- How Old Are Europe's Tech Companies?
How Old Are Europe’s Tech Companies?
In a previous infographic, we provided an overview of the age of the world’s (mostly American) tech giants. Then we had a look at a selection of Asian tech companies, showing that some are dinosaurs of the tech age while others have just about hatched, but already have taken over worldwide markets, such as Toshiba, Huawei or ByteDance. But, Statista’s Claire Jenik asks, what about the European technology companies?
You will find more infographics at Statista
Founded about a century and a half ago, telecom equipment manufacturers Ericsson and Nokia are making their mark among Europe’s tech oldies.
The Swedish telecommunications pioneer, founded in 1876, was one of the first companies to manufacture and market telephones. As for the Finnish Nokia, its history is a little different: once a manufacturer of toilet paper, the company became a conglomerate in the 20th century and then turned to the electronics industry in the 1960s, before becoming a leader in mobile telephony in the late 1990s.
With about half a century on the clock, we then find IT and software giants, such as Capgemini, created in 1967 in Grenoble, and the German SAP, born in 1972. Much younger but born more than a decade ago, the music streaming services Spotify and Deezer, as well as the electronic payment platform Adyen. They are among the winners of the digital revolution and are today heavyweights in their respective industries. Finally, among the European “youngsters”, we can cite the Franco-German specialist in teleconsultation, Doctolib, who will be celebrating his 8th birthday this year as well as the 8 year-old British online food delivery service Deliveroo.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/29/2021 – 02:45 - Another Navalny Drama Fizzles Despite Hungry Western Media
Another Navalny Drama Fizzles Despite Hungry Western Media
Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The indulgence and fawning must have given Navalny a sense of impunity, reinforcing his megalomania and attention-seeking…
After three weeks allegedly on a hunger strike, the Western-lionized Russian blogger Alexei Navalny has thrown the towel in. The decisive factor was the Russian authorities refusing to kowtow to a Western orchestrated drama.
Another factor is that Navalny is a conman and stooge of Western intelligence services. To carry out a real hunger strike is perhaps one of the most traumatic, mentally excruciating feats of self-sacrifice. To witness yourself wasting away to death must summon the deepest convictions of righteousness.
I remember living through the Irish Republican hunger strike 40 years ago which resulted in the death of 10 prisoners in a British state prison. The first one of those men to die was Bobby Sands who at the age of 27 passed away in a coma on May 5 after 66 days of refusing food. It was one of the grimmest periods in the 30-year conflict with Britain that ravaged Ireland.
Few political prisoners undertake hunger strike, and fewer still see it through to the horrendous end.
Only those dedicated to a righteous cause could ever contemplate overcoming the gravest challenge.
That’s why everything about Navalny’s supposed hunger strike reeks of a sham aided and abetted by the fawning Western corporate media.
The apparent collaboration in this drama also indicates the relationship of a stooge orchestrated by Western state intelligence.
When the 44-year-old convicted embezzler declared that he was going on a death-fast on March 31, the Western media kept pace with sensational headlines detailing his supposed declining health. We were told about pains, aches, and numbness, “torture”, “imminent death” and so on. Even though the Russian prison authorities released video footage of Navalny swaggering around his shared dormitory remonstrating with a guard over some petty issue.
The British state-owned BBC reported that prison authorities were using dastardly tricks such as putting savory meals beside Navalny’s bed. The BBC never gave any such concerned coverage to Bobby Sands and his Republican comrades who were abused inhumanely by British prison guards. Indeed, the British media portrayed the then Margaret Thatcher government as justified in its treatment of “Irish terrorists”.
Instead of the grim fate supposedly facing Navalny, the Western media reported his social media statements with an air of jocularity. “My friends would laugh if they saw me now walking around like a skeleton,” said Navalny in one of his Instagram posts. How is it that a purportedly persecuted prisoner has the liberty to use social media and generate Western headlines? The inappropriate humor also betrays a lack of credibility in his supposed journey of death.
All the while, the Russian authorities were monitoring Navalny’s health and maintaining that his condition was “satisfactory”.
U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were reportedly impressing on Russian President Vladimir Putin their concern over Navalny. Again, such high-profile intervention is a reflection of the political orchestration going on. It is so disproportionate to the reality that it is an absurd giveaway of scripted drama.
It soon became clear, however, that the Russian state would not be bullied by psycho-drama. Its laws and sovereign affairs are not open for hypocritical Western lecturing.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 after spending five months in Germany in flagrant violation of his parole terms for a suspended jail sentence over a fraud conviction in 2014. While in Germany, Navalny cooked up the outlandish drama that he had been poisoned with a military nerve weapon on the direct orders of Putin. No evidence has ever been provided to support his claims but the Western media and governments have endorsed the narrative as if gospel truth.
The indulgence and fawning must have given Navalny a sense of impunity, reinforcing his megalomania and attention-seeking. He was therefore shocked when he was arrested on returning to Russia from Germany and again when the Russian federal authorities ordered in February that his suspended sentence be converted to two-and-half-years behind bars.
While in prison, Navalny began demanding the “right” to have his private doctors visit him over alleged leg numbness and back pain. How’s that for arrogance!
One wonders how the BBC would have reported it if Irish Republican prisoners were making such a demand from the British state.
In any case, Russian authorities faced down the intense Western media campaign aiming to make a hero out of the “starving” Navalny. Prison doctors maintained that he was being adequately cared for. One may speculate that the Russian authorities spotted the fake drama from an early stage. You can’t pull off a harrowing hunger strike without an iron will – which Navalny and his handlers do not have because their cause is a fake pretext for destabilizing Russia’s internal politics and undermining the government.
Realizing that the battle of wills – and shills – was not going to be won, the next necessary ploy was to create an off-ramp for Navalny in order to avoid farcical embarrassment.
His personal doctors started “warning” on April 18 through obliging Western media headlines that Navalny “could die any day” due to his deteriorating condition. That was after 19 days of supposed hunger strike. Strangely, Navalny’s doctors were somehow able to give such a dire prognosis without actually examining him personally.
Then on April 23, the BBC and other Western media outlets ran headlines such as: ‘Navalny urged to end hunger strike’.
Within hours, the convicted conman declared that he was coming off his alleged fast to the death.
So, there you have it. The end of another drama in which the Western-lionized hero cheats death twice in only a matter of months. First, from alleged poisoning with a deadly nerve agent, and secondly, from an anguish-filled three-week hunger strike (at least according to Western media).
At this point, Navalny’s intel scriptwriters and Western media are the only ones going hungry.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/29/2021 – 02:00 - Critical Race Theory Is About To Face Its Day(s) In Court
Critical Race Theory Is About To Face Its Day(s) In Court
Authored by John Murawski via RealClearInvestigations.com,
As recently as last summer, few people outside academia had heard of critical race theory, whose central claim is that racism, not liberty, is the founding value and guiding vision of American society. Then, President Trump issued an executive order last September banning the teaching of this “malign ideology” to federal employees and federal contractors.
Trump’s ban was blocked by a federal judge in December and immediately revoked by Joe Biden upon occupying the White House in January. Since then, federal agencies and federal contractors have resumed staff training on unconscious bias, microaggressions, systemic racism and white privilege – some of the most common but also most disputed concepts associated with the four-decade-old academic theory.
Now critical race theory is about to face a major real-world test: a spate of lawsuits alleging that it encourages discrimination and other illegal policies targeting whites, males and Christians. But unlike Trump’s executive order, which ran into First Amendment problems by prohibiting controversial speech, the lawsuits name specific policies and practices that allegedly discriminate, harass, blame and humiliate people based on their race.
David Pitvorak, plaintiffs’ attorney: Equity “is a euphemism for race-based outcomes.”
The common thread of these legal challenges is the inescapable logic that making accommodations for critical race theory will erode the nation’s anti-discrimination law as it has developed since the 1960s. This would mean replacing the colorblind ideal of treating all people equally, which has been widely viewed as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement, with a contrary strategy: implementing race-based policies, which can range from affirmative action to reparations for compensating African Americans for the injustices of the past and for producing equitable outcomes in the future.
“Critical race theory is a Trojan horse of sorts,” said David Pivtorak, a Los Angeles lawyer representing two white men who are suing two California state environment agencies.
“It disguises itself as the gold standard of fairness and justice but, in fact, relies on vilification and the idea of permanent oppressor and oppressed races. Its goal is not ensuring that all people play by the same rules, regardless of race, but equity, which is a euphemism for race-based outcomes.”
About a dozen lawsuits and administrative complaints have been filed since 2018, with another wave planned this summer by conservative public interest law firms and private attorneys. Their goal is to draw attention to some of the more pronounced practices and win court judgments to slow down the spread of CRT in K-12 schools, government agencies other organizations.
A pair of lawsuits filed in 2019 by four white women against the New York City public school system allege that a diversity trainer told employees, “White colleagues must take a step back and yield to colleagues of color,” and that they should “recognize that values of White culture are supremacist.” The California suit filed last year by the two white men alleges that the state hosted a discussion series in 2020 in which speakers stated “that any disparate outcomes in society must be the result of white supremacy.”
A 2019 complaint filed by an Illinois public school teacher led to a finding that as part of a year-long course on equity and diversity, seventh- and eighth-graders participated in a white privilege awareness exercise that required them to remain “in silence” and with “eyes lowered” as they responded to a facilitator’s prompts. A 2020 lawsuit filed by a 12th-grade biracial student and his African American mother says that a civics class in a Nevada charter school taught that “reverse racism doesn’t exist” and that “people of color CANNOT be racist.”
Margaret Burnham, critical race scholar: “Part of being an employee or a public official or a school teacher requires you to appreciate your own standing – your identity and your positionality.”
Critical race theory scholars assured RealClearInvestigations that white people should never be fired, penalized or gratuitously humiliated for the historical accident of being born white. But organizations should be granted wide leeway in adopting diversity training and equity policies, they say, even if asking white people to acknowledge their unearned privilege and think about their complicity in white supremacy makes them feel singled out and induces anxiety.
“Part of being an employee or a public official or a school teacher requires you to appreciate your own standing – your identity and your positionality,” said Margaret Burnham, a law professor at Northeastern University and a former Massachusetts state judge, using CRT terms that describe racial and gender power hierarchies.
“Anything that is about the education of the person so that they can do a better job is fair game,” Burnham said. “Just like you have to learn new technologies, new languages, I consider this part of being an employee, part of being in a public space where you’re going to interact with other people.”
Proponents of critical race theory say the lawsuits are a form of white denialism that confirms the pervasiveness of the problem that CRT exposes. Many critical race theorists believe that the United States has functioned as an elaborate affirmative action scheme to empower and enrich white males, a strategy that depends on a certain degree of coverup.
“I see these lawsuits as a last gasp attempt of those who benefit from the racial hierarchy to cling to the power and the privileges that have been associated with whiteness from the beginning of the country,” said andré douglas pond cummings (who writes his name in lowercase letters), a business law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock who has taught courses on corporate justice and “Hip Hop & the American Constitution.”
andré douglas pond cummings, critical race proponent: “Treating people with dissimilar histories equally … can lead to unjust results and outcomes.”
“Critical race theory challenges the very legitimacy of the legal system in which these lawsuits are situated,” cummings said.
“Treating people with dissimilar histories equally, where some have been historically oppressed, can lead to unjust results and outcomes, thereby requiring a focus on results and outcomes, not on blind process, with the goal being equal economic opportunity and equity.”
The central unifying insight of critical race theory is that racism is embedded in the U.S. legal system and social structures, “so that you don’t have to think about it anymore and you can have racism without racists at this point,” said Robert Westley, a Tulane University law professor who specializes in critical race theory and reparations.
“You don’t have to be an avowed racist in order for there to be race-based outcomes in this society,” Westley said, noting that confronting these matters “is going to entail talking about things that make a lot of people very uncomfortable.”
CRT rejects the foundational premises of classical liberalism – such as legal neutrality and individual rights – and from that perspective, colorblindness is not understood as a strategy to overcome racism but as a method to perpetuate it.
“It’s a white ideology,” Burnham said.
“Colorblindness really comes into fashion as a means of denying the persistence of racial stratification in the United States.”
The lawsuits face a number of challenges, a point borne out by early setbacks some of the claims have experienced so far, including the defeat of Trump’s executive order on free-speech grounds. In another case, lawyers dropped the discrimination allegations in one of the first such lawsuits, filed in 2018 against the Santa Barbara Unified School District in California, because, they said, students and staff who supported the lawsuit were “deathly afraid” of repercussions if they spoke out and came forward publicly as plaintiffs.
Claimants generally have to prove the alleged discrimination is severe and pervasive. They also have to overcome the freedom-of-speech rights of those who are professing to be dismantling systemic racism. What’s more, lawyers on both sides say that courts traditionally defer to employers and educators to set policy on workplace training and classroom curricula, a built-in restraint on activist judges.
Perhaps the biggest wild card in these lawsuits is the staggering cultural shift of the past five years, during which many of the precepts of CRT have become widely accepted, especially among many in the nation’s intelligentsia and the professional managerial class.
President Biden has adopted the language and made equity part of his platform, including a proposal to establish an Equity Commission “to support the rights of Black, Brown and Native farmers.” Immediately upon taking office, he issued an “Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity” to address systemic racism and “affirmatively” promote equity and racial justice in the federal government.
“Our Nation deserves an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the opportunities and challenges that we face,” the executive order states.
Biden’s Education Department cited the 1619 Project among proposed new priorities for education.
And last week, Biden’s Education Department proposed new priorities for its American History and Civics Education programs in recognition that the Covid-19 pandemic and “the ongoing national reckoning with systemic racism have highlighted the urgency of improving racial equity throughout our society.” The priorities include incorporating diverse perspectives and anti-racist practices into the teaching of history, with The New York Times 1619 Project cited as an example.
Ibram X. Kendi: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
This paradigm shift has catapulted “anti-racist” experts like diversity trainer and best-selling “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo into the stratosphere of fame. Another beneficiary of the zeitgeist is Ibram X. Kendi, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University who runs the school’s Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is the author of the 2019 bestseller “How to Be an Antiracist,” which contains a succinct antiracist formula that rests on the distinction between bad discrimination (racism) and good discrimination (antiracism): “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
The nation’s current anti-discrimination law does not make such a distinction, and would read Kendi’s proposal as absurd as claiming that there’s a meaningful difference between good theft and bad theft; instead, all discrimination is wrong in the existing legal framework, with the exception of limited, narrowly tailored exemptions that are subject to strict scrutiny by the courts.
A sampling of recent lawsuits and complaints shows how critical race theory practices have played out in a variety of circumstances.
The suit against the New York City Department of Education alleges that employees were told at a diversity retreat that “there is White toxicity in the air and we all breathe it in.” Examples given included the Protestant work ethic and being socialized to be “defensive.” Such messages about “interrogating Whiteness” were repeated over the course of a year, during which time four white employees who later filed suit were accused of privilege, shamed, demoted and replaced by African Americans. The pair of lawsuits, filed in 2019, are in the discovery phase as the Department of Education and the lawyers for the four white women suing exchange documents and evidence.
A fall 2020 civics curriculum at a Nevada charter school encouraged students to “unlearn” the oppressive structures within their families, their religion and their intersectional identities. The teacher, who identified herself in class materials as a bisexual agnostic with a mental health disability, asked 12th-graders to reflect on the parts of their identity that “have privilege attached to it.” according to a discrimination suit filed by the biracial male student and his black mother who allege he was coerced to affirm a political ideology against his conscience and his Christian faith. The case, filed last December, is headed for trial after a judge, saying the allegations raise “some serious constitutional issues,” refused to toss it out.
Featured speakers: Blacks don’t use the outdoors in proportion to their population due to white racism.
In the California lawsuit brought by the two white men, a discussion hosted by the state Department of Fish & Wildlife featured speakers who said that black people don’t use the outdoors in proportion to their population because of white racism, generational trauma and a historical fear of lynching. White employees were instructed on the country’s deeply racist legal system and advised that “silence is complicity” when it comes to racial injustice. According to the lawsuit, employees were subjected to implicit bias training that amounted to compelling staff to take “loyalty oaths” to CRT ideology. The lawsuit, filed last October, is in the early procedural stage; the state’s lawyers are seeking to have the case dismissed.
In one of the more unusual cases, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights agreed in early January with an Illinois public school teacher that her school district violated anti-discrimination law when it implemented a discipline policy that explicitly directed staff to consider a student’s race when evaluating behavioral and disciplinary issues.
The case offers indications that different judges will likely reach opposite conclusions in such disputes: Just two weeks after ruling for the schoolteacher under the Trump administration, the Department of Education put the case on hold when President Biden took office and issued the “advancing racial equity” executive order.
Jonathan O’Brien, Nevada plaintiffs’ attorney: “The ideology is so patently stupid and racist to the common person that the only way you can implement it or teach it is with an element of coercion, otherwise it would just be laughed at.”
The Department of Education initially found that the K-8 school district engaged in illegal stereotyping when administrators and staff were invited to write down “some defining aspects of white culture” in a white privilege awareness exercise. The materials provided several examples of “common white reasoning,” including: “we [whites] haven’t had to develop the skills, perspectives or humility that would help us engage constructively” in cross-racial conflicts. The agency also flagged a segregated “affinity group” for white students that served as a “safe space” for students to learn about white privilege, internalized dominance, microaggressions and how to act as an ally for students of color.
Hovering in the background of these lawsuits is the unresolved question: To what extent does truth provide a defense against charges of discrimination? It will come as no surprise that to conservatives and other critics of CRT its fatal flaw is its factual wrongness.
“The ideology is so patently stupid and racist to the common person that the only way you can implement it or teach it is with an element of coercion, otherwise it would just be laughed at,” said Jonathan O’Brien, the lawyer representing the student and mother who filed the Nevada lawsuit. “That’s why the training sessions are like pressure cookers.”
But if critical race theory is true, as its adherents believe, then labeling the truth as discriminatory smacks of censorship.
The lawyers who successfully challenged Trump’s executive order last year, for example, claimed truth as a defense when they argued that their clients offer instruction about systemic racism and white privilege as an essential part of their social justice mission to provide equitable health care services. Systemic racism is understood as the totality of social institutions operating in such a way as to generate disparate outcomes for people of color in criminal justice, health care, education and other areas.
Camilla Taylor, Lambda Legal: “We’re talking about a structure, a system, that was set up to benefit white people.”
“We’re talking about a structure, a system, that was set up to benefit white people. Whether people realize it or not, they’re often continuing that system in a way that hurts people of color,” said Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation for Lambda Legal, which calls itself the nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ rights group.
“And to undo that structure you need to be able to name who it benefits and who it disadvantages.”
Lambda Legal represented the NO/AIDS Task Force, Los Angeles LGBT Center and Dr. Ward Carpenter, the Los Angeles center’s co-director of health services who specializes in transgender medicine and personally treats 200 patients. Their successful legal challenge argued that the restrictions in Trump’s executive order “not only run afoul of First Amendment protections, but they ignore verifiable and truthful information, and therefore restrict highly protected professional speech.”
In a phone interview, Taylor cited medical research published in 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that contended when African American newborns are cared for by African American physicians, their mortality rate is cut by half. There is no explanation for the disparity in death rates but the race of the provider, she said.
“Implicit bias is a problem that is greater in white people than it is in people of color,” Taylor said.
“To prevent people from talking about these facts, because they make you feel some sense of personal responsibility or guilt that you don’t want to feel, is not only wrong but it hurts people in real time.”
The stakes of this dispute couldn’t be higher, at least judging by the rhetoric expressed by both sides.
One of the conservative groups planning to file lawsuits, the Upper Midwest Law Center in Golden Valley, Mich., is in talks with prospective clients who include non-whites, said the center’s president, Douglas Seaton.
Seaton described the abandonment of the colorblind idea as giving up on the nation itself.
“You can’t have a country as diverse as ours without equality before the law,” Seaton said. “It’s a recipe for communal violence, tribalism. You can’t simply proceed that way. You’d be doomed to internecine battles between groups.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/29/2021 – 00:00 - India's COVID-19 Crisis Leads To Black Market Price Explosion
India’s COVID-19 Crisis Leads To Black Market Price Explosion
India recorded another 320,000 Covid-19 infections on Tuesday as the country struggles to cope with a deadly surge of the disease. Hospitals in Delhi and many other cities have run out of beds and oxygen and patients are being turned away. Countries have scrambed to assist India with the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the governments sending aid. The first ventilators and oxygen have touched down in India but more aid is desperately needed.
The situation, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, in Indian hospitals has seen the price of essential medical supplies skyrocket, according to an investigation carried out by the BBC.
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They found that the $80 price for a standard 50 liter oxygen cylinder has climbed as high as $1,330 on the black market while the cost of an oxygen concentrator has nearly tripled.
Likewise, the cost of essential drugs has also risen dramatically.
For example, the highest price for 100mg of Remdesivir in India was quoted by the BBC as $53 and this has climbed as high as $1,000 on the black market.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 23:40 - California Officials, Biden-Linked Firm Coordinated With Big Tech To Censor Election Posts: Judicial Watch
California Officials, Biden-Linked Firm Coordinated With Big Tech To Censor Election Posts: Judicial Watch
Authored by Isabel Van Burgen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
California officials colluded with Big Tech to censor social media posts in the United States during the 2020 presidential election, government watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Tuesday.
A thumbprint is displayed on a mobile phone as the logo for the Twitter social media network is projected onto a screen in London, England on Aug. 9, 2017. (Leon Neal/Getty Images) The findings come after Judicial Watch received 540 pages and a further four pages of documents from the office of the Secretary of State of California in response to an open records request, the group said.
It had filed the request after a December 2020 report surfaced revealing that California’s Office of Election Cybersecurity had surveilled and asked the social media giants to remove or flag as “misleading” at least two dozen messages.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that SKDKnickerbocker, a communications company linked to President Joe Biden’s election campaign, was involved in the censoring of speech during last year’s election period.
The company did this by sharing its “Misinformation Daily Briefings” with California officials, who then passed them on to social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google for dissemination, according to Judicial Watch.
“These new documents suggest a conspiracy against the First Amendment rights of Americans by the California Secretary of State, the Biden campaign operation, and Big Tech,” Fitton said.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, in Washington on Nov. 1, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) He added, “These documents blow up the big lie that Big Tech censorship is ‘private’—as the documents show collusion between a whole group of government officials in multiple states to suppress speech about election controversies.”
Jenna Dresner, senior public information officer for the Office of Election Cybersecurity, responded to the December report at the time saying that “we don’t take down posts, that is not our role to play.”
“We alert potential sources of misinformation to the social media companies and we let them make that call based on community standards they created,” Dresner said.
According to Judicial Watch, the documents it obtained show how officials pushed big tech companies to censor social media posts.
The Google and YouTube logos are seen at the entrance to the Google offices in Los Angeles, Calif., on Nov. 21, 2019. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images) Google’s YouTube was contacted directly by a state official to remove a Judicial Watch video on the platform on Sept. 24, last year, according to the group.
“YouTube seemed to respond by deleting the video on September 27, 2020,” Judicial Watch said.
In another instance, a Facebook user who implied having voted twice with multiple ballots had their post removed on Oct. 31, 2020. Other posts removed by social media giants included claims of voter fraud, receiving multiple ballots in the mail, and finding thousands of alleged unopened ballots in a dumpster.
Meanwhile, a Twitter post from Fitton that said “Mailing 51 million ballots to those who haven’t asked for increases risk of voter fraud of voter intimidation,” was flagged by SKDKnickerBocker as part of its “Misinformation Tracker.”
Washington-based SKDKnickerBocker said in a statement last November that it developed the Biden campaign’s vote-by-mail program in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The communications firm and California’s Office of Election Cybersecurity didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.
Big Tech companies have drawn intense scrutiny for perceived political bias and alleged unbalanced moderation of users’ content. Critics say much of the companies’ moderation in the past year has unfairly targeted conservative speech and speech from individuals deemed to be supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, groups on the other side of the aisle have been taking issue with how social media companies are operating, claiming that the Silicon Valley companies have failed to adequately address misinformation that is being proliferated online.
Janita Kan contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 23:20 - Extent Of Toxic DDT Dumping Off Los Angeles Coast Is 'Staggering'
Extent Of Toxic DDT Dumping Off Los Angeles Coast Is ‘Staggering’
A new report from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California found a massive graveyard at the bottom of the seafloor between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles of a toxic chemical known as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT).
Scientists used underwater drones with sonar technology to map out 36,000 acres of the seafloor between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles, where they found at least 27,000 barrels of DDT and an excess of 100,000 total debris objects.
This area has previously been known as a dumpsite for the industrial complex in Southern California, but the scientist uncovered the true extent of the massive underwater toxic waste zone dating back to World War II in March.
Images like this one show barrel-like objects containing the dangerous insecticide reside just 3,000 feet below the water’s surface.
The survey provides “a wide-area map” of where the barrels are resting.
For our millennial readers who weren’t around during the days of DDT over half a century ago, the ‘miracle’ pesticide was used against malaria and banned in 1972 after it was linked to cancer and severely damaged ecosystems.
Research from Scripps found traces of DDT after decades of barrels sitting at the bottom of the sea.
“Unfortunately, the basin offshore Los Angeles had been a dumping ground for industrial waste for several decades, beginning in the 1930s. We found an extensive debris field in the wide-area survey,” said Eric Terrill, chief scientist of the expedition and director of the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “Now that we’ve mapped this area at very high resolution, we are hopeful the data will inform the development of strategies to address potential impacts from the dumping.”
UC Santa Barbara professor David Valentin first discovered the concentrated accumulations of DDT in the area about a decade ago. He visually confirmed 60 barrels on the seafloor. Over the years, scientists have found high DDT levels in marine mammals, including dolphins and sea lions. Such exposure has been linked to the development of cancer in marine life.
Decades ago, the Southern California industry got away with dumping whatever they wanted offshore. The question now is who will pay for the cleanup?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 23:00 - Japan Restarts Older Nuclear Reactors For First Time Since Fukushima
Japan Restarts Older Nuclear Reactors For First Time Since Fukushima
Since achieving the ambitious emissions-reduction targets laid out in the Paris Accords will require developed nations to revive their nuclear plans (something that climate activists have increasingly supported despite the continuing fallout from the disaster at Fukushima) Japan on Wednesday decided to revive three long-idled reactors, marking the first time that Japan has restarted a reactor that’s more than 40 years old.
After Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga last week announced a new goal of cutting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions 46% by fiscal 2030 (an announcement that coincided with President Biden’s virtual climate summit) Nikkei reports that Gov. Tatsuji Sugimoto of Fukui Prefecture (located about 300 km, about 186 miles, west of Tokyo) gave the green light on Wednesday to restart the Kansai Electric Power reactor units 1 and 2 at the Takahama nuclear power plant, and unit 3 at the utility’s Mihama plant. Japan’s plans for building new reactors have been frozen for years, leaving its aging nuclear infrastructure largely intact.
Achieving the emissions goals laid out by Suga last week will require generating 20% of Japan’s power via nuclear energy in the coming decades, experts said.
Currently, Japanese regulations imposed after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown set the operating life of Japanese reactors at 40 years, while leaving open the possibility of extending that to 60 years. No reactors older than 40 years are currently operating in Japan – but that’s about to change.
Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama on Tuesday told Sugimoto that Japan “will use nuclear power sustainably into the future” and promised up to 2.5 billion yen ($23.1 million) in federal grants to help restart older reactors. Sugimoto told reporters that Kajiyama’s remarks were “something we hadn’t heard before.”
Japan had about 50 nuclear reactors when Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi plant was struck by a tsunami in 2011 that knocked out its emergency power, leading to a historic meltdown.
Since then, more than 20 reactors in Japan have been marked for decommissioning. By 2030, nearly half of the country’s remaining reactors will be over 40 years old.
Still, as Fukushima fades into history, support for nuclear power is growing within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. To open the door to reviving more reactors, more lawmakers favor a different rubric for counting a reactor’s operating age that will subtract the years they spent idled.
Unfortunately for the nuclear industry in Japan, other obstacles remain aside from environmental concerns. For example, the outlook for restarting Tokyo Electric’s workhorse Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has been dimmed by a report that finds insufficient safeguards against terrorist attacks. In the US, nuclear has remained out of favor ever since that incident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.
As we pointed out on Earth Day, proponents of lower emissions are starting to accept that nuclear is the only practical strategy that wouldn’t involve massive reductions in energy use, while still maintaining robust systems that won’t seize up when wind turbines freeze.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 22:40 - Chinese Sovereign Wealth Fund Eyes Stake In Aramco
Chinese Sovereign Wealth Fund Eyes Stake In Aramco
As the production cuts agreed to by OPEC+ drive oil prices higher amid a broad-based commodity boom, China’s sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp is eying a major investment in Aramco, the world’s most valuable company, as Aramco again looks to sell off a piece of its business after scrapping an international IPO a few years back.
Aramco abandoned plans for a public listing amid fears that US law might make Aramco assets vulnerable to seizure as families of victims who died in 9/11 seek compensation from the Saudi government. Instead, the company sold some debt on the international markets and offered shares that are traded domestically on Saudi Arabia’s bourse, but now it appears the oil giant, currently controlled by the Saudi royal family, is once again planning to sell off a stake in its business.
But instead of turning to the public markets, Aramco is seeking out sovereign wealth funds to invest directly, according to Reuters.
“There are talks now for the acquisition of a 1% stake by a leading global energy company in an important deal that would boost Aramco’s sales in … a major country,” Prince Mohammed said, without elaborating.
“There are talks with other companies for different stakes, and part of Aramco’s shares could be transferred to the (Saudi) Public Investment Fund and a part listed … on the Saudi bourse,” he said in an interview aired by Saudi TV marking the fifth anniversary of Vision 2030.
A 1% stake would equate to around $19 billion based on Aramco’s current market capitalization.
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has also spoke highly of the blossoming bilateral relationship between Riyadh and Beijing.
Prince Mohammed said in the interview that Riyadh was strengthening its relationships with China, India and Russia, though the United States remained a strategic partner despite some differences with the Biden administration, which has taken a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia.
“China has said Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner, India has said Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner and Russia has also said Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner,” the prince said.
According to Reuters, Aramco has been in talks with CIC, as well as Chinese national oil companies. Aramco has been “in touch” with these investors for a few years now.
“The kingdom does have close relations with China,” said a third source, who is close to Aramco. “The major shareholder will decide what to do with their shares.”
A tie-up between Saudi and China might make Washington uneasy. But the deal makes sense from a financial standpoint. Saudi Arabia is already China’s biggest crude oil supplier, a position it maintained for a seventh consecutive month in March.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 22:20 - Watch Live: Senator Tim Scott Delivers Republican Rebuttal Against "Socialist Dreams"
Watch Live: Senator Tim Scott Delivers Republican Rebuttal Against “Socialist Dreams”
After President Biden has finished lecturing successful Americans that they “didn’t build it”, Republican Senator Tim Scott will argue that the Democratic agenda amounts to “Washington schemes” and “socialist dreams.”
As the sole Black Republican in the Senate, Scott has promised to deliver an “honest conversation” and an “optimistic and hopeful message” in his own nationally televised remarks.
“Our best future won’t come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams. It will come from you — the American people,” Scott said in experts of his speech released ahead of delivery.
Scott, of South Carolina, will also laud Republican economic policy for benefits to minorities, women and low-income Americans.
“Just before COVID, we had the most inclusive economy in my lifetime. The lowest unemployment ever recorded for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans. The lowest for women in nearly 70 years. Wages were growing faster for the bottom 25% than the top 25%,” he said in his prepared remarks.
“That happened because Republicans focused on expanding opportunity for all Americans.”
Finally, we note that in a floor speech last year, the 55-year-old South Carolinan exclaimed:
“The stereotyping of Republicans is just as toxic and poisoned to the outcomes of the most vulnerable communities in this nation.”
More Excerpts here…
Excerpts of @SenatorTimScott’s response tonight. pic.twitter.com/L2dEGpun1p
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) April 28, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Watch Live:
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 22:11 - Top Australian Official Warns "Drums of War Beat" As China Tensions Rise
Top Australian Official Warns “Drums of War Beat” As China Tensions Rise
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
A senior Australian official warned that the “drums of war” are “beating” in comments to his staff over the weekend as relations between Beijing and Canberra continue to strain.
“In a world of perpetual tension and dread, the drums of war beat — sometimes faintly and distantly, and at other times more loudly and ever closer,” said Australia’s Department of Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo in comments that were made public on Tuesday.
Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo, via ABC “Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarization of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war,” he said.
While Pezzullo didn’t mention China in the remarks that were published, it’s clear he was referencing tensions with Beijing in the Indo-Pacific. Australia has followed the US in its military provocations against China and is a member of the Quad, a group that is seen as a possible foundation for an anti-China NATO-style alliance in Asia.
On Sunday, Australia’s defense minister said the possibility of a war erupting over Taiwan should not be “discounted” and warned of regional tensions. “People need to be realistic about the activity,” Defense Minister Peter Dutton said. “There is militarization of bases across the region. Obviously, there is a significant amount of activity and there is an animosity between Taiwan and China.”
Beijing responded to Dutton’s comments on Monday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China hoped Australia would “fully recognize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue” and refrain from “sending any false signals to the separatist forces of ‘Taiwan independence.'”
Via AFP Australia-China relations have followed the trajectory of US-China relations and are rapidly deteriorating. Further straining ties, last week, Canberra canceled two deals between Beijing and the Australian state of Victoria that would have been part of China’s infrastructure global project, known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
Beijing rebuked Australia’s decision to cancel the projects and urged Canberra to abandon its “Cold War mentality and ideological bias.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 22:00 - Ninth Circuit Says "Ghost Gun" Blueprints Can Be Posted Online Without Fed Approval
Ninth Circuit Says “Ghost Gun” Blueprints Can Be Posted Online Without Fed Approval
3D-printed gun blueprints can be posted online without U.S. State Department approval, a divided Ninth Circuit panel ruled on Tuesday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a Trump administration order that authorized removing ghost guns from the State Department’s Munitions List.
The appeals court ruling will make it easier to share untraceable 3D-printed gun blueprints online, but President Joe Biden in early April announced new measures to tackle gun violence, including a crackdown on ghost guns.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision Tuesday overturned an injunction issued by a federal judge in Seattle in March 2020. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik had blocked two rules that transferred regulatory control of 3D-printed gun files from the State Department to the Commerce Department. The rules also removed ghost gun blueprints from a State Department list of munitions that require a license to export. Twenty-two states led by Washington state sued to prevent the rule changes from taking effect,” Courthouse News Service said.
Here’s more from Courthouse News Service on the divided panel of judges.
In a 25-page opinion, U.S. Circuit Judges Jay Bybee, a George W. Bush appointee, and Ryan Nelson, a Donald Trump appointee, concluded that courts lack authority to review the challenged rule changes.
They found a 1976 law, the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, and its subsequent amendments forbid judicial review of State Department decisions on what is considered a “defense article” subject to regulation.
“Because Congress expressly precluded review of the relevant agency actions here, we vacate the injunction and remand with instructions to dismiss,” Nelson wrote for the majority.
In a dissenting opinion, U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley, a Bill Clinton appointee sitting on the panel by designation from the Eastern District of Washington, argued that his colleagues misinterpreted what Congress intended when it gave the president power “to designate” what items are considered “defense articles and defense services” under the law.
Whaley wrote that a 1981 amendment to the law “clarified that the president’s removal power was separate from its designation power and was subject to congressional oversight.” He said the majority disregarded a legal principle which presumes any words omitted from a statute should be deemed intentionally excluded from the law.
“I disagree with the majority’s holding which allows this new regulatory system to escape appropriate oversight,” Whaley wrote.
Bybee and Nelson rejected that criticism, arguing that prior to the 1981 amendment, the phrase at issue clearly encompassed the president’s power to add to and remove items from the list of regulated munitions.
Changes to how 3D-printed gun specs are regulated were first proposed in May 2018 about two months after the Trump administration agreed to settle a lawsuit with a private company that distributes blueprints for so-called ghost guns. Under the terms of that deal, the Trump administration agreed to remove 3D-printed gun specs from the State Department’s list of regulated munitions.
In his dissenting opinion, Whaley questioned why the government “suddenly and secretly changed course” by agreeing to that settlement after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor the State Department and denied Defense Distributed’s request for an injunction to have its blueprints removed from the list.
Prior to the settlement, the State Department had argued that Defense Distributed’s files could be used to create “virtually undetectable” firearms that presented a “serious risk of acts of violence” overseas, including the use of untraceable guns in assassinations and the manufacturing of gun parts for embargoed nations and terrorist groups.
“[Department of State] has never explained why, after securing several victories in the litigation with Defense Distributed, it decided to settle and agreed to permit the export of 3D gun files, even though DOS had argued that the export of these files would irreparably harm the United States’ national security interests,” Whaley wrote.
Whaley also questioned the government’s decision to keep that settlement secret until after a public comment period for the proposed rule changes ended on July 9, 2018. He noted that only a small fraction of submitted comments pertained to ghost guns, but after the settlement was made public, the government was flooded with “over 106,000 emails from concerned members of the public regarding the deregulation of 3D gun files.”
Bybee and Nelson acknowledged some “additional reasons” Whaley cited as to why Congress intended to let courts review decisions to deregulate munitions, but they concluded that Congress never wrote those into the law.
“Congress may decide to codify these policy considerations in the future. But [the law] as currently written does not reflect them,” Nelson wrote for the majority.
Guns printed at home are often referred to as ghost guns because they lack serial numbers, making them untraceable.
In the last several years, a decentralized network of 3D-printed gun advocates has mobilized online and revolutionized gun designs, sharing blueprints, advice and building a community.
As we’ve noted, one online ghost gun community has developed the FGC-9, which stands for “f**k gun control 9 mm.” As we’ve mentioned, the FGC-9 can be printed entirely at home for the cost of $350, including the printer’s cost.
YouTuber Sean with “The 3D Print General” recently attended “Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin” on April 10-11 in Texas. He showed how 3D-printed guns have advanced over the years and can survive thousands of rounds of ammo.
So, for the time being, ghost gun blueprints can be shared online, but it’s only a matter of time before the Biden administration swoops in like a hawk and unleashes executive orders against these untraceable firearms.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 21:40 - America's Political System Leaves Libertarians Homeless
America’s Political System Leaves Libertarians Homeless
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
Sadly, in America’s two-party political system Libertarians are left Homeless. The libertarian philosophy or ideology has many facets. Running through all of them is the idea that less government is generally a good thing. This reminds me of what President Ronald Reagan, famously said: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Such words resonate with most libertarians.
While the government may claim it has good intentions history shows it often finds a way to muck things up. This is due to the fact that “government” is comprised of both corrupt and fallible human beings. This is a toxic combination that tends to create policies that screw things up. This takes a variety of shapes, including costly or unintended consequences.
While some people write a blog for financial gain, others of us do so seeking as wide a base of readership as possible in order to have our opinions heard and share ideas. It is fair to say that on occasion some readers, with opposing opinions refuse to agree to disagree. Below is a comment from one of those fellas taking issue with my claim libertarian views do not align with those of the right, part of what he is saying reflects the confusion surrounding libertarian philosophy.
Libertarian, or far-right, what’s the difference? So many times in the past, I’ve read blogs and websites from the far-right, in which they love to cloak themselves in the term of “libertarian,” but the rest of the Rational world understands your dog-whistle politics and misanthropic social ideals. Do your criticisms flow both ways? Where’s your hard-and-fast criticism of the political ideologues on the far right?
In truth, the views of those claiming to be libertarians often conflict with those of other libertarians and even the Libertarian Party. We tend to be an odd lot and that is why the Libertarian Party may be doomed to failure. It seems the elephant in the room is the question of exactly where one person’s rights start and where another begins.
A libertarian is committed to the principle that freedom and liberty are the most important political values. This means we should be able to make our own choices about our own life, what we do with our body and our property. In short, other people should not forcibly interfere with our liberty, and we should not forcibly interfere with theirs.
Over the years, you would think the failure of big government to address our problems and woes would have convinced more voters expanding the role of government is not the answer. The cost of big government and the reality Washington seldom accomplishes its goals is beginning to nibble at the theory more government is good for society. While Government may be better at giving people access to services and good at passing popular laws, the private sector is by far more efficient and better at controlling costs.
Over the last two centuries the United States government has been steadily moving away from Adam Smith’s idea of limited government and towards the view of Abraham Lincoln that government should do for the people, whatever needed to be done. The Democratic Party has long been thought of as the party of “big government.” Filled with believers that more government can make things right they claim they care about the “little guy,” women, workers, minorities. They are big supporters of unions, more rules, and more regulations.
We, libertarians, looking for a port in any storm often find ourselves in the Republican camp but it is a poor fit. In politics many of the positions people take reek of conflict. The pursuit of an agenda or political advantage often results in people working together who would not otherwise normally socialize with one another, politics makes strange bedfellows. An example of this is how President Obama had the support of business-minded Republicans when pursuing trade deals while his party fought the idea.
Another example of this is how the mainstay Republican party stabbed Trump in the back on several occasions. Clearly, it was Libertarians and Populists that allowed Trump to get elected. In a piece authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute, he writes, “Since 2016, the role of libertarians in political discourse has tended to devolve away from a relevant political demographic into a weird scapegoat for the Left and Right.” Bishop goes on to point out what I contend is a major problem, and that is, while the libertarian electorate may not be valued, it is a very important demographic. This is because during Presidential elections those voting for a Libertarian Presidential candidate can flip enough delegates to give one party an undeserved victory in the electoral college.
Libertarians are often misunderstood, they believe people are basically good and are endowed by their Creator with natural rights, including the rights of life, liberty, and property.
In the United States, libertarians often embrace a political philosophy that advocates small government and is culturally liberal and fiscally conservative. This is far different from what is offered up in America’s two-dimensional political spectrum mainly made up of conservatives with rigid right-wing social values and liberals that embrace big government and the spending that supports it.
The Trend From 20% To 35% Is Clear And Continues
Big government is not just an American problem and tends to be even worse in countries established long ago. It seems corruption and government both tend to grow in unison over time. The reality of ever-larger government has manifest itself in more scandals as departments overreach their missions. This can be seen in the military, the IRS, NSA, and huge incomprehensible bills being passed by Congress while our government often fails to accomplish the tasks it is given.
Like the Populist, until the system changes, libertarians should expect to remain a small swing group looking for a home. As for the idea of reforming or improving our election system, that is very unlikely to happen as neither major party wants to introduce a change that might benefit the other. The entrenched interest of the elites within the system block change. The small hope for change can be found in shifting demographics that are rapidly shrinking the Republican Party. If they do not adopt a more populist message and a big tent policy they will continue to lose power. This could have a very negative impact on America going forward.
The polarization we see today may be mild compared to what we see in ten years if a large segment of the population feels its voice is silenced. If the checks and balances in our system fail, expect anger to grow as more Americans begin to feel even more left out in the cold. The saying “be careful what you wish for” may again be proven true as those wanting more government intervention experience the limits of government and bureaucracy while burdened by the financial cost it imposes. We must remember that government is often not constrained by the power of the purse to strive for efficiency, where a business fails when it does not meet its goals of providing a good service or product at a reasonable cost government muddles on.
The open-ended theme of larger Government is generally a mechanism to in some way transfer wealth. Mandates often unfunded are fostered upon business organizations and private citizens. A new proactive movement of “cuteness” cloaked in a veil of flexibility and diversity has allowed politicians and bureaucrats to use terms like “Private Public Partnership” and “quasi-government entities” that mask just how deep its roots have grown. These terms open a pathway for politicians to tinker without the personal financial risk that a businessman must take. Those within government love being creative especially when they do so on our dime. The use of sun-set legislation is underused when it comes to extending and renewing government bodies. We tend to forget that the best time to kill a monster is while it’s small.
It is the nature of bureaucracy to expand. It often takes courage to make difficult and unpopular political and economic decisions that will cause pain but benefit society in the long run. A political system that encourages sidestepping these issues to pander to the masses in exchange for remaining in power pays a tremendous price that can stay hidden for only so long. This is a trap America has slipped into, getting out of this will prove quite difficult. I seriously question whether we have the fortitude to take the necessary steps required.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 21:20 - One Bank Warns Soaring Food Prices Will Lead To Social Unrest
One Bank Warns Soaring Food Prices Will Lead To Social Unrest
Yesterday we explained why with prices already soaring, global inflation was about to go into overdrive as the leading food price indicator that is the Bloomberg Agri spot index hit the highest level in six years.
In a nutshell, this is a problem since food is a large component of CPI baskets in Asia, and “this large inflationary impulse in the region that houses more than half the world’s population should result in higher wage costs in the factory base of the world. As CPI and PPI rise in Asia, it will feed through globally in the months ahead.”
Today, DB’s Jim Reid picked that chart as his “Chart of the day”, repeating what readers already know, namely that Bloomberg’s agriculture spot index has risen by c.76% year-on-year, noting that “that’s the biggest annual rise in nearly a decade, and there are only a couple of other comparable episodes since the index begins back in 1991.”
Like us, Reid then patiently tries to explain to all the idiots – like those employed in the Marriner Eccles building – that the importance of this record surge “extends far beyond your weekly shop, as there’s an extensive literature connecting higher food prices to periods of social unrest.” Indeed, you’ll notice from the chart that the last big surge from the middle of 2010 to early 2011 coincided with the start of the Arab Spring, for which food inflation is regarded as a contributing factor.
While this is hardly new – we discussed it in “Why Albert Edwards Is Starting To Panic About Soaring Food Prices” and in “We Are Edging Closer To A Biblical Commodity Price Increase Scenario” – Reid also reminds us that emerging markets are more vulnerable to this trend, since their consumers spend a far greater share of their income on food than those in the developed world.
The DB strategist then goes all-in and says what everyone is thinking, namely that “this trend of higher food prices leading to social unrest extends far back into history and surrounds many key turning points. The French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew the Ancien Régime, came after a succession of poor harvests that led to major rises in food prices. It was a similar story at the time of Europe’s 1848 revolutions too, which followed the failure of potato crops in the 1840s and the associated severe famine in much of Europe. And the 1917 overthrow of the Tsarist regime in Russia took place in the context of food shortages as well.”
So while it remains to be seen what the consequences of today’s surge in food prices could be, Reid cautions that “given the hardship that’s already occurred thanks to the pandemic, a fresh wave of unrest would be no surprise on a historical basis.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 21:00 - Watch Live: President Biden Delivers "You Didn't Build That" 2.0 Speech To Congress
Watch Live: President Biden Delivers “You Didn’t Build That” 2.0 Speech To Congress
At 0900ET, President Biden will deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress, where he will unveil the “American Families Plan,” the third part – included with the stimulus and the American Jobs Plan – of his sweeping vision to redistribute wealth and reorganize the American economy.
Readers can find an outline of the plan here, and can watch live below:
A brief excerpt from his speech was leaked to Punchbowl News, and the theme, unsurprisingly, is attack on wealthy Americans, who will be called upon to finance Biden’s plan via massive tax hikes – the biggest in decades. (h/t @JakeSherman)
“100 days since I took the oath of office — lifted my hand off our family Bible — and inherited a nation in crisis. The worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.
Now — after just 100 days — I can report to the nation: America is on the move again. Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.
…
The Americans Jobs Plan is a blue-collar blueprint to build America. And, it recognises something I’ve always said: Wall Street didn’t build this country. The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class.”
And with the Biden presidency looking increasingly like President Obama’s third term, it’s worth noting that the similarity between the theme from tonight’s remarks and a now-infamous line from a speech President Obama delivered in 2012 where he popularized the phrase “you didn’t build that” in a jab against wealthy Americans and captains of industry that was remembered as one of his more tone-deaf moments.
Once again, an American President has decided that wealth redistribution is the best path to prosperity.
Sen. Tim Scott will deliver the GOP’s rebuttal to Biden’s speech. Here are some excerpts from that below.
Excerpts of @SenatorTimScott’s response tonight. pic.twitter.com/L2dEGpun1p
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) April 28, 2021
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 20:53 - Biden's First 100 Days: A Radical Transformation Of America
Biden’s First 100 Days: A Radical Transformation Of America
Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times,
President Donald Trump and conservative pundits warned for months during the 2020 campaign that behind then-candidate Joe Biden’s centrist, bipartisan façade lay a radical liberal agenda to transform the United States. Biden has proven them right in less than 100 days, earning praise from liberal observers who are drawing historical comparisons to the tenure of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill, written along the outline of Biden’s proposal, dwarfs FDR’s New Deal in terms of total cost to the American taxpayer. Democrats rammed the measure through Congress without any Republican support, proving Biden was the partisan that critics had warned about.
The Democratic president’s proposed infrastructure measures—the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan—would bring the total price tag to an estimated $5.4 trillion, while ushering in a wave of welfare programs unseen since the introduction of Medicare and food stamps. The cost splits up to more than $43,000 per household and more than the combined wealth of all the billionaires in America. Democrats could enact both plans without any Republican support, by using, for the first time ever, the reconciliation process more than once in a budget year.
The fiscal scale and radical nature of the agenda, coupled with the razor-thin House and Senate majorities the Democrats are using to implement it, are exerting pressure on an American system of governance that has historically demanded a measure of bipartisanship in order to enact transformative change.
“A Senate evenly split between both parties and a bare Democratic House majority are hardly a mandate to ‘go it alone,’” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a Trump critic and one of the few Republicans seeking a bipartisan solution on infrastructure, wrote on Twitter.
Democrats argue that pushing the pandemic stimulus through without Republican support was necessary to help Americans struggling with the economic impacts of the pandemic. They say that some provisions of the bill, including the expansion of Obamacare, were long overdue. Democrats predict that the child tax credit, which will amount to a monthly cash payment for most families beginning in July, could cut child poverty in half.
“The story of the first 100 days is about shots going into arms, checks going into pockets, and seeing hope on the horizon,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter on April 27.
While testing the system’s limits, Biden has thrown the weight of the presidency behind the radical transformation of the system itself. He backed the long-shot bid for D.C. statehood, which would hand the Democrats two seats in the Senate in the foreseeable future, expressed support for weakening or undoing the legislative filibuster, ordered a commission to study reforms to the Supreme Court around the time fellow Democrats introduced legislation to pack the bench, and said he would sign H.R. 1, a vast election reform bill that would, among other provisions, make mail voting universal in perpetuity.
“Mr. Biden knows his agenda is so radical, so extreme, that he cannot hope to pass it and keep it intact without first fundamentally changing the rules of the political game,” Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, wrote in a recent op-ed.
“Consequently, he’s moving on all fronts to do just that.”
To the Democrats, the wave of change is just what the doctor ordered. Former President Bill Clinton called Biden’s performance so far “almost pitch-perfect” in word and deed.
“If we can produce positive results that cross those divides by lifting everybody, giving everybody a chance, then we have a chance to psychologically change,” Clinton told Deadline.
‘I Want to Change the Paradigm’
While ushering along a wave of social change via legislation, Biden has churned out a steady stream of paradigm-shifting executive orders and actions on matters ranging from critical race theory training for federal employees to rejoining the World Health Organization.
Some of the common themes among the five dozen executive actions during the president’s first 100 days in office were the reversals and revocations of Trump-era orders and the introduction of the quasi-Marxist “equity” ideology into virtually every aspect of government operations.
“Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” the title of Biden’s very first order, set the tone for the many that followed.
“I want to change the paradigm. We start to reward work, not just wealth. I want to change the paradigm,” Biden said during his first press conference.
What a president says is sometimes as consequential as what a president does. During Biden’s symbolic 100 days, this was exemplified by his comments on the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was convicted of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Biden spoke in favor of convicting Chauvin before the jury rendered its verdict and—after the jury decision was announced—indicted America itself as guilty of “systemic racism.”
Highs and Lows
Though his cabinet wouldn’t admit it, Biden inherited a successful vaccine development and distribution program from Trump. This meant that Biden’s campaign promise of injecting 100 million Americans with the vaccine against the CCP virus in his first 100 days was on track to being fulfilled even before he took office on Jan. 20. After eluding questions about raising the target to a more ambitious figure, Biden doubled the goal to 200 million. The administration is now on pace to triple the initial goal by April 29, his 100th day in office.
That tangible highlight is offset by the crisis on the southern border, which some experts say was triggered by Biden’s revocation of Trump-era immigration policies. Illegal aliens are crossing the border in numbers unseen in decades, forcing immigration authorities to overload shelters for housing detained minors. After weeks of avoidance, Biden finally called the situation a crisis earlier this month.
The White House has signaled that it intends to solve the crisis by investing in the countries the illegal aliens are fleeing from. Over the past two decades, the United States has spent billions in foreign aid to the nations in question.
Biden’s approval ratings have fluctuated between the high-40s and mid-50s during his first three months in office, according to Rasmussen, the only pollster conducting daily presidential approval surveys. The media may be contributing to that outcome.
A recent Media Research Center study showed that evening news coverage of Biden was 59 percent positive during his first three months in office, compared to just 11 percent positive coverage during the same period in Trump’s presidency.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 20:30 - DoorDash Suffers Widespread Outages As Hangry Millennials Vent On Twitter
DoorDash Suffers Widespread Outages As Hangry Millennials Vent On Twitter
As millennials wind down for the evening in a post-pandemic world, online food ordering and food delivery platform, Doordash, is suffering widespread outages across the country, according to Downdetector.
Reports of outages first began around 1900 ET.
The outage map shows widespread disruption across the US.
Millennials are venting on Twitter that DoorDash has randomly canceled their orders or some are having payment issues.
One millennial was pissed: “DoorDash canceled my order after I waited a hour I’m not being a good person no more.”
Another said, “you guys keep blocking my payments saying it’s fraud… ive called over 10 times and nothing is done about it.. like I can’t order food now!! It even deactivated my sister’s account, and now I know you guys are saying my card is fraud. when its my card.”
“My card was charged twice but it shows no active orders?! What’s going on?” one Twitter user said.
Others a getting “Network Error.”
@DoorDash Your uptime sucks. Once a week, without fail. pic.twitter.com/C8nyWZ48ln
— Adam Greenwell (@faust3000) April 29, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
More people are getting pissed.
I’ve got 4 charges on my card for a @DoorDash order that the restaurant cancelled and no order shows up on the app. I’m so pissed.
— Shelley Boyer (@NapkinGirlSays) April 29, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Google trends show over the last hour, “doordash canceled my order,” “doordash order cancelled,” and “why did doordash cancel my order,” soared as hangry millennials searched for reasons why the app was malfunctioning.
Maybe try Grubhub or Uber Eats…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 20:10 - 50 Million People In Pathway Of Severe Storms From Texas To New York
50 Million People In Pathway Of Severe Storms From Texas To New York
A multi-day heavy rainfall and powerful storm threat will affect upwards of 50 million people across Southern Plains Wednesday and into the interior Northeast Thursday, according to CNN.
“Even though today may not look like a classic set up for a severe weather outbreak, there will be severe storms that break out from Texas all the way up to the Northeast,” said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. “We often talk about the ingredients for big storms and today’s recipe includes an overabundance of warm air and humidity.”
Current Radar (as of 1300 ET)
Storm Prediction Center (SPC) warned hailstones up to 4 inches in diameter for some areas in the Plains. Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri will see severe weather on Wednesday.
“The stronger thunderstorms may produce large hail and wind damage. A tornado threat may also develop in the Southern Plains,” warned SPC.
The Southern Plains through the lower Midwest will experience torrential rains this afternoon and into tonight.
Forecast Precipitation
“Locally heavy rainfall will be a bigger concern in our area by later today and tonight, with both flash flooding and main-steam river flooding possible depending on just where the heavier rain swathes set up,” said the National Weather Service office in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
There will be an elevated risk for severe storms in parts of the interior Northeast by Thursday, especially the eastern Great Lakes region.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, including Cleveland and Pittsburgh, could experience storms during the mid-to-late-afternoon hours, increasing into the evening.
12:55am CDT #SPC Day2 Outlook Marginal Risk: from east tx through the mid-south and across much of the oh valley https://t.co/rEAejNpVr0 pic.twitter.com/weJS1NRtfi
— NWS Storm Prediction Center (@NWSSPC) April 28, 2021
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Over 200 million people in the US are forecasted to have high temperatures of at least 80 degrees on Wednesday. All that warm and moist air have been fueling severe storms.
Thursday’s Forecast High Temps
So far, we don’t see any price anomalies in Texas power prices nor any others across the South.
… and of course, climate change warriors will point to the temperature spike and severe weather as proof global warming exists.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 20:00 - Manchin "Very Uncomfortable" With Biden's Trillion Dollar Plans
Manchin “Very Uncomfortable” With Biden’s Trillion Dollar Plans
Update (1505ET): Unsurprisingly, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is “very uncomfortable” with Biden’s plan – telling CNN‘s Manu Raju: “We want to find how we’re gonna pay for it. … Are we going to be able to be competitive and be able to pay for what we need in the country?”
Asked Joe Manchin about the trillions proposed for Biden’s plans.
“Sure, that makes me very uncomfortable,” he told me. “We want to find how we’re gonna pay for it. … Are we going to be able to be competitive and be able to pay for what we need in the country?”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 28, 2021
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* * *
President Biden will head to Capitol Hill Wednesday night for the first time since Inauguration Day (a casual visit by the president would risk spoiling the narrative that the Capitol remains a battle-scarred wreck since the Jan. 6 “uprising”) to unveil the second part of his “Build Back Better” plan, a $1.8 trillion proposal to expand the American “safety net” that will be financed by hefty tax increases on individuals and businesses, including a nearly 40% tax on short-term capital gains that spooked the market when it was first reported last week.
The scale of the plan, which has been named “the American Families Plan” and is intended to compliment Biden’s “American Jobs Plan” unveiled four weeks ago, has increased in scope since the first details of a preliminary version were leaked to the press earlier this month.
With spending spanning a decade, the plan’s main features include: $225 billion for child care spending, another $225 billion to create a national family and medical leave program. $200 billion in funding for universal access to pre-K schooling for young children. And $109 billion for two free years of community college, as well as additional subsidies for Americans to purchase health insurance. On the tax credit side, the plan extends a tax credit for up to $3,600 per child until 2025. Biden is scheduled to speak at 2100ET, according to his public calendar.
The AFP marks the trillion-dollar-plus installment in Biden’s sweeping economic programs, enabled by the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. First there was the $1.9 trillion, then the nearly $3 trillion American Jobs Plan, and now this. Their ambitious scale means they face an uncertain path through Congress, with Republicans expected to oppose the plan (though it’s possible Biden might win over a few moderates). Planned tax hikes would offset much of the cost of the plan.
According to the FT, senior administration officials have confirmed that the plan would include an increase in the top income tax rate from 37% to 39.6% for Americans earning more than $400,000, eliminate the preferential tax treatment of capital gains and dividends for those earning more than $1 million (so those making a living day trading on Robinhood can relax) and scrap provisions allowing people to pass unrealized capital gains to their heirs tax-free. What’s more, the hike in the cap gains tax will be felt by the private equity industry, since their share of the appreciation in assets they oversee – known as carried interest – is treated as capital gains, and will now be taxed at a much higher rate.
The end result is that much of President Trump’s tax cuts for individuals and businesses will be revered.
“The president’s tax agenda will not only reverse the biggest 2017 tax law giveaways, but reform the tax code so that the wealthy have to play by the same rules as everyone else,” the White House said in a fact sheet accompanying its proposal.
And as we reported yesterday, Biden also intends to hand $80 billion more to the IRS to finance campaigns to track down wealthy tax cheats who move money to tax havens overseas.
Biden has repeatedly insisted that he would try and work with Republicans, and that he might be open to complaints about specific taxes. But if the GOP tries to stymie the plan, Biden has said he would have no problem going it alone.
Since the text of the plan has yet to be released, those interested in a more comprehensive breakdown of its contents should check out the following summary courtesy of Bloomberg:
Income Taxes
Biden is calling to raise the top personal income tax rate to 39.6% for those among the highest 1% of earners. “No one making $400,000 per year or less will see their taxes go up,” the White House said in a fact sheet on the plan. Still, the document didn’t specify whether that threshold applies to both single earners as well as married couples.
Capital Gains
Biden would increase the capital gains rate to 39.6% from 20% for those earning $1 million or more — 0.3% of taxpayers or roughly half a million households — equalizing that rate with the top marginal income tax rate. A 3.8% Obamacare tax on investment would then be added on top, meaning the richest would pay a 43.4% federal rate on realized investment returns. State taxes could put the combined tax bill north of 50%.
The plan would also end a long-standing capital gains tax break on inheritances known as “step-up in basis,” which allows heirs to use the market value of assets at the time of inheritance rather than the actual purchase price as the cost basis for capital gains when the holdings are sold.
The proposal exempts the first $1 million of gains from the end of stepped-up basis, while there’s no tax if the gains are used for charitable donations. There will also be “protections so that family-owned businesses and farms will not have to pay taxes when given to heirs who continue to run the business.”
Carried Interest, Real Estate
The carried interest tax break used by private equity and hedge fund managers to lower their tax bills would be eliminated under Biden’s plan. In what critics call a loophole, that allowed for a share of income being classed as a capital gain, with an associated lower tax rate.
The administration also would eliminate a real estate tax break for when property investors sell one holding for a more expensive one.
IRS Audits
The plan calls for increased audits on high-earners that could collect an additional $700 billion in tax revenue, with funding increases for the Internal Revenue Service. Biden is also proposing to require banks to report information on account flows, so that earnings from investments and business profits are reported to the IRS like wages are.
Child Tax Credit
Biden is proposing to extend through 2025 an enhanced version of the child tax credit. The credit, increased for 2021 in the March pandemic-relief package, provides a $3,600 credit for children under six and $3,000 for those six and older. The IRS is slated to send the payments regularly, which amounts to $250 or $300 per child per month, depending on their age. Congressional Democrats are pushing Biden to make this change permanent.
Child Care
The plan includes $225 billion to help low-income families pay for child care, provide funding to child care providers and boost wages for child care workers to $15 an hour. Biden is also proposing to make permanent a tax credit for child care costs that would reimburse families for care of children 12 and under with a credit worth up to $4,000 for one child or $8,000 for multiple children.
Paid Leave
Biden would create a $225 billion national paid family and medical leave program. It would provide partial wage replacement for workers who take time off to care for a newborn or an ill family member, recover from a health issue, deal with a family member’s military deployment, address domestic violence issues or deal with the death of a loved one. The plan guarantees 12 weeks of paid parental, family, and personal leave by year 10 of the program. It provides workers with two-thirds of average wage replacement per month, up to $4,000. Lowest-wage workers will get pay replaced at 80%.
Health Tax Credits
The plan would pump $200 billion into an expansion of tax credits for households that buy health insurance on their own, saving families an average of $50 per person per month. Biden’s outline said nine million people would save hundreds of dollars per year on their premiums, and four million uninsured people will gain coverage.
Low-income Tax Credits
An expansion of the earned-income tax credit for childless workers who earn wages below the poverty line would be made permanent under Biden’s proposal. The expansion roughly triples the value of the benefit for those individuals, the fact sheet said.
Pre-School
The plan includes $200 billion for free universal pre-school for all three- and four-year-olds. Pre-kindergarten teachers will earn at least $15 per hour, and those with academic qualifications will receive pay comparable to that of kindergarten teachers.
College Tuition
The plan would provide $109 billion to cover two years of tuition-free community college for students and an $85 billion investment in Pell Grants, to aid students pursuing up to a four-year degree. The plan also includes $62 billion to improve college retention rates for disadvantaged students and pump $46 billion into historically black universities, tribal colleges and other institutions that serve minorities.
Nutrition Assistance
There is $45 billion to improve the health of school meal programs and provide food for K-12 students during summer breaks in Biden’s proposal.
Unemployment Systems
The proposal earmarks $2 billion to modernize the unemployment insurance system, which has been subjected to fraud and technical challenges during the spike in unemployment caused by the pandemic. Biden didn’t call for an automatic extension of jobless benefits as some Democrats had requested, but he pledged to work with Congress automatically extend benefits based on economic conditions.
Notably Omitted
The plan did not include any references to expanding the $10,000 state and local tax, or SALT, deduction. More than 20 House Democrats have said that tax break must be boosted to support Biden’s economic agenda. The proposal also didn’t include an expansion of the estate tax — a long-standing Democratic priority that Biden campaigned on. Nor was there an enlargement of Medicare or the drug-price reduction measures that many congressional Democrats have pushed for — though Biden’s outline said both issues were priorities for him.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 19:44 - Why Did Congress "Bailout" Utah For $1.5 Billion? (When Utah Has A $1.5 Billion Budget Surplus)
Why Did Congress “Bailout” Utah For $1.5 Billion? (When Utah Has A $1.5 Billion Budget Surplus)
Authored by Adam Andrzejewski, CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com, via Forbes.com,
Recently, Congress passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act along party lines – no Republicans voted for the legislation. Within the bill, there was $350 billion allocated to states, tribes, territories, and 30,000 localities.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forecast that “republicans would vote no and take the dough.” So far, she’s right, as no republican governor has returned the funding.
A case in point is Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R). Utah state government received $1.5 billion from the Rescue Act. However, the state has an estimated $1.5 billion budget surplus for 2021.
Gov. Cox forecast a $427 million surplus for 2021 and already expected to have a $1.1 billion one-time surplus. The total extra funds in the state budget amounted to $1.5 billion.
So, what’s the compelling public purpose for Congress to send Utah $1.5 billion in coronavirus aid? Considering the strength of their state economy, what’s the governor’s argument to keep the money?
We reached out to Gov. Cox for comment on these important issues, however, we didn’t receive a response. Although U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) voted against the bill, he hasn’t weighed in on the Utah “bailouts.”
Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com mapped every government receiving the congressional bailout. Look up your hometown by clicking one of the 50 pins (state capitol) and then scroll down to the chart beneath the map to see the local areas that received Rescue Act aid.
Beyond the $1.5 billion in aid to Utah state government, a lot of taxpayer money also flowed to Utah’s counties and cities.
Here’s a high-level breakdown of congressional bailout flowing into communities across Utah.
Salt Lake County – $225 million
Salt Lake County is the most populous in the state with an $1.1 million residents. The county is home to the state capital and its largest city, Salt Lake City. Roughly 1 in every 3 Utahns lives in this county. With $225 million in aid, the county collected the equivalent of about $225 for every resident.
The county is home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in Salt Lake City.
Utah County – $123 million
Utah County is the second most populous county in the state with 636,000 residents. That means the county collected about $193 per person.
Brigham Young University located in the city of Provo ($31.6 million in aid). Brigham Young was the founder of Salt Lake City, the first governor of the Utah Territory and second president of the LDS faith.
Salt Lake City – $87.5 million
Salt Lake City is the state capitol and is known for its ski resorts. In 2002, the city hosted the Winter Olympics.
It’s also home to the Salt Lake City Temple. The 174-year-old Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. With an estimated population of 197,756, the equivalent aid for every resident amounted to $442.
Davis County – $69 million
With some ski resorts of its own, Davis County is considered a “bedroom community.” With a population of 355,000, the county collected $194 in stimulus funds for each resident.
Weber County – $50.5 million
The county is home to Weber State University, also founded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With 260,213 people, the stimulus works out to be about $194 per resident, the same rate of funding as Utah County and Davis County.
Washington County – $34.4 million
The county is home to Zion National Park and Snow Canyon State Park, and has 177,556 residents — an average $194 per person in aid — the same rate as Utah, Davis and Weber counties.
West Valley City – $28.3 million
The second largest city in the state, West Valley has 136,009 people — an average of $208 per person in aid. A suburb of Salt Lake City, West Valley is relatively new, only incorporating in 1980. The city is home to The Maverik Center which houses the professional hockey team, the Utah Grizzlies.
Review the rest of Utah’s localities receiving congressional aid here.
The Utah state economy remained strong as they successfully navigated the pandemic and the state government has a $1.5 billion surplus. Therefore, it’s mind-boggling that the state collected an additional $1.5 billion from the $1.9 trillion stimulus package.
Critics say that Congress needs to do a better job of letting states manage their own affairs and stop the taxpayer-funded bailouts of states and localities.
However, Speaker Pelosi was right: republican members of Congress voted no, but their governors took the dough.
A request for comment to the governor’s office wasn’t returned by our deadline
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/28/2021 – 19:40
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