- World Dangerously Headed For 'Food Wars', Top Commodity Trader Warns
World Dangerously Headed For ‘Food Wars’, Top Commodity Trader Warns
Sunny Verghese, CEO of Olam Agri, a Singapore-based agricultural trading firm, spoke at the Redburn Atlantic and Rothschild consumer conference last week, warned the audience that the world is heading towards a period of “food wars” as geopolitical wildfires spread across the globe.
“We have fought many wars over oil. We will fight bigger wars over food and water,” Verghese said, quoted by the Financial Times, adding that food protectionism has forced some governments to boost domestic food supplies, exacerbating food inflation.
He pointed out that a surge in non-tariff trade barriers in 2022 in response to the war in Ukraine—1,266 from 154 countries by his count—had sparked “an exaggerated demand-supply imbalance.”
Food prices have soared in recent years, whether due to adverse weather conditions (sparked by El Nino) or the war in Ukraine. These prices are likely to remain elevated for years to come.
Verghese said wealthier countries have been building surpluses of strategic commodities due to global uncertainty, which has helped push food prices higher.
“India, China, everybody has got buffer stocks,” he said, adding, “That is only exacerbating the global problem.”
The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations shows that global food prices are beginning to rise once again and remain well above pre-Covid levels.
What’s clear is that the most impoverished countries are extremely vulnerable to surging food prices and shortages, and these areas are at the highest risk of social unrest.
However, wealthier economies aren’t immune, as we’ve seen evidence with US consumers pulling back on food spending while complaining about the failure of Bidenomics.
FT provided two recent examples of food protectionism that is likely to continue in the years ahead, exacerbating food security risks for the world’s most vulnerable:
In 2022, Indonesia banned palm oil exports to protect the local market while last year India imposed export restrictions on certain types of rice in an effort to curb rising domestic prices ahead of parliamentary elections, after a volatile monsoon disrupted production and spurred fears of a supply shortage.
The risks are skewed toward more food export curbs as the world splinters into a multipolar state full of conflict and chaos. Protectionism might be the worst thing for food security and yet another reason why prices will linger at elevated levels for the years to come.
This is yet more evidence that Americans need to ditch Walmart and the food-industrial complex and support local farmers so they can beef up local supply chains to minimize risks abroad.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/27/2024 – 02:45 - Russia's Response To Ukraine's US-Backed Bombing Of Beachgoers Wasn't What Many Expected
Russia’s Response To Ukraine’s US-Backed Bombing Of Beachgoers Wasn’t What Many Expected
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
President Putin proved once again that he’s mature enough of a leader to make tough decisions that disregard public opinion following his government’s tepid response to Ukraine’s US-backed bombing of beachgoers in Sevastopol over the weekend. It was predicted that “Russia Probably Won’t Impose A No-Fly Zone Over The Black Sea After The Sevastopol Attack”, which explained why it was unlikely to capitulate to the public’s demand due to worries about accidentally sparking World War III.
Instead of shooting down or otherwise neutralizing American reconnaissance drones over international waters in the Black Sea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed that President Putin’s ceasefire proposal still stands. Shortly afterwards, Peskov also expressed Russia’s continued openness to talks with France after Emmanuel Macron publicly said that he’s interested in them the other day while also walking back his earlier rhetoric about wanting to conventionally intervene in Ukraine.
These two developments were then followed by new Defense Minister Andrey Belousov talking to his American counterpart in a call where “they exchanged views about the situation around Ukraine”. He also warned him about “the dangers of further escalation in terms of the continuing deliveries of American weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” Taken together, it’s clearly the case that Russia’s response was once again conciliatory and not escalatory, exactly as the earlier cited analysis predicted.
Interestingly, these developments were interspersed with the viral fake news claim that Russia had already supposedly downed an American drone over the Black Sea in revenge, which was introduced into the information ecosystem here but was then quickly walked back by its originator here. Nevertheless, this claim wildly proliferated across social media because it conformed to many wishful thinking observers’ expectations, most of whom never came across the follow-up post walking it back.
The reason why it’s so important to clarify exactly what Russia’s response to last weekend’s provocation was, namely to continue its conciliatory approach for de-escalation purposes as opposed to risking World War III by miscalculation if it reacted as the public demanded, is to prevent false expectations. Those who get their hopes unrealistically high will inevitably experience deep disappointment, after which some might become susceptible to hostile narratives that Russia “sold out” or whatever.
Whether one agrees with the merits of its saintly restraint or not, the fact of the matter is that this is indeed the policy that President Putin has decided to promulgate for the reasons that were explained. While it’s possible that he might order a symbolic show of force by authorizing the shooting down or neutralization of an American drone in the coming future, his tepid response thus far suggests that he’s disinclined to do so, or that it would solely be a one-off in the unlikely event that it happens.
President Putin isn’t a “madman”, “monster”, or “mastermind” like many imagine that he is, but is a consummate pragmatist at least as how he sees himself and is therefore unlikely to ever do anything that could be spun as emotional or radical. He always takes a long time before making major decisions, with the proof being how long it took for him to commence Russia’s aerial intervention in Syria and the ongoing special operation, usually waiting till the last possible moment.
Likewise, if Russia does indeed decide to seriously escalate against the West, then the track record suggests that it would be a seemingly abrupt game-changer but preceded by clear statements of intent that could be seen in hindsight as “ultimatums” (despite being described differently by its diplomats). Some might interpret a few of its recent signals as hinting at that scenario, but the substance of its response thus far as was explained dispels that notion and suggests that the current policy will continue.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/27/2024 – 02:00 - Electing The Next Dictator: Ugly Truths You Won't Hear From Trump Or Biden
Electing The Next Dictator: Ugly Truths You Won’t Hear From Trump Or Biden
Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
– George Orwell
No matter what carefully crafted sound bites and political spin get trotted out by Joe Biden and Donald Trump in advance of the 2024 presidential election, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to undermine our freedoms will be addressed in any credible, helpful way by either candidate, despite the dire state of our nation.
Certainly not if doing so might jeopardize their standing with the unions, corporations or the moneyed elite bankrolling their campaigns.
Indeed, the 2024 elections will not do much to alter our present course towards a police state.
Nor will the popularity contest for the new occupant of the White House significantly alter the day-to-day life of the average American greatly at all. Those life-changing decisions are made elsewhere, by nameless, unelected government officials who have turned bureaucracy into a full-time and profitable business.
In the interest of liberty and truth, here are a few uncomfortable truths about life in the American police state that we will not be hearing from either of the two leading presidential candidates.
1. The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.” Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.
2. By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.
3. Republicans and Democrats like to act as if there’s a huge difference between them and their policies. However, they are not sworn enemies so much as they are partners in crime, united in a common goal, which is to maintain the status quo.
4. Presidential elections merely serve to maintain the status quo. Once elected president, that person becomes part of the dictatorial continuum that is the American imperial presidency today.
5. The U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on foreign aid programs it can’t afford, all the while the national debt continues to grow, our domestic infrastructure continues to deteriorate, and our borders continue to be breached. What is going on? It’s obvious that a corporatized, militarized, entrenched global bureaucracy is running the country.
6. Forty years past the time that George Orwell envisioned the stomping boot of Big Brother, the police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state. 1984 has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state. For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government. This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC. The government’s “technotyranny” surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that it’s hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins. They have become one and the same entity.
7. When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. In the current governmental climate, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can easily render you an “enemy of the state.” The government’s list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing by the day. What we are dealing with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it is conspiring to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority.
8. If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it. Americans only think they’re choosing the next president. In truth, however, they’re engaging in the illusion of participation culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting. It’s just another manufactured illusion conjured up in order to keep the populace compliant and convinced that their vote counts and that they still have some influence over the political process.
9. More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.
10. The government knows exactly which buttons to push in order to manipulate the populace and gain the public’s cooperation and compliance. This draconian exercise in how to divide, conquer and subdue a nation is succeeding. This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-endowed people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.
11. The government long ago sold us out to the highest bidder. The highest bidder, by the way, has always been the Deep State. America’s shadow government—which is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now and operates beyond the reach of the Constitution with no real accountability to the citizenry—is the real reason why “we the people” have no control over our government.
12. Every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent.
13. “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.
14. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead. Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by the U.S. government’s vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops. Government eyes are watching you. They see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, what you’re watching on television and reading on the internet. Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to form a picture of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
15. Private property means nothing if the government can take your home, car or money under the flimsiest of pretexts, whether it be asset forfeiture schemes, eminent domain or overdue property taxes. Likewise, private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family.
16. If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer. Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.
17. From the moment they are born to the time they legally come of age, young people are now wards of the state. Parents no longer have the final say over what their kids are taught, how they are disciplined, or what kinds of medical care they need.
18. All you need to do in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.
19. The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.
20. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation. Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, and forced inclusion in biometric databases are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.
These are not problems that can be glibly dismissed with a few well-chosen words, as most politicians are inclined to do.
No matter which candidate wins this election, the citizenry and those who represent us need to own up to the fact that there can be no police state—no tyranny—no routine violations of our rights without our complicity and collusion—without our turning a blind eye, shrugging our shoulders, allowing ourselves to be distracted and our civic awareness diluted.
Likewise, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, these problems will continue to plague our nation unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we’re the only ones who can change things for the better and then do something about it. After all, the Constitution opens with those three vital words, “We the people.”
There is no government without us—our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land.
We are the government.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 23:40 - White House Warns Lebanon: US Can't Control Or Restrain Israel If Offensive Starts
White House Warns Lebanon: US Can’t Control Or Restrain Israel If Offensive Starts
Among the more interesting positions which the Biden White House has recently articulated to Arab allies in the Middle East is that the Untied States cannot restrain Israel if it decides to launch new offensives, namely against Lebanon.
Axios has revealed that during his trip to Beirut last week, Biden’s special envoy Amos Hochstein warned the Lebanese government, “The US won’t be able to hold Israel back if the situation on the border continues to escalate and that Hezbollah needs to indirectly negotiate with Israel instead of ratcheting up tensions.”
DoD image “The situation is serious. What President Biden wants to do is to avoid a further escalation to a greater war,” Hochstein had additionally said. “It will take everyone’s interest in ending this conflict now. And we believe that there is a pathway diplomatically to do it. If the sides agree to it.”
But what do the Lebanese see of US foreign policy? And what do Arab leaders and their population see? Israel has for decades topped the list of US foreign aid recipients, receiving a consistent $3+ billion annually. Washington regularly makes arms deals with Tel Aviv to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars as well.
Some Israeli leaders have lately gone so far as to admit that Israel’s military might not be able to persist in its Gaza operations without the steady flow of US arms and ammo.
But the US has even reached out to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, via intermediaries, to warn that it can’t hold Israel back in the event of escalation.
“During his meeting with Berri in Beirut, Hochsteim asked the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament to pass a message to Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, that his assumption that the U.S. controls Israel is wrong, the sources said,” Axios wrote.
“According to the sources, Hochstein said the U.S. won’t be able to hold Israel back if the situation on the border continues to escalate and that Hezbollah needs to indirectly negotiate with Israel instead of ratcheting up tensions,” the report continued.
The US and European partners, especially France, have recently sought to entice and pressure the Lebanese government to reign in Hezbollah, something it has very limited capability in doing. The Lebanese Army is in reality almost powerless in dealing with Hezbollah, also as it has no air force to speak of.
The US itself has imposed sanctions and limits on what aircraft Lebanon can obtain, fearing that it could be used in a conflict with Israel.
⚡️Mtulle is burning following Lebanese strikes pic.twitter.com/pcmxE9ntdJ
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 26, 2024
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This week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is in Washington meeting with top US officials. On Monday he met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken wherein the top US diplomat reaffirmed that the US will continue aiding Israel’s military. “He also underscored the importance of avoiding further escalation of the conflict and reaching a diplomatic resolution that allows both Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes,” a State Department press release indicated. “Secretary Blinken reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.”
And Tuesday, upon a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon chief said, “I am extremely concerned about the rise in rocket attacks on Israel’s north from Lebanese Hezbollah.” He emphasized that “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war with terrible consequences for the Middle East, and so diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 23:20 - How Vulnerable Are Our Digital Systems?
How Vulnerable Are Our Digital Systems?
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,
Last week a cyberattack hit a huge number of car dealers in the United States. The software designed by the company CDK was completely disabled, affecting the whole of an integrated process of purchasing and processing. Sellers could not process sales, loans, insurance, registrations, and much more. It happened suddenly, lasted two and a half days, came back, then went down again.
How did car dealers function? They wrote it all out on paper and pledged to complete the process after the systems came back. They are back and all seems well but the experience is a warning sign. These systems are far more vulnerable than anyone normally assumes. All it takes to shut down the modern world as we know it is a hack here and there. That’s an alarming realization.
The problem is that the technological revolution as we fashioned it 30 years ago gradually evolved in an ever more centralized way, wholly dependent on a weak and old-fashioned electrical grid of networks without much duplication or backstopping. The software too has become centralized for each industrial purpose. If one thing goes wrong in any system with a single point of failure, the whole comes to a grinding halt.
It’s amazing to consider that the old analogue world that lasted from the ancient world until the 21st century did not have this problem. It was more durable, physically anchored, fixable by human hands, comprehensible, and manageable. The move to digital everything introduced a fragility to the whole that we are only now discovering.
This is not only a problem for whole industries. It affects individuals too. A friend of mine recently came back to his car to discover that his iPad had snapped and curled up as a crumpled piece of metal in the heat, something completely unexpected. The same day, the screen on his laptop split from top to bottom, likely due to some physical impact. Bad luck but out of nowhere, his life came to a grinding halt, left only with a phone that was on its last legs anyway.
There are always answers here but everything involves a sudden expenditure of a thousand or two dollars plus many days wait. And getting back old material requires tapping back into a single account on a proprietary cloud that is itself vulnerable to hacking and leaks. And this is how we all live. We are dazzled and thrilled by all the snazzy things we can do with all our new toys but blissfully unaware of just how fragile the entire system is to technological contingencies.
This has all come as a bit of a shock to me, a person who came of age with the claim that the internet is forever and more durable than anything that came before. With search engines ever more curated according to stakeholder priorities, and sites dying the death of neglect and old code every day, we’ve come to discover the opposite. Links and sites that were essential only five years ago seem to have been zapped out of existence, by the many millions.
You know this if you have been posting articles for a long time. I can go back to an article I wrote ten years ago, if I can find it and it is still there, and try out the links therein. Most of them are dead now, meaning that the main way in which writers once documented their claims is completely unworkable now. And then it all happened in such a short period of time. In the “world wide web” it turns out that most of the strands of the web are as vulnerable as a spider’s own construction in a storm. It falls apart under the slightest stress.
This leads to an astonishing realization. It is easier to dig up an article written in the 1920s or 1930s, or the 1880s for that matter, than anything posted online after 1995. In practice, the internet is not forever. It is temporary, gauzy, ephemeral, changing, and forever replacing the old with the new. This means that digital technology enables the constant replacing of one reality for another, which is amazing.
Some years ago, I wrote something like 300 articles and 30 book introductions for a company I assumed would be around forever. The company was not able to make it according to profitability metrics and was replaced.
I watched from one instant to the next with amazement as the entire infrastructure flipped from one domain to another that did not carry any of it over, and all the accounts where the books lived were suddenly deleted from one minute to the next. Two years of my own work was suddenly vaporized. This was not malice at work. It was just the reality of business: maintaining the legacy simply did not pay.
I’m not bitter about this. It’s just business. Plus the same thing has happened to millions and billions of other pieces of content. Here today, gone tomorrow. This is the nature of the digital world. We’ve marveled at the cost savings of publishing and information distribution. It turns out that what you save out of pocket is paid for in other ways. You may never see it again.
Yes, there are ways to preserve content on the web, such as the brilliant service offered by Archive.org but this one service cannot be expected to uphold the whole. It’s also extremely difficult to use. You have to know precisely what you are looking for before you can find it. Even then, it is hit or miss.
We may all somehow rue the day that we gave up our physical libraries and replaced them with digital readers. We believed we were modernizing and improving our lives, and increasing our physical mobility. No one ever enjoyed moving books from one place to another. But now we find that even our access to learning and wisdom is highly contingent and dependent on centralized systems that can be taken down in an instant.
It’s a terrifying thought that the whole of modern life hinges on such a thin foundation that can crack at any time, wholly changing reality in front of our eyes, taking down whole sectors, and disabling all functionality. We look back at the old days of analogue everything and consider it primitive but maybe that is completely untrue. Maybe it was far wiser to rely on systems that cannot break en masse and can be fixed by actual human beings when they break.
Many people worry about the implications of solar flares that can take down the internet in a flash. That is a legitimate concern. But the real threat is far more pressing and real. It is how any system can be hacked and compromised in any sector: car sales, real estate management, delivery systems, banking and finance, and payment processing.
t can all be here today and gone tomorrow.
All these systems claim to have redundancies but we have no guarantees of that. And we’ll never really know until they are really tested. Redundancy is just a management slogan. It might be real but most likely is not.
In fact, there have been very few serious stress tests of anything built over the last several decades. We’ve just barreled ahead, piling digit upon digit and trusting that everything is going to work just fine forever. We have no assurance of that.
You know who will thrive if the nightmare scenario actually comes to pass? The Amish, the Mennonities, family farms in rural areas, and other small communities that never went all-in with digital adoption. Maybe it was a mistake to toss out everything we knew from the industrial age and convert the whole world so suddenly to an ephemeral world built of 1s and 0s.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 23:00 - Watch: Leftist Georgia Judge Arrested And Dismissed From Bench After Assaulting Police
Watch: Leftist Georgia Judge Arrested And Dismissed From Bench After Assaulting Police
Maybe it’s time for America to reconsider the ugly trend of bringing the ghetto into politics and the courtroom? The list of leftist politicians and judges in trouble for corruption and belligerent low-class behavior is growing long. It’s painful for many Americans to think about how this reflects on the country overall. If anyone was unsure about our status as an idiocracy, we certainly look like one now.
Case in point, one of Georgia’s highest paid (and most infamous) Democrat judges, Christina Peterson, has recently been arrested for assault on a police officer outside a nightclub in Atlanta. Peterson has subsequently been dismissed from the bench, but not just for allegedly striking an officer during the arrest of another woman. She was also investigated and disciplined for dozens of professional violations. Seeing her personal conduct when interacting with police, one wonders how it was possible for such a woman to be in the position to become a judge.
This is Christina Peterson, the highest paid judge in Georgia.
Judge Peterson was just removed from the bench for striking a police officer.
Something is seriously wrong in the State of Georgia.pic.twitter.com/QNy3eahAYe
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 26, 2024
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The Atlanta Police Department said Peterson repeatedly brushed the officer’s arms away and pushed him twice before he detained her outside the Red Martini Restaurant and Lounge on Peachtree Road. She refused to give officers her name for hours after the arrest.
She now claims that the officer didn’t identify himself and that he was engaged in a “coverup” of his “improper acts.” The officer’s body cam footage appears to indicate otherwise.
An investigation was already underway into 28 accusations of misconduct against Peterson when the incident occurred.
This week, the Georgia Supreme Court issued a decision removing her from office early, with her original term due to end later this year.
The Supreme Court said the most troubling allegation against Peterson had to do with her treatment of a woman who appeared before her while trying to correct an error on her marriage certificate. Peterson held the woman in criminal contempt and imposed the maximum jail term of 20 days and a fine “without explanation or justification,” the panel found.
Peterson is also alleged to have allowed people to enter the county courthouse after hours without ensuring proper security screening and then made unjustified requests for deputies to work overtime at taxpayer expense when her after-hours access was limited as a result, the high court opinion says. She also pressed a panic button in her chambers when the deputy assigned to escort her to court did not arrive on time. Those actions “did not demonstrate the decorum and temperament required of a judge,” the opinion says.
As the childish nature of the political left seeps into every facet of American society there will be inevitable abuses of power on a scale consistent with the worst kinds of third-world cesspools. Positions of authority requiring a high level of decorum are now being populated with low-IQ, impulse driven adolescents trapped inside adult bodies. It’s a bad look, but also a poisonous condition for fairness or justice. DEI strikes again, and the lowest common denominator continues to cut in line ahead of people with much greater merit and far better aptitude.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 22:40 - James Clapper, Mr. October Surprise: How Obama's Intel Czar Rigged 2016 And 2020 Debates Against Trump
James Clapper, Mr. October Surprise: How Obama’s Intel Czar Rigged 2016 And 2020 Debates Against Trump
Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,
Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian government” was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign’s email system.
On Oct. 7, 2016 – just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s personal blessing. It seemed to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin through a secret back channel to steal the election. Sure enough, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump at the debate.
And that wouldn’t be the only historically consequential maneuver for Clapper, whose role in skewing presidential campaigns might deserve a special place in the annals of nefarious election meddling – by, in this case, a domestic, not foreign, intelligence service.
In 2020, he was the lead signatory on the “intelligence” statement that discredited the New York Post’s October bombshell exposing emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, which documented how Hunter’s corrupt Burisma paymasters had met with Joe Biden when he was vice president. It was released Oct. 19, just three days before Trump and Biden debated each other in Nashville. Fifty other U.S. “Intelligence Community” officials and experts signed the seven-page document, which claimed “the arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
In hindsight, Clapper’s well-timed pseudo-intelligence in 2016 and 2020 helped Clinton and Biden make the case against Trump as a potentially Kremlin-compromised figure, charges that crippled his presidency and later arguably denied him reelection.
The phony laptop letter actually helped Biden seal his narrow victory since many of his voters in the close election told pollsters they would have had second thoughts about backing him had they known of the damning materials contradicting his denials he knew anything about his son’s shady foreign dealings.
A post-election survey by The Polling Company, for one, found that thanks to the discrediting and suppression of the laptop story, 45% of Biden voters in swing states said they were “unaware of the financial scandal enveloping Biden and his son” and that full awareness of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal would have led more than 9% of these Biden voters to abandon their vote for him – thereby flipping all six of the swing states he won over to Trump and giving Trump the victory.
In effect, Joe Biden was elected president because millions of voters were steered away by Clapper and his intelligence colleagues from learning about the damning contents on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
In the Beginning, Disinformation
In 2016, Clapper appeared to use his authority as Obama’s chief of intelligence to try to trip up Trump on behalf of Clinton.
But not everyone in the administration was on board with releasing his official statement about supposed Kremlin meddling.
Then-FBI Director James Comey had also met in the Situation Room in early October to discuss the plan. But Comey balked at accusing “Russia’s senior-most officials” of authorizing the “alleged hack” of the Clinton campaign and trying “to interfere in the U.S. election process,” as the two-page document claimed. Conspicuously, the FBI did not sign on to the intelligence.
Still, Clapper implied in his statement that this was the finding of the entire “U.S. Intelligence Community” and that it was “confident the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails.” Aside from Clapper’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the only other agency that attached its name to the assessment was the Department of Homeland Security. Also remarkable was the paucity of underlying evidence. The joint ODNI-DHS statement based its conclusion primarily on a report by a cybersecurity contractor hired by the Clinton campaign’s law firm, who later walked back his finding in a sworn congressional deposition, allowing: “We did not have concrete evidence [Russian agents stole campaign emails].”
At best, Clapper’s finding was shoddy tradecraft. At worst, it was manufactured, or simply “dreamed up,” as one former FBI counterintelligence official described it to RealClearInvestigations.
Either way, it came at a highly opportune time for Clinton. The Democratic nominee seized on the intelligence report during her debate with Trump in St. Louis on Oct. 9 to tarnish her Republican opponent as some kind of Russian agent.
“You know, let’s talk about what’s really going on here, because our intelligence community just came out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin – meaning Putin and the Russian government – are directing the attacks, the hacking on American accounts to influence our election,” Clinton asserted, citing Clapper’s warning. “We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election.”
“And believe me, they’re not doing it to get me elected,” she continued. “They’re doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump.”
“Now, maybe because he has praised Putin, maybe because he says he agrees with a lot of what Putin wants to do, maybe because he wants to do business in Moscow, I don’t know the reasons. But we deserve answers,” Clinton went on, clearly reciting a prepared talking point. “And we should demand that Donald release all of his tax returns so that people can see what are the entanglements and the financial relationships that he has with the Russians and other foreign powers.”
Some former U.S. intelligence officials say the Oct. 7 intelligence assessment appears to have been cooked up for the benefit of Clinton.
“There was no evidence to support it,” said retired U.S. Army Col. Derek Harvey, who investigated the origins of the assessment for the House Intelligence Committee. “It was a political diversion to help Clinton.”
He pointed out that the specious sourcing behind the intelligence violated Clapper’s own 2015 Intelligence Community directive outlining analytical standards for such assessments. What’s more, his directive prohibited any political bias in intelligence reporting, warning that assessments must be “independent of political consideration.”
“Analytic assessments must not be distorted by, nor shaped for, advocacy of a particular audience, agenda or policy viewpoint,” according to the six-page document, which was signed by Clapper himself.
Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker said Clapper’s Oct. 7 assessment is another example of the many covert ops the Intelligence Community ran against Trump to try to keep him from power or to minimize his effectiveness while in office. By pre-cooking the conclusion about the Russian government targeting Clinton, he said, Clapper abused the U.S. government’s awesome intelligence powers to intervene in a U.S. election.
“In hindsight, it is now clear that the leaders of our intelligence agencies directed their immense powers towards all things Trump,” he said in an RCI interview.
Swecker added that Clapper, now 83, was easily manipulated by Obama and then-CIA Director John Brennan, even though Clapper oversaw the CIA. “James Clapper was the Barney Fife of the Intelligence Community,” he said.
The CIA and other American intelligence agencies are prohibited from getting involved in domestic affairs, Swecker noted, and certainly not American elections.
Attempts to seek comment from Clapper, now retired, were unsuccessful. But in his 2018 memoir, “Facts and Fears,” Clapper revealed that he and then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, another Obama appointee, “agonized over the precise wording” in the Oct. 7 intelligence release, ostensibly because the linkages to the Kremlin were gauzy at best.
“We didn’t see any hard evidence of political collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government,” Clapper admitted on page 349, “but as I said at the time, my dashboard warning lights were all lit.”
He also suggested he was looking out for Clinton – whom his boss, President Obama, had publicly endorsed and was actively campaigning for at the time.
“Both the Russians and the Trump campaign were, in parallel, pushing conspiracy theories against Secretary Clinton,” Clapper complained, namely that “she was corrupt.”
Added the former intel chief: “Jeh and I felt strongly that we should inform the electorate,” and “President Obama assented.” In doing so, Clapper confessed they “pushed the boundaries” of what they could say about the purported “Russian activities.” As much as they juiced the intel, though, they agreed to stop short of blaming Putin directly.
While Clapper, in his book, mentioned the presidential debate that took place two days later, he did so only in passing and failed to note the key fact that Clinton cited his ginned-up intelligence during the televised event, almost on cue.
The Clinton campaign’s foreign policy adviser later gloated about the Clapper statement, showing how important it was to the campaign.
“The fact is that the entire Intelligence Community stood behind a statement in October that the Russian campaign had hacked the DNC and released their emails,” Jake Sullivan testified in a closed-door December 2017 interview with the House Intelligence Committee. “We feared that we were under attack, not just by the Russians, but by a coordinated [sic] with the Trump campaign as well.”
Sullivan was mistaken, of course. The entire Intelligence Community did not stand behind the statement, which was backed by no real evidence. At the time, according to internal documents, the FBI called the notion that the Russian government was behind the alleged hack “speculation.”
And nothing the Russians may have done was coordinated with the Trump campaign, as multiple investigations have concluded.
The ‘Laptop Op’
Having been nearly charged with perjury in 2013 for lying to Congress about intelligence gathering before apologizing, Clapper appeared to politicize intelligence ahead of the 2020 presidential debate as well.
In an Oct. 19, 2020, formal statement, Obama’s and Biden’s old intelligence czar falsely implied damning emails found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop were Russian disinformation. The “intelligence” came just in time for Biden, who would be squaring off with Trump in three days, just like it did for Clinton in October 2016.
“Clapper didn’t know the Russians were involved. He was just spitballing. His pre-debate guesswork was similar to his pre-debate so-called intelligence on Russia in 2016,” said the former senior FBI counterintelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Although the statement declared the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” it provided no actual evidence of Russian involvement. Clapper and his colleagues asserted that they strongly suspected “the Russian government played a significant role in the case.” Later in the statement, they went further to state “our view” shared by the Intelligence Community — not merely a suspicion anymore — “that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”
“There is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and-or to weaken Biden should he win,” they speculated. “A ‘laptop op’ fits the bill, as the publication of the emails are clearly designed to discredit Biden.”
But Clapper was dead wrong. There was no Russian “op.” And the laptop and its contents — including the damning emails published by the Post — were 100% real and authentic, as Special Counsel David Weiss confirmed during the recent trial of Hunter Biden on three felony gun charges, for which he was convicted earlier this month. The Russian government had nothing to do with any of it.
In retrospect, many political analysts agree Clapper’s intel statement was designed not to inform the electorate but to mislead it. But more significantly, the timing of its release suggests it was meant to help Biden in the next presidential debate, which was scheduled just three days later in Nashville.
During that final presidential debate, held on Oct. 22, 2020, Biden dismissed concerns about his son’s laptop emails and family foreign influence-peddling as part of a “Russian plant” after Trump lit into him about the laptop story. “Joe, they’re calling you a corrupt politician,” Trump said. “Take a look at the laptop from Hell.” Leaning on Clapper’s intel statement, Biden flatly denied knowing anything about Hunter’s foreign business dealings.
“Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden shot back. “They have said this is, has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
The intel provided a much-needed lifeline for the former vice president.
It were as if Clapper had teed up the perfect talking point for Biden.
As it turns out, Biden campaign officials had worked with Clapper’s team prior to the release of the intel statement accusing Putin of planting the laptop story.
In a House deposition, former deputy CIA Director Mike Morell, a Clapper confidant and one of the 51 signatories of the letter, testified that around Oct. 17, top Biden campaign aide Antony Blinken, now Biden’s Secretary of State, reached out to him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Morell revealed that one of the goals in releasing the letter two days later “was to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate,” according to an April 20, 2023, letter House investigators sent to Blinken. The day after speaking with the Biden campaign, Morell blasted out an email to former intelligence officials to recruit them to sign the Oct. 19 intel letter. “We want to give the VP a talking point to use in response” to Trump in the event he attacks Biden over the laptop revelations during the upcoming debate, Morell wrote his colleagues. After the Oct. 22 debate, Morell testified that Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti called him to thank him “for putting the statement out.” Morell said former CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash was also involved in the coordination effort. Bash happens to be the ex-husband of Dana Bash, who will be one of the CNN moderators questioning Trump and Biden at Thursday night’s debate in Atlanta.
In effect, the Intelligence Community conspired with the Biden campaign to deceive the electorate by creating a false talking point for Biden in the presidential debate, which some government watchdogs say constituted an unreported campaign contribution and a potential violation of federal campaign finance laws.
On the same day that Clapper released the statement, then-Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand hyped it in a story with the conclusive headline: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” During the earlier frenzied coverage of Russiagate, Bertrand, who now works for CNN, acted as a go-to reporter for leaks from intelligence officials about Trump. She quoted one signatory to the letter as being confident that “once again the Russians are interfering” in U.S. elections. About 15 minutes after Politico published its story, Jen Psaki tweeted a link to the Politico article. Psaki was named Biden’s press secretary the next month. The Biden campaign repeatedly cited Clapper’s statement to dismiss the allegations against Hunter and Joe Biden. Clapper played his part by jumping on CNN to claim the laptop was “textbook Soviet tradecraft.”
It’s clear Clapper was rooting for Biden to win. Three days before Clapper released his all-too-convenient intelligence letter, he had donated $1,000 to Biden’s campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records. He had given another $250 to Biden For President the previous October. In the current election cycle, records show Clapper has contributed at least $300 so far to Biden.
RealClearInvestigations reached out to Clapper for comment but did not hear back. However, in a previous statement, he was unapologetic. “I stand by the statement made at the time,” he told the New York Post. “I think sounding such a cautionary note at the time was appropriate.”
Clapper and Tapper
Clapper’s history of intrigue against Trump includes leaking damaging classified information about him to the media.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper thought he had the scoop of his career when, on Jan. 10, 2017, he reported that President-elect Trump had been briefed by the FBI about “classified documents” containing information from a “credible” intelligence source that the Russians had “compromising” dirt on him. Citing unnamed “U.S. officials,” the report, co-bylined with Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, also falsely claimed that the Trump campaign and the Russian government had “exchange[d] information” throughout the election and that these allegations had been verified. Tapper failed to note that the supposedly “classified” information came from political opposition research funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, otherwise known as the Steele dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
As flawed as the story was, it triggered a feeding frenzy in the national media, which up to that point backed off from covering the wild and unsubstantiated allegations contained in the Steele dossier. But after they learned from Tapper – by way of Clapper – that the U.S. Intelligence Community itself had taken a keen interest in the dossier and appeared to be taking it seriously, they reported the allegations against Trump nonstop for several years as if the dossier reports were the Pentagon Papers.
When congressional investigators first asked Clapper about the CNN leak in a July 2017 deposition, Clapper “flatly denied ‘discuss[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists,’” according to a report issued by the House Intelligence Committee. But Clapper changed his story upon further questioning. “Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the ‘dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper.’” The report added that Clapper secretly spoke with Tapper in early January 2017 and that on Jan. 10, CNN published Tapper’s story about the dossier allegations, for which he won the Merriman Smith Award for broadcast journalism in 2018.
The next day, Clapper issued a statement describing a call with Trump in which Clapper “expressed my profound dismay at the leaks that have been appearing in the press” and stressed that “I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC,” or Intelligence Community.
Clapper, who was later hired by CNN as an official “national security analyst,” had blatantly lied not only to the incoming president but also to the public. Again. And in effect, he had used Tapper, who’s not only failed to correct the record at CNN, but finds himself in the position to grill Trump on Thursday night as co-moderator with Bash of the first 2024 presidential debate in Atlanta.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 22:20 - North Korean Troops Will Be 'Cannon Fodder' If Sent To Ukraine, Pentagon Says
North Korean Troops Will Be ‘Cannon Fodder’ If Sent To Ukraine, Pentagon Says
Following on the heels of Putin’s visit to Pyongyang last week where he inked a strategic defense cooperation agreement with Kim Jong Un, North Korea is reportedly sending a contingency of troops to assist in Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.
South Korea’s TV Chosun cited a Seoul official to say specifically the north will send construction and engineering units to Ukraine as soon as next month, according to Reuters. They will reportedly assist in rebuilding efforts for areas under Russian control.
It true this could further ‘internationalize’ the conflict and might in turn trigger greater NATO involvement, possibly even the deployment of Western troops.
However, the news of Pyongyang deploying engineering troops is anything but confirmed at this point, given it appears to have originated in South Korean media:
Those forces, working overseas under the disguise of construction workers to earn hard currency for the regime, would be moved from China to those Russia-held regions, the network said.
Asked about the TV Chosun reports, South Korea’s foreign ministry said it was continuing monitoring the situation.
But the reports were noticed by the Pentagon, which put Moscow and North Korea on notice. Pentagon press secretary Gen. Pat Ryder said in a briefing on Tuesday.
“If I were North Korean military personnel management, I would be questioning my choice of sending my forces to be cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine. And we’ve seen the kinds of casualties that Russian forces.”
Ryder didn’t confirm whether the reports were accurate, but only said that it’s “certainly something to keep an eye on.”
Likely if the US does observe or confirm that North Korean troops are in Ukraine the White House will directly address it, and issue threats.
Much like how Iran sent technical advisors to Crimea in tandem with the drone transfers to Russia, North Korea is combining arms transfers with a ground presence of sorts
This mirrors what North Korea did in Syria and Zimbabwe in the past
— Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2) June 26, 2024
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North Korea has been arming Russia with artillery shells and possibly other military items since 2023 for the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. Both countries are under far-reaching US sanctions. This means Russia has increasingly relied on other ‘pariah’ states to meet its military supply needs.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 22:00 - CBP Officers Seize Truckload Of Marijuana Worth $5.2 Million At Laredo Bridge
CBP Officers Seize Truckload Of Marijuana Worth $5.2 Million At Laredo Bridge
Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Monday that its officers at the World Trade Bridge in Laredo, Texas, thwarted an attempt to smuggle a cache of marijuana worth nearly $5.2 million.
The seizure occurred on June 23 when an officer flagged a tractor hauling a commercial shipment for secondary inspection, according to a CBP press release.
The tractor was driven by a 38-year-old Mexican citizen, accompanied by a 33-year-old Mexican citizen. Both of them have been arrested, the agency stated.
CBP officers conducted a canine inspection and other examinations and found 98 packages containing about 2,323 pounds of alleged marijuana inside the trailer.
The agency seized both the tractor and trailer, as well as the drugs, which had a street value of $5,198,328.
“Frontline officers at the World Trade Bridge demonstrated exceptional effort in successfully disrupting this drug smuggling attempt,” Alberto Flores, port director for Laredo Port of Entry, said in a press release.
“This large drug bust is a prime example of the efficient targeting strategies utilized in the cargo environment to help combat the flow of narcotics seeping into our communities,” Mr. Flores said.
CBP officers assigned to the World Trade Bridge made a similar seizure in September last year, when a Freightliner tractor trailer hauling home goods was referred for secondary inspection. The agency seized 177 packages containing 4,466 pounds of marijuana, estimated to be worth over $9.9 million.
The Department of Justice announced on May 16 that it is formally moving to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act. So far, 38 states have legalized marijuana for medical use and another 24 have legalized it for recreational use.
The Justice Department acknowledged the medical uses of marijuana, or cannabis, in a proposed rule it sent to the federal register while emphasizing the plant’s lower potential for abuse compared with other Schedule I drugs. By design, the Drug Enforcement Administration classifies drugs as Schedule I if the agency believes they have no medical value.
This followed a recommendation from the Department of Health and Human Services after President Joe Biden urged the agency to review the drug’s status in 2022.
While moving marijuana to Schedule III could affect future federal policy on the plant, drugs in that category are still considered controlled substances and subject to regulations. Anyone found guilty of selling them without proper authorization could still be federally prosecuted.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 21:40 - Court Orders Israel Army To Start Drafting Ultra-Orthodox, Compounding Internal Tensions
Court Orders Israel Army To Start Drafting Ultra-Orthodox, Compounding Internal Tensions
In an historic development that promises to fuel friction between different elements of the country’s society, the Israeli high court on Tuesday unanimously ruled that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) must start drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish students.
Until now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to maintaining the decades-long draft exemption has been a key means of earning the support of two ultra-Orthodox parties that are building blocks of his ruling coalition. While there’s nowhere for those two parties to flee in pursuit of restoring the exemption, the ruling seemingly removes one of the ties that binds the parties to Netanyahu.
Outside an IDF induction center, protesters of Haredim draft exemptions push mock coffins (Mothers at the Front) In their 9-0 ruling, the court noted the ongoing demands of Israel’s 8-month-old war on Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel. “In the middle of a difficult war, the burden of inequality is felt more acutely than ever—and it requires advancing a sustainable solution to this issue,” the justices wrote.
As casualties have mounted in Gaza, long-simmering resentment of the exemption that covers some 1.3 million ultra-Orthodox Jews — or Haredi — has only grown. In addition to protests in the streets, high-ranking Israeli officials have called for an end to the special treatment.
“The war and the challenges placed before us… require us to share the burden of military service,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in March. “Everyone must carry the burden, all sectors of the nation.”At the same event, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi declared that the Haredi exemption was undermining Israel’s “social cohesion.”
Haredi Jews in Jerusalem burn the Israeli flag in protest against the new Israeli government conscription law, which mandates their enlistment in the occupation army due to the war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/bDPKfWEbJF
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 4, 2024
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The draft is just one facet of the Haredi’s special treatment in Israel. Haredi men who are enrolled in Yeshiva schools — to study the Torah — have also received public subsidies that keep going all the way until they reach the country’s standard retirement age of 67.
That’s makes these men doubly detractive: They’re economically unproductive, while also draining resources from those who contribute to the country’s economy. Meanwhile, Haredi children are exempt from Israel’s educational standards. Since they don’t have to study core topics like math, science and English, they offer lesser skills to would-be employers.
‘We will die and not enlist’
Thousands of haredim who are affiliated with the Jerusalem Faction gathered outside the Jerusalem Enlistment Center on Thursday to protest against the enlistment of haredim to the IDF.
🎥 Matanel Rahamim pic.twitter.com/Gi5TNwGPOs— Israel National News – Arutz Sheva (@ArutzSheva_En) April 11, 2024
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Tuesday’s court ruling also landed a broadside hit on the wealth transfers, declaring that funding of students who don’t have a bona fide military exemption are illegal too. Responding to the high court’s ruling, the chairman of one of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties reiterated the argument that Haredi men’s full-time study of Judaism’s holy books makes an important contribution to Israel:
“The Jewish people survived persecutions, pogroms and wars only thanks to maintaining their uniqueness, the Torah and the commandments. This is our secret weapon against all enemies, as promised by the Creator of the universe,” Shas chair Aryeh Deri told the Times of Israel. “[Yeshiva students] preserve our special power and generate miracles in the [military] campaign.”
Rather than resolving the issue, the ruling will likely inflame tension. “[It] creates an ongoing, endemic crisis that will probably continue to escalate,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, told the Wall Street Journal.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 21:20 - Supreme Court Inadvertently Releases 'Idaho Emergency Abortion' Opinion
Supreme Court Inadvertently Releases ‘Idaho Emergency Abortion’ Opinion
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The U.S. Supreme Court released an opinion in an abortion case on June 26 but quickly unpublished the ruling, in what a spokesperson described as a mistake.
Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photo at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. Standing from left: Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. (Erin Schaff/Getty Images) The opinion involves a case against an Idaho law that bans most abortions.
The opinion “has not been released,” Patricia McCabe, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
“The court’s publications unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the court’s website.”
She said the opinion will be published “in due course.”
The nation’s top court had an opinion release day on Wednesday and is scheduled to publish additional opinions on Thursday and Friday.
A draft opinion in a separate case that challenged the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade was leaked in 2022, setting off protests against justices believed to be backing the opinion. The final ruling, when issued, struck down Roe v. Wade.
The Idaho case deals with a law that prohibits doctors from performing abortions, with exceptions in any trimester in cases where doctors believe abortions are necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or unborn child. The law also contains exceptions during the first trimester for women who were the victims of rape or incest.
The law enables felony charges to be brought against doctors who violate the statute.
Before the Idaho law took effect in August 2022, though, it was blocked by a federal judge. Judge Lynn Winmill said the state law clashed with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law that requires emergency room doctors at hospitals that receive Medicare funds to offer treatments to stabilize patients who arrive with emergency conditions.
Judge Winmell pointed to the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
“At its core, the Supremacy Clause says state law must yield to federal law when it’s impossible to comply with both,” he wrote as he entered a preliminary injunction.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2023 stayed the ruling. EMTALA “does not require abortions, and even if it did in some circumstances, that requirement would not directly conflict with” the Idaho law, U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, writing for the panel, said. The full court later vacated the stay, but the Supreme Court reimposed it while it considered the case.
In the opinion briefly published on Wednesday, which was obtained by Bloomberg News, justices ordered the injunction put back in place and said they should have not granted Idaho’s emergency request to review the case.
Justice Elena Kagan said in a concurring opinion that Idaho’s arguments “do not justify, and have never justified, either emergency relief or our early consideration of this dispute.” She wrote that “EMTALA requires hospitals to provide abortions that Idaho’s law prohibits” and that “Idaho’s law is preempted.” She was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justice Jackson said in a separate partial concurrence and partial dissent that because the court already acted in the matter, it should not back away from it and should instead proceed to its merits. “There is simply no good reason not to resolve this conflict now,” she said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in a concurring opinion that she’s become convinced by more detailed information presented in the case, including at oral argument, that the case is not appropriate for resolution by the court before the full Ninth Circuit takes up the matter.
“Based on the parties’ representations, it appears that the injunction will not stop Idaho from enforcing its law in the vast majority of circumstances,” she said. Judge Barrett was joined by Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a dissent that EMTALA requires Medicare-funded hospitals to care for pregnant women and their unborn children, which is an ambiguity that the court should resolve.
“No one who has any respect for statutory language can plausibly say that the government’s interpretation is unambiguously correct,” he said. “And in any event, Idaho never consented to any conditions imposed by EMTALA and certainly did not surrender control of the practice of medicine and the resolution of abortions within its territory.”
Justice Alito was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The case will now move forward in the Ninth Circuit, although it could be taken to the Supreme Court again at a later stage.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 21:00 - Suspected Hypersonic Missile Fired By North Korea Explodes Midair
Suspected Hypersonic Missile Fired By North Korea Explodes Midair
North Korea is suspected of having launched a hypersonic missile as part of an apparently failed test early Wednesday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the launch originated outside Pyongyang, and Japan’s defense ministry also said it detected a launch.
The south’s intelligence agencies are reportedly investigating, with officials saying it may have been a hypersonic missile that exploded midair.
Yonhap via AFP: A vapour trail believed to have been created by the North Korean missile. “The launch from near the capital, Pyongyang, ended in failure as the missile blew up over the eastern coastal waters near the North Korean city of Wonsan,” the JCS said in a statement.
While there are no reports of damage, missile fragments were scattered up to 250 kilometers away, regional reports say.
Japan said that before it failed the missile reached an altitude just over 60 miles and traveled a distance of 124 miles.
An official was cited in Yonhap news agency as saying “there appeared to be more smoke than during previous launches, raising the possibility of combustion issues” and it “appeared to be a solid-fueled missile.”
This latest test comes soon on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official visit to Pyongyang where he met with Kim Jong Un and inked a comprehensive strategic cooperation treaty.
Both countries which are under US-led sanctions have pledged greater cooperation on the defense technology front.
Washington is alarmed given that Russia does possess capable hypersonic missiles, which have reportedly at times already been used in Ukraine.
These missiles are much harder to intercept or even to detect given they are capable of hitting speeds in excess of five times the speed of sound.
Recent footage of some of Kim’s new hypersonic “toys”…
❗🇰🇵🚀🇺🇸 – North Korea announced the successful test of a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, the Hwasong-16B, which uses solid fuel.
Kim Jong Un oversaw the test and praised the country’s defense technology, promising to further develop the arsenal to face its “enemies”… pic.twitter.com/qO4YYvlQSr
— 🔥🗞The Informant (@theinformant_x) April 18, 2024
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From the West’s perspective and Seoul’s perspective, if Kim’s government ever achieved provable hypersonics and they were regularly deployed, it would be a nightmare.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 20:40 - US Army Revises Standards On Prohibited Extremist Activity
US Army Revises Standards On Prohibited Extremist Activity
Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The U.S. Army issued new, more specific guidance on Wednesday to address extremism within its ranks and ensure disciplinary action against those who engage with or promote extremist views.
Secretary of the Army, Hon. Christine Wormuth, visits U.S. soldiers in Guam on July 25, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. David Resnick) Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth signed off on a pair of memos, published on June 26, that refine how the service will handle protests and extremist or gang activity within the ranks, and report suspected prohibited behavior. One memo a directive for “Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities“ and the other is a directive for ”Reporting Prohibited Activities.”
The memo on Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities states that prohibited activity within the Army can include distributing extremist materials online. This new Army memo reinforces a policy approach articulated by the U.S. Department of Defense in a November 2021 memo, which states that “an action taken to replicate content from one online location to another” can qualify as distributing extremist content online. The new Army memo now states the prohibited online distribution of extremist activity can include liking, sharing, and “re-tweeting” said content.
“Military personnel are responsible for the content they publish on all personal and public internet domains, including social media platforms, blogs, websites, and applications,” the memo states.
The Army’s existing policy, updated in July of 2020, had previously said prohibited online conduct could include “hazing, bullying, harassment, discriminatory harassment, stalking, retaliation, or any other types of misconduct that undermines dignity and respect” but was less specific about online extremist activity, stating only that “military personnel must reject participation in extremist organizations and associated cyber activities.”
The new memo on Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities also states soldiers who “knowingly” display paraphernalia, words, or symbols in support of extremist activity, including on flags, clothing, tattoos, and bumper stickers—whether on or off a military installation—can run afoul of the Army’s prohibitions on extremist behavior.
The new memo does not provide an exhaustive list of what paraphernalia, words, or symbols may meet their definition of extremist material but does offer a definition of views and activities the Army includes in its definition of extremism:
- Advocating or engaging in the use of unlawful force or other illegal means to deprive individuals of their rights under the U.S. Constitution or in any states, territories or political subdivisions thereof.
- Advocating or engaging in unlawful force to achieve goals that are political, religious, discriminatory, or otherwise ideological in nature.
- Advocating, engaging in, or supporting terrorism.
- Advocating, engaging in, or supporting the overthrow of the federal government, or state, territory, and local governments using force, violence, or unconstitutional or other unlawful means.
- Advocating or encouraging military, civilian, or contractor personnel within the [Department of Defense] DOD or U.S. Coast Guard to violate laws or disobey lawful orders.
- Advocating widespread unlawful discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, or sexual orientation.
The memo states that Army commands have several options for recourse against soldiers promoting those views. They include legal action under the military justice system, known as the uniformed code of military justice. Commands may also choose adverse administrative actions against soldiers alleged to have violated these prohibitions on extremist activity, including involuntary separating of soldiers, reassigning soldiers, revoking their security clearances, barring soldiers from continued service, or “other administrative or disciplinary action deemed appropriate by the commander, based on the specific facts and circumstances of the particular case.”
The Second Memo
The second memo, regarding how military officials should report suspected prohibited activity, seeks to establish a process for reporting suspicious activity to the DOD Deputy Inspector General (DIG) for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military.
Appropriate Army authorities who receive an allegation that a soldier engaged in a prohibited activity must notify the soldier’s commander or another appropriate authority and the appropriate Army inspector general within 30 calendar days if that soldier is in the active component and within 60 calendar days if that soldier is in the Army’s reserve component. The Army inspector generals must then forward information they receive along to the DOD Deputy Inspector General for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military within another 15 calendar days of receiving said notification.
Commanders are also instructed that they must ensure that a soldier’s permanent record in the Army Military Human Resource Record (AMHRR) is annotated if that soldier has received a court-martial conviction, nonjudicial punishment, or general officer’s memorandum of reprimand for actively participating in extremist activities.
The reporting memo instructs Army commanders to periodically remind soldiers to avoid engaging in extremist activity.
The memo also advises Army commanders that they should consider command-directed mental health evaluations and financial counseling sessions for soldiers showing signs of potential involvement in extremist activities.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 20:20 - Watch Live "The Border Debate": Pundits Clash Over Illegal Immigration
Watch Live “The Border Debate”: Pundits Clash Over Illegal Immigration
Watch Live on X, YouTube and Rumble
ZeroHedge is bringing together four prominent pundits to debate one of the most combustible topics of the day: illegal immigration across the porous US border.
Immigration is the most important political problem facing the US today according to Gallup and about a half-dozen other pollsters, not to mention at least half of America.
To debate this issue, we are joined by former Navy intel officer Jack Posobiec and author Ryan Girdusky, who will make the case in favor of a border crackdown and even an all-out immigration moratorium.
Debating against them will be The Hill‘s Robby Soave and Libertarian presidential Candidate Chase Oliver; they will argue that our economy needs immigrants and that our government should admit more of them.
The debate will be moderated by The Intercept’s Ryan Grim and Unherd’s Emily Jashinsky who host the Counter Points show on YouTube.
And so, without further ado, let’s get ready to rumble.
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 26, 2024
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 20:11 - "Disgusting Discovery": Cali Beach Closures Prompt Questions Of Whether Mexico Is Dumping Sewage In U.S. Waters
“Disgusting Discovery”: Cali Beach Closures Prompt Questions Of Whether Mexico Is Dumping Sewage In U.S. Waters
Just when you thought the wave of illegal immigration coming from the U.S.’s southern border was demoralizing enough, it appears that something else may be drifting its way up from Mexico.
According to a new report from the Daily Mail, beaches in San Diego have been shut down due to a “disgusting discovery”, which it described as “sewage creating frighteningly high levels of bacteria in the open waters”.
The report says that water contact closures have been issued for Silver Strand Shoreline, Imperial Beach Shorelines, and the Tijuana Slough Shoreline along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Additionally, advisories were issued for La Jolla, Children’s Pool, Coronado, Coronado Lifeguard Tower, Ocean Beach, Dog Beach, San Diego River outlet, Mission Bay, North Cove, and Vacation Isle, the Mail reported.
Imperial Beach, ranked as the dirtiest beach in the U.S., has bright yellow warning signs due to sewage flowing in from Tijuana, the Mail said, citing KGTV.
Dr. Marvel Harrison was quoted as saying: “The level of stress when you smell the stench, when you get sick and you worry about your children, and the level of stress and the depression is real.”
“We need our state and federal governments to declare a state of emergency,” added San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer. “Our community deserves clean air and clean water, and we will not rest until this is resolved.”
The report noted that out of “thousands” of water samples from “across the nation” tested by The Surfrider Foundation, every single sample from Imperial Beach turned up “bacteria counts that exceeded the state’s health standard for recreational waters”.
City officials plan to gather data and secure funding to address the sewage problem affecting the beach city.
The Surfrider Foundation reported that 64% of tested sites had unsafe bacteria levels, with California accounting for a quarter of these samples. Other polluted locations include Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica and the mouth of San Luis Obispo Creek.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 20:00 - Bolivian Coup Averted, Top General Arrested After Short-Lived Rebellion
Bolivian Coup Averted, Top General Arrested After Short-Lived Rebellion
Update(1950ET): It appears the short-lived coup attempt is over, with reports of the following: The President of Bolivia, Luis Arce has just stated during a Press Conference that the Leader of the Coup d’état in the Capital of La Paz, General Juan José Zúñiga has been arrested by his own Troops after they realized he was conducting a Coup against the Government; with all remaining Troops currently Returning to their Bases. News wires are also confirming:
BOLIVIA’S EX-ARMY GENERAL ZUNIGA ARRESTED AFTER COUP ATTEMPT
#Bolivia 🇧🇴: president Luis Arce and his cabinet appeared on the balcony of the Presidential Palace to greet his supporters.
A final confirmation that the government survived this coup attempt. pic.twitter.com/IShWEf4vdZ
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) June 26, 2024
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Now begins the speculation over whether there was any external state backer or hidden hand in this brief episode.
It also seems that for now at least, Arce’s supporters were able to present enough of a showing to get the military leadership to back off.
The Leader of the apparent Failed Military Coup in Bolivia, General Juan José Zúñiga was seen earlier getting into his Armored Vehicle and Quickly Leaving the Area of the Presidential Residence in Downtown La Paz. pic.twitter.com/8FRdDE6P36
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 26, 2024
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* * *
There are emerging reports of a military coup going down in Bolivia on Wednesday, with embattled President Luis Arce denouncing the “irregular mobilization” of some units of the national army.
He has accused the country’s top general, Gen. Juan Jose Zuniga,of plotting a coup, and warned “You need to respect democracy.”
According to Reuters, “Heavily armed soldiers and armored vehicles were seen gathering in the capital’s Plaza Murillo, according to videos shared on social media.”
“Former President Evo Morales, who has publicly split with Arce even though both belong to same socialist movement, announced a national mobilization of his supporters to support democracy in a separate post on X,” the report continues.
BREAKING: Bolivian armed forces have surrounded the government palace in Bolivia’s Plaza Murillo in an apparent coup attempt. pic.twitter.com/GfVsEMWPzJ
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) June 26, 2024
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There are widespread reports that armored vehicles are destroying the door of the Presidential Palace, and that armed troops are breaking in.
Bolivia state TV is airing the following dramatic footage…
BREAKING: Military enters Bolivia’s Palacio Quemado by force, running an armoured vehicle into the palace doors as a coup is underway. @teleSURtv pic.twitter.com/DjX0Y8pkpT
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) June 26, 2024
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Amid road blockages and works stoppages across the capital, each side is urging their forces and supporters to urgently assist:
Presidential Minister María Nela Prada said military and tanks were taking over Plaza Murillo in La Paz, calling it an “attempted coup d’état.” The people are “on alert to defend democracy,” she said to local television station Red Uno.
The general commander of the army, Juan José Zúñiga, present in the same square, confirmed that there was a movement of uniformed officers, and said: “We are upset by the affront, enough is enough.”
Currently protesters supporting Arce are filling up some of the streets leading to the square while chanting pro-Arce slogans and on their way to confront the mutiny.
The following widely circulating and astounding photograph shows President Arce meeting the leader of the attempted military coup face-to-face at the doors of the Presidential Palace:
developing…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 19:50 - Banning Fossil Fuels Will Make Heat Waves More Dangerous, Not Less
Banning Fossil Fuels Will Make Heat Waves More Dangerous, Not Less
Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,
On Sunday, activists from the environmentalist organization Extinction Rebellion stormed the green in the final, pivotal moments of the Travelers Championship, a professional golf tournament. The protesters tossed red and white chalk and smoke bombs before being tackled to the ground by police. The stunt came days after two protesters with the group Just Stop Oil, a youth-led offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, sprayed orange paint on Stonehenge.
The environmentalist protesters who do stunts like this are refreshingly honest about the destructive nature of their ambitions.
They see the comforts and leisures of modern life as maladies to be eradicated in the name of saving the climate.
But while the means these protesters used in the two high-profile stunts last week have come under wide condemnation, the environmentalist ends of such groups enjoyed blind acceptance in the news media amid a couple dramatic heat waves playing out around the world.
Temperatures rose to record-breaking heights for June across the eastern United States late last week and over the weekend. The United Kingdom experienced a heat wave that, while mocked by many in the US for being laughably mild, brought temperatures far higher than the region is used to. Most dramatically, extreme heat killed over a thousand people during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Overall, more than fourteen hundred temperature records were broken around the world last week.
The media has had a field day showing scary red maps and bringing on hysterical “experts” to terrify audiences into thinking it’s only a matter of time before we’re all roasting to death. Unless, we’re told, we “stop putting carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere,” as Bill Nye said in the clip linked above and the Extinction Rebellion protesters demanded on the eighteenth green on Sunday.
But if the goal is to avoid heat-related deaths, the worst thing to do is ban fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels, through technologies like air conditioning and refrigeration, make us safer from heat waves like those experienced last week.
Air conditioning is an incredible invention that is too often taken for granted. Back in the 1840s, long before air conditioning, a Florida doctor named John Gorrie found that his patients recovered better from disease when placed in a cool room. Gorrie developed a system to cool hospital rooms, but it required huge blocks of ice to be cut and transported from frozen lakes and rivers in the northern states. Gorrie’s system made no sense logistically, but his method for cooling a room laid the foundation for what would become modern air conditioning.
Sixty years later, a New York engineer named Willis Carrier expanded upon Gorrie’s design by utilizing cooling coils to heat and cool air. These first air conditioning units took up an entire room and cost as much as $1.5 million each in today’s dollars. But as Carrier and his competitors raced to improve upon their designs, air conditioning units became smaller, more efficient, and more affordable.
A big problem with early air conditioning units was that the compounds they used as refrigerants, such as ammonia and propane, were toxic, flammable, explosive, and not very effective. Then, in 1928, Thomas Midgley Jr. and his team in the Frigidaire division of General Motors synthesized the first chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which they named Freon.
The adoption of CFCs like Freon provided a major boost to air conditioning. In the 1930s, when the US experienced the most severe heat waves in its history, air conditioning units began to be installed in movie theaters. Around the same time, the first window-mounted units were developed. But it wasn’t until after World War II that air conditioning started to become affordable and compact enough to become a common fixture in American homes. By the 1960s, most new homes in the US had central air conditioning.
Air conditioning did not merely make life more comfortable; it saved lives. Heat-related deaths fell by 80 percent after the adoption of air conditioning. Regions like the arid Southwest and the humid Southeast became more inhabitable for more people.
But as Mark Thornton has pointed out, the benefits of air conditioning extend far beyond staying cool on a hot day.
Because architects no longer needed to rely on windows for ventilation, air conditioning allowed for larger, sturdier buildings that could extend higher than had ever been possible. These skyscrapers significantly increased the supply of housing and office space in urban areas without requiring more land. That meant the air conditioning making residences and offices more comfortable was also making them more affordable.
The cooling and dehumidifying effects of air conditioning also help conserve things like books and historical artifacts. Thanks to modern HVAC systems, every major city in the country can have libraries, archives, and museums. That wasn’t true before. In fact, Willis Carrier first invented air conditioning not to cool hot rooms but to prevent magazine pages from wrinkling for a Brooklyn publishing company.
Air conditioning has helped enormously with textile production, surgeries, plant and animal breeding, pharmaceuticals, and transportation—not to mention the preservation and transportation of food through refrigeration. It is also crucial for cooling the vast data centers that, together, power the internet.
That’s all to say that it’s hard to overstate how much the world we all live in depends on our ability to control our indoor climates, regardless of the outdoor temperatures. But these systems rely on two central components: energy and refrigerants. And both of these components have come under attack from environmentalists and their allies in government.
Environmentalists are very clear that they want the world’s governments to force their populations off fossil fuels. They fantasize about a world where, after a few cleverly concocted government policies are enacted, the world transitions to energy sources like solar and wind, the weather improves, and we all get to live in an egalitarian, plant-filled, postscarcity utopia.
But those ambitions will never leave the realm of fantasy. So-called renewable sources like solar and wind power cannot support the world’s population at the current level of development. At best, things like air conditioning—which requires a lot of energy—will become more expensive.
More likely, modern HVAC systems will become unavailable for large swaths of the population. Because, in addition to the effort to ban fossil fuels, today’s environmentalists have also set their sights on the refrigerants these systems rely on.
It began in the nineties when the world’s governments seized on a scare that CFCs were causing a hole in the ozone layer (which was essentially a complete hoax) to ban the refrigerant and force a transition to a worse alternative called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The coerced adoption of HFCs made refrigerators, air conditioning systems, and even asthma inhalers more expensive and less effective. That’s the big reason why, as Thornton pointed out in the article linked above, air conditioning’s march to affordability reversed course in the 1990s and now costs so much.
But it gets worse. The US government has already passed legislation to phase in a total ban on HFCs. Most bans are set to kick in over the next couple of years, but unlike the CFC ban thirty years ago, there is no clear alternative this time around. If it’s mentioned at all, the other options presented are the same toxic, flammable, inefficient compounds like ammonia and propane that were used in the early air conditioning units ninety-five years ago. Companies have begun hoarding HFCs as the phaseout progresses and, earlier this year, the first arrest was made for smuggling the refrigerant into the country.
As air conditioning becomes even less affordable and available, all the benefits outlined above begin to slip out of reach as well. Life grows more expensive because internet, food, and rent prices will rise as the supply of data centers, refrigeration systems, and urban housing takes a hit. And, ironically, the warmest parts of the country will become less inhabitable, not because of a change in the climate, but because so-called green policies are destroying our ability to make them livable.
So, in a sense, environmentalists are right when they warn that heat waves will become more dangerous. But it’s not because of small increases in their average peak temperature. It’s because of the environmentalists themselves.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 19:40 - Austin & Russia's New Defense Chief Speak For 1st Time After Crimea Beach Attack
Austin & Russia’s New Defense Chief Speak For 1st Time After Crimea Beach Attack
In a rare moment which appears a somewhat positive development (or at least it’s not more immediate escalation), the US and Russian defense chiefs spoke by phone Tuesday for the first time since March 2023.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin initiated the call, and the timing is important given it comes following Sunday’s deadly Ukraine missile attack on a crowded Sevastopol beach which killed five people and injured 124 more, including children.
Moscow has blamed Washington for providing the long-range MGM-140 ATACMS systems used in the attack, and has even said Kiev likely had satellite and targeting help from the Pentagon.
The Guardian noted that “The two sides gave widely divergent accounts of the discussion – the first between US defense secretary Lloyd Austin and Russia’s defense minister Andrei Belousov.”
Russian defense chief Belousov warned Austin against continued arms supplies to Kiev, citing the dangers of serious escalation.
As for the US version of the call, the Pentagon readout was scant, only saying that Austin “emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.”
The Kremlin is still pointing to Washington actions as being behind an ongoing escalation:
Russia’s defense ministry said Washington and Kyiv bore “responsibility for a deliberate missile strike on peaceful residents,” which it said used US-supplied ATACMS missiles.
Russia further called it a “terrorist act” and according to more details:
Videos posted on social media showed people running from the beach as explosions went off and people in swimming outfits carrying a stretcher. AFP could not verify their authenticity.
A local news channel on Telegram, ChP Sevastopol, cited witnesses as saying that an elderly woman was killed as she swam in the sea.
But despite this, elsewhere there were other rare positives. On Tuesday Russia and Ukraine conducted a prisoner swap involving 90 total POWs.
Sunday’s strike involved cluster munitions dropping on men, women, and children at a Sevastopol beach…
The moment when Cluster munitions from the ATACMS supplied by the United States is injuring and killing people on the beach in Sevastopol, Crimea couple a days ago. pic.twitter.com/WDQQxLeHTs
— I’m No Angel (@HappyCamper2626) June 25, 2024
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This was the second biggest swap since May 31st, when the two sides returned 75 captives each. That exchange had come after a long lull in exchanges, and there is likely more to come this summer.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 19:20 - US Admits Allies In Syria Using Child Soldiers
US Admits Allies In Syria Using Child Soldiers
Authored by Will Porter via The Libertarian Institute,
The State Department has acknowledged that America’s top partner in Syria, the Kurdish-led “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), is still using underage fighters after more than 10 years of similar allegations. The Pentagon continues to work closely with the group regardless, as US troops illegally occupy large swaths of territory in northeastern Syria.
Published Tuesday, the department’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report highlighted a number of armed factions employing child soldiers in Syria, among them notorious terrorist outfits like ISIS and al-Qaeda as well as more US-friendly groups.
Fighters with the Syria-based People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia, via Wiki Commons “The recruitment or use of children in combat and support roles in Syria remains common, and since the beginning of 2018 international observers reported continued incidents of recruitment and use by armed groups,” the report said.
Those include several Kurdish militias, such as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), an affiliated all-female brigade known as the YPJ, as well as the US-backed and armed SDF. The latter org is an umbrella group containing several others, including the YPG, and has long served as Washington’s main proxy force in Syria.
Another related Kurdish faction, the Revolutionary Youth Movement, was said to have tricked minors into joining up using “fraudulent announcements for educational courses in northeast Syria.”
Although the State Department said the SDF was implementing a 2019 UN-mandated “action plan” to end the practice, it noted reports that “SDF-affiliated armed groups recruited and used children in 2022 and 2023.”
Allegations of child trafficking and military recruitment have dogged the YPG for more than a decade, with rights groups reporting cases as far back as 2013. While YPG leadership claims to have ordered an end to the practice that year, the problem has only worsened since.
In 2020, the United Nations found the YPG, “under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces,” was the top recruiter of child fighters in Syria with 283 documented cases the prior year – even beating out the local al-Qaeda affiliate. While the UN later acknowledged SDF efforts to crack down on the use of underage fighters, it still recorded dozens of cases in April 2021.
Despite the official admission in the new State Department review, the US military continues a close partnership with the SDF and, by extension, the YPG. On Tuesday, the Pentagon deployed 40 vehicles and other hardware to reinforce a base in northwestern Syria, where US troops are embedded with Kurdish fighters. That move followed a similar deployment to Hasakah reported last April.
Throughout a decade of external efforts to topple Assad, the West and Gulf states facilitated the entry of tens of thousands of foreign jihadist fighters…
Via The Washington Post American forces have illegally occupied Syria for years despite repeated objections from the government in Damascus. While Washington insists the presence is necessary to ensure the lasting defeat of the Islamic State, US troops continue to hold significant energy resources in the oil-rich northeast, effectively controlling one-third of the country with the help of its Kurdish allies.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2024 – 19:00
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