Today’s News 29th September 2023

• Bhandari: Canadians Have Put Canada On A Path To Inevitable Destruction
  Bhandari: Canadians Have Put Canada On A Path To Inevitable Destruction

  Authored by Jayant Bhandari via LewRockwell.com,

  Canada: The Great Replacement

  Canada’s population grew by more than one million in 2022. This increase was equivalent to 2.7%. Such a rate would double Canada’s population in 26 years.

  When I moved to Canada in 2003, its population was 32 million. Today, it is 40 million, an increase of 25%.

  Had immigration not occurred, the Canadian population would have fallen, given its fertility rate of 1.47, which itself would have been lower had immigration not occurred. But let us not get into the nitty-gritty when there is an 800-pound gorilla in the room.

  For those who don’t have a sense of numbers, more than one out of every four people in Canada arrived after my arrival twenty years back. As it stands today, 26% of Canadians are first-generation immigrants. 18% are second-generation. 32% of children under fifteen in 2021 were second-generation immigrants.

  My interest is not to get into statistical nuances but to show that nearly 50% of Canadians are first or second-generation immigrants. And immigration continues to ramp up, most of whom come from the Third World.

  

  Before the early 1970s, most immigrants came from Europe. Today, only 10% of the total immigrants come from Europe.

  This matters.

  Canada has irrevocably changed in just the two decades since I immigrated. It is said that a frog in a pot that is slowly getting boiled fails to realize that it is getting cooked. But political correctness has meant that Canadians fail to understand what is happening to Canada even when the proverbial pot is heating rapidly.

  Last year’s immigrants represented 200 countries of the world, representing 450 different mother tongues. India is by far the most significant source of immigration, accounting for 27% of total immigrants. A distant second is China, with 7%. Third is Afghanistan, with 5.4%. Fourth is Nigeria, with 5%.

  Brazil and South Korea have been kicked out of the top ten sources of immigration and replaced by Nigeria and Syria. 38% of immigrants are family sponsorships and refugees.

  If these nationalities didn’t shock you, perhaps political correctness has killed your cultural awareness. Indeed, when you stop speaking the truth, you eventually change your thinking. Or maybe you act as if this is nothing material, for you don’t want to be canceled or commit a thought crime.

  Western political correctness has metastasized into a puerile understanding of cultures. Even those who can see prefer to make money and maintain their lifestyles, their country houses, the size of their kitchen cabinets, and the schools their kids attend rather than speak up.

  Canadians have put Canada on a path to inevitable destruction.

  There is no history in human affairs when a society willingly gave itself away to foreigners. There is no history of a society maintaining any values once foreigners overtook it. Indeed, there is no history in human affairs where muti-culturalism and ethnic diversity have not led to massive civil conflicts, but Canadians love romanticizing these anti-values.

  Most reading this article haven’t experienced such an increase in immigrants. But your anecdotal experience is not the statistical reality. The composition of people you socialize with does not represent the ethnic proportion of the Canadian population.

  Put differently, the new immigrants often get ghettoized in areas you never visit. When you encounter them, your interaction will likely be short and superficial. But they have the same vote as you do. And they have no interest in European values. They are economic migrants without an interest in what provides nutrition to Canadian society. They have, at best, no interest or concept of Western philosophy.

  Canada now has massive ghettoes. Visit and soak in the Indian ghettos of Surrey, Brampton, or Richmond to get a sense of proportion and perspective. I mention the Indian ghettos, for I know them better, but you should also visit the Afghani, Syrian, Somalian, etc. ghettoes. If you do, you will realize that Canada is like a train constantly changing its passengers. For most Canadians, the passengers aren’t what they started with.

  Recently, Eritrean immigrants fought a pitched battle in Calgary. Khalistan’s posters can now be seen in many places. These don’t leave a lasting impression on native Canadians, but they must.

  I provided the statistics, but you must feel, smell, and sense it. You will emotionally realize that Canada is irredeemably on its way to an ethnically non-European majority in a few short years. Should this matter? Of course, it does. None of the 200 countries on the planet is a civilization and has a non-European or non-East Asian majority.

  Did I leave India because of its utterly venal and oppressive government? Not really. They are utterly stupid, and bribes take care of everything. But the character of the government is a symptom of the underlying society. It was the Indian society that I ran away from, which has no concept of honor, integrity, moral values, rationality, or interest in anything except the material, which is money and sex.

  More precisely, I ran away from Indians.

  With time, the institutions the British left behind have been hallowed out in India, and the civilizational constraints that they had imposed have fallen apart. With time, India is bound to become increasingly barbaric and savage. Not because of so much because of the Indian government but because of Indians.

  India provides 27% of Canada’s new immigrants.

  Most other immigrants come from other Third World hellholes and have similar cultural backgrounds, one rooted in materialism and the absence of civilizational constraints and moral values.

  Every Indian city today has at least one high-rise building devoted to housing agencies that help people immigrate to Canada, most offering help creating fake documents or getting admission to colleges structured not for education but for assisting people to stay in Canada long enough to become citizens.

  Crazy, isn’t it, that Canada has given itself away to those who faked documents? So much for the much-touted skilled-class immigrants!

  Canadians have no choice but to learn about India, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, and other Third World countries. They should all be visiting India and sending their daughters and sons to know about it, for it is what they are bringing in. However, when they send their daughters, they should have male company. They should visit to learn what Europeans of the past understood, the wisdom that political correctness has erased from the Canadian psyche.

  A few years back, I went to an Indian event in South Vancouver. As happens in India, nothing worked. There was no coordination. What happened on the stage had nothing to do with the schedule. They played the wrong music. Then, they stopped it and ran around to correct it. Organizers openly argued with each other. They openly talked about how “we” should vote for members of “our Sikh” community in the government. Their swing vote already has a massive influence on the foreign policies of the Liberal and Conservative parties and NDP.

  Sometimes, Canadian airports and train stations look indistinguishable from Indian ones, except that you can still get a train ticket without paying a bribe, the ticket-seller treats you respectfully albeit a bit less by each passing day, the trains still operate reasonably well albeit continue to worsen, and you still don’t see cockroaches inside the compartments. But you will get there.

  Eventually, trains will collide, killing hundreds; massive forest fires will happen not because of climate change but because of a lack of work ethics, incompetence, and apathy; bridges will fall apart, infrastructure will deteriorate, quality of hygiene will worsen, and nepotism and bribery will become commonplace. But unless you understand this article, you will fail to pinpoint the reason.

  You will have to start worrying about female infanticide and female genital mutilation. Caste problems will require you to create legal remedies. Some of these issues are already here, although no official inquiry will blame the cause of accidents on rampant immigration, diversity, inclusivity, and equity.

  Hindu-Sikh problems will continue to worsen in Canada, but no one will have the courage to tell them to take their fight to where it belongs: back to India. These idiots will celebrate Indian Independence Day in Canada, utterly forgetful that they got rid of European rule from India and then took all the pains to move to a country ruled by Europeans. But among them, the concept of reason is conspicuous by its absence. They vote on a tribal basis and elect people of their kind, tribe, and religion, setting Canadian institutions’ conversion to what they left behind in motion.

  It is a gross mistake to think that people leave their home countries to escape their tyrants. As in North Korea, the real tyrants do not let their people escape. Virtually everyone else is running away from the hellhole they created for themselves. They are part and parcel of the hellhole they left behind. They remake their host country in the image of what they left behind. When you bring them in, you bring the subtle, subliminal ways they will participate in making Canada a hellhole.

  Let us delve a bit deeper. Changing culture is not a generation or two-generation process. It is not even a centuries-long process. It is, at best, a millennia-long process. And that is assuming culture is not hardwired.

  Civilization is a uniquely Western concept. The Third World, where most Canadian immigrants come from, has no interest in Western values. For them, concepts like honor, honesty, and fairness are alien. They are driven by expediency and the acquisition of resources.

  Desperate in their Third World hellhole, it is not the absence of liberty or the rule of law that worries them. They are blind to them. They are only interested in money.

  When they arrive, they do not see the existence of Western values. It is only the money-making opportunities that they seek. That is the only thing of value that they see. Given their state of mind, they think that Canada would be a much better place if their religions, rituals, and culture, and indeed tyranny, were to be imposed on Canada.

  A senior officer from the Indian government, on an extended visit to the West, told me why he hated the West. He found that the lack of noise and smell made him lonely. His work got done without needing connections, and no one came to prostrate before him. There was no one lining up to meet and greet him. He felt deeply hurt and unrecognized. He didn’t know how to pass his time. He desperately wanted his bank to take longer to do his job and his electricity to stop working so he could use up his time chasing them.

  Because they get uprooted from their culture and ecology—which is conducive to their psyche—they learn to despise Canada.

  They have no interest in Western values or liberty. They are not running away from tyranny. They like it. They have a visceral hatred for peace and order. I might even add that they find Western values abhorrent.

  The more skilled among them, even when they earn million-dollar salaries, vote for the Left. They love the nanny government. Their vote, now inching towards the majority, is increasingly reflected in Canadian politics.

  Symbiotic with their absence of values is their failure to have any gratitude they get. Now, put yourself in the shoes of such a person.

  They come to the West for nothing else than money. This is irrespective of how much money they make in Canada. They have left the poop smell, the chaos, the noise, and the razzmatazz behind. These things might not be endearing to a native Canadian, but they are the necessary ecology that the immigrant craves. They flourish in them. They left their community, friends, and family to whom they were attached, with their petty tribal quarrels, back stabbings, bitching, and defrauding each other as a necessary part of their existence.

  They are unrooted in Canada. They can never get rooted, for they have no interest in Western values or even eyes to see them. They will work towards converting Canada to what they left behind and with a visceral hatred for Canada.

  But how do they even convert Canada to what they left behind when there are immigrants from 200 different countries speaking 450 languages, each preferring a different kind of chaos and their type of poop smell, and with active hatred for other immigrant groups?

  If you visit Brampton, you might realize that the immigrants there, even after decades of living in Canada, resort to creating poop-smell, noise, and chaos to seek comfort from the existential crisis that Canada otherwise unwittingly imposes on them. This happens even in areas where houses run for millions of dollars.

  Given this predicament, assimilation is impossible unless you can trigger a passion among immigrants for Western values. No one has discovered how to activate this.

  For a moment, let me go a step further. All my friends from the Third World, who are pro-Western and came to Canada for liberty, took years to feel at home. Simple things like a noise-free car and lack of potholes make them want to puke, for it is disorienting. How could others ever get assimilated?

  The situation gets far worse when they live among their very own kind. Eritreans, Ethiopians, Pakistanis, Syrians, Persians, and Afghanis have found their own ghettos, for Canada has enabled enough mass immigration to give each ghetto a critical mass.

  Based on faulty, unexamined beliefs, Canada has diluted its population by 100% in just over two generations. Trudeau, not happy with this, is ramping up immigration.

  There is another erroneous Canadian belief that assimilation happens with time. It does happen in adopting the low-class hedonistic no-values.

  The second-generation immigrants learn to speak English and French and wear Western clothes. But deeper down, contrary to conventional wisdom, the situation worsens. Not that the first generation necessarily had gratitude for the opportunities it got in Canada, but the second generation also finds itself split for the romanticism of the homeland their parents left.

  Contrary to conventional wisdom, crime rate increases in the second generation. If you live in Surrey and attend a school dominated by Indians, you must be a part of one of the gangs. That is if you don’t want to be beaten up. In a way, they become more Indian than Indians are in India. The same is true with other immigrants from the Third World.

  When you bring people of the Third World, you get the Third World. You convert your society into the Third World.

  Alas, even if Canada ended immigration today, it is too late for Canada. It is well on its way to becoming a Third World majority country.

  The people of the future will be amused by how, using simplistic, unexamined, faulty myths of multiculturalism and diversity, Canada, which was once a great country, destroyed itself. They will be amused that, afraid of being canceled and to preserve their lifestyles from marauding leftists and wokes, Canadians let their land be ransacked within two generations.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 23:40

• Global Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles Growing Again
  Global Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles Growing Again

  While nuclear powers such as the United States and France are not thought to have increased their arsenal from Jan 2022 to Jan 2023, there has been an overall increase in the number of stockpiled nuclear warheads in this period, globally.

  As Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, chiefly China, but also Russia, North Korea, Pakistan and India have led to this uptick, expanding the number of the weapons which they have at their disposal – be it stored or already deployed – by a combined total of 86.

  As this chart illustrates, this continues a trend which began in 2018, ending a long cooldown period dating back to the late 80’s when there were more than 64,000 stockpiled worldwide.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As summarized by SIPRI, “Global reductions of operational warheads appear to have stalled, and their numbers are rising again. At the same time, both the USA and Russia have extensive and expensive programs under way to replace and modernize their nuclear warheads, their missile, aircraft and submarine delivery systems, and their nuclear weapon production facilities”.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 23:20

• Fani Swatted After CNN Legal Expert Calls Trump Charges 'Unnecessary'
  Fani Swatted After CNN Legal Expert Calls Trump Charges ‘Unnecessary’

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A prominent media analyst and former prosecutor suggested this week that the charges made by the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, against former President Donald Trump under the state’s racketeering law are “unnecessary” and only add to Mr. Trump’s allegations of a “Democratic Party pile on.”

  

  Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and now a media legal analyst, told a podcast this week that federal special counsel Jack Smith already charged the former president with alleged election-related offenses “and in seven states in particular, including Georgia.”

  Notably, Mr. Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has been publicly critical of the former president, and he is now a senior legal analyst for CNN. He’s also penned a critical book about former Trump Attorney General William Barr called “Hatchet Man.”

  He asked whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment is for the “greater good and why is it promoting public confidence in the fairness of this [process] to have one of those seven state prosecutors pile on with a charge of her own? I don’t think it serves any greater good,” he stated, adding that Ms. Willis indicted him on partisan grounds.

  “I disagree with the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by an elected county prosecutor, a partisan, with a D next to her name,” he said, referring to the Democratic Party.

  There are differences between the Georgia and the federal election cases, he then claimed, saying they essentially serve the same purpose.

  “I think it makes Trump’s chances of being convicted and punished higher if that’s the only goal here. If that’s the only goal, all seven states: Michigan, New Mexico, and on down the line, should be charging him too, but that would be ludicrous,” the former prosecutor said.

  Last month, the Fulton County District Attorney’s office indicted President Trump and 18 co-defendants under Georgia’s expansive anti-racketeering law, claiming that he and the others engaged in efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 election results in the state. All have pleaded not guilty and some defendants have attempted to get their charges thrown out.

  Federal Judge Steve Jones last week rejected the attempt by Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his case to federal court and sent it back to state court, but Meadows is appealing that ruling. The four others who have already filed notice to move their cases have hearings before Jones scheduled for next week.

  It came after a Fulton County grand jury last month accused them of participating in an illegal scheme to keep the incumbent Republican president in power after the election against President Joe Biden.

  Republicans in her state and in Congress have accused Ms. Willis’s office of engaging in a politically motivated attack on the former president as he ramps up his 2024 presidential campaign as the leading GOP candidate.

  In August, State Sen. Colton Moore, a Republican from Georgia’s northwest corner, recently doubled down on his calls for a special session to take money away from Willis’ office and consider her impeachment.

  “Fani Willis is spending millions of our taxpayer dollars to take on political prisoners. It’s the most un-American thing that we’ve ever seen in our lifetime,” Mr. Moore told the crowd at a rally near the state Capitol last month.

  However, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp dismissed the calls in a news conference in which he angrily criticized state Republicans for running a “grifter scam” to raise money from Trump supporters. Without Kemp’s support, a special session is impossible unless Republicans can get 60 percent of all legislators in each house of Georgia’s General Assembly to support it.

  Meanwhile, Ms. Willis said last month in announcing the charges that she wanted to try all 19 defendants together, including President Trump and other high-profile individuals such as former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell.

  Two of the people charged have filed speedy trial demands, and Judge Scott McAfee set their trial for Oct. 23. At a hearing last week, he said it seemed “a bit unrealistic” to imagine that all of the defendants could be tried that soon and asked prosecutors for a brief explaining why they felt that was necessary.

  Lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell are the two who have filed speedy trial demands. They also requested to be tried separately from each other, but Judge McAfee denied that request. Mr. Chesebro is accused of working on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring that President Trump won in 2020. Mrs. Powell is accused of participating in an alleged breach in rural Coffee County.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 23:00

• Taiwan Unveils First Domestic-Made Submarine With Eye On China Threat
  Taiwan Unveils First Domestic-Made Submarine With Eye On China Threat

  Taiwan has unveiled its first-ever domestically built submarine in a rollout ceremony on Thursday led by President Tsai Ing-wen, who praised the large diesel-electric vessel which is officially named the “Narwhal” (loosely translated: “sea monster”). 

  “The submarine is an important realization of our concrete commitment in defending our country,” Tsai announced at the ceremony which was attended by hundreds of military and government personnel. “It is also important equipment for our naval forces in developing asymmetric warfare strategies.”

  

  “In the past, many people thought building an indigenous submarine would be an impossible task. But we have made it,” she underscored. Interestingly, it was Tsai herself who was instrumental in launching plans for a first Taiwanese-built submarine back in 2016.

  These broader plans include a goal of eventually having eight total domestic-built submarines, which is likely to be at least a decade or two in the future. Currently the self-ruled island’s military operates a pair of Dutch-made submarines since the 1980s.

  The submarine program is seen as crucial amid a growing Chinese threat to Taiwan’s self-declared independence; however, China doesn’t appear too concerned, as CNN notes of Beijing’s response:

  Asked about the new submarine at a monthly press briefing on Thursday, China’s Defense Ministry likened the vessel to “a mantis trying to stop a chariot”, invoking a common Chinese idiom.

  But still, Taipei is celebrating the achievement of an “impossible task” – which Chinese officials are surely concerned by, no matter Beijing’s public brush-off of the news:

  “In the past, a domestically developed submarine was considered an impossible task. But, today, a submarine designed and manufactured by our country’s people sits before our eyes,” Tsai said, adding that it would play an important role in strengthening the navy’s “asymmetric warfare” capabilities.

  The Narwhal is still not expected to enter service with the navy for another two years, so by 2025 Taiwan will have a total of three active submarines patrolling its waters.

  Ever since then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, China’s PLA navy and aerial forces have greatly ramped up activity near the island, frequently breaching the Taiwan Strait ‘median line’ – as well as on a weekly basis entering its Air Defense Identification Zone. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 22:40

• Explaining The $18 Million Mar-a-Lago Valuation By NY Trump Case Judge
  Explaining The $18 Million Mar-a-Lago Valuation By NY Trump Case Judge

  Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former President Donald Trump and two of his sons have criticized a New York judge for suggesting his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach resort is worth between $18–28 million.

  

  “If Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million … I’ll take 10 please!!!” Donald Trump Jr., an executive vice president of Trump Organization, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

  Judge Arthur Engoron implied the market value of the property in a Sept. 26 summary ruling that found President Trump’s business empire liable for fraudulently inflating property values in loan paperwork. He revoked the Trump Organization’s business licenses in the state and ordered it dissolved.

  President Trump’s lawyers argued that the banks providing the loans didn’t care about the valuations produced by the company because they do their own. All the loans have or are being properly repaid with interest, they noted. The judge ruled, however, that under New York law the state can sue for inflated property values even if nobody was harmed by them.

  Mar-a-Lago was overvalued by “at least 2,300%” because the Palm Beach County Assessor assigned it a market value of $18 million to $27.6 million between 2011–2021, while the Trump Organization valued it at $426,529,614–$612,110,496 on its Statements of Financial Condition (SFC) in those same years, the judge said.

  There are problems with using either of the valuations.

  The county’s website says that “the estimate of Total Market Value is for tax assessment purposes only” and “the Total Market Value estimate may be less than the actual market value of the property.”

  Meanwhile, the SFCs include a disclaimer that the asset values are “determined by Mr. Trump in conjunction with his associates and, in some instances, outside professionals” and “the estimates presented herein are not necessarily indicative of the amount that could be realized upon the disposition of the assets or payment of the related liabilities.”

  President Trump referred to the disclaimer as a “worthless clause,” saying it indicated to him that the documents were more an enumeration of his assets, rather than their actual market valuation.

  The judge rejected that reasoning, arguing the disclaimer is itself “worthless” as a defense because it “does not use the words ‘worthless’ or ‘useless’ or ‘ignore’ or ‘disregard’ or any similar words.”

  The actual market value of Mar-a-Lago is unclear.

  President Trump’s lawyers presented a real estate expert, Lawrence Moens, “who they purport is ‘the most accomplished and knowledgeable ultra-high net worth real estate broker in Palm Beach, Florida,’” the judge said.

  “His dominance of one of the country’s richest real estate markets is total,” a 2022 Real Deal profile of the secretive realtor said, noting that he closed perhaps $1 billion worth of deals in just the 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic real estate mania.

  Valuing Mar-a-Lago at $425 million–$612 million was “appropriate and indeed conservative,” Mr. Moens told the court. The property is currently worth $1.51 billion, he opined.

  The judge rejected the opinion as “speculative” and made as “without relying on any objective evidence.”

  The property isn’t currently for sale and the family has indicated it doesn’t plan to ever sell it, according to the Trump family.

  The 62,500-square-foot mansion built in 1927 in the style of Mediterranean palaces with splendid Art Deco interiors sits on 20 acres of pampered property spanning the width of Palm Beach.

  President Trump put the resort under a conservation easement in 2002 that prohibits him from further developing it or changing its use from a social club. In exchange, he pays lower taxes on it.

  President Trump’s personal valuations of the property didn’t reflect these restrictions the judge argued, without explaining what the property should have been properly valued at, save for the county assessor’s reference.

  While restricted use may deter some buyers, Mr. Moens told the court that, if for sale, he could “in short order … produce a ready, willing and able buyer who would have interest in securing the property for their personal use as a residence, or even, their own club.”

  “I could dream up anyone from Elon Musk to Bill Gates and everyone in between. Kings, emperors, heads of state,” he said.

  Moreover, President Trump’s lawyers noted that there are legal avenues for breaking through the restrictions.

  The judge picked on Mr. Moens’s word choice, saying that “obviously, this Court cannot consider an ‘expert affidavit’ that is based on unexplained and unsubstantiated ‘dreams.’”

  “The real estate circles in Florida are laughing at this foolishness,” commented Eric Trump, President Trump’s son and also an executive vice president at his company, in an X post.

  He pointed to real estate listings from the area showing homes ranging 5,000–11,500 square feet and farther from the beach than Mar-a-Lago listed at prices up to $40 million.

  The civil suit was brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James targeting the former president as well as his sons Mr. Eric Trump and Mr. Donald Trump Jr.

  The judge so far ruled on one part of the suit dealing with allegations of overvalued properties. Other parts of the suit are scheduled for a non-jury trial starting on Oct. 2.

  Ms. James is asking for penalties of $250 million, as well as removing the three defendants from their posts in the company and barring them from holding executive posts in New York State.

  President Trump as well as his sons denounced the case as politically motivated.

  “Today, I lost all faith in the New York legal system,” Mr. Eric Trump said. “Never before have I seen such hatred toward one person by a judge—a coordinated effort with the Attorney General to destroy a man’s life, company, and accomplishments.”

  “We have run an exceptional company—never missing a loan payment, making banks hundreds of millions of dollars, developing some of the most iconic assets in the world. Yet today, the persecution of our family continues,” he wrote.

  President Trump is also facing several other civil suits as well as four criminal indictments in New York, Florida, the District of Columbia, and Georgia.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 22:20

• Reality Check For Reality TV: Fewer Viewers Among Top Programs
  Reality Check For Reality TV: Fewer Viewers Among Top Programs

  Its chaos, cringe factor and supposed authenticity made reality TV part of the collective identity of television audiences all over the world when it started out in the 1990s.

  The genre treading fine lines between scripted and unscripted TV, fandom and voyeurism as well as sincere emotion and gaudiness had its heyday in the 2000s and 2010s, but, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, since then has lost some of its allure, at least when looking at the viewership of the top 50 broadcast TV series and shows that attract millions to U.S. TV screens each week.

  In the 2009-10 season ending in May, around a third of average weekly top 50 viewership was still taken up by reality TV shows like American Idol, Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Biggest Loser, Extreme Makeover and Hell’s Kitchen, among others. The fast ascend of the genre has partially been credited to the lower production value many shows had opposite scripted dramas. Almost one and a half decades later, only the first two of these programs have remained in the top 50 of America’s most viewed TV shows. They can however be found much further down the ranking together with two newer singing shows, The Voice and The Masked Singer.

  All in all, reality TV viewership among top 50 shows only made up around 12 percent of aggregate average weekly viewership in the last annual TV season, which ended May 2023.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  While American Idol’s twice weekly screenings together with Dancing With The Stars were the three most viewed U.S. TV shows in 2009-10 and 2010-11, The Voice’s two installments were only the 19th and 20th most viewed programs in 2022-23.

  All star reprises to popular shows have found their way into the top 50 TV shows in recent years as part of the America’s Got Talent franchise and could boost reality TV viewership a little, but generally, reality TV is playing less of a role today. Another reason for this is that many newer reality formats, like celebrity-based shows, have flourished on cable TV or even streaming. One example of this is the Kardashian reality franchise, which ran for 20 seasons on E! and starts its fourth season under new name, The Kardashians, on Hulu today. Broadcast channels meanwhile have capture their bigger audiences with talent and other contestant-based shows.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 22:00

• America Needs A National Maritime Strategy
  America Needs A National Maritime Strategy

  Authored by Mike Waltz via RealClear Wire,

  America doesn’t have enough ships and building more takes far too long.

  

  A war with any level of attrition in the Pacific could quickly turn catastrophic without sufficient warships, combat logistics vessels, and merchant ships. Outnumbered and without the capacity to replace, refuel, and provision our troops, we would struggle to deliver victory.

  This precarious situation carries significant implications for our economy, national security, and international standing. Consequently, America must act now, before it is too late, to set a new maritime trajectory by building a coherent national maritime strategy.

  Chinese Communist Party leaders are students of history, and they recognize America’s arsenal of democracy all but ensured America’s triumph in the Pacific in World War II. Overwhelming numerical force, new ships, and maritime shipping secured our victory.

  Now, the Pentagon considers China the world’s top shipbuilder, not America. China controls the world’s 4th largest shipping company, and its Navy is the world’s largest.

  Meanwhile, America’s maritime enterprise reflects years of neglect and decline, despite being the world’s largest economy, and relying heavily on global maritime trade.

  Following World War II, American commercial shipbuilding led the world in output and tonnage. Today, the United States ranks just 19th in shipbuilding and produces less than ½ a percent of the world’s commercial ships.

  The fate of our shipping heritage is no different. In 1947, the United States fleet of over 5,000 vessels represented 40% of the world’s shipping capacity. By the 1960’s, however, America’s nearly 3,000 ships only carried 16% of the world’s cargo. Most recently, our nation’s international trading fleet consisted of merely 80 ships, accounting for less than 1.5% of global trade.

  What about the United States Navy? During the late 1980s, the fleet size was nearly 590 ships, but it has dwindled to about 290 ships today. Meanwhile, China’s naval forces have soared to 340 warships, with hundreds more guided missile patrol boats and armed maritime militia vessels.

  These trends directly translated into a decline of our nation’s power and influence.

  Rebuilding that power through maritime strength requires a holistic approach, considering the readiness of our entire maritime machinery – infrastructure, workforce, technology, policies, industry, shipping fleets, and sea services. We need our own National Maritime Strategy to pull all these elements together and provide a true strategy for competing with China on the high seas, growing our maritime economy, protecting the freedom of the seas, and sustaining our oceanic resources.

  Such a strategic design starts with recognizing our nation needs American-built and crewed ships, but we also need help changing our nation’s maritime trajectory.

  We are in a race against time since China now has more than 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. Of course, we prefer all our ships be American built. But, in the race with our greatest adversary, we need a mix of US, Japanese, South Korean, and European-built ships in a Reagan-style build-up. I applaud efforts like our Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, but that program is spread over 20 years and is focused solely on public shipyards. That’s too little too late.

  We must complement efforts to improve shipbuilding capacity by using drones. Smaller, cheaper platforms are easier to build and provide an affordable path for quickly ramping up the size and reach of our nation’s fleets. Let’s not reinvent the wheel but instead tap into the wealth of existing technology and operations to scale our military, civil, and commercial fleets.

  Finally, Congress should cultivate a finance and regulatory environment to make civil and commercial shipbuilding and shipping industries more competitive globally. Close loopholes that permit private equity funds to flood Chinese shipyards and harness those resources for domestic projects.

  This means writing new laws that encourage and protect private investment in shipbuilding, shipping, and projects of national interest. Make it easier, safer, and more profitable for Wall Street firms, private equity, and the American public to invest in our nation’s naval activities.  

  Only Congress can provide the funding, prioritization, and accountability necessary to revitalize and sustain our maritime enterprise and position America for success on the seas. The strategic maritime environment demands urgent action to develop a national maritime strategy that synchronizes stakeholders, resources, and policy, leading to unity of maritime effort.

  As a direct response to this vital need, I sponsored legislation in this year’s NDAA to hold the administration accountable for producing such a design. I will continue working with my colleagues Roger Wicker, Trent Kelly, and Rob Wittman on this national security crisis. Working hand in hand with the people of this great nation, we will ensure America’s place as a global leader on the seas.

  ---

  Mike Waltz represents Florida’s 6^th Congressional District and is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence. He is a Green Beret veteran of the war in Afghanistan, a former White House counterterrorism policy adviser, and a defense policy director for secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 21:40

• Here Is What Stops, And What Doesn't, When The Government Shuts Down This Weekend
  Here Is What Stops, And What Doesn’t, When The Government Shuts Down This Weekend

  Last week we laid out what the economic consequences of a lengthy government shutdown would likely be, among them a drop in GDP and a spike in the unemployment rate perhaps sufficient to push the US economy into recession, not to mention a halt in most economic data reporting..

  

  … but ahead of the Sept 30 midnight drop dead date, there is still some confusion so let’s recap the main points, the first of which is that a government shutdown should not be confused with the debt ceiling and its potential for a sovereign default.

  As JPM writes in its latest shutdown note, if no deal is reached by Oct 1 – which is now certainly the default case – then a continuing resolution is one of the more likely paths, but should a CR remain in place by Jan 1, 2024, then there will be an automatic cut to military/defense spending.

  A government shutdown does not actually shutdown all aspects of the government, as many elements are exempted. In addition to the items listed below, JPM assumes that Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, State, and the Social Security Administration continue to make payments.

  

  Some more details on the economic impact

  • The 5-week shutdown from 2018-19 reduced real GDP by $11bn or 0.3%; $3bn of that $11bn was likely non-recoverable once the government reopened.
  • In the past events, the 10Y yield has dropped both ahead of the shutdown (beginning as many as 15 days ahead) and throughout the shutdown.

  What about Equities?

  JPM’s Mkt Intel desk finds that if you one uses the bank’s sample size of shutdowns lasting more than one business day, the SPX fell 2.5% in the 10 days leading up to the shutdown with Tech and Real Estate the biggest laggards.

  • If the shutdown reaches the 10-day mark, the SPX will have rebounded by ~2% led by Cyclicals and Tech the only major sector producing a negative return.
  • Once a resolution is reached, the SPX trades up 80bps at the 10-day mark, +3.6% at the 30-day mark, and +5.9% at the 90-day mark.
    • 10-day mark: SPX +0.8% and top 3 sectors are Industrials (+2.4%), Staples (+1.9%), and Utilities (+1.3%)
    • 30-day mark: SPX +3.6% and the top 3 sectors are Industrials (+5.2%), Healthcare (+4.9%), and Utilities (+4.5%).
    • 90-day mark: SPX +5.9% and the top 3 sectors are Tech (+9.8%), Industrials (+8.1%), and Materials (+7.9%).

  Finally, courtesy of Bloomberg, here is a summary of what government services would stop on Oct 1, and what would go on:

  Not all services would abruptly stop. Medicare payments and efforts to safeguard nuclear weapons would be unaffected. You’d likely still get mail and be able to travel on Amtrak. You wouldn’t, however, be able to get married in DC courts.

  Many federal employees are likely to be furloughed, but some will be deemed “essential” and work without pay until the shutdown ends. The last major shutdown in 2018-2019 lasted 35 days.

  The Office of Management and Budget has collected agency contingency plans that outline what happens in the event of a shutdown. Here are some highlights:

  Labor

  • Economic indicators, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s monthly jobs report, could be delayed as in past shutdowns.
  • The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, charged with promoting labor-management cooperation, would have to cut back its work amid a strike by the United Auto Workers.

  Federal Reserve

  • Federal Reserve activity would be unaffected, meaning the central bank could still raise interest rates at its next meeting Nov. 1.

  Financial Regulators

  • The Federal Trade Commission would stop “the vast bulk of its competition and consumer protection investigations.”
  • The Securities & Exchange Commission wouldn’t review or approve registrations from investment advisers, broker-dealers, transfer agents, rating organizations, investment companies and municipal advisors.

  IRS

  • The Internal Revenue Service has yet to release plans for this potential shutdown. Previous plans said the agency would use funds from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to keep employees paid and working. A union representing IRS workers has said new plans are being discussed that would involve some furloughs.
  • Businesses and individuals who requested six-month extensions for their tax returns in April are still required to file by Oct. 16.

  Emergency Relief

  • A shutdown would “create an increased risk” Federal Emergency Management Agency relief funds would be depleted, and “complicate new emergency response efforts if additional catastrophic disasters occur.”

  Energy & Environment

  • The Interior Department would retain limited discretion to issue permits for energy projects on federal lands and waters when user fees are attached.
  • A funding lapse would paralyze other work to develop required environmental analyses for energy projects, highways and other infrastructure.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency may be able to continue some IRA-funded activities as well as other exempted work, such as settlement-funded cleanup at some Superfund sites.
  • The White House has warned most EPA-led inspections at hazardous waste sites, as well as drinking water and chemical facilities, would stop.
  • The Energy Information Administration, which publishes snapshots of US oil inventories and fuel demand, would continue to collect and publish data on schedule — at least initially.
  • The National Nuclear Security Administration would focus on “maintenance and safeguarding of nuclear weapons; international non-proliferation activities; and servicing deployed naval reactors.”
  • The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would stop licensing, certification and permitting and inspection activities, along with emergency preparedness exercises.

  Transportation & Travel

  • Travelers could face delays as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers working without pay could lead to higher rates of no-shows, as happened in 2019.
  • Amtrak would keep transporting passengers.
  • Passports and visas would still be issued at consular offices worldwide, provided “there are sufficient fees to support operations.”

  Defense

  • Efforts “to defend the nation and conduct ongoing military operations” would continue, but most civilian Defense Department employees would be on furlough.
  • Burials and tours at Arlington National Cemetery would continue.

  Health & Social Security

  • Covid-19 response and research, including vaccine and therapeutic development, would carry on under the Department of Health & Human Services.
  • The National Institutes of Health might have to postpone clinical trials for diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s, according to the White House.
  • Medicine-price negotiations could be sent into disarray, as some drugmakers face an Oct. 2 deadline to report data to Medicare for use in determining new prices.
  • Food stamps for low-income people, the disabled, and others could be delayed.
  • Social Security checks would be delivered, and applications for benefits processed, but people would not be able to verify benefits or replace Medicare cards.

  Parks

  • Most national parks would likely be shuttered, turning away visitors and crippling businesses in the $800 billion outdoor recreation economy.
  • Museums including the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art could close in a protracted shutdown.
  • Cemeteries, monuments, and visitor centers worldwide housed under the American Battle Monuments Commission also would close.

  Housing

  • “Nearly all” Department of Housing and Urban Development fair housing work would stop, as would some monthly subsidy programs, including potentially for public housing operations.
  • HUD’s work for the Federal Housing Administration’s insured mortgages portfolio and Ginnie Mae’s work in the secondary mortgage market would be unaffected.

  Commerce

  • Review or issuance of loans under the Small Business Administration would cease, including those for women-owned and service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses.
  • Commerce Department collection of decennial census data probably would continue, as would forecasting and warnings around weather, water, and climate.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 21:20

• Bomb Threat Forces Evacuation Of Russian Orthodox Seminary & Monastery In New York
  Bomb Threat Forces Evacuation Of Russian Orthodox Seminary & Monastery In New York

  Via OrthoChristian.com

  Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary in Jordanville, New York, the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), had to be evacuated on Thursday afternoon, September 28 due to a bomb threat.

  The threat was called in due to the perpetrators’ belief that Jordanville supports the war in Ukraine. This was reported to OrthoChristian by multiple sources.

  

  While OrthoChristian is unaware of any statements about the war coming from Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary in particular, the monastery site does have a page entitled, “Concerning the War in Ukraine,” which hosts links to the Archpastoral Epistle of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, the recently deceased First Hierarch of ROCOR, from February 24, 2022, the day the war started, in which he called all to fervently pray for peace, and the address of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, also from the first day of the war, in which he condemned and called for an end to what he called the “fratricidal war.”

  The threat comes two weeks after the publication of the article, “Putin’s Useful Priests: The Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin’s Hidden Influence Campaign in the West,” by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, in Foreign Affairs, the official magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations.

  An American Orthodox priest, Fr. John Whiteford, who serves in ROCOR, reacted as follows:

  “Those who stoke Russia Hoaxes have an impact on innocent people in the real world. Next time it may be more than just a theat.”

  Those who stoke Russia Hoaxes have an impact on innocent people in the real world. Next time it may be more than just a theat. https://t.co/j6c42HD6ha

  — Fr. John Whiteford ☦️ 🇸🇴 公 公 (@frjohnwhiteford) September 28, 2023

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  The Foreign Affairs article argues that Russian Orthodox parishes outside of Russia, and especially in America, are a source of strong backing for the Russian government, which, the authors say, was cultivated over the course of two decades by an unnamed employee of the Russian Church’s Department for External Church Relations.

  However, the article is hampered at least by plain factual errors, such as massively overestimating the number of Russian Orthodox parishes in America, and a gross misrepresentation of the stance towards the war from both the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and His Grace Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe, who issued a response.

  US mainstream media has just this month begun airing unverified claims that Russian intelligence is embedding itself in Orthodox churches in the West…

  CNN:

  ‘The Kremlin is trying to use Orthodox churches in the US to recruit spies and intelligence sources.
  They warn Russian Orthodox churches that they could be targeted for recruitment by Russian intelligence services”

  Coming soon : aliens are 🇷🇺 and 🇨🇳 spies . pic.twitter.com/N9WzKNyMFm

  — Dagny Taggart (@DagnyTaggart963) September 16, 2023

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  One of the authors that went on CNN to talk about Russian Churches in America supposedly being used to spy for Russia.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 21:00

• Major Cold Trend Set To Unleash 'Frost-Freeze' Threat Across Eastern US
  Major Cold Trend Set To Unleash ‘Frost-Freeze’ Threat Across Eastern US

  We all survived the apparent ‘climate apocalypse’ corporate media warned about this summer with endless headlines about how the world would imminently erupt into a giant fireball. The climate math pushed by media outlets such as ABC, The New York Times, Axios, and Bloomberg was so questionable that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to denounce the media ‘hysteria’ about the “hottest day ever.” By late August, 1,600 scientists signed a declaration refuting the existence of a climate crisis, as now the loudest media outlets warning about climate doom have gone silent as fall approaches. 

  Looking at Bloomberg data using the “NT” headline search function, “hottest day ever” in all media headlines tends to surge in July, the hottest point of the Northern Hemisphere summer. Like 2022, the public was bombarded with climate doom headlines this summer as media tried to convince folks that cow farts and petrol cars were behind sweltering temperatures. Now, those headlines have all but vanished. 

  

  “Hottest day ever” headlines surged at the time average temperatures across the Lower 48 peak in July. A 30-year seasonal trend of average temperatures showed, for the most part, that deviation from the mean was not severe. And since the peak, Lower 48 average temperatures have been sliding. 

  The climate is changing:

  

  Now, meteorologists forecast a cold front to sweep parts of the Lower 48 in weeks. 

  Private weather forecasters BAMWX said, “We have been talking about an October cold front for weeks in our videos to clients. Overnight data took a MAJOR turn to cool!” 

  

  

  “*MAJOR* colder trends across all of the model data last night,” BAMWX continued, adding, “One of the biggest flips in model guidance we’ve seen in a long time and it would increase the threat of a frost/freeze the second week of October for the Midwest/Great Lakes/NE US.” 

  *MAJOR* colder trends across all of the model data last night.

  One of the biggest flips in model guidance we’ve seen in a long time and it would increase the threat of a frost/freeze the second week of October for the Midwest/Great Lakes/NE US. #AGwx https://t.co/UQhaRd1MOF pic.twitter.com/lYJnckKoj9

  — BAM Weather (BAMWX) (@bamwxcom) September 28, 2023

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  In a separate forecast, meteorologist Spencer Denton of Action Five News in Memphis forecasts a similar cold blast around Oct. 10: “There are signs of our first decent fall cold front arriving around Oct. 10. How cool or cold is still in question. Stay tuned fall weather fans.” 

  There are signs of our first decent fall cold front arriving around October 10th. How cool or cold is still in question. Stay tuned fall weather fans. pic.twitter.com/dvavMZ85ok

  — 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝘿𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙤𝙣 (@Dentonwx) September 27, 2023

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  Another meteorologist shared a long-term snow forecast… 

  ❄️❄️It’s a model with a somewhat questionable record AND it’s looking 5 months down the road, BUT the Climate Forecast System model is highlighting the Carolinas and much of the Southeastern US for well below normal temperatures this winter. BRING. IT. ON. ❄️❄️ #SCwx #NCwx… pic.twitter.com/Ljgy0JKFV5

  — Jamie Arnold WMBF (@jamiearnoldWMBF) September 27, 2023

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  We cited Peter Geiger, editor of the Farmer’s Almanac, in an Aug. 19 weather note that said, “The ‘brrr’ is coming back! We expect more snow and low temperatures nationwide.”

  

  Suppose a cold blast does materialize in the Lower 48 by mid-Oct. It may have widespread implications for ag and energy markets. 

  Journos at corporate media are plotting their next bombardment of headlines, somehow linking cold weather to cow farts. 

  The climate is constantly changing, and the global warming narrative is imploding as even climate alarmist Bill Gates had to backtrack on his ‘climate doom’ prophecies recently. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 20:40

• Slouching Towards 1984
  Slouching Towards 1984

  Authored by Jeffrey Keltz via American Greatness,

  In George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” he portrays English society – renamed Oceania – as a futuristic version of the 1940s Soviet Union. In this invented society that Orwell calls IngSoc –  English Socialism – the populace has even less freedom than the Soviets permitted its citizens  and life consists only of drudgery, loneliness and hideousness. The novel grips the reader with fear and loathing of a totalitarian future enabled by technological advances and prompts one with the question: “Can it, will it happen here?”

  It goes without saying that the United States in 2023 bears little resemblance to 1984 Oceania. In Oceania, the state had total control over the language, economy, science, history, personal possessions, personal thoughts, music, art and literature. In the U.S. today, however, it is not difficult to see how government intrusion and control reduces freedom, creates fear and confusion, reduces economic opportunity and prosperity, distorts history and science and creates unnecessary interpersonal conflict.

  

  One of the ways Big Brother, Oceania’s leader, exerted total control was by subverting language. This reduced the capacity to think thoughts not approved by the state. “Newspeak,” as Orwell coined it, consisted only of words that expressed permitted thoughts.

  “Thoughtcrime,” another Orwellism, punished illicit thoughts. Illicit action therefore became literally unthinkable. Truth is what Big Brother declared it to be at any given moment: 2+2=5 yesterday and 2+2=4 today. History was constantly and literally rewritten in order to satisfy the “truths” that Big Brother was currently promulgating.

  The most nefarious aspect of Big Brother’s rule was of course his brutally enforced elimination of freedom, which he accomplished by suppressing the truth and promulgating lies.

  In all eras, in all states, in all political parties, leaders tell lies. The danger arises when the state and state co-opted institutions suppress, eliminate and punish unapproved ideas. Big Brother had the power to ensure that his lies were the only “facts” that were knowable. As one would expect, dissent was rare and not tolerated. Disagreement and belief in objective reality and a persistent past was punishable by torture, work camps and usually, death.

  Is it a stretch to see hints of this control today, when scientists are censored for sharing findings that the establishment disagrees with; when college students fear they may receive a poor grade for presenting an alternative viewpoint; when employees submit unwillingly to racist diversity training; when government agencies and colleges require diversity oaths for employment; and when government reduces wealth and freedom by shutting down businesses deemed unnecessary?

  Orwell intended his novel to serve as a warning (not a guidebook) to Great Britain: that socialists and central planners running an all-powerful state can and likely would use their power for pernicious ends.

  Sadly, in the U.S. both political parties have contributed to the growth of the surveillance and controlling state. Here are some examples:

  • The PATRIOT Act permitted increased government surveillance over individuals in response to an unprecedented terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland.

  • Joe Biden tried but failed to institute a Disinformation Governance Board. His administration also pressured social media companies to restrict access to posts it deemed untruthful or otherwise harmful. One wonders, why after almost 250 years without such a board, this became necessary. In the 1990s, internet-based news sources led to a vast increase in the availability of information, significantly more than had been available when partisan daily newspapers dominated the information landscape. Philosophers and Supreme Court Justices alike agree that the solution to bad speech is more speech. But according to the Left, now that we have more news sources than ever before, this no longer holds true. Only their approved sources should be allowed a platform.

  • Various levels of government mandated mask wearing and vaccinations as well as mandatory business closures that created increased dependency on government largesse.

  • Leftist high-density gatherings were encouraged during Covid’s peak while conservative gatherings were prohibited for reasons of public safety.

  • Particular scientific theories are deemed settled, while scientists with opposing views are defunded and ridiculed despite having ample evidence backing up their claims. Some scientific theories have become sacred and “science” has been transformed into a dogmatic state-run religion.

  • The 2022 federal budget replaced the word “mothers” with “birthing people.” The NIH suggests “pregnant people.” Teachers, politicians and scientists tell us that people that are born as men may become women if they choose to do so (and vice versa) and may switch back at will.

  • Obama’s “Dear Colleague” letter to colleges replaced standard judicial practices with almost inquisition-like tactics for addressing sexual harassment complaints.

  • College campuses have instituted speech codes. Stanford University even considered banning the use of standard words but following ridicule it withdrew this proposal.

  • Publishing houses have changed classic literature in order to satisfy approved mores. Affected authors include Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Hugh Lofting. In Orwell’s novel, the affected authors included Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron and Dickens.

  • Government agencies and publicly traded companies conduct diversity training in order to indoctrinate employees in a particular way of thinking. Opposing views are impermissible and the resistant are ridiculed and worse. While not quite Orwell’s “Two Minutes of Hate” (directed towards the enemy state), intersectionality, which is a component of critical race theory, directs hatred toward particular groups of people based on their immutable characteristics.

  • “Anti-racism” which is promoted by government agencies and public companies, posits that all white people are suspected beneficiaries of a racist system – that only whites can be racist and that race explains most economic and social outcomes in society. Somehow this is deemed not to be racist, whereas “color blind” behavior and recognizing people as individuals is now considered racist.

  • Antifa rioters are lawful demonstrators, while Catholic high school students (see Covington Catholic incident) and parents who protest at school board meetings are a threat to public safety.

  • Defunding the police makes citizens safer.

  • The unfounded claims of the “1619 Project” are taught as truth to school children.

  In “1984,” Oceania is always at war with one of the two other surviving states. Orwell writes that the reason for this warfare was “to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

  Leftists seek to decarbonize the worldwide energy system – thus intentionally destroying a highly effective, proven, and safe energy production and distribution system that has lifted millions around the world out of poverty. This system was refined and incrementally improved over time. The Left wants to replace this system with technologies that are neither currently effective, proven, nor safe and although inchoate are expected to emerge fully formed – meaning that once implemented technological advancement will be more difficult and expensive.

  The U.S. already spends billions in order to end up further behind where we are now from an energy, industrial output and standard of living perspective. The planners are talking about required reductions in energy consumption, automotive miles traveled, airplane miles traveled and consumption of energy intensive foodstuffs – thus destroying our wealth and reducing the quality of life.

  As Orwell writes:

  “In principle the war effort is always so planned … with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and  another. 

  War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. What is concerned here is… the morale of the Party itself.  Even the humblest Party member is expected to be … a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war.” 

  Leftists view the effort to stave off the “Climate Catastrophe” as a war. This of course requires sacrifices for most Americans while the elites will continue to fly in private jets and travel the seas on luxurious yachts. Climate hysteria empowers the government to control the economy and therefore our lives. Scarcity pits group against group.

  Big Brother’s method of control is itself logically consistent: control the language, control the truth, control history, control employment, and control the populace.

  Leftist politicians have learned that they can successively add to their power, one mandate at a time, while eliminating freedom for everyone else. While these power seeking politicians are likely unknowingly following the Orwellian design of language, truth and history control, these are the logical steps required to attain greater authority over the American people incrementally — boiling the frog. Achieving one enables the possibility of achieving the next one.

  It seems rather ironic that the Left is constantly calling the Right the party of fascism, yet not even George Orwell could have imagined the level of control that the Democratic Party has tried and (arguably has succeeded) in exerting over the body politic in such a short period of time.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 20:20

• Murder Crisis Plagues DC As Mayor Begs For More Officers After 'Defunding Police'
  Murder Crisis Plagues DC As Mayor Begs For More Officers After ‘Defunding Police’

  How it started. 

  

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  How it’s going? 

  #NEW – Mayor Bowser on DC’s rising crime and 200+ homicides…

  She says DC needs more police officers. @WUSA9 pic.twitter.com/VCApKXxzHJ

  — Lorenzo Hall (@LorenzoHall) September 27, 2023

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  D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a former supporter of the ‘defund the police’ movement, urgently calls for increased policing as the nation’s capital faces an out-of-control murder crisis. 

  “What I can say is this: To me, numbers are just numbers. When we lose one person — whether it’s one or 200 — that’s too many,” Bowser said at a press conference earlier this week. 

  Of course, Bowser, like many Democrat mayors, blames firearms as the issue, deflecting any possibility her disastrous social justice reforms only embolden criminals – while punishing law-abiding taxpayers -across the imploding Washington, DC metro area. 

  Even the Washington Post can’t ignore the murder crisis: 

  For the first time in a quarter-century, the year’s homicide toll in Washington has surpassed 200 before October — a mark of surging violence that has angered and distressed local leaders, drawn scrutiny from Congress and made some residents question whether they can safely live in the nation’s capital.

  WaPo added:

  The last time D.C. logged its 200th homicide before October was Aug. 12, 1997, in a year that ended with 303 people slain, according to police data. After that, annual totals generally trended downward, staying below 200 from 2004 to 2020, with a low of 88 in 2012. But the killing pace has picked up again, reaching 226 in 2021.

  Heading into the 2024 presidential election cycle, Democrats will never admit their social justice reforms have failed. They conveniently blame guns. 

  Directly north of D.C. lies another crime-ridden metro area: Baltimore City. And this week, mass looting was seen in Philadelphia. And just north of Baltimore and Philadelphia, New York City’s progressive mayor recently warned of financial ruins due to a migrant crisis. 

  Democrats have transformed cities into absolute messes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 20:00

• NIH Doctor Flagged Wuhan Virus Lab Safety Problems As Early As 2017
  NIH Doctor Flagged Wuhan Virus Lab Safety Problems As Early As 2017

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  A doctor working for the U.S. government in 2017 visited the China-based virus research facility that may have leaked the pathogen that causes COVID-19, and sounded the alarm on safety issues at the lab earlier than previously reported, according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times.

  

  Dr. Ping Chen, who worked for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in October 2017 and prepared a report for her superiors after her visit.

  While a version of her report obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was fully redacted, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and his team were granted an opportunity to carry out an in-camera review of the report that had some of the redactions removed.

  “It is clear to me by talking to the technician that certainly there is a need for training support” at the Wuhan lab, Dr. Chen wrote in the report, parts of which were attached to a letter sent by Mr. Johnson to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra on Sept. 21.

  The letter, which was obtained by The Epoch Times, includes fragments of Dr. Chen’s report and suggests that HHS and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) were aware of safety issues at the Wuhan facility as early as October 2017.

  

  The P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on May 13, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

  Earlier reporting based on two State Department cables and correspondence records obtained by Judicial Watch indicate that NIH was made aware of safety problems at the Wuhan lab in 2018, the year after Dr. Chen’s report.

  “I think the institute would welcome any help and technical support by NIAID,” Dr. Chen wrote in her 2017 report.

  Mr. Johnson wrote in his letter to Mr. Becerra that Dr. Chen’s 2017 report partially served as the basis for a Jan. 19, 2018, State Department cable that raised safety concerns about the Wuhan virus lab.

  Evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, leaked from the Wuhan facility before spreading across the world. According to the so-called lab leak theory, the deadly pathogen that caused the pandemic escaped the Chinese facility, which was conducting risky gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses that was partially funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars.

  Demands

  Mr. Johnson demanded that HHS provide a version of Dr. Chen’s 2017 report that contains fewer redactions in order to scrutinize its contents more closely and determine how closely it aligned with the cable.

  “In the public FOIA document, HHS redacted Dr. Chen’s entire report claiming that it contains privacy and deliberative information,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

  “It seems apparent that the only reason that HHS redacted this information was to hide the report’s contents from the American people. Perhaps HHS did not want the public to fully understand the fact that NIH and NIAID officials were aware of safety concerns at the WIV dating as far back as 2017,” he added.

  Mr. Johnson also accused NIH and HHS of obstructing his probe.

  “HHS and NIH continue to obstruct my oversight efforts,” he wrote. “It is unacceptable that HHS and NIH had Dr. Chen’s report in its possession and only provided a slightly less redacted version for my staff to review in camera.”

  He demanded that HHS provide unredacted copies of Dr. Chen’s report and all documents and communications relating to the report and to the Wuhan lab.

  Mr. Johnson also asked for Dr. Chen to sit before a congressional panel and testify.

  He set an Oct. 5 deadline for HHS to comply with his request.

  HHS officials didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

  

  Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli is seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

  ‘Preponderance of Evidence’ for Lab Leak

  In August 2021, a report by Republican lawmakers noted a “preponderance of evidence” that the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic leaked from the Wuhan lab.

  Chinese officials have denied the lab leak claim, insisting that the virus made a natural jump from animals to humans.

  Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said in testimony before the Coronavirus Select Subcommittee Republicans that evidence points to a lab leak as the likely origin of the virus, saying that “it’s time to completely dismiss the wet market as the source of the outbreak” and “the preponderance of the evidence that it came from the lab is very convincing.”

  U.S. intelligence agencies later said in a report that a natural origin and a lab leak are both plausible hypotheses but that a lack of evidence makes a definitive conclusion either way impossible.

  It’s a sentiment echoed by Mr. McCaul in his testimony.

  “Unfortunately, we may never know for certain because the Chinese Communist Party went to great lengths to cover up this outbreak,” he said. “They detained the doctors in order to silence them. They disappeared journalists. They destroyed lab samples. They hid the fact there was clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. And they have refused to allow a real investigation into the origins.”

  Wuhan Lab Funding Controversy

  The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded a total of $1.1 million to the WIV between October 2009 and May 2019, the agency wrote in a May 2021 letter (pdf) to Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.).

  Mr. Reschenthaler alleged that the funding was used for a study that used gain-of-function research to create “a hybrid, man-made virus by inserting a spiked protein from a wild coronavirus into a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone, which could infect human airways.”

  The agency said the funds were channeled through EcoHealth Alliance and were meant for the purpose of advancing research on critical viruses that could pose a threat to humans. It also denied claims that the money was used for gain-of-function research, which seeks to boost viral lethality for the purpose of studying it.

  In June 2022, the House Appropriations Committee approved a ban on sending any further funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

  More recently, the NIH quietly removed the WIV from a list of foreign facilities that are eligible to receive U.S. taxpayer funds to conduct animal experiments.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 19:40

• Who Owns The Most Satellites?
  Who Owns The Most Satellites?

  Nearly 7,000 satellites orbit the Earth, serving vital functions such as communication, navigation, and scientific research.

  In 2022 alone, more than 150 launches took place, sending new instruments into space, with many more expected over the next decade.

  But who owns these objects? In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti and Miranda Smith utilize data from the Union of Concerned Scientists to highlight the leaders in satellite technology.

  

  SpaceX’s Dominance in Space

  SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, is unquestionably the industry leader, currently operating the largest fleet of satellites in orbit—about 50% of the global total.

  The company has already completed 62 missions this year, surpassing any other company or nation, and operates thousands of internet-beaming Starlink spacecraft that provide global internet connectivity.

  Starlink customers receive a small satellite dish that self-orients itself to align with Starlink’s low-Earth-orbit satellites.

  

  Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.

  In second place is a lesser-known company, British OneWeb Satellites. The company, headquartered in London, counts the UK government among its investors and provides high-speed internet services to governments, businesses, and communities.

  Like many other satellite operators, OneWeb relies on SpaceX to launch its satellites.

  Despite Starlink’s dominance in the industry, the company is set to face intense competition in the coming years. Amazon’s Project Kuiper plans to deploy 3,236 satellites by 2029 to compete with SpaceX’s network. The first of the fleet could launch as early as 2024.

  The Rise of China’s Space Program

  After the top private companies, governments also own a significant portion of satellites orbiting the Earth. The U.S. remains the leader in total satellites, when adding those owned by both companies and government agencies together.

  American expenditures on space programs reached $62 billion in 2022, five times more than the second one, China.

  China, however, has sped up its space program over the last 20 years and currently has the highest number of satellites in orbit belonging directly to government agencies. Most of these are used for Earth observation, communications, defense, and technology development.

  Satellite Demand to Rise Over the Decade

  Despite the internet being taken for granted in major metropolitan areas and developed countries, one out of every three people worldwide has never used the web.

  Furthermore, the increasing demand for data and the emergence of new, more cost-effective satellite technologies are expected to present significant opportunities for private space companies.

  In this context, satellite demand is projected to quadruple over the next decade.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 19:20

• Boston University Will Investigate Kendi Center After Ignoring Questions For Years
  Boston University Will Investigate Kendi Center After Ignoring Questions For Years

  Authored by Matt Lamb via The College Fix,

  After ignoring questions about Ibram Kendi’s work for years, Boston University will now look into management at the Center for Antiracist Research.

  

  Boston University will investigate the center’s “culture and its grant management practices,” following complaints. The center reportedly raised $55 million, which includes at least $10 million from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

  “To ensure its long-term impact and sustainability, Kendi made the decision to restructure the center to create a residential fellowship program for antiracist intellectuals, creators, and students,” BU announced on Sep. 21.

  “He announced the layoffs as part of the restructuring (19 staff people were laid off, leaving a staff at the center of 15 to 17 people moving forward).”

  This comes not only after Professor Saida Grundy first raised concerns in 2021, according to the student newspaper, but after The College Fix and other media outlets have questioned Kendi’s output.

  BU said it “recognize[s] the importance of Dr. Kendi’s work and the significant impact it has had on antiracist thinking and policy” and looks forward to working with him on the inquiry. But Kendi’s “work” has often been lacking and other joint ventures with the professor have fallen through.

  Most recently, and just prior to the public implosion of the center, The Fix reported that Kendi had not written an academic paper in the past four years. The Aug. 21 article noted he had written at least two children’s books in the same period.

  In March 2021, The Fix asked “What exactly does Ibram Kendi do all day,” following original Fix reporting that found the center director had made at least $300,000 lecturing on how America is racist.

  The Fix also questioned a promised “Racial Data Lab” in January 2021 that was supposed to be a partnership between Professor Azer Bestavros and the center. When asked for comment on the tracker, Bestavros said it had nothing to do with his work. “Your questions are not about my work or my research,” he said at the time in an email.

  The Fix asked him if he had any concerns about Kendi’s ability to follow through on projects – media reporting had shown he failed to deliver on a similar racial data tracker, instead relying on volunteers with The Atlantic. Yet, Kendi cited the “COVID Racial Data Tracker” as an accomplishment of the center in his Sep. 22 statement.

  My thoughts on the @AntiracismCtr layoffs. pic.twitter.com/yRXnPGTqdT

  — Ibram X. Kendi (@ibramxk) September 22, 2023

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

  Bestavros did not reply to requests for comment six months later, nor did Kendi’s team. The Fix frequently reached out to Boston University, including spokesman Colin Riley, and other Kendi associates for comments over the course of two articles on Kendi’s tracker and a third one about the now-ended relationship with The Boston Globe.

  The Fix reached out to at least seven different Kendi associates or representatives a total of twenty times for just those three articles. In all cases, requests for comment were ignored or not substantially answered.

  Kendi did comment on the situation in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

  While acknowledging “missteps” he also played his favorite card, saying that “[l]eaders of color and women leaders are often held to different standards” and called his center’s work “crucial” for “antiracist” efforts.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 19:00

• Jim Grant: Fed Policy Is A Ph.D. Standard Of Improvisation
  Jim Grant: Fed Policy Is A Ph.D. Standard Of Improvisation

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  All eyes are on the Federal Reserve, and people are wondering, what will it do next? The messaging coming from the central bankers is that they will need to keep interest rates higher for longer. But is that possible given the economic conditions and all of the debt in the economy?

  Investment and economics writer Jim Grant appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the Fed’s inflation fight and its impact on the economy. He said we ask too much of the central bankers. After all, they are only human.

  

  Grant opened the interview by taking exception to Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee’s assertion that the current federal funds rate is “restrictive.”

  His own Financial Conditions Index, produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, shows, oddly enough, that financial conditions, as defined, are looser than average even after this short of zero to 60 in six seconds of rate increases.”

  So yes, monetary policy is “tighter,” but it is not yet “tight.”

  Grant has said we are likely entering into a generational bear market in bonds. He pointed out that interest rates are unique because they tend to follow generational cycles. That’s been true in the US since the Civil War.

  I say we just ended in 2021 40 years, 4-0 years, of persistently declining rates, which ended, and something I  think financial historians are going to puzzle over for many many years, which is negative nominal rates — bonds priced to yields less than nothing to the tune of like $15 or $16 trillion. … It seems to me every big move in financial markets, whether its bonds or anything else, tends to climax in some absurdity, some valuation excess with the stock puppet 1999 or negative nominal yields in 2020-2021.”

  Looking back, we had 40 years of declining interest rates. Before that, we had 35 years of generally increasing rates that ended in 1981. Grant said it’s simply a matter of pattern recognition “to give it its intellectual most dignified term.”

  This is nothing like a physical law, but this, as I say, has been the form for many, many years in bonds.”

  The CNBC host seemed a bit befuddled by Grant’s analysis. After all, if the Fed is controlling rates, why would we see these long trends? If the economy is doing well, the central bankers can raise rates. If the economy suffers, they can lower them.

  Grant said “they” don’t always control events.

  He quoted former British Prime Minster Harold Macmillan who was asked, “What might go wrong.” He responded, “My boy, events! Events might go wrong.”

  We have been used to, I think, imputing to the Fed immense powers of foresight and control. But oftentimes, the Fed, like so many of us, finds itself not in the vanguard of action or thought, but rather running behind to catch up. You know, the Fed can will all it likes to return the 2% world it has defined for itself, but if the past is prologue, the Fed will be evolving a new set of narratives to explain the new world. And I expect that to be coming at Jackson Hole any summer now.”

  While it is difficult to see the future, Grant said we can at least observe the present and size up the odds the markets are laying on certain outcomes.

  Grant called the Fed members “well-intentioned human beings,” with an emphasis on human beings. He said many scored well on the SAT and they probably would have rather worked at NASA doing physical science as opposed to the “pseudoscience” of economic forecasting.

  As recently as the early months of 2022, with inflation percolating above 5%, they were still doing QE. So, we ask too much of them, or indeed, of any set of human beings.”

  Would some kind of rule-based system be better?

  Grant gave an enthusiastic, yes!

  The rule would be that interest rates ought to be discovered in the market rather than imposed or suppressed. We have decided over the course of many years to conduct our monetary affairs by kind of a Ph.D. standard of improvisation. There are no rules, per se. The dollar is uncollateralized as it had been from the beginning of the country to 1971. So, to some extent, we are playing tennis without a net, and without baselines, and without sidelines. So, circumspection in public finance is out the window.”

  Demonstrating just how out of whack things have become, Grant pointed out that in private sector terms, the Fed is broke.

  So, what about all of the investors and businesspeople who have made bets based on perpetually low interest rates? Grant said he thinks the odds are against them.

  Within this long cycle — this projected, imagined long cycle I foresee — there are all sorts of twists and turns. There were in the 70s, for example. Inflation didn’t go straight up. It was in three phases or slices. So, if past is prologue, what we’ll see is a time of long-trending higher rates with head-fakes that will get people convinced that 2% is right around the corner.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 18:40

• Our Society Is Melting Down Even Faster Than Most People Thought That It Would
  Our Society Is Melting Down Even Faster Than Most People Thought That It Would

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

  It can be difficult to believe that the wild scenes that we are witnessing on the streets of America are actually real.  Earlier this week, I wrote an article entitled “What Life Is Really Like In America’s Hellish Inner Cities”.  I wrote that article before the widespread looting that just erupted in Philadelphia.  Just when I think that conditions in our core urban areas have reached a low point, they seem to find a way to get even worse.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of this crisis.  As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, countless numbers of people will become very desperate.  And when countless numbers of people become very desperate, our society will descend into a permanent state of chaos.

  

  On Tuesday night, dozens of young people went on a rampage in the city of Philadelphia.

  It is being reported that “stores in several areas of Philadelphia” were hit…

  Dozens of people faced criminal charges Wednesday after a night of social media-fueled mayhem in which groups of thieves, apparently working together, smashed their way into stores in several areas of Philadelphia, stuffing plastic bags with merchandise and fleeing, authorities said.

  A total of 52 arrests have been made so far, police said Wednesday.

  Burglary, theft and other counts have been filed so far against at least 30 people, all but three of them adults, according to Jane Roh, spokesperson for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office.

  The largest group consisted of approximately 100 young people, and there was violence when the police finally confronted that group outside of a Lululemon store…

  Police in the city said that a large group of around 100 juveniles kept moving from store to store and looting them.

  Videos shared on social media show officers attempting to grab thieves, some of whom are wearing Halloween masks, as they run riot through a Lululemon store.

  One officer manages to hit one of the looters with a punch after tackling them to the ground.

  Many on social media seem to be quite entertained by videos of the looting, but the truth is that this footage should break all of our hearts.

  “Everybody must eat!” a woman exclaims as looters breach a business right behind her.#Philadelphia #Philly #Pennsylvania #Looting #Riot #CenterCity pic.twitter.com/8yYJMHmMax

  — Raw Reporting (@Raw_Reporting) September 27, 2023

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

  Everything in Center City Philadelphia is free with promo code: “the Big Guy 2024.”
  pic.twitter.com/Ogd8gIFTGg

  — Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) September 27, 2023

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

  “Everybody keep yo phone out!”

  Seeking another George Floyd moment, #BLM protesters tell one another to start recording after Philadelphia Police arrived to make arrests at the downtown mass looting. Video uploaded by @OSiiNT:pic.twitter.com/oEyKU3Mhwk

  — Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) September 27, 2023

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

  Our society is literally coming apart at the seams all around us.

  I had warned my readers that total retail theft would exceed 100 billion dollars this year, but now it is being reported that total retail theft already broke that threshold in 2022…

  Last year, total losses tied to theft amounted to $112.1 billion, according to data from the 2023 National Retail Security Survey. That is up from $93.9 billion in losses in 2021 and $90.8 billion in 2020.

  Retailers within metros including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland as well as Houston, New York and Seattle were hit the hardest last year.

  So if last year’s number was 112 billion, what will the final number be for 2023?

  130 billion?

  140 billion?

  150 billion?

  Major retail chains all over America are shutting down stores due to rampant theft.

  As I discussed yesterday, Target has decided to permanently shutter nine stores in high crime areas…

  Target Corp. will shutter nine stores across four states on Oct. 21 because of theft and threats to safety, the company announced Tuesday, the latest — and loudest —example of a retailer exiting urban locations because of crime.

  Target said it made the “difficult decision” to close the stores — which include locations in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, Seattle, Portland and the San Francisco Bay area — after the Minneapolis-based company determined that theft-preventive measures had proved ineffective. The company said it had tried adding more security, including third-party guards, and using deterrents such as locking up merchandise.

  “We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the company said.

  But nine stores is just a drop in the bucket compared to what other retailers are doing.

  For example, it is being reported that Rite Aid will close approximately 500 stores…

  One of the largest U.S. drugstores chains Rite Aid is set to close around 500 stores nationwide as it negotiates a plan to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

  The Wall Street Journal reported that the firm, which is the third largest in the country, is looking to close branches and either sell or let creditors take over their remaining operations.

  And CVS is in the process of closing a total of 900 stores by 2024…

  Drugstore chain CVS is set to close hundreds of stores across the US as it undergoes a major reform to adjust to the needs of modern online shoppers.

  The retail giant is coming to the end of a policy launched in 2021 which will see 300 stores closed each year – meaning 900 will have shuttered by 2024.

  In the announcement, which has hit headlines again recently amid rampant shoplifting at the store, bosses they said that they were undergoing a new ‘retail footprint strategy.’

  Drugstores used to be all over the place in our core urban areas.

  But now our inner cities are littered with scores of boarded up establishments with “space available” signs on them.

  This is what the future of America looks like, and it isn’t good.

  Once upon a time, we could be proud of the shiny new cities that we had built from coast to coast.

  Those cities were safe and they were clean.

  But now our major cities have degenerated into crime-ridden hellholes that are absolutely filthy.  In New York City, the millions of rats that live there are constantly making headlines…

  This is the moment a group of horrified New Yorkers is forced to hop over scores of vermin scurrying across their path from bins outside a pizzeria.

  Footage shows a few rats brazenly scurry across the pavement before scores of them emerge from an overflowing bin.

  Taryn Brady, 29, who was with a group of friends when she filmed the rat encounter, said she was left in ‘fear and disgust’ after she and her friends had to hop over the rodents running towards them.

  This is our country now.

  I know that I keep saying that, but it is such an important point.

  We don’t have the same nation that previous generations passed down to us.

  Over the past 50 to 60 years, we have literally ruined America.

  From the White House all the way down to the kids that are looting retailers in our major cities, we have become a laughingstock to the rest of the world.

  And if we don’t find a way to turn things around, our story is going to have an absolutely tragic ending.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 18:20

• A Third Of All Workers Say They'd Quit Or Find A New Job If They Were Asked To Return To The Office
  A Third Of All Workers Say They’d Quit Or Find A New Job If They Were Asked To Return To The Office

  If the UAW strikes haven’t proven to you that workers want to do less, for more money, perhaps this new survey will.

  A new study published by FinanceBuzz this week revealed that more than 1/3rd of all remote workers would quit or find a new job if they were asked to come back into the office. Has anybody told these coddled millennials that the pandemic – and the buffet of excuses that go with it – is over?

  For the survey, FinanceBuzz surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in August 2023. Only people who indicated they have a remote or hybrid (partially remote, partially in-office) job were allowed to respond, the report says. 

  

  Their key findings were:

  • More than one-third of remote workers (36%) would quit or immediately begin looking for a new job if told they had to return to office.
  • 58% of remote workers are likely or very likely to look for a remote role for their next job.
  • Compared to 2020, remote workers place increased value on the flexibility to work from anywhere (cited as top perk by 29% in 2020 and 38% in 2023).
  • 25% of remote workers say that flexibility of schedule is the top perk of working from home, down from 31% in 2020.
  • The percentage of workers that say time with family is the best perk of remote work more than doubled between 2020 and 2023.

  For most employees, the crown jewel of remote work appears to be flexibility. According to Finance Buzz’s report, 35% of telecommuters indicated that the freedom to live and work from any location is the most compelling benefit, a shift from being the second most favored perk in a 2020 survey. This surge coincides with the growing allure of the “digital nomad” lifestyle and advances in telecommuting technology.

  

  Coming in second place, 25% of remote workers appreciated the scheduling freedom their jobs provided. This marks a drop from 2020, when 31% cited schedule flexibility as their top perk. While the preferred benefits switched positions between the two surveys, they remained the top two choices, resonating with 60% of respondents collectively.

  While telecommuting isn’t without its pitfalls, no single downside stood out unanimously. Difficulties in fostering workplace relationships were mentioned by 41% of respondents, and 40% reported that working from home presented more distractions.

  

  The adoption of remote work has made a lasting impression on the workforce, with many reluctant to revert to a conventional office setting. In fact, 36% of remote workers stated they would prefer quitting their job to relinquishing their work-from-home status. Given this sentiment, it’s hardly startling that 58% of telecommuters are inclined to seek another remote position for their next career move, while a mere 14% would opt otherwise.

  You can read the full study here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 18:00

• Fauci And The CIA: A New Explanation Emerges
  Fauci And The CIA: A New Explanation Emerges

  Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via Brownstone Institute,

  Jeremy Farrar’s book from August 2021 is relatively more candid than most accounts of the initial decision to lock down in the US and UK. “It’s hard to come off nocturnal calls about the possibility of a lab leak and go back to bed,” he wrote of the clandestine phone calls he was getting from January 27-31, 2020. They had already alerted the FBI and MI5. 

  “I’d never had trouble sleeping before, something that comes from spending a career working as a doctor in critical care and medicine. But the situation with this new virus and the dark question marks over its origins felt emotionally overwhelming. None of us knew what was going to happen but things had already escalated into an international emergency. On top of that, just a few of us – Eddie [Holmes], Kristian [Anderson], Tony [Fauci] and I – were now privy to sensitive information that, if proved to be true, might set off a whole series of events that would be far bigger than any of us. It felt as if a storm was gathering, of forces beyond anything I had experienced and over which none of us had any control.”

  At that point in the trajectory of events, intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic had been put on notice. Anthony Fauci also received confirmation that money from the National Institutes of Health had been channeled to the offending lab in Wuhan, which meant that his career was on the line. Working at a furious pace, the famed “Proximal Origin” paper was produced in record time. It concluded that there was no lab leak. 

  

  In a remarkable series of revelations this week, we’ve learned that the CIA was involved in trying to make payments to those authors (thank you whistleblower), plus it appears that Fauci made visits to the CIA’s headquarters, most likely around the same time. 

  

  

  Suddenly we get some possible clarity in what has otherwise been a very blurry picture. The anomaly that has heretofore cried out for explanation is how it is that Fauci changed his mind so dramatically and precisely on the merit of lockdowns for the virus. One day he was counseling calm because this was flu-like, and the next day he was drumming up awareness of the coming lockdown. That day was February 27, 2020, the same day that the New York Times joined with alarmist propaganda from its lead virus reporter Donald G. McNeil. 

  On February 26, Fauci was writing: “Do not let the fear of the unknown… distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.”

  The next day, February 27, Fauci wrote actress Morgan Fairchild – likely the most high-profile influencer he knew from the firmament – that “be prepared to mitigate an outbreak in this country by measures that include social distancing, teleworking, temporary closure of schools, etc.”

  To be sure, twenty-plus days had passed between the time Fauci alerted intelligence and when he decided to become the voice for lockdowns. We don’t know the exact date of the meetings with the CIA. But generally until now, most of February 2020 has been a blur in terms of the timeline. Something was going on but we hadn’t known just what. 

  Let’s distinguish between a proximate and distal cause of the lockdowns.

  The proximate cause is the fear of a lab leak and an aping of the Wuhan strategy of keeping everyone in their homes to stop the spread. They might have believed this would work, based on the legend of how SARS-1 was controlled. The CIA had dealings with Wuhan and so did Fauci. They both had an interest in denying the lab leak and stopping the spread. The WHO gave them cover. 

  The distal reasons are more complicated. What stands out here is the possibility of a quid pro quo. The CIA pays scientists to say there was no lab leak and otherwise instructs its kept media sources (New York Times) to call the lab leak a conspiracy theory of the far right. Every measure would be deployed to keep Fauci off the hot seat for his funding of the Wuhan lab. But this cooperation would need to come at a price. Fauci would need to participate in a real-life version of the germ games (Event 201 and Crimson Contagion). 

  It would be the biggest role of Fauci’s long career. He would need to throw out his principles and medical knowledge of, for example, natural immunity and standard epidemiology concerning the spread of viruses and mitigation strategies. The old pandemic playbook would need to be shredded in favor of lockdown theory as invented in 2005 and then tried in Wuhan. The WHO could be relied upon to say that this strategy worked. 

  Fauci would need to be on TV daily to somehow persuade Americans to give up their precious rights and liberties. This would need to go on for a long time, maybe all the way to the election, however implausible this sounds. He would need to push the vaccine for which he had already made a deal with Moderna in late January. 

  Above all else, he would need to convince Trump to go along. That was the hardest part. They considered Trump’s weaknesses. He was a germaphobe so that’s good. He hated Chinese imports so it was merely a matter of describing the virus this way. But he also has a well-known weakness for deferring to highly competent and articulate professional women. That’s where the highly reliable Deborah Birx comes in: Fauci would be her wingman to convince Trump to green-light the lockdowns. 

  What does the CIA get out of this? The vast intelligence community would have to be put in charge of the pandemic response as the rule maker, the lead agency. Its outposts such as CISA would handle labor-related issues and use its contacts in social media to curate the public mind. This would allow the intelligence community finally to crack down on information flows that had begun 20 years earlier that they had heretofore failed to manage. 

  The CIA would hobble and hamstring the US president, whom they hated. And importantly, there was his China problem. He had wrecked relations through his tariff wars. So far as they were concerned, this was treason because he did it all on his own. This man was completely out of control. He needed to be put in his place. To convince the president to destroy the US economy with his own hand would be the ultimate coup de grace for the CIA. 

  A lockdown would restart trade with China. It did in fact achieve that. 

  

  How would Fauci and the CIA convince Trump to lock down and restart trade with China? By exploiting these weaknesses and others too: his vulnerability to flattery, his desire for presidential aggrandizement, and his longing for Xi-like powers over all to turn off and then turn on a whole country. Then they would push Trump to buy the much-needed personal protective equipment from China. 

  They finally got their way: somewhere between March 10 or possibly as late as March 14, Trump gave the go ahead. The press conference of March 16, especially those magical 70 seconds in which Fauci read the words mandating lockdowns because Birx turned out to be too squeamish, was the great turning point. A few days later, Trump was on the phone with Xi asking for equipment. 

  In addition, such a lockdown would greatly please the digital tech industry, which would experience a huge boost in demand, plus large corporations like Amazon and WalMart, which would stay open as their competitors were closed. Finally, it would be a massive subsidy to pharma and especially the mRNA platform technology itself, which would enjoy the credit for ending the pandemic. 

  If this whole scenario is true, it means that all along Fauci was merely playing a role, a front man for much deeper interests and priorities in the CIA-led intelligence community. This broad outline makes sense of why Fauci changed his mind on lockdowns, including the timing of the change. There are still many more details to know, but these new fragments of new information take our understanding in a new and more coherent direction. 

  Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/28/2023 – 17:40

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