- Why Won't The US Help Negotiate A Peaceful End To The War In Ukraine?
Why Won’t The US Help Negotiate A Peaceful End To The War In Ukraine?
Authored by Jeffrey Sachs via AntiWar.com,
For the fifth time since 2008, Russia has proposed to negotiate with the U.S. over security arrangements, this time in proposals made by President Vladimir Putin on June 14, 2024. Four previous times, the U.S. rejected the offer of negotiations in favor of a neocon strategy to weaken or dismember Russia through war and covert operations.
The U.S. neocon tactics have failed disastrously, devastating Ukraine in the process, and endangering the whole world.
After all the warmongering, it’s time for Biden to open negotiations for peace with Russia.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. grand strategy has been to weaken Russia. As early as 1992, then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney opined that following the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, Russia too should be dismembered. Zbigniew Brzezinski opined in 1997 that Russia should be divided into three loosely confederated entities in Russian Europe, Siberia, and the far east. In 1999, the U.S.-led NATO alliance bombed Russia’s ally, Serbia, for 78 days in order to break Serbia apart and install a massive NATO military base in breakaway Kosovo. Leaders of the U.S. military-industrial complex vociferously supported the Chechen war against Russia in the early 2000s.
To secure these U.S. advances against Russia, Washington aggressively pushed NATO enlargement, despite promises to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin that NATO would not move one inch eastward from Germany. Most tendentiously, the U.S. pushed NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia, with the idea of surrounding Russia’s naval fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea with NATO states: Ukraine, Romania (NATO member 2004), Bulgaria (NATO member 2004), Turkey (NATO member 1952), and Georgia, an idea straight from the playbook of the British Empire in the Crimean War (1853-6).
Brzezinski spelled out a chronology of NATO enlargement in 1997, including NATO membership of Ukraine during 2005-2010. The U.S. in fact proposed NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit. By 2020, NATO had in fact enlarged by 14 countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia, 2009; Montenegro, 2017; and Northern Macedonia, 2020), while promising future membership to Ukraine and Georgia.
In short, the 30-year U.S. project, hatched originally by Cheney and the neocons, and carried forward consistently since then, has been to weaken or even dismember Russia, surround Russia with NATO forces, and depict Russia as the belligerent power.
It is against this grim backdrop that Russian leaders have repeatedly proposed to negotiate security arrangements with Europe and the U.S. that would provide security for all countries concerned, not just the NATO bloc. Guided by the neocon game plan, the U.S. has refused to negotiate on every occasion, while trying to pin the blame on Russia for the lack of negotiations.
In June 2008, as the U.S. prepared to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed a European Security Treaty, calling for collective security and an end to NATO’s unilateralism. Suffice it to say, the U.S. showed no interest whatsoever in Russia’s proposals, and instead proceeded with its long-held plans for NATO enlargement.
The second Russian proposal for negotiations came from Putin following the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, with the active complicity if not outright leadership of the U.S. government. I happened to see the U.S. complicity up close, as the post-coup government invited me for urgent economic discussions. When I arrived in Kiev, I was taken to the Maidan, where I was told directly about U.S. funding of the Maidan protest.
The evidence of U.S. complicity in the coup is overwhelming. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on a phone line in January 2014 plotting the change of government in Ukraine. Meanwhile, U.S. Senators went personally to Kiev to stir up the protests (akin to Chinese or Russian political leaders coming to DC on January 6, 2021 to rile up the crowds). On February 21, 2014, the Europeans, U.S., and Russia brokered a deal with Yanukovych in which Yanukovich agreed to early elections. Yet the coup leaders reneged on the deal the same day, took over government buildings, threatened more violence, and deposed Yanukovych the next day. The U.S. supported the coup and immediately extended recognition to the new government.
In my view, this was a standard CIA-led covert regime change operation, of which there have been several dozen around the world, including sixty-four episodes between 1947 and 1989 meticulously documented by Professor Lindsey O’Rourke. Covert regime-change operations are of course not really hidden from view, but the U.S. government vociferously denies its role, keeps all documents highly confidential, and systematically gaslights the world: “Do not believe what you see plainly with your own eyes! The U.S. had nothing to do with this.” Details of the operations eventually emerge, however, through eyewitnesses, whistleblowers, the forced release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act, declassification of papers after years or decades, and memoirs, but all far too late for real accountability.
In any event, the violent coup induced the ethnic-Russia Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine to break from the coup leaders, many of whom were extreme Russophobic nationalists, and some in violent groups with a history of Nazi SS links in the past. Almost immediately, the coup leaders took steps to repress the use of the Russian language even in the Russian-speaking Donbas. In the following months and years, the government in Kiev launched a military campaign to retake the breakaway regions, deploying neo-Nazi paramilitary units and U.S. arms.
In the course of 2014, Putin called repeatedly for a negotiated peace, and this led to the Minsk II Agreement in February 2015 based on autonomy of the Donbas and an end to violence by both sides. Russia did not claim the Donbas as Russian territory, but instead called for autonomy and the protection of ethnic Russians within Ukraine. The UN Security Council endorsed the Minsk II agreement, but the U.S. neocons privately subverted it. Years later, Chancellor Angela Merkel blurted out the truth. The Western side treated the agreement not as a solemn treaty but as a delaying tactic to “give Ukraine time” to build its military strength. In the meantime, around 14,000 people died in the fighting in Donbas between 2014 and 2021.
Following the definitive collapse of the Minsk II agreement, Putin again proposed negotiations with the U.S. in December 2021. By that point, the issues went even beyond NATO enlargement to include fundamental issues of nuclear armaments. Step by step, the U.S. neocons had abandoned nuclear arms control with Russia, with the U.S. unilaterally abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, placing Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania in 2010 onwards, and walking out of the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty in 2019.
In view of these dire concerns, Putin put on the table on December 15, 2021 a draft “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees.” The most immediate issue on the table (Article 4 of the draft treaty) was the end of the U.S. attempt to expand NATO to Ukraine. I called U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the end of 2021 to try to convince the Biden White House to enter the negotiations. My main advice was to avoid a war in Ukraine by accepting Ukraine’s neutrality, rather than NATO membership, which was a bright red line for Russia.
The White House flatly rejected the advice, claiming remarkably (and obtusely) that NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine was none of Russia’s business! Yet what would the U.S. say if some country in the Western hemisphere decided to host Chinese or Russian bases? Would the White House, State Department, or Congress say, “That’s just fine, that’s a matter of concern only to Russia or China and the host country?” No. The world nearly came to nuclear Armageddon in 1962 when the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba and the U.S. imposed a naval quarantine and threatened war unless the Russians removed the missiles. The U.S. military alliance does not belong in Ukraine any more than the Russian or Chinese military belongs close to the U.S. border.
The fourth offer of Putin to negotiate came in March 2022, when Russia and Ukraine nearly closed a peace deal just weeks after the start of Russia’s special military operation that began on February 24, 2022. Russia, once again, was after one big thing: Ukraine’s neutrality, i.e., no NATO membership and no hosting of U.S. missiles on Russia’s border.
Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky quickly accepted Ukraine’s neutrality, and Ukraine and Russia exchanged papers, with the skillful mediation of the Foreign Ministry of Turkey. Then suddenly, at the end of March, Ukraine abandoned the negotiations.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, following in the tradition of British anti-Russian war-mongering dating back to the Crimean War (1853-6), actually flew to Kiev to warn Zelensky against neutrality and the importance of Ukraine defeating Russia on the battlefield. Since that date, Ukraine has lost around 500,000 dead and is on the ropes on the battlefield.
Now we have Russia’s fifth offer of negotiations, explained clearly and cogently by Putin himself in his speech to diplomats at the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14. Putin laid out Russia’s proposed terms to end the war in Ukraine.
“Ukraine should adopt a neutral, non-aligned status, be nuclear- free, and undergo demilitarization and de-nazification,” Putin said. “These parameters were broadly agreed upon during the Istanbul negotiations in 2022, including specific details on demilitarization such as the agreed numbers of tanks and other military equipment. We reached consensus on all points.
“Certainly, the rights, freedoms, and interests of Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine must be fully protected,” he continued. “The new territorial realities, including the status of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions as parts of the Russian Federation, should be acknowledged. These foundational principles need to be formalized through fundamental international agreements in the future. Naturally, this entails the removal of all Western sanctions against Russia as well.”
Let me say a few words about negotiating.
Russia’s proposals should now be met at the negotiating table by proposals from the U.S. and Ukraine. The White House is dead wrong to evade negotiations just because of disagreements with Russia’s proposals. It should put up its own proposals and get down to the business of negotiating an end to the war.
There are three core issues for Russia:
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Ukraine’s neutrality (non-NATO enlargement),
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Crimea remaining in Russian hands, and
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boundary changes in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.
The first two are almost surely non-negotiable.
The end of NATO enlargement is the fundamental casus belli. Crimea is also core for Russia, as Crimea has been home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet since 1783 and is fundamental to Russia’s national security.
The third core issue, the borders of Eastern and Southern Ukraine, will be a key point of negotiations. The U.S. cannot pretend that borders are sacrosanct after NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to relinquish Kosovo, and after the U.S. pressured Sudan to relinquish South Sudan. Yes, Ukraine’s borders will be redrawn as the result of the 10 years of war, the situation on the battlefield, the choices of the local populations, and tradeoffs made at the negotiating table.
Biden needs to accept that negotiations are not a sign of weakness. As Kennedy put it, “Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate.” Ronald Reagan famously described his own negotiating strategy using a Russian proverb, “Trust but verify.”
The neocon approach to Russia, delusional and hubristic from the start, lies in ruins. NATO will never enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia. Russia will not be toppled by a CIA covert operation. Ukraine is being horribly bloodied on the battlefield, often losing 1,000 or more dead and wounded in a single day. The failed neocon game plan brings us closer to nuclear Armageddon.
Yet Biden still refuses to negotiate. Following Putin’s speech, the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine firmly rejected negotiations once again. Biden and his team have still not relinquished the neocon fantasy of defeating Russia and expanding NATO to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian people have been lied to time and again by Zelensky and Biden and other leaders of NATO countries, who told them falsely and repeatedly that Ukraine would prevail on the battlefield and that there were no options to negotiate. Ukraine is now under martial law. The public is given no say about its own slaughter.
For the sake of Ukraine’s very survival, and to avoid nuclear war, the President of the United States has one overriding responsibility today: Negotiate.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 23:25 -
- Americans Dread Vote Between Two Unpopular Candidates
Americans Dread Vote Between Two Unpopular Candidates
When President Joe Biden and his predecessor and presumptive challenger Donald Trump faced off in the first of two planned presidential debates in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday night, things were very different from usual.
First of all, it was the earliest date ever for a presidential debate, which are usually held in September and October, shortly ahead of the election and after the candidates have officially been nominated by their parties. Secondly, the debate was hosted by CNN and held without a live audience, bypassing the Commission on Presidential Debates, which had organized all such events since 1988.
Additionally, as Statista’s Felix Richter notes, the debate was also unique in that it featured two candidates that are viewed as unfit for the job by large parts of the American public, albeit for very different reasons. While President Biden is widely viewed as too old for a second term (and apparently proved that view correct last night), former President Trump is the first convicted felon to run for the country’s highest office.
As a result of this unusual match-up, many voters feel like they’re caught between a rock and a hard place, as they have serious reservations about both candidates.
According to a recent poll by The Economist and YouGov, Biden and Trump are seen unfavorably by almost 60 percent of Americans, with a shocking 44 and 47 percent holding very unfavorable views of the incumbent and his challenger, respectively.
Of course, those numbers are largely driven by the extreme polarization of today’s political landscape, resulting in 92 percent of likely Democratic voters seeing Trump unfavorably and 94 percent of likely Republican voters holding a negative view of Biden, but there are reservations about their own candidate on both sides of the political spectrum as well.
You will find more infographics at Statista
As Statista’s chart above shows, this results in what is often described as “election dread” or a widespread lack of enthusiasm ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
According to The Economist/YouGov, 44 of percent of the 1,600 U.S. adults surveyed are not or not at all enthusiastic about voting in November, with election dread most widespread among those who identified as Independent – at 78 percent.
Unsurprisingly, those who identify with or lean towards the Republican party are more enthusiastic about the upcoming vote, as concerns about Biden’s age appear to be more widespread within the Democratic base than doubts about Trump’s fitness for office are among Republicans.
We will see if these numbers tilt aggressively in favor of Trump in the following days after Biden’s performance last night.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 23:00 - DOJ Sues 5 Pro-Life Activists For Repeatedly Obstructing Access To Abortion Clinics
DOJ Sues 5 Pro-Life Activists For Repeatedly Obstructing Access To Abortion Clinics
Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit against pro-life advocates, alleging violations under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law that prevents interfering with women entering abortion clinics.
Calvin Zastrow and his daughter, Eva Zastrow, pause in Indiana while on a road trip from their home in Michigan to a federal court in Nashville, Tenn., on April 1, 2024. (Courtesy of Trish Zastrow) The civil suit seeks a monetary penalty and an injunction preventing repeat offenders from continuing their activity, marking a departure from the criminal cases that have been brought to prosecute violators of the FACE Act in recent years. In previous cases, the DOJ has asked the court to sentence the alleged offenders to 11 years in prison for each offense.
The DOJ filed the lawsuit on June 20 in the Middle District of Florida against five people for violating the FACE Act two years ago at the Fort Myers Health Center, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.
The case alleges that five people brought operations at the Fort Myers Health Center to a halt for at least one hour on Jan. 27, 2022. As a result, several patients had their appointments rescheduled or canceled, and one employee quit working there after eight years.
Named in the lawsuit are Calvin Zastrow of Michigan, a longtime pro-life advocate; Kenneth Scott of Florida, who has been charged numerous times for pro-life advocacy at abortion clinics and often represents himself in court; Chester Gallagher of Tennessee, a former police officer who left his job to advocate for the unborn; Eva Zastrow of Michigan, a missionary and pro-life activist; and Katelyn Sims, also known as Katelyn Velasco, of Texas.
The defendants trespassed onto a reproductive health center’s property, blocked the entrances, and temporarily stopped operations at the center, the complaint alleges.
The defendants were charged locally in Lee County and found guilty. Several pro-life minors were also arrested for the incident and charged locally with trespassing.
The defendants have been charged in previous FACE cases and are unlikely to stop showing up at abortion clinics, according to the complaint.
Stephen Crampton, senior counsel for Thomas More Society, will represent some of the defendants, who have been advised not to make statements about the case.
“This prosecution is yet another example of our two-tiered justice system ... whereby defenders of life are aggressively prosecuted while most who violently attacked churches and pro-life pregnancy centers are not brought to justice,” Mr. Crampton told The Epoch Times.
“While we are pleased the DOJ has pulled back from its effort to inflict draconian criminal punishment on these gentle pro-life advocates, we are disappointed that they have decided to relentlessly pursue these peaceful, nonviolent demonstrators and seek civil penalties—including ruinous fines—for events that occurred years ago and which resulted in local law enforcement already taking action, as our federalist system of government rightly contemplated,” he said.
The Department of Justice in Washington on March 25, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times) Blocked Door
On Jan. 27, 2022, a Planned Parenthood security coordinator noticed the defendants arriving across the street from the Fort Myers Health Center at about 7:45 a.m. in several cars with out-of-state license plates, according to court papers. By 8:25 a.m., the center’s management was instructing employees to park at a tile outlet store’s parking lot next door and to wait for the security coordinator to escort them into the building.
As employees arrived to work, the abortion protesters allegedly shouted “baby murderer” and “you’re going to hell” at them, the complaint said. A Planned Parenthood doctor was instructed to stay in her car due to the protests, and the DOJ says she was unable to enter the business until 10:30 a.m.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office then received reports from the Fort Myers Health Center that protesters were preventing individuals from entering the building, according to the complaint.
Some defendants walked onto the property in front of the sheriff’s deputies and toward the door, while yelling, “They are killing babies inside and you are not doing anything about it.”
A woman arrived for services while some defendants were blocking the door. The Planned Parenthood security officer had to pry open the door and the woman had to squeeze past the protesters to enter, court papers say.
Sheriff’s deputies arrested one protester for trespassing. Another was still sitting in front of the door and refused to leave. He was also arrested for trespassing.
Two other protesters went to the back door where employees had entered and tried to get in, but the door was locked, court papers say.
The protesters tried to shove signs under the door, and according to the DOJ, employees inside were frightened by the protesters’ attempts to get in the back door and grabbed weapons, including a scalpel and an IV pole, to defend themselves if the protesters got inside.
Those protesters were also arrested for trespassing.
Repeat Offenders
The defendants violated the FACE Act by blocking doors and intimidating women and abortion workers, the DOJ alleges, adding they have done it before and are likely to continue to commit such violations.
Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Zastrow, and his daughter, Ms. Zastrow, have been criminally convicted in a previous FACE case and await sentencing. The Zastrows await court for other cases in Michigan.
Each criminal case carries up to 11 years in federal prison. Instead of prison, this civil case asks for a penalty of $20,516 for first violations and no more than $30,868 for subsequent violations, plus damages of $5,000 for each person allegedly aggrieved by the defendants.
It is unclear how many people the DOJ is counting as aggrieved in this incident.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 22:35 - These Are The Most Expensive US Metro Areas To Raise A Kid
These Are The Most Expensive US Metro Areas To Raise A Kid
Raising a child can be expensive, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars from birth through to adulthood.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows the 10 most expensive metro areas to raise a child in, among the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Costs include food, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, and other necessities.
All figures are as of February 2024. Data is from SmartAsset.
Methodology: SmartAsset used MIT Living Wage Calculator data to compare the living costs of a household with two working adults and one child to that of a childless household with two working adults in extensive metro areas.
Boston Tops the List
Raising a child in a large U.S. metro area costs an average of $25,181 per year.
The Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA, area is the most expensive, at $37,758 annually. Childcare costs $22,806 annually, and additional housing needs cost $5,425.
The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area comes in second, with an annual cost of $35,642 per child. Washington, DC, ranks third with an average cost of $35,554. Washington also leads the country in childcare costs alone at $24,886 annually.
Additional housing costs are higher in the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad area, amounting to $7,056 annually. Meanwhile, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area tops the list for food, healthcare, and transportation costs.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out Ranked: The Most Valuable Housing Markets in America.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 22:10 - 21 Facts That Joe Biden Doesn't Want You To Know
21 Facts That Joe Biden Doesn’t Want You To Know
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
It takes a lot of gumption to go on television and repeatedly lie to more than 300 million Americans. I honestly don’t know how Joe Biden does it. I suppose that after you have been lying for your entire career, lying comes as naturally as breathing does. Sadly, there are still millions of Americans that are falling for his lies after all this time. Biden would like for us all to believe that the economy is “booming”, that the southern border is under control, that our communities are safe, and that Ukraine is going to win their war against Russia. Our entire society is literally crumbling all around us, and Biden and his minions have brought us to the brink of global war. I am entirely convinced that he has been the worst president in U.S. history, and that is really saying something.
Ultimately, Joe Biden is just another slimy politician that is trying to save his job.
I get that.
But come on man, how can anyone actually believe the nonsense that he is shoveling?
There are a few numbers that Biden can cherry pick to try to make himself look good, but here are 21 facts that Joe Biden doesn’t want you to know…
1. It takes the typical U.S. household $1,069 more a month just to purchase the same goods and services that it did three years ago.
2. Two-thirds of the respondents to one recent survey indicated that they had to take action to deal with rising financial stress within the past year. Those actions included “cutting back on spending, skipping monthly bills, or taking an additional job”.
3. Home insurance rates have risen by 38 percent since 2019.
4. Home rental prices are up 30 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.
5. A whopping 61 percent of U.S. renters cannot afford the rent on a median-priced apartment in the United States right now.
6. Gasoline prices are up 46 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.
7. The average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage is up 148 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.
8. According to Zillow, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home in this country has almost doubled during the past four years.
9. One recent poll discovered that 44 percent of retired Americans are considering going back to work because the cost of living has become so oppressive.
10. New home sales fell 11.3 percent last month.
11. Pending home sales are dropping at the fastest rate ever recorded.
12. According to the House Budget Committee, there have been more than 8 million migrant encounters nationwide while Joe Biden has been in the White House. We truly are in the midst of an immigration crisis that is far greater than anything that we have ever witnessed before.
13. Thanks to our unprecedented immigration crisis, the homeless population in the city of Chicago actually tripled in just one year.
14. Murder rates are up by double digit percentages in many major U.S. cities this year.
15. Continuing jobless claims just shot up to the highest level in almost three years.
16. The number of job openings in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in more than 3 years.
17. Rite Aid just announced that it will be closing 27 more stores. That is on top of more than 500 stores that it has already decided to shut down.
18. Walgreens plans to close approximately one-fourth of its 8,600 U.S. stores. If the economy really was “booming”, why would they be doing this?
19. Today, 20 percent of the entire population of the state of California is living in poverty.
20. According to one recent survey, 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up.
21. So far, the U.S. has spent a total of approximately 175 billion dollars on the war in Ukraine, and the Russians are still winning.
Over the past three and a half years, there has just been one epic failure after another.
The nightmarish withdrawal from Afghanistan set the stage for the entire Biden presidency. Everything that Biden and his minions have touched has gone sour. In fact, usually the best thing that Biden and his minions can do to solve a problem is to do nothing at all.
Have you ever known someone that has a knack for royally messing things up no matter how hard they try?
Unfortunately, Biden and his minions aren’t just incompetent.
They have blended extreme incompetence with sheer evil, and now they are asking voters to give them a chance to run America for another four years.
But if we stay on the path that we are on, will our nation even survive?
If we want to turn things around, we need to do the exact opposite of what we have been doing.
And we better move fast, because the clock is ticking…
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 21:45 - Trump Vows To Immediately Free WSJ's Gershkovich, Says Putin "Laughing" At Biden
Trump Vows To Immediately Free WSJ’s Gershkovich, Says Putin “Laughing” At Biden
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been languishing in a Russian jail since March of last year after his arrest on allegations of espionage. Soon after his detention the US formally designated him “wrongfully detained”.
Former President Donald Trump in last night’s debate with President Joe Biden hammered the administration on the lack of action on freeing the journalist. Trump vowed that if re-elected he would secure Gershkovich’s release very quickly upon entering office.
Via Reuters: Evan Gershkovich is accused of espionage and could face up to 20 years in prison. “I will have him out very quickly, as soon as I take office, before I take office,” Trump said from the CNN debate stage, and continued: “As soon as I win the election, I will have that reporter out.”
Trump sought to paint a general picture of the world “laughing” at us, especially leaders like Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin. Trump also said the only way Biden has gotten Americans released from foreign prisons is by handing overseas despots billions of dollars upon their demanding it.
The Republican frontrunner specifically referenced $6 billion ‘given’ to gain the release of five detained Americans in Iran in 2023, in reference to freeing up frozen Iranian assets that had been held primarily in South Korea.
Trump claimed that Putin is now demanding “billions of dollars” for Gershkovich’s release and that Putin “is laughing at this guy” – in reference to Biden.
This week, starting Wednesday, Gershkovich’s trial began in secret in Ekaterinburg, which is the city some 900 miles away from Moscow where Russia’s FSB arrested him last year. He appeared in court behind the typical defendant’s glass cage.
Watch Trump go after Biden on the issue of the journalist’s detention:
Trump says he will free WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich detained in Russia as soon as he wins election pic.twitter.com/boMelquqKt
— Horizon News (@Horizonnews07) June 28, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
WSJ’s Editor in Chief Emma Tucker has stated: “This bogus accusation of espionage will inevitably lead to a bogus conviction for an innocent man who would then face up to 20 years in prison for simply doing his job. And an excellent job he was doing, at that.” Trump on Thursday night hailed him as a “good guy”.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 21:20 - Does The US Want A Strong Or Weak Dollar?
Does The US Want A Strong Or Weak Dollar?
Authored by Law Ka-chung via The Epoch Times,
Financial markets generally show no clear direction these days. Accordingly, relatively small movements cause market noise. A few examples happened in the currency market where non-U.S. dollar exchange rates depreciated. While Euro depreciation had its back story of extreme right-wing parties rising in election polls, Japanese Yen depreciation had its story of the central bank (Bank of Japan) not managing market expectations well, Chinese Yuan depreciation had its story of bad outlook, the ultimate result was a strong U.S. dollar, against all.
Many views have listed so many reasons that the U.S. dollar should decline, if not collapse. However, the “cruel” fact is the U.S. dollar is still trading near its historical high.
Based on the well-known dollar index (DXY) compiled by Bloomberg, it has been over 100 for two years already, where most of the time in its history (from 1967 to now), it has ranged between 80 and 100. Directionally speaking, it has been trending up from 2008 to now.
Even in terms of world trade invoicing, central bank reserves, and financial denominations, the U.S. dollar share remains stable.
The strength of U.S. dollar is neither solely political nor solely economic.
U.S. interest rate higher than the others is one force making the U.S. dollar stronger, but a mega wave of inflation and interest rates is generally a global phenomenon that all non-U.S. central banks would act similarly.
It follows that any interest rate differentials are more likely the results of time lag and technical factors than global divergence.
More importantly, the U.S. Dollar is widely used in so many countries that it might not reflect only the U.S. economy and policies but also some global boom-bust factors.
Does the U.S. prefer a strong dollar?
Of course, the U.S. would like to maintain the existing U.S. dollar status, but given the current situation, it might prefer a weaker currency, which would be good for the U.S. economy.
As the accompanying chart shows, whether over the medium to long-run (from 2000 to now) or shorter-run cyclical term, GDP YoY growth moves oppositely to DXY YoY growth.
DXY and U.S. GDP YoY. (Courtesy of Law Ka-chung)
That said, a weaker dollar favours economic growth in both cyclical and decadal terms.
Thus, the U.S. should have no incentive to maintain a strong dollar, which might be a market outcome.
As most financial assets are denominated in U.S. dollars, risk-on/off has been the key factor of weak/strong dollar (at least over the past two to three decades). The recent strong U.S. dollar might reflect a certain reluctance to comprehensive global risk-on. That said, we do see some countries (like the U.S.) and some sectors (like tech) performing well, but this is far from a general phenomenon happening everywhere and at all times. Central banks like the Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, and the People’s Bank of China have tried hard to intervene, but the effects were short-lived.
Having said that, the long-term real effect on the global economy is largely contained as long as the DXY movement is within plus or minus 10 percent (such as the range of 80-100). At the sovereign level, short-term currency movements are never of any concern.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 20:55 - These Are The World's Oldest And Youngest Countries, By Median Age
These Are The World’s Oldest And Youngest Countries, By Median Age
The median age is a single indicator of the age distribution of a population – where half the population is older and half is younger than the listed age.
It can help government and private companies plan for age-specific demand for goods and services from the resident population.
In the chart below, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualizes the world’s oldest and youngest countries by median age, based on 2024 estimates from the CIA World Factbook.
Ranked: Countries by Median Age in 2024
Monaco and Japan – two countries with high life expectancies and low birth rates -`have some of the highest median ages (50+) in the world.
A high median age is indicative of an aging population. Without policy support, this can lead to economic ramifications.
Here are the median ages of 200+ countries and territories in the world.
Rank Country/Territory Median Age 1 🇲🇨 Monaco 57 2 🇵🇲 Saint Pierre & Miquelon 51 3 🇯🇵 Japan 50 4 🇦🇩 Andorra 49 5 🇮🇹 Italy 48 6 🇧🇱 Saint Barthelemy 47 7 🇭🇰 Hong Kong 47 8 🇪🇸 Spain 47 9 🇩🇪 Germany 47 10 🇬🇷 Greece 47 11 🇵🇹 Portugal 46 12 🇸🇮 Slovenia 46 13 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico 46 14 🇸🇲 San Marino 46 15 🇰🇷 South Korea 46 16 🇷🇴 Romania 46 17 🇱🇻 Latvia 46 18 🇱🇹 Lithuania 45 19 🇧🇬 Bulgaria 45 20 🇭🇷 Croatia 45 21 🇸🇭 Saint Helena 45 22 🇪🇪 Estonia 45 23 🇬🇬 Guernsey 45 24 🇦🇹 Austria 45 25 🇺🇦 Ukraine 45 26 🇮🇲 Isle of Man 45 27 🇭🇺 Hungary 45 28 🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina 45 29 🇹🇼 Taiwan 45 30 🇱🇮 Liechtenstein 44 31 🇨🇿 Czechia 44 32 🇨🇭 Switzerland 44 33 🇷🇸 Serbia 44 34 🇧🇲 Bermuda 44 35 🇲🇹 Malta 44 36 🇫🇮 Finland 43 37 🇻🇮 Virgin Islands 43 38 🇵🇱 Poland 43 39 🇸🇰 Slovakia 43 40 🇨🇦 Canada 43 41 🇫🇷 France 43 42 🇨🇺 Cuba 43 43 🇲🇴 Macau 43 44 🇳🇱 Netherlands 42 45 🇩🇰 Denmark 42 46 🇧🇾 Belarus 42 47 🇧🇪 Belgium 42 48 🇷🇺 Russia 42 49 🇹🇭 Thailand 42 50 🇧🇧 Barbados 41 51 🇰🇾 Cayman Islands 41 52 🇸🇪 Sweden 41 53 🇨🇰 Cook Islands 41 54 🇲🇪 Montenegro 41 55 🇸🇽 Sint Maarten 41 56 🇦🇼 Aruba 41 57 🇳🇴 Norway 41 58 🇬🇧 UK 41 59 🇲🇰 North Macedonia 41 60 🇮🇪 Ireland 40 61 🇨🇳 China 40 62 🇨🇨 Cocos (Keeling) Islands 40 63 🇲🇩 Moldova 40 64 🇱🇺 Luxembourg 40 65 🇱🇨 Saint Lucia 40 66 🇲🇺 Mauritius 40 67 🇨🇾 Cyprus 40 68 🇸🇬 Singapore 39 69 🇺🇸 U.S. 39 70 🇦🇲 Armenia 39 71 🇸🇨 Seychelles 39 72 🇰🇳 Saint Kitts & Nevis 39 73 🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago 39 74 🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands 39 75 🇬🇪 Georgia 38 76 🇯🇪 Jersey 38 77 🇦🇺 Australia 38 78 🇨🇽 Christmas Island 38 79 🇮🇸 Iceland 38 80 🇳🇿 New Zealand 38 81 🇨🇼 Curacao 38 82 🇻🇨 Saint Vincent & the Grenadines 38 83 🇦🇮 Anguilla 37 84 🇩🇲 Dominica 37 85 🇨🇱 Chile 37 86 🇫🇴 Faroe Islands 37 87 🇲🇸 Montserrat 37 88 🇬🇮 Gibraltar 37 89 🇺🇾 Uruguay 37 90 🇱🇧 Lebanon 36 91 🇦🇱 Albania 36 92 🇼🇫 Wallis and Futuna 36 93 🇹🇨 Turks and Caicos Islands 36 94 🇰🇵 North Korea 36 95 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates 36 96 🇨🇷 Costa Rica 36 97 🇬🇩 Grenada 35 98 🇵🇫 French Polynesia 35 99 🇵🇼 Palau 35 100 🇬🇱 Greenland 35 101 🇧🇷 Brazil 35 102 🇹🇳 Tunisia 34 103 🇳🇨 New Caledonia 34 104 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan 34 105 🇶🇦 Qatar 34 106 🇲🇫 Saint Martin 34 107 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka 34 108 🇹🇷 Türkiye 34 109 🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda 34 110 🇮🇷 Iran 34 111 🇧🇭 Bahrain 33 112 🇦🇷 Argentina 33 113 🇻🇳 Vietnam 33 114 🇨🇴 Colombia 33 115 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia 32 116 🇲🇵 Northern Mariana Islands 32 117 🇧🇳 Brunei 32 118 🇸🇷 Suriname 32 119 🇽🇰 Kosovo 32 120 🇲🇻 Maldives 32 121 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan 32 122 🇲🇾 Malaysia 32 123 🇵🇾 Paraguay 32 124 🇫🇯 Fiji 32 125 🇮🇩 Indonesia 32 126 🇲🇳 Mongolia 32 127 🇵🇦 Panama 32 128 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan 31 129 🇻🇪 Venezuela 31 130 🇯🇲 Jamaica 31 131 🇲🇲 Burma 31 132 🇲🇽 Mexico 31 133 🇧🇸 Bahamas 31 134 🇧🇹 Bhutan 31 135 🇲🇦 Morocco 31 136 🇿🇦 South Africa 30 137 🇬🇺 Guam 30 138 🇰🇼 Kuwait 30 139 🇵🇪 Peru 30 140 🇮🇱 Israel 30 141 🇦🇸 American Samoa 30 142 🇮🇳 India 30 143 🇸🇻 El Salvador 30 144 🇧🇩 Bangladesh 30 145 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic 29 146 🇩🇿 Algeria 29 147 🇳🇮 Nicaragua 29 148 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan 29 149 🇨🇻 Cabo Verde 29 150 🇬🇾 Guyana 28 151 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan 28 152 🇫🇲 Micronesia, Federated States of 28 153 🇪🇨 Ecuador 28 154 🇰🇭 Cambodia 28 155 🇹🇻 Tuvalu 28 156 🇳🇷 Nauru 28 157 🇳🇵 Nepal 28 158 🇼🇸 Samoa 27 159 🇴🇲 Oman 27 160 🇰🇮 Kiribati 27 161 🇧🇼 Botswana 27 162 🇧🇿 Belize 27 163 🇧🇴 Bolivia 27 164 🇩🇯 Djibouti 26 165 🇱🇾 Libya 26 166 🇹🇴 Tonga 26 167 🇵🇭 Philippines 26 168 🇭🇳 Honduras 26 169 🇲🇭 Marshall Islands 26 170 🇱🇦 Laos 25 171 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands 25 172 🇯🇴 Jordan 25 173 🇭🇹 Haiti 25 174 🇬🇹 Guatemala 25 175 🇸🇿 Eswatini 25 176 🇻🇺 Vanuatu 25 177 🇪🇬 Egypt 24 178 🇸🇾 Syria 24 179 🇱🇸 Lesotho 24 180 🇵🇰 Pakistan 23 181 🇹🇯 Tajikistan 23 182 🇳🇦 Namibia 23 183 🇰🇲 Comoros 23 184 🇮🇶 Iraq 22 185 🇲🇷 Mauritania 22 186 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea 22 187 🇬🇦 Gabon 22 188 🇾🇪 Yemen 22 189 🇵🇸 West Bank 22 190 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea 22 191 🇬🇭 Ghana 21 192 🇪🇷 Eritrea 21 193 🇲🇬 Madagascar 21 194 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe 21 195 🇨🇮 Cote d’Ivoire 21 196 🇰🇪 Kenya 21 197 🇸🇹 Sao Tome & Principe 21 198 🇷🇼 Rwanda 21 199 🇹🇬 Togo 21 200 🇨🇬 Congo 21 201 🇹🇱 Timor-Leste 21 202 🇨🇫 Central African Republic 20 203 🇪🇹 Ethiopia 20 204 🇲🇼 Malawi 20 205 🇬🇲 Gambia 20 206 🇦🇫 Afghanistan 20 207 🇱🇷 Liberia 20 208 🇵🇸 Gaza 20 209 🇬🇳 Guinea 19 210 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone 19 211 🇳🇬 Nigeria 19 212 🇸🇩 Sudan 19 213 🇸🇳 Senegal 19 214 🇹🇿 Tanzania 19 215 🇸🇴 Somalia 19 216 🇨🇲 Cameroon 19 217 🇸🇸 South Sudan 19 218 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso 19 219 🇿🇲 Zambia 18 220 🇧🇮 Burundi 18 221 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau 18 222 🇲🇿 Mozambique 17 223 🇧🇯 Benin 17 224 🇨🇩 DRC 17 225 🇹🇩 Chad 17 226 🇲🇱 Mali 16 227 🇦🇴 Angola 16 228 🇺🇬 Uganda 16 229 🇳🇪 Niger 15 Note: Figures rounded.
Meanwhile, the presence of six European nations on the oldest countries list is a quick insight into the continent’s changing demographic. The UN estimates that one in four Europeans are currently aged 60 and over.
Conversely, many countries in Africa have low life expectancies and high birth rates. This results in the opposite phenomenon: lower median ages.
A low median age also has its own concerns. A higher proportion of children and adolescents can strain the education infrastructure. Without enough job growth, underemployment and unemployment can rise.
However, if managed well, low median ages can lead to a demographic dividend, where the workforce temporarily grows faster than the dependent population, increasing per capita income.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 20:30 - VDH: Stop The Ukrainian Meatgrinder?
VDH: Stop The Ukrainian Meatgrinder?
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.
Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.
In the West, the mere mention of a negotiated settlement is considered a dangerous appeasement of Russia’s flagrant aggression. In Russia, anything short of victory would be seen as synonymous with the collapse of the Putin regime.
Yet as the war nears two and a half years this summer, some facts are no longer much in dispute.
Controversy still arises over the circumstances of the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Russia charges that the West engineered the “Revolution of Dignity” – an effort to westernize the former Soviet republic, to expand the borders of Europe right to the doorstep of Russia, and eventually to fully arm Ukraine as a member of NATO.
Westerners counter that most Ukrainians wished to be part of Europe and independent from Russian bullying – and they had a perfect right to ask to join either NATO or the EU or both despite anticipated escalating tensions.
After the heroic Ukrainian defeat of the 2022 Russian bid to take Kyiv, there have been few significant territorial gains by either side.
Like the seesaw bloodbath on the Western Front of World War I, neither side has developed the momentum to force the other to negotiate or grant concessions.
As nuclear Russian threats against Europe mount, NATO is seeking to regain deterrence capabilities by boosting defense budgets, incorporating robust frontline nations Sweden and Finland, and uniting over shared concerns about Russian aggression.
Many in the U.S. cheer on the conflict as a necessary proxy war to check Russian aggression and bolster NATO’s resistance.
But unlike third-party wars during the Cold War, now the Western client, Ukraine, is fighting directly against the chief antagonist of European NATO members.
Arming a proxy in a war waged against the homeland of a nuclear adversary is a new and dangerous phenomenon.
The West counts on supplying Ukraine with more and better weapons than a richer, larger, and more populous Russia.
But Ukraine’s problem is not so much weapons as manpower. Nearly a fourth of Ukraine’s population has fled the country.
Ukraine may have suffered some 300,000 causalities. The average age of its soldiers is over 40 years. It already lacks sufficient forces to replay the failed 2023 counter-offensive. The Russian plan of attrition is to wear down and bleed out the Ukrainian people.
In a geostrategic sense, the new alignment of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea is starting to gain opportunistic support from illiberal Middle East regimes, Turkey, and the Islamic world in general.
The Biden administration’s respective approaches to the Ukraine and Gaza wars continue to be utterly incoherent.
It lectures our strongest ally Israel on the need for a ceasefire, proportionality, a coalition wartime cabinet, and the avoidance of collateral damage. The administration considers the terrorist Hamas almost a legitimate state.
However, Biden and the American diplomatic establishment urge Ukraine to keep fighting without negotiations. They urge Kyiv to seek critical disproportionality through superior weaponry, including hitting strategic targets inside Russia.
The U.S. has overlooked the cancellation of Ukrainian political parties and elections by the Zelensky administration. America does not seem to care about Ukrainian collateral damage to the borderlands. And it considers the Russian government a near-terrorist state.
No one in the West, at least prior to the Russian February 2022 invasion—neither the prior Obama, Trump, and current Biden administrations or the Ukrainian government itself—had considered it even possible to regain by force the Crimea and the Donbass absorbed by the Russian invasion of 2014.
Add up all these realities, and the only practicable way to avoid another near-one million dead and wounded would be a settlement, however unpopular.
It would entail the formalization of the 2014 Russian absorption of Crimea and Donbass.
Russia would then agree to withdraw all its forces to its pre-2022 borders. Ukraine would be fully armed but without NATO membership.
Both sides would agree to a demilitarized zone on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Russia would brag that it prevented its former province from joining NATO while finally institutionalizing its prior incorporation of the Donbass and Crimea.
Ukraine would be proud that, like heroic 1940 Finland, it miraculously stopped Russian aggression. It would remain far better armed than at any time in its history and soon enjoy a status similar to that of non-NATO Austria or Switzerland.
The deal would anger all parties. But it would make public what most concede privately—and stop the ongoing destruction of Ukraine and the further slaughter of an entire generation of Ukrainian and Russian youth.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 20:05 - Iran Openly Talks About Building A Nuke In Historic Shift
Iran Openly Talks About Building A Nuke In Historic Shift
In what’s likely messaging intended for both Israel and a potential incoming Trump administration in the US, Iranian officials are becoming more open about the possibility of building a nuclear bomb. Tehran’s official policy, backed by years of consistent statements by the Ayatollah, has been to insist its nuclear program is only for peaceful energy purposes, and that nukes go against Islamic morality.
Currently, it is no secret that the Islamic Republic has been drastically increasing the quantity and purity of its enriched uranium – which has hastened over the last year, after an already upward trajectory since Trump pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear deal in 2018.
The New York Times in a fresh report says an unprecedented trend is cause for serious alarm: “For the first time, some members of Iran’s ruling elite are dropping the country’s decades-old insistence that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes.” This comes just as Iran – which remains the archnemesis of Israel – is about to pick a new president after Ebrahim Raisi’s recent death in a helicopter crash.
“Instead, they are publicly beginning to embrace the logic of possessing the bomb, arguing that recent missile exchanges with Israel underscore the need for a far more powerful deterrent,” continues the NY Times.
Tehran is fully aware of its status as a ‘threshold state’ and is using this to project strength in its broader standoff with Israel in the region:
In interviews with a dozen American, European, Iranian and Israeli officials and with outside experts, the cumulative effect of this surge appears clear: Iran has cemented its role as a “threshold” nuclear state, walking right up to the line of building a weapon without stepping over it.
And yet Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has warned many times over the years that he will not allow Iran to achieve nuclear status. He has vowed to launch a preemptive attack should Tehran cross this line.
But this has not stopped an official close to Iran’s supreme leader from recently explaining that if the country were to face an existential threat, it would “reconsider its nuclear doctrine” — as quoted in the Times report.
Without doubt, Iranian leaders have in the back of their minds the examples of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Both gave up their WMD programs and nuclear aspirations, and soon after were invaded, overthrown, and executed (and in Gaddafi’s case he was killed on the street by NATO-backed rebels).
Below are some key sections from the lengthy NY Times investigative report…
* * *
How fast to achieve a bomb?
And they caution that while Iran could now produce the fuel for three or more bombs in days or weeks, it would still take considerable time — maybe 18 months — for Iran to fabricate that fuel into a warhead that could be delivered on missiles of the kind it launched at Israel in April.
Gaza tinderbox has raised the stakes
“Iran is sending a clear message that if the pressure of sanctions continues, if assassination of its commanders continues and if Washington or Israel decides to tighten the noose, it will then break all the chains,” said Hossein Alizadeh, a former Iranian diplomat who defected in 2010. He spoke from Britain, where he now lives.
Practicing preemptive strikes
While the U.S. and Israeli air forces often practiced what it would take to bomb Fordow, even building a mock-up of the site in the Nevada desert, military officials say it would take repeated, precise strikes by the United States’ largest “bunker buster” to reach down that deep.
Anti-nuke Fatwah still officially in place
Iran has insisted that it cannot manufacture or use nuclear weapons because of a 2003 “fatwa,” or religious edict, issued by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The country said the fatwa remained in effect even after Israel stole, and then made public, a huge archive of Iranian documents that made plain the country was trying to design a weapon.
Coordinated statements signaling policy change
If Israel threatened Iran’s nuclear facilities, General Haq Talab said in a speech in mid-April, “it’s entirely possible and imaginable that the Islamic Republic will reconsider its nuclear doctrine and policies and reverse its previously stated positions.”
A few weeks later, Mr. Kharazi told Al Jazeera that Iran had the capacity to produce a nuclear bomb, but that it has not decided to do so.
“If Iran’s existence is threatened, we will have no choice but to reverse our nuclear doctrine,” he said.
And in late May, Mr. Araghchi said at a conference in Doha, Qatar, that Israeli attacks “could force others to rethink their security calculations and their nuclear postures.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 19:40 - You Keep Using The Term 'Authoritarian'…
You Keep Using The Term ‘Authoritarian’…
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,
You know the term “authoritarian.” You think you know what it means.
An authoritarian dad, boss, or government says: my way or the highway. They are forever barking orders and see compliance as the answer to all human problems. There is no room for uncertainty, adaptation to time and place, or negotiation. It’s ruling by personal dictate while tolerating no dissent.
To be authoritarian is to be inhumane, to rule with arbitrary and capricious imposition. It can also mean to be ruled impersonally by a machine regardless of the cost.
Sounds like a conventional government bureaucracy, right? Indeed. Think of the Department of Motor Vehicles. Think of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy which are right now issuing edicts that will end in the ability of your washing machine to clean your clothes and your car to go the distance.
They have been doing this to us for many decades, with or without the permission of Congress or the president. The agencies have become literally out of control in the sense that no one can control them.
Any society managed by a large and intrusive bureaucratic machinery is necessarily authoritarian. A government that is not authoritarian is necessarily limited in size, scope, and range of power.
Let’s say you have a political leader who has routinely called for less in the way of authoritarian rule by bureaucracies. He intends to use whatever power he has to curb the autonomous rule by administrative bureaucracies and subject them more to the wishes of the people, who should ideally be in charge of the regime under which they live.
Such a leader would not be called an authoritarian. He would be called the opposite, an emancipator who is trying to dismantle authoritarian structures.
If all of the above makes sense to you, try to make sense of this news story in the New York Times. It’s about the growing efforts on the part of many activists to resist a second term of Donald Trump.
In passing, the story says: “If Mr. Trump returns to power, he is openly planning to impose radical changes — many with authoritarian overtones” including “making it easier to fire civil servants.”
The story quickly adds that he intends to replace the fired employees with “loyalists.” Maybe. But consider the alternative. The president is supposed to be ostensibly in charge of 2 million plus bureaucrats that are employed by 400-plus agencies in the executive branch — but they don’t actually have to carry out the policies of the elected president. They can in fact completely ignore him.
How is this compatible with either democracy or freedom? It is not. There is nothing in the Constitution about a vast army of bureaucrats who rule behind the scenes that is in no way reachable or manageable by elected representatives.
The attempt to pull back, rein in, and otherwise do something about this problem is not authoritarian. It is the opposite. Even if “loyalists” replaced the fired employees, that would be an improvement over a system of government in which the people truly have no control at all.
Two years into Trump’s first term, the administration came to figure out that this was a problem. The administration intended some dramatic turns in policy in a number of areas. All they experienced was dogged resistance from people who believed they and not the elected president were in charge. Over the next two years, they undertook many efforts to at least solve this problem: namely, the president should be in charge of the government that falls under his jurisdiction.
This only makes sense. Imagine you are the CEO of a company. You discover that the main divisions that actually run the company care nothing about what you say and cannot be fired even if you demand it, and yet you are personally held responsible for everything these divisions do. What are you going to do?
It is not “authoritarian” to unseat or otherwise attempt to gain control over that for which you are held responsible, professionally or politically. That is truly all that the Trump people are suggesting. This is nothing other than a Constitutional system: we are supposed to have a government by and for the people. That means that the people elect the administrator of the executive branch. At a minimum, the winner of the election needs to be able to have some influence over what the agencies in the executive branch do.
And for suggesting this and trying to make it happen, Trump is called an authoritarian. Prepare yourself: this will be said millions of times between now and November and following. Can the mainstream media just flat-out change the meaning of a term like this? They can but there is also every reason to push back and not let it happen.
Language is a human construct. The more vibrant and fast-moving society is, the more the language changes. That can be a wonderful thing. In fact, one of my favorite books to read in off-hours is H.L. Mencken’s The American Language, written by this genius when he was otherwise censored for his views in wartime.
It’s a marvelous chronicling of the evolution of American usage, published in 1919, but oddly pertinent even today, applicable to the dwindling number of people who can still form coherent sentences.
When it comes to vocabulary, there are two schools of thought broadly speaking: prescriptivist and descriptivist. The prescriptivist view is that words have embedded meanings that you can trace from other languages and should be used as intended. The descriptivist approach sees language as more a living experience, a tool of utility to make communication possible, in which case anything goes.
As Americans, we mostly accept the descriptivist outlook but this can go too far. Words cannot mean literally anything, much less the opposite. But this is exactly what is happening. It’s the same with the word “democracy,” which is supposed to mean the people’s choice, not whatever elites dish out to us. If Trump is the choice, so be it. That is the unfolding of democracy.
If we want the president to be the CEO of the executive branch of government — and that’s a pretty good description of what the US Constitution establishes — then the administration ought to have that managerial authority. If you don’t like it, take it up with the Founders.
Again, any society managed by a large and intrusive bureaucratic machinery is necessarily authoritarian. A government that is not authoritarian is necessarily limited in size, scope, and range of power.
Any one president who takes action to curb the power and reach of arbitrary authority is not an authoritarian, but rather one who seeks to give authority back to the people. Such a man would be an emancipator, even if everyone said otherwise.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 19:15 - These Are The World's Least Affordable Housing Markets
These Are The World’s Least Affordable Housing Markets
Many cities around the world have become very expensive to buy a home in, but which ones are the absolute most unattainable?
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’ Marcus Lu highlights a number of housing markets that are deemed to be “impossibly unaffordable” in 2024, ranked by their median price-to-income ratio.
This data comes from the Demographia International Housing Affordability Report, which is produced by the Chapman University Center for Demographics and Policy.
Data and Key Takeaway
The median price-to-income ratio compares median house price to median household income within each market. A higher ratio (higher prices relative to incomes) means a city is less affordable.
See the following table for all of the data we used to create this graphic. Note that this analysis covers 94 markets across eight countries: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
According to the Demographia report, cities with a median price-to-income ratio of over 9.0 are considered “impossibly unaffordable”.
We can see that the top city in this ranking, Hong Kong, has a ratio of 16.7. This means that the median price of a home is 16.7 times greater than the median income.
Which Cities are More Affordable?
On the flipside, here are the top 12 most affordable cities that were analyzed in the Demographia report.
Cities with a median price-to-income ratio of less than 3.0 are considered “affordable”, while those between 3.1 and 4.0 are considered “moderately unaffordable”.
See More Real Estate Content From Visual Capitalist
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out Ranked: The Most Valuable Housing Markets in America.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 18:50 - Nearly 1-In-3 Americans Earning Over $150,000 Worry About Making Ends Meet: Fed Report
Nearly 1-In-3 Americans Earning Over $150,000 Worry About Making Ends Meet: Fed Report
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,
Americans in upper-income groups are concerned about their ability to pay bills, with more than 15 percent of this demographic taking up additional jobs over the past year, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
As of April 2024, 32.5 percent of respondents earning over $150,000 annually were worried about making ends meet over the next six months, up from 21.7 percent in April of last year, the June survey showed.
This percentage is higher than for those in the income groups of $100,000 to $149,999, $70,000 to $99,999, and $40,000 to $69,999. Only individuals who earned less than $40,000, the lowest income group, were more worried than the $150,000-plus group.
Among all income levels, the percentage of people anxious about their ability to pay bills was higher in April 2024 compared to a year ago. The share of respondents concerned about making ends meet rose among those already paying their bills on time, with the increase most prevalent among people who are younger, female, or in higher income groups.
In April last year, 20.7 percent of individuals who could pay all of their bills were worried about the next six months. In 2024, this jumped to 26.2 percent.
The various income groups behaved differently in how they handled their tighter financial situations over the past year.
Among the $150,000 group, 15.3 percent took an additional job, the highest among all income levels. This group borrowed the least from formal sources but was the second-highest when it came to borrowing from family or friends.
People earning less than $40,000 ranked at the bottom in terms of taking up an additional job. However, they ranked second-highest in borrowing from formal sources and were at the top in terms of borrowing from family or friends.
Only 8.8 percent of individuals in the $150,000 or more group skipped their monthly bills or debts or made partial payments, the least among all income levels. Those making above $100,000 cut back the least on essential as well as discretionary spending.
The survey shows that while upper-income groups were more worried about higher prices impacting their ability to pay bills, a smaller proportion were forced to cut down on spending compared to their lower-income counterparts.
A June 10 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York presented a more upbeat outlook, finding that U.S. households have become “more optimistic” about their future financial condition.
“Year-ahead expectations also improved, with a smaller share of respondents expecting to be worse off and a larger share of respondents expecting to be better off a year from now,” it said.
Inflation Burden
As high-income groups come under increasing inflationary pressures, discount retail chains are reporting an increase in the number of customers from this demographic. In March, Dollar Tree said their outlets saw a traffic uptick from relatively wealthy shoppers last year.
During an earnings call in May, Walmart executives also said that they saw “higher engagement across income cohorts, with upper-income households continuing to account for the majority of the share gains” in the recently reported quarter.
Historically, people with higher incomes have shopped at the company’s stores, said Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO. Such groups have usually been selective in the categories they buy.
“So, if we offer them the right items at the right prices, whether that’s in-store, first party, or marketplace, they’ll respond to that. And so, as we’ve been able to expand our assortment online, we can appeal to more people.”
In an August survey by Achieve, a digital personal finance firm, the majority of respondents said they were not anywhere close to reaching their definition of financial freedom.
However, just above half of them were optimistic and believed their journey towards financial freedom was getting better.
“We’re seeing far fewer Americans with the goal of becoming ‘rich’ and many families pivoting to just trying to be able to pay their bills on time. With all of the economic pressures facing American families, financial freedom is currently more about making ends meet,” Brad Stroh, co-founder and co-CEO of Achieve, said.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 18:25 - Supreme Court Rejects Bannon Bid To Avoid Monday Prison Deadline
Supreme Court Rejects Bannon Bid To Avoid Monday Prison Deadline
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has until Monday to report to prison after the Supreme Court rejected his 11th hour bid to remain free while he pursues an appeal of his conviction for two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee.
US District Judge Carl Nichols had previously put Bannon’s sentence on hold as he pursued his appeal, saying that Bannon had presented a “substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal” of the conviction.
That, however, was rejected by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in May – leaving him only the Supreme Court to help him avoid time behind bars.
Bannon has argued that he was acting on the advice of counsel when he refused to comply with the subpoenas.
He must report to prison on July 1.
As the Epoch Times notes further, Bannon through his lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene. In the application, lawyers said it would be unfair for Mr. Bannon to start serving his sentence before the full appeals court and justices consider overturning the recent appeal rejection.
“If Mr. Bannon is denied release, he will be forced to serve his prison sentence before this court has a chance to consider a petition for a writ of certiorari, given the court’s upcoming summer recess,” the lawyers wrote.
Department of Justice attorneys, on the other hand, urged the Supreme Court to reject the application. They said Mr. Bannon “cannot make the demanding showing necessary to override the normal requirement that a convicted defendant begin serving his sentence.”Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, told the court in a brief that the panel that subpoenaed Mr. Bannon produced flawed subpoenas because it failed to comply with House regulations, as it did not have a ranking member appointed by the Republican minority.
“Notwithstanding the applicant’s indictment and sentencing, the select committee’s enforcement of the subpoena and the prosecution of Mr. Bannon for failing to participate in a deposition was factually and procedurally invalid,” Mr. Loudermilk wrote. “As such, this court should conclude that the entire prosecutorial process against the applicant was tainted and must be dismissed as a matter of law.”
Peter Navarro, another former adviser to President Trump, is already serving a sentence after being convicted of contempt of Congress after also declining to cooperate with subpoenas from the same committee.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 18:00 - Cultural Marxism: A Century Old… And Thriving
Cultural Marxism: A Century Old… And Thriving
Authored by Larry Sand via American Greatness,
In 1923, a group of professors known as the Frankfurt School came to the fore. These German Marxists—notably Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse—harbored a deep disdain for capitalism and traditional morals.
Unfortunately, the professors did not stay in their homeland long. Adolph Hitler’s rise to power forced them out of Germany, and they reemerged at Columbia University in New York City in 1935.
And a century later, the malign effects of their teachings are still with us.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Critical Race Theory (CRT), Black Lives Matter (BLM), gender indoctrination, wokeism, etc., fade in and out of the news cycle, but they have established a secure foothold in the nation’s culture, notably in our schools.
Cultural Marxism is still pervasive in a significant number of our colleges. In Illinois, legislators want to embed racial considerations into state appropriations for public universities. According to its website, Yale’s Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry faculty are told to place “DEI at the center of every decision” when making hires.
There are a few bright spots, however. Public universities in Texas, Florida, and Utah have banned DEI. However, those decisions came from state governments, not from the colleges themselves.
At MIT, a private university, President Sally Kornbluth confirmed in May that the school would “no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring.”
Also, according to an analysis from OpenTheBooks.com, the University of North Carolina spends an estimated $90 million each year on 686 employees who promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in their departments or across the system. But change is on the horizon. In a repudiation of DEI ideology, the UNC Board of Governors voted on May 23 to repeal its diversity policy.
Sadly, at the elementary and high school level, the Marxists predominate. In fact, our K-12 schools lay the groundwork for all the college campus lunacy we see practically on a daily basis.
Christopher Rufo reports that in Portland, the Intifada begins in kindergarten. For example, the teachers union suggests that kindergarteners be gathered into a circle and taught the history of Palestine: “Seventy-five years ago, a lot of decision-makers around the world decided to take away Palestinian land to make a country called Israel. Israel would be a country where rules were mostly fair for Jewish people with white skin. There’s a BIG word for when indigenous land gets taken away to make a country; that’s called settler colonialism.” (Ibram X. Kendi, probably the most strident CRT proponent in the country, contends that kindergarten is too late to start. He thinks that ‘Antiracist’ education should start before age 3.)
The Jew-hating lies have been working. In the three months following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Anti-Defamation League tallied 256 antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools nationwide.
The Zinn Education Project, named after the late Communist college professor, is advancing its agenda via the “Teach Truth Day of Action,” which is celebrated in June. (There is no specific date.) The goal is to eliminate “right-wing forces” and “fascists,” which the organization laughably insists dominate public education in the country. The Zinners maintain that more than 65 organizations are co-sponsoring the Teach Truth Day of Action, including the Abolitionist Teaching Network, the African American Policy Forum, the American Library Association, Black Lives Matter at School, Black Teacher Project, SNCC Legacy Project, and more.
Notably, the National Education Association is a big supporter of the Teach Truth Day of Action. On its website, the teachers’ union states, “On June 8, educators, students, parents, and community members across the country joined the 4th annual Teach Truth Day of Action, taking part in book exchanges (including banned ones!), historic walks, voter registration drives, and more.”
It’s worth noting that while schools are doing a bang-up job of indoctrinating students, only 22% of eighth-graders scored at or above the NAEP Proficient level on the most recent test in civics, and just 13% scored at or above the NAEP Proficient level in U.S. history.
One state seems to be moving in the right direction. Texas is doing what it can to reinstate tradition by injecting Bible stories into elementary school reading programs. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick praised the curriculum changes, explaining that they will “get us back to teaching, not necessarily the Bible per se, but the stories from the Bible.”
What can be done to stem the Marxists?
In public schools, state laws can help, and local school board elections can make a difference, but when the school bell rings and the classroom door is shut, the teacher will talk about whatever he or she wants to.
Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former fifth-grade teacher, writes that a 2017 RAND Corporation survey found that “99% of elementary teachers and 96% of secondary schools use ‘materials I developed and/or selected myself’ in teaching English language arts. The numbers are virtually the same in math. But putting teachers in charge of creating their own lesson plans or scouring the internet for curriculum materials creates an irresistible opportunity for every imaginable interest group that perceives—not incorrectly—that overworked teachers and a captive young audience equal a rich target for selling products and pushing ideologies.”
As an example, Pondiscio cites a public school in Brooklyn, part of the New York City Board of Education. Kids were sent home with an “activity book” promoting the tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement, including “queer affirming,” “transgender affirming,” and “restorative justice.” The book was not authorized for classroom use by either the N.Y.C. Department of Education or Brooklyn’s Community School District 15. “It appears to have begun its journey into students’ backpacks at the massive ‘Share My Lesson’ website run by the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers union.”
Pondiscio notes that while they are seldom traceable to formally adopted school curricula, there are 75 different lesson plans and resources for conducting “privilege walks” and more than 100 lessons and resources on “preferred pronouns” at Teachers Pay Teachers, which is another lesson-sharing website.
Additionally, the advocacy group Parents Defending Education has created an Indoctrination Map, which documents countless incidents of “schools teaching lessons on race, gender, or other hot-button issues that parents deemed inappropriate or upsetting.”
Mark Tapson, Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and culture warrior, along with his wife, homeschool four of their five kids. (Number five will join the others when he is of age.) Tapson asserts that the “aim of the neo-Marxist Left is to break down the family unit by de-legitimizing parents’ legal and moral right to determine how their own children are raised. The Left wants to take your children and grandchildren and raise them as loyal, dependent subjects of the atheistic State, disconnected from their own history and culture, and devoid of critical thinking skills, intellectual independence, or a spiritual dimension.”
Tapson is absolutely correct. The godfather of communism, Karl Marx, taught his followers that the world was divided into two categories—oppressors and oppressed. Marx despised the nuclear family, which he claimed “performs ideological functions for capitalism” and teaches “passive acceptance of hierarchy.” He thought that the destruction of the family model would make it easier to abolish private property.
Sending your kid to school these days is risky business, and parents need to step up and take on that responsibility if at all possible.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 17:40 - "Feels Like September": Atlantic Disturbance Could Be Upgraded To Tropical Storm Beryl This Weekend
“Feels Like September”: Atlantic Disturbance Could Be Upgraded To Tropical Storm Beryl This Weekend
The National Hurricane Center is tracking three tropical waves, one of which could develop into Tropical Storm Beryl this weekend.
As of 0800 ET, NHC said the tropical wave about 1500 miles east-southeast of Windward Island is “gradually becoming better defined,” indicating a 90% chance of strengthening into a tropical depression or storm over the next 48 hours.
The two other storms, one a low-pressure system over the western Caribbean Sea and the second several hundred miles south-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, both have a low probability of developing over the next two days.
Here’s a map of all three systems NHC watches into this weekend:
Global weather models show that the tropical wave with the highest probability of forming 1500 miles east-southeast of Windward Island could end up in the southern Caribbean Sea.
Tampa’s FOX 13 Meteorologist Dave Osterberg said, “We don’t typically track storms like this in late June, but record high temperatures in the western Atlantic are leading to more tropical activity.”
“It feels like it’s September to the water down here, rather than late June,” Osterberg said, adding, “And that’s why this is beginning to develop, and it’s going to develop as it moves into the eastern Caribbean.”
Osterberg added that several computer models have this system developing into hurricane status.
While the models don’t show any of the three systems threatening the US Gulf Coast, we have outlined that the Biden administration must contend with the La Nina weather phenomenon, which is expected to fuel an active Atlantic hurricane season. These storms could disrupt major Gulf Coat refineries, driving average gasoline prices at the pump to the politically sensitive $4 a gallon.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 17:20 - Zelensky Gets More Realistic: 'We Don't Have A Lot of Time'
Zelensky Gets More Realistic: ‘We Don’t Have A Lot of Time’
Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,
Speaking to journalists in Brussels on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned “We don’t have much time. We have a lot of injured, killed, both military and civilians. So we do not want this war to last for years. Therefore, we have to prepare this plan and put it on the table at the second peace summit.”
Zelensky stressed the need for a peace process that would bring an end to the war with Russia, citing Ukraine’s mounting casualties.
Since 2022, Zelensky has pushed a 10-point peace plan that would see Russia withdraw from all of Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory. The Kremlin has outright rejected that proposal, insisting it will not give up several formerly Ukrainian regions it has annexed.
Still, Zelensky proposed his formula to other world leaders at a peace summit that was held in Switzerland earlier this month, although no Russian officials were invited.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has articulated a potential peace deal that would see Ukraine agree to denuclearization, neutrality toward NATO, and recognition of territory annexed by Moscow since 2014.
As the war has progressed, the West has struggled to maintain the flow of weapons to Kiev, and Ukraine has been unable to replace its battlefield casualties with newly trained soldiers.
The Kremlin has adjusted to a wartime economy and has a larger number of young men to serve in the military, giving Moscow a distinct advantage as the conflict has become a war of attrition.
While Kiev and Moscow have been tight-lipped about their own causality figures, estimates for both sides range in the hundreds of thousands. To fill its ranks, Ukraine has recently expanded its conscription laws and cracked down on those seeking to avoid the draft.
🚨 BREAKING: It appears that Zelensky is reconsidering his stance on continuing the war against Russia, possibly in light of the upcoming U.S. presidential election and Biden’s potential loss. Is he weary of the ongoing financial support?
“We don’t have too much time because we… pic.twitter.com/Iyu94ZSTg1
— Sir Maejor 🇺🇸 (@Maejor4Congress) June 27, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, estimated the number of dead or seriously wounded Ukrainian soldiers was over 500,000 in January.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 17:00 - Ahead Of Stress-Tests, Banks Saw Big (Adjusted) Deposit Inflows, But…
Ahead Of Stress-Tests, Banks Saw Big (Adjusted) Deposit Inflows, But…
Money market funds saw modest inflows last week (up around $5BN) as bank deposits (NSA) saw $25.7BN outflows…
Source: Bloomberg
However, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, total bank deposits rose by $38BN last week to their highest since SVB’s collapse…
Source: Bloomberg
And, excluding foreign deposits, domestic banks saw seasonally-adjusted deposits rise $57.7BN (large banks +$55.5, small banks +$2.2BN), while on an NSA basis, domestic deposits tumbles $4.3BN (large banks +8.4BN, small banks -$12.7BN)…
Source: Bloomberg
On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes increased on the week, driven by a $11.8BN rise at small banks (while large banks saw loan volumes shrink by $255MM), which is weird given the massive SA rise in large bank deposits….
Source: Bloomberg
Usage of The Fed’s Reverse Repo facility soared across quarter-/month-end (as it tends to do)…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, US equity market capitalization remains drastically decoupled from its historically tight relationship with bank reserves at The Fed…
Source: Bloomberg
But globally, central bank balance sheet shrinkage continues as stocks soar…
Source: Bloomberg
Now that would be quite recoupling.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 16:40 - Biden's 'Blue Screen Of Death': They Knew, They All Knew…
Biden’s ‘Blue Screen Of Death’: They Knew, They All Knew…
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Joe Biden Catches Cold
“Biden’s entire closing statement is the political equivalent of the blue screen of death. It’s just one long frozen glitch.”
-Sean Davis, the Federalist
Maybe ninety-seconds into last night’s long-awaited debate spectacle, the consensus must have jelled among the woke-and-broken news media mavens that their champion, “Joe Biden,” was not quite killing it out there at the podium. CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash acted like witnesses at a ritual sacrifice. And afterward, the CNN post-mortem panel seemed genuinely shocked that months of playing pretend had skidded to such an ignominious finish.
Which raises a great many questions, starting with: why on earth did the Democratic Party and its media handmaidens persist in pretending month-after-month that “Joe Biden” was a fit candidate for another four-year term? Last night, he didn’t appear capable of even finishing the current term. Why did they usher him so jauntily into the nomination? And what are they going to do about that now? And what were their motives for all that pretending? “Joe Biden” circulates among scores of astute officials every day. Did they all fail to notice his incapacity? Or has the whole thing been a sham and a lie all along? Was this just the culminating hoax by the Party of Hoaxes of a long string of hoaxes against the nation going back to 2015?
To the question of motives, the answer is obvious: the news networks have worked tirelessly (and with stunning dishonor) to hide their collusion with the government in gaslighting the public. More to the point, they’ve concealed the appalling truth that the CIA, DARPA, and their many intel blob subsidiaries conducted a silent coup over the USA and have been running our country’s affairs disastrously behind the “Joe Biden” façade — and that the coup actually started well before Mr. Trump’s 2016 inauguration. You know it, and they know that you know it.
More acutely, now that “Joe Biden” has been revealed as a hoax president, whole legions of public officials appear liable to criminal charges of the most serious degree: sedition, treason, mass murder, fraud, malfeasance, and in the case of the president himself, influence peddling and bribery.
They must be desperate to avoid accounting for all that, losing their accrued fortunes to legal fees and going to prison (or worse). For example, outed just this week: news that then-CIA Director in 2020, Gina Haspel, knew about and participated in the infamous operation using 51 former Intel officers to cover up the veracity of Hunter Biden’s laptop days before the election.
They knew the laptop was real. Their colleagues over at the FBI knew it was real. They all knew it was stuffed with deal memos, legal memoranda, and emails that clearly laid out a long-running bribery operation among Biden family members and their lawyers. They knew it in 2019 when the Democratic Party moved to impeach Mr. Trump for inquiring about the Biden family’s money-grubbing activities in Ukraine — where, by the way, we may have fomented the war with Russia in part to cover up the culpability of all involved, including especially the State Department and their embassy staff in Kiev. The FBI and its bosses in the DOJ also withheld the laptop from Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers during the 2020 impeachment, though it contained massive exculpatory evidence to explain just why he made that fateful phone call to the newly elected Zelensky.
It’s obvious that the ruling blob now has to deep-six “Joe Biden.” The problem is they must induce him to renounce the nomination of his own will. The party’s nominating process is so bizarrely complex that it would very difficult to just shove him out. Another problem is that the party had to peremptorily declare “JB” their legal nominee before the August convention in order to keep him on the ballot in Ohio with its 17 electoral votes (due to some arcane machinery in the state’s election laws).
As per above, the debate fiasco calls into serious question whether “Joe Biden” is competent to even serve out this term. He (or shadowy figures pulling strings behind him) are making profoundly hazardous decisions right now, such as last week’s missile attack that killed and wounded civilians on the beach in Crimea. Are you seeing how easily “Joe Biden” might start World War Three? All of which is to say that pressure will soon rise to use the 25th amendment to relieve him of duty, leaving you-know-who in the oval office. If Joe Biden actually has to resign as president, he also loses the ability to pardon his son, Hunter, and peremptorily his other family members who shared bribery money received from China, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
If he won’t resign, and the party can’t force him off the ticket, the blob could have no choice except to bump him off. I imagine they would get it done humanely, say late at night sometime, in bed, using the same method as for putting down an old dog who has peed on the carpet one too many times. Or, if that can’t be managed and he clings to his position, maybe the party could cobble up some new nominating rules impromptu. And then, who could they slot in from the bench?
The usual suspects are like the cast of a freak show, each one displaying one grotesque deformity after another.
Gavin Newsom we understand: the party’s base of batshit-crazy women may all want to bear his child, but that limbic instinct to mate with a six-foot-three haircut-in-search-of-a-brain might not work with any other voter demographic — and Newsom has the failed state of California hanging around his neck. All Mr. Trump would have to do is broadcast the scene from a San Francisco street-cam on “X” (Twitter) 24/7.
Hillary has been stealthily flapping her leathery wings overhead for weeks as this debacle approached. She may still own the actual machinery of the Democratic Party — having purchased it through the Clinton Foundation some years back when the party was broke and needed a bailout. She could just command the nomination by screeching “Caw Caw” from the convention rostrum. Whatever happens, it will look terrible.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan? An inveterate and notorious intel blob tool, Whitmer has allowed herself to be used repeatedly by the FBI to frame and persecute conservatives in her state as well as using her state AG Dana Nessel to go after political enemies there, especially poll workers who cried fraud in the sketchiest Michigan voting districts.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Like Dreamboat Newsom in California, Mr. Pritzker is busily running Illinois (and especially Chicago) into bankruptcy and chaos. Looks aren’t everything, but if Dreamboat gives the vapors to Karens across the land, the Illinois governor will get them shrieking in terror as from the sight of King Kong on Skull Island
Who else is there? Michelle O, of course, who will be instantly branded as a catspaw for her husband seeking a fifth term — as Barack himself has averred in so many words: just hanging out in the background, managing things in his jogging suit. That would be the ultimate Banana Republic set-up for us and I don’t think the voters will go for it. It all boils down to the Party of Chaos being thrust into chaos. Can it even survive “Joe Biden?”
Then there is Mr. Trump himself. He remains the object of widespread rabid loathing, yet more and more Americans are coming to appreciate his opposition to Woke Marxist chaos and intel blobbery-gone-wild in our land. His performance last night featured his usual jumpy locutions and incomplete sentences, but in contrast to the current president, he looked neither senile nor an agent of sinister forces dedicated to bringing our country to its knees.
Had Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. been present both of the others would have been badly outclassed verbally and intellectually.
If Mr. Trump survives the blob’s efforts to delete him before November, I’m sure Mr. Kennedy will play a prominent role in another Trump administration. He knows exactly where the rot is and how to roust it out.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/28/2024 – 16:20
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