tesla Model X Long Range EV $7,500 $80,000 Tesla Model Y* EV $7,500 $80,000 *F-150 Lightning includes Standard and Extended Range models. R1S includes Dual and Quad Motor models. R1T includes Dual, Performance Dual, and Quad Motor models. Model Y includes RWD, AWD, and Performance models.
The good news is that getting the discount is now easier for customers.
Instead of filling out tax paperwork to receive the tax credit, buyers will automatically get the discount at participating dealerships at the time of purchasing.
Additionally, models eligible for a partial credit of $3,750 include Rivian EVs along with plug-in hybrids from Jeep, Ford, and Lincoln.
Ultimately, the tax credit is designed to encourage people to switch to EVs and purchase models that are sourced in America. Overall, it is part of a wider plan to boost manufacturing and clean energy investment across the country.
U.S. EV Manufacturing Push
Several automakers are ramping up investment in American battery plants.
In October 2023, Toyota announced it was investing an additional $8 billion in its North Carolina battery plant, adding 3,000 new jobs.
Along with this, Ford is constructing a 3,600 acre facility for battery manufacturing and EV production, valued at $5.6 billion. By 2026, it is targeting to make 500,000 electric trucks annually. Located in Tennessee, the mega-campus is set to create 6,000 new jobs.
Still, Ford is scaling back EV investment, citing a reluctance among customers to pay a premium for electric models. The United Auto Workers deal, estimated to cost Ford $8.8 billion, likely impacted EV investment plans.
The cost of EV batteries can range from around $8,000 to over $22,000.
Automakers including Lucid, General Motors, Honda, Nissan, and Stellantis (Chrysler’s parent company) are all building, or plan to build, battery facilities in the country.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 23:20 - The Price Of Failed Wars
The Price Of Failed Wars
Authored by Simone Leeden via RealClear Wire,
A growing number of Americans grapple with a profound dilemma. This dilemma stems from our recent and painful history of interventions gone awry, and outcomes that diverged sharply from the intended goals. The conversation regarding the reasons for our current decline in military recruitment numbers, combined with Americans’ increasing isolationism, should include more than just the scourge of “wokeism.” We must scrutinize our failures, take the important lessons learned, and hold failed leaders accountable.
The scars from the Iraq War run deep in the American psyche. A war initiated under the pretense of eliminating weapons of mass destruction ultimately transformed Iraq into an Iranian satellite. The toll in blood and treasure was staggering. Our nation, me included, realized that the promised liberation had instead sown chaos and instability.
Similarly, the two-decade-long engagement in Afghanistan aimed to oust the Taliban and establish a stable government. Despite immense investments, our chaotic withdrawal and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government and its armed forces, has raised questions about the efficacy of such prolonged wars when we have such fickle political leadership. Skepticism has taken root, with many Americans questioning the wisdom of sacrificing lives and resources for outcomes that seem elusive at best.
American reluctance to engage in wars is rooted in a distrust of political and military leadership, rather than a doubt in the military’s capabilities. This skepticism is fueled by the observation that, despite the military’s ability to achieve success, political decisions and a lack of long-term commitment often undermine these efforts. The experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, where years of sacrifice and significant casualties ultimately led to withdrawal and diminished any chance of lasting success, exemplify this concern. People question why they should support wars when leadership decisions may negate the potential for enduring achievements.
One glaring issue is the short attention span exhibited on the global stage. While adversaries plan and act in terms of decades and generations, American foreign policy often succumbs to the volatility of short-term political cycles. The absence of a cohesive, long-term strategy that spans administrations weakens the nation’s position, allowing adversaries to exploit the inherent instability in U.S. foreign policy.
Furthermore, the demonization and alienation of potential military recruits exacerbate the problem. How can a government expect the public to rally behind its wars when it criticizes and ostracizes those who bear the burden of fighting? Americans want to win, and this desire for victory is palpable not only on the battlefield but also in the hearts of those considering military service. Yet, the disconnect between the government’s strategic failures and the aspirations of potential recruits creates an insurmountable gap.
A successful military requires the trust and support of its citizens, and this trust erodes when the government fails to appreciate the sacrifices made by the men and women in uniform. The burden of entering an arena where victory seems elusive becomes a heavy deterrent for those considering military service. Recruiters face an uphill battle, attempting to sell a vision of success when recent history is marred by missteps and questionable outcomes.
Equally troubling is the lack of accountability for failure. While soldiers face the consequences of failed missions, higher-ranking officials often escape scrutiny. Generals and admirals who preside over misguided campaigns receive a pass for their failures, fostering a culture of impunity that only perpetuates strategic missteps.
The concept of deterrence, once a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, has lost its effectiveness. Simply restoring deterrence is not tantamount to destroying the enemy; this requires a fundamental shift in strategic thinking.
In conclusion, the reluctance of many Americans to join the military and support further engagement in global conflicts doesn’t arise from a misguided sympathy for foreign adversaries or a desire for isolation. Instead, it is a response to decades of strategic failures, misguided interventions, and a lack of accountability. Rebuilding trust in the government’s ability to conduct successful military campaigns demands true introspection and accountability. Only then can the United States truly earn the support of its citizens and regain its standing as a global leader.
Simone Ledeen is an accomplished national security professional with expertise spanning defense policy, intelligence, counterterrorism, counter threat finance, and emerging technologies. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy, Ms. Ledeen was responsible for US defense policy for Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. She strengthened key U.S. defense relationships through close collaboration with foreign counterparts and oversaw the development and implementation of critical policies and initiatives including in counterterrorism, information operations, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies. Ms. Ledeen advises several venture capital and early-stage defense technology firms. Previously, Ms. Ledeen held various leadership roles across the U.S. Government, executing complex operations overseas and spearheading initiatives to counter extremist threats. She received her MBA from Bocconi University and her B.A. from Brandeis University.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 23:00 - Woke Maryland Private School Questions Young Boys About "Gender" & "Sexuality"
Woke Maryland Private School Questions Young Boys About “Gender” & “Sexuality”
Reversing the “woke” takeover of America’s education system will require a concerted effort from concerned parents who don’t want their children infected by the woke mind virus.
The latest example of parents becoming infuriated with diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI being injected into the education curriculum, comes from an elite private school in Baltimore County, Maryland.
Project Veritas posted on X this week that St. Paul’s, a private school that charges $38,000 or more per year, issued a questionnaire to 5th-grade boys, asking if they were “Cisgender” or “Transgender” or “Gender Non-Conforming” or “Agender.”
The same questionnaire asked the boys about their “sexuality”…
Why does the school need to know about the gender and sexuality of young boys? This seems quite unusual.
INSIDER: After seeing Part 1 of our #DEI series, more parents are coming forward with inside information of similar controverisal iniatives in private schools around the country. @ClarkEWight – Why does St. Paul find it necessary to discuss sexuality with 10 year old children? pic.twitter.com/8FXHqcpBe4
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) January 23, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Meanwhile, the headmaster of the school threatened to expel two students whose parent complained about wokesim on social media.
A parent at the school provided us with an internal memo from Patrick Walsh, Middle School Dean of Students, who told teachers: “We will not apologize” for being woke.
Del. Nino Mangione, R-Baltimore County, said:
“This is a deeply concerning report and speaks to the ongoing crisis in the education of Maryland’s children. The fact that a “survey” of this type could be distributed to 5th-grade students without the knowledge or permission of their parents is totally unacceptable. Once again, we see the liberal education establishment attempting to indoctrinate children rather than educate them. Now, we learn of the two largest teacher’s unions in the country training educators on how to include gender identity polices in their curriculum and classroom teaching practices. Parents are justifiably outraged by St. Paul’s “identity inventory survey,” and I support the parents in their outrage.”
Last April, another elite private school down the street from St. Paul’s, called Gilman, went full-woke tard with the “Day of Dialogue” to enrich their students about “LGBTQ connections in our curriculum.”
And let’s not forget another elite private school, Oldfields School, which was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for years, dove down the woke rabbit hole on social media.
Parents at these woke private schools should adopt a firm stance, similar to Bill Ackman’s move that ousted Claudine Gay as president of Harvard. If this proves ineffective, consider withdrawing from these schools, but then again, many private schools in the area are woke. Plus, many public schools have imploded.
Maybe it’s time for homeschooling. Or perhaps, if enough parents band together, start a non-woke private school.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 22:40 - DNI Investigation Reveals How CCP Interfered In US Election
DNI Investigation Reveals How CCP Interfered In US Election
Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Chinese regime interfered in the U.S. 2022 midterm elections through various means, according to a declassified intelligence report and multiple private-sector investigations.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) The effort included a broad array of techniques orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including retaliation against U.S. lawmakers, the promotion of divisive content, and the impersonation of American voters online.
Noted China hawk Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) said the regime will continue its efforts to interfere in U.S. elections until the Biden administration deals more seriously with Beijing.
“Communist China has shown time and time again that they will stop at nothing to interfere in America’s elections,” Mr. Tiffany told The Epoch Times.
“The Biden administration needs to take a harder line on PRC meddling and espionage.”
PRC is the acronym for communist China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
A declassified assessment published by the director of national intelligence (DNI) in December 2023 found that the regime tried to “influence” U.S. congressional elections involving both Democrats and Republicans who espoused tough-on-China policy stances.
The report also found that the scale and scope of foreign activity targeting the elections surpassed that of the prior midterms but remained below the level expected in presidential years.
The report assessed that the CCP had a “greater willingness to conduct election influence activities than in past cycles,” partly because it didn’t fear retaliation from the Biden administration.
The report states that CCP officials gave operatives more freedom to interfere in U.S. elections because the regime “believed that Beijing was under less scrutiny … and because they did not expect the current administration to retaliate as severely as they feared in 2020.”
CCP Eyes Members of Congress
The CCP targeted congressional races out of a belief that the legislative branch was more likely to take action against its “core interests,” the DNI report states.
As such, the regime hoped to ensure that pro-China candidates won their races, regardless of party affiliation, according to Sam Kessler, a geopolitical adviser at the North Star Support Group risk advisory firm.
The Chinese regime support congressional candidates who are thought to be “pro-China” and undermine considered to be “against-China.” (Samuel Corum/Getty Images) “The CCP’s influence of the 2022 midterms illustrated the continuation of their larger geopolitical strategy to ensure pro-China politicians and thinkers are elected in Congress,” Mr. Kessler told The Epoch Times.
“It is also used for painting a negative image of the U.S. democratic political system and election process in comparison to Beijing’s authoritarian-based system.”
The regime took action “to punish [candidates] for their anti-China views and to reward [candidates] for their perceived support of Beijing,” the report states.
The regime also sought to sow discord among Americans but focused primarily on undermining “a small number of specific candidates based on their policy positions.”
The efforts since 2020 have been directed by senior Chinese leadership, the report found, and based on broad directives to undermine public opinion or congressional policies that could be detrimental to the CCP’s strategic goals.
Mr. Kessler described the effort as “part of a big picture CCP strategy to combat U.S. efforts that promote democracy abroad.”
To act so brazenly, he said, the regime likely “perceived themselves being under less scrutiny” since the 2020 election.
People cast their early ballots for the 2022 general election at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Nov. 7, 2022. (Eff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images) Chinese Law Enforcement
In addition to influencing elections, the regime also sought to covertly use social media accounts, proxy websites, paid influencers, and public relations firms to manipulate U.S. public opinion about China, according to the report.
Those findings align with reports published last year by tech giants Meta and Microsoft.
Meta announced in August 2023 that it had purged thousands of China-linked accounts from its platforms, which it stated were part of the world’s largest online influence operation.
That operation was connected to known individuals in Chinese law enforcement who sought to influence the 2022 midterm elections, according to Meta.
Casey Fleming, CEO of the risk advisory firm BlackOps Partners, said the initiative was part of the CCP’s wider strategy of unrestricted hybrid warfare.
“Ongoing CCP influence operations are one of many methods of unrestricted warfare where our enemy (the CCP) follows no rules intended in constant weakening [of] their primary adversary (the U.S.),” Mr. Fleming told The Epoch Times in an email.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 22:20 - These Are The Most-Popular AI Tools
These Are The Most-Popular AI Tools
Artificial intelligence had its breakout year in 2023, with large language models (LLMs) and text-to-image generators capturing the attention and imagination of technologists and investors alike.
Similar to other recent breakthrough technologies like the internet and the smartphone, the early stage of AI’s tech adoption cycle has already seen the creation of highly-used software products.
This visualization from Visual Capitalist’s 2024 Global Forecast Series report uses data from Writerbuddy and Coatue to rank and visualize the most popular AI tools of 2023 along with key recent tech adoption cycles and the software products that defined them.
The Most Visited Artificial Intelligence Websites of 2023
Not surprisingly, ChatGPT, OpenAI’s product that sparked the artificial intelligence boom in late 2022, emerged as the most popular AI tool of 2023.
ChatGPT dominated the industry’s web visits with more than 60% of visits from September 2022 to August 2023, racking up 14.6 billion visits to their website.
Following ChatGPT is another chatbot, Character.AI, which rather than being a singular LLM for general and productivity-related user queries is a collection of characters (also known as “dialog agents”) that users can freely converse with. These range from popular characters from TV shows and video games to dating coaches and interactive strategy and text-based games.
Another writing tool, QuillBot, rounds out the top three most popular AI web products of 2023, with these top three collectively accounting for more than 80% of visits to AI product websites.
Besides LLMs, leading AI image generator Midjourney was the fourth-most popular AI tool in 2023 and is followed by Hugging Face, an open source community which features hundreds of unique AI models that include LLMs, image generators, and other freely accessible AI tools.
Software Creation in Tech Adoption Cycles
Despite still being in the early stages of its adoption, artificial intelligence has already produced tools that have garnered billions of visits and thousands of paying users for premium versions of AI products.
The launch and propagation of software products is a key driver for the user adoption of breakthrough technologies. Apps like Uber and Airbnb helped define the utility of smartphones as a technology, similar to what early websites like Google, Amazon, and YouTube did for the internet.
While this first wave of AI tools is already beyond what the world could’ve imagined even just a couple of years ago, as the public adoption of AI continues we’ll only see more powerful and unique AI tools and products.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 22:00 - Growing Concerns Over Links Between Transgenderism And Violence
Growing Concerns Over Links Between Transgenderism And Violence
Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Mental health issues that manifest in gender confusion, combined with potent cross-sex hormones, can be a recipe for violence, some experts have said.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) Since 2018, five people who identified as transgender or were gender-confused have gone on killing sprees at schools and businesses. Authorities have been increasingly slow to confirm so-called gender identities and motives in cases such as these.
When shooters’ “gender identities” were revealed, some news outlets and commentators were quick to point out that people who identify as transgender and those who say they’re neither male nor female represent a small fraction of mass shooters.
But the numbers show a concerning pattern.
A mass shooting is defined by the Crime Prevention Research Center as the killing of four or more people in a single incident that’s not gang or drug related.
Of the 37 public mass shootings from 2018 through 2023, two were carried out by gender-confused individuals, according to John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. Three additional shootings were carried out by gender-confused individuals that resulted in fewer than four victims.
The case that has received the most intense media scrutiny is that of 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who went on a killing spree at the Covenant School in Nashville in March 2023.
She gunned down three 9-year-olds and three adults before police shot and killed her.
Ms. Hale identified as a “transgender man,” according to Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
Audrey Hale points a gun inside the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023. (Nashville Police Department via The Epoch Times) Ten months after the heinous act, a clear picture of Ms. Hale’s motive remains unclear. Media organizations have filed lawsuits asking to view her journals, which are still held by police.
After most mass shooting incidents, any writings that suggest a motive are released to the public quickly, Mr. Lott said.
Eventually, three pages of what police confirmed to be Ms. Hale’s journal were leaked to media commentator Steven Crowder, who posted the writings online. The pages contained racial slurs against white people. Ms. Hale was white.
Aside from Audrey Hale, there was Anderson Lee Aldrich, a man who identifies as nonbinary. He was sentenced to more than 2,000 years in prison for killing five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs in 2022.
The three other shootings with fewer than four victims include an incident in January at Perry Middle School and High School complex in Perry, Iowa, involving a 17-year-old who reportedly used the hashtag “gender-fluid” to describe himself on social media.
On Jan. 4, he fatally shot a sixth-grade student and wounded six others before killing himself, according to Iowa police. Principal Dan Marbuger died from his injuries 10 days later, his family announced.
In 2018, a woman who identified as a man gunned down three co-workers and injured three others outside a Rite Aid warehouse in Aberdeen, Maryland, before she shot herself, according to police.
And in a 2019 shooting, 17-year-old Maya “Alec” McKinney, a woman identifying as a man, was one of two Colorado students charged in a shooting that killed one person and injured eight at a Highlands Ranch charter school near Denver. Ms. McKinney was sentenced to life in prison.
The number of people aged 13 and older who identify as transgender in the United States is estimated to be about 1.6 million, or 0.6 percent of that population, according to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.
And although 0.6 percent of the 13-and-older population identifies as transgender, 5.4 percent of the mass shootings in recent years involved gender-confused individuals.
Police respond to a shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa., on Jan. 4, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo) Language of Violence
It isn’t the norm for those suffering from gender dysphoria to commit violence, according to Kathy Platani, who directs the Southwest Ohio Critical Incident Stress Management Team.
Still, society shouldn’t ignore the trend of escalating violence, she told The Epoch Times.
“Hormones change brain chemistry,” said Ms. Platani, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. “And if you change brain chemistry, you might just be changing behavior.”
Brain-altering hormone treatments used in attempts to alter gender may be what’s leading to trantifa (a combination of “trans” and “Antifa”) social media posts that seem to encourage violence toward “transphobes.”
An example is a recent video circulating on social media that gained more than 1 million views.
The subject of the video appears to be a man dressed as a woman and seems to coyly threaten a mass killing. The video caption reads, “If the transphobes keep going for my sisters I’m gonna start sounding like Anakin.”
The person lip-syncs to audio of the Star Wars character Anakin Skywalker’s admission that he killed a population of men, women, and children.
Many commenters expressed outrage at the post about the seemingly homicidal sentiment.
But social media posts such as that suggest that retribution is justified, and that can lead to unrest and violence, experts told The Epoch Times.
If those who believe they’re born in the wrong bodies don’t find acceptance with friends or family, it can spark feelings of resentment, Ms. Platani said.
“They want to pay back the world for either bullying them, disapproving of them, or completely abandoning them. And this is how they make a statement,” she said.
“Once you feel ignited by this, and you’re already angry at the world, this is a perfect storm.”
People rally in support of children who identify as transgender and so-called gender-affirming treatments, outside Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston on Sept. 18, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images) Mental Illness and Hormones
The disproportionate tendency for extreme violence may be explained by biology.
Some people think that changing their bodies to reflect a new “gender identity” will solve their mental health problems, according to neuropsychologist Alan Hopewell.
People with gender dysphoria may try hormone treatments first, which makes them more susceptible to mood swings and health problems, Mr. Hopewell said.
Patients attempting to live as the opposite sex take “massive” doses of testosterone or estrogen, he said. Treatments meant to try to alter gender also disrupt brain function and the entire physical system of the body, he said.
A systemic review of the effects of testosterone given to women who identify as men was released in 2020. It examined seven different studies on aggression in individuals who identify as transgender.
The studies focused on aggression levels before and after taking male hormones.
In their analysis, researchers wrote that women trying to live as men are warned of “increasing aggression when initiating testosterone therapy” because of past associations between male hormones and aggression.
Testosterone has been connected to what’s known as “roid rage,” unwarranted rage or angry outbursts often associated with the use of steroids.
Testosterone abuse in weightlifting and bodybuilding circles brought attention to the issue when a law against steroid use was passed in 1990.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 21:40 - Saudi Tankers Given Passage Through Red Sea By Houthis, Alongside Russia & China
Saudi Tankers Given Passage Through Red Sea By Houthis, Alongside Russia & China
China and Russia aren’t the only countries being given a “pass” from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, but Saudi Arabia is also exporting crude oil through the Red Sea as if in perfectly normal times (well, almost).
At a moment that especially Western and any and all Israeli-linked vessels are being targeted by rocket and drone attacks out of Yemen, the head of Aramco’s refining, oil trading and marketing division Mohammed Al Qahtani has confirmed to Bloomberg, “We’re moving in the Red Sea with our oil and products cargoes.” He added that the risks remain “manageable”.
Illustrative file image, via Splash247 As we’ve been chronicling, a who’s who of major tanker and container shipping companies have halted their Red Sea transit, instead opting for the much longer journey around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. This typically adds some $1 million to the total transport bill for a tanker, LSEG Shipping Research data shows.
Bloomberg’s analysis shows that even at this very moment in which US warships are coming under fire, Saudi transit through the vital waterway is alive and well:
In the first half of January, Aramco shipped as much crude from its Red Sea terminal at Yanbu northwards toward Europe as it did in the whole of the previous month, vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“That is also giving us huge access and optionality,” Qahtani said. “We are assessing that almost on a daily basis.”
Still, like the rest of the industry, Aramco is having to deal with fewer vessels willing to travel into the Red Sea and higher insurance costs for doing so.
In what was no doubt meant as a message adding insult to injury to the Israel-friendly Western allies, the Iran-linked Houthis starting over a week ago declared that Chinese and Russian-flagged or owned vessels would not be attacked in the Red Sea.
On January 19 a senior Houthi official, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, mentioned these US rivals by name in an interview with the Russian outlet Izvestia. “As for all other countries, including Russia and China, their shipping in the region is not threatened,” he said, stipulating this will remain in effect as long as they are not linked to Israel or its supporters.
Some of the vessels which have come under attack thus far actually have connection to various dozens of countries which aren’t necessarily backing Israel’s assault on Gaza (though these ships may have been headed toward Israeli ports), but ships with Russian or Chinese ownership, or deep ties, have yet to be attacked.
The US-UK coalition patrolling the Red Sea has at this point launched at least eight or nine significant rounds of airstrikes against Houthi positions, but this appears to have only deepened Houthi resolve.
As for Russia and China, they’ve been foremost among Washington’s powerful rivals to criticize Israel’s mass bombing of the Gaza Strip. They both have close ties with Iran, as well as with Assad’s Syria, and China is busy inking multi-billion dollar infrastructure and energy deals with Iraq. Of course, these ‘defiant’ countries (Syria and Iran) are under US sanctions as well.
Iran and Saudi Arabia recently achieved rapprochement and established diplomatic ties, which perhaps explains why Riyadh is now getting a ‘free pass’.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 21:20 - Email Reveals Why CDC Didn’t Issue Alert On COVID Vaccines And Myocarditis
Email Reveals Why CDC Didn’t Issue Alert On COVID Vaccines And Myocarditis
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The nation’s top public health agency did not send an alert on COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation because officials were concerned they would cause panic, according to an email obtained by The Epoch Times.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2021 drafted an alert for heart inflammation, or myocarditis, and the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. Officials prepared to release it to the public, taking steps including having the agency’s director review the language, internal documents show.
The alert would have been sent through the CDC’s Health Alert System (HAN) network, which goes to state and local officials, as well as doctors, across the country.
The alert was never sent.
In the May 25, 2021, email, exclusively obtained by The Epoch Times, a CDC official revealed why some officials were against sending the alert.
“The pros and cons of an official HAN are what the main discussion are right now,” Dr. Sara Oliver, the official, wrote in the missive. “I think it’s likely to be a HAN since that is CDC’s primary method of communications to clinicians and public health departments, but people don’t want to appear alarmist either.”
Dr. Oliver was corresponding with an employee of either Pfizer or Moderna. The employee’s name and email were redacted in the copy obtained by The Epoch Times.
Dr. Oliver did not respond to a request for comment. Asked about the email, the CDC did not address Dr. Oliver’s statement.
The “CDC’s apparent decision to not immediately issue a formal alert to clinicians warning them about the increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in vaccinated individuals is not only inexcusable, it’s malpractice,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“CDC should never prioritize its own public perception over the public’s health, and those who made the decision to do so must be held fully accountable,” he added.
It remains unclear which official or officials decided not to send the alert at a time when doctors across the country were seeing patients with myocarditis report to emergency rooms with chest pain and other symptoms.
Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who helped convince regulators to add a suicide warning to antidepressants, said the CDC’s move to downplay heart inflammation fits into a longstanding pattern of transparency issues with agencies and drug companies.
“I can’t even believe that this was even a discussion where they’re like, ‘We don’t want to alarm them.’ We do need to alarm people. We need people to be aware that this is a real potential [problem] that could happen,” Ms. Witzcak told The Epoch Times.
Those kinds of choices have helped erode consumer confidence in public health, she added.
Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director who now serves as president and CEO of the global health project Resolve to Save Lives, also reviewed the messages.
“It is important to carefully weigh the risk of COVID-19 against the risk and benefit of any treatment, including the vaccine. The vaccine safety systems worked—they found a very rare but real signal of myocarditis soon after distributing vaccines that were administered to adolescents,“ Dr. Frieden told The Epoch Times via email. ”When public health officials see a safety signal, they must investigate whether it is ‘true’ or ‘random.’ It is important to consider multiple data angles and gather evidence from partners on the ground, including clinicians. This needs to be done quickly but carefully and thoroughly.”
An internal CDC email. (The Epoch Times) Moderna, Pfizer Given Heads Up
U.S. authorities identified myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, before the vaccines were cleared as events that could be caused by the vaccines. People who received the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines began reporting myocarditis and pericarditis to health authorities and the vaccine manufacturers shortly after the vaccines were rolled out in December 2020.
A signal in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC helps manage, triggered in February 2021, the same month Israel warned the CDC and U.S. drug regulators of a “large number” of cases, primarily among young males.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, first addressed the issue publicly in April 2021. She falsely said the agency had seen no reports and that no signal had triggered, while disclosing the CDC was in touch with U.S. military officials on cases among service members.
In reality, hundreds of cases had been reported to the CDC, including some that resulted in death; the CDC either missed or ignored the signal in VAERS; and the CDC helped hide a signal that emerged from a Department of Veterans Affairs system, internal documents and other data reviewed by The Epoch Times show.
The CDC did communicate to certain state officials about myocarditis issues starting in April 2021 and told some doctors in a May 14, 2021, email that the agency was monitoring reports of the inflammation following Pfizer and Moderna vaccination.
Shortly after that missive was sent, the CDC began considering next steps, according to the newly obtained documents.
Dr. Oliver on May 21, 2021, emailed representatives of Moderna and Pfizer to warn them that the CDC was planning to go public with information on the myocarditis cases.
“Wanted to make sure you were aware before anything was made public,” Dr. Oliver wrote in one of the messages, which were obtained by The Epoch Times and are being reported in this story for the first time. “You may be aware, but there have been concerns for myocarditis seen in adolescents and young adults after receipt of the mRNA vaccines. Thankfully, the cases appear relatively mild, but there is concern that we need to make providers aware of this issue. CDC is discussing communication options, and we may have more information tomorrow.”
Cardiologists say there’s no such thing as a mild case of heart inflammation and research has since shown that a number of cases don’t resolve for months, if at all.
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines both use modified messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
Moderna and Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment.
One representative from Pfizer sent information to Dr. Oliver and colleagues ahead of a planned meeting, the emails show. The information was redacted.
Moderna officials met with the CDC on May 22, 2021. The discussion covered how the CDC was considering saying there was a “possible causal relationship,” or that the vaccines might be causing the inflammation, according to the emails.
Moderna asked how government officials thought the myocarditis was being caused, or the mechanism of action.
“My current understanding is that it isn’t necessarily a defined mechanism, but that we’ve seen very similar/consistent findings where mRNA vaccines have been used all occurring within days of receipt of an mRNA vaccine (although it could be that systemic inflammation plays a role),” Dr. Oliver wrote.
A representative with one of the companies then checked in on May 25, 2021, asking if the CDC had decided how to communicate to the public about myocarditis.
“Apologies that there hasn’t been more solid communication on this. Unfortunately, I still don’t have a firm update to share. Things have been changing rapidly here,” Dr. Oliver wrote. In the next email, she wrote that some officials did not want to cause panic.
“I am not trying to be vague on purpose- I really don’t know,” she said. “If I had to guess, I would think it’s likely to be a HAN, but can’t say for sure yet. I anticipate there will be firm decisions within the next 24 hours so I’ll let you know.”
Scaled-Down Response
A two-page draft of the alert obtained by The Epoch Times was completely redacted. The Epoch Times is working on acquiring an unredacted copy.
The draft was circulated internally, including to Dr. Walensky, emails show. The messages indicated the CDC chose not to send the alert after consulting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The CDC said on its website on May 20, 2021, that a review of post-vaccination myocarditis found “relatively few reports” and that rates of myocarditis “have not differed from expected baseline rates.”
Instead of the alert, the CDC decided to post another webpage called clinical considerations. The page, posted on May 27, 2021, said that “increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna)” since April 2021.
The page also said the CDC and the agency’s partners were investigating the issue before recommending COVID-19 vaccination for everyone aged 12 and older.
A draft of the page was shared with Moderna and Pfizer at least several hours before publication, according to the emails.
A CDC spokeswoman said that safety data prompted the CDC to post information on myocarditis online “for public awareness and to provide guidance to clinicians.” She said the clinical considerations reached the same 300,000 provider recipients a HAN alert would have.
“A clinical consideration is useful when information needs to be updated as circumstances evolve, and more data is collected and evaluated,” the spokeswoman said.
In a separate email, she said that “CDC’s focus and concern on myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination is well known and documented.”
An FDA spokesperson declined to detail its influence on the shelved alert.
“The FDA continues to work collaboratively with the CDC to monitor for known safety risks related to vaccines and determine how best to ensure any relevant safety information is conveyed to the public, health care providers and clinicians,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. “After thorough assessment and when the potential risk was clear, the FDA updated the fact sheets for the COVID-19 vaccines and communicated with the public in a manner that was determined to be appropriate for the assessed risk.”
Federal rules require the FDA to add a warning about a “a clinically significant hazard as soon as there is reasonable evidence of a causal association with a drug; a causal relationship need not have been definitely established.”
The FDA on June 25, 2021, added warnings about myocarditis to the labels for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 21:00 - Beijing Set To Refill Strategic Oil Reserve After Draining It For Most Of 2023
Beijing Set To Refill Strategic Oil Reserve After Draining It For Most Of 2023
It’s not just the US that is in desperate need of refilling its strategic oil reserve after Biden drained it to score some quick political points ahead of the 2022 midterms. China also needs to refill its oil tanks after steadily drawing on those stockpiles for much of 2023… but like in the US, don’t expect a massive buying spree that will send global prices rallying.
According to data from Vortexa, onshore inventories in the world’s biggest crude importer fell to an eight-month low at the start of the year. That’s likely to trigger more purchases on an international market which has been balanced between Middle East tensions and a transitory surge in US supply (which grinds to a halt the second the shale M&A wave is over).
As readers are well aware, China’s oil consumption – and estimates of how much it’s holding in reserve – are crucial to the trajectory of world prices. All the extra fuel consumed after Beijing abandoned its Covid Zero travel restrictions helped lift global benchmark Brent crude above $95 a barrel in September. But that pent-up demand now looks spent and China’s economy is struggling, suggesting that restocking by refineries this year will be moderate unless of course Beijing follows through with its intentions of aggressively restarting growth and halting the plunge in the local market.
Similar to the US, with oil prices now around $80 a barrel, that might not be low enough to tempt the government to add to its strategic reserves, although there is the risk that prices may rise much more if the Red Sea situation escalates, forcing both China and the US to miss their refilling window.
Although China’s crude imports hit an annual record in 2023, the peak came in the summer. And even though stockpiles have been depleted, they’re still running above their five-year average, as the Bloomberg chart below shows.
China’s been buying too much crude for years, at least in relation to the growth it’s seen in downstream consumption, and that was particularly true in 2023, said Emma Li, an analyst with Vortexa Ltd. “The nation could be looking to restock some inventories this year, but mostly for refinery use, with active buying for April to May arrival, as refiners prepare to boost runs post seasonal maintenance.”
Unlike the US, Beijing doesn’t publish official inventory data and is especially secretive about its strategic oil reserves. Chinese stockpiles – encompassing onshore commercial holdings and the government’s reserves — have dropped around 9% from a peak in late July, according to the Vortexa figures. They’re currently at 934 million barrels, compared with a five-year average of 920 million but of course that average also captures such slow growth outlier years as 2018 and 2020. Realistically, China’s reserve should be at or near all time highs to keep in lockstep with growth.
Chinese crude stockpiles will likely build this quarter, with “restocking demand from majors,” said Jianan Sun, an analyst at Energy Aspects; he predicts that inventories will likely increase by more than 60 million barrels through this year.
All-told, Chinese demand related to refilling reserves in the first half is likely to be cautious, and a disappointment for oil market bulls.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 20:40 - Could AI Start Nuclear War?
Could AI Start Nuclear War?
Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,
I’ve covered a wide variety of potential crises over the years.
These include natural disasters, pandemics, social unrest and financial collapse. That’s a daunting list.
One thing I haven’t done is to cover the greatest potential calamity of all — nuclear war. For the reasons explained below, now is the time to consider it.
Nuclear warfighting is back in the air. The subject is receiving more attention today than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and its aftermath. There are three reasons for this.
The first is American accusations that Russia would escalate to use nuclear weapons as it grew more desperate in its conduct of the war in Ukraine. These accusations were always false and are risible now that Russia is clearly winning the war with conventional arms.
Still, the threats and counter-threats were enough to put the topic in play.
The second reason is the war between Israel and Hamas. Again, escalation is the concern. One not implausible scenario has Hezbollah in southern Lebanon opening a second front on Israel’s northern border with intensive missile bombardment.
Houthi rebels in Yemen would join the attack. Since Hezbollah and the Houthis are both Shia Muslims and Iranian proxies, Israel could attack Iran as the source of the escalation.
Israel is a nuclear power. With a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group and a nuclear attack submarine in the region, and with nuclear powers Russia and Pakistan standing by to assist Iran, the prospect of escalation to a nuclear exchange is real.
The escalating tensions between Iran and Pakistan just this week add even more fuel to the fire.
The third reason is artificial intelligence and GPT output. Although artificial intelligence can provide profitable opportunities for investors in many sectors of the market, AI/GPT may also be the greatest threat to nuclear escalation because it has an internal logic that’s inconsistent with the human logic that has kept nuclear peace for the past 80 years.
I’ve covered Ukraine and Israel extensively, and they’re widely covered in the news. But today, I’m addressing the risks of nuclear war from AI/GPT. It’s a threat you’re not hearing anything about, but it needs to be addressed.
Let’s start with a fictional movie. The paradigmatic portrayal of an accidental nuclear war is the 1964 film Fail Safe. In the film, U.S. radar detects an intrusion into U.S. airspace by an unidentified but potentially hostile aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force soon determines that the aircraft is an off-course civilian airliner. In the meantime, a computer responding to the intrusion erroneously orders a U.S. strategic bomber group led by Col. Jack Grady to commence a nuclear attack on Moscow.
U.S. efforts to rescind the order and recall the bombers fail because of Soviet jamming of radio channels. The president orders the military to shoot down the bombers and fighter jets are scrambled for that purpose.
The fighters use afterburners to catch the bombers, but they fail, and the increased fuel consumption causes them to plunge into the Arctic Sea.
The president next communicates with the Soviet premier who agrees to stop the jamming. The president speaks with the attack bomber group leader to call off the attack, but the crew has been trained to disregard such pleas as a Soviet ploy.
The U.S. then offers the Soviets’ technical assistance in helping to shoot down the bombers. The planes are almost all shot down, but one makes it through. The president puts Col. Grady’s wife on the radio; he hesitates but is soon preoccupied with evading Soviet missiles. He then decides his wife’s voice is another deception.
Anticipating the worst and seeking to avoid a full-scale nuclear war, the president orders a U.S. nuclear bomber to fly over New York City knowing the first lady is in New York.
In the end, Moscow is destroyed by a U.S. nuclear weapon and the president orders a nuclear bomb to be dropped on New York City using the Empire State Building as ground zero. The expectation is that the sacrifice of New York in exchange for Moscow will end the escalation, but that is not portrayed in the film.
The next step is left in doubt.
Although Fail Safe is 60 years old, the issues it raises and some of the plot twists are strikingly contemporary. The computer error that caused the attack in the film is never explained technically, yet that’s not highly relevant.
Computer errors occur all the time in critical infrastructure and can cause real harm including power blackouts and train wrecks. Such computer errors are the essence of the debate over AI in strategic systems today.
Read on to see why…
Could AI Start a Nuclear War?
AI in a command-and-control context can either malfunction and issue erroneous orders as in Fail Safe or, more likely, function as designed yet issue deadly prescriptions based on engineering errors, skewed training sets or strange emergent properties from correlations that humans can barely perceive.
Perhaps most familiar to contemporary audiences are the failed efforts of the president and Col. Grady’s wife to convince the bomber commander to call off the attack. Grady had been trained to expect such efforts and to treat them as deceptions.
Today, such deceptions would be carried out with deepfake video and audio transmissions. Presumably, the commander’s training and dismissal of the pleas would be the same despite the more sophisticated technology behind them. Technology advances yet aspects of human behavior are unchanged.
Another misunderstanding, this one real not fictional, that came close to causing a nuclear war was a 1983 incident codenamed Able Archer.
The roots of Able Archer go back to May 1981 when then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev and KGB head Yuri Andropov (later general secretary) disclosed to senior Soviet leaders their view that the U.S. was secretly preparing to launch a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
Andropov then announced a massive intelligence collection effort to track the people who would be responsible for launching and implementing such an attack along with their facilities and communications channels.
At the same time, the Reagan administration began a series of secret military operations that aggressively probed Soviet waters with naval assets and flew directly toward Soviet airspace with strategic bombers that backed away only at the last instant.
These advances were ostensibly to test Soviet defenses but had the effect of playing to Soviet perceptions that the U.S. was planning a nuclear attack.
Analysts agree that the greatest risk of escalation and actual nuclear war arises when perceptions of the two sides vary in such a way as to make rational assessment of the escalation dynamic impossible. The two sides are on different paths making different calculations.
Tensions rose further in 1983 when the U.S. Navy flew F-14 Tomcat fighter jets over a Soviet military base in the Kuril Islands and the Soviets responded by flying over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. On Sept. 1, 1983, Soviet fighter jets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sea of Japan. A U.S. Congressman was onboard.
On November 4, 1983, the U.S. and NATO allies commenced an extensive war game codenamed Able Archer. This was intended to simulate a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union following a series of escalations.
The problem was that the escalations were written out in the war game briefing books but not actually simulated. The transition from conventional warfare to nuclear wargame was simulated.
This came at a time when the Soviets and the KGB were actively looking for signs of a nuclear attack. The simulations involving NATO Command, Control and Communications protocols were highly realistic including participation by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Soviets plausibly believed that the war game was actually cover for a real attack.
In the belief that the U.S. was planning a nuclear first-strike, the Soviets determined that their only course to survive was to launch a preemptive first strike of their own. They ordered nuclear warheads to be placed on Soviet Air Army strategic bombers and put nuclear attack aircrafts in Poland and East Germany on high alert.
This real life near nuclear war had a backstory that is even more chilling. The Soviets had previously built an early warning radar system with computer linkages using a primitive kind of AI codenamed Oko.
On September 26, 1983, just two months before Able Archer, the system malfunctioned and reported five incoming ICBMs from the United States. Oko alarms sounded and the computer screen flashed “LAUNCH.” Under the protocols, the LAUNCH display was not a warning but a computer-generated order to retaliate.
Lt. Col. Stanislov Petrov of the Soviet Air Defense Forces saw the computer order and had to immediately choose between treating the order as a computer malfunction or alerting his senior officers who would likely commence a nuclear counterattack.
Petrov was a co-developer of Oko and knew the system made mistakes. He also estimated that if the attack were real, the U.S. would use far more than five missiles. Petrov was right. The computer had misread the sun’s reflection off some clouds as incoming missiles.
Given the tensions of the day and the KGB’s belief that a nuclear attack could come at any time, Petrov risked the future of the Soviet Union to override the Oko system. He relied on a combination of inference, experience, and gut instinct to disable the kill-chain.
The incident remained secret until well after the end of the Cold War. In time, Petrov was praised as “The Man Who Saved the World.”
The threat of nuclear war due to AI comes not just from the nuclear-armed powers but from third parties and non-state actors using AI to create what are called catalytic nuclear disasters. The term catalytic refers to chemical agents that cause volatile reactions among other compounds without themselves being part of the reaction.
As applied in international relations, it refers to agents who might prompt a nuclear war among the great powers without themselves being involved in the war. That could leave the weak agent in a relatively strong position once the great powers had destroyed themselves.
AI/GPT systems have already found their way into the nuclear warfighting process. It will be up to humans to keep their role marginal and data oriented, not decision oriented. Given the history of technology in warfare from bronze spears to hypersonic missiles, it’s difficult to conclude AI/GPT will be so contained. If not, we will all pay the price.
Ukraine, Gaza, and AI all raise the odds of a nuclear war considerably. The financial implications of this for investors are simple. In case of nuclear war, stocks, bonds, cash and other financial assets will be worthless. Exchanges and banks will be closed. The only valuable assets will be land, gold and silver.
It’s a good idea to have all three — just in case.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 20:20 - Jeffrey Epstein's Brother Says DOJ Suicide Report Is "Bull*hit" – Demands New Investigation
Jeffrey Epstein’s Brother Says DOJ Suicide Report Is “Bull*hit” – Demands New Investigation
Mark Epstein, the brother of elite sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, says his brother was murdered, and the Justice Department (DOJ) report concluding suicide is “bullshit.”
“I would like a full investigation of his death. If you look at all the evidence, including the autopsy, the photographs of his body, the bullshit DOJ report that is filled with inaccuracies, you would never come up with the conclusion that this was a suicide – but based on what,” he told The Guardian.
Epstein thinks another prisoner could have gotten into his brother’s cell and killed him on August 10, 2019, and he says he’s been told that not all the cell doors were locked that night.
Most notably, a camera pointing at Epstein’s door was not recording the night of his death. According to the DOJ, however, cellmates who might have had a view of Epstein’s door said they didn’t see anyone go in.
“The question is, who had him killed?” Mark Epstein asked.
In 2020, ’60 Minutes’ revealed several details in Epstein’s death which raised more questions than they answered – and suggested that the financier did not kill himself. In the interview, a forensic pathologist who observed the four-hour autopsy on behalf of Mark Epstein concluded that the evidence pointed to murder more than suicide – particularly due to unusual fractures present in Epstein’s neck that are not consistent with suicide by hanging.
While we’ve heard all sorts of theories about the improbabilities of the force required by the nearly 6 foot tall Epstein to successfully hang himself while breaking an unusual three bones in his neck usually seen in strangulations, that’s nowhere near the most peculiar part of Epstein’s demise.
Then there’s the noose itself… Photos admitted as evidence reveal a clean cloth with no blood, despite Epstein’s clearly bloody neck. Moreover, both ends of the noose were hemmed, not cut – while the guard who found Epstein reportedly cut him down.
Also odd is that Epstein’s ligature wound, allegedly left by said bloodless noose, is fairly low on his neck.
“I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging.”
Dr. Michael Baden lays out the forensic reasons why he’s skeptical of the medical examiner’s ruling that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. **This video contains graphic images.** https://t.co/rZDRtPchod pic.twitter.com/sAkIch7sBF
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 6, 2020
The photos also reveal other potential nooses – none of which are bloodied, as well as orange sheets strewn around the room.
“There were fractures of the left, the right thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone,” said Baden. “I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging.”
“Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures,” he added.
Other irregularities include Epstein being taken off suicide watch, broken cameras which didn’t record the front of his cell during the cruicial period, and of course, the fact that his guards failed to check on perhaps the most high-profile inmate in modern history – and were instead browsing the web and sleeping.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsEarlier this month, Mark told Tucker Carlson that he’s hit nothing but roadblocks trying to obtain basic documents related to his brother’s death in federal custody.
Ep. 59 Most people understand that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself. But the attorney general of the United States helped cover up his murder? That’s a different thing entirely. Epstein’s brother Mark explains. pic.twitter.com/aP6EjURJmL
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 4, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 20:00 - Neocons Freak As Biden Reportedly Considers Syria, Iraq Withdrawal
Neocons Freak As Biden Reportedly Considers Syria, Iraq Withdrawal
Neocon heads (like the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister’s) are exploding with the news this week that the Biden Administration may be considering withdrawing from its illegal occupations in both Syria and Iraq.
First on Syria. As Lister opines in Foreign Policy:
…four sources within the Defense and State departments said the White House is no longer invested in sustaining a mission that it perceives as unnecessary. Active internal discussions are now underway to determine how and when a withdrawal may take place.
Lister, an early and stalwart supporter of the al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgency against Assad in Syria, warns of “the catastrophic effect that a withdrawal would have on U.S. and allied influence over the unresolved and acutely volatile crisis in Syria,” adding that, “it would also be a gift to the Islamic State.”
Ah. ISIS. Remember them? We haven’t heard anything from them in awhile. That moveable feast. From not long after Syria’s Assad invited Russia in to rescue the country as it teetered on the verge of total takeover by the U.S.-backed “freedom fighters.”
But…suddenly and if on cue…they’re BACK! Just when after more than a hundred recent attacks on the US occupation bases have convinced even Biden and his “Middle East experts” that it’s only a matter of time before lots of American blood is shed, ISIS suddenly comes roaring back for the neocons to use in attempt to justify Washington’s continued presence in the region.
Very convenient.
But perhaps someone has reminded Biden that it’s an election year and voters might start questioning just why and under what authority American troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria. Especially as the “resistance” rockets (and missiles?) are getting closer.
Similarly to what Lister is panicking about regarding U.S. occupation of Syria, CNN is reporting today that “U.S. and Iraqi governments expected to start talks on future of U.S. military presence in the country.”
Writes CNN’s deep state mouthpiece Natasha Bertrand, “The U.S. and Iraq are expected to soon begin talks on the future of the US military presence in the country, according to sources familiar with the matter, amid public calls from the Iraqi government for the US to withdraw its troops.”
Bertrand quotes several denizens of DC’s “think-tank-topia” who warn that pulling out U.S. “trip-wire” troops from Iraq and Syria could negatively effect their plans for war with Iran…er…could um…embolden ISIS!
Bertrand quotes MIC-funded CSIS “deep thinker” Jon Alterman:
Still, rumblings of a potential US change in its force posture in Iraq would be a victory for Iran, Alterman said. ‘Any sign that this is the beginning of the end would be widely celebrated in Iranian corridors.’
Ah yes! Should the U.S. end its illegal occupation of Syria and Iraq, Iran would celebrate! Those dastardly mullahs! How dare they celebrate no hostile troops on their border!
You know who else would celebrate? Every single mother, wife, husband, and relative of those American troops being forced to sacrifice their very lives for an occupation that has zero to do with the U.S. national interest.
Is Biden a cynical and bloodthirsty monster? No doubt. Is he (or his puppet masters) only concerned about keeping that ring in his hands for four more years? Absolutely. But would I celebrate and praise any decision by the Biden Administration to do the right thing and get the hell out of the Middle East, starting with the occupations of Iraq and Syria? You’re damn right!
As neocon loon Michael Ledeen famously said… “faster please!”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 19:40 - Crime Pays: Seattle Pays 2020 BLM Rioters $10 Million Over 'Excessive Force' Claims
Crime Pays: Seattle Pays 2020 BLM Rioters $10 Million Over ‘Excessive Force’ Claims
Peacefully protest at the Capitol before getting teargassed by Capitol Police and possibly murdered by them? The Biden DOJ will hunt you down and lock you up.
Participate in a summer of anti-Trump chaos? Cities will pay you because the cops were mean while stopping you from smashing windows and setting fires.
In the last year, Denver agreed to pay $4.7 million to 300 BLM rioters arrested in 2020. Philadelphia coughed up $9 million. NYC is paying $13 million.
And now, Seattle has agreed to pay $10 million to 50 rioters injured by police during the summer of riots.
Seattle just agreed to pay $10 million to 50 rioters injured by police in 2020.
Denver is paying $4.7 million to 300 BLM rioters arrested in 2020.
Philadelphia is paying them $9 million.
New York City is shelling out $13 million.
In total, $90+ million in taxpayer dollars…
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 25, 2024
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“This decision was the best financial decision for the City considering risk, cost, and insurance,” said Seattle City Attorney Ann Davidson in a press release reported by The Federalist. “The case has been a significant drain on the time and resources of the City and would have continued to be so through an estimated three-month trial that was scheduled to begin in May.”
Here’s video of police moving in on protesters in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. UPDATES >> https://t.co/t5cE0Jx7b9 pic.twitter.com/6br7iQKn4d
— KIRO 7 (@KIRO7Seattle) September 27, 2020
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The lawsuit was filed by demonstrators in September 2020 in a case which includes over 10,000 videos, more than one million documents, and “hundreds of interactions between the plaintiffs and law enforcement officers.”
“This settlement resolves the majority of the remaining claims arising out of the 2020 demonstration period and is a big step toward allowing the City to focus on the important work of today, while moving forward from events four years ago,” said Davidson.
As The Federalist notes;
The far-left city of Seattle became a hotspot for the politically charged riots in 2020 when violent demonstrations erupted in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. According to the Associated Press, demonstrators were hit with crowd control devices the city council had previously banned.
In February last year, the city settled a separate lawsuit in federal court related to the summer demonstrations. Seattle agreed to pay more than $3.6 million after a federal judge found officials deleted evidence of government failures to protect businesses during the “Capitol Hill Organized Protest” (CHOP).
. . .
CHOP is more popularly known as the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ), wherein far-left anarchists annexed a six-block area the group declared “autonomous” with their own border control and I.D. checks. Then-Democrat Mayor Jenny Durkan compared the autonomous zone to a “block party” and celebrated the demonstration as a “summer of love.”
The utopian project, however, was far from the peaceful “block party” the city’s mayor made it out to be.
“More than a dozen businesses and residents, led by the investment group Hunters Capital, sued the city over its handling of the three-week CHOP protests, claiming the city’s decision to tolerate — and in some cases aid — the closure of an eight-block section of Capitol Hill hurt their businesses,” according to the Seattle Times.
What are they paying for the property damage they caused?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2024
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 19:20 - Middle East Uncertainty And Its Effects On Global Markets
Middle East Uncertainty And Its Effects On Global Markets
As the conflict continues to accelerate in Gaza and beyond, 2024 is set for a somewhat terrifying boom in global uncertainty – and will take gold prices with it.
The conflict has escalated to involve neighboring regions, with the potential for further regional destabilization. Israel’s military operations are now focusing on Hamas’ southern and central strongholds, while regional tensions are heightened by the involvement of non-state actors such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iran-aligned Houthis. This threatens regional stability and could also put further pressure on global supply chains if it interferes with Red Sea shipping routes. In response, gold is holding strong after rocketing upward from its October 2023 lows when fighting broke out:
The Biden Administration has vowed to strike back against the Houthis, promising a “sustained campaign” in Yemen that definitively ups the ante on US involvement in the conflict from a proxy war to a direct one. Having barely just finished handing billions to Ukraine in an already-widening fiscal deficit, the escalations in the Middle East carry all the signs of a protracted conflict. Without lenders to finance US involvement, more war that the US can’t afford means more money printing to fund it. As Peter Schiff said late last year:
“Anything that happens over there with Israel, we’re going to get dragged into it. We’re going to be funding it. It’s going to be increasing our deficits, more fiscal stimulus which is inflationary, and that it is going to result in bigger deficits and more money printing — all of this just accelerates the problem now.”
He predicted as much at the start of the Ukraine war and in the Middle East, it’s looking like more of the same. With parallels to 9/11, the October attacks in Israel that launched the conflict could prove to be a 9/11-type “no going back” moment for the region, leading to potentially years of fighting and reshuffling the global chessboard. As Peter Schiff said last October on his podcast, soon after war broke out and gold resumed an upward trajectory:
“The stakes are high, and the implications are serious. Iran’s motives in the background, seeking to disrupt the Israel-Saudi deal. The peace treaty now hangs in the balance, a significant development in an already tense region.”
The election year factor adds another wrench, with an incumbent administration set to embrace war with the hopes of artificially juicing GDP with rising defense stocks. Though disastrous for the people in these countries and terrible for the dollar, all of this meddling points to record highs for gold in 2024 as the world dumps dollars and exposure to US debt and flees to monetary safety.
Record domestic oil production in 2024 might be helping provide a small temporary buffer between Americans and higher gas prices as a result of the war and OPEC’s supply cuts last year. Combined with other non-OPEC countries like Brazil and Guyana pumping record amounts, the pressure is on OPEC to get some of that market share back, which could drive oil prices lower still in the near term. However, OPEC still expects demand to skyrocket as it contemplates further cuts due to economic development in China, and pushback on quixotic “net zero” policies driving up the need for fuel between now and 2025.
But current highs in domestic oil production won’t solve the growing US debt bubble and isn’t enough on its own to keep gold prices down. That was true before the fighting started, and it’s even truer as the conflict appears solidly on track to escalate and rip through an already unstable region. Any relief in the price of oil is likely to be temporary, especially as demand increases and money printing to fund the war puts further stress on the dollar.
While the USD is still the “best of the worst” compared to alternatives like the euro, before the war, foreign countries like China were already offloading US Treasuries, and trillions more will soon need to be refinanced. That’s just one wad of gunpowder in the global debt keg that was already looming before the outbreak of war made a bad situation worse:
“In short, the US Treasury is ensnared in a debt trap which can only result in foreigners spurning US Treasuries and the dollar itself.”
In fact, China’s Treasury holdings dropped a whopping 40% last year to prop up the yuan, marking just one factor in the increasing trend of global de-dollarization threatening the USD’s status as the global reserve currency. While some of China’s debt holdings were replaced with mortgage-backed securities, those could encounter trouble as well if the US housing market dumps in the wake of a frothy year for real estate.
The logical outcome of more war, more global uncertainty, a supply crunch for oil, and election year madness? A financial crisis and accompanying global gold rush as dollars get dumped and scores of desperate investors and central banks move to protect their wealth with history’s favorite yellow metal.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 19:00 - "Traitor": Argentina Paralyzed By Strikes As Thousands Protest Milei's "Shock Therapy"
“Traitor”: Argentina Paralyzed By Strikes As Thousands Protest Milei’s “Shock Therapy”
Javier Milei’s honeymoon is over.
Two months after libertarian firebrand Javier Milei was elected president of Latam basket case Argentina, pledging to overhaul the economy and openly warning a period of brutal austerity and pain is coming, the initial euphoria is fading fast and is being replace with the shock and horror of what comes next. And sure enough, in the biggest show of resistance to date against Milei, Argentinian workers on Wednesday took to the streets for a general strike, bringing swaths of downtown Buenos Aires to a standstill.
In what has been called an “unprecedented mobilization” never before in modern Argentinian history has a mass strike been called less than seven weeks into a new presidency. But leaders from Argentina’s largest labor union – the guys who are used to a steady drip of handouts from the government – said the nationwide protests reflect the urgency they feel as Milei pursues radical economic and political reforms he likens to “shock therapy”.
Thousands of (most labor union) protesters swarmed the square in front of Argentina’s Congress on Wednesday, denouncing Milei’s sweeping plans to overhaul the government, privatize public industries and slash spending. Some banged pots and carried signs accusing Milei of being a “traitor”. Other banners featured the portrait of working-class icon Evita Peron.
Elizabeth Gutierrez made her way to the gathering after working an overnight shift as a nurse. She explained she was motivated by steep increases in food prices since Milei took office.
“Before we used to have asados [barbecues] every Sunday. Not now. Even rice is very expensive,” Gutierrez said. “Rents have shot up. You can’t live off your salary any more: It’s not enough” she raged adding that “the people are here to defend their nation.”
Well, here’s the problem: the nation has been bled dry by corrupt politicians, and the only thing that can save it is the most aggressive belt tightening in decades. And while Milei is trying it, he is about to find out just how much pushback his plans will cause, and how impossible it will be for his ambitious plan seeking to end the government’s parasistism of the economy, to succeed.
Another protester, 63-year-old retiree Alicia Pereyra, voiced opposition to Milei’s efforts to deregulate the economy, including plans to “modernise” labour law and ditch rent regulation. “He wants us to be slaves,” Pereyra said.
Protester Alicia Pereyra, 63, says her life has been turned ‘upside down’ since Javier Milei’s inauguration [Lautaro Grinspan/Al Jazeera] Draped in an Argentinian flag, Pereyra worried about her ability to make ends meet in the face of Milei’s reforms. Her retirement income amounts to only 85,000 pesos per month — about $70. She said basic necessities had become so costly under Milei that she is unsure whether she will be able to access the medicine she needs for a chronic illness.
Even small luxuries are now out of reach. Pereyra described how she and her husband opted for orange juice instead of wine to make their New Year’s toast for 2024, breaking a long-running family tradition.
“It’s a horrible feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “[Milei] is turning our heads upside down.”
Protesters clanged pots and pans on the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on January 24 Of course, Argentina had already been suffering from record triple-digit inflation when Milei took office on December 10. Elected on the promise that he would fix the sputtering economy – but not before a period of brutal shock – Milei quickly moved to implement austerity measures that he said were needed to get Argentina’s finances in order.
In his inauguration address, he warned the country that Argentina’s situation would get worse before it got better. And he was right.
One of his earliest measures was to devalue the Argentinian peso by 54%, which only accelerated the already sky-high inflation rates.
According to the National Institute for Statistics and Censuses (INDEC), Argentina ended 2023 with annual inflation of 211% the steepest rate in Latin America, surpassing even Venezuela. The year also clocked the fastest inflation hikes since 1990, resulting in higher prices for consumers.
Santiago Manoukian, chief economist at the consulting firm Ecolatina, told Al Jazeera that December’s price increases will continue hitting consumers’ pocketbooks for the next several months. Salaries will have a hard time keeping up.
“We believe that real wages fell in December more than in any other month since at least 2002,” he said. “Purchasing power is going to continue to go down.”
That trend is expected to slow consumer spending, which Manoukian said will likely result in a recession and an uptick in unemployment and poverty. Four in 10 Argentines were already in poverty when Milei took office, according to national data
Milei coupled his currency devaluation measure with immediate cuts to government spending, including consumer subsidies.
One presidential “mega-decree” in December reformed or overturned dozens of laws and paved the way for the privatisation of state-run companies. Another decree axed 5,000 government jobs. But further changes are on the way. Wednesday’s nationwide strike comes as Congress prepares to consider a slimmed-down version of Milei’s “omnibus law” the following day.
Originally containing 664 articles, the bill sought to reimagine the country’s elections, restructure the lower chamber of Congress and enact tough new restrictions on protests, including through penalties of up to six years in prison. The streamlined version is still massive, with over 500 articles. If passed, it would hand broad legislative powers to Milei’s executive branch for an “emergency” period of one year.
Still, the president dismissed Wednesday’s strike as evidence of backward thinking. “There are two Argentinas,” he told local media. “One wants to stay behind, in the past, in decadence.”
Members of his administration likewise blasted the protesters. On Wednesday, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich — Milei’s erstwhile rival on the campaign trail — called the union groups that organised the strike “gangsters” and “guarantors of poverty”.
“There’s no strike that will be able to stop us,” she wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the establishment – realizing their jobs are about to be rugpulled – is lashing out: Federico Finchelstein, a New York-based historian and fascism scholar, said Milei’s first month in office has demonstrated his “authoritarian style of populism”. He drew parallels to Donald Trump, the controversial — but popular — former president of the United States who sought to claim broad executive authority while in office. Finchelstein likened Milei to a “mini-Trump”.
“It’s a type of populism that looks to undermine democratic institutions,” Finchelstein said, clearly forgetting that it was Argentina’s “democratic institutions” that brought pushed it beyond the edge of collapse.
And indeed, despite the criticism and protests he faces, Milei continues to enjoy broad support among Argentinians. One survey this month, conducted by the pollster Escenarios, found that 55% of respondents believed Milei’s reform measures were necessary to improve the economy.
Political scientist Federico Zapata, the director general at Escenarios, credits those poll numbers to the president’s successful messaging to voters.
“In a way, Milei and the libertarians seem to have won the culture war,” he explained. “They managed to have installed a consensus over the diagnosis of the [economic] crisis, and that’s helping build approval over the slate of measures.”
Zapata added that Milei has also been successful in attributing the economic spiral to his left-wing predecessor, former President Alberto Fernandez. “He says that the economic problems are the complete responsibility of the previous government. Based on that, he’s lowered expectations so that people stick with him for longer than the normal honeymoon period,” Zapata said.
Still, Escenarios’ poll showed a majority of respondents felt any major policy changes should take place gradually, and not all at once.
And Milei could face further challenges to his reforms, beyond Wednesday’s large-scale protest. A top Argentinian court has already invalidated a key component of his “mega-decree”, which had sought to cancel a host of worker protections. Both Gutierrez and Pereyra suggested that opposition to Milei may grow to the point where he is unable to finish his term in office.
“The government could find itself in the eye of the storm in just a few months,” Zapata said.
But Milei’s supporters remain optimistic that the firebrand president will make good on his campaign promises.
Luis Testa, a cab driver who voted for Milei, said he still backs the president, even as he makes cuts in his day-to-day expenses.
“We need to give him a chance. Let’s give him a year,” Testa said. “And if, for a year, all of us have to eat beans, we’ll eat beans.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 18:40 - Ohio Legislature Overrides Governor’s Pro-Trans Veto, Bans Procedures For Minors
Ohio Legislature Overrides Governor’s Pro-Trans Veto, Bans Procedures For Minors
Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Ohio Senate voted on Wednesday to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would ban gender transition procedures for minors and prohibit male athletes from playing on female sports teams.
The Ohio House of Representatives Chamber as lawmakers are expected to vote on whether to override the governor’s veto of a bill that would ban trans procedures for minors, at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, on Jan. 10, 2024. (Megan Jelinger/Reuters) The state Senate voted 23-9 to override the veto. The state House voted 65-28 to do the same earlier this month. Republicans have a majority in both chambers.
The vote mostly followed party lines, except for state Sen. Nathan Manning, a Cuyahoga County Republican who consistently breaks from his party on the issue.
Mr. DeWine vetoed the bill in late December, to the chagrin of his party, telling reporters during a press conference that such a measure, if allowed to become law, would do more harm than good.
The bill, also known as the Saving Ohio Adolescents from Experimentation Act, would ban doctors from performing gender-related surgeries and administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors.
Other provisions of the bill would bar schools from allowing male athletes to join female sports teams in high schools and colleges, reflecting a nationwide trend to address concerns about fairness in women’s sports.
The ban is set to take effect in 90 days.
Advocates of the bill argue that irreversible interventions related to individuals’ favored gender identity can have long-term consequences, urging instead for a shift toward compassionate mental health care and therapy for minors.
Ohio has joined North Carolina and Louisiana in overriding the governor’s veto to enact similar bans.
Republican State Rep. Gary Click, the bill’s primary sponsor, celebrated the Senate vote and stressed that the disagreement between the legislative and executive branches was about policy, not personality.
Mr. Click said he is confident that Mr. DeWine, in vetoing the bill, acted from the heart and did what he believed was right. He added that, in time, the governor may have come around to the stance of his fellow Republicans on the matter.
“The legislature, however, felt just as strongly if not more so that HB 68 was imperative to save lives, uphold medical ethics, and reaffirm women’s rights,” Mr. Click said in a statement. “The citizens of Ohio were unequivocal in their demand that the legislature act and we did.”
Mr. Click celebrated the veto as a move that ensures “children have the right to grow up intact and that women are no longer subject to men invading their spaces.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine speaks during an event in Covington, Ky., on Jan. 4, 2023. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) LGBT rights groups, such as Human Rights Campaign, have condemned the legislation, calling the ban “draconian and discriminatory.” The organization has said the bill prevents young people from accessing “best practice, medically necessary health care in defiance of the expert advice of every major medical association.”
However, groups in support of the ban, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, say it protects children from the harm of irreversible procedures.
Senior Counsel Matt Sharp, director of the ADF Center for Legislative Advocacy, applauded the Ohio Senate’s action.
“We commend the Ohio Senate for overriding Gov. Mike DeWine’s misguided veto of the SAFE Act, a bill that rejects the politicized and harmful practice of pushing minors towards irreversible drugs and surgeries in favor of compassionate mental health care that gives them time to grow into comfort with their bodies and true identities,” Mr. Sharp said in a statement.
Mr. Sharp said that denying there are two sexes risks harm to children who may experience gender dysphoria, and need their families to “guide them toward this truth” rather than undergo often irreversible and life-altering experimentation and drugs.
Gender dysphoria is described as discomfort felt about one’s sex. Recent approaches to treatment have been typically to encourage the individual, usually a minor, to undergo surgery or chemical treatments so that they can force their body to look more like the gender they identify with, including by taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgical procedures to remove breast tissue or genitals. Some who have undergone such treatments have later said they felt tricked into it and expressed regret, saying that while the interventions brought temporary relief, they later realized they had deeper underlying mental health issues that were causing their internal distress.
Mr. Sharp said these approaches to treating gender dysphoria—which block healthy puberty, alter a person’s hormonal balance, or remove healthy organs and body parts—“are dangerous.”
“No one has the right to harm children and, thankfully, states have the power—and duty—to protect them. Ohio joins more than 20 other states and several European countries in fighting for truth and curtailing the deployment of harmful surgeries and drugs that are devastating countless lives,” he added.
After the state House vote, Mr. DeWine reiterated his belief that parents should be allowed to make medical decisions on behalf of their children rather than the government.
Despite moving to veto the legislation, in January, the governor signed an executive order that critics labeled a “de facto ban” on such procedures for minors and adults.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 18:20 - The United States Navy Essentially Lost A Battle At Sea This Week
The United States Navy Essentially Lost A Battle At Sea This Week
On Wednesday the US Navy attempted to escort two US owned and flagged container carriers through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait into the Red Sea, but they turned around after coming under Houthi ballistic missile fire.
A we detailed earlier, two contradictory narratives soon emerged: namely the Houthis said they scored a direct hit on one of the US ships, while the Pentagon flatly rejected the claim as nonsense. US CENTCOM said the missiles were intercepted, with one falling into the sea. But this has given rise to many more questions than answers, and some analysts are calling the hostile encounter a clear “loss” for the US Navy and the no less than three well-armed warships attempting to keep the commercial vessels safe.
The seriousness of the new US war in the Red Sea and with Yemen has been vastly understated and under-covered.
The Houthi are doing far more damage than the US and its media acknowledges, all over Israel/Gaza. Read this great analysis on the last episode: https://t.co/f03mYDrXe7
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 25, 2024
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Below is important commentary from @ArmchairW and raises all of the relevant points, showing that the Pentagon narrative doesn’t fully add up [emphasis ZH]…
* * *
Lost amid all the other news breaking in the last 24 hours is one particularly disturbing story: the United States Navy lost a battle at sea yesterday. CENTCOM put out an anodyne press release yesterday stating that afternoon, “Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the U.S.-flagged, owned, and operated container ship M/V Maersk Detroit, transiting the Gulf of Aden.
One missile impacted in the sea. The two other missiles were successfully engaged and shot down by the USS Gravely (DDG 107). There were no reported injuries or damage to the ship.” All well and good… but as it turned out there was a lot more to the story.
This engagement occurred while two American merchantmen – the Maersk Detroit and the Maersk Chesapeake – were attempting to run the Bab al-Mandeb from south to north while being covered by the USS Gravely. An AEGIS destroyer’s defensive umbrella should have turned this transit into a milk run – except it didn’t. CENTCOM admits that one of the Houthis’ tactical ballistic missiles – undemanding targets as far as such things go – got through the Gravely’s interceptors.
What they neglected to mention was that it struck about a hundred meters from the Maersk Detroit, and that after the attack the convoy aborted the transit and retreated back into the Arabian Sea rather than press on into enemy fire. Was retreat the correct decision at the moment? Probably, the Gravely was shepherding two lumbering merchantmen and facing unsuppressed shore batteries of unknown strength and capability in broad daylight, quite possibly without adequate air cover given the ambiguities of the Eisenhower’s exact station in the Red Sea and the limited combat radius of its air wing.
Was this operational plan inadequate? Almost certainly – reading between the lines, it reeks of a complacent assumption that Houthi missile batteries had actually been suppressed by a few rounds of air raids and that a single AEGIS destroyer could handle anything the Houthis could throw at them with no need for additional contingency planning.
In the event neither of these assumptions were correct – and because of it a convoy covered by one of the US Navy’s premier warships retreated from a battle that was going badly. Perhaps the Task Force command should stop trying to shape narratives on this website and get to work on getting the Bab al-Mandeb back open to Western shipping, because right now that particular pool looks very closed.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 18:00 - Pentagon Report Predicts New Age Of COVID Bioweapons And Brain Chip Warfare
Pentagon Report Predicts New Age Of COVID Bioweapons And Brain Chip Warfare
The year is 2028, and a new and highly infectious coronavirus has struck the sailors of the U.S. Pacific Fleet stationed in the South China Sea. As the world grapples with this emerging pandemic, confusion runs rampant among officials at the CIA, CDC, and DOD, who bicker over the most effective response strategies.
Meanwhile, China, seemingly immune to the novel virus, seizes the opportunity to launch a full-scale assault on Taiwan, capitalizing on the global chaos.
While the World Health Organization praises China’s successful social distancing measures, little do they know that the Chinese government had covertly vaccinated its military and essential workers under the guise of a standard COVID-19 booster campaign.
This scenario, initially conceived by Pentagon researchers, may sound like science fiction, but military strategists believe that a “coronavirus bioweapon” may lurk on the horizon. This possibility is one of several outlined in a new report sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The report “Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers: The Human Domain of War Research” delves into how CRISPR gene-editing technology, mRNA vaccines, brain networking, and other technological advancements could unleash new forms of military conflict.
Released earlier this month and reported here for the first time, this provocative report, conducted within the Acquisition and Technology Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division, offers futuristic scenarios that military planners should consider.
“We see a complex, high-threat landscape emerging where future wars are fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thoughts” and “synthetically generated, genomically targeted plagues” that cripple the American military-industrial base,” the report warns.
In another intriguing scenario, seemingly inspired by the decline of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and this time set in a more distant future, the report suggests that elderly congressional leaders, desperate to retain power, secretly install state-of-the-art Brain-Computer Interface devices. These devices, commonly used among wealthy senior citizens in the scenario, initially help the senators regain mobility and speech after years of clear cognitive decline. However, when the brain implants malfunction, causing erratic and belligerent behavior, foreign allies begin to distance themselves from the U.S., damaging national security.
The report further highlights the potential hacking vulnerabilities associated with BCI implants, which, while promising for patients with neuromuscular impairments, could be exploited to inject fear, confusion, or anger.
Additionally, the authors caution against the possibility of government employees replacing their natural eye lenses with artificial ones containing tiny cameras connected to micro-storage devices. The small cameras could collect classified intelligence and leak it to foreign adversaries.
However, not all aspects of the report focus on vulnerabilities. In a section discussing human genomic editing, the researchers explore the potential for creating “supersoldiers” through genetic modifications that enhance physical and psychological capabilities. Despite their vulnerabilities, BCI devices could also serve as a means for commanders to communicate swiftly with their forces during military operations.
The report extensively analyzes the technological capabilities of both China and the U.S. in biotechnology and brain technology, highlighting the differences in focus and status between the two nations. It highlights previous reporting on Chinese research into “ethnic-specific genetic weapons” and “purported brain-control weaponry.”
Nevertheless, the report ventures into cultural observations, emphasizing that the U.S. values openness, diversity, and democratic principles. In the face of a more contagious and deadly pandemic, China’s ethnically homogenous and compliant population could give it an advantage in deploying vaccines swiftly. At the same time, authoritarian states might similarly brutally suppress “anti-vaccine populists” and enforce compliance. The report claims this could hinder the U.S. due to its more relaxed regulatory environment that values individual liberties, where such crackdowns and forced vaccinations are more difficult to deploy.
Subscribers to Lee Fang can read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/26/2024 – 17:40
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