Nov 27

Today’s News 27th November 2024

  • The Triggers For & Consequences Of Russia's Possible Missile Deployment To The Asia-Pacific
    The Triggers For & Consequences Of Russia’s Possible Missile Deployment To The Asia-Pacific

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in response to a question about his country’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific that this “will depend on the deployment of corresponding US systems in any region of the world.” This came less than a week after Putin authorized the use of Russia’s previously secret hypersonic medium-range Oreshnik missile in Ukraine, the strategic significance of which was analyzed here, and parallels newly deteriorating Russian-South Korean ties.

    Seoul is considering arming Ukraine in response to unsubstantiated reports about Russia’s use of North Korean troops against that former Soviet Republic, which prompted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko to warn that “we will respond in every way that we find necessary. It is unlikely that this will strengthen the security of the Republic of Korea itself.”

    The two triggers for Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific are therefore the US doing so first or Seoul arming Kiev.

    It’s important to point out that while China is Russia’s close military partner and Moscow believes that Washington is engaged in what Russian officials describe as a “dual containment” strategy against both, Beijing isn’t its military ally, unlike Pyongyang with which Moscow just recently signed a military pact. That document was analyzed here and amounts to updating a Soviet-era one. Its strategic significance is that each pledged to help the other if they come under aggression and such assistance is requested.

    Accordingly, Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific would be in defense of its own and North Korea’s security, with the first immediate consequence being that it could inadvertently worsen China’s by serving to justify and accelerate the US’ regional containment plans against it. To explain, Trump plans to “Pivot (back) to Asia” upon the end of the Ukrainian Conflict, whenever that might be and regardless of the terms agreed to, which is already troubling enough from China’s perspective.

    To make it even worse, Trump is inheriting the Biden Administration’s achievement of having brokered the improvement of South Korean-Japanese ties to such an extent that the US’ long-hoped-for regional trilateral is finally on the brink of becoming a strategic reality. The deployment of short- and intermediate-range Russian missiles to the Asia-Pacific, especially the state-of-the-art Oreshnik, would naturally justify the aforesaid and accelerate all three’s convergence into a tighter triangle.

    On the diplomatic front, these missiles could always be withdrawn pending a grand deal between Russia, the US, North Korea, and possibly also China, though the latter’s involvement shouldn’t be taken for granted. After all, an agreement could be reached between the first three in exchange for de-escalating tensions in Northeast Asia, which could then free up the US and Japan to concentrate on more muscularly containing China in Southeast Asia via Taiwan and the Philippines, which both are close with.

    It’s premature to predict that this is exactly what will unfold, but the point is that Russia’s role in the emerging Asian front of the New Cold War could be leveraged for de-escalation purposes if its and North Korea’s security interests are met, which only requires negotiating with the US and not with China. Given these military-strategic dynamics, it’s possible that Trump might try to fulfill his campaign pledge to “un-unite” Russia and China by playing them off against each other, though that’s very unlikely to succeed.

    All told, Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific would be triggered by the US or South Korea, with the consequences being that it’ll solidify Russia’s role in that emerging front of the New Cold War while inadvertently worsening China’s security by justifying and accelerating the US’ “Pivot (back) to Asia”. The Kremlin wants to fulfill its allied commitments to North Korea and highlight its relevance in that part of Eurasia, both goals of which are driven by security, diplomatic, and soft power motives.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 23:25

  • "Business As Usual": NYT, Reuters, Vox Media Reportedly Have Zero Plans To Leave 𝕏
    “Business As Usual”: NYT, Reuters, Vox Media Reportedly Have Zero Plans To Leave 𝕏

    The New York Times, Reuters, Vox Media, and more than a dozen other media organizations have confirmed to Digiday their intention to remain on Elon Musk’s 𝕏. This follows the decision by some far-left folks, frustrated with the ‘free speech’ platform in the wake of Trump’s historic presidential victory, to migrate to Bluesky—a social media platform tailored for those infected by the woke mind virus. 

    Digiday reported:

    Over a dozen major publishers — including The New York Times, Reuters and Vox Media — told Digiday that they didn’t have plans to leave 𝕏 anytime soon. About half declined to comment on the record. The other half confirmed that it was business as usual.

    However, the media outlet focused on the future of media and marketing noted some corporate media outlets were planning to give Bluesky a try:

    Last week, The Guardian joined NPR in vowing not to post on the platform anymore, citing the toxicity on Twitter 2.0 and 𝕏 owner Elon Musk’s political involvement. Meanwhile, 𝕏 alternative Bluesky received an influx of new users after the U.S. presidential election, with publishers like The Economist, The Week, Politico and Semafor following them there.

    What’s certain is that 𝕏 was the number one app in the App Store as of Sunday. This comes as legacy media continues to implode, with how people receive their news shifting dramatically—from corporate media outlets to 𝕏, alternative news websites, and podcasters.

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    The Axios CEO recently had a meltdown over Musk’s comment, telling 𝕏 users, “You are the media now.” 

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    Meanwhile, major brands, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment, have all resumed ad spending on 𝕏, an indication that the social media platform remains the top spot for news and current affairs.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 23:00

  • Trump Transition Team Signs Modified White House Agreement, Without Govt Technology To Conduct Surveillance
    Trump Transition Team Signs Modified White House Agreement, Without Govt Technology To Conduct Surveillance

    Authored by ‘sundance’ via The Last Refuge,

    The President Trump transition team has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to start the process of transferring control of the federal government.  The landing teams from each of the cabinets will now begin to engage with their exiting counterparts.

    There were many articles written about the delays in signing the agreements.  However, President Trump waited until he has his cabinet fully assembled before signing the first part that permits the landing teams to engage.  The second part with government provided offices and technology is NOT being accepted.

    President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, announced the Trump transition team has refused to sign an MOU with the Government Services Administration (GSA), and will not be using cell phones, computers, offices or “any technology” provided by the GSA.  This is a smart move to avoid the Deep State surveillance situation that was faced in the first term.

    In the first Trump administration, the GSA had wiretaps, office bugs, and gave all the electronic communication information from the Trump transition to the FBI, IC and later Robert Mueller. In essence, the GSA spied on the Trump team, then gave all the data to the operatives who were in place to target them.  The Trump team is not making this mistake again.

    The Trump transition team is also not going to use the office space provided by the GSA and will instead have their own offices and security systems in place to coordinate the transition to power.

    WASHINGTON DC – […] The Trump team’s unprecedented delay in signing these agreements, weeks after being declared the winner of the election, had alarmed former officials and ethics experts who warned it could lead to conflicts of interest and leave the new government unprepared to govern on Day One.

    In the Tuesday announcement, Wiles suggested the Trump transition will not sign a separate agreement with the General Services Administration, which would have allowed them to receive federal funding, cybersecurity support and government office space, pledging instead to fund the transition with private dollars, run it out of private facilities, and deploy their own “existing security and information protections” for sensitive data.

    The transition, Wiles said, “will operate as a self-sufficient organization, adding that declining government funding will “save taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”

    And while Wiles also pledged in the Tuesday statement to publicly disclose the private donors to the transition and “not accept foreign donations,” there will be no legal mechanism to enforce those promises of transparency.

    The lack of federal cybersecurity support could also make the Trump transition a softer target for foreign hackers — who already successfully penetrated the campaign earlier this year.

    “That’s something that in 2020 was maybe the single most important worry of the [Biden] transition team — that they would be hacked, and all of this information, including intelligence information, personal information about job applicants, would be threatened,” said Heath Brown, an associate professor of public policy at CUNY’s John Jay College who wrote a book about Biden’s transition. “It’s imperative that the Trump Transition Team has installed the proper procedures to protect itself.”

    White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma said the Biden administration is concerned about the ramifications of their successors forgoing GSA support, but remains “committed to an orderly transition.”

    “While we do not agree with the Trump transition team’s decision to forgo signing the GSA MOU, we will follow the purpose of the Presidential Transition Act which clearly states that ‘any disruption occasioned by the transfer of the executive power could produce results detrimental to the safety and wellbeing of the United States and its people,’” she said.

    In the White House memo, Sharma added, the Trump transition “agreed to important safeguards to protect non-public information and prevent conflicts of interest, including who has access to the information and how the information is shared,” and also agreed to publicly share the ethics agreements it is imposing on its own employees.

    (read more)

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 22:35

  • "This Looks So M16-Ish To Me": Russian Special Forces Receive New Main Battle Rifle
    “This Looks So M16-Ish To Me”: Russian Special Forces Receive New Main Battle Rifle

    Russian special forces, commonly known as “Spetsnaz,” are set to receive a newly designed main battle rifle that closely resembles the German Heckler & Koch 417 automatic assault rifle.

    The Russian media outlet TASS News Agency reports that the new semi-automatic rifle is chambered in .308 caliber, described as “lighter than analogs” and offering “high precision.”

    Named Titan, the rifle is reportedly “already engaged in the zone of the Ukrainian operation,” according to a media outlet citing the Russian arms company SWC.

    “Semiautomatic Titan rifle of .308 caliber has been designed for Russian special task units. It can be used as a sniper or assault rifle. Experts say the new universal rifle has good characteristics and is in demand among scouts and commandos,” SWC stated.

    SWC added, “The .308 caliber cartridge is powerful and reliable. Russia produces it in various options, including armor-piercing. Therefore, the rifle is popular among the Russian military.”

    In October, the Russian media outlet Sputnik reported that the Russian Army received a new sniper rifle, the STM-308, to replace the Dragunov platform.

    Earlier this year, the US Army began fielding its brand-new Next Generation Squad Weapon rifles: the Sig Sauer XM7, intended to replace the M4 carbine in close combat formations, and the XM250, which will replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

    The X account Defense Politics Asia commented on the Titan, stating that it “looks so M16-ish to me.“

    . . .  

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 22:10

  • US Marshals And FBI Warn Public Of Nationwide Phone Scams
    US Marshals And FBI Warn Public Of Nationwide Phone Scams

    Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI are alerting the public about widespread phone scams involving individuals impersonating law enforcement officials. Scammers are posing as U.S. Marshals, court officers, or other government agents in attempts to defraud victims by demanding payments to avoid arrest.

    The FBI seal is pictured in Omaha, Neb., on Aug. 10, 2022. Charlie Neibergall/AP

    These fraudulent callers claim the victim has committed an offense such as identity theft or failing to report for jury duty. The scammers instruct victims to withdraw cash and transfer it to the government, purchase prepaid debit or gift cards, or deposit money into Bitcoin ATMs to “satisfy” alleged fines.

    Scammers often sound convincing by providing badge numbers, names of real law enforcement officials and federal judges, and even spoofing caller IDs to appear as if they’re calling from a government agency or courthouse, the agencies said in a statement.

    In Colorado, multiple incidents have been reported in which scammers use the names of actual U.S. Marshals, including U.S. Marshal Kirk Taylor, claiming there’s a warrant for the victim’s arrest unless a payment is made.

    Victims across the state have suffered losses totaling tens of thousands of dollars, the agencies said. The U.S. Marshals Service receives daily inquiries from individuals targeted by these scams.

    Authorities recommend scam victims file a report with local police and a complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Callers can remain anonymous.

    The law enforcement agencies said Americans should never divulge personal or financial information to unknown callers. The U.S. Marshals Service said it will never ask for credit or debit card numbers, wire transfers, bank routing numbers, or Bitcoin deposits for any purpose.

    Authorities suggest hanging up and calling a local court clerk to verify any supposed court orders.

    According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), more than $37 billion has been reported lost due to cyber-enabled crimes from 2019 to 2023. While not every report can receive a direct response, each submission helps law enforcement understand the broader threat landscape and can lead to actionable investigations.

    The IC3 notes that tips are extremely valuable.

    “Combined with other data, [tips] allow the FBI to investigate reported crimes, track trends and threats, and, in some cases, even freeze stolen funds,” the agency said. “Just as importantly, IC3 shares reports of crime throughout its vast network of FBI field offices and law enforcement partners, strengthening our nation’s collective response both locally and nationally.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 21:45

  • Trump Said To Be Weighing Direct Talks With North Korea's Kim
    Trump Said To Be Weighing Direct Talks With North Korea’s Kim

    During his first term in the White House, President-elect Donald Trump held three meetings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The First was in Hanoi, followed by a highly ‘controversial’ meeting at the Korean border, which was the first time in history that a sitting American president had stepped foot into the North Korean side of the border.

    There was talk at the time of the two leaders falling “in love”—however, the past couple years of Biden’s Pentagon parking a nuclear submarine at a South Korean port has done much to undo these good will displays. Washington has requested that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons development, while Kim has demanded nothing less than full sanctions relief.

    What will the policy be under the second Trump White House?

    “US president-elect Donald Trump’s team is discussing pursuing direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, hoping a fresh diplomatic push can lower the risks of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter,” South China Morning Post and Reuters report Tuesday.

    BBC: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, seen here in 2019, failed to reach a deal to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. API/Getty Images

    While Trump’s transition team has said nothing official on the issue as yet, insider sources say a return to direct diplomacy is hopeful: 

    Several in Trump’s team now see a direct approach from Trump, to build on a relationship that already exists, as most likely to break the ice with Kim, years after the two traded insults and what Trump called “beautiful” letters in an unprecedented diplomatic effort during his first term in office, the people said.

    As for the North Korean side, it doesn’t seem in any hurry, or at least is building leverage in anticipation of potential near-future Trump overtures. 

    The Wall Street Journal summarized Kim’s reaction as of last week as follows: 

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to rebuff the prospect of reviving his nuclear diplomacy with President-elect Donald Trump, according to his first public remarks about disarmament talks since the election.

    North Korea’s state media reported Friday that the 40-year-old dictator called the U.S. a superpower that operated by force rather than a will to coexist and belittled the value that previous talks had for his cash-strapped regime.   

    Kim was quoted in a speech days ago as saying, “We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the US.”

    He cited Washington’s “unchanging aggressive and hostile policy” toward North Korea, which has included stepped-up joint US-South Korean military exercises on the peninsula. 

    Earlier on the Trump campaign trail…

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    It’s possible that if Trump is able to oversee peace in Ukraine, which he is pledging to begin in earnest from day one of entering the Oval Office, things could stabilize with US-North Korea relations as well.

    But looming large as a complicating factor is North Korea’s sending some 10,000 of its troops to Russia, where they are reportedly assisting Moscow forces in pushing back Ukraine’s occupation of the southern Kursk region. Kiev has used this to decry the ‘internationalization’ of the war, despite NATO having injected billions of dollars and heavy weaponry on Ukraine’s side.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 21:20

  • Winds Of Change Might Blow Through Crypto Sector During Trump's 2nd Term
    Winds Of Change Might Blow Through Crypto Sector During Trump’s 2nd Term

    Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler’s departure in January could transform the U.S. cryptocurrency regulatory landscape.

    An image of Bitcoin and U.S. currencies are displayed on a screen as delegates listen to speakers during the Interpol World Congress in Singapore on July 4, 2017. Dominic Gwinn/AFP via Getty Images

    Gensler, a staunch critic of the digital assets industry, confirmed on social media platform X last week that he will resign from his role the day of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

    Trump and Gensler possess contrasting views of crypto.

    Gensler has cracked down on the crypto industry since he was appointed head of the SEC in 2021.

    Speaking at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and FinTech Conference in New York City last year, the outgoing SEC chief said the crypto frenzy has been rife with “Hucksters. Fraudsters. Scam artists. Ponzi schemes.”

    “The crypto securities markets should not be allowed to undermine the well-earned trust the public has in the capital markets,” Gensler said. “The crypto markets should not be allowed to harm investors.”

    President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to herald a change in federal crypto policy.

    While he promised to fire Gensler on his first day in the White House, Trump has also proposed a plethora of pro-Bitcoin measures.

    He wants to establish a national Bitcoin reserve, create a presidential crypto advisory council, and ensure all remaining Bitcoin is mined domestically.

    “For too long, our government has violated the cardinal rule that every Bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your Bitcoin,” Trump said during a keynote address at the largest industry conference this past summer.

    This is a reversal from Trump, who has called it a scam and a threat to the U.S. dollar.

    “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” Trump said in social media posts in 2019.

    “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”

    Now that the new administration features pro-crypto officials, will the SEC’s regulatory pursuits change?

    Winds of Regulatory Change

    The agency’s fiscal year 2024 enforcement in the crypto industry resulted in fines and investor relief totaling $8.2 billion.

    With the record-high penalties, the number of cases tumbled 26 percent compared to the previous year.

    “The Division of Enforcement is a steadfast cop on the beat, following the facts and the law wherever they lead to hold wrongdoers accountable,” Gensler said in a statement attached to the announcement.

    This comes as the SEC outlined its aims for the new year.

    In October, the SEC’s Division of Examinations published its Fiscal Year 2025 Examination Priorities.

    The report reiterated the SEC’s position to continue monitoring the crypto sector, including investment advisers, broker-dealers, and other financial intermediaries that sell digital assets or facilitate transactions.

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington on Sept. 18, 2008. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    “Examinations of registrants will focus on the offer, sale, recommendation, advice, trading, and other activities involving crypto assets that are offered and sold as securities or related products, such as spot bitcoin or ether exchange-traded products,” the report stated.

    With a new regime set to take the reins, market watchers are bracing for change, especially with prominent crypto advocates leading various departments, including Scott Bessent as treasury secretary and Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary.

    For now, industry experts are submitting recommendations in the suggestions box.

    Stuart Alderoty, the chief legal officer of blockchain-based digital payment company Ripple, outlined several priorities the Trump transition team should consider when choosing the next SEC head.

    On the new administration’s first day, Alderoty thinks the federal government should end non-fraud crypto litigation and ensure commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce remain at the regulatory body, he said on X.

    Uyeda and Peirce have been crypto’s allies at the SEC.

    Uyeda, in an interview with FOX Business’s “Varney & Co.,” agreed with the president-elect that the “war on crypto needs to stop.”

    “There are a number of things that we can do with respect to crypto to help make America one of the global leaders in crypto,” he said.

    The SEC needs to provide clarity, produce safe harbors and regulatory sandboxes for investors, and advocate for a whole-of-government “cohesive and comprehensive approach to crypto,” Uyeda said.

    “President Trump and the American electorate have sent a clear message. Starting in 2025, the SEC’s role is to carry out that mandate,” he said.

    Peirce, speaking on the “CryptoCounsel” podcast this month, has touted more open dialogue between the crypto industry and SEC regulators.

    The Ripple CLO has echoed this sentiment, supporting improved relations between lawmakers, regulators, and market participants.

    “Collaborate with all financial regulators and Congress on clear and simple rules for crypto, but without presuming that those rules give the SEC primary jurisdiction over anything,” Alderoty wrote.

    “Guarantee accountability and restore public trust by addressing past issues within the SEC by emboldening the Office of Inspector General.”

    Alderoty also proposed rescinding the SEC’s 2019 Framework for Investment Contract Analysis of Digital Assets, which was published after the industry called for better regulatory clarity between securities laws and blockchain-based tokens.

    This guidance, which is neither a rule nor a regulation, offers a blueprint for determining whether a digital asset possesses the characteristics of an investment contract (security).

    With Republican control of Congress, lawmakers are likely to adopt a “principles and disclosure-based” approach to policymaking, says Dorothy DeWitt, a former director of market oversight at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

    Enforcement will also likely target high-risk areas of the crypto market, such as national security, fraud, and misconduct, she said.

    “Finally, a path to regulatory clarity will almost certainly involve registration of exchanges, intermediaries and digital assets securities, and implementation of more extensive disclosure standards as well as formal compliance with agency-prescribed principles,” DeWitt said in a Nov. 18 post for the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.

    Despite the winds of change expected to blow through the crypto sector, industry parties should not anticipate significant policy and regulatory changes immediately.

    Instead, DeWitt notes, these adjustments could “take place over a year or more, not months.”

    Since Trump’s electoral victory, Bitcoin prices have rocketed to all-time highs and were a few hundred dollars short of reaching $100,000.

    The growth in the chief cryptocurrency, which controls 58 percent of the market, has lifted other digital tokens, from stablecoins to altcoins.

    A spokesperson for Securities and Exchange Commission declined a request for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 20:55

  • Niall Ferguson, Scott Horton To Debate Ukraine War Tomorrow Evening In ZeroHedge Exclusive
    Niall Ferguson, Scott Horton To Debate Ukraine War Tomorrow Evening In ZeroHedge Exclusive

    Despite Trump’s promises to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Russia, the war has escalated to a dangerous inflection point with long-range U.S., British, and French missiles being deployed deep in Russian territory and talks of deploying NATO troops in Ukraine. That… and anonymous officials in the New York Times saying what is impossible to believe:

    “Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications,” the newspaper wrote.

    Amid the chaos, ZeroHedge will be hosting preeminent historians Sir Niall Ferguson and Scott Horton to debate the history of the conflict and U.S. policy in the region. They will be joined by the Hoover Institute’s Peter Robinson (if you’ve seen a Thomas Sowell interview, it was probably his).

    Join us at 7pm ET right here on the ZeroHedge homepage (as well as Twitter/X and YouTube channels) for an epic matchup that you won’t find anywhere else.

    Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He’s written over a dozen books on geopolitical and monetary history.

    Horton is the founder of the Libertarian Institute and recently published his book, Provoked, on the history of the war in Ukraine and decades of rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

    We hope you’ll join us on the eve of Thanksgiving. Recent war context included below:

    ***

    Nukes for Ukraine?!

    Days ago, The NY Times revealed that US and European officials have discussed a range of options they believe will deter Russia from taking more Ukrainian territory, including the possibility of providing Kiev with nuclear weapons. “US and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire,” the report said.

    The article then stated, “Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

    Former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Counsel Dmitry Medvedev has responded by pointing out that if the West actually went forward with transferring nukes to Ukraine, this would be seen as tantamount to an attack on Russia. He explained that this is a key aspect of Russia’s newly expanded nuclear doctrine.

    Image source: Presidency of Russia

    In a Telegram post on Tuesday, Medvedev specifically referenced the recent NY Times report, and said: “Looks like my sad joke about crazy senile Biden, who’s eager to go out with a bang and take a substantial part of humanity with him, is becoming dangerously real.”

    Medvedev then stressed that “giving nukes to a country that’s at war with the greatest nuclear power” is so absurd that Biden and any of his officials considering it must have “massive paranoid psychosis.”

    His biggest and most specific threat came as follows: 

    “The fact of transferring such weapons may be considered as the launch of an attack against our country in accordance with Paragraph 19 of the ‘Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence’,” Medvedev wrote.

    Talk of NATO Troops

    Prominent French publication Le Monde on Monday followed by saying serious discussions over injecting Western troops into the war have intensified in the last days: 

    As the conflict in Ukraine enters a new phase of escalation, discussions over sending Western troops and private defense companies to Ukraine have been revived, Le Monde has learned from corroborating sources. These are sensitive discussions, most of which are classified – relaunched in light of a potential American withdrawal of support for Kyiv once Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2025.

    Britain is once again at the forefront of urging NATO’s deeper involvement in the war, which threatens at any moment to explode into WW3 among nuclear-armed powers. Enter Keir Starmer… in the hawkish footsteps of Boris Johnson:

    However, it was relaunched in recent weeks thanks to the visit to France of the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, for the November 11th commemorations. “Discussions are underway between the UK and France on defense cooperation, particularly with a view to creating a hard core of allies in Europe, focused on Ukraine and wider European security,” confided a British military source to Le Monde.

    Jean-Noël Barro’s aforementioned words about ‘no options’ ruled out appears to have been a reflection on these continued ‘sensitive’ conversations.

    There have been more reports of US-supplied ATACMS launches on Russian territory since their initial use last week:

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 20:30

  • "Superheroes" Reflect Our Powerlessness
    “Superheroes” Reflect Our Powerlessness

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    And so we end up back in MovieLand, where we vicariously experience having powers we do not possess in real life.

    Films reflect the collective unconscious in ironic ways. During the Great Depression, films didn’t dwell on the miseries of real life; they were carefree concoctions making light of the idle rich (The Thin Man, 1934, My Man Godfrey, 1936), with the realistic (but still ending on a positive note) The Grapes of Wrath arriving a decade into the Depression in 1940.

    In contrast, the boom years of the 1950s were the heyday of dark-themed Noir films that explored (and exploited) the underbelly of human nature and American life.

    Cast in this light, what do we make of our multi-decade cultural embrace of Superhero films? We can try to write it all off as Hollywood’s happy discovery of an entire realm of “tentpole” franchises that can be milked for billions of dollars in reliable revenues, but this misses the undertow of cultural significances.

    Is it coincidence that the decades of Superhero worship track the rise of our collective powerlessness over the shape of our future? I sense the outrage and indignation this ignites–how dare you say we’re powerless, we have more power over our lives than ever before.

    For a contrarian view, let’s tap the 1964 classic by Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (this link is to a free PDF of the book, with gratitude to correspondent Bruce M. for bringing this book to my attention). It is impossible to summarize a 500-page book dense with important ideas, but let’s start with Ellul’s insight into our collective powerlessness over the future course of the economy and our own daily lives.

    In essence, Ellul explains how technology and the ever-expanding need for profitable investments control our collective future. Once the basic human needs have been met–shelter, food, water, education, medical care, etc.–then investment opportunities aren’t driven by human need, but by technology’s continuous advance.

    Did humanity really “need” every appliance to have WiFi? No. Technology generated WiFi and the need for investment opportunities then generated The Internet of Things (IOT) which spawned vast new product lines–appliances with WiFi. Coupled with the the collapse of quality and durability, this technology led to water heaters having WiFi, just in case your phone doesn’t have enough apps, alarms, chirps and notifications.

    That water heaters once cost $160 and now cost $500 is the financial payoff of advancing technology creating new opportunities to invest capital. For if capital can’t find new opportunities to invest and grow profits, the economy slides into Depression, and that ghastly prospect looms in the collective unconscious as the nightmare to be avoided at all costs.

    And so microwave ovens now have a second “child safety button” that must be pushed first to open the door. Safety is a ready-made excuse for adding whatever technology has come up with, and as we scan the horizon, it’s already abundantly clear that the tens of billions of dollars gushing into AI will be followed by trillions of dollars seeking higher profits from putting some simulacrum of AI into every device, every appliance, every app and indeed every technology, not because it improves our well-being but because it’s the investment opportunity that we desperately need to avoid the cataclysm of Depression.

    We are powerless to question this process, much less resist it, and so we revel in fantasies of super-powers that enable the defeat of powerful forces that threaten us. That AI will automate away entire sectors of human livelihoods–we’re powerless to resist that, just as we’re powerless to stop the collapse of durability and the Anti-Progress of useless complexity and the ever-greater demands on us to perform unpaid shadow work to keep all the complexity duct-taped together so we can maintain all the technologies that we are now dependent on, not by choice but because there is no choice.

    The cavalcade of superheroes reflect our powerlessness and our yearning for actual control of our lives rather then the simulacrum of consumer choice of products and services that don’t serve our well-being, they serve the one true need, to expand opportunities to invest.

    Ellul’s insights from 60 years ago also illuminate our desire for real-world political-financial Superheroes who will set the world right again. But political solutions are another form of fantasy, as I explained in Why Political “Solutions” Don’t Fix Crises, They Make Them Worse (10/2/24). Hoping that giving other mortals power will restore our own power over our own lives is akin to hoping that technology will magically transform itself from humanity’s Monster Id into a machine that oversees us with loving kindness, or as poet Richard Brautigan put it, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.

    Sci-Fi movie fans know that the Monster Id is from the classic film Forbidden Planet: the limitless power of the planet’s immense technological machinery is guided by thoughts, and since there are no filters on what thoughts guide the technology, all the dark drives of the Id are amplified by technological powers, such that the Monster Id melts solid steel doors like butter in its quest to destroy the mind that created it.

    And so we end up back in MovieLand, where we vicariously experience having powers we do not possess in real life. The power we still have is not a superpower; it is a merely human power to opt out, to choose not to participate, to limit our exposure to a world guided by investment opportunities and the moral vacuum of technology that is blind to all but its own advancement.

    That all technological advancement is good is, well, a lie. Much of what’s presented as Progress is actually Anti-Progress, a theme of my new book The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century.

    If all we believe boils down to “technology good, investment opportunities good,” then we’ve relinquished the ability to distinguish between truth and lies, and as Hannah Arendt observed, the difference between right and wrong.

    This too is powerlessness, a black hole from which there is no technological escape.

    *  *  *

    Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 20:05

  • Russian State Media: 'How Fast Can Oreshnik Missile Hit US Bases Across The World?'
    Russian State Media: ‘How Fast Can Oreshnik Missile Hit US Bases Across The World?’

    Russia continues to warn the West over its newly unveiled Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile. The Kremlin days ago touted that Washington has now understood and better been able to grasp Putin’s warnings and red lines more clearly after last Thursday’s missile strike on a Ukrainian defense industry facility in Dnepropetrovsk. Importantly, the Oreshnik is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

    State media has produced yet another ominous segment showcasing the purported reach of the new hypersonic weapon. The Sputnik segment emphasized that Europe has no protection against such a missile which can reach Mach 11, and it even warned it can reach many US missile bases.

    The publication wrote, “Check out Sputnik’s video to learn how quickly the Oreshnik missiles can reach US bases in the Middle East, in the Pacific and Alaska, as well as the missile silos in the United States.” Watch below:

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

    Below is some of the information claimed of the Oreshnik missile, featured in the Russian publication.

    * * *

    How fast can the Oreshnik missile hit US bases across the world?

    1. Middle East Distance and flight time from southern Russia:  

    US airbase in Kuwait: 2,100 km, 11 minutes;   

    US 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain: 2,500 km, 12 minutes;  

    US Air Base in Qatar: 2,650 km, 13 minutes;  

    US Air Base in Djibouti: 4,100 km, 20 minutes.

    2. Pacific and Alaska Distance and flight time from Kamchatka:  

    Air Base in Alaska: 2,400 km, 12 minutes;  

    US Air Force and Navy Base in Guam: 4,500 km, 22 minutes;   

    US Air Force and Navy Bases in Pearl Harbor: 5,100 km, 25 minutes.

    3. Minuteman III missile silos Distance and flight time from Chukotka:  

    Minuteman III missile silos in Montana: 4,700 km, 23 minutes;  

    Minuteman III missile silos in Minot,

    North Dakota: 4,900 km, 24 minutes.

    * * * 

    Russian Defense Ministry, handout via Reuters

    Last Friday, Russian state media sources have begun publishing specs for the Oreshnik missile, claiming it flies at Mach 10+, and can reach 5,500km in distance, or 3,400+ miles (as a medium-range weapon).

    A retired Russian Army colonel and military analyst, identified as Viktor Litovkin, has described, “The West does not have missiles that fly at such a speed or hypersonic missiles at all.” He claimed further, “Although the US has repeatedly boasted that it has such missiles, it has never demonstrated a missile flight. They appeared to show missiles that flew at a supersonic speed of 5.5 times the speed of sound or Mach 5.5. However, hypersonic speed begins at Mach 6-7.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 19:40

  • The Libs Are Not Alright
    The Libs Are Not Alright

    Authored by Dante Moretti via American Mind.org,

    Political fearmongering has real psychological consequences…

    In the wake of Donald Trump’s crushing victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, social media has been flooded with videos of apartment- or vehicle-bound neurotics screaming, banging pots and pans in sheer disbelief, packing their belongings, or generally convulsing as if Kristallnacht were upon us. The American public has been introduced to the 4B movement, in which liberal women appropriate a South Korean sex strike because justice.

    To be sure, social media is at best a caricature of real life. Only the most dramatic individuals will shave their heads for “reproductive rights” (read: for likes), but most people do not express themselves in quite such a hyperbolic register. That said, in this case the memes are imitating real life. Not every ex-Kamala voter is experiencing a full-scale breakdown. But judging based on my own clinical observations as a practicing therapist, I think it may well be true that a significant number of young American leftists are going through a collective mental health crisis.

    I speak from some experience, having spent multiple hours per day over the past few weeks hearing from clients about the damage inflicted upon their psyches “by the Trump win.” This is their account of things. My own opinion, however, is that someone has subjected these kids to psychic trauma. But it wasn’t Donald Trump.

    First Things

    I usually begin each appointment by reminding clients of our previous appointment, whereupon the client usually picks up where he or she left off, telling me about personal struggles, generational dynamics, or relationship problems. But since Trump’s victory, a startling number of clients have simply pivoted to another subject entirely. Usually I hear some variation of “I just can’t. I just can’t,” before I am told, with some incredulity that it needs saying, that it is impossible to focus on anything other than THE ELECTION.

    When, after listening to a client’s political fears, I gently suggest that we should now get back to discussing his husband’s death, cocaine use, crushing panic while driving, infidelity, or what have you, I am waved off as if we needed a full clinical hour to talk about Trump, WW3, reproductive rights, or a future daughter’s reproductive rights. Maybe the most jarring comment I heard was from a client who expressed relief that a close relative had already died and thus escaped “this sh*t that’s about to go down.” 

    One truism I’ve observed in my practice is: “you love what you pay attention to.” I am not saying that my clients spend $180 to talk about the election because they don’t care about their addiction, spouses, etc. But I am saying that they are choosing to prioritize, and therefore nourish, their hatred for Trump. This of course increases their distress, which increases their hatred. This is not a vicious cycle they all just stumbled into by unfortunate happenstance. They were taught incessantly—by friends, by online forums, by figures they trust in the media—that Trump trumps all.

    Spiraling Out

    Practitioners of what’s called positive psychology will often talk in terms of clients’ tendency to fixate on either an external or an internal locus of control. Different individuals will either instinctually take responsibility for problems that arise, or defer responsibility to another person, system, or institution. A teenage boy who gets caught with weed, if his natural locus of control is internal, will admit fault and responsibility even if everyone else on the soccer team tried it at the party. A boy whose natural inclination is external will cite peer pressure, or insist that his friends’ parents said it was fine. Although one type of locus isn’t necessarily better than the other, the external locus of control does tend to foster victimhood. Often it needs to be counterbalanced by inward focus in order to facilitate agency and improvement. Taking radical responsibility for one’s issues is a key engine of change.

    I have been working with some of my clients for quite some time now, and many have gradually learned to shift their locus of control inward. This has aided them in their mental health pursuits. But one common trait I have noticed amongst my Trump-focused clients is that, when the Orange Man comes up, they dart instantly back to an external locus of control. After the election, many of them have taken notable steps backward in our work together. One client even reverted to a cocaine habit after three months of sobriety because “What’s the point now?”

    Another client who struggles with depression reported just sitting in bed to “rot” for two days straight. Others have threatened to cut off their parents because they don’t know how they can possibly have another conversation with family members who voted for Trump. These clients are spiraling back out to an external locus of control.

    The tragic element in all these cases is that these fragile individuals have been violently interrupted in their healing progress by a completely imaginary evil, projected in Hitler-moustachioed IMAX across the pages of The New Republic, blared from the anchor’s desk on CNN, and generally beaten into the heads of everyone in their immediate circle of trust. And though I personally make a principle of never sharing my political beliefs, some therapists actually encourage their clients’ persecution complexes by adopting an overtly ideological approach, attributing trauma to “systems” of racism, sexism, or homophobia. The effects of this are as you would expect. It is the opposite of helpful.

    The Stanford- and Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr. Paul Conti has qualified what exactly, good mental health means. According to Dr. Conti, someone who exemplifies good mental health, and therefore someone who can be considered “well-adjusted,” cultivates an attitude of gratitude and a feeling of personal autonomy. Keeping this definition in mind, one does not need to be a trained psychotherapist to understand how mental health has deteriorated so grievously in the past 20 or so years, especially among those who lean Left.

    When parents, teachers, university professors, and statesmen espouse a rhetoric of ingratitude and dependence, it is no wonder why much of the public suffer from anxiety, depression, and compulsion. Of course, we will laugh at the libs of TikTok shaving their heads and screaming in their cars. But we have to realize this is not the worst of it. If anything, those who engage in such spectacles may have more promise, given that they are more than likely to be opportunistic actors who abandon their political ideas as lightly as they take them up. But we should not laugh at those who break their sobriety, or plunge into isolation because of the Trump victory. They are truly sick, and ideological bad actors have preyed off their desperation for personal clout, terrorizing them with confected fears and then discarding them to suffer the psychological consequences.

    There’s a mental health crisis in this country—on this we can all agree. But the peddlers of Trump Derangement Syndrome don’t seem to care that their cynical, apocalyptic politics bear no small part of the blame.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 19:15

  • Why Trump's Tariffs Underwhelmed The Market, And Why Was Vietnam Excluded
    Why Trump’s Tariffs Underwhelmed The Market, And Why Was Vietnam Excluded

    As we reported last night, president-elect Trump announced he intends to levy a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on imports from China. Tariffs on Mexico and Canada would remain in place until the flow of “drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop,” while tariffs on China would remain in place “until such time as [the drugs that are pouring into our country] stop”.  He also stated that on January 20th he would “sign all necessary documents” to implement the tariffs on Mexico and Canada as one of his “many first Executive Orders”.

    To be sure, Trump has proposed most of this before, in different forms:

    • in May 2019, he announced a tariff that would rise to 25% on imports from Mexico, effective 10 days later, if Mexico did not address immigration, but the tariff was never imposed.
    • On Nov. 4, 2024, he also pledged to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico, again related to immigration.
    • On Canada, he has announced the intent to renegotiate USMCA but has not formally threatened tariffs, so the announcement is somewhat more surprising.
    • On China, the tariffs are notably lower than the 60% he proposed during the campaign but, if imposed, might not be the only tariff on imports from China.

    Overall, the announcement is more reminiscent of the first Trump administration, when such tariffs were announced as a negotiating tactic, rather than the more systematic tariff policies (e.g., the 10-20% “universal baseline tariff”) Trump frequently discussed during the campaign.

    Some more details: 43% of US goods imports come from Mexico (15.4%), Canada (13.6%), and China (13.9%).

    At the proposed tariff rates, this would generate slightly less than $300bn (or 1.0% of GDP) in tariff revenue annually, without accounting for dynamic effects, such as changes to import volumes and prices or taxable incomes, and boost the US effective tariff rate by 8.6% (Goldman’s rule of thumb is that every 1% increase in the effective tariff rate would raise core PCE prices by 0.1%), while the proposed tariff increases would also boost core PCE prices by 0.9% if implemented.

    In its commentary on the tariff announcement, Goldman political analyst Alex Phillips writes that while he had assumed tariffs on imports from China will rise early next year, it is more likely Mexico and Canada will avoid across-the-board tariffs. Phillips also notes that if implemented, these are about three times as large as the China and auto tariffs the bank assumes in its baseline economic forecasts but slightly smaller than a 10% universal tariff.

    In a separate note from Goldman Delta One trader Rich Privorotsky (available here for pro subs), he writes that the bigger surprise in the Trump proposal is Canada. To this point, Goldman tried to calibrate the FX impact of tariffs by assessing the importance of US trade for different economies and the complexity of the products they produce: here the Loonie stands out too.

    Privo also found it curious that China’s HSI was actually up for most the session having now eventually back some its gains (now unch) and believes that “if tariffs on China went up only another 10% I think relative to expectations that have been built up this might be taken as a modest positive.”

    Privorotsky also suggests that Trump’s announcement is another part of the wall of worry for Europe. Tariffs are known risk  (unknown in magnitude) and “it’s the waiting that is really the problem.” So while it make sense for European stocks to be down in sympathy on the news (especially after some hopefulness that recent cabinet picks might mean a less hawkish approach), he would argue that a 25% tariff on Canada (biggest source of trade is the import of energy) is likely more of a negotiating tactic rather than a likely outcome.

    Bottom line: while the CAD will lurch lower on this, it will likely find support.

    Turning to China, Goldman’s EM strategist Sun Lu focuses on the silver lining, i.e., “it’s priced in”, and lays out the following analysis (excerpted from her full note available to pro subs). 

    Dovish views:

    • if Trump starts with China on 10% tariff in order to push China stop fentanyl into US, this is one of the easy areas to agree with China during previous trade talks and bilateral meetings. In August, China already agreed with Biden administration to impose controls on production of critical chemicals for the manufacturing of fentanyl.
    • Trump clearly wants to use these tariffs as leverage, to push Canada, Mexico and China to impose tougher restrictions on the above matters, thus there is a clear path of tariff suspension if such conditions are met.  

    FX response:

    • CNY fixing still sticky, onshore spot above 7.25. MXN and CAD response more. Post headline, USDCNY midpoint fixing came in 7.1910, 8pips below last reflecting weaker DXY yesterday. Fixing bias is 484pips on the stronger side, similar magnitude compared to recent week. This fixing follows similar sticky pattern as seen in recent weeks, with clear bias to defend 7.2 in fixing this year.
    • Goldman continues to expect PBOC may defend 7.2 fixing and limit CNH selloff to 7.30 area this year, before actual tariff announcement and prepare for negotiations. USDCNH TN may go higher again after the recent dip. CNH pressure trades including points higher and long USDCNH-USDCNY basis may benefit again.
    • Meanwhile, onshore USDCNY spot went above 7.25 for the first time in recent month. With today’s fixing, onshore spot can theoretically go up to 7.3348 still, per 2% daily trading band.
    • In comparison, MXN and CAD has reacted more, selling off ~1% vs 20bp for CNH. In Asia, the other currencies with strong intervention willingness at current level (KRW, IDR) are likely to continue outperform.

    What trades does Lu like? Continue to like owning 1y USDCNH, USDTWD and USDSGD topside, funded by selling short-dated downside. The Goldman strategist prefers to be long USD ahead of actual tariff announcements rather than just headlines.

    Finally, we go to Goldman EM vol trader trader Sanjiv Nanwani who writes that “the market remains in a holding pattern despite early AM tariff headlines – but as far as China is concerned, the tariffs seem to underwhelm what is already expected, and in any case, the authorities are clearly unwilling to let FX move as evidenced by the ~unchanged USDCNY fix today.”

    The vol market seems to suggest the same – don’t expect spot to do a whole lot before the inauguration. Nanwani found  that a little surprising, “as we now have confirmation that Trump is already contemplating tariff policy and is prepared to announce them ahead of his formal inauguration, which the market will surely have to re-price in response to.”

    Nanwani likes owning some cheap 1mth USD calls here, notwithstanding the poor realized performance (suppressed by the fix) over the past 1-2 weeks. Further out, the market remains very keen on holding onto term premium, keeping calendars uber steep but creating a very high bar for the delivery of realized performance – there is a real risk that the premium decay on some option structures will more than offset expected gains from delta. He therefore likes vol-selling strategies in 3mth+ expiries, particularly via USD bull seagulls, to benefit from both the inverted forward curve and steep vol curve. ATM run: 1m 4.6 3m 6.1 6m 6.6 1y 6.9.

    It’s not just Goldman however: in a note to clients (available to pro subs), SouthBay Research this morning reminds us that while attention is focused on China, it really should be on Vietnam; here’s why:

    • In 2012, Vietnam exported $19B in goods to the United States.  A lot of raw materials and foodstuffs, and a lot of assembled electronic parts. By 2017, 5 years later, the value was $49B. This year, it is likely to reach $133B.
    • Not coincidentally, Chinese exports to the US have dwindled over the same period.  And by almost the same amount.
    • Vietnam isn’t the only way Chinese production enters the US and bypasses trade and tariffs on Chinese goods.  Mexico has become a major off ramp as well.

    Here is the timeline to consider:

    • 2017 – Trump initiates a trade war
    • 2018/2019 – China leverages Vietnam to begin bypassing restrictions.  Chinese direct exports fall, Vietnam’s exports surge
    • 2020-22 – Trend reverses as China exports recover (Trump exit, COVID drives consumer demand).  Port congestion elevates Mexico as an alternative route into the US
    • 2023-24 – China direct exports continue to fall and indirect exports continue to rise

    Next, and especially for all the inflation alarmists, it is worth noting that there was minimal inflationary impact in the last trade war:

    • Trump initiated tariffs on China in 2018 and the downstream impact on consumer prices was minimal at best.  A key reason is that China is so dependent on US market access that they absorbed the higher costs and kept prices relatively flat.
    • Fast forward to today and China is even more economically weak today and even more dependent on keeping factories running, which is why they may absorb another round of tariff-induced hits.  It is likely that Chinese government support will increase in order to prioritize capacity utilization & employment over profits.

    In this context, the real question – according to Southbay – is why doesn’t Trump also Tariff Vietnam?

    Consider this: in 2023, registered Chinese investment in Vietnam was $8.3B. Thanks to offshoring production by Chinese manufacturers, Vietnam has become a player in the global supply chain.  

    This is a response to Trump initiated tariffs whereby OEMs like Apple want to de-risk their exposure to China. Despite proclamations of de-risking and ‘internationalizing the supply chain’, these moves don’t really change the reality that products and components are still sourced from Chinese producers.

    Given that it’s obviously a shell-game, why isn’t Trump lumping Vietnam into the anti-China trade tariffs?  Here, geopolitics is the most likely reason.

    There is a containment policy in place.  While it’s nice to talk about democracy, the major reason for US support of Taiwan is power projection: Taiwan sits at the underbelly of China. With South Korea and Japan to the East, and Taiwan and the Philippines to the South, the US and allies have China surrounded. In case war breaks out with China, a naval blockade would be very effective and complete.

    Or almost complete, as Vietnam would seal the deal. Turning Vietnam into a friendly ally would plug a big hole in the shipping routes out of Hong Kong. Ships would have to thread a path between Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan.

    In other words, it’s not just negotiation, but more like foreplay… and at the moment there is a courtship underway.  China is throwing billions of dollars at Vietnam. The US not so much.  But Vietnam is wary of China and might want an American military presence.

    Trump belligerence towards Vietnam would not create necessary goodwill. Which also means that as long as Trump plays softball with Vietnam, China will continue to bypass most if not all of the tariff threat.

    More in the full note from Southbay available to pro subs.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 18:50

  • A Whimper, Not A Bang: Where Was Antifa After Trump's Victory?
    A Whimper, Not A Bang: Where Was Antifa After Trump’s Victory?

    Authored by David Reaboi via Late Republic Nonsense,

    Perhaps the only disappointment for those of us elated with the outcome of this month’s presidential election was the muted, downcast response from the Left at Donald Trump’s massive victory.

    We’d expected angry riots from purple-haired Antifa goons; emotive demonstrations of impotent and self-righteous defiance by Handmaid’s Tale cosplayers; and, maybe best of all, delicious cable news highlight reels reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s surprise defeat in 2016. The quiet sobbing we got instead came as somewhat of a surprise. 

    For the Left, it all seemed to end, as it did at Kamala Harris’s victory party at Howard University, with a whimper. There was no defiant or fiery speech that night; in fact, the candidate wasn’t seen at all, unwilling to face even the dedicated supporters who had worked hardest for her candidacy. Over the next few days, while there was some hissing and a few entertaining misfiring synapses at MSNBC and CNN — including some angry denunciations of elements of the Democrat coalition — the emotion seemed forced and perfunctory. 

    For many, though, the downbeat response to Trump’s victory seemed out of place, given the feverish severity of how Democrats had articulated the stakes of this election. In her final month, Harris’s campaign dispensed with messaging on any issues, leaning hard into explicit comparisons of Trump with Adolf Hitler, and of MAGA politics with fascism and Nazism, evoking the specter of American death camps in the event of the ex-president’s victory.

    Using a strategically-timed news-hook from former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, Harris stared gravely into the camera outside her residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory, warning that her opponent was no longer simply a “threat to democracy” but, as a Hitlerian-Nazi-Fascist, was openly dedicated to its destruction. The setting, too, was significant: rather than simply reaching down into the rhetorical gutter at a campaign stop, she was using the trappings of her role as vice president to make an official pronouncement on a rival domestic political leader, using language usually reserved for foreign enemies with whom we are at war. The bloody result of a Trump victory, Harris and her media surrogates assured us, was certain.

    While some in the press had never been shy of slandering Donald Trump as a “fascist,” the message coming from the candidate herself marked a serious escalation.

    After all, when faced with an enemy that would extinguish all freedom in America and usher in a holocaust, procedural resistance in courtrooms or acts of civil disobedience are plainly inadequate. With the evil of a Hitler, there is no negotiation, comity, civility, or ordinary politics; only violent resistance is commensurate with the threat.

    Some on the Left received the message clearly, as intended. Even before Harris herself began referring to him as a “fascist,” Trump had already been the attempted victim of two failed assassinations. Immediately following the first shooter’s very near miss, the New Republic all but endorsed this violent, final solution to the Trumpian problem, revealing a menacing, monochrome drawing of the former president on its cover complete with Hitler mustache. And below the image — subtle, in the color of dried blood — was the headline, “American Fascism: What It Would Look Like” in faux-Germanic typeface. Scandalously, law enforcement disappeared any information about the would-be assassins’ motives, saving the Democrats having to address the fact that their manifestos dovetailed too closely with the party’s messaging.

    All this gathered momentum and intensity in the press until, on the evening of November 5, “our sacred democracy” simply ended. Donald Trump won the electoral college and the popular vote by wide margins, and his party was in control of every branch of the Federal government. The people had spoken with a clear and resounding voice. If you’d been following the speeches of Vice President Harris, you’d assume that what they wanted was Nazi Germany.

    When the defeated Democrat finally emerged in public early the next evening, however, her tone had shifted. “Earlier today,” she told the crowd, “I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition…” Would she congratulate Hitler for his victory? Would she help Hitler’s team during their transition? 

    The Democrats had gone to the very edge of American discourse — beyond which is the disintegration of normal political life — and then, when they’d been repudiated by the voters, meekly pulled back. By stubbornly denying us our riots and hoped-for schadenfreude, the Left had us confused. We on the Right weren’t the only ones expecting immediate rage from Antifa and aligned groups in the event of a Republican victory; after all, half of downtown Washington, D.C., was boarded up in anticipation of election night. Why did nothing happen?

    The surface explanation, of course, is that the Democrats didn’t really believe any of it; all that rhetorical venom was merely cynical election year politics at the final crunch of a close election. That theory certainly has some merit, based on the warm, smiling welcome with which Joe Biden received the victorious former president at the White House. And, while corrosive to social cohesion, the gambit made strategic sense: as Trump was gaining momentum in the final weeks, Democrats began to grow despondent. Harris’s campaign needed to raise the temperature to make sure her most committed voters got to the polls. 

    Even if the leadership of the Democratic Party and its surrogates in the media were simply generating outrage, millions of Americans in their audiences now believe, with conviction, that the long night of fascism has finally descended on America. The rhetoric naturally calls to mind Antifa, the bands of militant “Antifascists” who inflicted so much disorder on the country during the first Trump administration. For many on the Right, the trauma of the Black Lives Matter riots on the heels of Covid in 2020 — followed by Trump being turned out of the White House the next January — has made us understandably jumpy about black-blocs and cities ablaze in destructive, ideological rage.

    Harris’s scurrilous rhetoric about Trump’s alleged fondness for Hitler, however, wasn’t aimed at bringing Antifa’s violent shock troops into the streets, but at radicalizing the far larger cohort of mainstream Democrats. (After all, Antifa believes both Biden and Harris qualify as “fascists” and, for good measure, “war criminals.”) But Antifa has always been more strategic than it is reactive, and it’s far more concerned with revolutionary politics than with the electoral variety.

    For many of the senior Antifa thinkers and organizers, the model of 1968 continues to resonate: even as the protests against the Vietnam War had been gaining strength for a half-decade, it wasn’t until the election of Richard Nixon that the Left’s mass-movement exploded. Presented with the foil of a “law-and-order” Republican hate-object, the intensity of the anti-war protest movement ballooned, leading to the radicalization of militant groups like the Weather Underground into outright terrorism.

    This was only achievable with the assistance of the media; unencumbered by the balancing act of having to defend a Democrat president, print and television journalists created a roar of grassroots anger that provided far-Left radicals with new recruits, funding, and energy. The parallels to Trump’s return to the White House are significant, and the opportunity for a replay of this dynamic has certainly not escaped Antifa’s strategic thinkers.

    It’s a common misconception that Left-wing violent protest is a spasm of powerlessness. While a David and Goliath narrative is useful in many overseas conflicts, in the United States, violent protest is most useful when it can be used as an expression of majority frustration against an easily identifiable (and beatable) tyrannical minority. Regardless of income bracket, Americans like to think of themselves as middle-class, have a bourgeois investment in the continuance of society, and resent violent revolutionaries and anarchists. 

    Unlike in Europe, significant Left-wing violent riots in America don’t appear spontaneously in response to lost elections; they exist in the context of more sweeping political mobilizations that can plausibly be described by allied media as “largely peaceful.” As with Nixon and the anti-war movement, the media is the essential element in creating conditions for justifying the cause of unrest and ignoring or contextualizing violent excesses.

    In this way, Antifa is useful as a fearsome tip of the spear, then melting away into a grander social justice narrative that is, on its surface, familiar and sympathetic rather than threatening. As such, all successful modern Left-wing movements in this country are framed in the language of civil rights. The successes of the Left’s modern race-oriented protest movements — Trayvon Martin (2012), Michael Brown (2014), and George Floyd (2020) — illustrate that the Left learned valuable lessons about the kind of topical triggers that work, and those that fail. The coming mass mobilization in response to Trump’s promises on immigration and deportation will be an obvious inciting event, and law enforcement needs to be prepared, especially in blue states.

    In short, we didn’t see post-election violence or mass protests because the scale of Trump’s victory meant that such rioting would appear — at least temporarily — as the angry self-indulgence of a minority that had been legitimately beaten at the ballot box. But the riots will come soon enough, and Antifa will menace the streets once again. While it wouldn’t have served to activate them during or after the 2024 campaign, the Democrats’ rhetoric about fascism and Nazism is a boon to Antifa, which looks forward to being presented again (as it was memorably in 2020, storming the beach at Normandy) as “freedom fighters” in the media’s next just cause.

    Subscribe to Late Republic Nonsense here

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 18:25

  • Transfer Of Nukes To Ukraine Would Be Tantamount To Attack On Russia: Medvedev
    Transfer Of Nukes To Ukraine Would Be Tantamount To Attack On Russia: Medvedev

    Days ago, The NY Times revealed that US and European officials have discussed a range of options they believe will deter Russia from taking more Ukrainian territory, including the possibility of providing Kiev with nuclear weapons. “US and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire,” the report said.

    The article then stated, “Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

    Former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Counsel Dmitry Medvedev has responded by pointing out that if the West actually went forward with transferring nukes to Ukraine, this would be seen as tantamount to an attack on Russia. He explained that this is a key aspect of Russia’s newly expanded nuclear doctrine.

    Image source: Presidency of Russia

    In a Telegram post on Tuesday, Medvedev specifically referenced the recent NY Times report, and said: “Looks like my sad joke about crazy senile Biden, who’s eager to go out with a bang and take a substantial part of humanity with him, is becoming dangerously real.”

    Medvedev then stressed that “giving nukes to a country that’s at war with the greatest nuclear power” is so absurd that Biden and any of his officials considering it must have “massive paranoid psychosis.”

    His biggest and most specific threat came as follows: 

    “The fact of transferring such weapons may be considered as the launch of an attack against our country in accordance with Paragraph 19 of the ‘Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence’,” Medvedev wrote.

    President Putin had formally approved a lowering of the threshold for nuclear weapons use on November 19. The change has been widely seen as in response to Ukraine being authorized by the Western allies to use US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems, and British-made Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles on Russian territory.

    The aforementioned NY Times report did note that President Putin doesn’t appear ready to actually significantly escalate the war, giving a chance for the Trump administration to take office.

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    “But the escalation risk of allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with US-supplied weaponry has diminished with the election of Mr. Trump,” the report said, and added: “Biden administration officials believe, calculating that Putin of Russia knows he has to wait only two months for the new administration.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 18:00

  • If Politics Were Business, Regulators Would Bust It
    If Politics Were Business, Regulators Would Bust It

    Authored by Lura Forcum via RealClearPolitics,

    In the marketplace, competition empowers consumers. The more options you have for a particular product, the lower prices become. Moreover, having more options means you are more likely to find exactly what you want instead of just settling for something good enough.  

    In politics, competition empowers voters. However, unlike the marketplace, where consumers are accustomed to a variety of options, politics offers only two. Worse still, the two options available are so feckless that a plurality of voters choose neither. 

    When there’s little competition, power ends up in the hands of companies, not consumers. And that’s what we see with the Republican and Democratic parties. The lack of competition allows both parties to continue to be unresponsive to voters’ concerns. 

    According to recurring surveys by Gallup, beginning around 2010, independents have been the electorate’s plurality, with few exceptions. And since Obama’s reelection in 2012, independents have been the plurality without exception.  

    Put differently, voters have reported feeling disempowered for more than a decade. 

    It’s no wonder why. The parties set it up so they don’t have outside competition. A number of rules make it difficult – or impossible – for non-party voices to be heard. For instance, in 10 states, you can’t vote in a party’s primary unless you’re a registered party member. Another nine states allow unaffiliated voters but not opposing party members to vote in party primaries. Only 15 states allow for open party primaries where any voter can participate.  

    If you’re running for office as an independent, you don’t have access to the resources that a major party offers its candidates for statewide or national office. It’s hard enough to win political office even with the support of the duopoly; independents are forced to do the impossible.  

    While the election results suggest that voters found the Trump campaign more responsive to their concerns this time, that doesn’t mean Republicans will become better listeners going forward. And why should they? Without competition, there is no incentive for either party to take voters’ concerns seriously for longer than an election cycle. 

    With the Republican party the party of Trump now, attention has focused on his public and private lives, his various legal cases, and his influence over the Republican Party writ large. These distractions have taken attention away from good policy and effective governance. And while you might expect when one party takes its eye off the ball, it would allow the other party to flourish, but that hasn’t been the case.  

    Democrats are flailing because the shift in the Republican party led them to believe that it was enough to just not be Republicans. Since the rise of Donald Trump, their offering to voters has increasingly been, “At least we’re not those guys.” On a variety of issues, from the environment to health care to national defense, one party’s position is, “We should do this,” and the other’s is, “No, we shouldn’t,” and the result is a gridlocked Congress. 

    The Independent Center does the exact opposite. We are bringing competition back to politics by identifying, activating, and empowering independent voters. 

    These voters insist on effective government. They are the swing voters who went for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and Trump again in 2024 because they value results over political allegiances. They expect the government to be fiscally responsible, but they don’t like the more extreme positions on social policies favored by Republicans. In short, they want government to live within its means, as they do, and respect the decisions of consenting adults.  

    The Independent Center believes that the best way to make government more responsive to voters is to bring more people into the political process, especially the people who don’t identify as Republicans or Democrats. By creating a movement of independent voters, we will have more voices about what people want and need, more ideas about effective policy responses, and more feedback about what the best policy solutions are.  

    By competing with Democrats and Republicans for voters, independents will push those parties to understand voters’ values and preferences better, develop better policy proposals, and actually pass legislation instead of devoting their energies to name-calling and obstructing the other side. 

    Lura Forcum is the incoming president of the Independent Center. A former professor and researcher, she conveys complex ideas and policy insights to engage independent voters who now comprise the plurality of the electorate.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 17:40

  • The COVID Cover-Up: 19 Questions We Must Answer
    The COVID Cover-Up: 19 Questions We Must Answer

    Authored by Justin Hart via ‘Rational ground’ substack,

    So here’s the deal – remember when “experts” kept telling us what to do during COVID?

    Turns out they got pretty much everything wrong. Like, spectacularly wrong.

    We’re talking 19 major things they completely screwed up, from how the virus spreads to whether masks actually work (spoiler alert: those cloth masks were basically fashion accessories).

    Dr. Fauci is the patron saint of TERRIBLE COVID policies.

    He was wrong on SO MANY POINTS. It’s time to set the record straight…

    Did he get anything right?

    1. Origin of the disease—wrong

    2. Transmission—wrong

    3. Asymptomatic spread—wrong

    4. PCR testing—wrong

    5. Fatality rate—wrong

    6. Lockdowns—wrong

    7. Community triggers—wrong

    8. Business closures—wrong

    9. School closures—wrong

    10. Quarantining the healthy—wrong

    11. Impact on youth—wrong

    12. Hospital overload—wrong

    13. Plexiglass barriers—wrong

    14. Social distancing—wrong

    15. Outdoor spread—wrong

    16. Masks—wrong

    17. Variant impact—wrong

    18. Natural immunity—wrong

    19. Vaccine efficacy—wrong

    20. Vaccine injury—wrong

    Last year the Norfolk Group just dropped a bomb of a document laying out all these failures. And it’s not just Monday morning quarterbacking – they’ve got the receipts. Real studies showing how natural immunity was actually legit (while Fauci pretended it didn’t exist), data proving schools could’ve stayed open (looking at you, Sweden), and evidence that maybe, just maybe, locking healthy people in their homes wasn’t the brilliant strategy they claimed.

    Listen, I’m not here to say “I told you so” (okay, maybe a little), but we need to talk about this. Because if we don’t learn from how badly our “experts” messed up, we’re just asking for a repeat performance next time around. And honestly? I don’t think any of us can handle another round of plexiglass theater and double masking.

    Let’s break down exactly how they got it wrong, and more importantly, why they kept doubling down even when the evidence said otherwise. Buckle up – this is gonna be a wild ride through the greatest public health face-plant in modern history.

    These are the questions WE want answered!

    TRANSMISSION

    1. Why did officials insist on surface transmission protocols when evidence showed primarily respiratory spread?

    2. Why weren’t hospitals evaluating transmission patterns early to inform policy?

    3. Why did the CDC not conduct studies on actual transmission patterns in schools and workplaces?

    4. Why was outdoor transmission overemphasized despite minimal evidence?

    5. Why weren’t transmission studies prioritized to guide evidence-based policies?

    ASYMPTOMATIC SPREAD

    1. What evidence supported the claim that asymptomatic spread was a major driver?

    2. Why did health officials emphasize asymptomatic spread without solid data?

    3. Why were resources wasted testing asymptomatic people when they could have focused on symptomatic cases?

    4. How did the emphasis on asymptomatic spread affect public trust when evidence didn’t support it?

    5. What data actually existed on true asymptomatic (vs presymptomatic) transmission rates?

    PCR TESTING

    1. Why did the CDC insist on developing its own test rather than using WHO’s?

    2. Why weren’t cycle threshold values standardized or reported?

    3. Why did labs use cycle thresholds up to 40 when this led to false positives?

    4. Why wasn’t PCR testing prioritized for high-risk populations early on?

    5. How did high cycle thresholds affect case counts and policy decisions?

    FATALITY RATE

    1. Why were infection fatality rates not properly stratified by age from the beginning?

    2. Why were deaths “with COVID” vs “from COVID” not distinguished?

    3. How did inflated fatality rates affect public perception and policy?

    4. Why weren’t accurate age-stratified fatality rates clearly communicated?

    5. How did misrepresenting fatality rates affect public trust?

    LOCKDOWNS

    1. Why were lockdowns implemented without cost-benefit analysis?

    2. Why were lockdown harms (mental health, delayed medical care, etc.) ignored?

    3. What evidence supported the effectiveness of lockdowns?

    4. Why weren’t less restrictive focused protection measures tried first?

    5. How many excess deaths were caused by lockdown policies?

    6. Why weren’t regional/seasonal factors considered in lockdown decisions?

    COMMUNITY TRIGGERS

    1. Why were arbitrary case numbers used to trigger restrictions?

    2. Why weren’t hospital capacity metrics prioritized over case counts?

    3. How were community trigger thresholds determined?

    4. Why weren’t triggers adjusted based on actual risk levels?

    5. Why weren’t clear exit criteria established for restrictions?

    BUSINESS CLOSURES

    1. What evidence supported closing small businesses while keeping large retailers open?

    2. Why weren’t occupancy limits tried before full closures?

    3. How many businesses were unnecessarily destroyed?

    4. Why weren’t economic impacts weighed against minimal health benefits?

    5. What data supported effectiveness of business closures?

    SCHOOL CLOSURES

    1. Why were schools closed despite early evidence of low risk to children?

    2. Why did the US ignore data from European schools that stayed open?

    3. Why weren’t the developmental/educational harms to children considered?

    4. How did school closures affect mental health and suicide rates in youth?

    5. Why weren’t teachers unions’ influence on closure decisions examined?

    6. What evidence supported claims that schools were major transmission vectors?

    QUARANTINING THE HEALTHY

    1. Why was mass quarantine implemented without precedent or evidence?

    2. Why weren’t focused protection measures tried instead?

    3. What was the cost-benefit analysis of quarantining low-risk groups?

    4. How did mass quarantine affect mental health?

    5. Why weren’t vulnerable populations prioritized instead?

    IMPACT ON YOUTH

    1. Why weren’t developmental impacts on children considered?

    2. How did isolation affect mental health and suicide rates?

    3. What were the educational losses from remote learning?

    4. Why weren’t sports/activities preserved for youth wellbeing?

    5. How did masks/distancing affect social development?

    6. What were the impacts on college students’ mental health and development?

    HOSPITAL OVERLOAD

    1. Why weren’t early treatment protocols developed to prevent hospitalizations?

    2. Why were field hospitals built but never used?

    3. How did “flattening the curve” messaging affect hospital preparations?

    4. Why weren’t at-risk populations protected to prevent hospitalizations?

    5. What was the actual vs projected hospital capacity usage?

    PLEXIGLASS BARRIERS

    1. What evidence supported effectiveness of barriers?

    2. Why weren’t airflow patterns considered?

    3. How did barriers affect ventilation?

    4. What was the cost-benefit of barrier installation?

    5. Why weren’t barrier recommendations updated when shown ineffective?

    SOCIAL DISTANCING

    1. What evidence supported 6-foot distancing?

    2. Why wasn’t distancing adjusted based on ventilation/masks/context?

    3. How did arbitrary distance rules affect businesses/schools?

    4. Why wasn’t 3-foot distancing considered adequate earlier?

    5. What research supported outdoor distancing requirements?

    OUTDOOR SPREAD

    1. Why were outdoor gatherings restricted despite minimal transmission risk?

    2. Why were beaches/parks closed?

    3. Why weren’t outdoor activities encouraged as safer alternatives?

    4. How did outdoor restrictions affect mental/physical health?

    5. What evidence supported masks outdoors?

    MASKS

    1. Why were mask mandates implemented without RCT evidence?

    2. Why weren’t potential harms of masking children considered?

    3. Why were cloth masks promoted despite ineffectiveness?

    4. How did masks affect learning/development in children?

    5. Why weren’t mask policies updated when studies showed limited benefit?

    6. Why was natural immunity discounted in mask policies?

    VARIANT IMPACT

    1. Why were variants used to justify continued restrictions?

    2. How did variant fears affect vaccine confidence?

    3. Why weren’t policies adjusted for milder variants?

    4. How did variant messaging affect public trust?

    5. Why weren’t seasonal patterns considered in variant projections?

    NATURAL IMMUNITY

    1. Why was natural immunity ignored in policy decisions?

    2. Why were recovered people required to vaccinate?

    3. Why wasn’t natural immunity studied more thoroughly?

    4. How did dismissing natural immunity affect public trust?

    5. Why were natural immunity studies from other countries ignored?

    VACCINE EFFICACY

    1. Why were initial efficacy claims not properly qualified?

    2. Why wasn’t waning efficacy communicated earlier?

    3. How did overselling efficacy affect public trust?

    4. Why weren’t breakthrough cases tracked properly?

    5. Why were boosters promoted without clear evidence of benefit?

    VACCINE INJURY

    1. Why weren’t adverse events properly tracked/investigated?

    2. Why were vaccine injuries downplayed or dismissed?

    3. How did VAERS data interpretation affect public trust?

    4. Why weren’t age-stratified risk-benefit analyses conducted?

    5. Why weren’t early warning signals investigated more thoroughly?

    6. How did dismissing injuries affect vaccine confidence?

    We have a LOT of work to do and THANKFULLY we may have people in charge who are willing to ask these questions!

    *  *  *

    Rational Ground by Justin Hart is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 17:00

  • NYT & Bloomberg Bury Rutgers Study Showing DEI Makes People Hostile
    NYT & Bloomberg Bury Rutgers Study Showing DEI Makes People Hostile

    Corporate media outlets have buried, downplayed, or otherwise shelved a new study which reveals that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies cause people to become ‘hostile’ – essentially seeing racism where none exists.

    The new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University found that people exposed to DEI talking points about race, religion and gender form integroup hostility and authoritarian attitudes towards others.

    “What we did was we took a lot of these ideas that were found to still be very prominent in a lot of these DEI lectures and interventions and training,” said NCRI Chief Science Officer Joel Finkelstein, a co-author of the study. “And we said, ‘Well, how is this going to affect people?’ What we found is that when people are exposed to this ideology, what happens is they become hostile without any indication that anything racist has happened.“

    Researchers exposed 324 participants to two sets of reading material; a racially-neutral text about corn, or the writings of race-baiters Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo. The participants were then exposed to a racially neutral scenario in which a student was rejected from college.

    Those who were exposed to the writings of Kendi and DiAngelo injected racism into the scenario.

    It gets worse… as X user Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) notes, those exposed to DEI wanged to punish the “offenders.”

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

    SHUT IT DOWN!

    As Colin Wright of Reality’s Last Stand notes (h/t Mike Shedlock), the New York Times and Bloomberg “abruptly shelved coverage” of the study.

    The implications of these findings cannot be downplayed. DEI programs have become a fixture in workplaces, schools, and universities across the United States, with a 2023 Pew Research Center report indicating that more than half of U.S. workers have attended some form of DEI training. Institutions collectively spend approximately $8 billion annually on these initiatives, yet the NCRI study underscores how little scrutiny they receive. While proponents of DEI argue that these programs are essential to achieving equity and dismantling systemic oppression, the NCRI’s data suggests that such efforts may actually be deepening divisions and cultivating hostility.

    This context makes the suppression of the study even more alarming. The New York Times, which has cited NCRI’s work in nearly 20 previous articles, suddenly demanded that this particular research undergo peer review—a requirement that had never been imposed on the institute’s earlier findings, even on similarly sensitive topics like extremism or online hate. At Bloomberg, the story was quashed outright by an editor known for public support of DEI initiatives. The editorial decisions were ostensibly justified as routine discretion, yet they align conspicuously with the ideological leanings of those involved. Are these major outlets succumbing to pressures to protect certain narratives at the expense of truth?

    Research cited in the report highlights how many DEI programs rely on untested theories or unverified self-reports, with little oversight or accountability. A 2021 meta-analysis found that some initiatives not only fail to reduce prejudice but actually exacerbate it, fueling resentment and perceptions of unfairness. The NCRI study’s findings echo these conclusions, suggesting that far from fostering inclusion, DEI programs may perpetuate a cycle of suspicion and punitive retribution.

    Yet, as troubling as the study’s findings are, its suppression may be even more consequential. The decision to withhold this research from public discourse speaks to a larger issue: the growing entanglement of ideology and information. In a moment when public trust in institutions is already fragile, the media’s role as a gatekeeper of information becomes all the more worrying. When powerful outlets like The New York Times and Bloomberg withhold stories of such significance, they fracture trust with the American people.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 16:40

  • Globalists Go For Broke: Plan To Trigger World War III Moves Forward
    Globalists Go For Broke: Plan To Trigger World War III Moves Forward

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    There are considerable and insidious forces at play when it comes to the development of the war in Ukraine; a swirling mass of think tanks, globalists and bureaucrats are doing everything in their power to instigate an international conflict between the US, the EU and Russia. They’ve specifically been looking for a way to leverage the western populace into supporting direct and open warfare.

    At the beginning of the event the propaganda was very effective in herding the political left into cheering for NATO involvement, with leftists calling for the “cancellation” of Russia and demanding boots on the ground to “wipe them off the face of the Earth.” One of those rabid activists (Ryan Routh) even tried to assassinate Donald Trump, ostensibly because Trump promised immediate peace negotiations with Russia should he become president again.

    The Democratic Party, once considered the “anti-war party”, is now the warhawk party. Add to that a gaggle of frothing Neo-Cons (leftists and globalists posing as conservatives) like Lindsay Graham and Mitt Romney, and it’s difficult to see how we will be able to avoid an escalation. There are people on both sides trying to trigger greater bloodshed and anyone who calls for peace comes under threat of assassination.

    Russia and Vladimir Putin have culpability of their own and one could argue that the east vs west paradigm is itself a brand of theater. However, the evidence for now leans heavily towards globalist think-tank instigation, leading to the Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2014, the flood of NATO weapons and “advisers” into the country under the Obama Administration and the deep involvement of Lindsay Graham, John McCain and The Atlantic Council in attempts to secure EU and NATO membership for the country; a red line which Russia consistently warned would lead to confrontation.

    Keep in mind, the promise made by NATO to Russia in the 1990s was that they would not attempt to move east once Russia tore down the Berlin Wall and unified Germany. NATO activities in Ukraine violate that promise in numerous ways.

    In January of 2022 I predicted that open war in the region was highly likely given the ultimate failure of the covid lockdowns and mandates (The Great Reset plan). The establishment needed a new global crisis to instill public fear, and they also needed a scapegoat for the ongoing stagflationary decline in the west. It’s only natural that they would turn to the classic fallback of world war after their previous agenda failed to get the results they wanted.

    In September of 2022 after NATO flooded Ukraine with weapons and foreign “mercenaries” I predicted that Russia would adopt an attrition warfare strategy with increased attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure. This has been their strategy ever since and now Ukraine faces a winter with an 85% loss in their power grid as Russian forces roll forward mile by mile on the Eastern and southern fronts.

    Russian forces are taking long standing Ukrainian strongholds with complex defensive works and Ukrainian troop strength is dwindling. Ukraine is losing the war by every metric and I now predict they have a year or less before complete defensive collapse.

    The corporate media will not talk about these developments. They will diminish them until Russia is on the verge of gaining a vast amount of ground and then they will act indignant, saying “How could this have happened?” Then they will call for western troops to enter the fray (it’s already starting).

    The only thing that might stop this outcome is Donald Trump’s promise to force negotiations between the Kremlin and Kyiv on day one of his administration. The problem is, that’s another two months away and the globalists are using that window of time to sabotage any future peace efforts. Their goal is to turn the proxy war into an open international conflagration.

    In August in my article ‘Globalists Are Trying To Escalate The Ukraine War Into WWIII Before The US Election’ I outlined a theory on what was likely to happen if the establishment saw a possible shift in US and EU sentiment towards continuing support for Ukraine:

    “But how do they turn the proxy war into a world war without looking like the bad guys? That’s the trick, isn’t it?

    The proxy (in this case, Ukraine) would have to take actions that provoke Russia into an explosive outburst. Russia would have to utilize tactics or weaponry that puts a vast number of civilians at risk, requiring greater NATO involvement and perhaps even UN intervention…”

    I noted that the greenlight for use of long range missile systems provided by the US and Europe could be the trigger the globalists were looking for:

    “Long range strikes into Russia, I believe, will set in motion more Russian strikes on major cities in the west of Ukraine where the majority of the population lives. These areas have gone largely untouched during the duration of the war. Putin, despite what the media claims, has been careful to limit the targeting of larger civilian centers. That will end if NATO missiles hit Russian cities…”

    “The idea that ballistic volleys into Russia using NATO supplied missiles won’t result in Putin using MOABs or nukes is truly insane. Keep in mind, long range strikes into Russia will do nothing to change the conditions on the ground in the Donbas…”

    I outlined why this strategy was beneficial for globalist think tanks in light of an impending Trump presidency.

    “Donald Trump is looking increasingly likely to be the winner of the presidential race. I have long held that the globalists will wrap up an economic collapse or a world war and throw it in Trump’s lap. They already tried to do the same thing with the covid pandemic and the inflationary crisis.

    “The timing of the Kursk offensive and the call for missile strikes on Russia is not a coincidence. Trump claims that his intention is to end the Ukraine war as quickly as possible once he enters office.”

    “They need to escalate the war into something bigger, something that can’t be undone. Right now, the war can be ended – All it takes is some diplomacy and forcing Ukraine to understand that they’re not going to get the Donbas or Crimea back no matter how many lives they sacrifice. But if there are massive civilian casualties on either side, the situation becomes irreversible.”

    I want to point out that you don’t need a crystal ball to predict the path of this conflict; the stages and outcomes are relatively clear if you understand the hidden motivations behind the war. Most of the events I outlined in August have now happened, but only because these are the events that MUST happen in order to get to the end game of WWIII.

    After Trump’s landslide election win this month the Biden Administration responded by giving the greenlight for Ukraine to use long range ATACMS deeper inside Russian territory. The decision was reportedly made to “Trump-proof” the Ukraine war and prevent a quick resolution before he entered office.

    The ATACMS would do nothing to change the immediate conditions on the battlefield. ATACMS are precision guided munitions designed for surgical strikes on high value targets, they are not very useful in winning a war of attrition. The reason these weapons are so controversial is because they CANNOT be fired without help from NATO technicians and satellites. Meaning, Biden’s decision represents an open declaration of war on Russia.

    In response, the Kremlin reportedly fired a nuclear capable IRBM (an RS-26 Rubezh missile) on the city of Dniprio. The weapon had multiple warheads and video evidence shows all of them apparently striking the target. Luckily, none of those warheads were carrying a nuclear payload.

    The strike occurred right after Putin changed Russia’s nuclear defense policy and this appears to be a final warning. Globalist think tanks like The Atlantic Council continue to claim that Putin’s red lines are a “farce” and that he will never use nukes. I think that they know Putin is not bluffing and that they intend to poke the bear until they get a limited nuclear attack. I believe the chances are very high for at least one nuke strike within Ukraine if conditions continue to deteriorate with NATO.

    Some will argue that there’s no way this will happen because Russia would be obliterated by nuclear retaliation. I suspect that in the face of a nuke strike in Ukraine, NATO will do nothing. They certainly won’t escalate to a global exchange of ICBMs.

    The globalists have little to gain by incinerating decades of work building the mass surveillance systems and digital economic infrastructure they need for their “New World Order.” Ukraine just isn’t worth it. What such an incident would do, though, is open the door to wider war on multiple fronts between the east and the west.

    If the war is escalated beyond the zero point before Trump gets into office, then Trump may have no other choice than to commit the US to the conflict despite vast public disapproval. It would be disastrous for his administration, disastrous for conservatives and disastrous for the western world at large. The majority of the public will NOT volunteer to fight for Ukraine and conscription would be an invitation to civil unrest.

    Leftists hate Russia because the media tells them to, but they aren’t going to risk their lives for Ukraine. Conservatives definitely aren’t going to submit to a draft and most of us would rather go to war against the globalists instead.

    Putin is savvy enough to wait for Trump to enter office and start negotiations, but my greatest concern is that something is about to happen which will sabotage any eventual peace plan. A long range attack by Ukraine on a major civilian center, a nuclear power plant, or the assassination of a political figure using NATO weaponry would be the only spark needed to light the powder keg. Putin will be required to show Russia is not weak and follow through on his red line threats.

    There’s a good chance that we will see a mushroom cloud over Ukraine (or adjacent region) in the near future unless there is serious intervention to defuse the conflict. The next two months will be key.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 16:20

  • The Case For Gold Is Incontrovertible
    The Case For Gold Is Incontrovertible

    Authored by Egon von Gryerz via VonGreyerz.gold,

    Gold Will Rise By Multiples

    As Eastern and Southern Central Banks substantially increase their gold holdings, Western Central Banks will most probably have little physical gold in their coffers. 

    Total global gold reserves allegedly held by central banks (37,000 tonnes) are valued at $3.1 trillion at the current market price of $2,700. 

    That value is absurd when one US company – Microsoft – has the same valuation. Just think about it: Microsoft is as big as the gold backing of the global financial system.

    Furthermore, Western central banks have most probably hypothecated and re-hypothecated (lent, leased) their gold several times via bullion banks. That gold will never come back.

    Consequently, CBs is heavily short on gold and will be badly squeezed as the gold market becomes disorderly.

    The combination of Eastern/Southern Central Bank gold buying and all CBs replacing their dollar reserves with gold will lead to unprecedented demand for gold for many years. More gold cannot satisfy this demand since the current gold mine production of around 3,000 tonnes cannot be increased.

    Thus, the substantial increase in physical gold demand can only be satisfied by much, much higher prices. 

    This is why gold will rise by multiples.

    This article could stop here.

    You must know the above to understand why gold will be significantly revalued. Still, the article contains a lot of interesting material explaining THE INCONTROVERTIBLE CASE FOR GOLD, so I recommend you read on.

    Just look at the chart above, which shows the relentless bull market in gold since 1971, going up 78X since Nixon closed the gold window. 

    As I have stated in many articles, gold is now in its exponential phase. 

    I have shown my illustration of what exponential means with this picture. 

    They make it clear –  gold is now in a phase when the price will go up by MULTIPLES.

    Since the mid-1990s, I have been convinced of the importance of gold for wealth preservation and investment. 

    I started my first job in Swiss banking in 1969 and experienced Nixon’s 1971 closing of the gold window. The consequences of Nixon’s “temporary” action were spectacular, as gold went up 24X between 1971 and 1980.

    MAJOR GOLD SELLING BY WESTERN CENTRAL BANKS 

    A long correction followed after 1980, and gold finally bottomed out at $250 in 1999. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Many Western central banks liquidated part or all of their gold holdings. Countries like the UK, Switzerland, and Canada halved their holdings in that period, and Norway sold all its gold. 

    One of the best signals of a gold bottom was the Bank of England and Swiss National Bank selling over half of their gold near the lows. 

    This central bank selling almost 10,000 tonnes was another sign of their total incompetence. As I have often argued, financial markets would function much better without these politicised bureaucrats. Natural forces of supply and demand are the best regulators on earth. 

    History tells us that gold should never be sold. 

    If politicians and central bankers ever studied history, they would know that no paper money has ever survived, ever, ever. 

    All papers of fiat money have always been destroyed by governments, without exception. Today, this is achieved by credit expansion or “money printing”. 

    When gold or silver was money, the precious metal would be diluted by other metals like copper or zinc. 

    Physical gold is for wealth preservation and the protection of purchasing power. 

    As Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

    GOLD IS FOR FREEDOM AND BENEFIT 

    FORT KNOX HOLDS “NOTHING BUT MOTHS AND HALF-EATEN IOUs”

    Vincent Lanci of GoldFix recently wrote the above article:

    Vince published the article here. He starts by quoting my Tweet: 

    He goes on to say:

    “Bold claim, right? He’s not wrong.

    Bottom line with regard to Ms. Shelton’s call to monetize our Gold by throwing it out on the yield curve (with which we agree) there is no way you can do it honestly if you wanted to.

    We’d wager no Gold is there at all. Anyway, there is much less Gold in Fort Knox than people think, which brings us to Pozsar’s predictive analysis.“

    He goes on to quote the revered Zoltan Pozsar’s article:

    Banks have been managing their paper gold books with one assumption, which is that [Nation] states would ensure gold wouldn’t come back as a settlement medium.”

    The above article is really worth reading, and it confirms my initial statement in this article that Central Banks have hypothecated gold to the extent that, if attacked by Russia and China, would collapse the Western Central Bank and LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) cabal.

    GOLD UP 11X IN THE 2000s

    So here we are 24 years into the 21st century, and gold is up 11X in US dollars and more in many other currencies.

    Between 2001 and 2011, gold rose 8X with no single down year.

    Then, there was a 3-year proper correction from $1,920 in 2011 down to $1,046 in 2016. 

    Since 2016, gold has gone up for 9 years, including three sideways years. 

    The chart speaks for itself. 

    In the last 24 years, we have seen an incredibly strong bull market in gold, with virtually no one participating. Still, only 0.5% of global financial assets are invested in gold, so virtually nobody understands or invests in it.

    As the graph below shows, gold has gone from 0.2% of global assets in 2001 to 0.5% today. During that time, I have been standing on a soapbox explaining the importance and virtues of gold, even in my father-of-the-bride speech in 2002. Still, very few own it. 

    GOLD IS ONLY 0.5% OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL ASSETS

    GOLD HAS VASTLY OUTPERFORMED STOCKS IN THE 2000s

    With a similar bull market in stocks, which has been the case in most of the 2000s, no investor would have been out of the stock market.

    Still, gold has vastly outperformed stocks in this century. 

    For the last 24 years, the S&P 500, with dividends reinvested, has risen by 572%.

    Gold is up 990% for the same period with much less volatility.

    Gold ownership is like a hidden, well-guarded secret. Very few, not even professional investors, know that gold has gone up 1,000% or 11X in this century. 

    Still, very few own gold, and even fewer are aware that gold fulfils the dual function of being both the ultimate protector and ultimate enhancer of your wealth.

    If you own gold, you never have to worry about the price. Because on your side stand governments and central banks who will always support gold by creating an endless amount of new money, thus expanding debt and the money supply. This guarantees the continuous debasement of paper money, directly reflected in the gold price. 

    Only since 2000 has the US dollar lost 92% of its value in real terms – GOLD.

    History proves that gold over the medium to long term always reflects the government’s irresponsible and opportunistic management of the country. 

    Governments always spend money that doesn’t exist in a futile attempt to placate the people and buy votes.

    GOLD SUBSTANTIALLY UNDERVALUED 

    Let’s look at a breakdown of all the gold that has ever been produced in history. 

    The cube below gives a good picture. 

    Only 201,000 tonnes of gold have been produced in history. All this gold is assumed to be still around, although some might be at the bottom of the sea and some hidden forever.

    Just under half, or 93K tonnes, have been used for jewellery.

    But now come the very important figures.

    Only 43T tonnes or $3.6 trillion in private investment gold.

    If we compare that to the biggest US companies, only NVIDIA has a market cap of $3.5 trillion, and so does Apple.  

    Even more astounding is that all the gold held by central banks globally is just $3.1 trillion, which is Microsoft’s market cap.

    So, the shareholders of Microsoft could swap their shareholdings against all the Central Bank Gold in the world. 

    I doubt the central bankers would sell their countries’ gold at the current price, but we shouldn’t put it past them. As mentioned above, they have often sold gold at the bottom and against fiat money. 

    As all paper money has gone to ZERO throughout history, it clearly can’t be real money. 

    It is only a claim or an IOU issued by your government. Remember what the banker JP Morgan said: 

    THE DOLLAR ON ITS WAY TO ZERO

    As all government debt always increases over time, we know that this debt will never be repaid. Instead, it is inflated away by the constant printing of new worthless paper money and debt until it becomes worthless, which is a de facto sovereign default. 

    Remember that this has happened to every currency in history without exception. 

    Since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, the dollar and most currencies have lost 99% of their value. 

    The total market capitalisation of the top 10 US companies is $19.2 trillion.

    Let’s look at the cube above again. At today’s price, ​​all the gold ever produced in history is at today’s price worth $17 trillion,  $2 T less than the top 10 US stocks.  

    GOLD UNDERVALUED BY MULTIPLES

    When all the central bank gold in the world is valued at the same price as one major US corporation, we know that this is an absurdity. 

    The stock market is currently overvalued. 

    As our friend, Bill Bonner recently wrote in his wonderful style:

    “Sooner or later, the lava flows of red-hot credit are going to meet up with the cold reality of rising interest rates. When this happens, most likely, stocks, bonds, and real estate will all be buried, like Pompeii.  

    Some investors will take a Big Loss. Big deal. Markets are correct all the time. But we’re not making predictions. We’re just looking for the worst-case scenario. And it could be far worse than just a market sell-off.”

    What Bill states above is inevitable. 

    And gold’s coming rise by multiples is a “Sine Qua Non” (absolute prerequisite).

    In numerous articles, I have stated the reasons for gold’s acceleration in price.

    In my article WE HAVE LIFT-OFF in March this year (when gold was $2,000), I said:

    “YES, GOLD IS ON THE CUSP OF A MAJOR MOVE AS:

    • Wars continue to ravage the world.

    • Inflation rises strongly due to ever-increasing debts and deficits.

    • Currencies continue their journey to ZERO.

    • The world flees from stocks, bonds, and the US dollar. 

    • The BRICS countries continue to buy ever bigger amounts of gold.

    • Central Banks buy major amounts of gold as currency reserves instead of US dollars.

    • Investors rush into gold at any price to preserve their wealth”. 

    And back in August, I said: $1 MILLION GOLD PRICE AND EXCHANGE CONTROLS:

    “DOLLAR, GOLD AND EXCHANGE CONTROLS 

    As I have outlined in this article, a continued and steep dollar decline in the coming years is a virtual certainty. 

    As there has been no gold window to close since 1971, the US government is almost certain to implement foreign exchange controls as the dollar falls. I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes relatively soon, but the timing is irrelevant. The risk is here today, and now is the time to prepare for it. Thus, for Americans, it would be an advantage to have funds or assets outside of the US as soon as possible. Physical gold and silver are clearly the best assets to hold as they also protect against the dollar debasement. Switzerland and Singapore are obvious places to hold gold. Switzerland has a strong currency and a very sound economy. Exchange controls would be unlikely here. What is extremely important is not to hold your precious metals through a US company or other entity, which the US government can order to return the gold or silver from a foreign vault to the US.” 

    However, as has been pointed out relentlessly, gold is undervalued by multiples.

    I have also warned that we will not have a 2008-type correction in the gold price for quite some time. But some so-called experts have, for most of this year, warned gold investors that this would happen. Thus, virtually no private investor has bought gold this year in the West. But non-Western Central banks, the astute Chinese, and the BRICS countries have. This strong buying will continue to drive the gold price up by multiples in the next few years. 

    MOST PRECARIOUS GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION IN HISTORY

    Finally, the geopolitical situation is more precarious than ever in world history due to both the Middle East and Ukraine crises.

    The deep state or neocons who steer Biden are doing everything they can to start WWIII by provoking Russia with US and UK missiles sent from the UK in the remaining 8 weeks before Trump takes over. This is totally ludicrous and irresponsible by an unaccountable and anonymous group of people who cannot stand that the US is losing its hegemony. 

    Let’s hope that the superiority of the Russian Oreshnik missiles just fired has made the US military and the world realise that this is a conflict that the US, NATO and the world can only lose. 

    Let’s also hope that the world gets to January 20, 2025, without any serious escalation.

    Trump clearly is determined to solve the US problems, as he declared in this video.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/26/2024 – 15:50

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