- German FM Admits Some Of Berlin's Weapons To Ukraine Are Outdated, "Not Really Functioning"
German FM Admits Some Of Berlin’s Weapons To Ukraine Are Outdated, “Not Really Functioning”
At a moment some key European allies, Poland chief among them, have shown signs they could scale back defense aid to Ukraine (Poland chief among them, which recently declared it’s done), Germany’s Foreign Minister has admitted that some “advanced” Germany systems supplied to Kiev are faulty.
Annalena Baerbock admitted in a fresh interview with CNN that some Leopard 1 tanks sent to Ukraine are outdated and “not really functioning”. She said this when pressed over why Berlin has thus far rejected approval for supplying Taurus long-range missiles.
Sophisticated journalist Amanpour asks 560 Baerbock about faulty Leopard tanks.
560 Baerbock replies, some German systems were ‘really old fashioned’ and not ‘functioning.’ pic.twitter.com/8xnnBtnEUr— Alex Christoforou (@AXChristoforou) September 26, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“We have to be clear on every detail, how does it work, who can actually operate them (the missiles),” Baerbock told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Yes, it takes some time. I totally understand there is not enough time in Ukraine, but when we deliver it, it has to work.”
Her logic was that given past German systems have not been effective and even proved faulty, there should be no rush to provide even more, especially if they are sophisticated missile systems.
In many cases Ukrainian operators have been rushed through hasty training programs, and problems become more acute when not enough time is spent. And it’s not just operators that have to be caught up to speed, but the necessary assisting and support crews.
She said in the interview that all this can be explained by Europe not having been confronted “with a brutal war lately.”
It must be recalled that the German government was among the first to declare that it wouldn’t “stand in the way” in Eastern European countries like Poland if they wanted to transfer German-produced tanks to the Russia-Ukraine war zone.
Via Reuters Since then, Russian media has aired multiple examples of Leopard tanks being destroyed and burning while declaring a ‘victory’ over West-supplied main battle tanks.
Baerbock’s surprise admission of sending faulty and old tanks to Kiev comes the same week that the Zelensky government announced the arrival of M1 Abrams tanks from the US. In this case too, training provided by US instructors out of Germany was likely hasty – given it takes sometimes years for crews to be combat ready.
Recently, Baerbock was humiliated in a press conference while standing alongside a frustrated and irate Ukrainian foreign minister, who said this….
Kuleba wipes his feet on Annalena Baerbock. When asked if she gave him any hope that Germany will supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles:
“No, she didn’t go beyond the official position of the German government… but you’ll do it anyway, it’s just a matter of time”
Embarrassing. pic.twitter.com/9oSChwxJ1e
— Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) September 11, 2023
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/27/2023 – 02:45 - Is World War III About To Start? Part I: Drift Toward War
Is World War III About To Start? Part I: Drift Toward War
Authored by Richard Cook via ScheerPost.com,
It is likely that billions of people around the world view the conflict in Ukraine as a proxy war being waged by the U.S. against Russia. US President Joe Biden has pledged to aid Ukraine’s pursuit of victory “for as long as it takes,” without defining what the end state might be. Russian President Vladimir Putin has interpreted U.S. intentions to mean a fight “to the last Ukrainian.”
Anyone with a discernible pulse is aware of the danger that the conflict could escalate into a conflagration large and destructive enough to morph into World War III. The threshold would likely be crossed once nuclear weapons were unleashed. The military doctrines of all nuclear powers stipulate that such an attack would justify an in-kind response, though without always ruling out the same for lesser provocations of a potentially existential nature.
President Biden has said “the world faces the biggest risk of nuclear Armageddon since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.” The context of Biden’s statement came a month earlier on September 21, 2022, when Putin warned the West he was not bluffing when he said he would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia against what he said was “nuclear blackmail.” Earlier, in an April 21, 2021, speech, Putin said:
We really do not want to burn bridges. But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn or even blow up these bridges, they must know that Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, swift, and tough. Those behind provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what they have done in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time.
Another to speak of nuclear war has been former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Russian Security Council and one of Putin’s top advisers. Commenting on Ukraine’s highly touted but now failed 2023 “spring offensive,” Medvedev said in July 2023 that if Ukraine succeeded in taking Russian sovereign territory—including Crimea plus the four Donbass oblasts (regions) annexed by Russia last year—Russia “would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the Russian Presidential Decree.” This decree stated that any assault on Russian territory justified a nuclear response.
On Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2023, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, “The drums of nuclear war are beating once again. Mistrust and division are on the rise. The nuclear shadow that loomed over the Cold War has re-emerged.” One who has predicted world war has been UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace. On May 19, 2023, he warned “that the UK could enter a direct conflict with Russian and China in the next seven years and has called for an increase in military spending to counter the potential threat.” Speaking to London’s Financial Times, Wallace said “a conflict is coming with a range of adversaries around the world.”
More recently, independent commentator Tucker Carlson, who has said the U.S. is intentionally seeking war with Russia, remarked in a September 2023 interview on The Adam Corolla Show that the Biden administration would attempt to stay in power by starting a “hot war” with Russia before the 2024 election. Carlson argued that the U.S. was “already at war” with Russia in Ukraine. He added, “I don’t think we’ll win it.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s new generation of Sarmat ballistic missiles, capable of carrying ten or more nuclear warheads, have been deployed for combat duty.
Of course we now must wait and see if recent action by House Republicans to launch an impeachment inquiry against Biden, along with his worsening senility, put enough of a crimp in his style to force a postponement of any irretrievable decisions.
But feeding into Carlson’s fears are statements by U.S. Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in a September video clip supporting Ukrainian strikes against Russian territory. Nuland said that one “axis” of U.S. strategy is to “put some of Russia’s most precious assets at risk.”
This comes as the U.S. is planning to send long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine, with Germany promising Jupiter missiles, and as the UK plans to send RAF fighters to the Black Sea. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said in June 2023 that use of Western-supplied weapons to launch such attacks” would mean the full involvement of the United States and the United Kingdom in the conflict.”
So was Biden correct? Is nuclear Armageddon looming? Or is “brinkmanship” today merely “bluffmanship?”
75 YEARS OF CONFLICT
Of course, potential nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, especially in its previous iteration as the Soviet Union, is nothing new. World War II was scarcely over before figures like Winston Churchill and U.S. banker Bernard Baruch began raising alarms about the existence of an “Iron Curtain” across Europe and the start of a “Cold War.”
But even before World War II began, the Roosevelt administration accepted the recommendation of studies by the Council of Foreign Relations, financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, that the U.S. should aim for postwar global military domination. Note that there was nothing in the U.S. Constitution that even remotely supports such a goal. The closest the U.S. might have come was the myth of “Manifest Destiny” that once supplied the ideology for coast-to-coast expansion; i.e., “from sea to shining sea.”
At the end of World War II, with the British Empire crumbling and Europe in ruins, there were two clear victors: the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The accepted logic of U.S. planners now dictated that the latter must go.
Stalin is said to have asked to join the newly-formed NATO but was rebuffed. He responded by forming the Warsaw Pact. The post-war standoff had begun and, 75 years later, has not ended. With the Soviets being accused of fomenting leftist revolutions around the world, the U.S. military has been laying plans for a U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange ever since. While the military sought an advantage favorable to a nuclear first strike, the everyday working objective toward the Soviets was “containment.” Meanwhile, the U.S. began its own long history of generating coups friendly to its interests with the CIA’s overthrow of governments in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.
In 1956, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proclaimed a U.S. policy of “brinkmanship.” Speaking of the potential for nuclear war in a Life magazine interview, he said, “If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.” In 1961, President John F. Kennedy seemed to have stared down Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over the planned installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba. Unknown publicly, JFK had already pulled U.S. nukes out of Turkey.
Nor are proxy wars anything new. They began with the Korean War. Of course, there were U.S. “boots on the ground,” but North and South Korea also fought against each other with Russia/China and the U.S./UN having the backs of each respectively. The Vietnam War was fought with U.S. troops and weapons aiding the South Vietnamese against the Russian-backed Hanoi regime and its ally, South Vietnam’s Viet Cong. The Korean conflict became a stalemate; Vietnam, a debacle.
But change was in the wind. JFK moved to revolutionize the discourse with his now-famous proposal for world peace delivered at American University on June 10, 1963. In the Soviet Union, Khrushchev denounced Stalin and proposed a new era of “Peaceful Coexistence” with the West. In the early 1970s, President Richard M. Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger sought détente with the Soviets along with their epochal opening to China.
Rapprochement with the Soviets was sabotaged by the Reagan military build-up in the 1980s and the lies of Soviet supremacy promulgated by the Committee on the Present Danger. The U.S. was also creating the Mujahedeen to attack the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. This was part of Reagan’s engagement in his own proxy wars—called the “Reagan Doctrine”—against leftist regimes in Asia, Africa, and Central America, with U.S.-supported “death squads” in El Salvador and elsewhere.
It was under Reagan that the faction known as the “Neocons” began their infiltration of the national security apparatus. These included “Trotskyite” intellectuals from New York like Irving Kristol; alumni of Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s staff like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle; “Team B” CIA analysts empowered by short-term Director George H.W. Bush, leading to the future prominence of Bob Gates; icons of the military-industrial complex like “Father of the H-Bomb” Edward Teller; Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, who’d been joined at the hip to each other and to President Gerald Ford; Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence William Casey; and many future dark personages like John Bolton.
It was Casey who famously said at one of Reagan’s early staff meetings, “We will know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American people believes is false.” This statement defined perfectly the future program of what we call today the “Deep State” and its mass media megaphone, especially outlets like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN.
One of the first major Neocon projects—Iran-Contra—devolved into scandal, with Reagan and Vice-President Bush both claiming ignorance under the “plausible deniability” fiction. Another was Reagan’s pet project—the Strategic Defense Initiative—lampooned as “Star Wars.”
Purporting to be offended by the U.S.-Soviet nuclear standoff, whereby peace was assured only by the logic of “Mutually-Assured Destruction,” Reagan proposed an armada of “defensive” weapons in space. The military-industrial complex seized on Star Wars as a cornucopia of lucrative research and development projects that ended when space shuttle Challenger blew up. The space shuttle was being converted to a testing platform for space weaponry, as I saw personally at NASA when I worked there in 1985-1986. One of the war planners’ bright ideas was to send the president to orbit in the space shuttle, from which he could safely direct military operations.
But the Star Wars project, which was not revived until the 21st century, nevertheless witnessed vast planning of space battle stations, nifty theoretical space weaponry like the X-ray laser and devices later called “rods from God,” and cost-benefit studies that included calculations of how many tens of millions of Americans could die in a space-based nuclear war against the Soviets while still allowing the U.S. to claim victory.
Meanwhile, it was after the horrendous exposures of CIA assassinations, media subversion, poisoning of subjects with LSD, and other misdeeds arising from the Church Committee hearings in 1975, that the CIA began to retreat into the shadows. Under Reagan came authorization of the National Endowment on Democracy, whose signature mission became “color revolutions” and later the “Arab Spring.” Amid the horrors, though, Reagan was yet able to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, rolling back the number of nuclear weapons for the first time.
But things took a decided turn for the worse under President George H.W. Bush with the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine that reformulated the old CFR plans for global U.S. military dominance and contained the ominous warning that Russia was the only nation on earth with the power to destroy the U.S. By now, the U.S. had begun its next phase of global conquest with Bush’s war against Iraq—Desert Storm. The goal was total military colonization of the Middle East, with the “Greater Israel” project so near and dear to the hearts of the Neocons an obvious beneficiary. The Iran-Iraq War of 1980-6, with the U.S. arming both sides, doubtless had the same underlying purposes.
The oddity in the designation of Russia as the worst of enemies named in the Wolfowitz Doctrine was that a year earlier, the Soviet Union had collapsed, ceasing to exist in 1991, with U.S. hawks declaring that the Cold War was over and that the U.S. had won. Their corollary was that the Reagan military build-up had forced the Soviet economy into receivership because they couldn’t keep up with U.S. military spending.
But in a December 17, 2022, interview on the online news platform, The Duran, Jack F. Matlock, former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, said that “the idea that we spent them to defeat was absolutely wrong.” He said the U.S. “did not win the Cold War.” He said the Soviet Union broke up because the Cold War was over by 1989 and that it was local nationalism that tore it apart. He added that the end of the Cold War was “negotiated as equals.”
But here was the rub: the Wolfowitz Doctrine proved that it wasn’t “communism” that the U.S. wanted to defeat, as Russia was no longer a communist state. Matlock said that Gorbachev had abandoned communism in his UN speech of December 7, 1988. Nor was the U.S. really pushing for “democracy.” Overnight Russia had become more democratic than many of the authoritarian regimes the U.S. had been supporting around the world for decades, such as those in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Rather it was Russia as a geopolitical enemy that the U.S. was targeting; meaning, in Russia’s eyes, its very existence as a territory, a state, and a civilization.
In order to promote peace with the West, Gorbachev had agreed to the reunification of East and West Germany as one nation and part of NATO, given U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s agreement that NATO would not advance “one inch eastward” from the German border. This pledge was violated by the next three presidents—Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Veteran U.S. statesman George Kennan opposed the expansion of NATO, while Ambassador Matlock called it “a great tragedy.”
Meanwhile, 9/11, the Neocons’ “new Pearl Harbor,” produced the “War on Terror,” the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the military doctrine of Full-Spectrum Dominance, and the assaults on Afghanistan, Iraq, and later Libya. The ideological focal point was demonization of all things Islam. The rationale? “They hate our freedoms.”
But the 9/11 Truth Movement began to poke holes in the official conspiracy theory of terrorists with box cutters that over time became gaping abysses. The anti-Islam narrative began to wear thin when stacked up against U.S. military overkill, the CIA’s torture chambers, the useless expenditure of trillions of dollars shooting at goat herders, the absence of any evidence of WMDs in Iraq or co-conspirators anywhere, and Israel’s endless strife with the Palestinians.
Now Russia itself had begun to make a stand. At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin challenged the attempt by the U.S. to achieve hegemony through creation of a “unipolar” world “in which there is one master, one sovereign.” He said, “at the end of the day this is pernicious.”
There was never any indication that Putin, in making his Munich declaration or afterwards, had any intention of restoring the Soviet “empire.” But he was absolutely determined to preserve Russia’s sovereignty and security despite the declared intention of factions in the West to break up Russia’s territory and gain control of its resources. He had also lamented the fact that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, 25 million ethnic Russians had been left out of what was now a unified and strengthening nation-state, blending a multiplicity of races, languages, and religions.
The “War on Terror” ended up being a tragic failure. So now the Western mainstream media jumped at their next big chance by depicting Putin as the bad guy du jour, even more “authoritarian,” and “evil” than either Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. But they would have done the same had Donald Duck been president of Russia—a nasty, duck-billed, feathered tyrant who was attacking democracy, freedom, human rights, and, yes, the “New American Century” the Neocons had dreamt up.
UKRAINE — THE CROSSROADS
Now the U.S., with the Neocons firmly entrenched in the State Department and elsewhere, surrounded Russia with military bases and attacked its perimeter with color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, following on the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. President Barack Obama then situated the Aegis Missile Defense System in Poland and Romania with the potential to activate missiles that could reach Moscow with nuclear warheads in six minutes. Talk was current of a possible “decapitation” strike against the Russian leadership.
Finally, in 2014, with “cookies” Victoria Nuland and Vice President Joe “Burisma” Biden in charge, the U.S. fomented a coup in Ukraine with the aid of paid snipers to drive out a president friendly toward Russia and his replacement with a NeoNazi junta that put Ukraine on a war footing. In response, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, where Sevastopol is the home of its Black Sea fleet, with 85 percent popular approval, while the eastern Ukrainian Donbass provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, ethnically-Russian, declared independence.
Finally, after eight years of Ukrainian provocations, the death from Ukrainian shelling of more than 10,000 Donbass civilians, and the treachery of Germany and France in failing to uphold the Minsk agreements they had guaranteed, Russia entered Ukraine with its military forces in February 2022. The conflict was on, a conflict that Russia is winning. U.S.-led sanctions against Russia failed to bring down its economy or force regime change against Putin. But each Ukrainian setback on the battlefield has been followed by more weapons and money supplied to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime by the U.S., UK, Germany, France, and other NATO members.
But who was calling the shots? In March 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reached agreement on a tentative settlement at meetings in Istanbul. UK prime minister Boris Johnson then rushed to Kiev to induce Zelensky to tear up the agreement and continue the war. Western escalation has included billions of dollars worth of heavy tanks and other weapons to Ukraine, along with cluster munitions and depleted uranium projectiles. There have been drone attacks on Russia itself and on Crimea. But the Ukrainian counteroffensive has collapsed, with speculation increasing of a major Russian counterattack, possibly even cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea.
We have now come full circle. Warnings from Washington continue that Putin had better not go nuclear, which can be read as inviting him to do so. This is obviously a new phase of brinkmanship that could give the U.S. a pretext for themselves moving to nuclear war. Meanwhile, the U.S. understands that it could in no way challenge Russia in a conventional war even with the entire NATO alliance being activated. Even then, divisiveness within NATO and the absence of sufficient military force anywhere in Europe make this impossible at present. Veteran military analyst Scott Ritter writes in Sputnik News on September 21, 2023, that even were the U.S. to activate its entire military force stationed in Europe against Russia, it would be defeated within one to two weeks of intensive combat. The only alternative would then be to activate a gigantic airlift of additional forces into Europe with U.S. cargo planes sitting ducks for destruction en route. Impossible.
There are now signs that the U.S. may be pressuring Ukraine to agree to a cease-fire, with a “freeze” along the lines of the decades-old Korean settlement. But all this would do would be to “kick the can down the road”—possibly until after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, likely to be preceded by elections in Ukraine in March. There are no signs that the U.S. is ready to concede a Russian victory involving the redrawing of the European security apparatus with Russia a respected party. The Ukrainian government speaks of a “long-term” conflict lasting decades. So there is no way to aver that the war in Ukraine is ending or to speculate about the next phase.
So, is a nuclear World War III a possibility?
Next: Part II Are the Military-Industrial Complex and Deep State Driving Us to War?
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/27/2023 – 02:00 - A Kennedy Libertarian Party Run Could Tilt Election: Officials
A Kennedy Libertarian Party Run Could Tilt Election: Officials
Authored by Matthew Lysiak via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy’s declaration that he may be open to running as a third-party candidate has the potential to completely shift the political landscape ahead of the 2024 election, according to a party official.
“If he made the decision and did the work that needs to be done within the party, I could see him having a massive impact,” Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party, told The Epoch Times.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks to a crowd of more than 300 at the premiere of his documentary, “Midnight at the Border,” detailing his trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Aug. 3, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Mr. Kennedy, currently running second behind President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, has flirted with a potential Libertarian Party candidacy. In July, Mr. Kennedy met privately with Ms. McArdle, at a conference they were both attending, where he notably expressed his admiration.
“He told me he wants to run as a Democrat but said that he is very libertarian in a lot of ways,” said Ms. McArdle. “We are definitely on friendly terms.”
In a June interview with the libertarian magazine Reason, Mr. Kennedy acknowledged his ideological leanings, saying, “I’ve always been aligned with libertarians on most issues.”
Mr. Kennedy had already garnered the support of some of the party faithful, many who were won over by his populist messaging and who are currently volunteering in his campaign, according to Ms. McArdle.
“Some of the things he has done over the last several years are admirable,” she added.
“We love his anti-war position, how he is a strong advocate of free speech, and that his track record on medical freedom is not contrived. And as a Kennedy, he placed himself in a very vulnerable position speaking out about forced vaccination. As libertarians we appreciate his courage and see ourselves as aligned on a lot of issues.”
However, although there was much in common, there remained significant differences in policy positions. Ms. McArdle cited his stance on the Environmental Protection Agency and certain regulations, which, in some instances, he is looking to expand.
“We don’t want to see policies that would hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs,” she said. “I talked with him about our concerns as libertarians and he was open to hearing us out, which was important.”
In recent months Mr. Kennedy has appeared increasingly frustrated by what he perceives as an unlevel playing field within the Democratic Party. Asked by a voter at a town hall earlier this month in North Charleston, South Carolina, whether he’d launch an independent bid for the White House he replied that he is open to the possibility.
“They’re trying to make sure that I can’t participate at all in the political process, and so I’m going to keep all my options open,” Mr. Kennedy said.
In a general election, Democrats worry that a third-party run by Mr. Kennedy could draw votes away from President Biden and help elect former President Donald Trump.
A poll released last week found that one-third of Democrats would vote for Mr. Kennedy if he were to run as an independent.
The Libertarian Party is currently the third-largest political party in the United States and is based on freedom and the belief “that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world,” according to the party platform. In the 2020 Presidential Election, the party’s candidate, Jo Jorgensen, received 1.2 percent of the popular vote. However, in the 2016 presidential election, candidate Gary Johnson secured over three percent of the popular vote.
The slightest uptick in votes cast for a third-party candidate could prove to be a determining factor in the 2024 election where many swing states were decided by razor-thin margins. In Wisconsin, the official tally put President Biden at less than 21,000 votes ahead while in Georgia the margin was even tighter, with President Biden having been declared to have won the state’s sixteen electoral votes by under 12,000 votes.
Most polls currently have the 2024 election as another likely toss-up.
Mr. Kennedy would have to make a final decision on whether he wants to join the Libertarian Party by early next year at latest. The Libertarian Party will select its presidential nominee until May 26 at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention in Washington, D.C.
However, if Mr. Kennedy does enter the race on the Libertarian ticket, he should expect to have to earn the nomination, according to Ms. McArdle.
“The presidential nomination for the libertarian party isn’t going to be handed to anyone,” said Ms. McArdle. “The candidate is going to have to earn the votes and that will take a lot of work. It is really going to depend on what he wants and how serious he is about it.”
“He is a Democrat right now, but we all know how quickly things can change in today’s political climate.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 23:45 - Where Contraceptive Needs Are Not Met
Where Contraceptive Needs Are Not Met
September 26 marks World Contraception Day.
Africa has the highest unmet need for contraception in the world, defined as the share of sexually active, fertile women who do not have access to contraception but do not want a child at the moment or wish they could have delayed or avoided their most recent pregnancy.
You will find more infographics at Statista
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, according to a study published in The Lancet, this applies to upwards of 20 percent of sexually active, fertile women in many countries in Western, Eastern and Central Africa, but also in Haiti, Bosnia, Guyana and Suriname.
Upwards of 15 percent of these women are also affected by lack of contraception in parts of Central Asia, the Arab Gulf, the Balkans as well as more countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
The study estimates that countries with low socio-demographic index scores showed a gap of more than 19 percent, compared with around 4.5 percent in high SDI and high-middle SDI countries.
Developed North America and Western Europe had even lower gaps at just 2.9-3.5 percent. In Japan, this number was significantly higher at 10.8 percent, while it stood at 6.7 percent in South Korea.
According to The Lancet, 80 percent of all women of reproductive age had their (potential) need for contraception satisfied worldwide in 2019, up from 55 percent in 1970.
This still left around 163 million women with an unmet need.
Young women between the ages of 15 to 19 saw the lowest demand satisfied at just around 65 percent, followed by the age group of 20 to 24-year-olds (72 percent).
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 23:25 - FBI Sued After 'Losing' Valuable Rare Coins It Seized During Raid
FBI Sued After ‘Losing’ Valuable Rare Coins It Seized During Raid
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The FBI is being sued after seizing the contents of safe deposit boxes and allegedly failing to return all of what it seized.
Donald Mellein, left, and Jeni Pearsons. (Courtesy of Institute for Justice) Donald Mellein was storing 110 gold coins in one of the boxes. The FBI initially said it did not have the coins, but Mr. Mellein’s legal action resulted in the agency acknowledging it did have 47 of them.
The FBI returned the coins but still has not given back the other 63, which are worth an estimated $123,419, according to one of the new lawsuits.
“Don’s gold coins were completely secure until FBI agents broke open the safe-deposit box looking for property that could be forfeited. Their disappearance can only be explained by the acts or omissions of the FBI agents who broke into the box and rummaged through it. The FBI never should have broken into the safe-deposit boxes in the first place but, once it did, it became responsible for returning everything it had custody of, unless it had a lawful reason to keep it,” the suit, filed in U.S. court in California, states.
Jeni Pearsons and Michael Storc were storing silver and cash in another one of the boxes. The FBI tried keeping the items, but eventually gave up. Agents returned the $20,000 in silver, but held on to $2,000 in cash, according to another suit.
In both cases, the FBI has denied responsibility, stating there was “no evidence of negligence or wrongful acts on the part of any FBI employee.”
“Jeni and Michael are entitled to have their cash returned, or to be reimbursed for its loss, regardless of whether they can prove that some FBI employee did something wrong or was negligent. Whatever the reason for the cash disappearing, the government is responsible for either returning the cash to Jeni and Michael or compensating them for what it took,” the other suit states.
The FBI said it cannot comment on pending litigation. It pointed to a previous statement on a ruling that found agents investigating U.S. Private Vaults did not mislead the court.
Lawyers at the Institute of Justice, which are representing the plaintiffs, are asking the court to award damages to the plaintiffs and declare federal law unconstitutional as applied by the FBI in the raids.
“If normal people are held accountable for stealing or losing your property, then the government should be, too,” Joe Gay, an attorney at the institute, said in a statement. “Don, Jeni, and Michael did nothing wrong. The government never should have broken into their safe-deposit boxes, but once it did, it became responsible for keeping their property safe. If it doesn’t give it back, there must be a legal remedy.”
More Background
The FBI obtained warrants to search U.S. Private Vaults, which held more than 1,000 safe deposit boxes in Beverly Hills, and served them on March 22, 2021. The FBI said there was reason to believe the business had committed crimes.
In warrant applications, FBI officials said they would “end up with custody” of the safe deposit boxes and the contents of the boxes. Officials promised the FBI would protect the contents and return them to their owners. The warrant allowed agents to perform an inventory of the boxes to “protect their agencies and the contents of the boxes” and directed agents to identify owners so the property could be returned.
During depositions, though, one of the FBI officials has said the government planned to try to keep some of the contents that were worth at least $5,000. The FBI worked to find evidence that would support keeping the contents, such as evidence that money “smelled like drugs.”
FBI official Lynne Zellhart, the official, acknowledged that no video recordings existed of when agents broke into some of the boxes. “Reality got in the way,” she testified.
Detailed inventories of the boxes were also not created. One agent said the operation was aimed at “processing boxes quickly.” Vague terms like “miscellaneous general items” were used in a number of instances. Inventory forms for Mr. Mellein’s box did not refer to the 110 gold coins, according to the suit.
Mr. Mellein applied to get his property back and soon received a notice of forfeiture proceedings that outlined how the government was working to keep cash and a gold bar that was also in his box. His lawyers convinced the FBI to abandon the effort, and the agency returned the cash and gold bar.
Attempts to secure the coins were not fruitful, prompting a lawsuit. The government then said it had “found” 47 coins, but could not locate the other coins. Mr. Mellein withdrew his suit and filed an administrative claim, which was rejected.
Ms. Pearsons and Mr. Storc went through a similar ordeal. They received their silver back, but not the cash they kept in the box.
Mr. Mellein said in a statement: “The FBI had no reason to go through my box and they were careless in losing my savings. For months I was told they didn’t have any of my coins before they eventually found some of them. I’m disappointed that I have to sue again in order to get property back that should have been given back to me over two years ago.”
Ms. Pearsons added: “We’re fighting for our money, but also to hold the government accountable when it takes people’s property and then steals or loses it.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 23:05 - How Much Does It Take To Be In The Top 1% In Each US State?
How Much Does It Take To Be In The Top 1% In Each US State?
There’s an old saying: everyone thinks that they’re middle-class.
But how many people think, or know, that they really belong to the top 1% in the country?
Using data from personal finance advisory services company, SmartAsset, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao and Miranda Smith reveal the annual income threshold at which a household can be considered part of the top 1% in their state.
Some states demand a much higher yearly earnings from their residents to be a part of the rarefied league, but which ones are they, and how much does one need to earn to make it to the very top echelon of income?
Ranking U.S. States By Income to Be in the Top 1%
At the top of the list, a household in Connecticut needs to earn nearly $953,000 annually to be part of the one-percenters. This is the highest minimum threshold across the country.
In the same region, Massachusetts requires a minimum annual earnings of $903,401 from its top 1% residents.
Here’s the list of all 50 U.S. states along with the annual income needed to be in the 1%.
Rank State Top 1% Income
ThresholdTop 1% Tax Rate
(% of annual income)1 Connecticut $952,902 28.40% 2 Massachusetts $903,401 27.15% 3 California $844,266 26.95% 4 New Jersey $817,346 28.01% 5 Washington $804,853 25.99% 6 New York $776,662 28.29% 7 Colorado $709,092 25.86% 8 Florida $694,987 25.82% 9 Illinois $660,810 26.35% 10 New Hampshire $659,037 26.25% 11 Wyoming $656,118 24.79% 12 Virginia $643,848 26.11% N/A National Average $652,657 N/A 13 Maryland $633,333 25.94% 14 Texas $631,849 25.83% 15 Utah $630,544 23.77% 16 Minnesota $626,451 25.53% 17 Nevada $603,751 25.19% 18 South Dakota $590,373 22.99% 19 Pennsylvania $588,702 24.95% 20 North Dakota $585,556 24.76% 21 Georgia $585,397 25.06% 22 Oregon $571,813 24.66% 23 Arizona $564,031 25.22% 24 Idaho $560,040 23.17% 25 North Carolina $559,762 25.31% 26 Montana $559,656 24.46% 27 Kansas $554,912 25.03% 28 Rhode Island $548,531 25.26% 29 Tennessee $548,329 25.12% 30 Alaska $542,824 25.38% 31 Nebraska $535,651 24.10% 32 Delaware $529,928 25.37% 33 Vermont $518,039 23.63% 34 Wisconsin $517,321 24.90% 35 South Carolina $508,427 24.40% 36 Michigan $504,671 25.01% 37 Maine $502,605 24.04% 38 Missouri $500,626 24.93% 39 Ohio $500,253 25.09% 40 Hawaii $495,263 24.12% 41 Iowa $483,985 24.09% 42 Indiana $473,685 24.55% 43 Alabama $470,341 23.82% 44 Oklahoma $460,172 23.68% 45 Louisiana $458,269 24.80% 46 Arkansas $450,700 21.11% 47 Kentucky $445,294 24.14% 48 New Mexico $411,395 23.35% 49 Mississippi $381,919 23.04% 50 West Virginia $367,582 23.26% N/A National Median
Household Income$75,000 N/A California ($844,266), New Jersey ($817,346), and Washington ($804,853) round out the top five states with the highest minimum thresholds to make it to their exclusive rich club.
On the other end of the spectrum, the top one-percenters in West Virginia make a minimum of $367,582 a year, the lowest of all the states, and about one-third of the threshold in Connecticut. And just down southwest of the Mountain State, Mississippi’s one-percenters need to make at least $381,919 a year to qualify for the 1%.
A quick glance at the map above also reveals some regional insights.
The Northeast and West Coast, with their large urban and economic hubs, have higher income entry requirements for the top 1% than states in the American South.
This also correlates to the median income by state, a measure showing Massachusetts households make nearly $90,000 a year, compared to Mississippians who take home $49,000 annually.
How Much Do the Top 1% Pay in Taxes?
Meanwhile, if one does make it to the top 1% in states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, expect to pay more in taxes than other states, according to SmartAsset’s analysis.
The one-percenters in the top five states pay, on average, between 26–28% of their income in tax, compared to those in the bottom five who pay between 21–23%.
And this pattern exists through the dataset, with higher top 1% income thresholds correlating with higher average tax rates for the wealthy.
State Ranks Median Tax Rate Top 10 26.65% 20-30 25.09% 30-40 24.65% 10-20 25.07% 40-50 23.75% These higher tax rates point to attempts to reign in the increasing wealth disparity in the nation where the top 1% hold more than one-third of the country’s wealth, up from 27% in 1989.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 22:45 - Intuit Reverses Ban On Gun-Related Businesses
Intuit Reverses Ban On Gun-Related Businesses
Authored by Naveen Ahtrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he approved of software firm Intuit’s decision to reverse a ban on gun companies from accessing its payroll and payment processing services.
Prior to Aug. 1, 2023, Intuit had prohibited gun sellers and manufacturers from using the full features of its QuickBooks service, an accounting software. Firearm manufacturers were not allowed to access QuickBooks’ payroll services, while entities that sold guns were ineligible for QuickBooks’ payment processing services.
However, the company has now changed course.
“I welcome Intuit’s reversal of its policy that had forbidden gun manufacturers and sellers from using certain QuickBooks services,” Mr. Cruz said in a Sept. 25 letter (pdf) to the company. “Intuit’s recent decision to allow such businesses to use the company’s payroll and payment services—a change prompted by my staff’s oversight investigation—was long overdue.”
Mr. Cruz became aware of Intuit’s “discriminatory policies” when Dawson Precision, a Texas firearms parts manufacturer, informed his office that Inuit had, “without warning,” terminated the business’ subscription to QuickBooks payroll services, the letter said.
“Dawson Precision only discovered what had happened after it submitted payroll and, rather than receiving confirmation that payroll had been processed, received a notification that its payroll subscription had been terminated,” Mr. Cruz wrote. “Intuit later said that it canceled Dawson Precision’s account because, as a firearm manufacturer, it was in violation of Intuit’s acceptable use policy.”
Dawson Precision attempted to appeal the termination but did not succeed in reversing the cancellation. Due to Intuit’s actions, the firm had to print paper checks for several weeks.
Other Business Affected
When Intuit abruptly stopped providing credit card processing services to Arizona-based Gunsite Academy, it prevented the business from functioning efficiently, Mr. Cruz pointed out. The academy provided marksmanship training and sold guns. Intuit insisted that its policy bans businesses that engage in “non-face-to-face gun sales,” according to the letter.
Even when Gunsite Academy pointed out that it only shipped firearms to dealers and not directly to customers, Intuit refused to reverse its ban.
“Intuit’s policy effectively prohibited small businesses that sell firearms from operating online, even though such sales are entirely legal and heavily regulated,” the letter said.
“My staff have not yet received a satisfactory explanation as to why restrictions were necessary for businesses that ship firearms to another licensed firearms dealer, or why a private entity desired to impose an extra-governmental, quasi-regulatory requirement on a lawful industry.”
Following an investigation conducted by Mr. Cruz’s staff, Intuit reversed the policy.
“My staff will continue their investigation to ensure that no financial services firm unnecessarily limits the firearm industry’s access to accounting or banking products,” the letter stated.
“Intuit should confirm that its revised policy regarding gun manufacturers and sellers is final,” Mr. Cruz said. In addition, the company should “update my staff when it has informed its customers of the new policies and offered to reinstate the accounts of all the customers that it previously had removed based on the old policies.”
Pressured by Banks
According to Mr. Cruz’s letter, Intuit’s policies against firearms sellers and manufacturers were not “entirely of its own making.” The company said that its two banking partners, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co., demanded that it enforce such policies.
It was Bank of America that asked Intuit to block firearms manufacturers from using QuickBooks payroll services, while JPMorgan asked it to restrict payment processing service for firearms sellers, the letter said.
JPMorgan acknowledged to Mr. Cruz’s staff that it did issue such a directive. “Bank of America, however, denied that it had ever given Intuit any instructions relating to firearm manufacturers or sellers,” the letter stated.
“Intuit insisted that Bank of America did. Regardless of who originated these discriminatory policies against gun manufacturers, Intuit was right to end them.”
A spokesperson for Intuit said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times that the company’s acceptable use policy is “based on various factors, including compliance with laws and banking partner requirements. Our commitment to customers is unwavering, and we will continue to ensure our policies serve their needs.”
Protecting Gun Rights
Intuit’s reversal of its gun business policy is one of the latest victories for gun rights advocates in recent times.
On Sept. 8, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced a 30-day gun carry ban for counties over a certain size. However, U.S. District Judge David Urias put the governor’s declaration on hold, calling the order unconstitutional. Gun Owners of America and its legal arm, the Gun Owner’s Foundation, had sued to block the order.
On Sept. 22, a federal judge from California determined that the state’s ban on gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition is unconstitutional.
“The history and tradition of the Second Amendment clearly supports state laws against the use or misuse of firearms with unlawful intent, but not the disarmament of the law-abiding citizen,” U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote in the decision.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration recently announced the formation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which has raised concerns among gun rights groups.
The office will be led by Vice President Kamala Harris and will be run with the help of gun safety advocates, White House officials stated.
“This new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention … will drive and coordinate a government and a nationwide effort to reduce gun violence in America,” President Joe Biden said, adding that he was “determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 22:25 - 'Missing' Biden Whistleblower (Who Garland Indicted) Offers Dirt On FBI 'Mole' Who Tipped Off Hunter
‘Missing’ Biden Whistleblower (Who Garland Indicted) Offers Dirt On FBI ‘Mole’ Who Tipped Off Hunter
‘Missing’ Israeli whistleblower Gal Luft, who was indicted by the Biden administration for failing to register under the Foreign Agents Act (FARA), has offered new evidence to the House impeachment inquiry about an FBI mole who tipped off Hunter Biden that his Chinese partners were about to be indicted, according to the NY Post‘s Miranda Devine.
Luft was also charged with conspiracy to illegally sell weapons to Chinese individuals and companies, as well as aerial bombs and rockets to the UAE, Chinese weapons to Kenya, and Iranian oil to other countries in violation of sanctions.
He was initially arrested Feb. 17 in Cyprus, but fled after being released on bail. He faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted.
In a stunning twist, the Biden DOJ indicts Dr. Gal Luft, a Biden corruption whistleblower, for not registering as an agent of CEFC China Energy, while Hunter, James, and Sara Biden simultaneously collected millions from CEFC China Energy without registering, also violating FARA.… pic.twitter.com/WfLP9j9feN
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) July 11, 2023
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The Israeli professor and former Israel Defense Forces officer has been on the run for six months after skipping bail in Cyprus, where he was awaiting extradition to the United States on gun-running and foreign lobbying charges, also brought by the SDNY.
In an open letter to Reps James Comer (R-Ky.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the three House committee chairmen running the impeachment inquiry, Luft claims that the tipoff to Chinese executives of CEFC came on the same day that the first son wrote a WhatsApp message shaking down another CEFC employee for millions of dollars over a “highly confidential and time sensitive” matter while claiming his father was in the room with him.
“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter wrote in a July 30, 2017 message to CEFC employee Raymond Zhao, which was presented to Congress during June testimony by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.
“I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
That night, after Hunter’s threatening message, CEFC executive Partrick Ho received an urgent call from CEFC president Chan Chauto, who told him to leave the United States immediately, according to Luft, who frequently spoke with Ho.
Ho flew to Hong Kong the next day.
In a follow-up WhatsApp, Zhao told Hunter that “CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family. He thinks now the priority is to solve the problem mentioned last night.”
According to Luft, the “problem” and the “highly confidential and time sensitive” matter was the secret indictments from the SDNY which Hunter was tipped off about.
Nine days after Hunter’s WhatsApp shakedown, CEFC wired $5.1 million to entities in the US to transfer to Hunter.
Luft – who flew to Hong Kong to deal with Ho on Aug. 14, 2017 (two weeks after Ho fled), says the Chinese nickname for the FBI mole was “One-Eye.”
“The existence of a potential mole within the FBI and/or Justice Department who conveyed to Chinese individuals information about sealed indictments has, apparently, to this day never been solved,” Luft wrote to Comer, adding “Perhaps Congress should investigate the issue as part of its impeachment inquiry.”
The tipoff to CEFC executives came at a crucial stage in their negotiations to buy into Russian state-owned energy company Rosneft and came just 10 days before a curious meeting between a CEFC employee in Albania and disgraced G-man Charles McGonigal, then counterintelligence boss at the FBI’s New York Field Office, which had been surveilling Ho and his associates. McGonigal pleaded guilty Friday to concealing at least $225,000 in cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence official.
On Sept. 8, 2017, CEFC announced its plans to acquire a $9.1 billion stake in Rosneft.
On Sept. 9, 2017, McGonigal met Dorian Ducka, a CEFC employee and Hunter Biden associate, in Albania, according to his indictment. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama also was at the meeting. At Ducka’s request, McGonigal urged Rama to be careful about awarding oil field drilling licenses in Albania to Russian front companies.
On Sept. 10, 2017, Hunter signed an attorney engagement letter to represent CEFC’s Ho for a $1 million retainer. -NY Post
Luft also says that sometime around September 2017, Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden flew to Hong Kong to meet with Ho, who they asked to buy them two “burner” phones. They told him that the coast was clear to return to the US, however upon his arrival at JFK Airport on Nov. 17, 2017, Ho was arrested by the Trump DOJ on charges of bribery and money laundering.
Ho’s first call? Jim Biden, looking for Hunter.
Hunter reached out to lawyer Edward Kim, who asked Hunter in an email the afternoon of Ho’s arrest to “find the names of the FBI agents you spoke with, that would be helpful.”
“Working on it,” Hunter replied.
I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US.
The US, claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic.
I’ve never been an arms dealer.
DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe,Jim&Hunter Biden.
Shall I name names?
— Gal Luft (@GalLuft) February 19, 2023
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FBI Agent testifies
And in yet another breadcrumb of corruption, an FBI supervisor has corroborated key aspects of testimony by two IRS whistleblowers, who say that federal prosecutors slow-walked Hunter’s criminal probe, and refused to bring tax charges in LA and Washington DC, according to a transcript of an interview reviewed by Just the News.
The female FBI supervisor, whose name the Justice Department asked be kept private in the transcript, was interviewed recently by the House Judiciary Committee, and she chronicled her interactions with IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the lead prosecutor in the Hunter Biden probe.
While the agent said she had different recollections than her IRS colleagues about certain aspects of the case and did not believe politics caused any delays, she confirmed there were instances in which prosecutors slowed the investigation.
Specifically, she confirmed agents were concerned that the DOJ tried to use the 2022 midterm elections to delay action in the Hunter Biden case even though his father was not up for election last year.
“I know that that had come up,” said the agent, who worked in the Baltimore office which supervised cases in Delaware.
“Delays related to the election?” she was asked.
“Yes, I noted that had come up,” she replied.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 22:05 - EPA’s Illegal Power Play
EPA’s Illegal Power Play
Authored by Mario Loyola via RealClear Wire,
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA last year was a historic defeat for the Environmental Protection Agency. Not only did the Court rule that the 2015 Clean Power Plan, President Obama’s signature climate regulation, was unconstitutional; it also dramatically limited EPA’s power to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) moving forward.
That left the agency with two courses of action. It could take its lumps and focus on proposing regulations with a high chance of surviving federal court review. Or it could stake everything on a final desperate attempt to decarbonize America’s power sector, and go for the win in keeping with President Biden’s commitment to net zero carbon emissions.
On May 23, 2023, EPA chose the latter, proposing carbon emissions standards for power plants far more ambitious than those struck down by the Supreme Court last year. Like other EPA climate regulations, the proposed emissions standards under Section 111 of CAA are not designed to reduce emissions from standard power plants, but rather to force a rapid transition away from reliable and affordable sources of dispatchable power—natural gas and coal—to intermittent renewables and new kinds of power plants that don’t even exist yet. Together with EPA’s electric vehicle mandates, the proposed rule would be a train wreck for the American electricity grid and society as a whole, endangering economic competitiveness and energy security while yielding no measurable climate benefit.
Those hoping for a dramatic finish to Biden’s climate action will not be disappointed: the proposal has so many legal vulnerabilities that it would be a miracle if the rule survives federal court review.
Under the proposed rule, which President Biden hopes to finalize by next summer, large new or modified natural gas plants and existing coal plants would be required to virtually eliminate carbon emissions by 2038, at the latest. Under Section 111(a) “New Source Performance Standards” (NSPS), large new or modified combined-cycle natural gas plants, which currently supply roughly 30% of the nation’s electricity, would be required to achieve close to zero carbon emissions, either by implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS) to capture 90% of carbon emissions by 2035, or by switching from natural gas to 98% “green” hydrogen co-firing by 2038. In addition, under Section 111(d) emissions guidelines, existing coal plants, which currently supply more than 20% of America’s electricity, would be required to virtually eliminate carbon emissions by implementing CCS by 2035.
Interestingly, EPA declined to promulgate NSPS for coal plants because, as it explains, there are no plans to build any new coal plants in the U.S. It declined to promulgate emissions guidelines for existing natural gas plants out of concern for feasibility. Even more interesting, when EPA sent the proposed rule to the White House for regulatory review under E.O. 12866, it contained no emissions guidelines for existing plants at all, and therefore would not have applied to coal plants at all. The White House reportedly sent it back to EPA with orders to put a Section 111(d) rule for existing coal plants in the proposal. This suggests that EPA itself is not very confident in the ability of the Section 111(d) rule to survive court review.
Section 111 of CAA, the same provision at issue in West Virginia v. EPA, authorizes EPA to mandate “the degree of emission limitation achievable through the application of the best system of emission reduction which (taking into account the cost of achieving such reduction and any nonair quality health and environmental impact and energy requirements) the Administrator determines has been adequately demonstrated.”
Section 111 sets a high bar, especially after West Virginia v. EPA. The proposed rule falls woefully short. It has at least three major legal vulnerabilities, any one of which would be sufficient for a court to strike the rule down.
First, neither CCS nor green hydrogen is anywhere near “adequately demonstrated” within the meaning of Section 111. Second, EPA has systematically ignored crucial costs and impacts that it is required to take into account in setting emissions standards under Section 111. Third, like the “best system of emission reduction” struck down in West Virginia v. EPA, the new rule would require sweeping regulatory action and infrastructure investments entirely outside the fence line of the regulated facilities, thereby raising the “major question” doctrine’s presumption against the agency’s interpretation of the law.
The Mandated Technologies Have Not Been “Adequately Demonstrated”
The linchpin of Section 111 of CAA is that the “best system of emission reduction” (BSER) must be an “adequately demonstrated” technology. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the principal venue for judicial review of agency action in the U.S., explicated the provision’s meaning. In Portland Cement v. Ruckelshaus (1973), for example, the D.C. Circuit wrote that in determining whether a technology is adequately demonstrated, “[t]he Administrator may make a projection based on existing technology, though that projection is subject to the restraints of reasonableness and cannot be based on ‘crystal ball’ inquiry.”
Subsequent decisions of the D.C. Circuit, particularly the ones that EPA relies on in the preamble to the proposed rule, have emphasized that BSER must be based on technology demonstrated at the scale and for the purpose for which it will be used by regulated entities to comply with the new standards. Unlike other provisions of CAA, Section 111 is not designed to force industry to develop new technologies. “[A] standard cannot both require adequately demonstrated technology and also be technology-forcing,” said the D.C. Circuit in NRDC v. Thomas (1986).
Contrary to the unambiguous pronouncements of the D.C. Circuit, EPA treats Section 111 as if it were a technology-forcing provision throughout the proposed rule. For example, EPA claims that CCS has been “adequately demonstrated” for natural gas plants based on small-scale demonstrations at coal plants. But the coal demonstrations cited involve only small slipstreams (carbon captured from a small percentage of the plant’s total emissions) for use in the food industry. Moreover, the coal plant demonstrations do not involve the sophisticated combined-cycle configurations of large natural gas plants—in which the exhaust from the primary combustion cycle is used to heat the steam generator of the second cycle—that the new standards focus on.
In the several hundred pages laying out the proposed rule, EPA provides just two examples of demonstrations at natural gas plants. One, at Bellingham, Massachusetts, captured only a 10% slipstream and closed in 2005 because it was not economical. That was a decade before the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, in which EPA correctly rejected CCS as inadequately demonstrated and too costly. The other, a project at Peterhead, Scotland, is still in planning and may not even be built. Neither can be used as the basis for an adequately demonstrated BSER.
Furthermore, EPA’s CCS mandate would require a massive buildout of carbon transport and storage infrastructure, which has not been adequately demonstrated and would require sweeping investments and regulatory changes by developers and government authorities unrelated to the entities subject to regulation under Section 111 of CAA. Like the measures “beyond the fence line” of regulated entities that were struck down in West Virginia v. EPA, this massive infrastructure buildout would be beyond the ability of EPA-regulated entities to implement.
Co-firing with low-carbon hydrogen is even further from being adequately demonstrated. Nearly all hydrogen today is produced using carbon-intensive methods. Indeed, electrolysis from renewable and nuclear power produces only trivial quantities, and EPA doesn’t even bother to estimate the cost, feasibility, or time it would take to build out the vast amount of new renewable and nuclear power capacity that would be needed to make the low-GHG hydrogen a practicable option for power plants.
In the meantime, no existing natural gas plant can co-fire anywhere near EPA’s proposed 96% hydrogen because hydrogen burns much hotter and faster, making current turbines unsuitable for most hydrogen feedstock. Indeed, EPA admits that hydrogen-capable turbines will require a major redesign of combined-cycle natural gas plant turbines, another way in which EPA’s BSER fails to meet the requirement of adequate demonstration. Even the intermediate standard of 30% co-firing, while tested on small industrials facilities, has not been demonstrated at utility scale.
Finally, EPA explicitly states that its hydrogen BSER is technology-forcing, which, according to controlling precedent in the D.C. Circuit, is not “adequately demonstrated” by definition. Beyond the fence line of regulated facilities, EPA admits that hydrogen faces obstacles of infrastructure limitations, as well as inadequate storage and delivery. All this undermines the claim of adequate demonstration, not to mention the fact that such investments would be entirely beyond the competence of regulated entities.
The same D.C. Circuit cases that EPA relies on to explicate adequate demonstration clearly show that EPA has fallen well short of the minimum statutory standard. EPA alludes to “the D.C. Circuit’s view that EPA may determine a system of emission reduction to be adequately demonstrated if EPA reasonably projects that it will be available by a future date certain.” But the agency cites no case for that proposition, and a close reading of Sierra Club v. Costle(1981) shows that that is not the D.C. Circuit’s view.
In Sierra Club v. Costle, the D.C. Circuit indicated that dry scrubbing, which, at that time, was an emerging clean coal technology, was not adequately demonstrated because, as an “emerging technology,” there were “crucial issues such as … demonstration of commercial-scale systems, which may continue to limit the overall acceptability of this technology.” The court noted that “major uncertainty” existed with the technology “in the absence of experience at large-scale facilities” and that EPA could not extrapolate from smaller pilot-scale facilities. Just as in that case, EPA here admits that CCS and green hydrogen are emerging technologies. Its catalog of demonstrations at different scales, different sources, and different industries does not amount to much, since those scales, sources, and industries are not the ones it now seeks to regulate. What EPA’s own examples show is that considerable uncertainty remains with respect to the overall feasibility and acceptability of its proposed technologies.
The one case that EPA discusses in some detail is the per curiam opinion in Lignite Energy Council v. EPA. According to EPA, the court then held that technology could be “adequately demonstrated through a ‘reasonable extrapolation of performance in other industries.’ ’’ What EPA neglects to mention is the reason that the D.C. Circuit allowed such extrapolation in that case: namely, that the pollution sources in the other industry were similar in design, scale, and emissions profile to the sources that EPA had sought to regulate. By EPA’s own admission, that is not the case here.
In short, neither CCS nor “green” hydrogen co-firing meets the Section 111 legal standards of “adequately demonstrated” BSER.
EPA Has Ignored the Proposed Rule’s Costs, as well as Its Health, Environment, and Energy Impacts
In determining that a technology is “adequately demonstrated” under Section 111, EPA must take into account the costs of the rule, as well as the health, environment, and energy impacts of the rule. Courts have interpreted this as requiring that costs be reasonable. That poses a threshold problem for EPA’s proposed rule because EPA can point to no measurable environmental benefit that would result from compliance. EPA has based all its greenhouse gas regulations on the same original 2010 Endangerment Finding, which has serious problems of its own, as William Happer and Richard Lindzen note in their July 2023 comment letter to the proposed rule. It has not been demonstrated that the sources subject to the rule make a significant contribution to a condition of air pollution that endangers human health, and the finding mentions the 2021 Technical Support Document on Social Cost of Carbon only in connection with a regulatory impact analysis that is unrelated to the requirements of CAA. Under such circumstances, there is a threshold question of whether any significant costs could be reasonable.
There are other problems with EPA’s estimate of costs and impacts, too. First, its estimate of costs is highly speculative. The rule would affect a host of entities and government authorities across the whole society, the vast majority of them not subject to regulation under CAA, and EPA has little clue as to how they will adjust to the rule. If its cost estimates are off by any significant amount, regulated entities could well react by shuttering, rather than attempting to comply, which would create a situation of dangerous energy scarcity with skyrocketing prices. In parts of the country where fossil energy is restricted as a matter of policy, such as California, the electricity grid is on the verge of dangerous blackouts almost every evening in the summer. And those restrictions are modest, compared with those now contemplated by EPA.
EPA’s most egregious failure to properly account for costs is that it subtracts the amount of federal subsidies from the cost estimate, a nominal reduction of $369 billion based on CBO’s score. That figure will likely turn out to be much greater, given the subsidies’ lack of date-certain sunset.
EPA’s practice of reducing cost estimates under Section 111 by the amount of federal subsidies amounts to an accounting trick that vitiates the purpose for which cost considerations were included in the provision. To see why, consider an emissions standard that costs 10% of gross domestic product to achieve every year. Congress could pass a law subsidizing the entire cost of achieving the standard. By EPA’s logic, the cost of the standard would then be “zero,” even though the subsidy would actually cost more than $2 trillion every year, increasing the overall federal budget by half. To say that the costs of such a standard are “zero” would be tantamount to fraud on the public.
The practice certainly violates Section 111, a fact that EPA tries to cover up with what can only be described as an intentionally misleading characterization of congressional intent: “The legislative history of the [Inflation Reduction Act] makes clear that Congress was well aware that EPA may promulgate rulemaking under CAA Section 111 based on CCS and explicitly stated that EPA should consider the tax credit to reduce the costs of CCUS (i.e., CCS).” But the only “explicit statement” to that effect in the entire legislative history is a statement by a single congressman, Representative Frank Pallone (D–NJ). A statement by a single congressman simply cannot be attributed to Congress.
On the contrary, federal courts have consistently recognized that, in contrast to other provisions of CAA, “costs” in Section 111 mean all costs, direct and indirect, regardless of who ends up paying for them. EPA cites no legal basis for reducing the cost estimates under Section 111 by the amount of federal subsidies, which merely shift the costs of compliance from consumers in their guise as ratepayers to consumers in their guise as taxpayers. Given the clear statutory requirement to consider all costs, EPA’s invocation of congressional intent would be unavailing even if it were not misleading.
As for the impact on electricity prices, EPA estimates that the rule would lead to a price increase of 13%. That is almost certainly a woeful underestimate. In California, where a much milder form of renewable energy mandate has been in place for years, end-user electricity costs are twice the national average. The costs of compliance with the new rules could be far more exorbitant. As further explained below, CCS would reduce the power output of the relevant plants by at least 30%, while green hydrogen would likely be three to four times more expensive to produce and deliver as current demonstrations using natural gas.
The CCS infrastructure alone would require a massive buildout of at least 60,000 miles of pipelines and thousands of injection wells, according to the estimates in the Princeton Net Zero America study. The Congressional Research Service has noted that even small demonstrations of CCS have raised significant safety issues and triggered fierce local opposition. Similarly, the hydrogen BSER would require enormous amounts of new renewable energy capacity in order to produce the “green” hydrogen dreamed of in the rule, along with tens of thousands of miles of highly specialized pipelines for delivery to the power plants. Given the number of factors outside EPA’s expertise and jurisdiction that would determine how much time and money all that infrastructure would cost, EPA’s estimates are little more than conjecture.
While EPA discusses other proposed rules in its preamble, it curiously avoids all mention of several recently proposed vehicle emissions standards that would force two-thirds of all new vehicles produced in the U.S. to be electric by 2032. If implemented as proposed, those rules would shift most of the transportation sector’s energy requirements onto the electricity grid, at the same time as the power plant rule will almost certainly be significantly diminishing the overall capacity of the grid. If implemented simultaneously, the new vehicle and power plant rules would be a catastrophic train wreck for the nation’s electricity grid. Nonetheless, EPA appears to be totally unaware of the danger—another failure to meet the minimum requirements of a standard under Section 111.
The rule also ignores other impacts. It would force generation shifting from large baseload generators to simple-cycle intermediate and “peaker” plants, which are normally used to provide electricity during times of the day when demand is highly variable. Those plants get a pass under the proposed rule because, according to EPA, they are not compatible with CCS for engineering reasons, or with green hydrogen for cost reasons. Under the rule, it will be far cheaper for utilities to rely on intermediate and peaker generators and simply avoid the costly CCS and hydrogen co-firing requirements that will apply to baseload generators.
That is a major loophole in the rule, and one that could well result in more pollution of all kinds, including the toxic and other dangerous pollutants that CAA was originally designed to reduce. Intermediate and peaker plants are far less efficient than combined-cycle plants and, correspondingly, produce more emissions of all pollutants per unit of power output. Furthermore, carbon capture is an energy-intensive process that relies heavily on steam-generated power and reduces the electrical output of a power plant by as much 30%, which would also increase the emissions rate per unit of output. Yet EPA casually dismisses concerns about increased emissions of toxic and other dangerous pollutants.
The Power Plant Rule Raises the Same “Major Question” as in West Virginia v. EPA
In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court struck down a very similar attempt to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants under Section 111 of CAA—namely, Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The key issue there was whether EPA’s expansive definition of “best system of emission reduction” could be squared with the statute.
Section 111’s concept of BSER had always been interpreted to refer to technologies, such as scrubbers, that polluters could feasibly install within the facility to reduce emissions. But in the Clean Power Plan, EPA decided that BSER could extend “beyond the fence line” to the whole economy, encompassing utilities’ choice of power sources and other matters beyond EPA’s jurisdiction. Under this novel interpretation of Section 111, EPA was, in effect, claiming the power to reorganize a significant portion of the American economy.
The Court held that EPA’s interpretation raised a “major question” and that, in the absence of clear congressional authorization, the claimed power exceeded EPA’s statutory authority. The Court noted that EPA’s approach to BSER allowed it to set emissions standards at whatever level the agency wanted, regardless of whether any regulated entity could feasibly comply with the new standards. The Court noted that the Clean Power Plan would result “in numerical emissions ceilings so strict that no existing coal plant would have been able to achieve them without engaging in [generation-shifting].”
EPA’s new power plant rule relies on a similarly expansive definition of BSER to establish standards that can be met only by shifting generation away from fossil sources. The only way that regulated sources could comply with the rule would be if states or utilities (or other developers) would build a major interstate infrastructure for CCS and “green” hydrogen, including tens of thousands of miles of specialized pipelines, massive underground storage facilities for CO2, and large-scale facilities for the production and transport of hydrogen gas from renewable sources. Whether to develop such infrastructure is a decision totally beyond the control of regulated entities.
In West Virginia v. EPA, the Court held that EPA’s sudden discovery of a “transformative expansion” in its regulatory authority based on an obscure provision of a “long-extant statute” raised a “major question” about the agency’s authority, requiring Congress to speak with far greater clarity than it had in the statute. EPA’s expansive definition of BSER entailed impacts of great political significance and sought to regulate a significant portion of the American economy.
Just so, EPA’s new interpretation of its authority under Section 111 of CAA—departing from an almost infinitely elastic concept of both BSER and “adequately demonstrated”—presents a major question. The claimed power would regulate a significant portion of the American economy, entails political impact of great significance, and intrudes on matters that are the traditional domain of the states.
EPA’s Persistent Usurpation of Congressional Authority
EPA’s efforts to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other sources represent a dangerous overreach of executive power. Congress never authorized EPA to regulate greenhouse gases in this expansive manner. By trying to reorganize the country’s electricity-sector limits through executive fiat, rather than the legislative process, EPA is abusing its authority and circumventing democracy. Net zero climate policy raises novel issues that affect every American citizen in almost every aspect of modern life. Policy requiring such transformative change should be left to Congress.
Mario Loyola is a professor at Florida International University and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He served in the Trump administration as Associate Director for Regulatory Reform at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 21:45 - Hersh Reveals Motive For Covert Nord Stream Sabotage Attack, One Year On
Hersh Reveals Motive For Covert Nord Stream Sabotage Attack, One Year On
On the one-year anniversary of the September 26, 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage bombings under the Baltic Sea, legendary journalist Seymour Hersh has provided more context and color based on his intelligence sources.
Hersh’s original bombshell reporting in his How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline said that it was a highly secret CIA operation with assistance from an elite US Navy dive team as well as Norwegian intelligence.
Given Hersh’s significant charge that Washington conducted a ‘false flag’ – at a moment many Western officials were quick to blame Moscow for destroying its own pipelines, Russia had in the wake of Hersh’s reporting called for an urgent United Nations investigation into the sabotage.
Instead of answering questions, for example when in March The Intercept approached the White House for answers, the Biden administration merely said it was supporting the separate investigations of individual countries like Sweden, Germany, and Denmark.
The heart of Hersh’s new article this week, which is entitled A Year of Lying About Nord Stream, deals with motive. What was the United States’ motive? – he asks, and his sources tell… The answer is somewhat surprising (or not), and relates to the all-important question of energy dependence.
Below are key sections from the new Hersh investigative report, broken up by our own subheadings…
* * *
Completely ‘offline planning’ & plausible deniability
Deniability, as an option for President Joe Biden and his foreign policy advisers, was paramount. No significant information about the mission was put on a computer, but instead typed on a Royal or perhaps a Smith Corona typewriter with a carbon copy or two, as if the Internet and the rest of the online world had yet to be invented. The White House was isolated from the goings-on near Oslo; various reports and updates from the field were directly provided to CIA Director Bill Burns, who was the only link between the planners and the president who authorized the mission to take place on September 26, 2022. Once the mission was completed, the typed papers and carbons were destroyed, thus leaving no physical trace—no evidence to be dug up later by a special prosecutor or a presidential historian. You could call it the perfect crime.
The Germans possibly had foreknowledge
It was no surprise to the agency’s secret planning group when on January 27, 2022, the assured and confident Nuland, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, stridently warned Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, as he clearly was planning to, that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The line attracted enormous attention, but the words preceding the threat did not. The official State Department transcript shows that she preceded her threat by saying that with regard to the pipeline: “We continue to have very strong and clear conversations with our German allies.”
…The German leader was considered then—and now—by some members of the CIA team to be fully aware of the secret planning underway to destroy the pipelines.
* * *
Biden’s extraordinary public threat
What I did not know then, but was told recently, was that after Biden’s extraordinary public threat to blow up Nord Stream 2, with Scholz standing next to him, the CIA planning group was told by the White House that there would be no immediate attack on the two pipelines, but the group should arrange to plant the necessary bombs and be ready to trigger them “on demand”—after the war began. “It was then that we”—the small planning group that was working in Oslo with the Royal Norwegian Navy and special services on the project—“understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command.”
After Biden’s order to trigger the explosives planted on the pipelines, it took only a short flight with a Norwegian fighter and the dropping of an altered off-the-shelf sonar device at the right spot in the Baltic Sea to get it done. By then the CIA group had long disbanded. By then, too, the official told me: “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war”—Putin was in the process of annexing the four Ukrainian oblasts he wanted—“but was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up” the shuttered Nord Stream 2. “The White House fear was that Putin would get Germany under his thumb and then he was going to get Poland.”
Motive
All of this explains why a routine question I posed a month or so after the bombings to someone with many years in the American intelligence community led me to a truth that no one in America or Germany seems to want to pursue. My question was simple: “Who did it?”
The Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 21:25 - Just The Facts On 'Geofencing': The Intrusive, App-Based 'Dragnet' That Sgt. Joe Friday Never Dreamed Of
Just The Facts On ‘Geofencing’: The Intrusive, App-Based ‘Dragnet’ That Sgt. Joe Friday Never Dreamed Of
Authored by Maggie MacFarland Phillips via RealClear Wire,
As worshippers gathered at the Calvary Chapel in 2020, they were being watched from above.
“We are in the space between the emergence of this technological practice and courts having ruled on its constitutionality,” said Alex Marthews, national chair for Restore the 4th, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans’ rights against “unreasonable search and seizure.”
“Geofencing” often begins with an innocent click. Smartphone apps ask if they can access location to improve service. When users say they yes, they often don’t realize that the apps that help them drive, cook, or pray are likely reselling their information to far-flung for-profit entities. This and other information detailing people’s behaviors and preferences is valuable for businesses trying to target customers. The global location intelligence market was estimated at $16 billion last year, according to Grand View Research, which predicts that figure will grow to $51 billion by 2030.
While it is legal for private companies to broker this information, constitutional questions arise when government accesses data from a third party that it would be prohibited from collecting on its own. The lawsuit filed by Calvary Chapel in August argues that Santa Clara County carried out a warrantless surveillance of the church when it acquired information in 2020 on the church’s foot traffic patterns collected by a research team from Stanford University. Court documents show the researchers acquired the information, which originated with Google Maps, from the location data company SafeGraph, which is also being sued by Calvary.
Nicole Berger, SafeGraph’s senior vice president of operations, has said the Stanford team violated the company’s terms of service and non-commercial research agreement. For its part, Google has since cracked down on third-party vendors, though it still uses location and other data for its own operations.
Google was recently ordered to pay $93 million in a settlement over its collection of location data even after users turned off their location history. The company is also involved in an ongoing dispute in an Oakland, Calif., U.S. District Court over the company’s “Real Time Bidding” process, whereby customers’ personal information is auctioned off to advertisers, so that they can place targeted ads. According to the Calvary Chapel lawsuit, it was this process, among others, which enabled SafeGraph to collect users’ location data.
Geofencing allows users to build a fence around certain areas or points-of-interest such as Calvary Chapel or the area near the Capitol on Jan. 6 and see when people entered that space.
It is becoming routine for law enforcement agencies to use warrants to require companies like Google to hand over location data that may be connected to criminal activity. Rep. Jim Jordan recently wrote a letter asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to expand use of such warrants. Privacy advocates and a bipartisan group of legislators say that acquisition of such information without a warrant presents a troubling, and relatively new constitutional dilemma. The Calvary Chapel suit, as well as proposed legislation working its way through Congress, experts say, could prove important landmarks in resolving this tension between technological innovation and constitutional protections.
The Calvary Chapel suit stems from an earlier court case, in which the church was ordered to pay over $1 million in fines for violating county public health orders in 2020, by holding services on its premises without social distancing or masking.
During the trial over the fines last year, it came to light that a research team headed by Stanford University professor of administrative law and statistical inference Daniel Ho had used SafeGraph data to provide Santa Clara County health officers with analysis on aggregate visits to Calvary Chapel covering the period of January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021. In his 2022 “expert witness report,” Ho said the SafeGraph dataset he analyzed “was widely used during the pandemic to understand social distancing by public health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the California Governor’s Office, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Clara County,” where information about “points-of-interest” included 1,576 religious organizations.
Ho said he was able to estimate the average daily visits to the church.
Data brokers, including SafeGraph, insist that their information is anonymized. But it is precisely the lack of specificity that worries its critics. “There’s no particular individual who the government is suspicious of,” Adam Schwartz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told RealClearInvestigations. “It’s a dragnet.”
Moreover, there is no guarantee that the data collected through geofencing stays anonymous. “It is often very easy to take supposedly de-identified data and re-identify a person,” said Schwartz, “And it’s very, very easy to do that with location data.” The same phone spotted in two locations, he said, can be easily traced to a specific individual “because people have very unique travel and location patterns.”
At Calvary Chapel, for example, in-person surveillance conducted by the county, as well as numerous in-person depositions of Chapel members and employees during the previous legal contretemps between the county and the church that began in 2020, would have provided local officials with detailed knowledge of who was on the premises, and when.
The right to privacy, said Calvary Chapel attorney Mariah Gondiero, is “really going to be the key to this case,” with an overarching question of whether congregants have a reasonable expectation of privacy while in church. “You absolutely need a warrant,” she said, where that expectation exists.
In any event, critics say, law enforcement’s use of geofencing – even when it is backed by a warrant – violates the Fourth Amendment.
“There is very significant debate right now whether it is possible for a geofence warrant to meet the Fourth Amendment burden of particularity,” said Alex Marthews, referring to the legal principle that warrants must be specific to the individual, property, and place in order to be constitutional.
Geofencing proponents argue that it falls under the “administrative search” exception to the Fourth Amendment, which allows regulatory enforcement personnel to conduct warrantless searches in certain contexts where the greater good is at issue (i.e., police sobriety checkpoints, airport TSA scans).
In a written statement, a Santa Clara County public affairs spokesperson accused the Chapel of taking “out of context analysis of third-party, commercially available aggregate data that was used to respond to Calvary’s own allegations in a lawsuit that Calvary itself filed.”
In their complaint, Calvary Chapel attorneys assert that the county is arguing in effect “that, as long as they call it research, any level of government can target and spy on any individual or group at any time for any duration and, if they so choose, they can wield the collected data against said individuals or groups who oppose their orders.”
Marthews, who describes himself as someone who took “the threat of the peak of the current pandemic as having been a very serious one,” said government authorities at the time should nevertheless have recognized ‘the unique constitutional risks” that come with searching houses of worship and curtailing the free exercise of religion, “even in the context of a pandemic.”
Public pushback is mounting against the sharing of location data. In a 2022 letter to Congress, numerous privacy and civil liberties groups petitioned for committee hearings on a bill called the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act. The bill, which has a companion in the Senate that was introduced in 2021, would prohibit warrantless government purchases of cell phone location data from third party brokers. It passed unanimously through the House Judiciary Committee, 30-0, in July of this year, and awaits full review by the House.
Last month, California passed a law calling for the creation of a mechanism that will allow consumers to demand that every data broker delete their personal information through a single request.
In the meantime, lawmakers, corporations, officials, and individual citizens are each grappling with the ethical problems presented by the coinciding twin novelties of COVID-19 and location data tracking. “Pandemic, the public good, the emergent nature of the […] technological capabilities,” said Marthews, “is kind of a growing pain as we all kind of find our way through this technology and this pandemic together. I think that may be a fair assessment of this particular case.”
As for legislation, Schwartz describes himself as optimistic with regard to the eventual passage of the Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act. “I think there’s momentum,” he said. “It’s bipartisan.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 21:05 - Fauci Was 'Smuggled' Into CIA Headquarters To "Influence" Covid-19 Origins Investigation: Select Subcommittee
Fauci Was ‘Smuggled’ Into CIA Headquarters To “Influence” Covid-19 Origins Investigation: Select Subcommittee
Dr. Anthony Fauci was smuggled into CIA headquarters, “without a record of entry,” where he “participated in the analysis to “influence” the Agency’s” Covid-19 investigation, according to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
🚨BREAKING🚨
New allegation: @CIA secretly escorted Dr. Anthony Fauci into Agency Headquarters to “influence” its COVID-19 origins investigation. pic.twitter.com/MilogK6xll
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) September 26, 2023
Fauci’s alleged CIA meeting was revealed in a Tuesday night letter from Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) to the Inspector General of the US Department of Health and Human Services, which demands documents, communications and other evidence between Fauci and the CIA.
What difference does it make to @CIA whether the pandemic originated at a Chinese lab or in nature?🤔
Now, same question for Dr. Fauci.
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) September 26, 2023
This allegation is even more interesting in light of a report from two weeks ago that the CIA bribed analysts to say Covid-19 did not originate in a Chinese lab.
According to a ‘senior-level’ CIA whistleblower, the agency ‘tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans.’
“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” reads the letter from Wenstrup.
“The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis.
“The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” the letters continue, adding that the analysts were “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise.”
Wenstrup and Turner also asked for documents and communications between the CIA and other federal agencies, including the State Department, FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Energy Department.
In a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA Chief Operating Officer Andrew Makridis as having “played a central role” in the COVID investigation and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview. -NY Post
In June, the US Intelligence Community declassified a 10-page report on COVID origins, in which it found “biosafety concerns” and “genetic engineering” taking place in Wuhan, but that most of its “agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered.”
As the Committee noted on Tuesday;
Dr. Fauci’s questionable presence at the CIA, coupled with recently uncovered evidence that he, Dr. Fauci, “prompted” the drafting of “Proximal Origin” — the infamous paper that was used to attempt to “disprove” the lab leak theory — lends credence to heightened concerns about the promotion of a false COVID-19 origins narrative by multiple federal government agencies.
Chairman Wenstrup is seeking all documents and communications related to Dr. Fauci’s access to CIA facilities and CIA employees as it relates to these allegations. Also, after becoming aware of additional information, the Select Subcommittee is requesting Special Agent Brett Rowland appear for a transcribed interview regarding Dr. Fauci’s purported movements to and from the CIA. As mounting evidence continues to imply that federal government officials covered-up the origins of COVID-19, investigating any improper influence will ensure future accountability of not only the intelligence community, but also public health officials.
Amazing…
So all along Fauci was just a patsy for the deep state’s involvement in the creation of a weaponized virus using a Chinese biolab funded by the US government.
case closed https://t.co/O8B6h93jA6
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 27, 2023
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Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 20:45 - Hunter Biden Used Dad's Classified Doc House For $250K Chinese Wire Transfer
Hunter Biden Used Dad’s Classified Doc House For $250K Chinese Wire Transfer
Hunter Biden used his Dad’s Delaware home where classified documents were found strewn about the garage to receive more than $250,000 in Chinese wire transfers, according to the House Oversight Committee.
🚨CHINA WIRES LIST JOE’S HOME AS BENEFICIARY ADDRESS 🚨
A few months after Joe Biden announced his candidacy in 2019, information available to the Committee shows Hunter Biden received two wires from China for $250,000 and $10,000, including from Jonathan Li.
More alarming, the…
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) September 26, 2023
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The wires were from Wang Xin and Jonathan Li, the latter of whom ran a Chinese private equity fund (BHR) which Hunter was listed as being on the board of directors. Hunter also arranged for a meeting between Li and Joe Biden while Joe was VP, while Joe allegedly gave Li’s son a letter of recommendation.
Here’s the breakdown of events from the Committee:
2009-2017: During his time as Vice President and prior to later payments to Hunter Biden, evidence shows Joe Biden developed a familiar relationship with Jonathan Li. Devon Archer, a Biden business associate, described how Joe Biden met with Jonathan Li for coffee in Beijing, China, had a phone call with him, and wrote college recommendation letters for his children.
April 25, 2019: Joe Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election.
July 26, 2019: Wang Xin wired $10,000 with Joe Biden’s home listed on the wire.
August 2, 2019: Jonathan Li wired $250,000 with Joe Biden’s home listed on the wire.
October 13, 2019: George Mesires, who served as Hunter Biden’s lawyer, stated, in part, that Hunter Biden served with BHR “only as a member of its board of directors,” which was purportedly an “unpaid position.”
October 22, 2020: During a presidential debate, Joe Biden said, “My son has not made money […] in China.”
Of note, Hunter was living at the Wilmington house while he was raking in millions of dollars from CCP-linked business dealings.
Hunter was living there…
Seamus Bruner (researcher for legendary bombshell-dropper Peter Schweizer), reports via Breitbart News, that “While addicted to drugs, cavorting with prostitutes, and making deals with businessmen tied to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence, Hunter Biden lived in the house where Joe Biden stored classified documents.”
Second, the Washington Free Beacon reported in January that photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop place him at the Wilmington House in July, 2017. Of note, the classified documents were reportedly brought to the house in January of that year.
The photos ‘are the most concrete evidence to date’ that Hunter – who was actively negotiating a deal with a CCP-linked Chinese energy company – had access to areas of his father’s home where classified documents were stored.
A Washington Free Beacon review of the laptop found four 2017 photographs of Hunter Biden, clad in a white collared shirt and a camouflage baseball cap, behind the wheel of his father’s 1967 Corvette Stingray. GPS metadata embedded in the photos indicate they were taken within a minute of each other at 6:49 p.m. on July 30 of that year, just outside the president’s Wilmington, Del., residence. The photos show Hunter Biden posing in the vehicle beside two young girls. One appears to be his then-12-year-old niece, Natalie Biden. The other could not be identified.
And as the Beacon further reports – corroborating Breitbart‘s reporting, “At the time the photos were taken, Hunter Biden was negotiating a lucrative business deal with the now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, which was closely tied to the Chinese government. Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski claimed to have met with Joe Biden in person in early May 2017—less than three months before Hunter Biden was pictured taking the wheel of his father’s prized vehicle—to discuss the Biden family’s Chinese business dealings.”
In total, CEFC paid Hunter Biden $6 million in legal and consulting fees in 2017 and 2018.
So, lies upon lies from the Bidens.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 20:25 - Trump Defends Lindsey Graham After Boos At South Carolina Rally
Trump Defends Lindsey Graham After Boos At South Carolina Rally
Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
President Donald Trump defended Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) after attendees booed the Republican senator at a campaign event in South Carolina.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd during a campaign rally in Summerville, South Carolina on Sept. 25, 2023. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Speaking to a crowd of several hundred at Sportsman Boats in Summerville, South Carolina on Sept. 25, President Trump was introduced by Gov. Henry McMaster, one of the earliest political figures to endorse President Trump’s re-election bid.
Before turning to his speech, President Trump opened with remarks about several well-known South Carolina figures—including Mr. Graham, a controversial figure among Republicans with some believing he is too left-wing.
“[A] man who’s always there, I tell you what, when I need help on the left, he’s great,” President Trump said. “And he’s my friend too—Lindsey Graham.”
At this, the crowd erupted into boos, indicative of the dissatisfaction many South Carolina Republicans have long expressed with Mr. Graham.
President Trump, however, defended Mr. Graham, an erstwhile critic turned ally to the president.
“No, no,” President Trump responded to the boos. “He helps me on the left. We need help sometimes. Republicans shouldn’t need help, but he helps them.”
At this, the crowd gave a mixed reaction, with some cheering while others maintained their jeers.
After the event, some rally-goers commented on Mr. Graham.
“Well, he’s a mixed bag, and everybody knows it,” Charles Hughes of Charleston said.
“The problem with him is we’re often voting against the lesser of two evils,” Mr. Hughes said. “And that’s the way a lot of people look at him. I mean, you want to have Republicans [in Congress] because sometimes he will vote that way.”
But Mr. Hughes added, “I think he goes with the flow of the day.”
Seth Hughes, his son, called Mr. Graham “a fear-monger,” citing past statements the senator made about foreign policy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) during a Senate Judiciary hearing about sanctuary jurisdictions on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 22, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Kevin Martin called Mr. Graham “a little old-fashioned in some of his thinking.”
Mr. Martin said he believes in term limits, adding that Mr. Graham should have left office under such a restriction before now under an ideal regime.
Jabs at Haley
Other comments President Trump made were better received by the audience, including remarks he made contrasting Mr. McMaster with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“[McMaster] is a great governor,” President Trump said.
“He kept this place open, but he really kept it open,” he said, a clear jab at Mr. DeSantis, who has touted his COVID-19 record for credit among Republicans.
“What a great governor [McMaster’s] been,” President Trump said.
“It’s one of the reasons I got her out of here, so I could make him governor of the state,” he added, a reference to his decision to appoint Ms. Haley as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. “I never said that.”
Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 12, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times) “That was a big deal—let her move and get Henry there,” President Trump said. “People were very happy about it.”
Here, the crowd cheered.
At the time that she stepped down to serve at the U.N., Ms. Haley had two years left in her second term. In recent years, however, she’s been an outspoken critic of the former president.
“Henry was with me in the campaign early on,” he said. “I thought she’d be with me, but she went a different way.”
Voters at the event expressed mixed feelings on Ms. Haley, a popular governor who brought rich economic benefits to the state but who many say is not ready for the White House.
John Peterson, a resident of North Charleston, South Carolina, said, “I like Nikki Haley, but it’s not her time.”
“She seems to be for this war in Ukraine, and a lot of conservatives aren’t for this,” he added, a reference to Ms. Haley’s outspoken support for continued U.S. support of the Eastern European nation in its battle against Russia.
“It just seems like we’re funding this war by thousands of times more than any other country. And I just think we don’t have accountability as to where this money is going.”
Thayer Arthur and Maryellen Arthur, residents of Summerville, said they liked Ms. Haley but said this was “not at all” her year to seek the White House.
“This year, it’s Trump, period,” Mr. Arthur said.
Craig Frazier also expressed concerns about Ms. Haley on another level.
“When I hear her talk, she still can’t get rid of that politician speak,” he said.
Danny Knox said he likes that Ms. Haley “stood up to Trump” but expressed more interest in President Trump, citing his record in the White House.
Notably absent from President Trump’s comments was Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), South Carolina’s junior senator.
U.S. Senator and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Tim Scott speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 28, 2023. (Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images) While Mr. Scott currently has his own bid for the White House, many observers think his goal is to set himself up as a possible vice presidential pick for the eventual Republican nominee.
Though he’s been tight-lipped on whether he’d consider Mr. Scott, President Trump has expressed deep respect for him—a rarity among President Trump’s current rivals for the nomination.
South Carolina holds the third presidential contest in the country and the first in the South.
The state, a must-win for Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott’s presidential aspirations, will hold its primary election on Feb. 24, 2024.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 20:05 - Musk Warns Biden-Backed 40% UAW Pay-Hike Risks Big 3 Bankruptcy (Again)
Musk Warns Biden-Backed 40% UAW Pay-Hike Risks Big 3 Bankruptcy (Again)
Update (1450ET):
Elon Musk is correct. The risk of UAW’s 40% pay hike for its 150,000 members at the “Big Three” US automakers – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – could send them spiraling into bankruptcy once again.
Musk said while responding to our post, “They want a 40% pay raise *and* a 32-hour workweek. Sure way to drive GM, Ford, and Chrysler bankrupt in the fast lane.”
They want a 40% pay raise *and* a 32 hour workweek. Sure way to drive GM, Ford and Chrysler bankrupt in the fast lane.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2023
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The last time the automotive industry was in a crisis was when Biden was vice president. During that time, automakers received a bailout from then-President Obama.
Even the corporate press has had to admit that Tesla benefits from the union chaos in Detroit.
* * *
Update (1335ET):
A reporter asked Biden: “Mr. President, should the UAW get a 40% [pay] increase?”
The president responded: “Yes.”
Here is the moment when President Biden expressed agreement that the UAW’s demands for a 40% pay hike over a new four-year contract with automakers should be considered.
“Mr. President, should the UAW get a 40% [pay] increase?”
BIDEN: *confused* pic.twitter.com/Ya8LbCOimv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 26, 2023
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To confirm we understood what bumbling Biden said in the video, Bloomberg also verified this.
We have noted that the auto industry workforce is set to contract in the years ahead under Biden’s Green New Deal as manufacturers pivot towards EVs that require fewer workers.
Also, Morgan Stanley’s auto strategist, Adam Jonas, recently warned clients that a surge in labor inflation among automakers could complicate the math for onshoring production in the US.
But beyond the 1-time losses, Jonas says he is much more concerned about the potential for 30 to 40% labor inflation over the life of the next 4-year contract and how the domestic auto companies may recalibrate their ROIC and payback math for EV onshoring. The MS strategist thinks the outcome will be greater austerity and focus on the ICE run-off (that, however, would make many more workers redundant as EVs require far less mechanical intervention than ICEs).
One River CIO, Eric Peters, said if UAW Boss Shawn Fain’s demands are met, the average hourly wage for union members would be north of $136.
Detroit automaker unionized labor costs, including wages and benefits, are estimated at an average of $66/hour. That compares with $45 at Tesla, which isn’t unionized, and $55 for Asian automakers.
Meeting all of Fain’s initial demands would boost average hourly labor costs to an estimated $136/hour.
Fein claims to be matching the roughly 40% compensation gains automaker CEOs have realized in the past decade. Ford’s CEO made $22mm last year. Stellantis’s $24.8mm. GM’s nearly $29mm.
… and another problem: the consumer will have to pay even higher prices after automakers pass-through all the wage increases.
Automakers will immediately pass through all wage increases to car prices. https://t.co/COl9DOTVgq
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 26, 2023
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It’s unprecedented for the president to walk the picket line. Presidents historically avoid strikes and usually act as mediators.
Does the White House even understand how inflation is created?
* * *
Update (1308ET):
President Biden and UAW Boss Shawn Fain arrive at picket lines.
* * *
Update (1230 ET):
Biden lands in Detroit.
🇺🇸Air Force One lands at Detroit for President Biden’s trip to Michigan to visit UAW members on strike at the picket line#UAWStrike #UAWSolidarity pic.twitter.com/yQ9QEHjyQT
— Attentive Media (@AttentiveCEE) September 26, 2023
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No EVs in Biden’s motorcade.
President Biden has arrived in Detroit, to join a UAW picket line. pic.twitter.com/rnjWGAZwhm
— Matt Viser (@mviser) September 26, 2023
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* * *
On the twelfth day of strikes, President Biden plans to stand with striking United Auto Workers members on the picket lines in Wayne County, Michigan, a day before a scheduled visit to the state by former President Trump.
Reuters said Biden will join UAW members in Wayne County around 1200 ET on Tuesday. Sources said UAW boss Shawn Fain is also expected to join the most pro-union president in history.
On Monday, Biden said, “I think the UAW gave up an incredible amount back when the automobile industry was going under [GFC]. They gave everything from their pensions on, and they saved the automobile industry.”
“Now that the industry is roaring back they should participate in the benefits,” the president added.
Remember, Biden was VP when former President Obama bailed out the auto industry over a decade ago.
Erik Loomis, a University of Rhode Island professor and an expert on labor history, told AP News that Biden standing at the picket lines is “absolutely unprecedented. No president has ever walked a picket line before.”
Loomis said presidents historically “avoided direct participation in strikes. They saw themselves more as mediators. They did not see it as their place to directly intervene in a strike or in labor action.”
I’m out at the Ford Assembly Plant in Wayne, MI awaiting Biden’s appearance to join UAW strikers. pic.twitter.com/NEfLAT9rri
— Tessa (@OsborneTessa) September 26, 2023
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Coming up live from Michigan UAW Local 900 as autoworkers continue their strike and are joined today and tomorrow by special guests, President Biden today and former President Trump tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/aDphG29Ywt
— Kellie Meyer (@KellieMeyerNews) September 26, 2023
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Union Auto Workers (#UAW) strike against the big three automakers: Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors in Wayne, Michigan.
President #Biden is expected to arrive soon, but the exact location where he will be is unknown. pic.twitter.com/48VE4ak5eX— Madalina Vasiliu (@mada7ina) September 26, 2023
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The ongoing strike has yet to reach a resolution for a new labor agreement between the union and Detroit’s Big Three: Ford, GM, and Stellantis. UAW is demanding approximately a 40% wage increase over a new four-year contract along with a 32-hour work week, while the automakers are proposing around 20%.
Ford announced on Sunday that there were still “significant gaps to close” in negotiations with the union. A recent Deutsche Bank note shows the union and automakers are still far apart.
The latest data from The New York Times shows about 12% of the 150,000-member union is on strike, equivalent to about 18,300 workers. Strikes are nationwide.
And on Wednesday, Trump is expected to address hundreds of workers at a non-union auto supplier in a Detroit suburb.
Meanwhile, there are strikes at Tesla – the most American-made automobile.
* * *
Watch Live:
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 19:50 - Victoria's Secret Unveils 'More Diverse' Fashion Show After Billion-Dollar Backlash
Victoria’s Secret Unveils ‘More Diverse’ Fashion Show After Billion-Dollar Backlash
With its stock price at record lows…
…and sales down a stunning $1.8 billion since 2018 (revenue for its last full fiscal year fell 6.5%, with net income down nearly half)…
Victoria’s Secret has certainly paid the ‘Bud Light’ price for its ‘Go Woke, Get Broke’ business model shift away from ‘sexy’ lingerie to more “culturally relevant” marketing (code for plus sized women, transgender models, and androgynous fashion).
The decision to abandon their much-watched “Fashion Show” – giving in to social justice warriors, many of whom live at home and don’t even have the discretionary income to buy their products anyway – was apparently not a good business decision, and has left a string of failed executives in its wake, most infmaously, Amy Hauk, the leader who was named head of the Victoria’s Secret brand in 2022 and touted ambitious plans to rebuild its product offerings… who then announced her departure after six months.
Despite SJWs pointing in 2019 to the sales decline as proof that the company had an image problem that was alienating customers, it seems more likely that coupled with consumers abandoning malls, where the retailer is massively exposed, it was more likely that the twin trends of e-commerce and fast fashion chipped away at the company’s profits.
Victoria’s Secret is still the dominant lingerie brand in the US, but the gap has shrunk as upstarts took advantage of its weakness. Sales at American Eagle Outfitters Inc.’s Aerie brand have grown 88% since the pandemic began, hitting $1.5 billion last year. Kim Kardashian’s Skims label is on pace to hit nearly $900 million in annual sales, according to a person familiar with the matter, and executives are planning to open physical stores.
“Brand turnarounds don’t happen overnight,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Alex Straton.
“Abercrombie took a decade to turn around — Victoria’s Secret is at that 10-year mark, too. Makes you wonder, are they at a turning point?”
And having been unable to dig itself out of this woke-hell-hole, Bloomberg is reporting that Victoria’s Secret is trying another tack: Revamping the televised fashion show that was a marketing marvel in its 2000s heyday.
Bloomberg’s Olivia Rockeman and Kim Bhasin make clear hos they feel about the revamp of the fashion show: just the latest example of how much Victoria’s Secret clings to a past that it is ostensibly trying to leave behind.
“We think Victoria’s Secret has a partially formed view of what it does not want to be, but it does not yet have anywhere near a full view of what it wants to become,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Plc, said in a note to clients on Aug. 30.
“As such, it is stuck in some kind of blurry netherworld.”
As Bloomberg reports, The Victoria’s Secret World Tour, a feature-length film that is slated to air Tuesday on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service, is a bid to recapture some of the retailer’s Angel wings-era luster while incorporating more diverse models and designers.
And it’s those last few words that Bloomberg uses to describe the event that has us wondering, will today’s show leave viewers needing “happy tissues or sad tissues…”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 19:45 - First-Ever Filming Of Singapore's Gold Reserves In Super-Secret Gold Vault
First-Ever Filming Of Singapore’s Gold Reserves In Super-Secret Gold Vault
Submitted by BullionStar.us
Singapore’s Channel News Asia (CNA) recently published a fascinating new documentary film about Singapore’s national reserve assets, including Singapore’s famed monetary gold reserves.
One tonne of gold bars in BullionStar’s gold vault in Singapore The CNA documentary includes a segment featuring BullionStar’s CEO Luke Chua in BullionStar’s vault visually explaining what 1 tonne of gold looks like, to illustrate the magnitude of Singapore’s gold reserves.
The CNA documentary team also obtained access to the secret gold vault of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank, where more than half of Singapore’s official gold reserves appear to be stored. This is the first time ever that Singapore’s gold reserves have been filmed inside the MAS central bank gold vault.
Singapore’s central bank holds 225.4 tonnes of gold, making it the 24th largest sovereign gold holder in the world. Up until March 2021, MAS held 127.4 tonnes of gold, and had not bought gold for many years.
But then Singapore’s central bank went on a gold buying spree, buying 26.4 tonnes of gold bars between April and May 2021 (see here), and then adding another 73.6 tonnes of gold bars between January and July 2023. See here.
Singapore’s central bank (MAS) added another 2 tonnes of gold to its monetary reserves during July, taking its total gold holdings to 227.34 tonnes.
With this new purchase, MAS has now bought exactly 100 tonnes of gold since it started its gold buying spree in April 2021.… pic.twitter.com/mA0ylARNvD
— BullionStar (@BullionStar) September 4, 2023
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In total, that was 100 tonnes of gold added to Singapore’s gold reserves over just 2 years, which in percentage terms was a massive 77% increase compared to early 2021.
In fact, the rate of gold accumulation by Singapore’s central bank during early 2023 was so intense that MAS earned the distinction of being the world’s largest central gold buyer in Q1 2023, during which it bought 68.7 tonnes of gold.
While Singapore’s gold reserves have a market value of approximately SGD 18.8 billion, this represents less than 5% of MAS’s total reserve assets, which in total are worth about SGD 400 billion. The rest of the reserve assets of Singapore’s central bank, which consist of holdings of securities (bonds and stocks) and foreign currencies, are also, along with the 225.4 tonnes of gold, managed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) headquarters, Singapore In addition, Singapore has two additional state sovereign investment funds. One is the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), a Singapore government-owned company which manages Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. The other is Temasek, a Singapore government-owned global investment company. GIC invests globally in equities, bonds and real. estate. Temasek invests in equities, but also owns entire companies across the world, and has an investment portfolio worth SGD 400 billion. Both of these national investment funds are also profiled in the CNA program.
The CNA documentary, which is titled “Singapore Reserves: The Untold Story | Singapore Reserves Revealed”, can be viewed on the CNA Insider channel on YouTube here.
The segment featuring BullionStar’s CEO in BullionStar precious metals vault, and which also features footage from the MAS gold vault, runs from approximately minutes 11:46 until 15:35. That segment can be seen here.
The MAS Secret Gold Vault in Singapore
Near the beginning of the CNA documentary, the narrator states that Singapore’s central bank (MAS) granted the CNA team exclusive access to the MAS secret gold vault, on condition that CNA signed an undertaking to keep the location of the vault secret. This narration is accompanied by a shot of a one page document titled ‘Undertaking to Safeguard Official Information’ which invokes Singapore’s Official Secrets Act, and which the CNA documentary producer and crew had to sign as an undertaking with MAS not to reveal the location of the vault to anyone.
CNA documentary producer standing in the MAS gold vault in Singapore. Location not disclosed. Source CNA also says that its crew (which consisted of a cameraman and a producer) chose to be blindfolded and were driven in a ‘super secretive trip’ to a secret location in Singapore where the vault is located. This is very reminiscent of another filmed visit to a gold vault in 2011, when CNBC’s Bob Pisani and his crew were supposedly blindfolded (maybe for dramatic effect) and driven to an undisclosed location in London to visit the HSBC gold vault which stores the gold bars of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD).
Fast forward to 2023, and the recent video footage from the MAS gold vault which is included in the CNA documentary spans just 41 seconds between minutes 14:12 and 14:46 of the video, and for a few seconds again between 15:21 and 15:26. However, the CNA video segment (which can be seen directly below) is very interesting and reveals plenty of information about Singapore’s gold holdings, which we will analyse here.
The opening shot shows the CNA producer standing in a large open plan vault space among towering racks of steel trays that contain large Good Delivery (400 oz) gold bars. When the producer takes her blindfold off, she appears genuinely surprised and in awe to be viewing huge quantities of 400 oz gold bars.
The large open space where Singapore’s gold is stored has a ceiling about 4 metres high, with air-conditioning, a sprinkler system and light fittings, and is probably underground, presumably in a basement level of a building.
According to the narrator, and confirmed visually in the video, “each tray contains up to 20 gold bars”. From the video footage, each tray contains two rows of 8 bars each, and 4 more bars in the middle, i.e. 20 bars per tray.
“Each bar is worth close to USD 800,000” says the narrator, which is true because they are London Good Delivery gold bars (approx. 400 ozs per bar @ USD 2000 per oz).
Historic 128 tonnes of Gold stored in Singapore
The trays (each with 20 gold bars) are stacked 8 trays high to form what we’ll call a ‘Stack’. Each stack therefore contains 2 tonnes of gold.
The video shows that in the MAS gold vault, there are various rows of these ‘Stacks’ (comprising eight trays full of gold bars), and these stacks have been positioned in long lines to form walking spaces or corridors in between the lines of stacks. These rows of stacks are between 10 – 12 stacks in length, and some rows are positioned back-to-back to form double rows. There are also additional stacks of trays that have been placed in some of the spaces of the ‘corridors’.
Even though the CNA narrator says that they are in “a vault, the size of which we can’t disclose”, it is possible to estimate the size, from observing the CNA video footage, and then creating an approximate ‘floorplan’ of the MAS gold vault, complete with the arrangements of the stacks of metal trays containing the gold bars.
This floorplan can be seen in the diagram below, where each ‘X’ represents a ‘Stack’ of 8 trays of gold. Each stack therefore contains 160 Good Delivery gold bars, i.e. 2 tonnes.
Graphic estimating the layout of the MAS gold vault based on the CNA video from minutes 14:12 to 14:46 – which results in an estimate of 128 tonnes of gold stored. On the left hand side, there are two rows of stacks, back-to-back, with 11 stacks in one row and 12 in the other row. Then there is a corridor, but there is one stack positioned at the end of this corridor. To the rights of this are two further rows of stacks, each 11 stacks long. Then there is a corridor and one final row of stacks (10 stacks long) to the right. But within this corridor there have been placed another 7 stacks. In total that is 64 stacks of trays.
At 2 tonnes of gold per stacks, this would mean that 64 stacks of trays (each stacks holding 160 gold bars) would equal 128 tonnes of gold. Recall that up to early 2021, Singapore held 127.42 tonnes of gold bars, a gold holding which had not changed in many years. Bingo!
Given that the CNA video shows a vault which appears to hold 128 tonnes of gold bars, it therefore appears that the gold vault which MAS recently showed to Channel News Asia is holding all of the historical 127.4 tonnes of gold which Singapore purchased many years ago.
South African Rand Refinery Gold Bars
This hypothesis is backed up by the fact that all the gold bars in the video where the bar refinery ‘brand’ is visible are gold bars from South Africa’s Rand Refinery. This is very relevant since the first gold purchase which Singapore’s government made was in 1968 when Singapore’s finance minister at that time, Dr Goh Keng Swee, along with his senior adviser Ngiam Tong Dow, transacted a deal with the South African government to buy 100 tonnes of gold which was then delivered to Switzerland. See the last section of the BullionStar article here for details.
Showcase in the GIC (Sovereign Wealth Fund) Office in Singapore commemorating Singapore’s first gold purchase of 100 tonnes in 1968 – “A Torn Dollar Bill And Gold For Singapore” This 100 tonnes of gold seems to have then subsequently been transported from Switzerland to Singapore at some unspecified time in the past.
There is also evidence that the Rand Refinery gold bars appearing in the CNA video have not been fabricated recently, since there is no year of manufacture stamped on any of them.
According to the authoritative 2014 Gold Bars Worldwide report on Rand Refinery Gold Bars (written by Nigel Deesbrock for Grendon International Research), all 400 oz Rand Refinery gold bars have had year of manufacture stamped on them since 2008.
Rand Refinery Good Delivery gold bar – Serial number OC 1064, fineness 9965. Source Also, the Rand Refinery Good Delivery gold bars in the video, where the purity stamp is visible, show gold purities (fineness) of 9965 (bar OC 1064) and 9958 (bar LQ 1807), meaning they contain 99.65% and 99.58% gold purity respectively.
However, and this is very relevant, all Rand Refinery Good Delivery gold bars have been fabricated with a fineness of 9999 for many years now, and since that time, their serial numbers have consisted of a sequence of numbers without letters.
Two Rand Refinery Good Delivery Gold Bars – Serial numbers LQ1807 and LQ 664. Source If 128 tonnes of Gold is in Singapore – Where are the other 98 tonnes?
Therefore, all of these Rand Refinery gold bars featured in the video footage from the secret MAS gold vault in Singapore are quite old and have gold purities a little less than 99.99%. All of this therefore points to the fact that the gold which CNA recently filmed in the MAS vault in Singapore is the 127.4 tonnes of gold which Singapore accumulated many years ago.
This then raises the question as to where are the more recent 98 tonnes of gold bars which Singapore’s central bank purchased between 2021 – 2023. If these gold bars were purchased in the London Gold Market at the Bank of England’s gold vaults (which is likely), then these bars are probably still being stored in London. If this is the case, then the question should be asked of MAS as to whether this gold is in fully allocated and segregated from, or has this gold been lent out to the bullion banks of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), in which case it should be classified as a ‘gold receivable’.
If this recently purchased gold has in fact already been brought back (repatriated) to Singapore by MAS, then is there another part of Singapore’s secret gold vault which the CNA documentary did not film?
As to where the secret gold vault of Singapore’s central bank is located, that remains a mystery. It could be in the basement of a government-owned or government-occupied building in Singapore’s financial district, or there again it could be in a more secure location, such as in one of Singapore’s military bases or air bases, a number of which are dotted across the island of Singapore.
Given that the MAS gold vault is rumoured to be guarded by members of the elite Singapore Police Force Gurkhas contingent, a contingent which is described on the Police website as a “world-class security unit”, that is employed “across the spectrum of para-military operations to help safeguard Singapore” – then perhaps the MAS gold vault could be located near the grounds of one of Singapore’s Police headquarters or divisional headquarters.
Following the video footage of the gold bars in the secret MAS gold vault, the CNA documentary switches back to BullionStar CEO Luke Chua who explains that:
“Gold’s true value really shines during times of uncertainty, in times of crisis. During times of crisis, the value of the other reserve assets will tend to fall.
Gold has been tested across centuries, across thousands of years, and has still proven to be a good store of value.”
Luke concludes by elegantly explaining that Singapore’s government did indeed make a shrewd investment when it purchased its first 100 tonnes of gold in 1968 at a price of US $40 per troy ounce, since the gold price today is nearing US $2000 per troy ounce. That’s 50 times more than the purchase price.
This article was originally published on the BullionStar.us website under the same title “First ever filming of Singapore’s Gold Reserves in Super-Secret Gold Vault”.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 19:25 - Johns Hopkins Gets 'Ratioed' On X For Pushing "Microstamping" Firearms
Johns Hopkins Gets ‘Ratioed’ On X For Pushing “Microstamping” Firearms
The Center for Gun Violence Solutions (CGVS) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is advocating for the utilization of “microstamping” technology on firearms. They believe a firing pin that imprints a unique serial number on the cartridge could be one solution to end gun violence.
“Microstamping imprints a code on a bullet’s cartridge case each time a gun is fired—linked to the gun’s serial number—allowing law enforcement to quickly link cartridge cases found at crime scenes to the gun used in a crime,” CGVS posted on X.
Microstamping imprints a code on a bullet’s cartridge case each time a gun is fired—linked to the gun’s serial number—allowing law enforcement to quickly link cartridge cases found at crime scenes to the gun used in a crime.
Learn more about this tech: https://t.co/OzhbL077tf pic.twitter.com/QtbHHIjTxO
— Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions (@JHU_CGVS) September 25, 2023
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However, firing pins are easily removable and swappable in firearms. And what will stop criminals who have already filed down serial numbers on lower receivers from filing down firing pins with microstamping technology?
Gun advocacy group Firearms Policy Coalition responded to CGVS’ post: “Please keep wasting your time and money on this massive failure of bullshit.”
Please keep wasting your time and money on this massive failure of bullshit.
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 25, 2023
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“So, you assume a firing pin can’t be easily changed out, the microstamp code won’t wear down, files must not exist in your dream world, or the basic fact the tech doesn’t work outside of a lab setting. Add in the fact that it can be easily defeated by simply using a brass catcher or scattering someone elses brass,” an X user said.
So, you assume a firing pin can’t be easily changed out, the microstamp code won’t wear down, files must not exist in your dream world, or the basic fact the tech doesn’t work outside of a lab setting. Add in the fact that it can be easily defeated by simply using a brass catcher…
— Robb 🇺🇸 🇹🇼 🇵🇱 ✈️🛸 (@158912r) September 25, 2023
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Maybe the microstamping technology is not entirely about actual gun safety prevention. Instead, as one X user pointed out:
“You’re forgetting that none of that is actually why they want this. It’s the beginning of making guns so expensive by having all of these added features that only rich people can have them. Eventually they’ll mandate fingerprint scan to operate and other “safety” features like this.”
You’re forgetting that none of that is actually why they want this.
It’s the beginning of making guns so expensive by having all of these added features that only rich people can have them.
Eventually they’ll mandate fingerprint scan to operate and other “safety” features like…
— I am Riven (@MetalOfRiven) September 25, 2023
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… and this.
Also in Maryland, in 2016 the state scrapped its shell casing registry because across 16 years and 300,000 registered casings, the system never solved a single crime. https://t.co/V2suE31O1N pic.twitter.com/KZwPqVadTl
— Open Source Defense (@opensrcdefense) September 25, 2023
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Remember, anti-gunner billionaire Mike Bloomberg has donated billions of dollars to ‘woke’ Johns Hopkins. Bloomberg also backs the anti-gun group Everytown.
Billionaire elites like Bloomberg and the radical left have openly waged war on the Second Amendment. Law-abiding Americans have been panicking to purchase firearms as progressive policies in metro areas and on the southern border have failed, sparking the worst migrant and crime crisis this nation has ever experienced.
It seems as if Democrats want to disarm law-abiding citizens via executive fiat while their failed policies only embolden criminals.
This insanity must stop, and law and order must be revived — or risk a new crime explosion across suburbia (it’s already beginning).
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 19:05 - Social Security Agency Demands Americans Pay Them Back After Overpaying
Social Security Agency Demands Americans Pay Them Back After Overpaying
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A bevy of recent reports has indicated that some Americans are receiving demands from the Social Security Administration to repay the agency after they were overpaid on their benefits.
According to those published reports, the issue tends to arise when the agency overpays people who are receiving workers’ compensation payments. A recent Social Security Administration inspector general’s report (pdf) found that the administration collected about $4.7 billion in repayments in 2022, while about $22 billion remains outstanding.
For example, an Ohio nursing home worker told KFF News in a recent article that she has multiple health problems, including an artificial heart and cerebral palsy, and was getting about $862 a month and receiving about $1,065 in monthly Social Security disability benefits when she received a letter from the SSA saying she was being overpaid. What’s more, the agency said that it wanted the money back and told her to mail a check with the money in 30 days for about $60,000.
A Texas woman who spoke to Fox4 TV on Thursday said she received a similar demand from the SSA, saying she was overpaid and wanted the money back. The letter, according to the woman, wanted her to pay about $41,000, although she said an employee admitted to her that a mistake was made.
“She called me and told me, ‘Yeah, I made the mistake. I’m human,'” Danielle Prisock told Fox4. “I’m human as well, I said, and I didn’t make the mistake.”
The Social Security Administration makes payments for a variety of reasons. Benefits are paid based on one’s earnings record if they are aged 62 or older or if one has a disability or enough work credits.
Agency Responds
The Epoch Times has not received an SSA comment yet on these reports, but a spokesperson for the agency told multiple local news outlets that it handles overpayments on a case-by-case basis.
“Social Security is required by law to adjust benefits or recover debts when we establish that someone received payments to which they are not entitled and an overpayment occurs. We must maintain our responsibilities to taxpayers to be good stewards of the trust funds,” the agency spokesperson told the outlet.
Adding that fewer than 0.5 percent of Social Security payments are overpayments, the spokesperson said that “each person’s situation is unique, and we handle overpayments on a case-by-case basis.”
“Overpayments can occur for many reasons, such as when a beneficiary does not timely report work or other changes that can affect their benefits,” the SSA spokesperson added. “We continually strive to improve stewardship of our programs and reduce improper payments. While staffing losses and resource constraints have challenged our service delivery, our payment accuracy rates remain very high.”
What the IG Report Found
In late 2022, the SSA’s inspector general report said that overpayments or underpayments can occur when the SSA makes “mistakes in computing” or “fails to obtain or act on available information” about the recipient.
It found that a number of SSA workers “incorrectly input student information on beneficiaries’ records, which resulted in SSA underpaying an estimated 14,470 beneficiaries approximately $59.5 million” in 2022.
And, according to the IG report, it estimated the SSA “could have avoided approximately 73,000 overpayments totaling more than $368 million if it had effective controls over benefit-computation accuracy.”
But Rebecca Vallas, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, suggested that the problem is worse than being reported.
“We have an overpayment crisis on our hands,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month. “Overpayments push already struggling beneficiaries even deeper into poverty and hardship, which is directly counterproductive to the goals of safety-net programs.”
Jack Smalligan of the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, told the outlet that most people who are getting overpayments are likely on disability and can’t afford to repay the agency. Some overpayments can also result from an error on the beneficiary’s part, he said.
Payment Increases Soon?
As for general Social Security payments, one seniors group estimated that the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will go into effect in January 2024.
The Social Security Administration is expected to announce the COLA for 2024’s benefits sometime in October, with the increased payments coming next January. The agency uses the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that measures inflation during the months of July, August, and September before making its decision.
The Senior Citizens League said last week that the likely Social Security COLA will be 3.2 percent for benefit payments in 2024. That would average out to about a $57 increase in extra benefits, raising them to about $1,790 for the average recipient, it estimated in a press release.
The 3.2 percent COLA is far lower than the 8.7 percent that was received for 2023’s payments, which was the highest increase in about four decades, according to the group. However, the estimated 2024 COLA would be higher than the 2.6 percent average over the past 20 years, it said.
“Inflation was so severe in 2021 and 2022 that the average Social Security benefit fell behind by $1,054, leaving 53 percent of retirees doubting they will recover because household costs rose more than the dollar amount of their COLAs,” Mary Johnson, with the league, told media outlets last week.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/26/2023 – 18:45
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