Aug 28

Today’s News 28th August 2023

  • The Positive Feedback Loop: How Totalitarians Instill Fear & Restrict Human Rights
    The Positive Feedback Loop: How Totalitarians Instill Fear & Restrict Human Rights

    Authored by Scott Sturman via The Brownstone Institute,

    Totalitarians describe a world dominated by positive feedback loops, where the slightest perturbation to a system expands unchecked and leads to instability and chaos. It is a world defined by an airplane wing in the midst of a low speed stall, where a pilot is given only one flawed, aerodynamic choice—to raise the nose of the aircraft by instinctively increasing the wing’s angle of attack. But this maneuver increases the drag on the aircraft out of proportion to the increase in lift, and without corrective action leads to catastrophe.  

    Totalitarians, who exploit and manipulate the physical and social sciences to restrict personal freedom and human rights, promote subjective science which is convenient to their needs and unbalanced. Protective negative feedback loops are ubiquitous in nature and force systems towards stability and equilibrium but are ignored or marginalized in order to engender a sense of futility and fear in the general population. The ensuing desperation leads to political choices based on emotional and imperfect information and results in unanticipated excesses, persecution, and tyranny.

    Marx, the unrepentant and frustrated anti-capitalist, never understood capitalism’s ability to self-correct. He mistakenly envisioned the free market as a system dominated by avarice and static behavior— a simplistic dialectic and zero-sum game that led to the exploitation of the workers and accumulation of great wealth by employers. The Marxist mindset fell victim to the presumption that positive feedback loops dominated capitalism, and the corrective, sustaining elements of negative feedback were nonexistent in a system predicated on efficiencies and flexibility to distortions in the market. 

    The same erroneous assumptions pervade the ideologies of the neo-Marxists and critical theorists, which have manifested in critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These philosophies are steeped in nihilism, victim oppression, and power structures based on phenotype. They are designed to exploit positive feedback loops, where any attempt of reconciliation or constructive dialogue is dismissed a priori as accentuating the problem. The solutions are predictable—the segregation of all subjective identity groups, the abrogation of individual rights in favor of state control, the confiscation of all personal property, and the moratorium on freedom of speech. 

    The Covid-19 debacle provided an opportunity for the pharmaceutical companies, government health regulatory organizations, and the rank-and-file medical establishment to exaggerate the effects of positive feedback loops and minimize the protective outcomes of negative feedback loops in the biologic setting. To achieve these aims, it was necessary to discard centuries of medical science and the understanding that biological systems are inherently self-corrective, and infectious diseases are not an exception.  

    Authoritative sources informed the public that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was destined to become more lethal as it mutated, a stunning departure to the lessons of virology. The use of therapeutics was described as a hopeless act of resignation, patients were instructed to avoid medical attention until gravely ill, and the coup de grâce—this, of all viruses, was not susceptible to the protections of natural immunity. Fear prevailed, the public panicked, and totalitarians were given free reign to do what they do best. 

    The purveyors of climate change hysteria are masters of using computer modeling to introduce mass formation into all aspects of society. The models are incomplete and disregard the mitigating variables of cloud formation, climatic cycles, and the solar influences. Data is cherry-picked, paleoclimatic results ignored, and the fundamentals of heat transfer and its relationship to the electromagnetic spectrum treated as an afterthought.  

    Climate change advocacy is the sine qua non of subjective science run amok. By politicizing science and dismissing detractors as heretics, the movement has successfully exploited a doomsday scenario based on exaggeration and conjecture. Its victims unwittingly forfeit their personal freedoms and economic security for themselves and much of the people of the Third World, who without access to plentiful, inexpensive energy are relegated to a life of poverty and destitution. 

    Free speech serves as the bedrock of a free people. It is the purest form of a negative feedback loop. Its participants willingly participate in the exchange of ideas, where unsavory, illogical, and preposterous thoughts are judged in the public forum and soon discarded. Beneficial ones are nurtured, fine-tuned, and restated until they are transformed into workable solutions made possible by open public debate.

    The great excesses of political drama that have befallen mankind are a result of censored and skewed speech that is sheltered from the stabilizing, collective intellect and commonsensical insights of a free society. The French Revolution demonstrated that not one single zealot was too pure for the revolution. 

    This perversion of perspective led to outrageous examples of political absolutism. This scenario played out during the Russian Revolution and Stalinism, the National Socialism of Nazi Germany, the 20th century military warlords of imperial Japan, Maoist China, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot. Millions have died and suffered from despots who controlled all aspects of communication.

    The democracies and constitutional republics of the world are being censored at the behest of elitists, who claim they alone know the “greater good.” Leo Strauss’s “noble lie” is rationalized as an excuse for the promotion of dishonestly to further what those in control define as noble.  

    We are informed that free speech is dangerous and that it leads to hate, instability, and mayhem. But this disingenuous argument is the argument of tyrants, who gaslight and use words as weapons to disable a free people. Free speech is the salvation of an open, prosperous, and civil society and the embodiment of the sustaining benefits of negative feedback loops.  

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/28/2023 – 02:00

  • Is The Goliath In Autism Research About To Fall?
    Is The Goliath In Autism Research About To Fall?

    Authored by Amy Denney via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Autism is increasing at rapid rates, and researchers may be looking in the wrong places for the answer as to why.

    A newborn baby receives oral antibiotics, one of many contributing factors to alterations in the gut microbiome that modulates immunity. (Shutterstock)

    An extensive meta-analysis of 25 autism studies could shift the focus of research into the cause of autism from genetics to environmental triggers. That shift could open up new, revolutionary avenues for potential treatments.

    The research ties the disorder to changes in the gut microbiome, a community of microbes that live in the colon and are responsible for creating metabolites and other compounds crucial to our health and wellness.

    Many influences outside of the human body are killing these beneficial microbes, which aren’t genetically part of us but live in symbiosis with humans. The new study, published June 26 in Nature Neuroscience, has linked autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to a distinct microbial signature that’s dysbiotic, or unnaturally out of balance. As in an ecosystem, too much of certain problematic species can destroy the overall ecology or lead to problematic consequences, such as too many of certain metabolites and not enough of others.

    Meanwhile, autism rates are increasing at a speed that defies improved screening and diagnostic practices, as well as genetic patterns. The Centers for Disease Control released statistics in April that show the latest autism rate was 1 in 36 children in 2020, up from 1 in 44 in 2018, and 1 in 150 in 2000.

    Taken together, the evidence suggests that it’s time to direct resources to pinpointing exactly what it is in our environment that appears to “turn on” autism development, according to doctors who are treating patients with ASD.

    “Genetic diseases aren’t responsible for epidemics,” Dr. Arthur Krigsman, a specialist who treats children with ASD around the world, told The Epoch Times. “There’s something in the environment that’s triggering a gene that otherwise would be silent. There is no gene responsible for an epidemic.”

    Our genes are wound up tightly in DNA spirals—many of them never being used—similar to blueprints that never make their way to the manufacturer. But cues in our environment can trigger epigenetic processes that trigger some genes to get turned on or others to get turned off, dramatically changing our likelihood of developing certain diseases or attributes.

    The new research suggests that autism is linked to epigenetic triggers, which are influenced by the microbiome and modifiable over the course of our lifetime.

    Researchers will undoubtedly keep trying to tease out some of the genetic links to the neurological disorder, which is largely diagnosed in childhood. Autism has been connected to more than 100 genes so far. But the puzzle has gotten more complex with environmental associations that seem to keep growing. And the heterogeneity of ASD makes it impossible to accuse one single factor as the cause.

    The Epigenetic Nature of Autism

    Many doctors believe that autism arises when “toxic” environmental pressures are applied and trigger epigenetic changes, Dr. Mark Cannon, a professor at Northwestern University, told The Epoch Times.

    Toxicities can be biological and chemical but also emotional and social, and they can interfere with physiology. Examples include air pollutants, artificial food ingredients, glyphosate, medications, viruses, and even stress, which causes a biochemical cascade of changes in the body. All exert influence by changing the microbiome.

    This community of trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi is responsible for breaking down food into metabolites, especially short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that communicate vital information to the whole body to perform digestive, neurological, and other functions. The main roles of these gut bugs are metabolism, nutrient absorption, and immune function.

    Microbiomes are constantly in flux, and it’s becoming impossible to define exactly what a healthy microbiome looks like because our industrial world has already altered our microbiome in severe ways. We’re only learning how to study them in detail now. That said, patterns are emerging, and studies are offering powerful clues about how diseases are linked to certain microbiome patterns.

    Dr. Cannon pointed to an autism study published in 2012 in Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease that showed the epigenetic nature of autism. Rats were given SCFAs from a subject with autism.

    The rats displayed abnormal motor movements, repetitive behavior, cognitive deficits, impaired social interactions, and other traits common in autism. The brain tissue of treated rats also showed neurochemical changes—such as innate neuroinflammation, increased oxidative stress, and glutathione depletion—consistent in patients with ASD.

    “Conceptually, it is the author’s opinion that the pathophysiology of ASDs may be more completely understood as being similar to conditions such as ethanol intoxication, or diabetes, and the resultant complex interactions between diet, genetics, metabolism, host microbiome, and behavior, that are well known to exist in these treatable disorders throughout the life cycle,” Dr. Derrick F. MacFabe, the study’s author, wrote.

    He suggested that SCFAs are the trigger of ASD or ASD behavior. SCFAs are derived from the fermentation of nondigestible polysaccharides, such as resistant starches and dietary fibers. Among their physiological functions, SCFAs are important to intestinal epithelial cell growth, which protects the gut barrier, and to inflammation regulation.

    “Yes, you can turn autism on,” Dr. Cannon said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat at a conference and heard, ‘I always thought that was genetic,’ when in fact the data has never supported that.”

    Disempowerment of Genetics

    Focusing too much on genetics as the cause of disease can be a detriment to important avenues of research and treatment, and can discourage families with autistic children. Wholeheartedly embracing genetics leaves them powerless, Dr. Armen Nikogosian told The Epoch Times.

    In that case, for people with autism and their families, the only option is to manage the symptoms with pharmaceuticals, he said.

    Dr. Nikogosian shifted his entire medical practice in 2010 after one of his sons was diagnosed with autism.

    “That’s the message I got. That’s the message a lot of parents get,” he said. “They’re entrenched in this idea that there’s this genetic cause involved in this.”

    Dr. Nikogosian’s goal is to help parents who want to address the root causes of the disorder with a more holistic model of care that doesn’t rely on drug management of symptoms.

    He said that the development of other treatments has stagnated because of the broad denial that environmental factors are involved.

    “There’s absolutely, positively, no question there’s a massive input from environmental exposures,” Dr. Nikogosian said.

    Some exposures that he explores with patients are heavy metal and mold exposures, multiple infections, and vaccines. Clarifying, quantifying, and understanding the contributions of environmental exposures are important, as it opens doors to novel treatments.

    Some Environmental Influences Are Known

    Autism researcher James Adams said that many hypothesized risk factors continue to be validated by research. In a recent study that he conducted on a small cohort of children with autism, he discovered that common themes were prevalent throughout research.

    “It turns out mothers of kids with autism consumed lower fiber, less fiber than moms of typical kids. That’s important because fiber is a very important food for some gut bacteria,” he said. “You inherit most of your microbiome from your mother.”

    A 2021 study in Frontiers in Immunology found that there’s an uptick of SCFA production in pregnant women associated with fetal immune system development. The study connected breastfed babies with more diverse and robust microbiome development.

    Mr. Adams said that his research and other studies have shown formula-fed babies and those with increased use of oral antibiotics are more likely to be diagnosed with autism. Early delivery is also a risk factor for autism; the Frontiers article noted that premature birth tends to impact microbiome development. Babies delivered vaginally also have more diverse microbes and lower rates of illness than those born via cesarean section.

    Other common, pregnancy-related factors for ASD include maternal obesity, maternal diabetes, and complications associated with trauma, ischemia, and hypoxia, according to data reported in Neuron in 2018.

    A study recently published in Psychological and Cognitive Sciences that included 450 mother-child pairs noted that at age 2, children whose moms had experienced adversity as children had altered microbiomes. Other issues that moms can experience that appear to impact their babies’ microbiomes are antibiotic use and infections.

    The pathway between the microbiome and autism has gained several validating findings, making it difficult to deny as a causal factor. In a perfect world, physicians say, it should lead to major changes in clinical settings.

    “You always want to know the cause, because if you know the cause, you can stop the disease,” Dr. Krigsman said. “Stop looking for a gene that probably doesn’t exist and won’t be found. Try to find the cause, and then remedy that, remove that.”

    Why Cause Matters

    Microbiologist Kiran Krishna told The Epoch Times that what appears to be coming is similar to the global realization that smoking was causing cancer.

    The tobacco industry eventually couldn’t stop the number of small, cumulative studies that clearly documented the link. Mr. Krishna said that the same thing is happening regarding the connection between the microbiome and autism, and the new meta-analysis is important because it can help other researchers attract grants and funding to look more intentionally at microbes and their environmental influences.

    “Before this, we had smoke indicating the microbiome was involved in autism, and now we have fire,” Rob Knight, the director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the University of California–San Diego and a study co-author, said in a statement.

    There’s still a debate about whether the disease is driving dysbiosis, or the other way around. A 2021 study published in Cell concluded that dietary preferences, or restrictive eating that’s common among children with autism, is what causes changes in the microbiome. “We caution against claims that the microbiome has a driving role in ASD,” the researchers wrote.

    Mr. Krishna suspects that the longitudinal data from the new study will help settle any lingering doubts as to whether the microbiome is a driver of ASD.

    “We’re getting there because there are so many researchers globally that are interested in the microbiome,” he said. “We’re hitting that wave. There are somewhere around 10,000 published papers per year on the microbiome. That’s a tsunami. This paper … really puts a stamp that this is where we need to look.”

    Keeping Genetics in Perspective

    Jamie Morton, a corresponding author of the Nature study, told The Epoch Times that while there’s great data on how the environment shapes the microbiome, genetics will always be valuable because they determine how we’re influenced by toxic exposures.

    He said that the study illustrates a cultural shift driving the marriage of researchers who tend to “camp out” in their own disciplines and are now uniting for the greater good of finding the cause of autism.

    “That was one of the key points in our paper,” Mr. Morton said. “We wanted to highlight that when we are thinking about autism and these complex systems, you need everyone sitting in the same room. You need not just one dataset. You need all of them. You need genetics. You need microbiome. You need diet. You need metabolites, behavioral data, everything you can get your hands on.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 23:30

  • "The More You Indict, The More We Unite!" – Black Social Media Erupts For Trump
    “The More You Indict, The More We Unite!” – Black Social Media Erupts For Trump

    For years, American leftists have yearned for the day they’d see a police mug shot of former President Donald Trump, confident it would decisively terminate his political career. 

    Thanks to an indictment in Georgia that was clearly conceived and timed for maximum political damage, their wish was granted last week.

    However, the spectacle has unfolded in a way that’s surely causing a growing sense of horror among Trump’s foes: Not only has his booking at one of Atlanta’s nastiest jails galvanized typical Trump supporters, it’s triggered a surge in support from inside an essential Democratic constituency — black people. 

    Considering how Democrats take black support for granted and routinely label Trump a racist and white supremacist, imagine the utter consternation they’re feeling as they witness a social media eruption of black sympathy for Trump over an arrest that, for many blacks, parallels the mistreatment they perceive blacks have received in the American criminal justice system. 

    The first sign of trouble came when people calling themselves “Blacks for Trump” and “Niggas for Trump” posted themselves near the infamous Fulton County Jail on Atlanta’s Rice Street. 

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    Then we saw blacks lining the street to cheer on the former president’s motorcade and shouting “Free Trump!” 

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    The on-scene displays in Georgia were just a precursor to a social media wave of black Trump 2024 enthusiasm that’s still rolling. “Trump is a brother now…I’m sorry, you go to jail in Zone 6 Atlanta, you a brotha,” says this man. “Straight up. They f**ked up. Niggas like niggas that went to jail. They believe in that sh*t. We trust that.” 

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    “Every real nigga got to go to jail at least one time,” says this man, who also warns that Democrats have “f**ked up” and will now face vengeance from a future President Trump. “You think he aint gonna spin the block?” 

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    Like many Americans of all colors, some of this man’s motivation to vote for Trump springs from his entertainment value: 

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    “If you can’t openly see that this is an attempt to make someone have to spend a bunch of money and fight cases while they run for presidency…you’re just not being an objective human,” says @mark_in_georgia: 

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    “Man, they deep-in-the-hood GANGSTAS hollering bout Trump 2024!” notes this enthusiastic black Trumper. 

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    In this set of man-in-the-street interviews, black men say Trump was better for their wallets. “Trump wanted us to get off our ass and get some money,” says one man. “He put America first,” says another: 

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    This emotive gent in a convenience store hits a recurring theme: Anger about “bitch ass nigga” Biden relentlessly funneling billions of dollars into the Ukraine war as conditions in American cities deteriorate. 

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    The genre is dominated by men, but here’s an exception: a woman who longs for the days of Trump’s Covid-era money handouts, specifically name-checking the “PPP boys” — a reference to the much-abused Paycheck Protection Program.  

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    Clutch Williams highlights Democrat hypocrisy, saying, “These other presidents be sayin’ good stuff to you, but doing bad stuff to you. Trump might be sayin some bad stuff, but he was doing some good stuff. Check the record!” 

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    ….and this man says many in his audience voted against Trump but have had a change of heart. “At some point, many of y’all have changed your mind and you now support Trump but you doin’ it on the sneak. Come on, y’all, let’s own up to it so we can all support his man together.” 

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    None of this is to say Trump will win the votes of a majority of blacks…but all it takes is a dent for the unintended consequences of Democrats’ political prosecutions to turn the booking of Donald Trump from Democrat dream to Democrat nightmare.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 23:00

  • Republicans In Nine Florida Counties Adopt Resolution Calling For Ban Of COVID Vaccines
    Republicans In Nine Florida Counties Adopt Resolution Calling For Ban Of COVID Vaccines

    Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A movement is gaining momentum to pressure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, county sheriffs, and the Florida Legislature to ban COVID-19 vaccines and all other mRNA vaccines in the state.

    Walt Disney World employees protest against the company’s vaccine policies in Orlando, Fla., on Oct. 2, 2022. (Courtesy of Nick Caturano)

    Republican executive committees in nine Florida counties—the local arms of the Republican Party of Florida—have adopted a resolution asking Mr. DeSantis and lawmakers to prohibit the sale and distribution of the vaccines in Florida.

    The 83-page resolution also asks state Attorney General Ashley Moody to immediately seize all remaining vaccine supplies and conduct a forensic analysis of them.

    The so-called “Ban the Jab” resolution adopted by the local Republican executive committees was written by psychotherapist Joseph Sansone.

    It was adopted first by local-level GOP officials in Lee County, which includes Ft. Myers. It was then adopted by the committees in Collier, Lake, Santa Rosa, Seminole, St. Johns Hillsborough, and Brevard Counties. Franklin County became the ninth county to pass it on Aug. 19.

    “On behalf of the preservation of the human race, the Lee County Republican Party calls upon Gov. DeSantis and the state legislature to prohibit the sale and distribution of Covid injections and all mRNA injections in the state of Florida, and for the state Attorney General to immediately seize all Covid injections and mRNA injections in the state of Florida and have a forensic analysis conducted,” the committee said in voting to adopt the resolution.

    The resolution includes more than 140 exhibits of evidence that the authors say point to the independent findings of biomedical professionals and others concerned about vaccines.

    None of the executive counties responded to The Epoch Times’ request for further comment.

    The CDC declined to comment. The Republican Party of Florida, Pfizer, Moderna, and the FDA did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

    Accusations Against the Vaccine

    The resolution adopted by GOP officials across the state includes a statement from Francis A. Boyle, the human rights lawyer and international law professor credited with writing the Biological Weapons and Anti-Terrorist Act of 1989. That legislation established the U.S. Code’s current bioweapon definition. 

    Mr. Boyle described the vaccines as “COVID frankenshots” and alleged that they are “existentially dangerous to the

    A health care worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine in a file photograph. (Bay Ismoyo/AFP via Getty Images)

    It also cites a coalition of 17,000 physicians and medical scientists gathered in May 2022 for what they called the Global COVID Summit.

    That summit decided to “recognize that the disastrous COVID-19 public health policies imposed on doctors and our patients are the culmination of a corrupt medical alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and healthcare institutions, along with the financial trusts which control them.”

    The resolution also cites the national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which chronicles reports of adverse reactions to vaccines including COVID-19 vaccines.

    Following the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, there was a reported 1,700 percent increase in VAERS reports and a 4,400 percent increase in reported “life-threatening conditions,” according to Florida’s own VAERS data.

    In total, more than 41,000 adverse-effect VAERS reports were filed in Florida in 2021 and more than 9,000 in 2022.

    The Governor’s Actions

    Mr. DeSantis, currently running for the Republican nomination for president, already has taken measures to push back against vaccine mandates in the state.

    He persuaded the Florida Supreme Court to impanel a grand jury in December 2022 to determine if any crimes were committed during the vaccine’s rollout.

    In May, he signed four medical freedom bills.

    Senate Bill 252 prohibits discrimination based on vaccination status and bans vaccine passports.

    House Bill 1387 bans gain-of-function research in the state of Florida.

    Senate Bill 1580 guarantees freedom of speech protections for physicians and medical professionals, such as protection for whistleblowers and the ability to object to participating in any treatments.

    And Senate Bill 238 link provides protection against discrimination based on health care choices by keeping any investigations on the matter confidential. 

    Gov. Ron DeSantis (L) announced Florida’s new surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Courtesy of the Florida Governor’s Office)

    Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has been critical of the federal government’s pressure for citizens to submit to COVID-19 vaccines.

    “Healthcare professionals should always communicate the risks of a medical intervention to their patients in a manner that is clinically appropriate and meets standards of ethical practice,” he said during a round-table discussion with Mr. DeSantis in December 2022.

    “President Biden and Big Pharma have completely prevented that from happening—it is wrong.

    “With these new actions, we will shed light on the forces that have obscured truthful communication about the COVID-19 vaccines.”

    Dan Berger contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 22:30

  • Top Law Schools Promote Ditching The Constitution
    Top Law Schools Promote Ditching The Constitution

    Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Yale University Law student Jesse Tripathi (2R) and others protest against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Sept. 24, 2018. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    In almost every state, law students who pass their state bar examination, which allows them to practice law, take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution.

    But the country’s top law schools teach future lawyers and judges the opposite.

    Many now teach that the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the nation since its ratification in 1788, is broken and should be scrapped.

    At least that’s what two members of conservative think tanks believe after reviewing courses at the country’s Top 10 law schools, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report in 2022. They examined the teaching at Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia universities and others.

    Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times)

    Law professors at elite schools are open about their disdain for the U.S. Constitution, the researchers found.

    “They’re saying they want to get rid of the Constitution—they’re making no secret about it,” said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He’s also worked for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

    Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center and former DOJ counsel, agreed.

    The radicalization of law schools is a threat to freedom not previously encountered in the nation’s history, Mr. von Spakovsky said.

    “In fact, some of them are very direct in teaching kids that they need to be revolutionaries, according to these courses that these law school students are taking,” he told The Epoch Times.

    Pitching the Ditching of the Constitution

    In 2022, Ryan D. Doerfler and Samuel Moyn—who teach law at Harvard and Yale universities, respectively—wrote a New York Times editorial titled “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed.”

    In it, they wrote that the struggle over the Constitution has proven to be a dead end for liberals. They called the founding document “undemocratic” and “inadequate.”

    “The real need is not to reclaim the Constitution, as many would have it, but instead to reclaim America from constitutionalism,” they wrote in the piece.

    The writers reasoned that it would be far better if liberal legislators had the power to make a case for abortion and labor rights on their own merits without having “to bother with the Constitution.”

    That way of thinking has pushed law schools increasingly to the political left over the past decade, Mr. Adams said.

    “The stuff they’re teaching now is straight-up Marxist. There’s a big difference from just 10 years ago.”

    Mr. von Spakovsky and Mr. Adams have been sounding the alarm about what’s happening within the country’s law schools through articles examining law school curricula.

    Schools often teach that the Constitution is a tool of discrimination that must be uprooted, Mr. von Spakovsky said.

    The idea that the Constitution and the United States are hopelessly flawed stems from critical race theory (CRT) and the concept of promoting social justice.

    CRT has been spotlighted by works such as The 1619 Project by New York Times writers.

    The 1619 Project, widely lauded by the political left, paints the United States as a country founded on slavery. It characterizes the nation’s Founding Fathers as racists.

    While The 1619 Project has been rejected by many academics, historians, and politicians, its teachings have been embraced vigorously by the left. Many have held it up as a model of how history should be taught to children and college students.

    The ideology upholds that thinking that “our Constitution is a patriarchal, oppressive document used to suppress minorities and just about everyone else,” Mr. von Spakovsky said. “And we are supposedly a systematically racist, misogynist society, and these law students need to go out and preach and practice revolution.”

    Creating Revolutionaries

    Classes such as “Decentralized Resistance” and “Law and Inequality” at Yale University are examples of the far-left infiltration of law schools, Mr. Adams claims in his series of articles.

    The “Decentralized Resistance” class is about social change that results from “everyday resistance.” Accumulating widespread and numerous acts of everyday resistance can precipitate “quasi-revolutionary” change, class instruction tells law students, Mr. Adams said.

    “Law and Inequality” explores “inequality along lines of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and class,” he said.

    This kind of classroom instruction has given rise to the far-left notion that prisons should be emptied because they’re “racist,” Mr. von Spakovsky said.

    The popularization of these ideas also led to the election of George Soros-funded prosecutors in Democrat-run cities. Mr. Soros is a Hungarian-born businessman who has donated billions to left-wing causes.

    Conservatives lament that Soros-friendly prosecutors care more about criminals than their victims and allow them to go unpunished while crime spirals out of control.

    Left-wing ideology holds that laws wrongly target minorities more than white people. Proponents of that thinking say society needs to find a more equitable way of dealing with crime, such as using social workers to rehabilitate lawbreakers instead of putting them behind bars.

    “What they want is lawyers and judges who simply decide cases based on ideology, not on the law,” Mr. von Spakovsky said.

    A copy of former President George Washington’s personal copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights is viewed at Christie’s auction house on June 15, 2012. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    Fighting Words

    Cancel culture, censorship on social media platforms, and the rise of activists who successfully shut down opposing speakers work together to demonstrate the left’s “unbelievable contempt” for the First Amendment, the bedrock of democracy, Mr. von Spakovsky said.

    “They literally equate words with violence,” he said.

    “So if you are expressing any kind of opinions that they disagree with, [they argue that] you don’t have a First Amendment right to engage in that kind of speech because it suppresses minorities and others,” he said.

    Several classes at Stanford University demonstrated a shift away from the more routine courses on torts and contracts to classes with a more militant tone, Mr. von Spakovsky wrote in his articles.

    Stanford law school offers “Violence, Resistance, and the Law,” which teaches how the law “suppresses and invites resistance” and identifies the “subjects against whom legal violence is deployed.”

    “The State of Democratic Discourse” course at Stanford is “devoted to a candid discussion about the current state of public discourse, both nationally and in universities, focusing especially on misinformation and intimidation.”

    Counter-protesters hold up signs while waiting for conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos to arrive at the University of California–Berkeley campus on Sept. 24, 2017. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

    Gag Rules

    Those ideas played out in real life in March when the Stanford chapter of the Federalist Society invited 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan to speak on campus.

    While he tried to deliver his speech, a mob of about 100 students heckled and shouted him down while faculty members did nothing. And some encouraged the students.

    Judge Duncan asked for an administrator to address the hecklers.

    Instead, Tirien Steinbach, Stanford Law School’s associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, took to the podium, scolding the conservative judge for the “harm” he inflicted with his rulings.

    Students were angry at Judge Duncan because he refused in 2020 to allow a transgender inmate convicted of possessing child pornography to change his pronouns to female.

    The judge had to be escorted from the law school by federal marshals.

    Ms. Steinbach was put on administrative leave and resigned in July. But Stanford didn’t punish students or other administrators and only required them to complete free speech training.

    Law and Disorder

    The now-viral video of the judge’s treatment grabbed public attention and drew concern from conservatives.

    Austin Knudsen, Montana’s attorney general, wrote a May 16 letter to Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike McGrath addressing left-wing tactics in law schools.

    Students are “far too comfortable using intimidation to silence opposing viewpoints,” Mr. Knudsen wrote.

    Activist students, he wrote, are “self-styled members of the progressive vanguard and justify their actions based on the perceived evil of conservative legal views.”

    He warned that disruptions at elite law schools are everyone’s problem, and “Montana can’t bury its head in the sand and hope it goes away.”

    “We are at a turning point for the integrity of the legal profession,” he wrote.

    The behavior on campus will soon show up in the courts if there are no consequences for the student’s actions, Knudsen warned.

    Monkey Business

    Top law schools have demonstrated a dramatic shift in focus, even when compared with just 10 years ago, Mr. Adams said.

    It’s important to take notice because graduates from elite law schools go on to influence government, courts, academia, and corporate America, he said.

    The preaching of CRT, radical gender ideology, feminism, and climate change have been woven into much of the curriculum of Ivy League schools, such as Harvard Law, according to his review.

    He noted a feminist offering at Harvard Law called the Bonobo Sisterhood, a one-credit course at Harvard Law. The class examined how people can learn about feminism from primates in a male-dominated society.

    The course examines the “power and potential of female alliances to disrupt patriarchal systems.”

    The course description reads: “Through a legal, political, social, cultural, and economic lens, we ask what lessons the bonobos—our close primate relatives who share 98.7% of our DNA—offer humans for creating a society free of male sexual coercion.”

    People walk past the Alma Mater statue on the Columbia University campus in New York, on July 1, 2013. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    Cradle of CRT

    Columbia University, the cradle of critical race theory, also offers classes on CRT.

    The Institute for Social Research at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, developed Marxist ideologies that came to be known as The Frankfurt School.

    After being forced out of Germany by the Nazis, the institute’s researchers relocated to Columbia University in New York in 1933 and developed critical theory.

    That legacy now shows up in Columbia law classes, such as “Legal Methods II: Critical Race Methods: Practices, Prisms, and Problems.”

    The class description says the United States “suffers from many forms of discrimination,” and the course will examine the “interface between legal interpretation, lawmaking practices, and racial hierarchy,” Mr. von Spakovsky noted in his review.

    The widespread social justice focus at top law schools suggests law firms would be better off hiring lawyers from state schools, he said.

    But even there, “woke” ideology is rampant.

    In a December 2022 Epoch Times story documenting CRT’s effect on conservative college students, one law student at a Florida University confirmed that the Constitution was attacked in his law class.

    The student, who wished to remain anonymous, recalled students arguing that the Constitution was illegitimate from the start and was written by racist, old, white men.

    The professor didn’t express that he condoned that point of view. But he didn’t offer a rebuttal, either, the student said.

    Poisoning the Well

    Not all conservatives are pessimistic about the future of the legal profession.

    According to William Jacobson, a clinical law professor and director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School, concepts such as CRT have long been taught in law schools.

    Mr. Jacobson founded the Legal Insurrection website, which tracks CRT.

    The increasing popularity of CRT in schools prompted him to start CritialRace.org in 2020, which maintains a database of schools and colleges that teach or employ CRT-related policies.

    He doesn’t keep a database on law schools that teach CRT because, traditionally, that’s the only place it was taught, Mr. Jacobson said.

    It wasn’t until recently that the concepts began trickling down into K–12 classrooms and other college courses. That’s where the concept became more controversial, he said.

    The problem started when CRT evolved into anti-racism training.

    It sounds innocuous. But the theory is to prescribe racism against whites and others of “privilege” in the name of retribution for racism against minorities in the past, present, and future.

    “At the law school level, it’s not going to bring down America,” he said.

    But it can certainly “poison the well,” Mr. Jacobson said, by dividing people based on race or gender into oppressors or victims.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 21:30

  • Trump Raised $7.1 Million After Mugshot
    Trump Raised $7.1 Million After Mugshot

    Former President Donald Trump’s mugshot has become a phenomenon. The left thinks it’s the ultimate ‘gotcha,’ while Trump supporters immediately recognized it as a badge of honor. Within an hour or so of booking, Trump was already selling t-shirts of it on his website.

    Trump’s martyr status reached far and wide…

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

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

    And there’s much, much more.

    Now, Politico reports that as of Saturday, Trump has raised $7.1 million since the mugshot – with $4.18 of it coming in on Friday, the single-highest 24-hour period of his campaign to date, according to a person familiar with the totals.

    The campaign’s fundraising has been powered by merchandise it has been selling through his online store. After Trump was taken into custody, the campaign began selling shirts, posters, bumper stickers and beverage coolers bearing Trump’s scowling mugshot. The items bear the tagline “NEVER SURRENDER!” and range in price from $12 to $34.

    The campaign has also been prodding online donors with emails and text messages. And on Thursday night, while flying back from Atlanta to Bedminster, N.J. Trump sent out his first tweet in more than two years directing supporters to his website. The site’s landing page includes the mugshot and asks supporters to “make a contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House and SAVE AMERICA during this dark chapter in our nation’s history.”

    The fundraising blitz illustrates how Trump has parlayed his four indictments into campaign cash, rallying his hardcore supporters.

    Trump’s campaign says it has raised nearly $20 million in the last three weeks, during which time Trump was indicted on charges related to his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and for trying to overturn the Georgia vote count in the 2020 election. That figure is more than half of what Trump raised during his first seven months in the 2024 race.

    “It’s a bunch of bullshit,” indeed…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 21:00

  • Watch: School Board Fires Satan-Worshipping Non-Binary Teacher
    Watch: School Board Fires Satan-Worshipping Non-Binary Teacher

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    A teacher at an Illinois elementary school was fired by the board after conservative influencer Libs of TikTok pointed out that the ‘non-binary’ person was also a Satan worshipper and had a history of bipolar disorder with mania and psychosis.

    The Homer Community Consolidated School District 33C took action after the teacher Kris Martin’s online posts promoting Satanism, as well as anti-police rhetoric were exposed.

    District Superintendent Craig Schoppe wrote in an August 17 statement “As you may have heard or seen online, there has been some question and concern with regards to 33C hiring protocol and details surrounding the conditions of hire for new employees,” before announcing an investigation was underway.

    Now Martin has been terminated, much to the delight of parents in attendance at the latest board meeting:

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    The question remains, why did this person get hired as an elementary school teacher in the first place?

    And how many more are out there?

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    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Summit Vitamins – super charge your health and well being.

    Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 20:30

  • Do Plunging Retail Stocks Signal The US Consumer Is Finally Done
    Do Plunging Retail Stocks Signal The US Consumer Is Finally Done

    The final week of earnings season, traditionally reserved for a slew of retail companies, was also the one we got the loudest hint yet that the US consumer is indeed starting to hit their limit, with retailer after retailer plunging by double digits on either weak earnings, poor guidance or some combination of both. Not surprisingly, the Retail ETF got crushed in all 5 days this week, sharply underperforming the market every day of the week.

    And while some retail optimists have asked “did anything truly change?” the truth, as Goldman consumer specialist trader Scott Feiler notes, “anytime the group underperforms 5 days in a row vs the market and over 500 bps total on the week, it’d be a bit naïve to “say “nothing new here.” To be sure, there have been some clearly adverse developments – specifically when it comes to the rapid deterioration in consumer credit as highlighted in the dismal earnings from Macy’s and Nordstrom – that bear watching especially with student debt payments set to resume in a coupe of months, this trend will only get worse, while the gradual phasing out of the trillion-dollar deficit funded “Bidenomics” stimmy.

    So what drove the substantial weakness in the group this week?

    1. July was the best month of the quarter, but the focus has already turned to August, when things turned much uglier. Outside of Foot Locker, nearly every company spoke to an acceleration in trends in July. This was the first notable acceleration in trends for a full month since things saw their initial slowdown in March. While some companies early in the earnings season spoke to August being strong still (WMT, ROST, TJX), this was more consumables based or defensive type companies. As Feiler notes, while “August certainly does not seem like it’s fallen off the cliff across the board, the view from this week’s round of results was it’s much choppier as a whole than July was. Nordstrom for example spoke to a slowdown at both of their banners in the month.”

    2. Shrink (i.e., theft) – Numerous companies spoke about this. Some were unexpected (DKS), some were expected (ULTA) and some spoke about it again as a reason for margin weakness, after just having done so last quarter (DLTR). What all companies had in common was all stocks traded down on this. The debate has made its way into how much margin recovery can be expected from this into 2024-2025, if at all(seemingly becoming more accepted that companies will have 100 bps lower gross margins vs historical for the foreseeable future). The flipside is that retailers now have a scapegoat for continued margin erosion (and inventory reduction): the Soros army of handpicked big city DAs, who have largely decriminalized retail theft.

    3. Consumer Credit – will this continue?: Macy’s touched on credit concerns earlier in the week by speaking to higher than expected delinquencies in June and July. There was some skepticism originally from many if this was truly breaking news or not: was “this is just a normalization to pre-covid levels” and “this is more of a low-income issue.” And while to the Goldman trader both somewhat reasonable fair pieces of feedback, it felt notable that Nordstrom (higher income customer) spoke later in the week as well to the trend, noting that “we have seen delinquencies rising gradually and they are now above pre-pandemic levels, which could result in higher credit losses in the second half and into 2024.”

    The next round of industry master trust data comes on September 12th. Data from the Goldman Financials team shows it’s usually 6 quarters before net charge-offs peak, following peak loan growth. Peak loan growth occurred this cycle at the end of Q1 23. See the 3 exhibits below on this from prior cycles that show this.

    4. Positioning: One mitigating factor behind the big drops across the retail space is that according to the Goldman trading desk, many of the names down the most this week, while certainly not perfect , had logic for why they should have been down, and also had a positioning dynamic to them as well (DLTR long vs DG short, DKS a top-line beat was expected, JWN was the preferred long this quarter in dept store world, BURL was expected to have a better print post TJX/ROST). Results did disappoint, either sales, margins or the guides, but crowded – and wrong – positioning also had a multiplier effect on the reactions it seemed.

    * * *

    Finally, those wondering where the next big hit will come from, look no further than the student loan payers who suspended payments during Covid and who will have to resume those payments come October. According to Cohort Analytics, that cohort of shoppers made up more than 10% of spending at several national brands in 2022 (above the dotted line in the chart below). Their spending also outperformed non-borrowers at several brands (left of the solid line n the chart below), suggesting that their lack of payments may have buoyed their spending in recent years (well, duh). That leaves dozens of national brands that benefited meaningfully from the pause in student loans (primarily those in the upper-left quadrant below), that may be more exposed to that shopper base as payments resume.

    Within Travel, Frontier Airlines was the most sensitive to the Covid-Suspended cohort in 2022, with 11% share and 2 points of outspending from the cohort. In contrast, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines both had 7% share and 10 points of under-spending. Airbnb had a high 11% share from the cohort but with 4 points of underspending.

    Within the Home sector, Peloton was most sensitive, with 13% share and 11 points of outspending from the Covid-Suspended cohort; Sherwin Williams had 6% share and 10 points of under-spending. IKEA, Ashley, HomeGoods, Wayfair, and Lowe’s all had 10%+ share from the cohort but the cohort also underspent Non-Borrowers by ~5 points.

    Most Apparel and Department Stores had over 10% share from the Covid-Suspended cohort: Old Navy had the highest share at 14%; Nordstrom Full Price had the lowest share at 8%. Old Navy and Burlington each had 3 points of outspending from the cohort, while most others saw minimal to underspending.

    More in the full reports (here and here) available to pro subs.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 20:00

  • Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Biden Admin's Push For Everyone To Get New COVID Vaccine Is 'Irresponsible'
    Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Biden Admin’s Push For Everyone To Get New COVID Vaccine Is ‘Irresponsible’

    Authored by Nathan Worcester and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President Joe Biden’s comments that all Americans will “likely” be advised to get a new COVID vaccine as new variants spread through the country are “irresponsible,” according to Stanford University Professor of Medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

    “I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress, a request for additional funding for a new vaccine—that is necessary, that works,” Mr. Biden told reporters in South Lake Tahoe, California, on Aug. 25.

    “And tentatively, not decided finally yet, tentatively it is recommended—it is likely to be recommended—that everybody get it, no matter whether they got it before,” he added.

    Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University and one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, in Hartford, Conn., on Feb. 17, 2023. (Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times)

    Since early July, COVID-19 hospitalizations have been on the rise domestically, with three new variants of the disease spreading across the country. The uptick has resulted in some businesses, schools, and hospitals reinstating mask mandates.

    Multiple drug companies, including Pfizer, Novavax, and Moderna, have introduced new vaccines they say will be effective against the EG.5, or ERIS, variant of COVID-19.

    “It never occurred to me that an American president would be the number one spokesperson for a pharmaceutical company, but here we are,” Dr. Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times.

    “It’s irresponsible to make this kind of public health advice for the entire American public in the absence of excellent randomized trial evidence, which has not been produced by the pharmaceutical companies,” he added.

    “The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] never asked for them to produce them,” Dr. Bhattacharya said, referring to vaccines targeting the new COVID variants.

    The Standard professor said that authorities are incorrectly treating COVID booster shots ” just like the flu vaccine, that you just update it from year to year.”

    President Joe Biden leaves after attending a pilates class in South Tahoe, Calif., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    But, in contrast with the COVID-19 injections, for flu vaccines “there’s a long track record where the safety record of the vaccine is understood,” Dr. Bhattacharya said.

    “Not requiring randomized trial evidence for updating the vaccine is irresponsible. It’s using a different mechanism than the flu vaccine. You can’t extend the experience you have with the flu vaccine to this vaccine,” he said.

    The professor also picked up on President Biden’s comment that everyone will likely be advised to take the new vaccine “no matter whether they got it before.”

    “Here where they’re saying is, essentially like it’s amnesty—We’re all going to be treated as if we’re unvaccinated with regard to this vaccine,” Dr. Bhattacharya said.

    According to CNBC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials told reporters Thursday that the vaccines are expected to become available to the public in mid-September, though they are still pending approval from the FDA.

    An independent CDC advisory committee is scheduled to meet on Sept. 12 to vote on recommended guidelines for eligibility for the new COVID-19 jabs.

    During the press briefing, CDC and FDA officials advised that both agencies intended to urge Americans to get an updated COVID-19 shot, as well as the flu shot and the recently approved RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline.

    “Vaccination is going to continue to be key this year because immunity wanes and because the COVID-19 virus continues to change,” a CDC official said.

    Dr. Paul Marik of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care was scathing in his response to the president’s announcement.

    “It’s insanity,” he told The Epoch Times.

    “I think the vaccines have failed, and this is untested,” he added.

    “Making a new vaccine against a new variant which is untested makes no sense,” Dr. Marik continued, saying that he “can’t see any group of patients who would benefit from a vaccine.”

    “We need to know more information,” he added.

    Samantha Flom contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 19:30

  • Weaponized Collusion? Jack Smith's Team Huddled With Biden White House Before Trump Indictment
    Weaponized Collusion? Jack Smith’s Team Huddled With Biden White House Before Trump Indictment

    While President Biden has repeatedly claimed that the Justice Department has full autonomy and isn’t ‘weaponized’ against political opponents, a new report by the NY Post suggests otherwise.

    Just weeks before Special Counsel Jack Smith brought charges against Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, one of his top aides met with the White House counsel’s office, raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts against Biden’s top political opponent going into the 2024 election.

    According to the report, Jay Bratt, one of Smith’s minions since November 2022, took a meeting with the White House on March 31 of this year with deputy chief of staff for the WH counsel’s office, Caroline Saba. The two were joined in the 10am meeting by FBI agent Danielle Ray.

    Nine weeks later, Trump was indicted by Smith’s office.

    The 63-year-old Bratt also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump’s legal team was in discussions with the National Archives over the return of presidential records from his Mar-a-Lago estate prior to a formal investigaiton.

    Bratt had a third meeting in the White House in September 2021, this time with Katherine Reily, an advisor to the White House chief of staff’s office.

    The logs offer no information about what was discussed at the meetings.

    Critics and legal experts questioned why Bratt was taking meetings at all with the White House counsel’s office while part of an active investigation into President Biden’s likely 2024 Republican opponent.

    “There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if it’s coordinated by the highest levels,” said former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a one-time top federal prosecutor in the Southern District. -NY Post

    Saba left the White House in May to attend law school.

    As Mark Levin noted on X;

    THIS IS A MASSIVE STORY!

    That’s why it will be ignored by the Democrat Party media.  That said, Bratt not only met with Biden’s staff at the White House while investigating Donald Trump and weeks before Trump was charged, Bratt is the senior DOJ official who insisted on securing a warrant and sending an FBI SWAT team to Mar-a-Lago; and, Bratt stands accused by Stanley Woodward, who represents Walt Nauta in the documents case, of extorting him (Bratt allegedly told Woodward that the judgeship he is seeking has a better chance if his client turns on Trump).  Judge Cannon should order, from the bench, that all records related to Bratt’s meetings and discussions at the White House be preserved and provided to the court; and, she should ask the DC judge who has been dragging his feet in his secret review of the allegation against Bratt by Woodward transfer that matter and all the information related to it to her as it clearly bears on the document case that is now before her and in her jurisdiction.  

    Yet again, I am forced to ask, where the hell are Trump’s lawyers?  They should file a motion immediately seeking a court order for the information (mentioned above) and make a big stink about this outrageous news.  

    Let me add another important point. THIS CLEARLY adds to the overwhelming case for a special counsel, as this not only creates the impression of a conflict of interest but a conflict of interest in fact.  The Biden administration cannot be relied on to truthfully explain itself.  The standard for appointing a special counsel — a qualified lawyer from outside the government — has been met, again!

    When asked if he thinks the White House and special counsel were coordinating, Rudy Giuliani told the Post: “You’re damn right I do.”

    “What’s happening is they have trashed every ethical rule that exists and they have created a state police. It is a Biden state prosecutor and a Biden state police.”

    Constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley of George Washington University told the outlet that the March meeting was particularly troublesome and “raises obvious concerns about visits to the White House after [Bratt] began his work with the special counsel.“

    “There is no reason why the Justice Department should not be able to confirm whether this meeting was related to the ongoing investigation or concerns some other matter,” said Turley.

    We’re sure the DOJ will get right on prosecuting itself.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 19:00

  • Elite Crackdown On Free Speech Worldwide Intensifies
    Elite Crackdown On Free Speech Worldwide Intensifies

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Public substack,

    From North America to Australia to Europe, elites seek censorship, privacy invasions, and the prosecution of wrongthink as “pre-crime”…

    The leaders of nations, representatives of international organizations, and philanthropists say they are committed to creating free and open societies. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook has independent fact-checkers, is open to all perspectives, and doesn’t interfere in elections. And, in response to questions from a colleague at Public, a representative from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations insisted the philanthropy supported free speech.

    “In response to your effort to conflate any attempt to address hate speech as a frontal assault on free speech itself,” the Soros spokesperson said, “perhaps the words of the UN Secretary-General will help in illuminating a crucial distinction: ‘Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech.’”

    But these words are a thin veil covering an aggressive attack on freedom of speech around the world, from Australia to North America to Europe, where the Digital Services Act, which demands Internet companies “Address any risk they pose on society, including public health, physical and mental well-being,” goes into effect today.

    A blockbuster new investigation by Australia’s Sky News discovered that Meta-Facebook has been paying activists to serve as neutral fact-checkers while, in reality, using their power to censor their political enemies.

    The context is that this fall, Australians will vote in a special national election, the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum, on whether to give special political powers to native peoples. Facebook is funding those in favor of the referendum to censor its opponents. “An audit of RMIT Voice fact checks showed the 17 Voice checks between May 3 and June 23 this year were all targeting anti-Voice opinions or views,” Sky News Found.

    Meta allowed the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) to censor disfavored views even while “knowing it was a breach of the rules Zuckerberg established to distance himself from fact-checking responsibilities,” reported SkyNews.

    The RMIT, which is a respected technical university like America’s MIT,  “used the powers Facebook has given it to throttle Sky News Australia’s Facebook page with false fact checks multiple times this year, breaching the Meta-endorsed IFCN Code of Principles and preventing millions of Australians from reading or watching Sky News Australia’s journalism.”

    How did the fact-checkers abuse their powers? By smearing their political enemies as racists.

    “Fact-checkers employed by RMIT have led to numerous code breaches,” reports Sky News, “including one fact-checker using her social media account to label Opposition Leader Peter Dutton a fear-mongering racist for his views on the Voice.”

    As for Soros’ Open Society Foundations, its spokesperson cleverly tucked a call for expanded censorship into her response to our queries.

    After saying, “Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech,” the spokesperson said, “It means keeping hate speech from escalating into something more dangerous, particularly incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence, which is prohibited under international law” [emphasis added]. 

    “Keeping hate speech from escalating into something more dangerous” is precisely the justification for censorship that politicians in Ireland and Scotland are making to be able to invade people’s homes and confiscate their phones and computers, as Irish reporter Ben Scallan described yesterday.

    Consider the twisted logic. Irish police must invade people’s homes in order to make sure that their hate materials don’t escalate into something that could be illegal. That’s a totalitarian move toward the police enforcing “precrime,” as depicted in the terrifying science fiction thriller Minority Report.

    Meanwhile, the UN is now building a “digital army” of censorship activists around the world to wage war on wrongthink, or what it calls “deadly disinformation.” According to the UN, “misinformation” is “deadly” and poses an “existential” threat. The UN’s effort matches the WHO effort, which views speech it disagrees with as a kind of pathogen.

    In Germany, a court ordered the American writer C.J. Hopkins to either go to jail or pay 3,600 Euros for comparing the COVID lockdowns to the Nazis.

    The government claimed Hopkins was promoting Nazism when, obviously, he doing the opposite. While some may take offense at the comparison, it makes clear that Hopkins has a negative, not positive, view of Nazism.

    In the United States, a nonprofit organization called Center for Countering Digital Hate, whose former communications director worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, has successfully led a boycott against X, formerly named Twitter, for not being more censorious.

    As a result, advertising revenue to X is down 60 – 70%, according to news reports.

    In short, Western elites, both governmental, corporate, and philanthropic, are embracing the kinds of totalitarian tactics made famous by the East German Stasi, the Chinese government, and dystopian regimes depicted in movies like Minority Report. Why is that? And how can we fight back?

    *  *  *

    We are nearing the end of the beginning of our movement, which has involved ripping away the mask hiding the real agenda of the world’s censorious elites. The leaders of nations, representatives of international organizations, including the United Nations, and philanthropists who say they are committed to creating free and open societies are, in reality, not. Rather, they are interfering in elections and violating both the First Amendment and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. We can stop them, but we’re going to need your help.

    Please subscribe now to support Public’s defense of free speech worldwide.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 18:30

  • BlackRock Faces Leftist Backlash As It Votes For Fewer ESG Proposals
    BlackRock Faces Leftist Backlash As It Votes For Fewer ESG Proposals

    Having already been hit by backlash from red-state officials over its embrace of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda, BlackRock is now under criticism from Democratic officials alarmed that the giant asset manager has decreased its votes in favor of ESG shareholder proposals. 

    Last week, the Financial Times reported that BlackRock voted for only 26 ESG proposals in the 12-month period ending in June — or 7% of the total opportunities. That marks the continuation of a steep decline that’s seen BlackRock’s percent of “yes” votes on such proposals plummet from 47% in 2021. 

    That trend has angered leftists, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. In a textbook example of projection, Lander tells FT that BlackRock has caved to a “misinformed and shortsighted war against ESG at the behest of special interests.”   

    New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg)

    “BlackRock has a responsibility to use its votes to send a clear and consistent message regarding the need to manage climate-related and human-capital related risks,” said Lander, who oversees $250 billion in pension assets. 

    BlackRock’s declining percentage of “yes” votes comes as the quantity of ESG proposals has surged thanks to new SEC rules that make it easier for shareholders to get them on the proxy ballots. On Wednesday, BlackRock said it’s voting “no” more often “because so many shareholder proposals were overreaching, lacking economic merit, or simply redundant.” 

    Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs is watching with unease, telling FT, “We understand that there are years where there are lower-quality proposals, but if this becomes a trend over multiple years, then we’ll be concerned.” State Street’s frequency of backing ESG measures has also declined, but not as sharply as BlackRock’s. 

    BlackRock has faced intense criticism from Republican government officials who accuse the firm of violating its fiduciary duty by putting the ESG agenda ahead of investment returns.  

    Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images and Fox Business

    In June, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that, while the $9.4 trillion asset manager hasn’t changed its thinking about ESG, he himself has stopped using that term. “I don’t use the word ESG any more, because it’s been entirely weaponized … by the far left and weaponized by the far right,” Fink said at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

    BlackRock has rolled out a program called “Voting Choice” that lets investors decide how their shares should be voted. The program started with large institutional investors and the firm is now conducting a pilot of the concept with retail investors in UK pooled funds. Some observers say the program is a ruse that will do little to decrease BlackRock’s power over shareholder vote outcomes. 

    The alternating backlash against BlackRock from right and left echoes the experiences of woke businesses like Bud Light and Target that reach too far left, cause an uproar on the right, modify their approach, only to faced scorn from the left for “caving” to the unenlightened.  

    Of course, unlike Bud Light and Target, BlackRock and other money management titans wield enormous direct power on other public corporations and therefore society as a whole. Between the three of them, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street typically between 15 and 20% of the outstanding shares of S&P 500 companies. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 18:00

  • The Hidden Tax Of This And That
    The Hidden Tax Of This And That

    Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time,

    Life is full of hidden taxes. Governments, banks, and businesses all benefit from taking advantage of us by shifting costs and then nibbling away at us. This often occurs when we are distracted by a larger attack on us coming from another direction. All this should be considered part of a larger ruse, or ploy to mask how we are being weakened by a thousand cuts. Such schemes promote the idea these “little” penalties and taxes upon us are minor tolls that must be paid for society to function rather than a theft fostered upon us. 

    Of course, this is becoming much easier as we move towards a cashless society where systems allow people to pay bills without even looking at them. In general, most people have come to accept a little pilfering here and there as normal. Fighting such incursions into our lives usually fails and many people deem the effort more trouble than it is worth.

    No matter how much we rile at the failure of our institutions and governments, the biggest problem we face is things will most likely get far worse. Many of the trends that are developing indicate that society is having a very difficult time adjusting to the rapid rate of change taking place. This can be seen in the large number of people that are being left behind. 

    While many people have been lifted out of poverty we have also witnessed a growing percentage of the population with both physical and mental ailments. These “disabilities.” often take the form of  things such as addiction, alcoholism, and eating disorders. The demographic picture unfolding across the world combined with huge government deficits does not bode well for future growth. When you mix these dysfunctional people into the demographic soup it becomes downright ugly. 

    We should expect more and more of our resources to be funneled into this deep hole created by horrible policies that weaken rather than strengthen society. Obamacare failed to achieve its goals of lowering the cost of healthcare but it is now accepted as the law of the land. Open borders benefit the immigrants flowing into our country far more than the average citizen, but it is allowed. Big companies are given huge advantages over the small businesses lining Main Street and few people care, it is just another small “tax” on the way we live. What people don’t understand is that over time this has a drastic effect on the economy.

    Too much of the world, too much of what we see, too much of what we are told is a lie and that is a fact. The small hidden taxes on this and that almost guarantee that further declines in both society and the financial system are likely. We are constantly bombarded with charts showing where things are going based on historical references but a question we must ask is just how relevant today’s comparisons are with prior economic cycles. Changes in how the economy is structured do not take place overnight. This does not mean it will be worse, just different. 

    Real growth and productivity are generally a direct result of private enterprise being able to move forward without barriers from the government constantly impeding progress. Increased productivity is a huge factor contributing to real growth. Sadly, it is becoming apparent that qualitative easing failed to bring much growth. Easy money was an experiment that did not fulfill its promise. The side effects of unlimited and false liquidity have proven toxic. They include bigger government, more regulation, less productivity, and malinvestment of capital.

    The term trueflation merits a great deal more attention than it gets, how the government arrives at these numbers matter. Inflation is viewed on a year-over-year basis, which means as the higher months drop away the numbers tend to give the impression we have it on the run. This should not be seen as prices now going back to “normal” but rather that they are not moving up as fast. Unfortunately, this method of computing inflation creates a “base effect” on inflation rates setting them up for another wave higher. Inflation is not gone and this means long-term investment in government bonds remains problematic.

    It is important to note that a fundamental change has occurred in the economy related to productivity. The hidden tax resulting from the acceptance of continued incompetence is no longer an exception, it is the rule. AI and all the newfangled improvements be damned, many things no-longer work and productivity is falling. Government regulation is monkey-hammering businesses, especially small businesses. High wages kill small businesses that can’t afford to automate. Many small businesses are being forced to cut hours and staffing until they simply go out of existence. If you want you can declare this the plan of a government seeking to control everything and everyone.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 17:30

  • Biden To Fund New COVID Vaccine "For Everybody… Whether They've Gotten It Before Or Not"
    Biden To Fund New COVID Vaccine “For Everybody… Whether They’ve Gotten It Before Or Not”

    President Joe Biden on Friday told reporters that he’s planning to request more money from Congress to develop a new coronavirus vaccine.

    “I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is ne- — necessary — that works,” the official White House transcript reads.

    “Tentatively, it is recommended that — it will likely be recommended that everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not.“

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe announcement follows a recorded rise in Covid-19 cases in some regions, which has been accompanied by the return of mask mandates and cancelled classes by some colleges and businesses.

    New vaccines containing the version of the omicron strain XBB.1.5 are already being developed by Pfizer, Novavax and Moderna. However, the virus’s continuing mutation will likely necessitate updated vaccines.

    The Biden administration’s supplemental funding request for Congress for the start of the new fiscal year did not include COVID-19 vaccinations. Instead, the White House asked for roughly $40 billion to fund short-term key priorities such as more aide for Ukraine, federal disaster funds, climate change and border priorities. –The Hill

    Maybe this time it will actually be safe and effective? 

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

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 17:00

  • Stockman: How The US Empire-First Policy Led To A Quagmire Of Forever Wars…
    Stockman: How The US Empire-First Policy Led To A Quagmire Of Forever Wars…

    Authored by David Stockman via Doug Casey’s International Man,

    When the Cold War officially ended suddenly in 1991 Washington had one more chance to pivot back to the pre-1914 status quo ante. That is, to a national security policy of Fortress America because there was literally no significant military threat left on the planet.

    Post-Soviet Russia was an economic basket case that couldn’t even meet its military payroll and was melting down and selling the Red Army’s tanks and artillery for scrap. China was just emerging from the Great Helmsman’s economic, political and cultural depredations and had embraced Deng Xiaoping proclamation that “to get rich is glorious”.

    The implications of the Red Army’s fiscal demise and China’s electing the path of export mercantilism and Red Capitalism were profound.

    Russia couldn’t invade the American homeland in a million years and China chose the route of flooding America with shoes, sheets, shirts, toys and electronics. So doing, it made the rule of the communist elites in Beijing dependent upon keeping the custom of 4,000 Walmarts in America, not bombing them out of existence.

    In a word, god’s original gift to America—the great moats of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans—could have again become the cornerstone of its national security.

    After 1991, therefore, there was no nation on the planet that had the remotest capability to mount a conventional military assault on the U.S. homeland; or that would not have bankrupted itself attempting to create the requisite air and sea-based power projection capabilities—a resource drain that would be vastly larger than even the $900 billion the US currently spends on its own global armada.

    Indeed, in the post-cold war world the only thing the US needed was a modest conventional capacity to defend the shorelines and North American airspace against any possible rogue assault and a reliable nuclear deterrent against any state foolish enough to attempt nuclear blackmail.

    Needless to say, those capacities had already been bought and paid for during the cold war. The triad of minutemen ICBMs, Trident SLBMs (submarines launched nuclear missiles) and long-range stealth bombers currently cost $52 billion annually for operations and maintenance, replacements and upgrades and were more than adequate for the task of nuclear deterrence.

    Likewise, conventional defense of the U.S. shoreline and airspace against rogues would not require a fraction of today’s 1.3 million active uniformed force—to say nothing of the 800,000 additional reserves and national guard forces and the 765,000 DOD civilians on top of that.

    Rather than funding 2.9 million personnel, the whole job of national security under a homeland-based Fortress America concept could be done with less than 500,000 military and civilian payrollers. At most.

    In fact, much of the 475,000 US army could be eliminated and most of the Navy’s carrier strike groups and power projection capabilities could be mothballed. So, too, the Air Force’s homeland defense missions could be accomplished for well less than $100 billion per annum compared to its current $200 billion budget.

    Overall, the constant dollar national defense budget was $660 billion (2022 $) when the cold war ended and the Soviet Union subsequently disappeared from the face of the earth in 1991. Had Washington pivoted to a Fortress America national security policy at the time, defense spending could have been downsized to perhaps $500 billion per year (2022 $) or potentially far less.

    Instead, Imperial Washington went in the opposite direction and ended up embracing a de facto policy of Empire First. The latter will cost $900 billion during the current year and is heading for $1.2 trillion billion annually a few years down the road.

    Empire First—-The Reason For An Extra Half Trillion For Defense

    In a word, Empire First easily consumes one-half trillion dollars more in annual budgetary resources than would a Fortress America policy. And that giant barrel of weapons contracts, consulting and support jobs, lobbying booty and Congressional pork explains everything you need to know about why the Swamp is so deep and intractable.

    Obviously, it’s also why Imperial Washington has appointed itself global policeman. Functioning as the gendarme of the planet is the only possible justification for the extra $500 billion per year cost of Empire First.

    For example, why does the US still deploy 100,000 US forces and their dependents in Japan and Okinawa and 29,000 in South Korea?

    These two counties have a combined GDP of nearly $7 trillion—or 235X more than North Korea and they are light-years ahead of the latter in technology and military capability. Also, they don’t go around the world engaging in regime change, thereby spooking fear on the north side of the DMZ.

    Accordingly, Japan and South Korea could more than provide for their own national security in a manner they see fit without any help whatsoever from Imperial Washington. That’s especially the case because absent the massive US military threat in the region, North Korea would surely seek a rapprochement and economic help from its neighbors including China.

    Indeed, sixty-five years after the unnecessary war in Korea ended, there is only one reason why the Kim family is still in power in Pyongyang and why periodically they have noisily brandished their incipient nuclear weapons and missiles. To wit, it’s because the Empire still occupies the Korean peninsula and surrounds its waters with more lethal firepower than was brought to bear against the industrial might of Nazi Germany during the whole of WWII.

    Of course, these massive and costly forces are also justified on the grounds of supporting Washington’s committements to the defense of Taiwan. But that commitment has always been obsolete and unnecessary to America’s homeland security.

    The fact is, Chiang Kia-Shek lost the Chinese civil war fair and square in 1949, and there was no reason to perpetuate his rag-tag regime when it retreated to the last square miles of Chinese territory—the island province of Taiwan. The latter had been under control of the Chinese Qing Dynasty for 200 years thru 1895, when it was occupied by the Imperial Japan for 50 years, only to be liberated by Chinese patriots at the end of WWII.

    That is to say, once Imperial Japan was expelled from the island the Chinese did not “invade” or occupy or takeover their own country. For crying out loud, Taiwan had been Han for centuries and for better or worse, the communists were now the rulers of China.

    Accordingly, Taiwan is separated from the mainland today only because Washington arbitrarily made it a protectorate and ally when the loser of the civil war set up shop in a small remnant of modern China, thereby establishing an artificial nation that, again, had no bearing whatsoever on America’s homeland security.

    In any event, the nascent US War Party of the late 1940s decreed otherwise, generating 70 years of tension with the Beijing regime that accomplished nothing except to bolster the case for a big Navy and for maintaining vast policing operations in the Pacific region for no good reason of homeland defense.

    That is to say, without Washington’s support for the nationalist regime in Taipei, the island would have been absorbed back into the Chinese polity where it had been for centuries. It would probably now resemble the booming prosperity of Shanghai—-something Wall Street and mainstream US politicians celebrated for years.

    Moreover, it’s still not too late. Absent Washington’s arms and threats, the Taiwanese would surely prefer peaceful prosperity as the 24th province of China rather than a catastrophic war against Beijing that they would have no hope of surviving.

    By the same token, the alternative—US military intervention to aid Taiwan—would mean WWIII. So what’s the point of Washington’s dangerous policy of “strategic ambiguity” when the long-term outcome is utterly inevitable?

    In short, the only sensible policy is for Washington to recant 70-years of folly brought on by the China Lobby and arms manufacturers and green-light a Taiwanese reconciliation with the mainland. Even a few years thereafter Wall Street bankers peddling M&A deals in Taipei wouldn’t know the difference from Shanghai.

    And speaking of foolishly frozen history, it is now 78 years since Hitler perished in his bunker. So why does Washington still have 50,000 troops and their dependents stationed in Germany?

    Certainly by it own actions Germany does not claim to be militarily imperiled. It’s modest $55 billion defense budget amounts to only 1.3% of GDP, hardly an indication that it fears Russian forces will soon be at the Brandenburg Gate.

    Indeed, until Washington conned the Scholz government into joining its idiotic sanctions war against Russia, Germany saw Russia as a vital market for its exports and as a source of supply for natural gas, other natural resources and food stuffs. Besides, with a GDP of $4.2 trillion or more than double Russia’s $2.1 trillion GDP, Germany could more than handle its own defenses if Moscow should ever become foolish enough to threaten it.

    From there you get to the even more preposterous case for the Empire’s NATO outposts in eastern Europe. But the history books are absolutely clear that in 1989 George H. W. Bush and his Secretary of State, James Baker, promised Gorbachev that NATO would not be expanded to the east by a “single inch” in return for his acquiescence to German unification.

    The Obsolete Folly Of NATO’s Article 5 Mutual Defense Obligations

    At the time, NATO had 16 member nations bound by the Article 5 obligation of mutual defense, but when the Soviet Union and the Red Army vanished, there was nothing left to defend against. NATO should have declared victory and dissolved itself. The ex-paratrooper then in the White House, in fact, could have landed at the Ramstein Air Base and announced “mission accomplished!”

    Instead, NATO has become a political jackhammer and weapons sales agent for Empire First policies by expanding to 30 nations—many of them on Russia’s doorstep.

    Yet if your perception is not distorted by Washington’s self-justifying imperial beer-goggles, the question is obvious. Exactly what is gained for the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE or Springfield MA by obtaining the defense services of the pint-sized militaries of Latvia (6,000), Croatia (14,500), Estonia (6,400), Slovenia (7,300) or Montenegro (1,950)?

    Indeed, the whole post-1991 NATO expansion is so preposterous as a matter of national security that its true function as a fig-leaf for Empire First fairly screams out-loud. Not one of these pint-sized nations would matter for US security if they decided to have a cozier relationship with Russia—voluntarily or not so voluntarily.

    But the point is, there is no threat to America in eastern Europe unless such as Montenegro, Slovenia, or Latvia were to become Putin’s invasion route to effect the Russian occupation of Germany, France, the Benelux and England.

    And that’s just plain silly-ass crazy!

    Yet aside from that utterly far-fetched and economically and militarily impossible scenario, there is no reason whatsoever for the US to be in a mutual defense pact with any of the new, and, for that matter, old NATO members.

    And that gets us to the patently bogus proxy war on Russia in which the nation of Ukraine is being turned into a demolition derby and its population of both young and older men is being frog-marched into the Russian meat-grinder.

    But as we have documented elsewhere this is a civil war in an artificial nation confected by history’s greatest tyrants—Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev, too. It was never built to last, and most definitely didn’t after the Washington sponsored, funded and instantly recognized Maidan coup of February 2014 deposed its legitimately elected pro-Russian president.

    Thereafter, Russia’s actions in recovering its former province of Crimea in March 2014 and coming to the aid of the break-away Russian-speaking republics of the Donbas (eastern Ukraine) in February 2022 did not threaten the security of the American homeland or the peace of the world. Not one bit.

    The post-February 2014 conflict in Ukraine is a “territorial”, ethnic and religious dispute over deep differences between Russian-speakers in the east and south of the country and Ukrainian nationalists from the center and west that are rooted in centuries of history.

    The resulting carnage, as tragic as it has been, does not prove in the slightest that Russia is an aggressive expansionist that must be thwarted by the Indispensable Nation. To the contrary, Washington’s imperial beer goggles are utterly blind to history and geopolitical logic.

    In the first place, the history books make abundantly clear that Sevastopol in Crimea had been the home-port of the Russian Naval Fleet under czars and commissars alike. Crimea had been purchased from the Ottoman’s for good money by Catherine the Great in 1783 and was the site of one of Russia greatest patriotic events—-the defeat of the English invaders in 1854 made famous by Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade.

    After 171 years as an integral part of the Russian Motherland and having become more than 80% Russian-speaking, Crimea only technically became part of Ukraine during a Khrushchev inspired shuffle in 1954. And even then, the only reason for this late communist era territorial transfer was to reward Khrushchev’s allies in Kiev for supporting him in the bloody struggle for power after Stalin’s death.

    The fact is, only 10% of the Crimean population is Ukrainian speaking. It was the coup on the streets of Kiev in February 2014 by extremist anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalists and proto-fascists that caused the Russian speakers in Crimea to panic and Moscow to become alarmed about the status of its historic naval base, for which it still had a lease running to the 2040s.

    In the Moscow sponsored referendum that occurred shortly thereafter, 83% of eligible Crimeans turned out to vote and 97% of those approved cancelling the aforementioned 1954 edict of the Soviet Presidium and rejoining mother Russia. There is absolutely no evidence that the 80% of Crimeans who thus voted to sever their historically short-lived affiliation with Ukraine were threatened or coerced by Moscow.

    Indeed, what they actually feared—both in Crimea and in the Donbas where the breakaway Republics were also soon declared—was the anti-Russian edicts coming out of Kiev in the aftermath of the Washington orchestrated overthrow of the legally elected government.

    After all, the good folks of what the historical maps designated as Novorussiya (New Russia) populated what had been the industrial breadbasket of the former Soviet Union. The Donbas and the southern rim on the Black Sea had always been an integral part of Russia’s iron, steel, chemical, coal and munitions industries, having been settled, developed and invested by Russians under Czars from Catherine the Great forwards. And in Soviet times many of their grandparents had been put there by Stalin from elsewhere in Russia to reinforce his bloody rule.

    By the same token, these Russian settlers and transplants in Novorussiya forever hated the Ukrainian nationalist collaborators from the west, who rampaged though their towns, farms, factories and homes side-by-side with Hitler’s Wehrmacht on the way to Stalingrad.

    So the appalling truth of the matter was this: By Washington’s edict the grandsons and granddaughters of Stalin’s industrial army in the Donbas were to be ruled by the grandsons and granddaughters of Hitler’s WWII collaborators in Kiev, whether they liked it or not. Alas, that repudiation of history could not stand.

    So we repeat and for good reason: You simply can’t make up $500 billion worth of phony reasons for an Empire First national security policy without going off the deep-end. You have to invent missions, mandates and threats that are just plain stupid (like the proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine) or flat out lies (like Saddam’s alleged WMDs).

    Indeed, you must invent, nourish and enforce an entire universal narrative based on completely implausible and invalid propositions, such as the “Indispensable Nation” meme and the claim that global peace and stability depend overwhelmingly on Washington’s leadership.

    Yet, is there not a more cruel joke than that?

    Was the Washington inflicted carnage and genocide in Vietnam—which resulted in the death of upwards of one million—- a case of “American leadership” and making the world more peaceful or stable?

    And after losing this costly, bloody, insensible war to the communists in 1975, how is it that what is still communist Vietnam has become the go-to place to source low-cost manufactured goods needed by tens of thousands of Amazon’s delivery trucks and mass market retail emporiums operating from coast-to-coast in America today?

    Likewise, did the two wars against Iraq accomplish anything except destroy the tenuous peace between the Sunni, Shiite and Kurds, thereby opening up the gates of hell and the bloody rampages of ISIS?

    Did the billions Washington illegally channeled into the rebel and jihadist forces in Syria do anything except destroy the country, create millions of refugees and encourage the Assad regime to engage in tit-for-tat brutalities, as well as call-in aid from its Iranian, Russian and Hezbollah allies?

    Did not the destruction of Qaddafi’s government by American bombers turn Libya into a hell-hole of war-lord based civil war and human abuse and even enslavement?

    In a word, Imperial Washington’s over-arching narratives and the instances of its specific interventions alike rest on a threadbare and implausible foundation; and more often than not, they consist of arrogant fabrications and claims that are an insult to the intelligence of anyone paying even loose attention to the facts.

    In this context, there is only one way to meaningfully move the needle on both Washington’s hegemonic foreign policy and its giant flow of red budgetary ink. To wit, the American military empire needs be dismantled lock, stock and barrel. Fortunately, a return to the idea of Fortress America and what we have called the Eisenhower Defense Minimum can accomplish exactly that.

    When president Eisenhower gave his prescient warning about the military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address, the US defense budget stood at $52 billion and it totaled $64 billion when you add in the collateral elements of national security that round out the full fiscal cost of empire. These include the State Department, AID, security assistance, NED, international broadcasting propaganda operations and related items, as well as the deferred cost of military operations reflected in Veterans Administration costs for compensation, health care and other services.

    By the end of the cold war in 1991 this comprehensive national security budget had risen to $340 billion, but was not to be denied by the mere fact that the Soviet Union disappeared into the dustbin of history that year. The neocons soon infiltrated both parties and owing to their Forever Wars and hegemony-seeking policies the total had soared to $822 billion by the end of the Obama “peace” candidate’s presidency in 2016.

    Yet the uniparty was just getting warmed-up. After being goosed big time by both Trump and Biden, the current estimate for FY 2024 stands at a staggering $1.304 trillion. That is to say, the comprehensive cost of empire now stands at a level 20X higher than what the great peace-oriented general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed was adequate to contain the threat posed by the old Soviet Union at the peak of its industrial and military power in 1960.

    Yes, 64 years on from Ike’s farewell address there has been a whole lot of inflation, which is embedded in the slightly different NIPA basis for the defense numbers in the chart below. But even when adjusted to the current price level, the defense budget proper stood at just $440 billion in 1960 compared to $900 billion today; and the comprehensive national security budget totaled just $590 billion or only 45% of today’s $1.304 trillion.

    National Defense Spending, NIPA Basis 1960 to 2022

    As we indicated earlier, the Eisenhower Defense Minimum, rounded to $500 billion in today’s purchasing power, is far more than adequate in a world where America’s homeland security is not threatened by a technological and industrial superpower having even remote parity with the United States and its NATO allies. The combined $45 trillion GDP of the latter is 20X larger than that of Russia and nearly 3X that of China, which is itself a debt-entombed house of cards that would not last a year without its $3.5 trillion of exports to the west.

    Stated differently, the old Soviet Union was autarkic but internally brittle and grotesquely inefficient and unsustainable. Red China, by contrast, is far more efficient industrially, but also has $50 trillion of internal and external debts and a thoroughly mercantilist economic model that makes it is utterly dependent on western markets. So its strategic vulnerability is no less conclusive.

    At the end of the day, neither Russia nor China have the economic capacity—say $50 trillion of GDP—-or motivation to attack the American homeland with conventional military means. The vast invasionary armada of land and air forces, air and sealift capacity and massive logistics supply pipelines that would be needed to bridge the two ocean moats is virtually beyond rational imagination.

    So what ultimately keeps America safe is its nuclear deterrent. As long as that is in tact and effective, there is no conceivable form of nuclear blackmail that could be used to jeopardize the security and liberty of the homeland.

    Yet according to CBO’s latest study the current annual cost of the strategic deterrent, as we indicated above, is just $52 billion. This includes $13 billion for the ballistic missile submarine force, $7 billion for the land-based ICBMs and $6 billion for the strategic bomber force. On top of that there is also $13 billion to maintain the nuclear weapons stockpiles, infrastructure and supporting services and $11 billion for strategic nuclear command and control, communications and early warnings systems.

    In all, and after allowing for normal inflation and weapons development costs, CBOs 10-year estimate for the strategic nuclear deterrent is just $756 billion. That happens to be only 7.0% of the $10 trillion baseline for the 10-year cost of today’s “Empire First” defense budget and only 5.0% of the $15 trillion national security baseline when you include international operations and veterans.

    A return to the Eisenhower Minimum of $500 billion per year for defense proper over the next decade would thus save in excess of $4 trillion over the period. And these cuts would surely be readily extractable from the $9 trillion CBO baseline for defense spending excluding the strategic forces.

    As we indicated above, for instance, there would be no need for 11 carrier battle groups including their air-wings, escort and support ships and supporting infrastructure under a Fortress America policy. Those forces are sitting ducks in this day and age anyway, but are only necessary for force projection abroad and wars of invasion and occupation. The American coastline and interior, by contrast, can be protected by land-based air.

    Yet according to another CBO study the 10-year baseline cost for the Navy’s 11 carrier battle groups will approach $1 trillion alone. Likewise, the land forces of the US Army will cost $2 trillion and that’s again mainly for the purpose of force projection abroad.

    As Senator Taft and his original Fortress America supporters long ago recognized, overwhelming air superiority over the North American continent is what is actually necessary for homeland security. But even that would require only a small part of the current $1.5 trillion 10-year cost of US Air Force operations, which are heavily driven by global force projection capacities.

    At the end of the day a $4 trillion reduction in national security spending over the next decade is more than feasible and long overdue. It only requires tossing the Indispensable Nation myth into the dustbin of history where it has belonged all along.

    Editor’s Note: The amount of money the US government spends on foreign aid, wars, the so-called intelligence community, and other aspects of foreign policy is enormous and ever-growing.

    It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point. It could cause the most significant disaster since the 1930s.

    Most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video with all the details. Click here to watch it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 16:30

  • News Industry Behemoth Sued For Discrimination Against White Employees
    News Industry Behemoth Sued For Discrimination Against White Employees

    The largest newspaper publisher in the United States, Gannett Co., is being sued for discriminating against white workers in their efforts to ‘diversify’ newsrooms.

    The proposed class action was filed in West Virginia federal court on Friday by five current and former Gannett employees who say they were either fired or passed over for promotions for ‘less-qualified women and minorities.’

    According to the Free Beacon, the root of the discrimination stems from a 2020 announcement under which the company aims to reshape its newsrooms to reflect the demographics of the communities they cover by 2025 – as well as tying executive bonuses and promotions to achieving that goal.

    “Gannett executed their reverse race discrimination policy with a callous indifference towards civil rights laws or the welfare of the workers, and prospective workers, whose lives would be upended by it,” according to the plaintiffs.

    Gannet defended itself, with chief legal counsel Poly Grunfeld Sack saying in a statement: “We will vigorously defend our practice of ensuring equal opportunities for all our valued employees against this meritless lawsuit.”

    The lawsuit comes amid growing backlash to increasingly prevalent corporate diversity policies. Unlike other pending cases brought by conservative groups, the claims against Gannett were filed directly by the company’s employees.

    The Washington Free Beacon reported last month that discriminatory fellowships and programs, which companies often establish on the basis of elite law firms’ “civil rights” advice, are now prime targets for legal scrutiny since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in June.

    These programs “are lawsuits waiting to happen,” Noah Peters, the former solicitor of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, told the Free Beacon. -Free Beacon

    Gannet joins a growing list of institutions and businesses facing lawsuits for reverse-discrimination, including law schools, Starbucks, Target, and Progressive Insurance company. More than a dozen complaints have been filed with a federal anti-bias agency by a group founded by former Trump administration officials.

    Meanwhile, a group formed by conservative activist Edward Blum, who spearheaded the Supreme Court case that ended affirmative action, sued two major US law firms over fellowships offered only to non-whites and LGBT individuals.

    In the Gannett case, plaintiff Steven Bradley says he was fired from a management job at the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, New York – and then subsequently passed over for a different position within Gannett due to the color of his skin. In April, Bradley filed a similar lawsuit in New York state court.

    Another plaintiff, Logan Berry, says he was passed over for a promotion at the Progress-Index in Petersburg, VA. After Gannett acquired the paper in 2019, Berry says the news giant gave the job to a less qualified black woman in violation of a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in contracts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 16:00

  • The AirBnB Bubble Popping Will Pop The Housing Bubble
    The AirBnB Bubble Popping Will Pop The Housing Bubble

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    This is how bubbles collapse: the “vital few” 4% sell at whatever the market will bear, pushing prices down, and the 64% awaken to the rapidly narrowing window for locking in bubble capital gains.

    Here’s how we can tell if a speculative bubble is a bubble: everyone says it isn’t a bubble – the market has reached a “permanently high plateau” because valuations are now fairly priced, etc.

    Housing globally is in a bubble (See chart below) which we’re constantly assured isn’t a bubble. As I discussed yesterday ( The Problem Isn’t a Housing Shortage, It’s the Concentration of Ownership by the Wealthy), this bubble is fundamentally an artifact of central bank and government policies that enrich the already-rich, who were incentivized to outbid each other with low-cost credit to snap up “investment properties” with their “surplus capital” that generate more income and capital gains that cash, which until recently was “trash” due to near-zero savings yields.

    Many wealthy families collect multiple properties via inheritance, as second (vacation) homes or as long-term rentals. This hoarding is (as I explained) the only possible result of policies that asymmetrically distribute credit, and thus income and capital gains, to the already-wealthy rather than to the not-yet-wealthy. This policy-driven hoarding / concentration of housing in the top 10% is one factor driving rents higher due to artificial scarcity–a scarcity created by central bank and government policies, not the “market.”

    (Regulations and bureaucratic friction that push the cost of new constriction to the moon are another factor, but that’s a topic for another post. I also want to stipulate that I am not talking about people of modest means who acquired rental properties by scrimping and saving their earned income and making sacrifices for decades–a strategy that is part of Self-Reliance; I’m talking about the already-wealthy who are seeking to “maximize returns” on their unearned “surplus capital.”)

    A systemic driver of this bidding war for rental properties is the “AirBnB” model of monetizing individual properties to compete with hotels and resorts for lodging. This model is called short-term vacation rentals (STVR), and the already-rich have been pouring their wealth into STVRs for the past 15 years.

    This has led to an artificial scarcity of housing in popular tourist destinations. It’s not uncommon to visit tourist-magnet cities and see entire buildings with only a few lights on, as many units are owned by the wealthy and left empty, as rents are not as important as having a safe place to “park surplus capital.” Thousands of other units have been pulled from the long-term rental market to reap the higher returns of STVRs.

    Many cities and locales are finally pushing back against the housing hoarding of the global wealthy, taxing empty units and limiting and/or licensing STVRs.

    As I explained yesterday, the flood of post-pandemic price-insensitive “revenge spending” pushed tourist lodging rates to the moon as resorts and STVRs competed on exploiting price-insensitive tourists.

    What’s often forgotten about real estate is prices are set on the margin. The Pareto Distribution is a handy tool for understanding how an entire neighborhood’s home prices are re-set by a mere handful of sales.

    The Pareto Distribution is often summarized as the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 rule can be distilled down to 80% of 80% and 20% of 20% to the 64/4 Rule: the “vital few” 4% exert outsized influence over the 64% mass. So 4% of sales can re-set the valuation of 64% of all neighboring houses.

    So 40 houses selling for around $450,000 will re-set the valuation of 1,000 nearby homes from $800,000 to $450,000. This is why an apparently modest number of fire sales of money-losing STVRs will dissolve the floor under bubble valuations.

    The STVR bubble was entirely an artifact of 1) historically absurdly low mortgage rates and 2) post-pandemic price-insensitive “revenge spending”. Both are over. There is no way the bottom 90% can afford homes at today’s bubble valuations, so the pool of buyers is limited to the top 10% already-wealthy, whose appetite for owning “surplus capital” rentals vanishes once the lofty weekly rates and low vacancies reverse into high vacancies and collapsing rental rates.

    The bottom 90% have tapped out their pandemic windfalls and their lines of credit. The erosion of the global economy will deflate bonuses, capital gains and all the other sources of the top 10% “wealth effect,” and credit will tighten as risk aversion and higher rates turn the spigot of easy credit off for the already-wealthy.

    The collapse of the STVR bubble will topple a line of dominoes as corporate owners will awaken from their fantasies and realize they better sell now to lock in their gains before they vanish. Wealthy households who “land-banked” properties for capital gains and places to park “surplus capital” will also awaken to the the need to lock in gains by selling.

    This is how bubbles collapse: the “vital few” 4% sell at whatever the market will bear, pushing prices down, and the 64% awaken to the rapidly narrowing window for locking in bubble capital gains. This rush for the exits triggers a strike in buyers, who realize there is no way to know how low valuations will fall, and so waiting for a bottom makes much more sense that playing “catch the knife,” i.e. buying as a bubble deflates, hoping you don’t get burned by prices falling after overpaying.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

    Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 15:30

  • New York Spending $20 Million Per Month To House Migrants On Randall's Island
    New York Spending $20 Million Per Month To House Migrants On Randall’s Island

    The city of New York is spending $20 million per month to house approximately 3,000 asylum seekers – 50% more than expected, after expanding its controversial migrant complex on Randall’s Island.

    The site, which will consist of five dormitory-style tents, has already begun housing more than 350 migrants after its opening last week, Gothamist reports.

    Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky

    According to city officials, the high occupancy rate is alarming.

    “I think New Yorkers are understanding that that’s not sustainable,” said Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for health and human services, at the city’s weekly migrant briefing on Wednesday (per Gothamist). “Even with the good work that we’re doing, I don’t know that we’re really going to be able to keep up.”

    Officials also report that the NYC shelter system is now caring for more than 110,900 people, which includes more than 59,300 migrants, and they’re scrambling to find more space to house everyone.

    The crisis is spurring officials to open more shelters to house the migrants. Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced that after months of trying, she received federal approval from the White House to use Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field as a shelter.

    While that’s welcome news for city officials, they continued to paint a bleak picture of the situation on Wednesday. The migrant relief center on Randall’s Island is expected to house up to 3,000 people, while Creedmoor can hold up to 1,000. -Gothamist

    New arrivals at the Randall’s Island shelter are being paired with case workers to assist them in various goals – such as reuniting them with US relatives, or helping other family members come to NYC, according to Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president at NYC Health + Hospitals.

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    Officials are also grappling with school-aged migrant children who will need to be enrolled in taxpayer-funded classes.

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    Locals are pissed

    NIMBY New Yorkers in the ultra-blue state aren’t happy, particularly because the migrants are taking up space on heavily-used athletic fields that ‘help keep NYC kids off the streets.’

    One of Mayor Eric Adams’ own top commissioners, Vilda Vera Mayuga, head of the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, has even circulated petitions to try to block the use of the youth soccer fields for the mega-shelter facility. –NY Post

    “We’re taking away from people who are real New Yorkers,” said Odalisa Abiles, a 47-year-old legal assistant from Queens who was at a family barbecue on Randall’s Island on Sunday (per the Post). “I was born here, on the Lower East Side, and you’re telling me they come first? How is that?”

    “I pay my tax money, federal, local, all that beautifulness, and my children don’t get to enjoy New York.“

    Well Odalisa, did you vote for politicians who declared New York a sanctuary city?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 15:00

  • The Simple Case For Favoring Real Assets Over Financial Ones Today
    The Simple Case For Favoring Real Assets Over Financial Ones Today

    Authored by Jesse Felder via TheFelderReport.com,

    Rapidly rising real interest rates suggest the stock market is severely mispriced.

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    Perhaps investors are simply expecting a return to ultra-low interest rates in the near future but that belief may be misguided.

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    Because there are structural issues behind the recent move higher in interest rates and they show no sign of improving any time soon.

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    For this reason, it may be an opportune time to consider real assets versus financial ones, especially due to the fact that they have never been cheaper than they are today.

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    And it’s a bit ironic to read of all the troubles in the Chinese economy lately when markets suggest the real troubles are right here at home.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 08/27/2023 – 14:30

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