Jun 27

Today’s News 27th June 2023

  • "Political Earthquake" – Germany's AfD Party Posts Historic Win In Thuringia, Scores First District Administrator
    “Political Earthquake” – Germany’s AfD Party Posts Historic Win In Thuringia, Scores First District Administrator

    Authored by Denes Albert via Remix News,

    The German political establishment is reacting with extreme alarm and making various threats about the democratic results in favor of the AfD…

    Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) candidate Robert Sesselmann won the second round of elections in Sonneberg, Thuringia, on Sunday, becoming the first politician from the party to hold a district leadership post. The win is being touted as a historic victory for the party at a time when it is seeing record support from the population and routinely polling between 19 and 20 percent in nationwide surveys.

    Sesselmann defeated the incumbent CDU candidate Jürgen Köpper by a convincing margin.

    Preliminary election results show Sesselmann with 52.8 percent of the vote and Köpper with 47.2 percent, reports Germany’s Focus magazine.

    Although he did not achieve an absolute majority in the first round, Sesselmann won 47 percent of the votes, making him the strong favorite to win in the second round.

    The win also comes despite a cross-party coalition of Greens, Free Democrats (FDP), the Left party, and the Social Democrats (SPD) endorsing the CDU candidate and urging their voters to back him against the AfD. The German press also made the election a national issue, warning of a “threat against democracy” should the AfD win.

    In his campaign, the AfD candidate promised voters that he would tackle high inflation and the growing problem of immigration. The rural and conservative population of Germany is increasingly dissatisfied with the current leadership, which could lead to a national rise of the AfD.

    The AfD celebrated the win on Twitter, writing: “Sonneberg experienced its blue miracle: Robert Sesselmann is the first AfD district administrator in Germany. Congratulations and thanks to all supporters and voters – they all made history today!”

    German newspaper Junge Freiheit describes the victory as a “political earthquake,” but the German political establishment is reacting with concern and threats.

    Green party leader Ricarda Lang called the result of the district election “disturbing.” 

    She stated: “Now at the latest is the time when – despite all the disputes on the matter – all democratic forces must defend democracy together.”

    Schleswig-Holstein SPD member of the Bundestag Ralf Stegner claimed the election had similarities with the Third Reich, writing, “Ninety years after the seizure of power and the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship, the district of Sonneberg in southern Thuringia elected a right-wing extremist as district administrator.”

    As Remix News recently reported, AfD soared to an unprecedented 20 percent in a recent INSA poll, likely driven by a broad range of factors such as Germany’s significant inflation and economic crisis, as well as the migration crisis. The INSA poll shows that 34 percent of voters describe themselves as “angry citizens,” and among AfD supporters, 70 percent describe themselves this way.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/27/2023 – 02:00

  • Time To Get Rid Of Federal 'Disinformation' Bureaus
    Time To Get Rid Of Federal ‘Disinformation’ Bureaus

    Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

    Recently, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines announced the creation of a new office within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI): The Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC). It would encompass “election threat work, essentially looking at foreign influence and interference in elections, but it also deals with disinformation more generally.” Legislation creating the center was passed by Congress and signed into law in 2022.

    Although its work nominally deals with disinformation targeting U.S. elections and public opinion within the United States, there are at least two questions that need to be asked: First, is this office essential or duplicative of other ongoing efforts? Second, is this even appropriate work in which the federal government should be engaged?

    In the last few years, as disinformation and countering disinformation have become the staples of political and public policy discourse, a cottage industry has grown up within the federal government around these topics. Support in Congress means the money grab is on, with federal agencies vying to secure funds for the hot new topic to grow their bureaucracy, influence and power.

    Other agencies already involved in disinformation are numerous. The State Department has the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that combats foreign disinformation through promoting U.S. interests and messaging. The GEC does its own assessments of foreign operations and shares its analyses with partners throughout the government, thereby creating an American disinformation distribution center.

    The FBI, in 2017, created its own Foreign Influence Task Force. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may be the most active of all government agencies that jumped on this bandwagon. The DHS has, or had, a Countering Foreign Influence Task Force, a Foreign Influence and Interference Branch, Countering Foreign Influence Subcommittee, and a heavily criticized, ridiculed and now disbanded “Disinformation Governance Board.”

    Not to be left out, the Pentagon also established an Influence and Perception Management Office responsible for coordinating the multiple counter-disinformation efforts conducted by the military.

    The bottom line is that there are multiple groups and agencies already focused on disinformation, but has anyone thought through how these agencies coordinate and enhance the mission, or are they duplicative and overlap? Are they effective and efficient or a waste of taxpayer dollars? Is the threat of a new Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” as big as it is toxic? There are many questions that need to be answered — above all, is this function for the federal government even appropriate?

    The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s center has as its motto, “Exposing deception in defense of liberty.” That is a noble goal. How has the federal government been fulfilling this role as it has expanded its disinformation apparatus?

    The U.S. Intelligence Community, spanning eighteen different agencies across the federal government, has some of the most effective disinformation capabilities of any organization on the planet. Think about the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon. The CIA historically has participated in the undermining of foreign governments. The State Department, through its Global Engagement Center, has, as part of its mission, fighting foreign propaganda by promoting an American agenda. The Pentagon spends tremendous amounts of resources trying to deceive those who might be trying to ascertain its plans, intentions and capabilities. The American government is extremely capable at generating its own disinformation.

    Disappointingly, Americans have seen this capability firsthand. Some U.S. intelligence leaders have used their status to aggressively plant disinformation to undermine presidents and influence elections. Some of these individuals are still on the government payroll, while others leveraged their titles and previous experience to deliberately deceive the people they are supposed be serving but instead repeatedly betray: their own citizens.

    Consider Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey, who used their positions to undermine incoming President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017 by leaking and hyping to the media information based on a deceptive briefing they provided to Trump to begin framing him for supposedly colluding with Russia in the disruptive, two-year pretend-investigation known inside the FBI as “Crossfire Hurricane” and outside it as “the Russia Hoax.”

    As the Durham Report states:

    “[A]t the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials.”

    The report goes on to assert that during the fake Trump investigation, the FBI and DOJ had failed to practice “strict fidelity to the law.” The FISA court chastised the FBI for fabrications it made in the Russia probe. The “Russia Hoax,” it turned out — as its perpetrators reportedly knew all along — had been organized and funded by Trump’s presidential election opponent Hillary Clinton — evidently to deflect attention from her extensive destruction of classified material (here and here) — as well as the Democratic National Committee; fraudulently prosecuted by the FBI, and laundered by the Perkins Coie law firm.

    In the case of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop that first exposed massive influence peddling, Fifty-one former intelligence officials signed a letter falsely suggesting the Biden laptop story “had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morrell testified before Congress that Antony Blinken, current Secretary of State, played a key role in originating the letter and getting the signatories. Reports also include the allegation that a current CIA employee assisted in promoting the letter.

    The ODNI met with social media companies prior to the 2020 election to inform them about potential disinformation by Russia and other nations. The ODNI, however, is a gatherer of foreign intelligence, not an arbiter of truth in U.S. presidential elections.

    Other recent allegations about potentially malign activities by our government abound. The FBI incidentally collected data without a warrant on U.S. citizens 3.4 million times in 2021. Thirty percent of the times the FBI did so, it acted in error or roughly one million times. Remember, this is all work performed by government employees who are tasked with keeping our country safe, yet these are the “mistakes” we keep seeing.

    The evidence appears to be overwhelming. The broad expansion of the federal government’s reach into disinformation has been knee-jerk and uncoordinated. It seems even more evident that Congress has apparently not delineated the parameters within which the intelligence and law enforcement community should operate. When Congress has set lines, the Intelligence Community and law enforcement have been more than willing to overstep their bounds and stretch their legal authorities.

    It is time to hold those responsible accountable. It is time to streamline the process and eliminate the duplication, redundancy, and waste that has sprouted up to become the federal disinformation bureaucracy. Crucially, given the federal government’s repeatedly demonstrated disregard for the law, it is time to consider whether it should even be engaged in this effort. It should not. The American government, based on the First Amendment, should not be anywhere near regulating protected speech. The American government should not be deciding what speech should be regulated and what speech should not.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 23:40

  • New York City Remains America's Fine-Dining Capital
    New York City Remains America’s Fine-Dining Capital

    Receiving a Michelin star is still the highest honor for a restaurant and more than 200 in the United States currently hold the distinction.

    Infographic: The U.S. Fine Dining Capitals | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, Michelin-star restaurants cluster around the country’s biggest metros and most can be found in New York City.

    Diners there have a large variety to pick from, including Michelin-starred Mexican at Casa Enrique in Long Island City, contemporary Scandinavian cooking at Brooklyn’s Aska or modern, set family-style meals at Family Meal in Manhattan. A total of 72 restaurants in the city currently have at least one Michelin star. 12 boast two stars and five even have three stars, also the highest number of any U.S. city.

    San Francisco and the Bay Area come in second in the ranking, with 38 highly-awarded eateries stretching from the North Bay through Palo Alto all the way to Saratoga. 

    Restaurants offering different Asian cuisines are most often Michelin-starred in the area, followed by those offering contemporary or so-called Californian fare, which is focused on local and seasonal ingredients as well as fresh vegetables and lean meats. The dining scene is quite similar in Greater Los Angeles, where 28 star-studded restaurants are welcoming well-heeled customers from Hollywood to Costa Mesa. Another place where Michelin-starred restaurants are typically found in the United States is Napa Valley north of San Francisco, where plush dining rooms looks out over the countryside.

    Washington D.C. and Chicago have fewer Michelin-starred restaurants than Californian cities, but in contrast to Greater Los Angeles, both places boast one locale with three Michelin stars each. Alinea in Chicago offers contemporary cooking that borders on the performative with dishes that flip and other tricks that the Michelin website describes as “tableside fun”. In Washington D.C., The Inn at Little Washington is a more traditional joint that dishes up intricate vegetable creations and grows many ingredients on site.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 23:20

  • Gen Z Has Been Failed By The Education System
    Gen Z Has Been Failed By The Education System

    Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times,

    Gen Z is “rotting” away, according to a recent New York Post piece. Millions of young people now spend inordinate amounts of time “bed rotting,” lounging about for extended periods of time, eating food, watching Netflix, and playing video games. But this “rotting” must be viewed through a broader lens. Gen Zers are struggling, and their struggles will cost the country dearly.

    By 2025, Gen Z will account for just over one-quarter of the global workforce. That’s bad news for everyone. It’s especially bad news if you happen to live in America.

    A recent CNBC report highlights the many ways in which Gen Zers lack skills other generations take for granted. These digital natives may be able to create a good meme or take a mean selfie, but when faced with other actual human beings, they crumble.

    Tara Salinas, a professor of business ethics at the University of San Diego, told CNBC that Gen Zers have “always communicated online,” and for this reason, “their interpersonal skills, or soft skills, have suffered.” COVID-19, she added, certainly made the problem many times worse.

    It’s easy to scoff at Gen Z. So many articles have been written about this seemingly fragile generation. But it’s important to realize that it’s not all their fault. Many Gen Zers are products of an utterly hopeless education system.

    As the author and prominent psychologist Daniel Goleman has noted, 67 percent of the skills that employers are looking for in their employees are in the area of social and emotional intelligence (soft skills), yet schools spend less than 2 percent of an average school week teaching and developing these skills. In many schools, noted Goleman, they don’t spend any time developing these skills.

    The importance of a soft skill such as emotional intelligence (EI) can’t be emphasized enough. Strong EI is vital for a healthy, meaningful existence. Before going any further, though, it’s important to get our definitions in order. People high in EI are able to identify, manage, and control their own emotions. Furthermore, they’re able to identify and understand the emotions of those around them.

    According to experts at Harvard (pdf), high EI is a protective factor for suicidal behavior. Difficulties with emotion regulation are intimately associated with suicidal ideation. Not surprisingly, considering so many Gen Zers lack adequate levels of EI, they tend to suffer from depression and commit suicide at higher rates than members of other generations. A 2018 study carried out by Spanish psychologists argued that EI should be integrated into suicide prevention programs. But I would go one step further. EI should be integrated into the entire education system. The development of EI should be of prime importance to all educators, from kindergarten teachers to university professors.

    Which prompts the question: How does one actually teach EI?

    Key elements of EI include self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Self-awareness is a thinking skill, one that focuses on an individual’s ability to accurately judge his or her own thoughts and behaviors and respond appropriately. As obvious as it sounds, the more accurately an individual can evaluate their actions and behaviors, the better equipped they are to face the challenges of the world. The same goes for a person with a strong capacity for self-regulation. Those who score high on self-regulation have the ability to identify a strong emotion and respond in a manner that has the least negative consequences. Instead of throwing a tantrum when denied something, for example, a child can be taught to ask why they were denied the request. A lack of emotional self-regulation skills can lead to self-destructive behaviors later in life, such as drug abuse and alcoholism.

    As is clear to see on college campuses across the country, both self-awareness and self-regulation are in short supply. Many of the young people who lack discipline are products of a failed education system. They enjoy harping on about the importance of inclusion, respect, and tolerance, yet become increasingly flustered when their opinions are challenged.

    An effective EI program teaches children how to communicate effectively. It teaches them that, more often than not, listening is more important than talking. The United States, like so many other countries, is a nation populated by conversational narcissists, people who genuinely love the sound of their own voices. If we’re always talking, then we’re rarely, if ever, listening—and that’s a problem.

    Listening affects virtually every aspect of an individual’s life, from academic performance to job performance to romantic relationships. The average American spends about 45 percent of their communication time listening (or not listening) and roughly 30 percent of the time talking (the rest of the time is spent reading and writing). Yet, for some reason, the education system fails to teach the children of today and the adults of tomorrow how to actually listen.

    Denise Daniels, creator of The Moodsters, the first evidence-based global children’s brand to address emotional literacy and resilience in young people, told me that “children’s emotions are the cornerstone of children’s positive mental health, which is the number one issue facing children in the U.S. and around the world.”

    Daniels, a Peabody award-winning broadcast journalist, parenting and child development expert, and author who specializes in the social and emotional development of children, recently returned from Washington, DC where she was invited to work on children’s emotions and policy issues with the America First Policy Institute. In other words, when it comes to the importance of EI, Daniels knows what she’s talking about.

    “Today,” she said, “when the lives of children have been upended—by the pandemic, by social media, by grief and loss—children need age-appropriate emotional coping skills more than ever.” But to actually develop these skills, she concluded, “children need a strong foundation in emotional literacy: the ability to understand and manage their own complex feelings, and to recognize those of others.”

    This is where schools come in. In these highly turbulent times, with people of all ages and political beliefs locking horns over various issues, we need more resilient citizens, the type of people willing to listen to the other side and channel their own emotions in a constructive manner.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 23:00

  • Watch: Chinese Warplanes Come Close To Taiwan's 24-Mile Zone
    Watch: Chinese Warplanes Come Close To Taiwan’s 24-Mile Zone

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said that eight Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes came close to Taiwan’s contiguous zone, which extends 24 nautical miles off the island’s coast.

    Since then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Taiwan in August, PLA warplanes have regularly crossed the median line, an informal barrier that separates the two sides of the Taiwan Strait that the PLA used to avoid. But there have been no reports of Chinese aircraft entering Taiwan’s contiguous zone.

    Getty Images

    The Taiwanese Defense Ministry wrote on Twitter that Taiwan’s “Armed Forces detected 19 PLA aircraft (including J-10, J-16, etc.), eight of which crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and approached the 24-nautical-mile line.”

    China has kept up the military pressure on Taiwan as the US has continued to increase support for Taipei, including the deployment of about 200 US troops to the island, the largest-known US military presence in Taiwan since 1979.

    Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said earlier this year that China will use Taiwan’s growing military and diplomatic ties as an excuse to fly closer to the island. Chiu expected the PLA to enter the contiguous zone if House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) visited Taiwan.

    McCarthy ended up hosting Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California in April instead of traveling to Taiwan. The meeting provoked major Chinese military exercises around Taiwan, but they were not as extensive as the drills launched by the PLA in response to the Pelosi visit.

    Chiu said that if PLA warplanes enter the contiguous zone, Taipei would “restrain ourselves from launching the first strike to avoid giving China an excuse to attack Taiwan.”

    But if Chinese aircraft enter Taiwan’s airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles from its coast, Chiu said Taiwanese forces would respond.

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    “We would be forced to respond should Chinese military vessels and aircraft come near or enter the nation’s airspace and territorial waters, even if they are in disputed areas,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 22:20

  • BlackRock CEO Drops "ESG" Term After Blowback
    BlackRock CEO Drops “ESG” Term After Blowback

    On Sunday, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink revealed at the Aspen Ideas Festival that he had abandoned the term “ESG” (environment, social, and governance) because it has been highly politicized and even “weaponized,” and he is “ashamed” to be part of the debate, according to Axios. 

    Fink acknowledged at the event that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to yank $2 billion in assets hurt his firm. Gov. DeSantis pulled state assets managed by the world’s largest money manager in late 2022 over “woke” capitalism policies. 

    Lawmakers from red states have called out BlackRock for its toxic woke capitalism push in corporate America. Besides Florida, states like Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, Arkansas, West Virginia, Missouri, and Texas have withdrawn funds from the asset manager. 

    Recall Fink was very nervous earlier this year over the ‘demonization‘ of ESG. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Last month, seventeen Republican state attorneys filed a motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to dispute whether BlackRock could purchase more than $10 million voting stakes in utility companies. 

    “These elitists are trying to impose restrictions on energy companies and utilities that would never win approval at the ballot box. 

    “Their schemes could raise utility bills for regular Americans, including elderly Hoosiers on fixed incomes, and they could diminish the value of their investment accounts,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement last month. 

    Fink, 70, said he was “ashamed of being part of this conversation,” adding:

    “When I write these [investment] letters, it was never meant to be a political statement. … They were written to identify longterm issues to our longterm investors.” 

    Of course, that’s nonsense. Fink has been at the center of pushing ‘climate change’ policies and has even said his company would “force behaviors” on corporate America. 

    And then there’s this… 

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    Axios said at the event: 

    When pressed on the statement later in the conversation, Fink backtracked.

    “I never said I was ashamed,” he said, incorrectly. “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”

    “I’m not going to use the word ESG because it’s been misused by the far left and the far right,” he added.

    Fink isn’t ashamed of ESG… He’s furious the scheme to ram woke capitalism down corporations through voting proxies has hit a serious snag and generated serious blowback from lawmakers and average Americans.

    Here are some of BlackRock’s top holdings. 

    The billionaire will always champion ESG.

    It will just be rebranded under another name. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 22:00

  • Politicians Meet The Polygraph
    Politicians Meet The Polygraph

    Authored by Lloyd Billingsley via American Greatness,

    Back in 1986, members of the Reagan cabinet said they were willing to take drug tests to set an example for federal workers and the public. That caught the attention of Jay Leno, who recommended IQ tests instead. Better still, Wayne Allyn Root now contends, would be lie detector tests, an idea that “threatens the power structure of the entire American political system and U.S. government.” 

    Politicians have sold us out, Root believes, and to save the nation we must demand that politicians and government officials face off with the polygraph. Root’s questions include:

    • Are you now, or have you ever been on China’s payroll? Or the CCP payroll?

    • Are you now, or have you ever been on the payroll of the Mexican drug cartels?

    • Are any of your family members or friends on any of these foreign payrolls?

    • Do you have an offshore bank account? Does anyone in your family accept payoffs in an offshore account?

    • Do you accept illegal campaign contributions from any foreign interests?

    • Are you on the payroll of any Big Pharma company or vaccine manufacturer? Do you have family members or friends on the Big Pharma payroll or receiving stock or stock options from Big Pharma?

    • Are you being blackmailed, or have you ever been blackmailed?

    • Have you given government contracts to spouses, family members or friends?

    • Have you passed inside information on public companies to family or friends, and shared in the profits?

    • Are you 100 percent loyal to the interests of America and your constituents?

    Examiners could also ask:

    • Have you ever employed a Chinese spy on your staff for 20 years?

    • Have you ever demanded that Facebook or Twitter take down a post?

    • Did you ever falsely claim to have served in Vietnam?

    And so on.

    Root believes “we’d have to replace virtually the entire House, Senate, every federal judge and every government bureaucrat.” That may be a stretch but the test itself is on solid ground.  

    Candidates for the Border Patrol are required to undergo polygraph tests. The FBI has used polygraph tests since 1935 and ramped them up in the wake of FBI spy Robert Hanssen, who eluded the agency for at least 15 years. The CIA uses polygraph tests in the hiring process and for security clearances. A polygraph examiner for the CIA conducts two sessions per day in an “unrelenting job” that can require duty abroad.

    Politicians make laws, spend the people’s money, deal with foreign adversaries and swear to uphold the Constitution. So it’s entirely reasonable that politicians face the polygraph, and current conditions also make a case for DNA tests, which don’t lie. Consider, for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

    Her claim to be a Cherokee was the basis for her career, from law school to Harvard—which proclaimed Warren a “woman of color”—to the U.S. Senate. As a DNA test before her first run for office would have shown, Warren is not a Cherokee. Despite the blatant falsehood, Warren failed to resign, remained in the Senate, and ran for president.

    San Diego Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, a two-time candidate for Congress, is the grandson of Muhammad Abu Youssef al-Najjar, mastermind of the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics that claimed the lives of 11 Israeli athletes. Ammar’s father, Yaser al-Najjar, was also a fugitive but Ammar claims he moved to the United States and married a Mexican woman.

    Candidate Ammar, who also lived in Gaza, has billed himself as a “Palestinian Mexican” and “Latino Arab American.” A DNA test would clear it up but the candidate has not volunteered.  Ammar recently lost a race for mayor of Chula Vista and former California Senate boss Kevin de Leon recently survived a recall effort on the Los Angeles city council.

    Back in 2017, de Leon suddenly claimed his father Andres was a Chinese cook born in Guatemala, where his mother Carmen Osorio was also born. A DNA test would have revealed the truth, but no such test took place.

    Questions about origins must also include the president David Garrow chronicled in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. Back around 2008, the Hillary Clinton campaign floated a rumor that the former Barry Soetoro had been born abroad, and was therefore not eligible to be president. That turned out to be false, and the “birthers” were wrong. The real question was the identity of the father.

    The poet “Frank” in Dreams from My Father turns out to be Frank Marshall Davis, an African American Communist who dedicated most of his life to an all-white Soviet dictatorship. Garrow raised the issue and revealed that Dreams from My Father was a work of “historical fiction” and the author a “composite character.”

    The Kenya section borrows heavily from I Dreamed of Africa and African Nights, by Italian writer Kuki Gallmann. The written materials of the Kenyan Barack Obama, housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and covering the years 1958-1964, make not a single mention of a white American wife and Hawaiian-born son.

    Malik Obama, son of the Kenyan, wondered if the president could be “a fraud and a con,” and in 2015 Malik said he was willing to take a DNA test. So far no response from the composite character, the most powerful man in the world for eight years, aiming to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

    “If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan,” said the composite character president in 2009, and on many other occasions.

    “Read my lips, no new taxes,” said George H. W. Bush in 1988. No need for a polygraph to detect those lies. And as some folks might remember: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford Administration,” said the president of the United States in 1976.

    That one is hard to top. Maybe Jay Leno was on to something.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 21:40

  • ERCOT Power Demand Hits Record As Heat Dome Bakes Texas
    ERCOT Power Demand Hits Record As Heat Dome Bakes Texas

    It’s extremely hot in Texas this afternoon. As of 1630 local time Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid manager, reported electricity demand hit a record high of 80,200 megawatts as millions of people cranked up their air conditioners to escape triple-digit temperatures. 

    The previous record for demand was 80,148 megawatts last July. “That marked the 11th time last summer electricity demand broke the all-time record, and was the first time Texas had exceeded 80,000 megawatts,” the Houston Chronicle said. 

    Bloomberg data shows high temperatures across the state will average over 100 degrees Fahrenheit through the end of the month. 

    The reason for the scorching temperatures is because of a weather system called a “heat dome” that stalled over Texas, Oklahoma, and parts of Mexico. The system will shift to Arkansas, Louisiana, and Kansas early next month. 

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    ERCOT is vulnerable to extreme weather and has so far held up, as half of the electricity generated on the grid today is derived from natural gas-fired power plants, with another 20% from coal and nuclear plants. About 11% came from wind, and 14% came from solar. 

    Earlier this month, “Texas Grid Faces First Big Test As Record Power Demand Imminent On Triple-Digit Temp Threat.” And ERCOT survived. Now the next big test is underway.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 21:20

  • Pentagon's "Woke" Agenda Dividing, Weakening The Military: Former Space Force Officer
    Pentagon’s “Woke” Agenda Dividing, Weakening The Military: Former Space Force Officer

    Authored by J.M.Phelps via The Epoch Times,

    Military service members have been increasingly exposed to a “hyper-politicized and sexualized work environment,” according to a former lieutenant colonel, who says the resulting divisiveness is weakening the U.S. Armed Forces.

    The Pentagon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies have drawn increased and intense scrutiny in recent years, especially from conservatives, who dubb these moves as part of the “woke” agenda.

    Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations, said that “anti-LGBTQ+ laws” introduced by state legislatures are affecting hiring decisions. At a recent Pentagon pride event, she said, “Transformational cultural change requires leadership from the top, and we do not have time to wait. Since January of this year, more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been introduced at the state level.”

    “That number is rising and demonstrates a trend that could be dangerous for service members, their families, and the readiness of the force as a whole,” she added.

    The Epoch Times spoke to former Space Force officer, Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, who in 2021 was removed from his command for expressing opposition to Marxist-rooted critical race theory (CRT). According to him, there is no place for this kind of advocacy from Burt in the U.S. military.

    “Americans should know that when someone signs up to wear the uniform of their country, they’re trained early on to leave political baggage at the door and to be rather apolitical while acting in an official capacity.”

    Service members often avoid discussing political topics, because as Lohmeier pointed out, “there is something that supersedes those topics for men and women in uniform—and that’s a particular mission in support of national security.”

    “One can make arguments that the military became more political during the Clinton, or during the Obama administration,” he said. “But something radically, fundamentally shifted under the current administration with Lloyd Austin in the seat as secretary of defense.”

    Matthew Lohmeier. (Courtesy of Lohmeier)

    Cultural Dialogue

    Lohmeier said, “At the forefront of the cultural dialogue in the military is what has been driven by policy.” Under then-President Donald Trump, in September 2020, federal agencies were banned from conducting diversity and inclusion training in an effort to combat race and sex stereotyping. Such training was referred to in the executive order as “divisive, anti-American propaganda” funded by taxpayers.

    When President Joe Biden came into office in January 2021, he rescinded Trump’s order and issued several executive orders promoting DEI in the federal government.

    “While the military has always been, by and large, a reflection of broader American society,” Lohmeier said, “there is something very different going on right now in this current administration.”

    “Left-wing activists have essentially been given a bully pulpit,” and according to Lohmeier, “it is politically agitating.” Whether it’s the push for CRT, DEI, the LGBT agenda, or trans activism, he said it is “divisive in nature because not everyone aligns with or agrees with those agendas, and instead view them as a distraction from what our military’s priorities ought to be.”

    But equally concerning to him is that “these agendas strike at the values of the military and its role in defending the Constitution.” As most service members attempt to remain apolitical, Lohmeier said, “they are finding themselves in a hyper-politicized and sexualized work environment at the moment.” And if they oppose the environment, “they are labeled as politically partisan and simply ‘part of the problem’ and are ostracized for it.”

    US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during the 155th National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on May 29, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    Drag Controversy

    An active-duty Air Force officer reached out to Lohmeier in May, sharing an advertisement for an upcoming “family-friendly” drag show event to kick off Pride Month. The event was scheduled for June 1 at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. “The drag show was to be hosted on base at the officer’s club and was sponsored by and funded by the base—which means your taxpayer dollars,” he said.

    Lohmeier’s source said his family was concerned about the event and they were not alone. “There were other families on base concerned about the event. Even though attendance at the event wasn’t compulsory, flyers were being posted around base and parents were distressed about their children being subjected to the content of those flyers,”Lohmeier said.

    Thus, an effort to stop the event began. “I sent information about the event with the promotional flyer to members of Congress, [and] I tweeted about it,” he said. “A few members of Congress, in particular, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) took swift action.”

    Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) looks on during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the defense budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 29, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

    Gaetz sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, “demanding answers as to why these things are still taking place on DOD installations, because [on March 29], the Secretary of Defense in a hearing before Congress said that the Defense Department is not using taxpayer dollars to fund drag shows.” But to the contrary, Gaetz provided evidence of DOD-affiliated drag queen events.

    For Lohmeier, the secretary was “either ignorant or being disingenuous,” but he is thankful a policy memorandum was issued in early June to end drag shows at Department of Defense installations around the world.

    On June 21, House Armed Services Committee Republicans adopted provisions in the annual defense spending bill to eliminate the chief diversity officer at the Pentagon, end funding for DEI programs, as well as other measures targeting “woke” policies.

    Lessons Learned

    Lohmeier said there are lessons to be learned through this example of opposition to drag queen events at Pentagon facilities.

    “While there are thousands concerned about drag queen shows and story hours, it only took one person to send a request for help and it made all the difference,” he said. “Men and women in uniform need to learn that it’s not off limits to speak up and voice your concern, because you could make changes in policy when you do so.”

    There are still thousands of service members who love their country, Lohmeier said. “They take pride in the country and the greatness of the American ideal, and they are willing to fight for and defend that ideal,” he said.

    “The best men and women in uniform defend the Constitution for every American, but they need not bow to the political agenda of a select few.” And as various left-wing movements grow, he said, “We need decent people with traditional American values serving in the police force, in the schools, and in the military to shield us from illegal, unethical, or immoral policies that often stem from political and sexual activism run amok.”

    “The LBTGQ+ agenda is every bit as divisive for our military as the Marxist-rooted CRT,” Lohmeier said. “It’s every bit as divisive as the diversity and inclusion training that need to be eliminated.”

    “If we are going to be strong, if we are going to be ready, if we are going to be lethal,” Lohmeier said, “it will be because of unity.” For him, “the strength of the military is in its unity, not in its diversity.”

    The Department of the Air Force and Department of Defense did not return requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 21:00

  • "My Fear Is When Push Finally Comes To Shove" Copper Can Go Up 10 Times, Warns Billionaire Mine-Owner
    “My Fear Is When Push Finally Comes To Shove” Copper Can Go Up 10 Times, Warns Billionaire Mine-Owner

    We have all seen news headlines for lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other rare-earth metals needed for electric vehicle batteries and the entire electricity infrastructure. The Biden administration has announced a series of moves to secure America’s ‘supply chain for critical minerals.’ Rarely discussed, however, is copper, one essential metal at the heart of the energy transition.  

    In an interview on Monday, billionaire mining investor Robert Friedland told Bloomberg TV that the mining industry is failing to increase supply ahead of ‘accelerating demand.’ He said deposits are getting more expensive and harder to find, funding is limited, and economies have to prepare for the importance of the mining industry to lead the energy transition. 

    “We’re heading for a train wreck here,” Friedland said at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters. 

    He’s the founder of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and warned: “My fear is that when push finally comes to shove,” copper prices might explode ten times. 

    Long-term of Copper futures 

    The world is facing a crisis of supply in copper, with not enough mines being built to satisfy future demand, he said. Ivanhoe has mines in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

    Copper is essential in electric vehicle motors and batteries, as well as cabling and transformers, to build out the nationwide electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US and worldwide. 

    According to a recent S&P Global report, EVs require twice as much copper as an internal combustion engine vehicle. The report said copper demand will double to 50,000,000 metric tons annually by 2035, more than all the copper consumed worldwide between 1900 and 2021.

    Friedland’s longer-term view of higher copper prices is supported by a combination of decarbonization efforts globally, rising China demand, the emergence of India, and the modernization of militaries after the Ukraine war. 

    He said the market has yet to realize the significance of copper and how it is essential to decarbonization efforts. He noted there are very low physical inventories of copper with historically low relative valuations of mining companies. 

    Friedland pointed out that recent acquisitions of mines at high premiums indicate the mining industry is aware prices of the metal are headed higher. He said the tightening of the copper market could increase prices like other commodities in recent years. 

    “When metals are required, the prices go crazy and nobody’s willing to sell them,” he said. “We’re heading into that sort of situation.”

    Even with increasing gloom about the global economy as global central banks tighten interest rates, Friedland remains very bullish on copper. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 20:40

  • 65% Of Teenagers Are Targets Of "Sextortion" Schemes: Study
    65% Of Teenagers Are Targets Of “Sextortion” Schemes: Study

    Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

    Almost two-thirds of teenagers globally have been targeted for “sextortion” schemes by criminals seeking to pressure victims into sexual activity or extort money, according to recent research.

    Sixty-five percent of Generation Z teens and young adults have been targets of “catfishing” scams across popular social media platforms or had their personal data hacked by criminals, according to a June 21 report by Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc. and published by the WeProtect Global Alliance.

    “In both scenarios, the resulting photos and videos were then used to threaten or blackmail the young people, with abusers demanding money, gift cards, more sexual imagery, or other personal information in supposed exchange for not releasing the material to the young person’s family and friends,” the report said.

    Catfishing refers to pretending to be someone else to find victims to exploit online.

    According to the FBI, sextortion begins when a predator reaches out to a young person online through gaming sites, dating apps, or social media accounts.

    The predator then acts like someone in the age group of the minor who is interested in beginning a relationship or is offering something of value. The adult can use inducements like gifts or money and other methods to get the young person to send sexually explicit images or videos.

    The predator then asks for more such content. When the child refuses, the criminal can threaten to publish the content in their possession online or warn them about other harms they can inflict, pressuring the victims to send more explicit images and videos.

    The Snap Inc. study surveyed over 6,000 respondents from six nations, including the United States. Seventy-one percent of respondents who got trapped in a catfishing scheme were asked to share intimate imagery or personal info. While a net 31 percent shared intimate imagery, 30 percent revealed their personal information.

    Twenty-five percent of the victims provided private information as well, which refers to details about their family and friends.

    “Scammers may not be looking solely for immediate financial (or other) return from the target. Rather, their goal might be to widen their net to ensnare more people or to try to entice others for sexual relationships or other interactions,” the report said.

    J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington on March 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    In a public service announcement on June 6, the FBI warned that criminals were using social media photos and videos, including those of minors, and altering them into sexual content.

    “The photos or videos are then publicly circulated on social media or pornographic websites, for the purpose of harassing victims or sextortion schemes,” the agency said while urging people to “exercise caution” when posting photos and videos of themselves online.

    According to the FBI, individuals who engage in sextortion schemes against youngsters “have studied how to reach and target children and teens.”

    “One person the FBI put in prison for this crime was a man in his 40s who worked as a youth minister so he could learn how teens talked to each other,” the agency said.

    “Then, he created social media profiles where he pretended to be a teenage girl. This ‘girl’ would start talking to boys online and encourage them to make videos.”

    Reaching Out for Help

    According to the WeProtect report, 56 percent of catfished or hacked victims are male.

    “For young males who have experienced a sextortion incident—and the majority are males—they regularly tell us that when they share the situation with their parents, they feel relieved,” said Arda Gerkens, president of the Dutch child abuse hotline Offlimits.

    “We advise them to report to hotlines and helplines; to report to the platforms; and to tell their parents, a friend, or a trusted adult. They should not be going through this alone.”

    The study found that 56 percent of respondents said that they or their victimized friends sought help after being threatened by approaching their friends, parents, or trusted adults. Fifty-one percent reported the incident to the platform, law enforcement, or a hotline.

    Meanwhile, the FBI advises parents to monitor the online activities of their children as well as run frequent searches online to know how much information about their kids is publicly available.

    “Consider using reverse image search engines to locate any photos or videos that have circulated on the internet without your knowledge,” the agency said.

    Sextortion of Minors

    According to a December 2022 press release by the FBI, law enforcement had received more than 7,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors in the past year. This resulted in at least 3,000 victims, mostly boys, and over a dozen suicides.

    A large percentage of such schemes were found to originate in nations outside the United States, primarily in West African countries like Ivory Coast and Nigeria.

    Data from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) show that its CyberTipline has received over 262,000 reports of online enticement, including sextortion, since 2016. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of reports involving sextortion more than doubled.

    In NCMEC’s earlier analysis, the dominant motive of the offenders was found to be aimed at getting more explicit images of children. However, reports from early 2022 showed that 79 percent of offenders were now after money.

    In a May 3 press conference, Jennifer Buta, the mother of a 17-year-old boy from Michigan who committed suicide after being a victim of a sextortion scheme, asked parents to have “tough conversations” with their children about the dangers such scams pose.

    “Kids, teenagers, young adults, and even adults can be a target of sextortion. We urge you to have discussions about this and have a plan for your children to reach out if it does happen to them,” she said.

    People living in the United States having suicidal thoughts can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 for free and confidential support. For Spanish support, contact 888-628-9454. Crisis Text Line offers a live, trained crisis counselor via a simple text for help. The UK’s National Health Service also lists a variety of resources on its website.

    An app created by Befrienders Worldwide helps distressed people connect with an emotional support center close by.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 20:20

  • Companies Should Focus On Their Products, Not Preach ESG To The Public
    Companies Should Focus On Their Products, Not Preach ESG To The Public

    Authored by Gabriël Moens via The Epoch Times

    During the last couple of years, an increasing number of companies have subscribed to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework, promising to adhere to, and promote, the goals of corporate social responsibility and sustainable business strategies.

    These ESG-oriented companies embrace non-financial accountability indicators to assess the implementation of systems and processes that manage their carbon footprint and treatment of employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

    The ESG criteria include a commitment to lower “greenhouse gas emissions and CO2 footprint” to support “LGBTQ+ rights and … all forms of diversity.”

    The success of the implementation of ESG depends on whether its criteria “encourage companies to drive real change for the common good, or merely check boxes and publish reports.”

    The growing list of companies that have committed themselves to ESG reveals that most of these embrace the official narrative on climate change and demonise coal and gas even though these are reliable and clean resources, the use of which would lower electricity prices.

    This picture shows a conveyor bridge dumping soil and sand removed at another area of the mine in the town of Singleton, in Newcastle, Australia, on Nov. 5, 2021. (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

    Some obligations imposed by ESG on companies are already legislatively mandated. For example, section 134(3)(m) of the Companies Act 2013 requires the inclusion of a report by companies” Board of Directors on the conservation of energy and a listing of the equipment used to achieve that result.

    The ESG Framework received a boost from the adoption in 2015 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a plan of action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all people around the world.

    The U.N. Agenda contains 17 integrated sustainable development goals and 169 associated specific measurable targets. A prominent feature of the agenda is the emphasis on the role of the private sector in advancing and achieving sustainable development initiatives, working in partnership with governments, civil society, and other stakeholders.

    Foray Into Politics

    Of course, companies’ interest in social responsibility and sustainability is commendable. However, this interest has sometimes been used as an excuse to enter the political arena.

    Specifically, several companies have declared their support for social engineering programmes and unrealistic sustainable development goals. Sporting and religious organisations have also often joined the world of politics.

    For example, readers would recall that Qantas relentlessly supported the same-sex marriage campaign, which resulted in the adoption by the Turnbull government of marriage equality in 2017.

    With regards to race relations, several Australian churches and religious leaders have backed the Voice proposal and encouraged their members to vote “Yes” because they perceive this as the right thing to do.

    Very recently, Tennis Australia has called on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to adopt rules regarding the participation of transgender athletes in women’s competitions.

    In this context, the CEO of Tennis Australia, Craig Tiley, told the Sydney Morning Herald that “We are an organisation that believes absolutely in inclusivity, in diversity, in equality—so any decision made will need to be aligned with our core values.”

    Craig Tiley, Tennis Australia CEO speaks during a Tennis Australia x Roland Garros 2023 preview media opportunity at Melbourne Park, Australia, on May 23, 2023. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images for Tennis Australia)

    The Transgender Inclusion Guidelines for Community Tennis specifically state,  “Players who identify as women should be allowed to play as women; players identifying as men should be allowed to play as men.”

    Most of the time, these actions are not based on or supported by rigid analysis but rely merely on “feelings” and vague ideas of “compassion” and “justice.”

    But more importantly, in participating in politics, these institutions radically change the purposes for which they were established.

    In the case of companies, their function is to make money for their shareholders and to provide quality service to their customers.

    While businesses and corporations will want to keep abreast of the financial and economic management of the nation, their forays into the world of social engineering politics surely divert from their real function and are incompatible with their declared mission.

    Driving Away the Traditional Base

    Big business and sporting organisations also seem to tolerate the imposition of political correctness codes on people, promote the “cancel culture” movement, and condone the teaching of critical race theory in schools and universities, all of which adversely affect people’s right to freely express their opinion.

    In addition, the relentless pursuit by the government of its Voice referendum, aimed at entrenching this body into the Constitution, has divided Australia based on race.

    There is no doubt that these developments have alienated stakeholders and members of these companies and institutions.

    For example, many members of the Liberal Party believe that their views are routinely disregarded and even ridiculed by the party in the pursuit of nebulous and untested notions of “diversity” and “inclusiveness.”

    The Moira Deeming affair, which involved her expulsion from the Liberal Party for attending a pro-women rally, the rejection of membership applications based on perceived Christian views in South Australia, and the support of Queensland’s Path to Treaty Act—which provides for truth-telling and the conclusion of treaties with Aboriginal people—surely have driven away scores of once-committed members of the Liberal Party.

    Similarly, it is difficult for a Christian to stay as a practising member of his or her church if it embraces secular practices and ideas that are antithetical to its core teachings and even allows the incorporation of pagan practices in its rituals.

    In this context, writer Joel Agius has argued that Catholics “are fed up with the Catholic Church being pushed towards something that is more of the world than of God.”

    Where can these people who are no longer comfortable in their natural homes go? Are they the unfortunate victims of the implementation of ESG by Australian organisations?

    Whichever way these questions are answered, there is a discernible need to ensure that the implementation of the ESG Framework does not affect the true function of organisations in Australia.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 19:40

  • Musk's Twitter Faces Millions In Fines After New 'Disinformation' Laws Released In Australia
    Musk’s Twitter Faces Millions In Fines After New ‘Disinformation’ Laws Released In Australia

    Authored by Daniel Teng via The Epoch Times,

    Elon Musk’s Twitter and other social media giants face the prospect of billions in fines after the Australian government released new laws targeting “misinformation and disinformation.”

    Following a months-long process, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland released the draft legislation that will grant the country’s media regulatory body, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), greater powers to stamp out harmful content online.

    “Mis and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust, and can threaten public health and safety,” the Labor communications minister said in a statement on June 26.

    “This consultation process gives industry and the public the opportunity to have their say on the proposed framework, which aims to strike the right balance between protection from harmful mis and disinformation online and freedom of speech.

    The government has pledged that ACMA will not have the power to determine what is “true or false” on individual posts and will have no impact on “professional news content or authorised electoral content.”

    New Standards and Penalties

    The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 introduces a two-tiered system to regulate mis- or disinformation online.

    The first tier will see ACMA request social media companies develop a code of practice (industry codes), which will be registered and enforced by ACMA—similar to the telecommunications industry.

    A breach of this code will attract significant penalties, including a $2.75 million fine or two percent of global turnover—whichever is greater.

    If the code fails, the second tier of regulation will see ACMA itself create and enforce an industry standard (a stronger form of regulation) that will attract even higher penalties of $6.8 million or five percent of global turnover—millions for Twitter and billions for companies like Meta (Facebook).

    These laws are meant to strengthen existing voluntary codes developed by the Digital Industry Group.

    The federal opposition has earmarked concerns around how ACMA will determine what is “mis- or disinformation.”

    “This is a complex area of policy, and government overreach must be avoided,” said David Coleman, the shadow communications minister.

    “The public will want to know exactly who decides whether a particular piece of content is ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’

    “The significant penalties associated with this legislation potentially places substantial power in the hands of government officials,” he said in a statement online.

    While former deputy chief medical officer Dr. Nick Coatsworth, who has had public disagreements with other doctors over lockdown policies and vaccines, was also sceptical of the laws.

    “Misinformation is an accusation thrown so readily that such legislation would be impossible to implement; and if it was implemented, would inevitably lead to fines being levied for things that are not, or turn out not to be,” he wrote on Twitter.

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

    The public is encouraged to submit recommendations on the legislation prior to Aug. 6, 2023.

    Musk’s Ongoing Clash with Australian Authorities

    ACMA is Australia’s broadcast authority, which has a wider purview than the eSafety commissioner, who focuses purely on online content.

    Just days earlier, the commissioner threatened Twitter with daily fines of up to $700,000 (US$476,000) unless it explained what it was doing to combat “hate speech” on its platform.

    The commissioner says it has received “more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past 12 months” than any other platform and alleges an “increasing number” of reports of serious online abuse since Musk took over in October 2022.

    Commissioner Julie Inman Grant also apportioned blame for the increase in “hate speech” on Musk’s decision to cut Twitter’s global workforce from 8,000 to 1,500 (including its “trust and safety teams”) and ending its public policy presence in Australia.

    Musk has indicated that the staff cuts were necessary because the company was inefficient and overstaffed—despite being publicly listed and widely used, Twitter is yet to turn a profit consistently.

    Rob Nicholls, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales, said there is no right to freedom of speech in Australia, and there was only an “implied right of political communication.”

    This right was not legislated either but was extracted from common law by judges.

    “As usual in an Australian environment, not doing what you say is more problematic from a regulatory perspective than problematic conduct,” he previously told The Epoch Times via email.

    “It’s important to note that the eSafety commissioner’s comments were about Twitter promoting hate speech when it has a policy to prohibit hateful conduct on the platform.”

    Nicholls has said that Twitter’s lack of a public policy presence in Australia to engage with authorities will work against the social media giant’s favour.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 19:00

  • Fox News Unveils Replacement For Tucker Carlson
    Fox News Unveils Replacement For Tucker Carlson

    Jesse Watters will replace Tucker Carlson for the 8pm slot, Fox News announced on Monday.

    Watters, who started out doing ‘man on the street’ segments on Bill O’Reilly’s 8PM program, will now helm that same time slot, according to a press release.

    Taking over Watters’ 7PM slot will be Laura Ingraham, while Greg Gutfeld will move his show to the 10PM time slot. Sean Hannity will remain in his 9pm time slot.

    “Fox News Channel has been America’s destination for news and analysis for more than 21 years and we are thrilled to debut a new lineup,” said CEO Suzanne Scott in a statement. “The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have access to unrivaled coverage from our best-in-class team for years to come.”

    Fox announced in late April it was parting ways with Carlson just days after the outlet announced it was also parting ways with Dan Bongino. Carlson has since started hosting his own show on Twitter, prompting a public legal battle between Fox News and the Daily Caller co-founder. -Daily Caller

    Carlson was slapped with a “cease and desist” order in mid-June for allegedly breaching his contract’s non-compete clause with his new Twitter show.

    The former Fox host’s combined total for his first two shows was 169 million views, with the first episode cracking over 100 million in two days.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 18:40

  • Prologis Acquires $3.1 Billion Warehouse Portfolio From Blackstone
    Prologis Acquires $3.1 Billion Warehouse Portfolio From Blackstone

    By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

    Logistics real estate operator Prologis announced Monday it entered into an all-cash agreement to acquire a $3.1 billion portfolio of warehouses and distribution properties from Blackstone, a sign that industrial space remains – along with rental  housing – the strongest property type in the shaky commercial property sector.

    Prologis Port Reading in Carteret

    The acquisition includes nearly 14 million square feet of space from various real estate funds held by Blackstone. The deal allows Prologis to expand its presence in key markets like Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, New York/New Jersey and Phoenix. Sites in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and South Florida are also included. Prologis will add 77 new customers and expand its relationships with 50 existing clients through the transaction.

    The company plans to retain all of the properties acquired. Prologis, a REIT, is the world’s largest industrial property company with 1.2 billion square feet in 19 countries. Last year it acquired competitor Duke Realty in a $26 billion all-stock transaction, the largest commercial property deal since the pandemic began.

    “These high-quality properties are complementary to our portfolio and fit perfectly into our long-term strategic plan for growth,” said Dan Letter, Prologis’ president. “The acquisition demonstrates our unique ability to add significant scale to our portfolio — expanding customer relationships and increasing opportunities for our growing Essentials platform.”

    Prologis Park Palmer Lakes Airport East in Miami

    The deal price represents a 4% cap rate (net operating income divided by market value of property) in year one and a 5.75% cap rate when adjusting the leases in the portfolio to current market rents.

    Prologis and Blackstone have engaged in more than a dozen transactions with each other over the last 11 years, a news release stated.  

    “Where you invest matters, and this transaction demonstrates the exceptional demand for high-quality warehouses,” said Nadeem Meghji, head of Blackstone Real Estate Americas. “With near record low vacancy, logistics remains a high conviction theme for us; we are proud owners of $100 billion of warehouses in North America and $175 billion in total around the world.”

    Investment giant Blackstone is also a major investor in industrial real estate, with a global portfolio valued at $175 billion, and is continuing to buy warehouses and distribution centers. The assets it is selling to Prologis are held by Blackstone’s opportunistic funds, which typically sell properties after holding them long enough to see an increase in values.

    Prior to this transaction, Prologis owned 1.2 billion square feet of logistics space across 19 countries.

    While most commercial property types have been hurt by higher interest rates, which have greatly increased borrowing costs for developers and investors, industrial space has weathered the storm better than other property types such as office, which has gotten pounded by the increase of remote work in the pandemic era.

    As the WSJ notes, demand for industrial space has remained strong thanks to the economic growth and the boom in online retail, which has required an overhaul of the supply chain. Nearly 60% of the portfolio being acquired from Blackstone by Prologis are properties in cities or close to consumers, which are prized by e-commerce tenants wanting to deliver packages to consumers within a few days.

    While Amazon continues to dominate the e-commerce business, demand for industrial space also is increasing from numerous other online retailers. “We had 40 unique e-commerce users last quarter alone with Amazon actually being a small slice of that,” said Dan Letter, Prologis president, on an earnings call earlier this year.

    Prologis has grown both by developing new properties and through acquisitions. Lately, the company has been focusing more on acquisitions because of rising construction costs and challenges in getting development approvals from local governments.

    Prologis’ increasing size has enabled it to invest in a range of environmentally friendly businesses. The company is adding electronic-vehicle charging stations at some of its properties and putting solar energy panels on the sprawling rooftops of its warehouses and distribution centers.

    Industrial property held by industrial property companies saw “solid market rent growth” in the first quarter, according to a May report on the sector by real-estate analytics firm Green Street. But the report noted that demand for industrial property might decline because retailer inventory levels rose during the first quarter and “retailers are expected to adopt a cautious approach toward inventory management for the remainder of the year.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 18:20

  • Woke Hollywood Sinks Into Irrelevance After Multiple Box Office Failures
    Woke Hollywood Sinks Into Irrelevance After Multiple Box Office Failures

    The formula for box office success these days seems rather simple – Produce a solid story with relatable and likable characters, and tell that story in a setting that makes sense with as few distractions and tangents as possible.  In other words, make a normal movie without the intent to manipulate your audience with propaganda.  

    Most movies that follow this basic formula will rake in the cash.  Any movie that insists on browbeating the audience will bomb; get woke, go broke.  The problem is that Hollywood elitists just can’t help themselves.  They think they’re smarter than the audience and smarter than the box office, and they would rather lose their entire business and fade into obscurity than admit the truth:  The market dictates the success or failure of popular media, the media does not dictate the market.  

    To be fair, the media culture we live in today is far different from what it was even 10 years ago.  The entertainment industry is no longer interested in keeping the public happy or distracted, they’re only interested in “platforms.”  They see every movie and every popular franchise as a vehicle to deliver their gospel, the gospel of woke.  It is likely that they believe if they saturate the market long enough and thoroughly enough with their messaging that one day the public will just give up and accept woke as the new normal.

    This isn’t happening.  There’s been a flurry of film flops in the past year which have made it obvious that Hollywood is imploding instead of gaining influence.

    Disney is probably the best place to start as a window into woke failure, because the company strategically targets children with far-left concepts from feminism to gay and trans ideology.  The company was on a downward spiral well before they tried to go to war with the state of Florida, declaring that they would do everything in their power to overturn anti-child grooming laws.  But that little incident didn’t help, either.

    Disney’s slate of failed films over the past year has included:

    • Turning Red, a metaphorical animated film exploring female puberty and menstruation.  The movie lost  $168 million.  

    • Lightyear, which featured a lesbian relationship and was released right after their fight with Florida.  Disney was also accused of removing Tim Allen as the voice actor for the popular Buzz Lightyear character because of his conservative leanings.  The movie lost at least $106 million.

    • Strange World, another animated children’s film featuring thinly veiled climate change propaganda as well as a prominent LGBT relationship involving teen boys.  One of the biggest flops in Disney history with a loss of $197 million.

    • Peter Pan And Wendy, a live action adaptation of the classic, was offloaded quickly to Disney’s streaming service and received dismal audience reviews.  The movie boasted a race swapped Peter Pan, race swapped Tinkerbell,  gender swapped “lost boys,” and a Mary Sue-like Wendy that battles 200 pound pirates with her sword fighting skills.

    • The Little Mermaid, a live action adaptation, race swapped the classic Dutch fairy tale character and changed the message of the story from a mermaid seeking the love of a prince to “she don’t need no man to save her.”  The movie lost at least $20 million.

    • Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, a film which attempts to undermine and deconstruct its title character and replace him with an anti-capitalist feminist activist, has been met with thumbs down from audiences and critics that have seen it so far, along with general disdain by fans of the franchise.  It is expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars for Disney due to its massive budget.  

    • Elemental, a ham-fisted commentary about racism with Disney’s first animated “non-binary” character, is crashing at theaters and is expected to lose tens of millions of dollars.  The movie also had the 2nd worst box office debut in Pixar history, a company that was once seen as a sure thing.  

    Disney isn’t the only leftist media company in the gutter these days, it’s merely the most notorious.  Multiple woke movie calamities have struck in the past year from the horrendous ‘Bros,’ to the vapid ‘Fauci’ documentary, to AOC’s climate change documentary which went down in flames, to Amazon’s attempt to hijack Lord of the Rings with their woke ‘Rings Of Power’ series.  The list goes on and on, with production losses in the billions for 2022-2023.           

    What Hollywood doesn’t seem to realize is that audiences have options and nothing is going to force people to consume leftist ideology as a recreational product; they greatly overestimated their influence.  They might as well get rid of the box office altogether and come out of the closet as the defacto propaganda wing for governments and globalists.  Then they can abandon the facade and start making their own woke versions of ‘Triumph Of The Will.’

    In the meantime, it appears that the game is over.  Western consumers are beginning to realize the scale of their boycotting power and they are using it aggressively this year.  And though woke companies are doubling down and insisting that social justice, feminism and trans cultism are the wave of the future, the reality is that (for now) propaganda cannot be made without profits.  The money is running out.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 18:00

  • The AMA Labels BMI 'Racist'
    The AMA Labels BMI ‘Racist’

    Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

    “Delegates at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates adopted [a] policy aimed at clarifying how body mass index (BMI) can be used as a measure in medicine,” the group announced.

    Apparently, a council within the AMA researched the “problematic history with BMI” and subsequently issued a report detailing a new policy on how BMI should and shouldn’t be applied.

    The report “Outlined the harms and benefits of using BMI” and characterized BMI as “an imperfect way to measure body fat in multiple groups given that it does not account for differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders, and age-span.”

    The report’s findings, of course, support the new policy—and the AMA’s desire to educate physicians “on the issues with BMI and alternative measures for diagnosing obesity.”

    The organization released a statement reading:

    Under the newly adopted policy, the AMA recognizes issues with using BMI as a measurement due to its historical harm, its use for racist exclusion, and because BMI is based primarily on data collected from previous generations of non-Hispanic white populations.

    Due to significant limitations associated with the widespread use of BMI in clinical settings, the AMA suggests that it be used in conjunction with other valid measures of risk such as, but not limited to, measurements of visceral fat, body adiposity index, body composition, relative fat mass, waist circumference and genetic/metabolic factors.

    (Will the AMA soon consider, say, blood pressure guidelines “problematic” or “racist,” too?)

    AMA immediate past President Jack Resneck noted:

    “There are numerous concerns with the way BMI has been used to measure body fat and diagnose obesity, yet some physicians find it to be a helpful measure in certain scenarios.”

    (“Immediate Past President?” What the hell is that? Can we make Joe Biden one?)

    A few medical professionals have previously called BMI “racist” and linked it to “body terrorism.”

    In 2021, for example, University of Louisville medical students were subjected to a seminar on “the impact of body terrorism on fat LGBTQ+ people.”

    “Terrorism” isn’t what it used to be. It is dramatically more inclusive. (Yay!) Today, anyone who entertains any notion– or incontrovertible fact—that in any way deviates from leftist dogma…is branded a “terrorist.”

    As we all know, the use of BMI disproportionately affects the BIPOC and LGBTQIIA+ communities, because, well, everything does.

    Somehow.

    Acid rain, monkeypox, COVID-19, inflation, Lyme Disease, droughts, floods, tornadoes, supply chain issues, painful rectal itch, cedar apple rust, E.D., poor air quality, stock market fluctuations—and every other conceivable (and inconceivable) measurement, standard, affliction, and malady– boldly and doggedly target these communities for no reason other than sheer hatred and bigotry.

    A reasonable and logical conclusion, no?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 17:40

  • John Kerry Skewered By French TV Host After Condemning Putin Invasion: "Why Isn't Bush Judged In The Same Way?"
    John Kerry Skewered By French TV Host After Condemning Putin Invasion: “Why Isn’t Bush Judged In The Same Way?”

    John Kerry, who is Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate, came up against rare pushback when he tried to issue the usual invective and talking points on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s aggression while speaking on French television in Paris. 

    But a French TV anchor wasn’t having it, and confronted Kerry over US hypocrisy, given Washington has mounted multiple invasions of sovereign countries in recent decades, especially since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Well-known French journalist Darius Rochebin during the Sunday night interview on news channel LCI posed the following: “We have to judge Putin for crimes of aggression, of course. But you, the Americans, you committed the crime of aggression in Iraq.” Rochebin then asked Kerry: “These countries of the Global South say, should we judge George Bush? Why isn’t Bush judged in the same way?”

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    Kerry simply tried to reject the comparison, without explanation, shooting back “no”. Rochebin quickly interjected, “Why?”

    “Because there’s never even been a direct process or accusation or anything with respect to President Bush himself,” Kerry deflected. “Have there been abuses in the course of that war, yes.”

    Rochebin didn’t let go after this nonsensical attempt to appeal to a legal “process” and mere “abuses” (in a war that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians). The journalist pressed: “Was it not a crime of aggression to enter into Iraq on the basis of a lie?”

    “No, no, no,” Kerry said. “Well, we didn’t know it was a lie at the time. You know the evidence that was produced, people didn’t know that it was a lie. So no, again, I think, you’re stretching something. That’s not a constructive way —”

    “But he lied,” Rochebin said of Bush. “He lied. He lied.”

    A flustered Kerry, who had also served as Secretary of State under the Obama administration, then said, “Sir, I’m not going to re-debate the Iraq war with you here right now. We spent a lot of time doing that previously. I was opposed to going in, I thought it was the wrong thing to do. But we gave the president the power, regrettably, in the Congress, based on the lie. And when we knew it was a lie, people stood up and did the right thing.”

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    Rochebin came back with: “I get that. But you understand that for the countries of the South, of course, justice, equality, principles, it’s their impression that there is a double standard. And that weighs today, including on the debate of the climate,” Rochebin said.

    Journalist Glenn Greenwald later observed of the interview, in which a humiliated Kerry was clearly unprepared to be challenged and called out so directly, “The complete lack of self-awareness on the part of the US establishment sometimes shocks me, despite the contempt I harbor for them.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 17:20

  • Victor Davis Hanson: What The Left Has Left For America
    Victor Davis Hanson: What The Left Has Left For America

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000. 

    The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were accentuated by Black Lives Matter and Antifa during the Obama years, forged during the COVID lockdown and George Floyd riots, and polished during the era of Trump derangement syndrome. 

    On almost every issue, Democrats have repudiated their prior reverence for the Supreme Court. 

    They distrust individual liberty and free expression.

    They now worship the money and clout of corporate America. 

    Racial ecumenicalism and integration are seen as passé. 

    There is little need for borders to protect vulnerable American workers, given the advantages of inviting in millions of poor illegal immigrants without audits.

    Democrats have transmogrified into a Soviet-style socialist binary of rich and poor, run by an elite nomenklatura that dictates its orders to its foot soldiers of the underclass. An entire new left-wing vocabulary—clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, dregs, chumps, ultra-MAGA, semi-fascists—has come to express their hatred of the middle class. 

    On the Supreme Court 

    The Left has adopted Franklin Roosevelt’s once infamous (but now sanctified) 1937 approach to destroying the autonomy of the Supreme Court by threatening to pack it. 

    Note how any means necessary are justified in their attacks. Swarm the conservative justices’ private homes to leverage future opinions, with the assurance that an ethically bankrupt Justice Department will never enforce existing laws prohibiting such intimidation of the justices. 

    Have the Democrat Senate minority leader scream threats to justices by name at the very doors of the court and at the head of a mob—promising to individual justices a whirlwind to reap and unrecognizable forces that will soon hit them. 

    Wage ad hominem attacks on traditional justices in the media. Allege they are corrupt, on the theory that they are limited in their means of defense and any rebuttal will lack the wherewithal of the original unfounded smears. 

    Talk nonstop about changing the number of the court justices in order to intimidate conservative justices to move leftward. Move left or be packed! 

    Argue for nullifying Supreme Court decisions if they lack legal sanction, given the conservative majority of the Court. 

    Drive down the Court’s approval ratings in polls by nonstop screams that the justices cruelly hurt left-wing constituencies. 

    Claim that the presidency and the Senate, both in leftist hands, are the true voices of the people, rather than ossified edicts of heartless conservative justices. 

    Note the current attack has no principle other than neutering a conservative-leaning court until it can be rebooted left-wing, after which it will return to its former sacrosanct status. 

    Individual Liberty and Free Speech 

    In our Animal Farm left-wing world, free speech is “hate speech” and “individual liberty” is selfish privilege. 

    The ACLU transmogrified into an activist group targeting conservative expression deemed “hateful.” 

    Universities’ “hate speech” codes and “free speech” zones are Orwellian. They are subtexts for ensuring that any prominent conservative speaker should expect to be shouted down, threatened, slandered, and run off campus—sometimes violently—for infringing on the “safety” of the marginalized and vulnerable.  

    Social media, Google searches, and internet access are warped by corporate efforts to alter the flow of information. Once dangerous censorship has become a noble effort to silence “misinformation” and more dangerous “disinformation”—as adjudicated by ignorant 20-somethings at computer screens in Silicon Valley and obsequious 30-somethings in government cartels. 

    Corporate Grandees 

    Corporate America and its financial power are now left-wing approved. 

    CEOs now, in politically correct or woke ways, put their gains (once deemed ill-gotten) to the service of the people. Disney, Target, Anheuser-Busch, the airlines, and sports franchises all “get it.” 

    The Left has co-opted corporate America. So it says to them, “Use your money and clout to fast track our woke agenda, and in return, we will reinvent you, erasing from memory our past slurs of “bloodsucking leeches” and “running-dog capitalists,” and welcoming you into the pantheon of community-minded guardians of our culture. And you will make untold money from our globalized endorsement as never before.” 

    By absorbing the MBA programs at the major universities, the Left ensures that the new corporate credentialed elite has never gotten its hands grubby or stained in the lower echelons of business, or worked its way up the long, grimy corporate ladder. Instead, unpolluted the new execs transition from their MBA courses in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in environmental, social, and governance to the activist corporate boardroom. 

    Remember, only mega-wealth is good. It is a revolutionary force that can bury wannabe capitalists, whose parochial right-wing millions stand no chance against enlightened left-wing globalized billions. Just ask George Soros, Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg, and Mark Zuckerberg. 

    From Class to Race and Sex 

    Class no longer matters to the new Left, except as a force multiplier lever if the supposedly marginalized are the nonwhite or nonbinary. 

    Otherwise, the poor of East Palestine, Ohio or the recruits who join the military from upstate New York or rural Texas are to be written off as the most dangerous demographic in America, full of white “rage,” “supremacy,” and “privilege.” 

    Segregation and separatism are noble ideas that perpetuate proper racial distinctions on the necessary pathway to massive transfers of reparatory wealth. Tribalism is a good word now. Superficial appearance alone can be reliable proof of exploitation. 

    “Crime” is a social construct, fabricated by wealthy white men whose manipulation of the economy is reflected in the laws they make to oppress and further victimize.  

    Segregated dorms, graduations, and safe spaces are necessary to fight integrationists and assimilationists who would culturally appropriate or rob the identities of the Other. There is a good racism necessary to fight bad racism, once experts like Ibram X. Kendi can instruct us which is which. Racism is “systemic” like air, but only trained DEI czars can detect it everywhere. 

    Poverty is now to be redefined. White poverty is the deserved fate of the stupid who never caught on to globalization and mindlessly try to convince us that ossified farming, the drudgery of mining, icky construction, the stink of fracking, or the monotony of assembly work remain vital industries. 

    Nonwhite poverty is the fault of the exploitative middle class, which lacks the romance of the distant poor and power and good taste of the rich corporate elite. 

    The Left’s once disliked intelligence and investigatory agencies, the despised Department of Justice, and the loathed Pentagon hierarchy are now deified on the principle that 1) by fiat, they can implement overdue cultural changes by bypassing the messing right-wing roadblocks of an archaic legislature, and 2) their extralegal powers can ferret out counterrevolutionaries and destroy them in a way impossible by others bound by a calcified and counterrevolutionary Constitution. 

    The value of these weaponized bureaucracies is endless. FBI directors can lie if the cause is deemed good, and with impunity under oath. Compliant FISA courts that are willingly deluded by false writs can help to spy on right-wingers. 

    Noble ex-CIA directors can round up “authorities” to issue false manifestos to influence elections. Enlightened attorney generals can overlook corruption and money laundering like that of the Biden family to emasculate any looming political rival. 

    Whistleblowers are neutral characters: deified when useful to the Left, to be despised as quislings when they disclose left-wing crimes. 

    The Border 

    The southern border is a mere construct created by fascists to exclude the Other. 

    Its removal fast tracks a new demography, dependent on leftist largess and eager to reciprocate with loyalty at the polls. 

    The triumphalism of the slogans touting a “New Democratic Majority” and “Demography is Destiny” sanctifies the reality that citizenship is defunct and mere residency has replaced it with all its former rights, but none of its erstwhile responsibilities. 

    Any who object to the cynicism inherent in the new demographic realities are racist adherents to the Great Replacement Theory, who are not wrong in deciphering leftist agendas, but to be damned as enemies of the people for exposing them. 

    How and Why? 

    Finally, how did the Left reinvent itself as a revolutionary Jacobin party and so easily stage its revolution? 

    First, it claimed that there is no Republican Party when in fact there has never been a more viable one that is racially inclusive and representative of the beleaguered middle class. Instead it is to be smeared as “ultra-MAGA” and “semi-fascist” and supposedly as “unrecognizable” as the new Left is demonstrably recognizable as militant socialist. 

    Second, the Left destroys people. 

    Cancel culture, doxxing, deplatforming, and shadow banning are all synonyms for left-wing character destruction, an updated electronic form of Trostkyization and Lavrentiy Beria-style “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” persecutions. 

    Anyone who strays—a Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Matt Taibbi, or an Elon Musk—will be targeted by the woke bureaucracies, libeled in the media, and ostracized by the popular culture. 

    The message is one of deterrence: stay properly left and you are accorded the James Comey/Andrew McCabe/James Clapper/John Brennan/Anthony Fauci/Hunter Biden/2020 rioters exemptions from legal accountability for lying under oath, rank profiteering, or abject violent rioting. 

    Swerve improperly rightward, and you will be vaporized by the long arm of the politicized law. 

    A final note. The Left’s only problem is that it has bequeathed a new legacy that has the potential to boomerang should it ever lose power. 

    So what has the Left conferred on America? 

    • Impeachment once, twice, and more still is a good thing. Better still, it is to try a president even as a private citizen. 

    • Special counsels are wonderful—all the more so if they have nearly two years and $40 million to hire a dream team of partisan lawyers. 

    • A good attorney general is a president’s “wingman” who uses the law to go after enemies and exempt friends and families from the law, while using indictments to pave the way for reelection. 

    • Lawfare is a legitimate tool of the president, especially when targeting a rival threat to his reelection. 

    • High office is a path to riches. Selling your name for tens of millions of dollars is not only legitimate, but a necessary perk of the vice presidency and presidency. 

    • The FBI, the Pentagon, the CIA, the Justice Department, and the IRS are underused assets. With the right mindset and willpower, all are vital tools in neutering your political enemies. 

    • The media is utterly corrupt. What it covers and what it omits are entirely political decisions and thus can be warped accordingly by government rewards and punishments. 

    What the Left now fears most is the revolutionary model it has bequeathed to America—and what might happen if its monstrous creation falls into politically incorrect hands.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/26/2023 – 17:00

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