Nov 27

Today’s News 27th November 2023

  • How The Democratic Party Faked An American Insurrection
    How The Democratic Party Faked An American Insurrection

    Authored by Robert Bridge,

    Last week, more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 Capitol Police security footage was released in the public domain that once and for all blew a hole in the pro-Trump ‘violent insurrection’ narrative so dear to the Democrats.

    The one question on countless Americans’ minds following the release of the damning videos was: will all those men and women recently locked away as political prisoners for dozens of decades get another day in court?

    Indeed, January 6 may have been a lot of things to many people, but another Boston Tea Party it most definitely was not.

    Social media was alight over the weekend showing one benign scene after another of the ‘insurrectionists’ casually strolling through the Capitol Building premises, exchanging pleasantries with the on-duty police officers, even giving each other fist-bumps.

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    The revelations of the true nature of the event came to light as newly appointed House Speaker Mike Johnson released the security footage, which came as a political manna from heaven for former president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party.

    “Truth and transparency are critical,” Johnson said in a prepared statement.

    “This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”

    Democrats, however, who have milked the ‘insurrectionist’ narrative for everything it is worth, predictably chafed at the release, calling it a ‘risk to national security.’

    “It is unconscionable that one of Speaker Johnson’s first official acts as steward of the institution is to endanger his colleagues, staff, visitors, and our country by allowing virtually unfettered access to sensitive Capitol security footage,” said New York Democrat Rep. Joseph Morelle, who sits on the Committee on House Administration.

    “That he is doing so over the strenuous objections of the security professionals within the Capitol Police is outrageous. This is not transparency; this is dangerous and irresponsible.”

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    For almost two years, Democrats, who managed to cherry-pick the most suggestive scenes of the footage, portrayed January 6th as everything from another September 11 to a second Pear Harbor.

    Last year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the photogenic member of the Democrat’s radical progressive wing, was shown visibly upset after having to “relive” the events of the Capitol riot.

    “I am so angry. Having to relive that footage,” she sobbed, rubbing her forehead. “I know it’s not just me. This is everyone.”

    “These attacks killed people, traumatized people and for any of you right-winger Trump loyalists, he sent his own people to jail, and promised his own people that he would pardon them.”

    The inconvenient truth, however, is that only one person was killed on the day of the Capitol riot – unarmed Air Force veteran and avid Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer.

    Now, Republicans are demanding justice be served and that the incarcerated protesters be immediately set free.

    “And just like that the J6 Committee’s violent insurrection narrative has crumbled,” said conservative commentator Charlie Kirk over X (formerly Twitter).

    “The Capitol Police facilitated the protesters passage through the building…the vast majority of J6ers should be immediately released.”

    However, with the Democrats still in control of Washington, D.C., together with the FBI, the Justice Department and other administrative offices, the Republicans will have to wait until November 4th – and possibly longer if they lose their White House bid – before any real justice is meted out.

    Meanwhile, federal officials have said there is no evidence that law enforcement officials helped coordinate the attacks.

    “If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents the answer is emphatically no,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) during a House Committee hearing.

    Higgins was questioning Wray about two Greyhound buses he said dropped off FBI agents dressed as Trump supporters at the Capitol on January 6, referring to the vehicles as “ghost buses.”

    Whatever the case may be, the fresh revelations were a silver lining in a shitstorm that has been following Donald Trump, who hopes to win back the White House next November despite multiple legal woes.

    “Congratulations to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for having the Courage and Fortitude to release all of the J6 Tapes, which will explicitly reveal what really happened on January 6th!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 23:20

  • Residents In Blue States Pay Much More For Electricity Than In Red States: Study
    Residents In Blue States Pay Much More For Electricity Than In Red States: Study

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

    Blue state residents, whose governments have adopted aggressive climate policies, are paying much more for electricity and fuel than their counterparts who live in red states that lack such policies, according to a new report from America’s largest membership organization of state legislators.

    Electric power lines at sunset in El Segundo, California, on Aug. 31, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

    The report from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), provides a breakdown of energy prices throughout the United States while demonstrating the relationship between big government policies and high energy costs.

    “While some states rely on free market principles and innovation to limit manmade emissions into the atmosphere, others use a more heavy-handed approach by implementing of standards, enacting mandates and pricing schemes that benefit specific types of technologies,” the report reads.

    “Whether it is mandates, subsidies, or some combination of both, when the government inserts itself into the energy markets, taxpayers wind up footing the bill.”

    The trend of government mandates being linked to higher electricity prices is evident throughout the report.

    For instance, simply being part of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which dictates that a certain amount of a state’s electricity generation must come from renewable sources, pushed up electricity costs in a participating state by around 11 percent.

    Big Government Means Higher Electricity Costs

    Overall, the report finds that red states that lack their own green energy mandates or that don’t take part in cap-and-trade schemes (systems that limit aggregate emissions from a group of emitters by setting a cap on maximum emissions) have the lowest electricity costs.

    Red states Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah had the lowest electricity prices. None of them have a government-mandated RPS or participate in cap-and-trade schemes, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which is a CO2 cap-and-trade program among 10 states in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the country.

    Utah has a voluntary renewable energy goal of 20 percent by 2025, but it’s not a mandate. Idaho and Wyoming don’t have state-mandated net metering, which is the utility billing practice of recording the excess energy generated by a solar installation and applying it to a customer’s bill as credit toward grid-drawn energy.

    While the report notes that the impact of state-mandated net metering is “still not clear cut,” some utility companies have said that it represents a cost shift from people who can afford to install solar panels, leaving people without solar to pay a greater share of the fixed costs of maintaining the electrical grid.

    Outside of red Alaska and blue Hawaii (which are geographic outliers and so understandably have the highest electricity costs), the five states with the highest electricity prices are all blue: California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

    All five states have cap-and-trade schemes and government-mandated RPSs in place. Each of these states has also imposed a state-mandated net metering policy on its utilities.

    Overall, the difference in electricity costs between the cheapest red states and the most expensive blue states is substantial. The costs of a kilowatt hour in California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are more than double what they are in red states Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah.

    “There is a strong correlation between big government policies and higher electricity costs,” the report states.

    “When crafting energy and environmental policies, lawmakers should avoid imposing more government controls and instead allow markets to adapt, innovate, and improve.“

    Besides electricity, the ALEC study also looked at gasoline costs across states and similarly found that, in general, there was a correlation between government mandates and prices.

    “States with more stringent fuel content requirements, more regulations, and above-average taxes generally have higher gas prices than those that do not,” the report reads.

    Electricity Versus Natural Gas

    Meanwhile, a recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that the cost of heating a home this coming winter using natural gas is going to be roughly 40 percent lower than using electricity.

    Households using electricity to heat homes are projected to pay $1,063 on average between November and March, according to a Nov. 7 winter fuels outlook report by EIA. By contrast, households using natural gas are only expected to fork over $601.

    The stark findings come as the Biden administration ramps up its war on gas appliances, including furnaces, while touting electrically-powered alternatives (such as heat pumps), all in the name of fighting climate change.

    Recently, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that President Joe Biden will use emergency wartime powers to boost U.S. production of electric heat pumps as his administration continues its push to replace furnaces that run on fossil fuels.

    Earlier, the DOE proposed new energy efficiency standards for residential water heaters that would require electric water heaters of the most common size to use heat pump technology and gas-fired instantaneous water heaters to use condensing technology to achieve energy efficiency.

    At the time, Republicans on the House Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs argued that the DOE’s proposed appliance efficiency standards would be burdensome and costly for Americans, hitting lower-income families the hardest.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 22:45

  • Milei And Wilders Elected: Is The Libertarian Moment Finally Here?
    Milei And Wilders Elected: Is The Libertarian Moment Finally Here?

    Authored by Roger Simon via The Epoch Times,

    It used to be said that conservative guys just called themselves “libertarian” so girls would talk to them at cocktail parties.

    At least one well-known conservative talk show host called them “losertarians” since they didn’t always toe the line and vote Republican.

    Nevertheless, many of us are still convinced Henry David Thoreau, sounding very libertarian, was correct when he wrote in his 1849 book “Civil Disobedience” that “the best government is that which governs least.”

    Thomas Jefferson and John Locke earlier had said much the same and now, after a couple of hundred years, that libertarian view seems to be growing globally.

    Much of this is a reaction to the obvious: Marxism or quasi-Marxism does not work economically and, worse, it has engendered horrendous totalitarian oppression with a massive death count in China, Russia, North Korea, and Cambodia, among others.

    Libertarianism has started to look a lot better, especially—and ironically—in the eyes of Karl Marx’s beloved proletariat, unlike the so-called “elites,” who are a protected class.

    Here, in the United States, the MAGA movement that now dominates the Republican Party tilts libertarian.

    Its leader, 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump, has also done so in most of his recent pronouncements.

    Meanwhile, in South America and Europe, even more overtly libertarian candidates have won their country’s elections.

    First it was economist, professor, and sometime rock musician Javier Milei in Argentina, who in reaction to the catastrophic 134 percent inflation and a concomitant rise in poverty in his country, has become the new president-elect.

    Then in the Netherlands, longtime political libertarian and strongly anti-immigration gadfly Geert Wilders out-paced all predictions in their elections and will attempt to form a government.

    Mr. Wilders success is partly due to the Dutch farmers who were fed up with new “climate change” regulations that would make it impossible for them to make a living—and therefore for many of their countrymen to eat.

    The corporate media and their political allies in the European Union and the United States immediately branded Mr. Milei and Mr. Wilders with their now-favorite designation “far-right,” though these men are no more far-right than Jefferson, Locke, and Thoreau, the very figures these so-called liberals and progressives—though they prefer to ignore or “forget”—once considered their intellectual heroes.

    What is transpiring now globally is a fight between these rising libertarians of various stripes and the incumbent statists. In recent years, despite the Trump interregnum, the statists have seemed to be in the ascendancy.

    The Davos/globalist set, Klaus Schwab et al., was almost assumed to have already taken power under the mantra “You’ll own nothing, and you will be happy,” a phrase that originated in a 2016 video from the World Economic Forum. It was a new supposedly benign form of communism, though oddly reminiscent of the “three rounds and a sound” (bicycle, watch, and sewing machine plus a radio) deemed sufficient for life in the Communist China of the 1950s.

    Meanwhile, those advocating this mantra, the aforementioned globalist set, flew in and out of that glamorous Davos resort on private jets to deliver speeches on global warming while their desired constituents, who rarely had a chance to fly business and felt lucky when they were admitted to an over-crowded airport lounge, looked on via television and internet with increasing skepticism.

    Globalism was a shell game taking place before their eyes. Bill Gates would never be happy “owning nothing.” He was buying up all the farms in America (that weren’t already bought by the Chinese).

    He and his cronies had found a new way get rich (or richer) and stay rich. Globalism was just a mask for oligarchic power, with that oligarchy extending into a one world-wide state. Why think small? National borders are so 20th Century.

    So a battle has been joined between these mega-statists and the libertarians (again of various stripes, often nationalist), but for the first time the latter seem to be ascendant.

    Mr. Wilders and Mr. Meili are not far-right or “hard-right,” to use the term adopted by The Economist, which called the Dutch leader a “headache for Europe.” (Actually men like Mr. Wilders will be Europe’s salvation, if allowed.) They are not Nazis, as they are sometimes called, or nearly so. The Nazis were socialists—the National Socialist Party—it is always worth reminding ourselves.

    Mr. Milei and Mr. Wilders are not far-anything. They are a return to the values enshrined in the United States’ “Declaration of Independence,” the importance of the freedom of the individual.

    We are seeing this new ascendancy domestically in the renewed popularity of President Trump as his poll numbers continue to rise.

    But is the MAGA movement truly libertarian? In the largest sense, yes, because, after all, “libertarian,” like most political terminology these days, is rather vague. To some, a libertarian is a self-indulgent, pot-lover. (I’m not. I despise pot, though I used to smoke it. There are a number of things about some libertarians I don’t like.)

    But MAGA stands firmly against the Deep State, and nothing is more libertarian than that. Cut the bureaucracy, cut the regulations, deep six as many government agencies as possible.

    If fact, deep six the Deep State in its entirety.

    That sounds pretty libertarian to me.

    And while we’re at it, keep the government out of our cars, our refrigerators and stoves, our bank accounts, our medical care, our security systems, our reading material, our cable connections, our emails and text messages, internet, social media, cellphones, or anything to do with our private lives.

    It’s a safe bet Mr. Milei and Mr. Wilders would agree.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 22:10

  • Visualizing The World As 1,000 People
    Visualizing The World As 1,000 People

    The world’s population has doubled in size over the last 50 years.

    In 2022, we reached the mark of 8 billion living on Earth. According to UN estimates, by July 2023, all the people in the world numbered 8,045,311,447.

    In this map, Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley and Bruno Venditti use population estimates from the United Nations Population Division to illustrate the world’s population as if the Earth had only 1,000 people. Countries with a population of below 7.6 million did not make our cutoff to be visualized, but are included in overall calculations and listed below.

    Click here to view interactive version of the map above

    Over Half of People Live in Asia

    Asia is by far the world’s most populous region, with over 4.7 billion people. The continent, led by India and China, represents 59% of the total population.

    Imagining the Earth with only 1,000 people helps illustrate this more easily. India would account for 178 people and China would have 177.

    Here is the estimated population in July 2023 for each country, and how many people their residents would constitute out of 1,000:

    Country Total Population (July 2023) Share of 1,000 Global People
    🇮🇳 India 1,428,627,663 178
    🇨🇳 China 1,425,671,352 177
    🇺🇸 United States 339,996,563 42
    🇮🇩 Indonesia 277,534,122 35
    🇵🇰 Pakistan 240,485,658 30
    🇳🇬 Nigeria 223,804,632 28
    🇧🇷 Brazil 216,422,446 27
    🇧🇩 Bangladesh 172,954,319 22
    🇷🇺 Russia 144,444,359 18
    🇲🇽 Mexico 128,455,567 16
    🇪🇹 Ethiopia 126,527,060 16
    🇯🇵 Japan 123,294,513 15
    🇵🇭 Philippines 117,337,368 15
    🇪🇬 Egypt 112,716,598 14
    🇨🇩 DRC 102,262,808 13
    🇻🇳 Vietnam 98,858,950 12
    🇮🇷 Iran 89,172,767 11
    🇹🇷 Türkiye 85,816,199 11
    🇩🇪 Germany 83,294,633 10
    🇹🇭 Thailand 71,801,279 9
    🇬🇧 United Kingdom 67,736,802 8
    🇹🇿 Tanzania 67,438,106 8
    🇫🇷 France 64,756,584 8
    🇿🇦 South Africa 60,414,495 8
    🇮🇹 Italy 58,870,762 7
    🇰🇪 Kenya 55,100,586 7
    🇲🇲 Myanmar 54,577,997 7
    🇨🇴 Colombia 52,085,168 7
    🇰🇷 South Korea 51,784,059 6
    🇺🇬 Uganda 48,582,334 6
    🇸🇩 Sudan 48,109,006 6
    🇪🇸 Spain 47,519,628 6
    🇦🇷 Argentina 45,773,884 6
    🇩🇿 Algeria 45,606,480 6
    🇮🇶 Iraq 45,504,560 6
    🇦🇫 Afghanistan 42,239,854 5
    🇵🇱 Poland 41,026,067 5
    🇨🇦 Canada 38,781,291 5
    🇲🇦 Morocco 37,840,044 5
    🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia 36,947,025 5
    🇺🇦 Ukraine 36,744,634 5
    🇦🇴 Angola 36,684,202 5
    🇺🇿 Uzbekistan 35,163,944 4
    🇾🇪 Yemen 34,449,825 4
    🇵🇪 Peru 34,352,719 4
    🇲🇾 Malaysia 34,308,525 4
    🇬🇭 Ghana 34,121,985 4
    🇲🇿 Mozambique 33,897,354 4
    🇳🇵 Nepal 30,896,590 4
    🇲🇬 Madagascar 30,325,732 4
    🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire 28,873,034 4
    🇻🇪 Venezuela 28,838,499 4
    🇨🇲 Cameroon 28,647,293 4
    🇳🇪 Niger 27,202,843 3
    🇦🇺 Australia 26,439,111 3
    🇰🇵 North Korea 26,160,821 3
    🇹🇼 Taiwan 23,923,276 3
    🇲🇱 Mali 23,293,698 3
    🇧🇫 Burkina Faso 23,251,485 3
    🇸🇾 Syria 23,227,014 3
    🇱🇰 Sri Lanka 21,893,579 3
    🇲🇼 Malawi 20,931,751 3
    🇿🇲 Zambia 20,569,737 3
    🇷🇴 Romania 19,892,812 3
    🇨🇱 Chile 19,629,590 2
    🇰🇿 Kazakhstan 19,606,633 2
    🇹🇩 Chad 18,278,568 2
    🇪🇨 Ecuador 18,190,484 2
    🇸🇴 Somalia 18,143,378 2
    🇬🇹 Guatemala 18,092,026 2
    🇸🇳 Senegal 17,763,163 2
    🇳🇱 Netherlands 17,618,299 2
    🇰🇭 Cambodia 16,944,826 2
    🇿🇼 Zimbabwe 16,665,409 2
    🇬🇳 Guinea 14,190,612 2
    🇷🇼 Rwanda 14,094,683 2
    🇧🇯 Benin 13,712,828 2
    🇧🇮 Burundi 13,238,559 2
    🇹🇳 Tunisia 12,458,223 2
    🇧🇴 Bolivia 12,388,571 2
    🇭🇹 Haiti 11,724,763 2
    🇧🇪 Belgium 11,686,140 2
    🇯🇴 Jordan 11,337,052 1
    🇩🇴 Dominican Republic 11,332,972 1
    🇨🇺 Cuba 11,194,449 1
    🇸🇸 South Sudan 11,088,796 1
    🇸🇪 Sweden 10,612,086 1
    🇭🇳 Honduras 10,593,798 1
    🇨🇿 Czech Republic (Czechia) 10,495,295 1
    🇦🇿 Azerbaijan 10,412,651 1
    🇬🇷 Greece 10,341,277 1
    🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea 10,329,931 1
    🇵🇹 Portugal 10,247,605 1
    🇭🇺 Hungary 10,156,239 1
    🇹🇯 Tajikistan 10,143,543 1
    🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates 9,516,871 1
    🇧🇾 Belarus 9,498,238 1
    🇮🇱 Israel 9,174,520 1
    🇹🇬 Togo 9,053,799 1
    🇦🇹 Austria 8,958,960 1
    🇨🇭 Switzerland 8,796,669 1
    🇸🇱 Sierra Leone 8,791,092 1
    🇱🇦 Laos 7,633,779 0.9
    🇭🇰 Hong Kong 7,491,609 0.9
    🇷🇸 Serbia 7,149,077 0.9
    🇳🇮 Nicaragua 7,046,310 0.9
    🇱🇾 Libyg 6,888,388 0.9
    🇵🇾 Paraguay 6,861,524 0.9
    🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan 6,735,347 0.8
    🇧🇬 ßulgaria 6,687,717 0.8
    🇹🇲 Turkmenistan 6,516,100 0.8
    🇸🇻 EI Salvador 6,364,943 0.8
    🇨🇬 Congo 6,106,869 0.8
    🇸🇬 Singapore 6,014,723 0.7
    🇩🇰 Denmark 5,910,913 0.7
    🇸🇰 Slovakia 5,795,199 0.7
    🇨🇫 Central African Republic 5,742,315 0.7
    🇫🇮 Finland 5,545,475 0.7
    🇳🇴 Norway 5,474,360 0.7
    🇱🇷 Liberia 5,418,377 0.7
    🇵🇸 State of Palestine 5,371,230 0.7
    🇱🇧 Lebanon 5,353,930 0.7
    🇳🇿 New Zealand 5,228,100 0.6
    🇨🇷 Costa Rica 5,212,173 0.6
    🇮🇪 Ireland 5,056,935 0.6
    🇲🇷 Mauritania 4,862,989 0.6
    🇴🇲 Oman 4,644,384 0.6
    🇵🇦 Panama 4,468,087 0.6
    🇰🇼 Kuwait 4,310,108 0.5
    🇭🇷 Croatia 4,008,617 0.5
    🇪🇷 Eritrea 3,748,901 0.5
    🇬🇪 Georgia 3,728,282 0.5
    🇲🇳 Mongolia 3,447,157 0.4
    🇲🇩 Moldova 3,435,931 0.4
    🇺🇾 Uruguay 3,423,108 0.4
    🇵🇷 Puerto Rico 3,260,314 0.4
    🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina 3,210,847 0.4
    🇦🇱 Albania 2,832,439 0.4
    🇯🇲 Jamaica 2,825,544 0.4
    🇦🇲 Armenia 2,777,970 0.3
    🇬🇲 Gambia 2,773,168 0.3
    🇱🇹 Lithuania 2,718,352 0.3
    🇶🇦 Qatar 2,716,391 0.3
    🇧🇼 Botswana 2,675,352 0.3
    🇳🇦 Namibia 2,604,172 0.3
    🇬🇦 Gabon 2,436,566 0.3
    🇱🇸 Lesotho 2,330,318 0.3
    🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau 2,150,842 0.3
    🇸🇮 Slovenia 2,119,675 0.3
    🇲🇰 North Macedonia 2,085,679 0.3
    🇱🇻 Latvia 1,830,211 0.2
    🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea 1,714,671 0.2
    🇽🇰 Kosovo 1,663,594 0.2
    🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago 1,534,937 0.2
    🇧🇭 Bahrain 1,485,509 0.2
    🇹🇱 Timor-Leste 1,360,596 0.2
    🇪🇪 Estonia 1,322,765 0.2
    🇲🇺 Mauritius 1,300,557 0.2
    🇨🇾 Cyprus 1,260,138 0.2
    🇸🇿 Eswatini 1,210,822 0.2
    🇩🇯 Djibouti 1,136,455 0.1
    🇷🇪 Réunion 981,796 0.1
    🇫🇯 Fiji 936,375 0.1
    🇰🇲 Comoros 852,075 0.1
    🇬🇾 Guyana 813,834 0.1
    🇧🇹 Bhutan 787,424 0.1
    🇸🇧 Solomon Islands 740,424 0.1
    🇲🇴 Macao 704,149 0.1
    🇱🇺 Luxembourg 654,768 0.1
    🇲🇪 Montenegro 626,485 0.1
    🇸🇷 Suriname 623,236 0.1
    🇨🇻 Cabo Verde 598,682 0.1
    🇪🇭 Western Sahara 587,259 0.1
    🇲🇹 Malta 535,064 0.1
    🇲🇻 Maldives 521,021 0.1
    🇧🇳 Brunei 452,524 0.1
    🇧🇸 Bahamas 412,623 0.1
    🇧🇿 Belize 410,825 0.1
    🇬🇵 Guadeloupe 395,839 0.0
    🇮🇸 Iceland 375,318 0.0
    🇲🇶 Martinique 366,981 0.0
    🇾🇹 Mayotte 335,995 0.0
    🇻🇺 Vanuatu 334,506 0.0
    🇬🇫 French Guiana 312,155 0.0
    🇵🇫 French Polynesia 308,872 0.0
    🇳🇨 New Caledonia 292,991 0.0
    🇧🇧 Barbados 281,995 0.0
    🇸🇹 Sao Tome & Principe 231,856 0.0
    🇼🇸 Samoa 225,681 0.0
    🇨🇼 Curaçao 192,077 0.0
    🇱🇨 Saint Lucia 180,251 0.0
    🇬🇺 Guam 172,952 0.0
    🇰🇮 Kiribati 133,515 0.0
    🇬🇩 Grenada 126,183 0.0
    🇫🇲 Micronesia (Fed. States of) 115,224 0.0
    🇯🇪 Jersey 111,802 0.0
    🇹🇴 Tonga 107,773 0.0
    🇸🇨 Seychelles 107,660 0.0
    🇦🇼 Aruba 106,277 0.0
    🇻🇨 St. Vincent & Grenadines 103,698 0.0
    🇻🇮 U.S. Virgin Islands 98,750 0.0
    🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda 94,298 0.0
    🇮🇲 Isle of Man 84,710 0.0
    🇦🇩 Andorra 80,088 0.0
    🇩🇲 Dominica 73,040 0.0
    🇰🇾 Cayman Islands 69,310 0.0
    🇧🇲 Bermuda 64,069 0.0
    🇬🇬 Guernsey 63,544 0.0
    🇬🇱 Greenland 56,643 0.0
    🇫🇴 Faeroe Islands 53,270 0.0
    🇲🇵 Northern Mariana Islands 49,796 0.0
    🇰🇳 Saint Kitts & Nevis 47,755 0.0
    🇹🇨 Turks and Caicos 46,062 0.0
    🇸🇽 Sint Maarten 44,222 0.0
    🇦🇸 American Samoa 43,914 0.0
    🇲🇭 Marshall Islands 41,996 0.0
    🇱🇮 Liechtenstein indo 0.0
    🇲🇨 Monaco 36,297 0.0
    🇸🇲 San Marino 33,642 0.0
    🇬🇮 Gibraltar 32,688 0.0
    🇲🇫 Saint Martin 32,077 0.0
    🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands 31,538 0.0
    🇧🇶 Caribbean Netherlands 27,148 0.0
    🇵🇼 Palau 18,058 0.0
    🇨🇰 Cook Islands 17,044 0.0
    🇦🇮 Anguilla 15,899 0.0
    🇳🇷 Nauru 12,780 0.0
    🇼🇫 Wallis & Futuna 11,502 0.0
    🇹🇻 Tuvalu 11,396 0.0
    🇧🇱 Saint Barthelemy 10,994 0.0
    🇵🇲 Saint Pierre & Miquelon 5,840 0.0
    🇸🇭 Saint Helena 5,314 0.0
    🇲🇸 Montserrat 4,386 0.0
    🇫🇰 Falkland Islands 3,791 0.0
    🇳🇺 Niue 1,935 0.0
    🇹🇰 Tokelau 1,893 0.0
    🇻🇦 Holy See 518 0.0

    Africa is the second most populated continent with 182 out of 1,000 people, led by Nigeria (28), Ethiopia (16) and Egypt (14). As of July 2023, Africa’s total population stood at an estimated 1.5 billion people.

    Despite seeing a decline in population over the last decades, Europe still is the third in terms of total population, making up 92 out of 1,000 people and led by Russia (18), Turkey (11), and Germany (10).

    If the world only had 1,000 people, North America would have only 75 inhabitants, with 42 in the United States. Meanwhile, South America would account for 55 people led by 27 from Brazil, and Oceania would have just 5 people (with 3 in Australia).

    Nigeria to Pass U.S. as World’s 3rd Most Populous Country

    While population projections to the end of the century do differ, they mostly agree on the same general principle: the global population is rising but that growth rate is slowing. Eventually the population will peak (sometime between 2064-2086) and begin shrinking from there.

    Over the next few decades, the ranking of the most populous countries will likely remain relatively unchanged, with India and China at the top of the pecking order. Shortly after 2050, however, the population of Nigeria is projected by some sources to surpass that of the United States and become the third-largest country in the world.

    Other countries expected to see significant growth in population are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the U.S., Uganda, and Indonesia.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 21:35

  • Randi Weingarten's Not-So-Dandy Year
    Randi Weingarten’s Not-So-Dandy Year

    Authored by Larry Sand via American Greatness,

    I have written about Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, many times over the years, as there is an ongoing abundance of subject matter to be explored. And 2023 has certainly not been an exception.

    Picking up where I left off in March…

    In April, Weingarten exhibited a textbook example of hypocrisy.

    It’s no secret that she and other union honchos hate charter schools.

    These schools are rarely unionized and typically do better at educating kids than the traditional public school variety. Perhaps worse for the union crowd, charters are frequently housed in public schools with extra space due to insufficient funding.

    Weingarten especially has it in for Eva Moscowitz, who runs the very successful Success Academy chain of charter schools in New York. Under Weingarten’s guidance, her union pressured New York City Mayor Eric Adams to cancel three of Moskowitz’s co-location proposals for the city.

    Yet at the very same time, Weingarten, who sits on the board of University Prep, a unionized charter, convinced the NYC Board of Education to approve a co-location for one of their schools. 

    Also in April, Weingarten testified before the House Subcommittee on the Covid pandemic.

    She was there to answer questions about her union’s influence on school reopening guidelines issued by the CDC.

    While Weingarten insisted that her main goal was opening schools, it was anything but.

    She constantly argued for keeping schools shuttered through the spring and summer of 2020 when her union aggressively lobbied the CDC to adjust its school-reopening guidance. Two of its language recommendations were adopted verbatim.

    Yet, she had the audacity to tell Congress, “We spent every day from February (2020) on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools. We know that young people learn and connect best in person, so opening schools safely – even during a pandemic – guided our actions, which I will describe in detail.”

    But her “details” were really quite undetailed.

    She dodged, obfuscated, and even used the fact that she was 65 years old to explain her memory lapses.

    Additionally, Dr. Tracy Høeg, an epidemiologist, blasted Weingarten, accusing her of fudging a scientific study to wrongly argue to Congress that schools should have been kept closed during the height of COVID-19.

    In May, Weingarten opined in an article that “Culture Wars Harm Education.”

    She starts off the piece, “Nowadays I am the president of a union, but I am harking back to my years as a civics teacher as I write this column. Governors and education officials in Florida and other states are doing exactly what extremists baselessly accuse educators of doing—imposing their ideological agenda on public schools, rewriting history, stifling free expression and creating intolerance.”

    First off, no one is more involved with “imposing their ideological agenda on public schools” than she is. From all the sex and gender craziness to inviting Ibram X. Kendi – probably the most vocal and aggressive CRT proponent in the country – to speak at an AFT conference. His talk was touted as, “Hear from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi in this free-ranging discussion with student activists and AFT members on his scholarship and on developing anti-racist mindsets and actions inside and outside classrooms.” 

    Regarding Weingarten’s “years as a civics teacher” – more hooey. Yes, she taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn for a few years, but in 2011, EAG News obtained her personnel file via a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. According to the New York City Board of Education, she was hired as a substitute teacher in 1991, received a provisional license in 1993, and a certificate to serve as a substitute in 1994. Additionally, “A 1997 letter indicates she didn’t submit documentation showing she’d met requirements for licensure. No record indicates she ever served as a full-time teacher or was evaluated by a principal or other school official.” 

    Yet she has never acknowledged these details or corrected the record. When she ran for president of New York’s United Federation of Teachers in 1998, her opponent Michael Shulman suggested that that she was not a “real teacher,” explaining, “She worked five months full-time that I’ve been aware of, in 1992, at Clara Barton High School.” He added, “Since then, she taught maybe one class for 40 minutes a day.” 

    Also, in May, it was revealed that despite her very brief stint as a teacher, she earned 15 years’ worth of pension benefits. 

    The New York City teacher union collective bargaining agreement allowed her to have over 11 extra years counted toward her service even though she wasn’t in the classroom. This likely came from “time spent…on union leave as treasurer and then president of UFT (the AFT affiliate in NYC) from 1997 until her election as AFT president in 2008,” Freedom Foundation’s Director of Research Maxford Nelsen notes. 

    In June, national security took a hit when Weingarten was appointed to a new Department of Homeland Security school safety advisory council tasked with making recommendations on “emergency management,” “preparedness measures,” and “safety and security” in schools.

    “Leaders of our academic institutions and campus life have a great deal to offer in helping us counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland,” DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

    Senator Rick Scott (R., Fl.), venting his frustration with the appointment, declared Weingarten “is the last person who should be advising anyone on school safety.”

    July saw Weingarten’s union hold its yearly convention, in which it tackled such matters as “Affirming LGBTQIA+ Identities in and out of the classroom,” “Education for Liberation: The Role of the Racially Conscious Educator in Combating Oppression,” and “Strategies for Integrating Climate Change into Your Teaching.”

    In September, Weingarten’s union launched a major ad blitz to “highlight the important work educators are doing in America’s public schools to help kids, which is in stark contrast to the toxic attacks by extremists trying to weaken and destroy public education.”

    Yup, with no sense of irony, the union that is obsessed with race and sexual engineering – think “Affirming LGBTQIA+ Identities in and out of the classroom,” – refers to those of us who are a wee bit more traditional in our approach to education as “extremists.”

    Also, in September, Weingarten trashed House Republicans’ “Sham Impeachment Inquiry.” Her press release stated, “While President Biden gets up every day and does the people’s business—strengthening the economy, advancing our national security interests, and bringing back stability and honor to the workings of government—House Republicans have done little other than pursue spurious, fact-free investigations. Not one major initiative, other than a budget bill averting default—which they are now disavowing—has become law.”

    “National security interests.” The porous southern border?

    “Strengthening the economy.” Record inflation?

    “Does the ‘people’s’ business.” He was doing business all right, but hardly the “people’s.”

    There’s plenty of evidence that Biden’s son Hunter and others in his family received millions of dollars from foreign partners who believed they were buying influence with his father.

    In September, Weingarten really stepped in it when she compared the rhetoric of school choice supporters to that of segregationists.

    “I was kind of gobsmacked when I was talking to Southern Poverty Law Center, and they showed me the same words: choice’, ‘parental rights’ and attempts to divide parents versus teachers, and at that point, it was white parents versus other parents. But it’s the same kind of words.”

    What is truly gobsmacking is that the union boss actually takes the comment and SPLC seriously. The widely discredited group recently smeared parent activist group Moms for Liberty, equating them to neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, and labeling them an “extremist group” that is “anti-government.”  

    Weingarten then dug a bit deeper into her hole, stupidly averring that pro-school choicers “want to have, basically, a Christian ideology, their particular Christian ideology to dominate the country as opposed to those that was born on the freedom (sic) of the exercise of religion.”

    Talking about religion, she furthered her descent into dumb this month.

    Weingarten, who once stated that she was a “deeply religious Jew,” was perplexed as to why video footage of an Orthodox Jewish prayer service only showed men.

    On X, she asked, “Where are the women?”

    She received a quick “community note” which explained that Orthodox Jews have had gender separated prayers for thousands of years and added, “The women were on the other side praying and would not be visible from someone recording in the ‘men’s section.’”

    The video footage, supplied by conservative commentator Mark Levin, who is not known for his subtlety, tweeted back to Weingarten, “You’re such a contemptible moron. Get off my timeline you idiot.”

    Also, this month, Axios reported, “Homeschooling is now the fastest-growing form of education in the U.S.,” citing a Washington Post analysis. Weingarten was castigated by many on X after she questioned why this is happening. Typical was Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro, who told Weingarten in a tweet that the growth of homeschooling is due to “the policies you’ve advocated, Covid-related and otherwise. Just like you’re behind much of the increased support for school choice and educational freedom. Congratulations!”

    As Mike Antonucci noted in 2022, Weingarten has averaged about 47 tweets a day for more than 11 years.

    Maybe if she spent a little more time researching the issues instead of shooting her mouth off willy-nilly, she would be less likely to keep stepping in dog stuff, which she does practically on a daily basis.

    To Weingarten’s credit, she recently asserted, “All of us do stupid things, and you know, I’ve done stupid things and I made misjudgments,” but gave no examples.

    I’m not sure just what stupid things she is referring to, but there is clearly an abundance to choose from.

    Perhaps even sadder than Weingarten’s irritating and gaffe-prone nature is that there are 1.7 million teachers who keep her in office and pay her over $500,000 a year for the privilege. Now that is really stupid.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 21:00

  • Segregated Classrooms Spark Controversy As Proponents Criticize 'White Standard'
    Segregated Classrooms Spark Controversy As Proponents Criticize ‘White Standard’

    School districts across the country, primarily in major, Democrat-run cities such as Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, have been offering segregated classes in the hopes of battling a decades-long, race-based achievement gap.

    Illustration: Taylor Callory for Education Week

    As the Wall Street Journal reports, Evanston Township, a suburb of Chicago, is the latest to introduce the controversial strategy designed to enhance the education experience of students of color – particularly in advanced placement courses. The local school’s 3,600-student high school is 44% white, 24% black, 20% hispanic and 5% asian in a mix of wealthy families and lower income families.

    Some have suggested that the voluntary segregation of black, latino, and white students raises crucial questions about the progress made since the Civil Rights Movement. “Our black students are, for lack of a better word…at the bottom, consistently still. And they are being outperformed consistently,” said Monique Parsons, Evanston school board vice president, adding “It’s not good.“

    A white standard?

    According to Dena Luna, who leads black student-achievement initiatives in Minneapolis Public Schools, “A lot of times within our education system, black students are expected to conform to a white standard,” underscoring what proponents have argued is a need for spaces where students of color can thrive – which, for some reason, Indian and Asian students of color don’t typically require.

    The district offers middle- and high-school students electives focused on African-American history and social-emotional support, taught by teachers of color. Created in 2015 for Black boys, the format has expanded to Black girls and will soon expand to Latino students. An internal study showed improved attendance for Black boys in the program in 2017 and average GPAs of 2.27, compared with 2.14 for Black males districtwide.

    “In our spaces, you don’t have to shed one ounce of yourself because everything about our space is rooted in blackness,” said Luna.

    Evanston’s so-called ‘affinity classes,’ labeled AXLE for black students and GANAS for latino students, have been met with a blend of praise and skepticism. Students in these classes have reported feeling more accepted and represented. “I feel like I represent me and not the whole black race in this AP class,” said one AXLE student, expressing a newfound sense of individuality in the learning environment. “It’s a safe space. In AP classes that are mostly white, I feel like if I answer wrong, I am representing all black kids. I stay quiet in those classes.”

    This year there are at least 105 students enrolled in GNAS math courses, while another 72 are enrolled in AXLE math courses, and 14 in AXLE sophomore English class.

    A 2019 study on the original program for Black boys offered by the Oakland Unified School District found that students who took the affinity class were slightly less likely to drop out of school. The district also offers elective and advisory classes designated for Latino, Asian Pacific Islander and Arab students, said Jerome Gourdine, director of targeted strategies for the district’s office of equity.

    Evanston is taking the strategy one step further, offering courses for Black and Latino students in core math classes: algebra 2, precalculus and AP calculus, as well as an English seminar. Evanston’s classes for Black students are known as AXLE, an acronym for Advancing Excellence, Lifting Everyone, and those for Latino students are called GANAS, from a Spanish expression that means “giving it all you’ve got.”  -WSJ

    Meanwhile, both the legality and the social impact of re-segregating classrooms is a topic of fierce debate.

    “Integration is a positive social good,” said Max Eden, an education researcher at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, who believes these ‘affinity classes’ undermine the goal of the Civil Rights Act. “We want students to be colorblind and to treat each other only on the basis of who they are as human beings.”

    But will it help test scores?

    In Evanston, around 75% of white students in 11th and 12th grade enroll in AP classes according to district data, vs. around 25% of black students and around a third of latino students. Of those, in the 2021-22 school year, 80% of white AP test takers earned a score of 3 or higher – the benchmark typically required for college credit, vs 61% of latinos and 48% of black AP students.

    As these initiatives continue, their impact on educational equity, racial integration, and societal implications will be closely monitored.

    Of course, unless students – regardless of race, are willing to devote hours of their lives to studying, preparing, and grinding out homework, we suspect this is just going to stoke widening racial divides.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 20:25

  • Thank You For Your Service!
    Thank You For Your Service!

    Authored by John Maxwell Hamilton via RealClear Wire,

    Has it dawned on you that you work for everyone who is supposed to work for you? Have you noticed it is a lonely job?

    You work for your bank, which pushes you to spend a long time navigating its automated telephone system after the announcement, “We have installed new features to better serve you.”

    You work for your service repair companies. A friend recounts her hurdles getting Sears to fix an ailing refrigerator under warranty. After many telephone disconnects, an email said a technician would be out the following Saturday between 8 and 5. At 4:30 that afternoon a new message announced, without explanation, the appointment would be rescheduled. No one called to ask what was best for her schedule.

    You work for your preferred airline (or any airline), which wants you to use its website to solve a computer screw-up to your upcoming ticket. When you call Delta, an automated voice urges you to send a text before it puts you on hold for an agent.

    Then there is the discount travel company, Priceline, which recently sent me a customer service telephone number that did not have enough digits to be useful.

    I use those companies as examples, but this phenomenon is ubiquitous.

    The drive to put us to work for the companies that are supposed to work for us may be efficient for them. It’s often the opposite for us. That’s not all, though. The experience touches on one of the pressing issues of our time: our growing feelings of alienation.

    These impersonal and unsatisfactory interactions make us feel frustrated and abandoned. Meanwhile, those companies are laying off paid workers, pushing them to the margins of society. You can have both of these alienating experiences at once.

    Let’s start with those recorded messages that say, no matter what the time of day you call, “Due to the unusually high call volume, there will be long wait times.”

    As is obvious to anyone who hears this message over and over again, it is disingenuous. The problem is not the high number of callers. It is the low number of answerers. The intention is to discourage you from seeking human help, so more people can be laid off.

    This is the culmination of a process that began decades ago. The first step in the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution was automation of the shop floor; then came back-office functions such as accounting. These steps made machinery workers safer and created new opportunities for people with education. The euphemism in business schools for this development is “skills biased” technological change. It could also be called good-bye and good luck.

    The Fourth Industrial Revolution is to employment what the neutron bomb is to warfare. It aims to eliminate people and save infrastructure. Computers don’t get sick or ask for vacation or more pay.

    Companies that adopt these measures always announce them as good for workers generally. Those who lose their jobs to robots and artificial intelligence are assured of getting retraining. But helping displaced workers cope is not high on executives’ agenda, and government programs are inadequate to pick up the slack.

    When googling “automation, coping,” one gets a few articles by would-be consultants who have simple nostrums, such as, talk to your employees when you decide to automate. One also finds a recent study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale, who tied automation to rising “deaths of despair,” involving suicide and overdoses.

    The total number of jobs to be eliminated in the next years is too high to count accurately. Forbes has reported that a whopping 73 million U.S. jobs could be lost to AI by 2030.

    But here is a concrete number. Walmart, which operates abroad as well as in the United States, announced this year that it is planning for 65% of its stores to be automated by 2026. This came a few days after the company revealed plans to lay off more than 2,000 people at facilities that fulfill online orders. Much of this work can be done by robots.

    Then there is this problem: Our arm’s length dealings with the companies that are supposed to serve us also exacerbate our disconnection from society. The only sense of community we get from working with impersonal machines is a collective sense of isolation. We are increasingly a nation united by our anger and estrangement.

    Everyday dysfunction goes beyond disembodied automated voices on the telephone. More and more we live apart from others. We shop online. We check ourselves out at the pharmacy and the grocery store. We pump our own gas. We use mobile phones to make deposits and ATMs to make withdrawals.

    Remember the smiling bartenders in a Norman Rockwell painting? That over-the-mahogany human connection cannot be made with a cocktail dispenser. Robots also check you into hotels and bring you room service.

    Workers who keep their service jobs find themselves less frequently interacting with their colleagues. A worker is safer standing at a distance from an automated machine. But a supervisor on the Walmart retail floor is likely to find it less stimulating to manage robots than people.

    One is reminded of the joke among automation enthusiasts: Factories will have lots of equipment, one dog, and one person. The dog’s job is to keep the person away from the equipment. The person’s job is to feed the dog.

    Of course, automation can make some tasks better for the consumer as well as the worker. But at what social cost? And how far should we go?

    If our society needs anything, it is more interaction with everyday people – people who have different lives and different points of view and a shared interest in solving problems.

    Our politics cry out for this. Liberals need to understand why conservatives are alienated. Similarly, those on the right need to listen to ideas they find uncomfortable. Our society would benefit from more constructive personal interaction, not dehumanized confirmation of our biases through online anonymous social media accounts that promote bogus information or hyper-partisan news.

    Congress is a microcosm of this siloing. Although it may seem like a fairy tale, once upon a time legislators mixed with each other, regardless of party. They had family dinners together. Today legislators censure each other, vote to remove each other from committees, and push each other in hallways, the latter even when they are in different factions of the same party. The idea of compromise is considered by many politicians today to be somehow unprincipled. In truth, compromise is, and always has been, an essential aspect of democracy.

    Those of us who are reading this column while on a long telephone hold need to face it. Service, real service, is becoming a luxury item. For those who can pay for it, good for you. For millions of others, the message is, “We are sorry, but we have to disconnect you. Good-bye.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 19:50

  • America's Dangerous Desire To Demonize Masculinity Must Stop
    America’s Dangerous Desire To Demonize Masculinity Must Stop

    Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times,

    According to a recent study out of the UCSF School of Medicine, the average American female now lives 5.8 years longer than the average American male. The gap hasn’t been this big since 1996.

    Speaking to The New York Times, Dr. Brandon Yan, the lead author of the study, called the findings “unsettling.”

    “We need to understand which groups are particularly losing out on years of life expectancy,” he noted, “so interventions can be at least partially focused on these groups.”

    When discussing the causes of the life expectancy gap between men and women in the United States, Dr. Yan responded:

    “All of these point to a picture of worsening mental health across the board, but particularly among men.”

    Which brings us to the demonization of masculinity.

    In recent years, it has become frighteningly common to hear the word “toxic” followed by the word “masculinity.” According to another recent study, published in the International Journal of Health Sciences, men who view masculinity in a negative light are more likely to have lower mental well-being than men who view it in a positive light,

    The aptly titled study, “The belief that masculinity has a negative influence on one’s behavior is related to reduced mental well-being,” analyzed the beliefs and behaviors of 4,000 men. The findings clearly demonstrate the relationship between widespread misconceptions surrounding masculinity and how these misconceptions affect men’s mental health. The findings also show that masculine attitudes are something to be preserved and promoted, not demonized.

    There was a time, not that long ago, when masculine traits—strength, courage, and assertiveness—were celebrated by all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation or political affiliations. When did things change? In the 1980s, it seems.

    Commenting on the comprehensive study, Eric W. Dolan, the founder and editor of PsyPost, suggests that in the 1980s, “there was a notable shift” in how masculinity was viewed. Specifically, the lens through which it was viewed became more critical in nature. Masculinity, he notes, became synonymous “with negative traits like misogyny and homophobia, and linked to issues such as poor mental health and aggressive behavior.” This unnecessary and entirely destructive transition, adds Mr. Dolan, “was partly fueled by sociological theories, leading to what some call a ‘deficit model’ of masculinity—focusing primarily on its negative aspects.”

    Mr. Dolan is right. However, he misses the bigger picture. The #MeToo Movement, I suggest, was the final nail in the coffin of masculinity. In 2017, the year Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct became public knowledge, the social expectations of being a man changed—dramatically so. Masculinity went from being “problematic” to being “toxic,” a “virus” in need of a cure. As is clear to see, males who subscribe to this virulent, deeply flawed theory are more likely to suffer than those who rightly reject it.

    John Barry, the author of the abovementioned study and the co-founder of the Centre for Male Psychology, found that males who held a positive view of masculinity reported considerably higher levels of overall positivity than the naysayers. Those who dismissed the statement, “Masculinity prevents me from talking about how I feel about my problems,” had better mental health than those who embraced it.

    Interestingly, Mr. Barry found that men with a positive view of masculinity were more likely to feel the need to protect women than those who viewed it more negatively.

    When society demonizes masculinity, Mr. Barry told me, “it’s not just men who suffer.” He believes “that women are indirectly hurt by this in many ways.” For example, he added, “If a mother sees her son struggle to feel ok being male, his pain will impact her too. A mother might see her son’s self-esteem slowly crushed as he grows older, feeling that as a man he has nothing positive to offer anyone, including potential girlfriends.”

    Mr. Barry’s point is a valid one. Women find masculine men attractive. This is an incontrovertible fact. There’s a reason why, for decades, girls have had posters of James Dean, Paul Newman, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, and Brad Pitt on their walls. It’s not rocket science. It’s evolutionary science.

    Men who view masculinity in a negative light may have a hard time attracting a partner. This is especially true if, as Mr. Barry noted, “they become underachievers, reclusive, and abandon any sense of being a protector of women and their community.”

    Daughters, he added, “might believe the negative narrative about men and see their father in a negative light, but deeply regret this decades later when it is too late to make up for years of a soured father-daughter relationship.”

    Barry’s message is clear: “If people are all connected as members of a society—and I believe that we are—then if men are being poisoned, then society is being poisoned.”

    Again, he’s right.

    Men and women complement each other. More importantly, we need each other.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 18:40

  • Even Oliver Stone Is Starting To Question The 2020 Election
    Even Oliver Stone Is Starting To Question The 2020 Election

    Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

    Oliver Stone is a Hollywood leftist who has an odd way of being right at times.

    His Academy Award-winning JFK was dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

    Turns out he was likely closer to right all along — as Tucker Carlson noted in one of this segments.

    That’s not the only one.

    His South of the Border documentary about Latin America’s wave of elected leftist dictators was initially criticized as Chavista propaganda, a glossing over of some of the region’s worst rulers … except that if you watch the thing, which I did twice, you realize he did an extraordinary job of revealing these people as the unattractive pigs that they were.

    Sleazy, covetous, Imelda-like, sidelong, gangsterly … he actually exposed them in all their glory in a way their worst critics couldn’t.

    That was a useful record of the era.

    He’s criticized government bureaucracies’ demonization of ivermectin and vaccine mandates which is credibility right there.

    His criticism of the way the Vietnam War was run by vested interests and swamp bureaucrats was probably spot on, too.

    So now he’s dropped another truth bomb, or at least is circling around it.

    According to RealClearPolitics, which showed a segment and transcript of Stone conversing with Bill Maher:

    Some of the transcript (they go off on tangents) is here, emphasis mine:

    MAHER: Well, I mean, [Trump] doesn’t concede elections. You know, the elections only count if we win theory of government. Okay. Well, come on. You know, Trump has he still has not conceded the election. He has not conceded. He does not honor them. Okay.

    STONE: I mean, do you know for a fact that he lost? I’m just curious.

    MAHER: Okay. You’re going to make me —

    STONE: I just don’t know all of the facts.

    MAHER: Well I do. Is there a conspiracy theory that you don’t believe?

    STONE: Come on, Bill. You know I’m intelligent.

    MAHER: Intelligent? Of course you are. But look, look, I’ve had many people sit here and I’d say the same thing to them. Like, the key to getting along in America is not getting into these tribal things. It’s understanding that you can have somebody in your life who you go for A, B, C, and D, We are so aligned and the person is so smart and they really get it.

    And then E each of you thinks the other one’s crazy and there’s a couple of those with us, but we got A, B, C, and D, and so we just.

    OLIVER STONE: We’ll start with that.

    MAHER: Yes, that’s got to be enough. You can’t make people like agree with you on these things. And you’re right when you —

    STONE: I’m just asking you, I’m not an expert on the election. I don’t go on. I’m not a political junkie. You are. And you follow it very closely. Okay.

    MAHER: All right, then I’ll give you the thumbnail sketch. They tried it in like 60 courts. It was laughed out of every court, including by Republican judges. Report The people who save this democracy were Republicans. Good Republicans. In states where Trump pressured them like the guy, the one he’s on trial for in Georgia. Find me 11,000 votes. It’s on tape.

    A guy like that saying to him, sir, we just don’t do that here. I voted for you. I’m a Republican, but we just don’t do that. That’s what saved us. And they were Republicans. So you don’t take their word for it. I mean, it would.

    STONE: I don’t know. I mean, you went through the 2000 election. That was horrifying to me. What happened when the Supreme Court closed that down. What happened there? You know, the popular vote was —

    MAHER: What should we do? Do we just keep counting votes forever? Or should we still be counting them now?

    STONE: No. Count them correctly.

    MAHER: The people who have testified that this was a fair and will [sic] run election. It’s a who’s who of people like Bill Barr. Mitch McConnell. You’re talking about Liz Cheney. You’re talking about dyed in the wool, serious conservative Republicans who went with Trump really further out than a lot of us thought they would go with a guy like McCain’s not a war hero.

    […]

    STONE: Well, I don’t know the facts. And I think I would trust the accountants more than the politicians. And I’d like to know what the accountants, the guys who vote, who know the most about votes, who do the Electoral Commission’s, you know. I can’t take Biden’s word for it on anything.

    MAHER: It’s not his word. It’s the Electoral Commission. It’s Trump’s own election security guy who said this was the most fair, well-run election that we’ve had ever.

    STONE: Really?

    MAHER: Yes.

    STONE: I don’t know about that. Okay. I don’t know about that.

    MAHER: Well, I mean, if there’s nothing that can be said or argued that would convince you —

    STONE: You, I think it would shock people —

    MAHER: Then they called it —

    STONE: — Joe [Biden] got so many got so many votes. You know, that was what was shocking, that he did so well compared to what he was expected to do —

    MAHER: Right.

    STONE: — because we believed all the East Coast media —

    That’s the thinking of an independent thinker, someone who asks again and again what we really know from hard knowledge and what we really know only from the press.

    It’s startling in its candor, not a full-blown admission of Trump support, but a person who can critically think and use his own knowledge to reason out strange things that have happened since. He cites the bad media treatment of Pete Rose as his theory on why people stick close to Trump, and his experience with the 2000 election, which he seems to think as stolen, as something that leaves the realm of stolen elections a distinct possibility since he believes it has happened before.

    His views are not all that ‘conspiratorial’ as Maher seemed to want to dismiss them as. Polls show that a majority of Republicans believe the elections these days do have fraud — as do a sizable minority of Democrats. They didn’t get into it in the conversation, but many Democrats think our elections are compromised by cheating.

    Stone stood his ground and didn’t back away from the questions that Maher had no serious answers to — claiming that the press, numerous neverTrumps and many neverTrump judges had reported the election as free and fair. Just because someone says so does not make it so, and that was why Maher kept misfiring at Stone and Stone held his ground. Stone also suggested that there were a lot of liars out there — from the COVID shambles around vaccines and the like, to Joe Biden himself, whom he couldn’t bring himself to believe a word he said.

    One can only hope that Stone looks at this matter ever more closely. He’s onto something. He’s sniffing, he’s asking questions and he might come up with a tremendous new work from it. Once again, he could be confoundingly correct.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 17:30

  • White Savior Hysteria And The Real Reasons Why Leftists Hate YouTuber MrBeast
    White Savior Hysteria And The Real Reasons Why Leftists Hate YouTuber MrBeast

    There is a fundamental disconnect between the political left and the rest of the world that requires extensive investigation and dissection.  For most people the idea of someone spending a solid portion of their time and finances helping those in dire need could only be considered a good thing.  This is not true for the average leftist, though.  For such activists we tend to find that good is evil and evil is good, and the upside down nature of their thinking bewilders those with normal brains.

    For the woke, the more you help people, the more you are hurting them (unless you hold a high place on the victimhood totem pole).  But this juxtaposition is only part of the reason why they seem to loath YouTuber MrBeast so much.

    MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) has made a successful career out of engaging in philanthropy and he gets results; helping people to gain back their eyesight, saving orphanages overseas or giving poverty stricken children shoes.  All of these efforts have for years garnered accusations from the political left and their organizations of “white savior” activities. 

    They argue that the white savior trope seen in Hollywood movies (where a white man travels to desperate countries and helps non-white people get back on their feet) is an unacceptable image in our modern era of “equity and inclusion.”  They claim that MrBeast is exploiting the white savior symbol as a way to elevate himself instead of simply helping others.  

    In his latest video, MrBeast showcased his program to dig 100 wells in Africa for villages with no access to clean drinking water.  The video triggered yet another social media firestorm in which leftist activists raged about a white man “pretending to help” brown people while taking attention away from what they consider to be more acceptable and progressive non-profits.  They say that brown people must be helped by brown people.  If white people do it, there must be a darker ulterior motive.      

    In the western world access to clean water is usually a given and often taken for granted.  Sadly, in many countries clean water is a mere dream, and lack of access holds these communities back from developing and improving their economic situation.  Almost everything relies on water.

    The video has garnered over 115 million views so far and earns millions of dollars in ad revenue, all of which goes directly back into his charity fund to continue paying for more wells and other charity projects.  

    So what’s the problem?  Is it only that MrBeast is a white guy?  Who among these hundreds of villages in Africa cares that a white man helped them get access to clean water for generations to come?  So far, none of them have complained.  Only hyper-privileged first-world woke activists seem to care.  

    Hatred of skin color is only a small part of the greater woke mind virus.  It’s important to remember that leftists are predominantly collectivists, and it is likely that their deeper disdain for people like MrBeast is rooted in their desire to undermine individualism and meritocracy.  

    As conservatives commonly point out, good charities and individual efforts to help others are far more effective than taxation and financial appropriation by governments.  Leftists love big government, but  governments waste money, steal money, and misallocate money into non-helpful areas.  Individual crusaders, however, inject money exactly where it needs to go and make governments look bad.  

    In the case of MrBeast, he accomplished in a few years what African governments claimed they would do for decades.  Their corruption made viable change impossible, and leftist run programs are limited by their own ideological hangups, making them useless.  All it took was one “white guy” with a YouTube channel and some cash to circumvent all of that and get things done.  

    They hate MrBeast because he represents the power of individual effort.  His whiteness is just an excuse they use to avoid admitting that what they really dislike is individualism.  Many defenders have pointed out the hypocrisy of the leftist reaction to MrBeast – They drone on and on about how the mega rich should contribute reparations to help those less fortunate.  Yet, when someone like MrBeast does this on his own, they are outraged.  

    The point for these activists is that the hive gets the credit.  They want the mob to be seen as the hero, not the individual.  They didn’t force MrBeast to do good things, he just did them.  Therefore, they don’t get the glory they think they deserve.  The political left is often portrayed as the side of empathy and compassion, but their behavior proves they are not interested in legitimately helping others.  They only care about optics; constantly scheming to steal acclaim while obstructing good men in their charitable endeavors.       

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 16:55

  • We Didn't Learn A Whole Lot Last Week
    We Didn’t Learn A Whole Lot Last Week

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    We Didn’t Learn a Whole Lot Last Week

    Data was mixed. Unemployment claims were lower (a sign of strength), durable goods were weak, and Global PMIs were just above 50 (Goldilocks economy). While I don’t pay much attention to CONsumer CONfidence, it is interesting that one-year inflation expectations jumped from 3.2% to 4.5% in two months. That occurred while oil (often a proxy for CONsumer CONfidence inflation expectations) dropped, some major retailers warned about deflating prices, and as far as I can tell, everyone is having some sort of a sale, which doesn’t seem inflationary to me.

    The 10-year Treasury inched higher, finishing at 4.47% (up from 4.44%, and it was as low as 4.39%). Since it was illiquid/holiday-oriented trading, we can probably ignore most of those moves as noise.

    We also had NVDA earnings, which tend to serve as a “proxy” for AI. NVDA itself is down a touch since those earnings, but the markets as a whole have not suffered. That, along with the ongoing outperformance of the equal weighted indices and Russell 2000, is worth noting.

    Since November 9th, the Russell 2000 has led the way, followed by the equal-weighted indices. That trend continued, and could be one of the more useful lessons of the week.

    Ultimately, if AI is truly capable of generating efficiencies (today’s costs, versus today’s benefits) we should see more benefits accruing to companies that adopt and incorporate AI, thereby increasing earnings per share and multiples. So far, almost all of the AI benefits have accrued to the companies providing AI, which cannot last forever.

    • Either AI works, and the broad economy and a wide swath of companies should benefit, or the current cost/benefit doesn’t work, in which case spending on AI will decrease as we move away from “hype” spending into critical analysis.

    Personally, I’m in the “tide will lift all boats” camp but cannot deny that the current up-front costs versus value (especially at today’s higher cost of capital) may slow adoption. We will learn more as we get through year-end earnings and have more time to digest the true “success” stories, rather than just looking at certain investments which seem to be more about “keeping up with the Joneses’” rather than being fully incorporated into corporate strategy (which is a necessary condition for AI to be truly effective).

    China

    To get more of a sustained rally into year-end, we likely need some positive developments on the Chinese economy via some new deals with the U.S., more domestic stimulus, or some combination of the two. That is a bet that I’m still making for all the reasons listed in prior reports (Rally on Garth, Dictator, and More than a Photo Op).

    Credit

    CDS index spreads are hovering around their tightest levels of the year (CDX IG closed at 63). Corporate bond index spreads are at the lowest levels of the year (109 bps for the Bloomberg Corporate OAS). That is a little misleading, as the average maturity has been dropping all year (far fewer long-dated bonds have been issued this year relative to short-dated bonds because rates rose and the curve became less inverted).

    High yield prices, while not back to levels seen at the start of the year, have rallied nicely and are trading well.

    As a “contrarian” it would be easy to be bearish, but I think that we will see spreads tighten further (largely because of the “pain trade” element, but also due to the “safety” element).

    • Enormous sums of money that have been allocated to private credit and distressed debt in anticipation of problems may need to be put to work. The “obvious” problems were the weak B credits and CCC credits in the leveraged loan universe. I can agree that this is where the “problems” arose. But if CLOs and private credit funds act like banks used to (“extend and pretend”), then the risk of default may be put off for some time. “Extend and pretend” occasionally is enough for a credit to recover, but it also tends to just delay default and result in lower recoveries. However, that won’t help those sitting on money meant for distressed investments. If the CLO market can open nicely for actual arbitrage deals (deals where non-sponsor/non-manager owned equity looks compelling), we could see a lot of buying interest in these loans that are supposed to be the problem. This could push the squeeze higher.
    • Rethinking the “safety” of Treasuries. I remain convinced that we have only seen the start of investors being significantly underweight Treasuries in favor of other asset classes. High-quality investment grade credit is one of the obvious beneficiaries, but anything floating rate, things that don’t trade on a spread to Treasuries, and products that require more work (like ABS) will do very well. Heck, you could even argue that equities and crypto may deserve some “portion” of the allocation being channeled out of Treasuries. There are several reasons why assets trade at a spread to Treasuries
      • Credit risk. Sure, but when was the last time a multinational/highly rated corporate credit haphazardly discussed not paying something on time? The U.S. government has, as recently as this summer. That is a somewhat frivolous argument, but when was the last IG default? The last time (on a quick glance) that CDX IG had a Credit Event was Series 25, launched in 2015! So, in the last 8 years we haven’t had a Credit Event in a CDX index (and my view is that the index committee is always in favor of more volatile names). So why are we getting such a big premium?
    • Liquidity risk. Sure, Treasuries are more liquid, but most insurance companies, pension funds, and index funds rarely sell, so why “pay up” (give up yield) for liquidity that they will never use? Even large IG funds that are not indexed don’t tend to manage portfolios in an “actively” traded way, so why “pay up” and “give up” yield for liquidity? Treasury liquidity seems worse than it was years ago, so what are you really getting for that lower yield? Finally, if I had to bet on which bond market was susceptible to a “flash crash” scenario (in which bonds went up for sale, triggering stop loss after stop loss), I’d bet that this would occur in Treasuries before other markets based on market structure.
    • Governance. ESG investing has had some fits and starts, but I strongly believe that one thing that has largely changed for the better is corporate governance. I generally like what I see in corporate governance and think that is beneficial to creditors. I do NOT like what I see out of D.C. in terms of debt management or fiscal responsibility.
      • The Debt Diet. While corporations are governed for the benefit of shareholders, the boards are all well aware that if you mess up the debt too badly, the creditors are first in line and can destroy shareholder wealth quickly. So even if we get a mild recession, I expect that corporate governance will demonstrate that not just the top-rated credits deserve to trade at tighter spreads to Treasuries. The case for credit across the board to trade tighter than it does remains in place.

    I’m not as bullish as I sound. We are near recent “tights”, I’m bearish on the economy, and this re-allocation will be a slow/long process, but I do like credit spreads here.

    Bottom Line

    I’m still in the “everything rally” camp.

    • 10-year Treasury to 4.3%.
    • S&P 500 to 4,600 but expect significant outperformance by the Russell 2000 and equal weighted indices.
    • Credit spreads to grind tighter (with CDX outperforming cash and a target of 55 bps).
    • At some point if the “Wayne’s World” rally continues, I’m going to have to behave even more immaturely to support it, but we haven’t yet reached “Beavis and Butt-Head” mode (at least I hope not).

    I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving and are ready for the next few weeks as we power into year-end!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 16:20

  • Brace Yourself For What's Coming In 2024: Victor Davis Hanson Warns The Left Knows They're "Cooked" If "Vampire" Trump Wins
    Brace Yourself For What’s Coming In 2024: Victor Davis Hanson Warns The Left Knows They’re “Cooked” If “Vampire” Trump Wins

    In his ubiquitously calm, reasoned, non-ad-hominem, and ruthlessly fact-driven few minutes, Victor Davis Hanson dives into the left’s apparent hysteria at the looming shadow of Donald Trump’s potential return.

    Hanson articulates a sense of deep-rooted fear among Trump’s opponents, summed up perfectly as follows:

    “they look at Trump as a vampire and they put a stake in his heart but they’re afraid that that stake could come out any time.”

    This vivid imagery sets the stage for a discussion about the intense paranoia and strategic maneuvering in the political arena, particularly among those who view Trump not just as a political rival, but as an existential threat to their vision of America.

    Hanson argues that there is a perception among Trump’s adversaries that he is now more formidable and justified in his anger due to perceived injustices against him:

    “They are terrified of him because they think he’s smarter this time and he has just cause to really get angry because of what they did to him.”

    They rightly fear that Trump’s potential comeback would be fueled not just by political ambition, but by a personal vendetta, which could make him a more unpredictable and determined opponent.

    “…if a MAGA candidate wins and they win the house and the Senate, we’re cooked.”

    They are likely right! And Hanson posits a political landscape where power dynamics could shift dramatically, leading to aggressive investigations and possibly even retribution against figures in the current administration.

    It’s hard to argue that Trump’s retribution would be unjustified. As Hanson points out in detail, the Democratic party’s strategies and policies – prioritizing ideology over practical governance – are detached from reality and any concept of effectiveness.

    He asserts, “nobody in their right mind would do that,” referring to a range of policy decisions from border control to economic management.

    In a broader reflection on the state of American politics, Hanson portrays a polarized environment where allegiance to party ideology trumps objective assessment of policies:

    “They start with a deductive principle we are better… and therefore the following must happen.”

    This reinforces the perceived dogmatism in the political process, where decisions are driven more by ideological conformity than by rational deliberation or public interest.

    Rather ominously, Hanson concludes a bleak picture of the current political climate, drawing parallels to authoritarian regimes, suggesting a mentality of ‘us versus them,’ where belonging to the right political faction offers protection and benefits, while dissent leads to persecution.

    Indeed, the political landscape is now a battleground of ideologies, with high stakes for those who choose to engage in it.

    “Join the winning side, it’s sort of like in the Soviet Union, if you’re part of the nomenclature and you join the party, you’re exempt; if you’re not, well, you’re on your own.”

    Watch the full clip below:

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 15:45

  • Only 36% Still Believe In The 'American Dream'
    Only 36% Still Believe In The ‘American Dream’

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    A Wall Street Journal poll has some interesting questions and answers about what people think about the economy and whether hard work is rewarded…

    Please consider the WSJ/NORC Poll October 2023 conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

    Only 36% still believe in the American Dream.

    Strength of the US Economy

    Only 2 percent of respondents believe the economy is excellent but 18 percent rate it poor.

    The combined net is 35 percent think the economy is good to excellent but 65 percent think the economy is not-so-good to poor.

    Is the Economy Better, the Same, or Worse than 50 Years Ago?

    Only 30 percent think life in America is better than 50 years ago.

    My first thought was the question is silly. Many respondents have no idea what life was like 50 years ago. For some, even 15 or 20 years ago would be a struggle.

    Nonetheless, perhaps the answer is telling. Apparently, things are so bad now that people presume they were better 50 years ago.

    Economic and Political Systems

    This above question surprised me the most in light of the other answers.

    People have given up on the American Dream and think like was better 50 years ago.

    Yet, only 50 percent think things are stacked against them. I wonder if age has something to do with the above question.

    Demographics in WSJ Poll

    • 18-34: 15%

    • 35-49: 26%

    • 50-64: 23%

    • 65+: 36%

    The WSJ pool had a massive 36% percentage of respondents in the 65+ age group.

    In 2022, about 17.3 percent of the American population was 65 years old or over, according to Statistica.

    That’s a pretty bad skew.

    Let’s look at this another way. Who is more likely to think the system is stacked against them, someone older or someone younger?

    Home Ownership Rates

    74.6 Percent of those 55-64 years own their home. 79.5 percent of those 65 and older do.

    But only 39.3 percent of those age 35 and under do with home prices soaring out of sight and mortgage rates well above 7 percent.

    Biased Questions and Skewed Demographics

    The Wall Street Journal article Voters See American Dream Slipping Out of Reach, WSJ/NORC Poll Shows has anecdotes that pertain to younger workers.

    However, the Journal failed to detect biased questions or note explain huge demographic sampling issues.

    Note the question: Is the system “stacked against people like me?”

    Perhaps a better question would have been “Is the system stacked?” A follow-up would ask “against whom?“

    In practice, the younger you are, and the fewer assets you have, the more the system is stacked against you. It is very difficult to buy a house now, and a house is a big part of the American Dream.

    In contrast, the key question was nicely phrased: “Do you think the American Dream–that if you work hard you’ll get ahead–still holds true, never held true, or once held true but does not anymore?“

    Age sampling and the poor wording of questions likely explains the discrepancy between the answers to the “American Dream” question and the “stacked” question.

    Those older and wiser can see the system is unfairly stacked, just not against them personally.

    This leads back to the same place and other polls.

    Why Are Americans in Such a Rotten Mood?

    Biden wonders why people are in such a bad mood. For discussion, please see Why Are Americans in Such a Rotten Mood? Biden Blames the Media

    In one sentence: People are in a rotten mood because they are struggling with rent and putting food on the table. Those not struggling can easily see others who are.

    Meanwhile, despite huge problems at home, Biden wants hundreds of billions more for Israel, Ukraine, and Inane Money-Losing Offshore Wind Projects that now need a bailout.

    Nonstop Inflation

    Also see Nonstop Inflation: Biden Wants You to Pay More and Get Less

    Yes dear reader, Biden blames the media when it’s his policies that are killing the American Dream.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 15:10

  • Disney's 'Wish' Is A Theatrical Bomb And The Latest In A String Of Woke Failures
    Disney’s ‘Wish’ Is A Theatrical Bomb And The Latest In A String Of Woke Failures

    Is it time to declare the Disney brand dead?  Only a couple weeks ago the entertainment giant suffered one of its worst box office showings ever with the failure of The Marvels, a feminist driven girl-boss movie which was widely applauded by social justice advocates but ignored by the vast majority of the public.  The film is expected to lose $200 million to $300 million once receipts are totaled and marketing costs are accounted for.

    In a bizarre attempt at maximum cope, the media is hailing The Marvels as the largest ever theatrical opening by a black female director.  When, in fact, the movie is actually the largest box office bomb made by a black female director.

    Now, Disney’s animated ‘The Wish’ is set to top that failure, falling well below box office predictions and bringing in only $32 million over a five day period including the once lucrative Thanksgiving weekend. 

    Numerous reports suggest that Wish is opening to empty theaters across the country.  Media spin doctors have attempted to jump ahead of “get woke, go broke” accusations with articles claiming that the movie is not woke, but more “Libertarian” in its messaging.  This is, for the most part, a dishonest deflection.  The film’s producers openly admitted their woke methodology in a number of interviews including their desire to inject Diversity and Inclusion messaging.

    While the woke intent is more obscure than previous films, Wish features yet another precocious ethnic teen female (named Asha) banding together with her diverse cast of friends to fight a revolution against the white male patriarchy.  The main villain is, of course, a white guy named “King Magnifico” who rules over the kingdom of Rosas using the magical power to grant wishes.  However, the King doesn’t grant everyone’s wish, only some, and those who don’t get their wish granted forget their wishes forever.

    Asha believes this is unfair and that all people should have have their wishes returned or fulfilled (perhaps a vague nod to the concept of equity in which every person is taught to expect equality of outcome, not just equality of opportunity).  When Asha finds a magical power that threatens the King’s monopoly, he loses his mind with envy and goes full-bore dark side to keep control.

    While this story arc could be interpreted as a criticism of centralized governance, the greater plot is far more socialist in its agenda.  The evil King is overthrown by the power of “collective love”, the Queen sides with the revolutionaries and rules in his place and everyone gets access to equal wish fulfillment.  It’s a woke carnival side show.

    Critics also argue that the film is mostly unoriginal, with an endless list of nostalgia references and character ideas stolen from better movies made decades ago.  The most common reaction to Wish from theater goers?  It’s boring.  This has been the M.O. of  modern Disney for some time now – They dig up the bones of their previous successes and try to reanimate them instead of making something new and imaginative.  This is what happens when a company hires creators based on diversity stats rather than talent.  

    Massive losses have been plaguing Disney month after month.  Lightyear and Strange World featured LGBT messaging for children, which did not go over well with audiences.  Indiana Jones: Dial of Destiny was another feminist replacement fantasy that bombed horribly.  Almost every major Marvel and Star Wars release in theaters and on Disney+ has hit a brick wall in the past couple years, largely due to woke messaging.  It’s a failstorm of epic proportions.

    The spin machine is working overtime to defend Disney’s brand.  Woke films like Elemental were flops at American theaters but made more money overseas (the movie still failed to break even once marketing costs and the theater cut is added).  Wish will probably be handled the same way – A disaster in the US but a “moneymaker” in South Korea or Brazil.  And at this stage in the game this is the best that Disney can hope for:  Breaking even.

    In the meantime, Disney’s name is mud in America and for good reason.  Rumors are swirling that the company is seeking to “de-wokify” future content, but it may be too little too late for an organization that only two years ago was so aggressive and prideful in their efforts to indoctrinate American youth.      

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 14:35

  • 4-Year Old American Freed Among 14 Hostages Released By Hamas
    4-Year Old American Freed Among 14 Hostages Released By Hamas

    Update(1412ET): For first time since the temporary truce took effect, an American is among hostages released by Hamas. Sunday saw the third round of freed captives. 17 total people are now safely back in Israel — 14 Israelis and three Thai citizens. 

    Among them is 4-year old American-Israeli citizen from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Avigail Idan, whose parents were murdered by Hamas during the Oct.7 terror raids. The girl had turned four while in captivity. President Biden said in a briefing, “She’s free and she’s in Israel.” He said he expects more Americans to be freed.

    “I’m going to continue working with the Emir of Qatar, President Sisi of Egypt and Prime Minster Netanyahu of Israel to do everything possible to see [that] all the hostages are freed,” he said.

    Avigail Idan

    Israeli media reports that “Although the Red Cross said an initial medical examination indicated they were all in good condition, one of the elderly Israeli hostages was taken straight via helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.” In exchange, a third batch of 39 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons.

    Below via TOI, Top L-R: Hagar Brodutch and children Ofri, Yuval and Oriya, Roni Krivoi; middle: Chen Almog Goldstein and her children Agam, Gal and Tal Almog; bottom: Avigail Idan, Elma Avraham, Aviva Siegel, and siblings Ela and Dafna Elyakim.

    * * *

    Saturday saw the successful release of a second round of Israelis and some foreign hostages, after hours of nerve-racking delay. 13 Israeli hostages were set free and 39 Palestinian women and children were freed from Israeli prisons. An additional four Thai nationals were also freed by Hamas as part of a separate deal negotiated by Egypt, and mediated with Iran and Qatar’s help. Among them was a 9-year-old Israeli-Irish girl who had previously been reported to be dead.

    A third round exchange is set for Sunday, with the same number: 13 Israeli hostages for 39 Palestinians released from Israeli detention. So far no US nationals have been part of the swaps. But for the first time on Sunday White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he expects at least one American hostage to be among the 13 to be let go Sunday.

    Sullivan made various appearances on the Sunday shows, image source: NBC

    “At least one American will be released today. I cannot confirm who it will be, or that it will absolutely happen because until we see that American out of Gaza, in safety and ultimately in the hands of their loved ones, we won’t have full confirmation,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

    He emphasized this is still subject to verification, with the Israeli military also previously having said, “nothing is final until it actually happens.”

    Sullivan continued, “And we do have reason to believe that there will be an American release today but let’s wait and see what actually happens. Because of course, we are dealing with a terrorist group here and we can’t immediately trust we have to verify.”

    He held out hope that the hostage deal could be extended past the initially slated four-day window wherein a total of 50 hostages are to be freed, but he said this is up to Hamas. Israel has vowed that its military will still pursue to total eradication of Hamas as they set out to do.

    “I have every confidence that ultimately, all of the Americans and all of the individuals being held hostage will come home we are determined not to rest until that happens,” Sullivan said.

    “But whether or not this particular deal gets extended, that’s really up to Hamas, because Israel has been very clear as part of the deal, it is prepared to continue the pause in fighting for every day that Hamas produces an additional 10 hostages,” he concluded.

    Below are the Israeli hostages released Saturday…

    Israeli hostages released on November 25, 2023: Top from L-R: Sharon Avigdori and her daughter Noam, siblings Alma and Noam Or; middle: Hila Rotem, Emily Hand, Shiri Weiss and her daughter Noga; bottom: Adi Shoham and children Yahel and Naveh, Maya Regev, and Shoshan Haran. (Photos: Courtesy; combination image: Times of Israel)

    Emily Hand, a 9-year-old girl from Kibbutz Be’eri who was reported killed in the Hamas assault on October 7, was then found to be alive and among those held hostage in Gaza. —Times of Israel

    The Biden administration has been under increasing pressure to act on behalf of the captured Americans, after what has appeared to be inaction.

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

    The Pentagon has special forces operators in Israel in an advisory capacity, while US officials have been in Doha and Tel Aviv as well. But the White House has largely appeared to be on the sidelines, other than its pumping large amounts of military hardware to the Israelis.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 14:12

  • The Russia-Ukraine War Is Just About Over
    The Russia-Ukraine War Is Just About Over

    Authored by Peter van Buren via The Ron Paul Institute, 

    The handwriting was on the wall. An Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled “I’m a Ukrainian, and I Refuse to Compete for Your Attention” summed things up nicely: a media junket the author’s friend had been organizing to Ukraine was canceled. The TV crew instead left for the Middle East.

    The United States controls how the war in the Ukraine proceeds and always has. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it was the American side which scuttled any chance of peace in Ukraine as early as March 2022, soon after the war began. “The only people who could resolve the war over Ukraine are the Americans. During the peace talks in March 2022 in Istanbul, Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They had to coordinate everything they talked about with the Americans first. However, nothing eventually happened. My impression is that nothing could happen because everything was decided in Washington.”

    Fast-forward to 2023 and the story is different. Earlier this month NBC News quietly released a report which said U.S. and European officials broached the topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, including “very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia.” NBC said “the discussions are an acknowledgment of the dynamics militarily on the ground in Ukraine and politically in the U.S. and Europe.” They began amid concerns the war has reached a stalemate and about the ability to continue providing open-ended aid to Ukraine.

    Biden administration officials are also worried Ukraine is running out of men in this war of attrition, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply. Ukraine is also struggling with recruiting and recently saw public protests (not shown on American TV) about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s open-ended conscription requirements. Kiev is today sending 40 and 50-year-olds to the front.

    This comes as Time reported Zelensky’s top advisers admitted the war is currently unwinnable for Ukraine. Things look a bit better from the point of view of Ukraine commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny, who believes the war is only at a stalemate. “It’s now a battle of inches,” say American sources quietly.

    Americans will be forgiven if they never hear this bad news, never mind be surprised by it if they did. The narrative which drove sports teams to wear blue and yellow patches and E Street Band member Steve Van Zandt to paint his guitar the Ukrainian colors was simple. Amid a flood of propaganda, the story was always the same: Ukraine was pushing back the Russians with weapons provided by a broad range of agreeable NATO benefactors. Between Ukrainian jet fighter aces with improbable kill ratios to patriotic female sniper teams with improbable hair and makeup, Russia was losing. It would be a difficult but noble slog for “as long as it takes” to drive the Russians out. Any talk about peace was insulting to Kiev, fighting for its survival and all.

    Meanwhile mediagenic President Zelensky at first flew around the world like Bono, procuring weapons while showing off his man-to-man relationships with celebrities. Now desperate, Zelensky is inflight claiming Russia, Iran, and North Korea sponsored Hamas’ attack on Israel, trying to rattle up some support.

    It was as compelling as it was untrue. Any thoughtful analysis of the war showed it to be, from early days, a war of attrition at best for the Ukrainian side and while the U.S. could supply nearly bottomless cargo planes full of weapons and munitions, right up to the promised F-16 fighter-bombers and M1A tanks due on line soon, it could not fill the manpower gap. Any appetite for American troop involvement was hushed up early in the fight. Russia could do what she had always done at war, hunker down in the field and reach deep into its vast territory to find ever more conscripts to wait out the enemy. It didn’t hurt that Russia’s capability versus NATO equipment was surprisingly good, or perhaps the Ukrainians’ handling of sophisticated Western arms was surprisingly bad.

    But the most predictable factor leading to quiet U.S. moves toward some sort of “solution” in Ukraine is as predictable as the battlefield results. There is unease in the U.S. government over how much less public attention (despite the propaganda) the war in Ukraine has garnered since the Israeli-Hamas conflict began more than a month ago. Combined with what looks like a feisty new Speaker of the House seeking to decouple aid to Israel from aid to Ukraine, officials fear that shift could make securing additional funds for Kiev difficult.

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    Americans, the people and their government, assisted by their media wielding the greatest propaganda tools ever imagined, seem capable of focusing on only one bright shiny object at a time. Over 41 percent of Americans now say the U.S. is doing too much to help Kiev. That’s a significant change from just three months ago when only 24 percent of Americans said they felt that way. In the case of wars, a new bright shiny object must include two clear sides, one good and one pure evil, with one preferably an underdog, daily combat footage which can be obtained without too much danger, and a football game-like progression across a map that is easy to follow. It should not be boring. Ukraine was such a conflict and enjoyed almost a full two-year run. But the fickle attention of America shifted to the Middle East just as things started to look more and more like static WWI trench warfare in Ukraine. It was a hard act to follow but something always follows nonetheless (the same calculus works for natural disasters and mass shootings, which are only as mediagenic-good as the next one coming.)

    Ukraine, like Israel, owes most of its continued existence to American weaponry. However, despite the blue and yellow splattered on social media at present, Ukraine does not have anywhere near the base of support Israel does among the American public and especially within the American Congress. The terms for resolving the war will be dictated to Kiev as much by Washington as they will be by Moscow, as with Crimea a few years ago. The end will be quite sad; Russia will very likely solidify its hold on Donbas and the Crimea, and achieve new territory to the west approaching Kiev, roughly 20 percent of Ukraine. Ukraine will be forced to set aside its goal of joining NATO even as the U.S. takes a new stand on its western border with Poland.

    It is all something of a set piece. America’s habit of wandering into a conflict and then losing interest is long (Iraq) enough to count as an addition to history (Afghanistan.) “We have your back” and “we will not abandon you” join “the check’s in the mail” and “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” among  joking faux reassurances. Our proxies seem to end up abandoned and hung out to die. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, never mind Vietnam before that, what was realized at the end could have most likely been achievable at pretty much anytime after the initial hurrahs passed away. It is sad that so many had to die to likely see it happen in 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 14:00

  • Biden Keeps Polling Worse And Worse Vs. Trump
    Biden Keeps Polling Worse And Worse Vs. Trump

    Joe Biden came to sniff kids and watch his poll numbers crater, and he’s all out of kids (at least until Christmas).

    Recent polls, including those from The New York Times/Siena College, have started to show Trump ahead in key swing states. These polls are significant indicators of Biden’s electoral challenges. “Among the latest surveys this month from 13 separate pollsters, Biden’s position is worse than their previous polls in all but two of them,” highlighting the growing concern for the Biden campaign, Politico reports.

    Trump Ahead in Swing States

    The New York Times/Siena College polls at the start of November showed Trump leading in four of the six key swing states. This trend is reinforced by other surveys, which consistently place Biden in a weaker position than before in head-to-head matchups against Trump. Notably, Trump’s national polling average is currently higher than any point in the past year.

    Biden’s approval rating dipped down to 38 percent in FiveThirtyEight’s average earlier this month, the lowest since July 2022. Similarly, when Biden hit 40 percent in RealClearPolitics’ average this month, it was his lowest reading since August 2022.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s numbers are rising. Dating back a little more than a year, RealClearPolitics’ average has had Trump hovering between 42 percent and 46 percent in a head-to-head matchup with Biden. Not only did Trump break 46 percent for the first time earlier this month, this week he inched above 47 percent, about equal to his vote share in the 2020 election. -Politico

    Despite a significant advertising campaign to bolster his numbers, polls from states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania show Trump leading. Moreover, Trump is ahead in six of seven swing states surveyed by Morning Consult and Bloomberg News, including a notable 8-point lead in Arizona and a 5-point lead in Michigan.

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    Since mid-August, Biden and the Democratic National Committee have spent about $12 million on swing state TV ads, according to the tracking firm AdImpact. For most of the fall, Biden spent about $1 million a week, though that’s been roughly cut in half for the past few weeks. -Politico

    The Shift in Young Voter Demographics

    A particularly startling result comes from last week’s NBC News poll, indicating Trump’s lead over Biden among voters younger than 35, with a 46 percent to 42 percent split. This is a significant shift, considering young voters have historically leaned towards Democratic candidates. Other polls, like those from Morning Consult, Fox News, and Quinnipiac University, also show Biden holding only a narrow lead among this demographic.

    Jury is still out on the impact of 3rd party candidates

    The role of third-party candidates in the upcoming election remains uncertain. Pollsters have not yet consistently included independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, or Green Party candidate Jill Stein in their surveys. However, the inclusion of these candidates in polling shows mixed signals regarding their impact on the electoral race between Biden and Trump. Biden’s current deficit does not seem to stem from third-party candidacies, but their presence in the race could further complicate his path to recovery, especially if they draw support from key voter groups like the youth.

    That said, Politico is clear that Biden’s deficit is not the result of third-party candidates, including any who are potential looming such as retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).

    And then of course, there’s Gavin Newsom…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 13:25

  • Time To Drawdown From Syria
    Time To Drawdown From Syria

    Authored by C. William Walldorf, Jr. via RealClear Wire,

    As part of the fallout from the war in Gaza, U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq have come under attack more than fifty times from Iranian-backed militias since early October.  At least fifty-six military personnel have been injured. In response, the U.S. launched retaliatory air strikes and has sent about 900 more troops to the region.

    This bolstering of forces is the wrong move. In fact, the U.S. is overdue to drawdown its forces from Syria. 

    Why drawdown completely?  The answer is simple.  The small contingent of U.S. forces in Syria, especially, are sitting ducks for further attacks in support of missions where the costs of continuing those missions now far outstrip their strategic benefits.  Recent attacks bring this mismatch between costs and benefits into sharp relief.  These incidents should also serve as a warning for potential dangers if U.S. policy fails to change course.

    U.S. forces were deployed to Syria in 2015 to fight the ISIS caliphate.  Today, fighting ISIS remains the official mission even though the territorial caliphate has long been eliminated.  Two additional unofficial missions for these troops include deterring Iranian mischief/influence and preventing Assad from ending the war on his own terms. 

    None of these missions are worth the potential risks they carry today.  In fact, the outsized burden of their real and potential costs helps explain why forces should be drawn down.

    First, ISIS has been largely wiped out.  The caliphate was defeated in March 2019, nearly five years ago.  While preventing a resurgence of the group is important, U.S. forces do not need to be on the ground to achieve this objective.  A combination of local actors (among them, Kurds and Turks) and U.S. forces operating from over the horizon should be sufficient to get the job done.

    Some may counter that U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria today are coming under attack from other Islamist terrorists beside ISIS, thus giving a reason for U.S. forces to stay.  True, these attacks come from Islamist groups, but those groups lack the capability of global reach and lack the intent of attacking the U.S. homeland or our European allies.  If there is anything 9/11 taught us, it is that we need to avoid overreach when we go after groups that can only harm us if we station troops and bases within their range. If our troops weren’t in Syria and Iraq, in short, they wouldn’t be coming under attack there right now. Given the lack of vital U.S. interests in a permanent on-the-ground presence in Syria, that’s a reason to drawdown, not stay.

    Second, the Syrian civil war is all but over. Assad won. A U.S.-backed peace deal is not going to happen without a massive invasion of Damascus to overturn the regime, which isn’t going to happen either.

    Third, any apparent deterrent impact of U.S. forces in Syria is questionable at best.  That means U.S. forces are in harm’s way for no good or obvious reason.  For starters, it’s not clear why the Assad regime reclaiming northeast Syria where U.S. forces are based (mainly at al-Tanf) will be some kind of boon to Iran.  The Assad regime is pro-Iranian.  But Assad controlled this territory before the 2011 start of the Syrian civil war.  The loss of control hurt Assad, somewhat, but did it hurt Iran?  Not really – at least not to a degree that justifies the risk to U.S. lives today.  Assad’s regaining control over this region won’t impact the regional power balance.

    Even more worrisome, the recent attacks on U.S. forces indicate that any deterrent effect of those forces is likely waning.  This is no surprise.  Deterrence on the cheap using small contingents of forces (the United States has about 900 troops in Syria)  to produce big outcomes often doesn’t work over the long haul.  Eventually foes come to see the forces as paper tigers making them juicy targets for foes to hit as a way to expand their political ambitions.  This can have tragic consequences like the deaths of 241 Marines in Lebanon resulting from the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing.

    The same could happen in Syria today.  Because of their small size, the security of U.S. troops depends almost entirely on Turkey, Iraq, and local Kurdish forces, who protect the supply lines to U.S. forces.  That dependence along with U.S. reticence (which is judicious by the way) to forcefully impose a political solution in Syria sends a signal of weakness – not deterrent strength – to Iran and its proxies.  Like Lebanon in 1983, that puts U.S. troops today in an especially dangerous position. 

    Considering the limited benefits they bring to U.S. security, a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Syria now, before calamity strikes, makes the most sense.  When U.S. forces were struck in Lebanon, Reagan made the wise decision to not go to war, but withdraw troops instead. Biden should take this lesson to heart and withdraw forces from Syria.  At the very least, pull the troops back to U.S. bases in Iraq.  Doing so isn’t a retreat.  Instead, like Reagan’s decision, it’s a strategically smart repositioning of forces that protects both U.S. national interests and our troops at the same time.

    C. William Walldorf, Jr. is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest and a Visting Fellow at Defense Priorities. He is currently writing a book, “America’s Forever Wars:  Why So Long, Why End Now, What Comes Next,” focused on Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 12:50

  • Inside The UN Plan To Control Speech Online
    Inside The UN Plan To Control Speech Online

    Authored by Alex Newman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A powerful United Nations agency has unveiled a plan to regulate social media and online communication while cracking down on what it describes as “false information” and “conspiracy theories,” sparking alarm among free-speech advocates and top U.S. lawmakers.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    In its 59-page report released this month, the U.N. Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) outlined a series of “concrete measures which must be implemented by all stakeholders: governments, regulatory authorities, civil society, and the platforms themselves.”

    This approach includes the imposition of global policies, through institutions such as governments and businesses, designed to stop the spread of various forms of speech while promoting objectives such as “cultural diversity” and “gender equality.”

    In particular, the U.N. agency aims to create an “Internet of Trust” by targeting what it calls “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “hate speech,” and “conspiracy theories.”

    Examples of expression flagged to be stopped or restricted include concerns about elections, public health measures, and advocacy that could constitute “incitement to discrimination.”

    Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, testifies remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election,” in Washington on Nov. 17, 2020. (Bill Clark-Pool/Getty Images)

    Critics are warning that allegations of “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories” have increasingly been used by powerful forces in government and Big Tech to silence true information and even core political speech.

    Just this month, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee released a report blasting the “pseudoscience of disinformation.”

    Among other concerns, the committee found this “pseudoscience” has been “weaponized” by what lawmakers refer to as the “Censorship Industrial Complex.”

    The goal: silence constitutionally-protected political speech, mostly by conservatives.

    “The pseudoscience of disinformation is now—and has always been—nothing more than a political ruse most frequently targeted at communities and individuals holding views contrary to the prevailing narratives,” states the congressional report, “The Weaponization of ‘Disinformation’ Pseudo-Experts and Bureaucrats.”

    Indeed, many of the policies called for by UNESCO have already been implemented by U.S.-based digital platforms, often at the behest of the Biden administration, the latest congressional report makes clear.

    Deputy Director of UNESCO Xing Qu (2nd R) views some ancient manuscripts on March 31, 2021. (MICHELE CATTANI/AFP via Getty Images)

    On Capitol Hill, lawmakers nevertheless expressed alarm about the new UNESCO plan.

    “I have repeatedly and publicly criticized the Biden administration’s misguided decision to rejoin UNESCO, putting U.S. taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told The Epoch Times regarding the social-media plan.

    Calling UNESCO a “deeply flawed entity,” Mr. McCaul said he is especially concerned that the organization “promotes the interests of authoritarian regimes—including the Chinese Communist Party.”

    Indeed, UNESCO, like many other U.N. agencies, includes multiple members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its leadership ranks, such as Deputy Director-General Xing Qu, The Epoch Times has reported.

    The CCP has repeatedly made clear that even while working in international organizations, CCP members are expected to follow communist party orders.

    Lawmakers on the House Appropriations Subcommittee dealing with international organizations are currently working to cut or reduce funding to various U.N. agencies that lawmakers say are using U.S. taxpayer money improperly.

    Already, the U.S. government has twice exited UNESCO—under the Reagan and the Trump administrations—due to concerns about what the administrations described as extremism, hostility to American values, and other problems.

    The Biden administration rejoined earlier this year over the objections of lawmakers, The Epoch Times reported.

    An aerial view of a sculpture at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on July 25, 2023. President Joe Biden rejoined the United States into UNESCO after President Donald Trump exited the agency in 2018. (BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images)

    The UNESCO Plan

    While being marketed as a plan to uphold free expression, the new UNESCO regulatory regime calls for international censorship by “independent” regulators who are “shielded from political and economic interests.”

    “National, regional, and global governance systems should be able to cooperate and share practices … in addressing content that could be permissibly restricted under international human rights law and standards,” the report explains.

    Unlike the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting any governmental infringement on the right to free speech or free press, UNESCO points to various international “human rights” instruments that it says should determine what speech to infringe on.

    These agreements include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states that restricting freedom of expression must be provided for by law and must also serve a “legitimate aim.”

    In a recent review of the United States, a U.N. human-rights committee called for changes to the U.S. Constitution and demanded that the U.S. government do more to stop and punish “hate speech” in order to comply with the ICCPR.

    Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), joined by members of the Asian Pacific American Caucus, speaks on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on May 18, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

    Another key U.N. instrument is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states explicitly in Article 29 that “rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

    In short, the U.N. view of “freedom of expression” is radically different from that enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

    The UNESCO report says that once content that should be restricted is found, social-media platforms must take measures, ranging from using algorithm suppression (shadow banning) and warning users about the content, to de-monetizing and even removing it.

    Any digital platforms found to not be “dealing with content that could be permissibly restricted under international human rights law” should “be held accountable” with “enforcement measures,” the report states.

    UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, a former French culture minister with the Socialist Party, cited risks to society to justify the global plan.

    “Digital technology has enabled immense progress on freedom of speech,” she said in a statement. “But social media platforms have also accelerated and amplified the spread of false information and hate speech, posing major risks to societal cohesion, peace, and stability.

    “To protect access to information, we must regulate these platforms without delay, while at the same time protecting freedom of expression and human rights,” said Azoulay, who took over the U.N. agency from longtime Bulgarian Communist Party leader Irina Bokova.

    In the forward to the new report, headlined “Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms,” Azoulay says that stopping certain forms of speech and at the same time preserving “freedom of expression” is “not a contradiction.”

    Citing a survey commissioned by UNESCO itself, the U.N. agency also said most people around the world support its agenda.

    According to UNESCO, the report and the guidelines were developed through a process of consultation including more than 1,500 submissions and over 10,000 comments from “stakeholders” such as governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations.

    UNESCO said it will work with governments and companies to implement the regulatory regime around the world.

    “UNESCO is by not (sic) proposing to regulate digital platforms,” a spokesman for UNESCO, who asked not to be named, told The Epoch Times in a statement.

    “We are, however, conscious that dozens of governments around the world are already drafting legislation to do so, some of which is not in line with international human rights standards, and may even jeopardize freedom of expression.

    “Similarly, the platforms themselves are already making millions of human and automated decisions a day with respect to the moderation and curation of content, based upon their own policies,” the spokesman said.

    The European Union, which already places severe limitations on free expression online, has already provided funding for implementation worldwide, UNESCO added.

    The Biden administration told The Epoch Times that it wasn’t involved in creating the plan.

    “We will reserve comment until we finish carefully studying the plan,” the State Department said in an email.

    Free Speech Concern Grows

    Concerns over the implications for freedom of speech and free expression online are mounting as awareness of the UNESCO plan spreads.

    Sarah McLaughlin, a senior scholar at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), expressed alarm.

    “FIRE appreciates that UNESCO’s new action plan for social media recognizes the value of transparency and the need for protecting freedom of expression, but remains deeply concerned about efforts to regulate online ‘disinformation’ and ‘hate speech,’” Ms. McLaughlin told The Epoch Times.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/26/2023 – 11:40

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