- Destruction Of Traditional Values Leads To The Hegemony Of Political Correctness, Says Senior Polish MEP
Destruction Of Traditional Values Leads To The Hegemony Of Political Correctness, Says Senior Polish MEP
Authored by Grzegorz Adamczyk via Remix News,
The destruction of traditional values and institutions in the name of freedom of pluralism is leading to the despotic rule of political correctness, guarded by liberal states, corporations and international organizations, a senior MEP for Poland’s governing party has claimed.
Professor Ryszard Legutko, a philosophy scholar and Law and Justice (PiS) MEP, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that mankind has a natural tendency for self-destruction because of its ability to change the world through technology, but these technological developments can be a force for good or ill.
It often leads man to hubris and pride, which, as the Greeks observed, always comes before a fall, he noted.
Legutko observed that hubris is dominant in today’s world with man feeling he can control the world, that he can experiment with gender, death, life, and family. The result is that man is becoming ridiculous in his fallibility. All systems of ethics always warn against hubris.
The professor believes that memory is crucial to overcome hubris, and the lack of memory leads to man’s downfall. Revolutions are a classic example of societies losing their memories and destroying their own experience and traditional institutions such as church, family and heritage.
“We had hoped that communism might teach people to have respect for the experience of history. It has not. We are now moving in the direction of another revolution targeted at ending the traditional family, the nation-state and religion,” warned Legutko.
“The present cultural revolutionaries remind us of the ancient Greek shoemaker Herostratus, who burned down the Temple of Artemis in an effort to become significant by destroying something of value. “
He sees many such examples in modern society, people specializing in being offensive and blasphemous. They think they are special and on a mission to create a brave new world in which they will play God, but without memory and experience they fail to spot the long-term consequences of actions such as undermining parental control and family ties, he warned.
The paradox here is that the mania of liberation leads to slavery. The democratic liberal state is hyper-active and regulates everything; the way we behave, speak and even think. A repressive system is developing and those who do not conform are increasingly subject to punishment.
Corporations and international bodies such as the EU are actively engaged in assisting in the creation of the new despotism.
According to Legutko, the more they say we are diverse, the more uniform we become in our behavior and thinking. It is a global fraud that spells doom for mankind.
“There is some resistance and pushback toward freedom and learning from experience, but it is not enough. Conformism and political correctness are still on the march,” the senior Polish MEP added.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/02/2023 – 02:00 - Escobar: First We Go For Moscow, Then We Take Beijing
Escobar: First We Go For Moscow, Then We Take Beijing
The new multipolar order will of course not be without its own conflicts and growing pains…
The Global Majority is free to choose two different paths to counteract the rabid, cognitive dissonant Straussian neocon psychos in charge of imperial foreign policy; to relentlessly ridicule them, or to work hard on the long and winding road leading to a new multipolar reality.
Reality struck deep at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, with its astonishing breadth and scope, reflected in the official declaration and key facts such as Russia writing off no less than $23 billion in African debt, and President Putin calling for Africa to enter the G20 and the UNSC (“It’s time to correct this historical injustice.”)
Three interventions in St. Petersburg summarize the pan-African drive to finally get rid of exploitative neocolonialism.
President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki:
“They are printing money. They are not manufacturing anything at all, it’s printing money. This has been one of their weapons globally – the monetary system… sanctions here, sanctions there… We need a new financial architecture globally.”
President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, the face of a resurgent Global South and the world’s youngest leader:
“A slave that does not rebel does not deserve pity. The African Union (AU) must stop condemning Africans who decide to fight against their own puppet regimes of the West.”
President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni:
“One facet of neo-colonialism and colonialism was Africa being confined to producing only raw materials, crops, like coffee, and minerals (…) This issue is the biggest factor why the African economies are stunted; they do not grow, because all the value is taken by other people (…) So, what I want to propose to Russia and China is to discourage as a policy the importing of raw materials from Africa, to instead work with the Africans to add value at source.”
In a nutshell: pan-Africa should go all-out creating their own brands and value-added products, without waiting for “approval” from the West.
The South African drama
South Africa is an immensely complex case. Under extreme pressure from the usual suspects, Pretoria had already succumbed to the collective West hysteria related to Putin’s attendance of the upcoming BRICS summit, settling for the physical presence of Foreign Minister Lavrov and Putin via videoconference.
Then, during a personal meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa decided to speak in the name of all African leaders, thanking Russia for the offer of free grain, but stressing they had not come to “receive gifts; Africa proposes the return of the grain deal.”
Translation: this is not about free grain offered for several African nations; this is about Pretoria wanting to cash in on the deal, which privileges globalist oligarchs and their Kiev vassal.
Now compare it with the Russian position. Putin once again made it very clear: fulfill our demands and we return to the grain deal. Meanwhile, Russia remains a leader in wheat production – as it was before; and while prices keep rising on global markets, Moscow will share the income with the poorest African nations.
Tensions inside BRICS, as illustrated in this case, are painfully real, and come from the weakest nodes. For all the devious rhetoric, the fact is India and Brazil prefer BRICS+ to proceed slowly, as sherpas confirm off the record.
Among the over 40 nations – and counting – which are dying to become part of the club, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are very well positioned to be accepted in the first tier of BRICS+ members, unlike Argentina (which basically paid an IMF loan so it can continue to be paying IMF loans).
Reality is dictating the slow approach. Brasilia – under extreme pressure from the “Biden combo” – has a minimalistic margin of maneuver. And New Delhi is proposing first an “observer” status for prospective members, before full admission. Very much like in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose recent summit was decided by New Delhi to be held online. For a very simple reason: India did not want to sit on the same table with China.
What’s worrying is that the practical, gargantuan work schedule for both BRICS and the SCO is being slowed down by a toxic mix of internal squabbles and foreign interference. Yet the Russia-China strategic partnership must have anticipated it – and there are contingencies in place.
Essentially, broader discussions are accelerated while minor partners get their act together (or not…) What’s clear is that, for instance, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia possibly being admitted to BRICS+ will immediately change the internal balance of power, and the weak links will necessarily have to catch up.
EAEU to the rescue
St. Petersburg also demonstrated something crucial in the evolving multilateral organization front: the renewed importance of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU is fast expanding beyond Central Asia towards Southeast Asia (a free trade agreement with Indonesia is imminent), Africa and crucially, the DPRK: that was discussed in detail during Defense Minister Shoigu’s rock star welcome in Pyongyang.
All that spells out a road map like this: the EAEU in the vanguard, in parallel to China’s BRI (crucial forum coming up in Beijing in October) until BRICS+ and SCO gridlock is solved.
Only one BRICS member without which is impossible to build Eurasia integration has serious problems with China: India (and that includes rivalry for influence in Africa, West Asia and Central Asia).
Simultaneously, there’s only one BRICS member capable of influencing India: Russia.
Now that’s a challenge for the ages. Yet Moscow does have the potential – and the competence – for regulating the whole new, emerging system of international relations. The timing for implementing what will be in fact a new world system is now, and immediately ahead: from 2025 to 2030.
So Russia-India relations will arguably become the key to fully unlock BRICS+. Issues will include an iron-clad Russian oil road to India via Rosneft; solving the Afghanistan riddle (with Moscow keeping Beijing and New Delhi in sync); a more muscular presence within the SCO; closer security deliberations among the three Ministries of Defense; including Chinese and Indian observers in the Russia-Africa process; and all of the above micro-managed by Putin himself.
If China-India competition is already a big deal, we should expect it to become even more complex after 2030. So here’s Russia facing yet another primordial historical/cultural mission. This goes way beyond the Himalayas. It spans the full arc of China-India competition.
And don’t forget to call the Steel Kitten
It’s always immensely enlightening to follow BRICS-related analyses by Sergey Glazyev, the Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics at the EAEU’s Economic Commission.
Glazyev, in two major interviews, has confirmed that a “sanction-proof” BRICS digital unit of account is under discussion, based not only on BRICS national currencies but also a basket of commodities.
He also confirmed that “we” are working to establish an internal BRICS group to design and establish the new system (by the way, these discussions within the EAEU are way more advanced).
According to Glazyev, a payments system outside of SWIFT can be set up through a network of state-run digital currencies – not to be confused with cryptocurrencies backed only by private speculators.
Glazyev also forcefully defends the adoption of the digital ruble. He argues that’s the way to track blockchain transactions and prevent non-intended use of funds – as in diversion into speculative markets.
Apart from all the huge challenges, the optimal path ahead spells out EAEU and BRICS+ observing international law and slowly but surely building the payments system capable of circumventing massive imperial choke points. A new BRICS currency can wait. What matters is the evolution of so many interconnections as the new system’s infrastructure is being built.
And that brings us once again to North Korea.
The Shoigu visit de facto cleared the path for the DPRK to totally align with the Russia-China strategic partnership in the massive Eurasian integration/development/mutual security process.
Oh, the ironies of “post-everything” History. The Hegemon may have actually been trapped into destroying NATO as a credible military force just as Russia-China reinvigorated a major ally in Northeast Asia and the Far East – complete with nuclear power, ballistic missiles, and a hyper-productive industrial military complex.
So the Straussian neocon psychos want to expand their unwinnable Forever War to rabid hyena Poland and the Baltic chihuahuas? As in first we go to Moscow, then we take Beijing? Be our guest. But first be sure to place a call to Global South powerhouse DPRK. Steel Kitten Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, will be delighted.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 23:40 - US Buyers Shy Away From China Inc. With No Regrets
US Buyers Shy Away From China Inc. With No Regrets
By George Lei, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist
Chinese equities in July posted their best returns in six months, yet US-based investors have refrained from chasing the rally, according to data tracking flows into exchange-traded funds. They instead have bolstered stock holdings in other emerging markets, in contrast to Hong Kong-based investors whose purchases of onshore equities have reached a 23-week high.
The MSCI China Index was up 9.3% last month and rallied a total of 12.7% between June and July, the kind of performance unseen since the heyday of the reopening trade. On a 20-day basis, total purchases of mainland stocks from Hong Kong-based investors reached 49.2 billion yuan ($6.85 billion), the highest since February 23.
US buyers, in contrast, have largely soured on China Inc. since February. On a 20-day basis, the iShares MSCI China ETF saw total outflows of $75 million as of July 31, despite stimulus bets and stock-market rallies over the past two months. Meanwhile, the iShares MSCI EM ex-China ETF received constant inflows throughout the year, with the 20-day total reaching $369 million as of July 31.
MSCI’s China ETF now has assets of around $8.4 billion, 70% above that of the other fund. If present trends continue, however, the ETF dedicated to EM ex-China will eventually exceed the China fund in terms of assets under management in the coming years.
Recent rallies in Chinese stocks appear to be “mostly driven by short covering” and few global funds are “buying into China in any meaningful way yet,” Michael J. Oh, a San Francisco-based portfolio manager at Matthews Asia, told Bloomberg. “Beijing has said a lot of positive things but there’s still a lack of actions,” Oh noted.
US sanctions on some Chinese firms and other forms of regulatory crackdowns may have also scared away American investors. This week, a US House committee demanded information from BlackRock about the inclusion of Chinese companies in its funds, alleging facilitation of American investment into parts of China Inc. blacklisted by the White House. Similar requests were also made to MSCI. As President Joe Biden is reportedly planning for new curbs on US tech investment in China, American appetite for companies in the world’s second largest economy will only wane further.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 23:00 - Hollywood Is Completely Freaked Out Over AI
Hollywood Is Completely Freaked Out Over AI
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has put Hollywood creatives in a panic over fears that the technology will replace their jobs entirely.
AI has become a central issue as the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) enter into labor negotiations with studios, with the WGA asking studios to commit to not using AI for generating scripts or training large language models such as ChatGPT to produce variations of their work.
“They wouldn’t even discuss it with us, and that made us worried,” said LA comedian, Adam Conover, in a statement to Bloomberg. “It made me say, ‘Oh, these people actually are planning to use it to try to undermine us.’”
Conover picketing in front of Netflix headquarters in Los Angeles on July 17. Photographer: Sam Santos/Shutterstock Creatives in the industry already say that they aren’t banking enough from streaming services and that technology companies exploit their labor. Now they fear AI will eliminate their jobs entirely, replacing their voices and faces with computer-generated renditions. AI is already being used to create marketing materials, eliminate swear words and reduce the cost of visual effects.
Studios, meanwhile, have been hesitant to commit to rules governing the technology.
Meanwhile, the potential for AI to replace human actors with CGI renditions has also become a major point of contention in the most significant labor dispute in 60 years, as both actors and writers strike at the same time, shutting down several TV and film productions.
Studio executives have dismissed the threat of AI as overstated, however they do acknowledge that it does offer cost savings amid declining revenue streams and efforts to cut costs. The technology can save costs in postproduction, while companies such as Flawless AI are offering AI-based solutions for ‘enhancing’ actor performances or dubbing dialogue in any language.
“Human performance will persist, but how we make content will change drastically,” said Tom Graham, co-founder of AI deepfake pros Metaphysic.
Almost every major studio already uses AI in some capacity, even if it’s not talked about. Many work with a company near the beach in Santa Monica called Flawless, which offers a suite of postproduction tools that save time and money.
DeepEditor, for example, lets filmmakers move an actor’s performance from one shot to another. If you have Margot Robbie talking behind a desk, say, you can decide to show her from a different angle without needing more takes. AI Reshoot lets filmmakers replace dialogue, as long as they have audio of the actor speaking the words. TrueSync allows for dubbing in any language; filmmakers can adjust the movement of an actor’s mouth to make it look as if they’re speaking the foreign words accurately. -Bloomberg
So with the industry shifting towards the use of AI, creatives are demanding guarantees on consent, control and compensation when it’s employed.
Another issue AI raises is that of copyrights and infringement. Both deepfake technology and generative AI (script writing) raise concerns over the unauthorized use of actors’ likenesses and intellectual property. Currently, Getty Images is suing Stability AI for allegedly using copyrighted works without permission.
Acording to Hillary Krane, chief legal officer at Hollywood talent agency CAA, people have rights to control the publicity of their name, image and likeness, but “the speed of technology is undermining our ability to effectively enforce those rights.“
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 22:40 - The Corruption Of Science By Politics
The Corruption Of Science By Politics
Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times Newsletter,
Been to the movies lately? Maybe you are trying them out again. They seemed to have improved under the desperate desire to get audiences back.
I know there are reasonable criticisms but I found “Barbie” to be fun, if only because it completely ignored the last 20 years of gender dysphoria and asserted bracing but welcome sex binary.
“Mission Impossible” was a blast too but we’ve come to expect that from this franchise. Unexpected is “The Sound of Freedom” which is a terrifying expose of contemporary issues that, for reasons which are unclear, is a film utterly despised by the left.
We should talk about “Oppenheimer.” It’s about many things but ultimately the theme concerns the use and abuse of science in service of state power.
The U.S. government tapped a promising physicist to build a better bomb. Once two years and $2 billion were consumed in the great project, it needed to be deployed, whether necessary to win the war or not. Germany was already defeated and Japan was ready to surrender but the chance to demonstrate to the world the superior military might of the United States was too good to pass up.
J. Robert Oppenheimer swallowed his moral scruples about the bombings in Japan—he thought the bomb would be used against Nazis—that cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. But he drew the line at pushing for the hydrogen bomb or building even more of the bombs he built. He became an advocate for arms control in order to avoid an escalation with the Soviet Union.
At this point, he was hounded by Washington for his personal Russian relationships that included dalliances with communists. So yes, his benefactor the state turned on him, exactly as the film depicts Albert Einstein predicting to him.
Later of course his reputation was restored. And this movie goes a very long way to memorialize him as a complicated but brilliant man.
One feature of the film I found particularly valuable was explaining the extremely strange relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union in these years. Following the Great War, there was a massive Red Scare in this country from 1918 to 1923, and that included Congressional hearings, censorship, and new sedition legislation that is today being used by the Biden administration against Trump and his supporters.
During the New Deal, which amounted to a rejection of free-enterprise dynamics of the American spirit, President Roosevelt brought into his administration many admirers of Soviet “achievements” in agriculture and housing. Among them was the hugely influential Rex Tugwell, an economist who embraced central planning and crafted much of the legislation in those years that cartelized industry, controlled prices, and embarked on Soviet-style projects.
This is one reason that champions of freedom in those days despised the New Deal. Reds were all over Washington. And despite the legend, their policies did not release the United States from the grip of depression but only prolonged it with controls, spending, regulation, and subsidies.
Yes, I know, we’ll never get rid of the myth that the New Deal saved us but the reality is that the Depression lasted through the next war and didn’t really end until peace came in 1945 and following.
But step back a few years in time. When the United States entered World War II, the U.S. and Russia became allies, and FDR and Stalin became fast friends in the effort to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan. It was “Roosevelt’s Road to Russia” that was completed in this alliance. During those days, there was no danger for scientists and others in having communist and Red connections but rather quite the reverse.
After the war, there was another switcheroo. President Harry Truman was facing party losses in Congress and cleverly triangulated by ramping up the Red Scare again. In 1948, the communists won an election in Greece, and this was highlighted in the United States as evidence of a growing imperialism under the influence of Moscow.
In the blink of an eye, Russia went from valiant ally to feared enemy. And this was a decade and a half after the United States went from feared enemy to valuable domestic influence. And this was only a decade and a half after Russia went from friend of the West to feared enemy. Yep, in the course of a half-century, the switch happened three times.
Did you ever wonder why George Orwell’s book “1984” was so named? It was a spin on 1948 when the Cold War began and within an instant the public mind flipped from celebrating to hating an entire nation. This is why in the book, international relations between Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia were in continued flux. With each change, the announcement went out that we’ve always been at war with whomever the ruling class wanted war with next.
At the end of the Cold War, the United States celebrated emancipation in Russia and the demise of the Soviet Union and trade relations picked up. But sure enough, two and a half decades later, mainstream media—the same voices who once favored arms control and peace during the Cold War—is agitating for war with Russia. As in Orwell’s book, they tell us that we’ve always been at war with Russia.
The same crowd that agitated for decades for peace with Russia now wants all-out war!
In any case, this is the larger historical context in which Oppenheimer was grilled for his communist connections and why he went from friend to enemy so quickly. It was all about regime priorities. They have exerted more influence on science in modern times than we care to admit.
Let’s explore a case from the science of economics.
When the American Economic Association was founded in 1885, one of its first publications was an utterly vicious and disgraceful tract that favored segregation, white supremacy, eugenics, and much worse, not only for blacks but also for southern Italians, Jews, and Slavs, if you can believe it.
This deployment of fake science kept up for decades in all the mainstream economics textbooks and journals. It didn’t really end until after the Second World War. This is a tragic history because economics as a science began in the late Middle Ages with an emancipatory spirit. It was corrupted in the United States during the 20th century by state influence.
And so it has been throughout the century. This impacts every discipline from physics to economics to engineering to climatology.
Speaking of which, the founder of climatology in America is Harvard professor Robert DeCourcy Ward (1867–1931). He was a consummate member of the academic establishment. He was a founder of the American Restriction League, one of the first organizations to advocate a “scientific” approach to immigration rooted in Darwinian evolutionary theory and the policy of eugenics.
“Darwin and his followers laid the foundation of the science of eugenics,” Ward alleged in his manifesto published in the North American Review in July 1910. “Why,” Ward demanded, “should the breeding of man, the most important animal of all, alone be left to chance?”
By “chance,” of course, he meant choice. Ward explained that the United States had a “remarkably favorable opportunity for practicing eugenic principles.” And there was a desperate need to do so, because “already we have not hundreds of thousands, but millions of Italians and Slavs and Jews whose blood is going into the new American race.”
Thus are the thoughts of the earliest Harvard climatologist. And his successors have not distanced themselves from state priorities either, as you can easily discover by picking up today’s newspapers.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 22:20 - Watch: Jill Biden's Ex-Husband Breaks Silence Over "Very Dangerous Biden Crime Family"
Watch: Jill Biden’s Ex-Husband Breaks Silence Over “Very Dangerous Biden Crime Family”
The ex-husband of First Lady Jill Biden has broken his silence to speak out against the “Biden crime family” for “targeting” he and Donald Trump.
Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden between 1970 and 1975, told Newsmax last week that the president’s brother, Frankie Biden, tried to intimidate him during his divorce with Jill, and claimed the family threatened him with repercussions.
“Frankie Biden of the Biden crime family comes up to me and he goes, “Give her the house or you’re going to have serious problems,”” Stevenson said. “I looked at Frankie and I said, “Are you threatening me?” and needless to say, about two months later, my brother and I were indicted for that tax charge for $8,200.”
When asked to clarify whether he thinks Joe Biden was behind the tax charge, Stevenson told host Greg Kelly: “I not only think it, but I know it,” adding that he “could not believe the power of Joe Biden and the Department of Justice. I couldn’t believe it.”
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Kelly also noted the parallels between Stevenson’s case and Hunter Biden’s ongoing tax troubles – noting that Hunter was hit with just two misdemeanor counts for $2.2 million in unpaid taxes, while Stevenson and his brother were slapped with two felonies for just over $8,000 in unpaid taxes.
“It’s hard to believe what they’re doing to President Trump right now, and that’s why I came to you,” said Stevenson, 75. “He is doing the exact same thing.”
“I was on the wrong side of them, and they have literally come after me for 35 years in a row. One little thing after another,” he continued. “I can’t let them do this to a president that I love and respect. I can’t let them do this to our country.”
“This is the only reason I’ve come forward. It’s like I said, nothing about the divorce, no bitterness, but Jimmy, Frankie, and President Biden are very dangerous, and it’s tragic. I can’t let them do what they did to me to President Trump. I can’t do it,” he added.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 22:00 - Meat Consumption And Longevity
Meat Consumption And Longevity
Authored by Sally Fallon Morell via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
In February of last year, the International Journal of General Medicine published a study that was easy to miss, as no major media publication reported on “Total Meat Intake is Associated with Life Expectancy: A Cross-Sectional Data Analysis of 175 Contemporary Populations,” by Wenpeng You and his team of researchers.
For years we have heard that the secret to a long life is to cut back on meat consumption and increase our intake of carbs—advice that is enshrined in the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But that’s not what these researchers found.
You and his team analyzed data from 175 countries and territories—in other words, almost the whole world—and used various statistical methods to “explore and compare the correlations between newborn life expectancy … life expectancy at five years of life … and intakes of meat, and carbohydrate crops, respectively. The established risk factors to life expectancy—caloric intake, urbanization, obesity and education levels—were included as the potential confounders.”
The researchers found that worldwide, meat intake was associated with a longer life. “This relationship remained significant when influences of caloric intake, urbanization, obesity, education and carbohydrate crops were statistically controlled.” By contrast, consumption of carbohydrates had a weak but negative correlation with life expectancy.
Blue Zones and Meat Consumption
You may be wondering about the “blue zone” areas of the world—those with a high percentage of centenarians. According to Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones, Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,” the key to a long life is to minimize meat consumption and eat plenty of vegetables.
Don’t the long-lived people living in the blue zones eat a mostly plant-based diet?
Well, actually, no. For example, in Sardinia, Mr. Buettner’s first noted blue zone, meat consumption is higher among the long-lived peasants living in the mountains than those living in the valleys, according to a 2015 study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Say the authors:
“The identification of a hot spot of exceptional longevity, the Longevity Blue Zone (LBZ), in the mountain population of Sardinia has aroused considerable interest toward its traditional food as one of the potential causal factors … Up to a short time ago, the LBZ population depended mostly upon livestock rearing, and consumption of animal-derived foods was relatively higher than in the rest of the island.” [emphasis added]
For Okinawa, his second listed blue zone, Mr. Buettner insists that “Older Okinawans have eaten a plant-based diet most of their lives. Their meals of stir-fried vegetables, sweet potatoes and tofu are high in nutrients and low in calories.” However, that’s not what researchers found in a 1992 study comparing the diets of mainland Japanese and those living on the island of Okinawa.
They found that the proportion of the diet from protein and fats—mainly pork and pork fat, but also fish—was higher in Okinawa. Another fact: the Okinawans love Spam—consuming more than one can per person per week—for a total of just over seven million cans of canned pork annually. Spam is the kind of “fatty, processed meat” that Buettner warns against.
Moving on to the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica—an area teaming with cattle, goats, and pigs—folks there also love their lard. A 2013 study of the region found that the older Nicoyans ate more fish, more meat, and more saturated fat (from lard) than inhabitants of other regions in Costa Rica. They are also fond of a stew based on organ meats called “sustancia.”
In the blue zone of Ikaria, Greece, Buettner describes the diet as plant-based with a “low intake of saturated fats from meat and dairy.” Yet the islanders consume lots of goat and sheep dairy products, which are very high in saturated fat—and as is the custom throughout Greece—they frequently consume fatty lamb.
As for the Loma Linda, California, Seventh Day Adventists—Buettner’s fifth and final blue zone—it’s not clear that there are many centenarians in the population, but studies on these Adventists indicate that the men live 7.3 years longer and the women live 4.4 years longer compared to other Californians. However, very few Adventists (about 4 percent) follow a vegan diet, and as a group, they avoid alcohol, drugs, caffeine, and junk food—compared with Californians as a whole—who tend to consume alcohol, sodas, junk food, coffee, and drugs.
Which world population has the longest lifespan? The answer is surprising: bustling, crowded, polluted Hong Kong! According to United Nations data, the life expectancy in Hong Kong is 82.38 years for men and 88.17 years for women. Another surprise: Inhabitants of Hong Kong have the highest consumption of meat and dairy foods in the world, at 500 grams (over one pound) of meat and 281 grams (almost ten ounces) of dairy products per day.
Yet Another Media-Ignored Study on the Benefits of Meat
I am reminded of an important study, described in The Guardian, carried out almost twenty years ago—also ignored by the media—which showed just how important meat is for growing children.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 21:40 - Biden Admin Gives Up On Refilling Strategic Petroleum Reserve Due To "Market Conditions"
Biden Admin Gives Up On Refilling Strategic Petroleum Reserve Due To “Market Conditions”
Update: You cannot make this shit up. Minutes after the biggest weekly crude draw in API history, with gasoline prices at 2023 highs and with wholesales gasoline prices exploding higher (guaranteeing that retail pump pries are set to soar), the Biden administration just gave up on its efforts to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, something we had joked about literally moments earlier.
Just. Perfect. Timing
*US SPURNS ANOTHER ROUND OF OFFERS TO REPLENISH OIL STOCKPILE https://t.co/RV9f9kXC5I
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2023
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As a reminder, the Biden admin has been drawing down on the SPR for the last 14 weeks and – despite all the promises – has not refilled the “STRATEGIC”
politicalpetroleum reserve one little bit.
So yeah: just 3 weeks after the DOE said it would buy a “whopping” 6 million barrels of sour crude – an amount which the SPR drained every 2 weeks for much of the past year – the Biden administration pulled said offer, an Energy Department spokesperson said on Tuesday, as oil prices are expected to keep rising after a output cut from Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. made the latest solicitation to buy the sour crude oil for the SPR on July 7, and follows the release of a record 180 million barrels from the reserve last year to prevent a Democrat rout in the midterms following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Having vowed it would refill the SPR eventually, the Energy Department bought back 6.3 million barrels in recent month… and that appears to be it.
The move was not a rejection of oil companies’ offers to sell oil to the SPR but a decision made on “market conditions,” the spokesperson said. The person not specify what that meant, but tight oil supplies that have caused global oil prices to rise above $80 per barrel in recent weeks. Of course, by refusing to refill now, it only ensures that when the need truly arises, Biden, or rather his successor, will be forced to buy the oil at triple digits.
hey @SecGranholm how’s that SPR refill coming? We gonna buy very, very high?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2023
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Translation: $65 was too cheap, we’d rather wait until oil is $130 https://t.co/wYlcciUiof
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2023
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To be sure, the Energy Department headed by the consummately incompetent Jennifer Granholm said that it “remains committed to its replenishment strategy for the SPR” which includes direct purchases, returns of oil that was loaned to companies in the wake of hurricanes and other supply disruptions, and cancellation of planned sales where drawdown is unnecessary, in coordination with Congress.
What it really means is that the only time the SPR can possibly be refilled is when the US economy plunges into a crippling recession when Bidenomics crashes and burns the moment Biden’s $1+ trillion stimmy no longer flies.
Oil prices are expected to surge in coming months after Saudi Arabia said it would cut output by 1 million barrels per day starting in July, on top of other cuts from eight OPEC+ countries announced in April. Banks such a Goldman predict that oil is facing a deficit of as much as 2mmb/d in the next two months, practically assuring triple digit oil returns in weeks if not days, and forces the Fed to hike much more.
Meanwhile, the in a gift to refiners, the 3-2-1 crack spread is blowing out.
As a reminder, when one product spread is blowing out, the market is saying that there needs to be more output of said product. When all spreads are blowing out simultaneously, that may be the market’s way of signaling it needs more refining capacity to satisfy growing product demand.
We are seeing more of the latter (as Jet Fuel and Diesel cracks are also blowing out).
* * *
Oil prices gave back some of the recent solid gains today despite OPEC’s crude production tumbled by the most in three years as Saudi Arabia implemented a deeper cutback in a bid to shore up global markets, as dollar strength weighed on crude prices (and weak PMIs threatened demand outlooks).
“The OPEC+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee will meet online on Friday, providing Saudi Arabia an excellent opportunity to roll its voluntary 1 million bpd production cut announced on June 3 for July production for another month to September. It would be the second time the Saudis have extended the voluntary 1 million bpd production cut. There is speculation that another 1 million roll forward could slow the global war on inflation, and kill the “golden goose,” especially heading into the end of summer driving season, and the beginning of shoulder season,” Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities USA, wrote in a Monday note.
Volumes also remain muted in light summer trading, while volatility is at the lowest since January 2020.
Expectations were for more inventory draws after last week’s across-the-board drop…
API
-
Crude -15.4mm (-1.3mm exp) – biggest weekly draw on record
-
Cushing -1.76mm
-
Gasoline -1.68mm (-1.3mm exp)
-
Distillates -512k (-100k exp)
Umm… API reports that Crude stocks fell 15.4mm barrels last week (yes 15.4!!!) – over 10x expectations. Product inventories also fell as did stocks at the Cushing Hub.
Source: Bloomberg
If that holds for the official data released tomorrow that will be the biggest weekly draw in the data’s history (back to 1982)
Source: Bloomberg
WTI was hovering around $81.60 ahead of the API report (well off the day’s lows) and bounced on the massive draw into the green for the day, back above $82…
Back up to 2023 highs…
“Oil remains one of the most attractive trades and buyers will likely emerge on every dip,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda,in a note.
Shit’s about to get real for Mr. Biden…
Unleash the SPR again?
he’s back pic.twitter.com/5CtEVpiExl
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2023
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 21:30 -
- JetBlue Joins Chorus Of Airlines Warning About Slipping Demand
JetBlue Joins Chorus Of Airlines Warning About Slipping Demand
We recently penned an article titled “Airline Stocks Encounter Turbulence as Alaska Air Indicates Waning Demand,” followed by “Air Travel Bubble Might Be In A Stall.” Now, several US airline carriers are warning about a deceleration in domestic air travel demand.
JetBlue Airways Corp. is the latest to slash its full-year profit forecast over signs of sliding US travel demand:
“We are updating our full-year earnings outlook to reflect near-term headwinds related to the termination of the NEA, a challenging operating environment in the northeast and a greater than expected shift of pent-up Covid demand to long-haul international markets which is pressuring demand for domestic travel during the peak summer travel period,” President/COO Joanna Geraghty wrote in a statement.
“The guidance is extremely disappointing,” Helane Becker, a TD Cowen analyst, told clients.
Becker continued, “The current revenue environment where domestic fares are trending lower is driving the big reduction in earnings expectations.”
JetBlue said it would earn less due to sliding demand in the third quarter than analysts expected. It joins Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines, who warned last week about waning demand.
According to tech firm Bloomberg Second Measure, which tracked credit and debit card transactions made with airline carriers, such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue, card data for the second quarter showed a decline across all carriers tracked for the first time since Covid.
This might be an early sign that ‘revenge travel’ has passed the peak, and consumers are reducing travel, like other discretionary purchases, including electronics, apparel, and restaurants, as financial conditions tighten.
In a separate note, Bloomberg believes airlines risk a hard landing after the summer travel surge: “Jam-packed airports, elevated ticket prices and cheery commentary from corporate executives all pointed to strong demand for air travel this summer, helping airline stocks stage a torrid rally heading into the second-quarter earnings. But the road ahead now is starting to look bumpy now.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 21:20 - Democrats Beg Biden To Declare Emergency As Illegal Immigrants Flood NYC
Democrats Beg Biden To Declare Emergency As Illegal Immigrants Flood NYC
Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Fifty-four elected officials in New York City have sent a letter to President Joe Biden to address the influx of illegal immigrants in the city, asking him to declare a federal state of emergency so that the illegal immigrants can legally work in the country.
“We are elected officials from New York City requesting your help. Our City is experiencing an unprecedented migrant influx, with a surge of asylum seekers arriving here in numbers never seen before in history. Our City is at a breaking point,” wrote New York City Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.
“We take pride in New York being a beacon of hope for immigrants, but the influx of migrants is so great that the City is running out of resources. New York City is being forced to reduce services for its people.”
Since Spring of 2022, buses of illegal immigrants, sent from the southern border in Texas, have arrived regularly in the city. Many are asylum seekers from Venezuela escaping the socialist country’s economic collapse, and New York elected officials have welcomed them.
While the self-declared “sanctuary city” already had difficulties housing its 60,000-plus homeless population, officials set about finding housing for tens of thousands of asylum seekers.
By October 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in the city. According to his office, the illegal immigrant influx could nearly double the number of people the already overtaxed shelter system needed to serve, and cost $1 billion within a fiscal year.
“We need help, and we need it now,” Mr. Adams said. “New York City is doing our part, and now others must step up and join us.”
Emergency Powers
Last week, the city announced it would set up a shelter for 1,000 illegal immigrants in the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital. The special use case was made possible by the state of emergency, which allows for use of additional resources without additional red tape.
A federal state of emergency would allow federal agencies to work with and fund the housing and services for the illegal immigrants.
“The federal government could then provide migrants with assistance such as shelter, food relief, healthcare, legal aid, and transportation,” Ms. Rajkumar wrote in her letter.
The 54 Democrat lawmakers also requested that the Biden administration allow the illegal immigrants to work in the country.
“The federal government must expedite the issuance of Employment Authorization Documents. It is a common sense and bi-partisan fix. Asylum seekers are arriving eager to work, and our Nation has 10 million job openings with 3.5 million fewer people in the workforce than projected pre-pandemic,” the letter reads. “We ask that the White House take executive actions to expedite work authorization, such as classifying asylum seekers as refugees, expanding Temporary Protected Status, increasing access to humanitarian parole, and surging the number of officers processing asylum claims.”
The letter makes no reference to curbing the number of illegal immigrants entering the country or city, nor does it differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants. It instead makes requests that the federal government make it simpler for them to cross the southern border illegally, and to relocate them in all parts of the country, while providing additional funding for New York City.
The city has already received $104.6 million through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which the lawmakers say equates to just 13 days of relief.
The city expects to have spent $4.3 billion by June 2024.
“While we welcome immigrants to our City, the current unstructured state of immigration policy and response needs to end. There needs to be a system of rules in place to manage the migrant crisis,” the letter reads. “That is why we are pleading for the White House to step in a take leadership over the influx of asylum seekers.”
“We believe that with your leadership, we can turn this crisis into opportunity and that this can become one of history’s greatest success stories.”
Housing Crisis
The city is currently sheltering about 52,000 illegal immigrants, and officials say more continue to arrive by the week.
As a “sanctuary” city, New York is one of several across the country now that have declared it will not cooperate with federal authorities to arrest and deport illegal immigrants.
The city’s “right to shelter” law mandates that homeless families must be given a bed the same day, and adults within a day. As the city runs out of beds, it is scrambling to create temporary shelter spaces wherever possible, be it a hospital parking lot, airplane hangars, parks, or a racetrack.
Most of these ideas have been met with strong pushback from communities. City residents, who are already feeling the housing crunch and are unable to find permanent housing of their own, have been shocked by city plans to turn their gyms, schools, and parks into housing for the illegal immigrants.
The city had plans to further bus illegal immigrants north of the city, but local officials in those areas quickly pushed back. For the most part, the city is attempting to find the necessary amount of shelter with city resources. If the numbers continue to increase, exacerbating the issue and prompting federal intervention, the trend could be unlikely to reverse.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 21:00 - Watch: Trudeau Loses It After Being Asked A Simple Question About Seeking Peace In Ukraine
Watch: Trudeau Loses It After Being Asked A Simple Question About Seeking Peace In Ukraine
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been holding cross-country town halls for the past many weeks, while presenting himself as a “man of the people”—as these events are giving ordinary Canadians a rare chance to ask him unvetted questions. But apparently you’d better ask the “right” questions, or else he’ll blow up and attack you personally as the questioner. A new clip has surfaced of a recent exchange centered on a very legitimate question from an audience member about Ukraine, and Canada’s refusal to push for peace.
Prominent Canadian political commentator Stephen McIntyre presented the town hall video on Twitter, while providing the following context to the back-and-forth between audience member “Michael” and PM Trudeau:
Someone asks why Canada hasn’t put forward a peace proposal to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, even if Trudeau disagreed with the question, his knee jerk reaction is to say “Am going to call you out” and says the individual has been swayed by Russian propaganda and disinformation. Chilling and Orwellian.
Town hall audience member Michael asks PMJT an earnest question about the war in Ukraine.
In response, Trudeau accuses him of proliferating “Russian propaganda and disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/SGdug2hgzP
— The Amazing Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) August 1, 2023
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Of course, Michael the audience member didn’t so much as “pick sides” or express some kind of admiration for the Russian side or Putin. Instead, he merely asked about the prospect for peace, and why Trudeau’s government wasn’t doing more to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table.
Michael began his question with, “Canada is traditionally known for advocating for peace, I know we’re a member of NATO, but I know we don’t have a nuclear weapon.” The above clip is edited (see fuller clip below), but Michael at one point explained that the conflict has become a full-blown “proxy war”, posing immense danger for uncontrollable escalation.
And then he posed to Trudeau: “Why has your government failed to draft a peace proposal to end this war in Ukraine?” The audience member explained that Canada should be exhausting all diplomatic channels instead of escalating while following Washington’s policies of escalation.
The prime minister immediately took a condescending tone and posture: “Am going to call you out!” he told Michael. Included in his essentially ‘non-response’ to the actual question, Trudeau called the audience member “totally wrong” before charging that his words and perspective were all coming from “Russian propaganda and disinformation”.
Here’s the fuller clip of the exchange…
Here is the full and mostly complete clip for additional context. Michael does in fact – and accurately – use the term proxy war. “Proxy war” is defined as “a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.” pic.twitter.com/fNiH3ObvQR
— The Amazing Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) August 1, 2023
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What more can be said of this truly downright Orwellian silencing of speech and legitimate questioning of top decision-makers…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 20:40 - New Research Validates Autism's Link To Gut
New Research Validates Autism’s Link To Gut
Authored by Amy Denny via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Researchers have identified a microbial signature for autism spectrum disorder, a critical finding that offers clarity about how the gut microbiome influences this neurological syndrome.
The data-driven study published by 43 researchers challenges the idea that autism is a primarily genetic condition and suggests that environmental factors may be behind the sharp rise in the debilitating condition.
The trillions of microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms) that populate the gut microbiome are the basis of that microbial signature. Other research has found that having more microbes and greater diversity is associated with health and lower disease risk. Among other tasks, gut bacteria metabolize fiber and create metabolites that facilitate digestion, brain functions, and more.
The study involved reanalyzing 25 previously published datasets to find autism-specific metabolic pathways that could be linked to particular gut microbes. Originated at the Simons Foundation’s Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), the meta-analysis was published on June 26 in Nature Neuroscience and aligns with a recent long-term study of microbiome-focused treatment on 18 people with autism who exhibited improvement in both gut and brain symptoms.
“It provides further evidence that the microbiome is altered in autism and that it relates to alterations in biochemistry and that those alterations can affect GI [gastrointestinal] and neurological functioning,” James Adams, professor at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, told The Epoch Times. He’s been studying the gut–autism link for 20 years and is co-author of the study of 18 people highlighted in the new research.
The Growing Shadow of Autism
No single cause has been found for autism spectrum disorder, which is a heterogeneous condition displaying genetic, physiological, and behavioral patterns. It’s usually diagnosed in childhood and now affects 1 in 36 children, up from 1 in 44 just two years ago.
The obstacles to studying autism include difficulty testing children who have severe cases and difficulty observing signs and symptoms in subjects. The fact that it’s a neurological condition makes it more difficult to study.
Combined with the vastness of the microbiome, that has made it difficult and controversial to quantify the role gastrointestinal problems play in autism. One goal of the study was to forge consensus on this relationship, Jamie Morton, one of the study’s corresponding authors and an independent consultant, told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Morton said researchers were surprised at the connections observed when they applied an algorithm to the data. They put autistic and neurotypical controls side by side to look for such traits as gene expression, immune system response, and diet.
“What was startling was how strong the signal was. After running our analysis, you could just see it pop off from the raw data,” Mr. Morton said. “We hadn’t seen this kind of clear overlap between gut microbial and human metabolic pathways in autism before.”
A “pathway” is a biochemical process of linked reactions whereby one molecule is processed into another, or compounds are changed in a series of processes to deliver a certain substance to a certain place in the body. For example, you may eat a certain vitamin or compound that gets digested into other molecules that get changed into other molecules through cellular processes until they eventually reach your brain as a specific neurotransmitter.
Researchers said the new information paves the way for precise treatment-focused research on manipulation of the microbiome. The ability to use stool analysis to see how patients respond to specific interventions over time can shape future studies and, ultimately, clinical care.
“What’s significant about this work is not only the identification of major signatures, but also the computational analysis that identified the need for future studies to include longitudinal, carefully designed measurements and controls to enable robust interpretation,” Kelsey Martin, executive vice president of SFARI and the Simons Foundation Neuroscience Collaborations, said in a SFARI statement.
Study Specifics
The meta-analysis compared 600 pairs of children; each pair consisted of a child with autism and a neurotypical control of the same age and sex. Each pair was analyzed and compared using novel computational methodologies so the researchers could identify microbes with differing abundances between the two groups.
There were 95 metabolic pathways differentially expressed in the brains of autistic subjects that had corresponding microbial pathways. “Pathways related to amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and lipid metabolism were disproportionately represented among the overlapping pathways,” the study reads.
Functionally, those pathways were confirmed with microbial species in the genera of Prevotella, Bifidobacterium, Desulfovibrio, and Bacteroides. And they are associated with brain gene expression changes, restrictive dietary patterns, and pro-inflammatory cytokine profiles.
The study’s inclusion of the 2019 long-term fecal microbiota transplant study led by Mr. Adams and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown makes the evidence more robust.
“Another set of eyes looked at this, from a different lens, and they validated our findings,” Ms. Krajmalnik-Brown said of the meta-analysis in the statement.
The Adams and Krajmalnik-Brown study was also published in Nature and noted lower overall microbial diversity and reduced Prevotella copri and Bifidobacterium in children with autism.
The original study treated 18 children with a microbial transfer therapy that included two weeks of treatment with the powerful antibiotic vancomycin, a bowel cleanse, one initial high dose and 10 weeks of daily low doses of microbial transfers along with a low-dose stomach-acid suppressant.
Essentially, subjects had their gut microbiome cleared out and received a new one from a transplant of healthy donor stool. The results included an 80-percent reduction in GI symptoms and a slow, steady improvement in autism symptoms. The two-year follow-up of the same cohort showed that children in the severe range of autism had significantly decreased symptoms and that beneficial bacteria remained high.
Validation
The meta-analysis provides large-scale confirmation of a theory that many clinicians and researchers have had for years based on studies and observational evidence.
“They’re adding credibility to gut treatment with autistic kids. We’ve been treating autistic kids for decades on the gut, and we’ve had a lot of mainstream criticism for it,” Dr. Armen Nikogosian, a medical and functional doctor who specializes in autism care, told The Epoch Times. “That being said, we certainly haven’t figured it all out, but we knew there was a clear connection between the gut and the brain of the autistic child.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 20:20 - Will The Fed's New Digital Payment System Pave Way For Social Engineering?
Will The Fed’s New Digital Payment System Pave Way For Social Engineering?
Authored by Stefan Gleason via Headline USA,
Last week, the Federal Reserve launched a new payment processing system dubbed “FedNow.”
Federal Reserve / PHOTO: AP Officials say FedNow will allow individuals and businesses to initiate instant funds transfers between banks. Critics warn that FedNow could be a prelude to central bank digital currency (CBDC) that threatens financial privacy and freedom.
Fund transfers between banks made through FedNow will settle directly in accounts at the central bank. Once Fed accounts become widely adopted and used for payments, critics fear it’s only one additional step to convert the “dollars” used in transactions into “FedCoin”—a proposed digital token to be issued directly by the central bank.
To be sure, similar arguments could be used to justify a CBDC as have been made with FedNow, e.g., it will improve the speed, efficiency and reliability of payments.
However, the FedNow system is really just a major upgrade to the highly deficient ACH payment system that has limped along for decades, with its very slow clearing time, lack of fraud prevention and other problems.
Concerns about FedNow appear to be overblown, and FedNow should not be conflated with totalitarian CBDC schemes. Here is what Emile Phaneuf of the American Institute for Economic Research writes on the risks of CBDCs:
Risks CBDCs present include the loss of settlement finality that comes with physical cash (as abandoning cash accompanies the push for CBDCs), loss of financial privacy, easy seizure of assets, loss of the ability to resolve problems at a local level with a commercial bank (as it would be doubtful that a central bank would come to be known for its customer service) …
…outright prohibition on spending or purchase limits with certain merchants or on certain products, and (perhaps most importantly) the paradigm shift from money as an exercise of economic freedom to one of social engineering by central banks and their respective governments.
The latter could manifest itself in various ways, including (to name just a few) negative interest rates (essentially a confiscation of one’s savings), the expiry of one’s money (with a date determined by the issuing central bank or its government) — or even discouraging the consumption of products like gasoline, plane tickets or red meat in order to enforce a climate agenda.
The weaponization of the monetary system for social-engineering purposes has been in the works for decades. The abandonment of hard currency, backed by physical gold and silver, gave politicians and central bankers the power to manipulate the supply and value of the currency for their own ends.
Under a fiat currency regime, central planners arbitrarily try to determine how much inflation (i.e., currency depreciation) to inflict on the economy.
Under the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, central bankers are supposed to ensure “price stability.” Instead, they openly flout that mandate, redefining “stable prices” as annual price inflation of 2%. Of course, the Fed is failing even to deliver on that objective by allowing inflation to run much hotter than 2%!
Those who wish to preserve their purchasing power over time while protecting their financial privacy should beware of central bankers’ new campaign to promote digital Fed accounts.
Hard money (gold and silver) held outside the banking system remains the soundest alternative to fiat currency in all its manifestations.
Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the company recently named “Best Overall Online Precious Metals Dealer” by Investopedia. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC and in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, and Seeking Alpha.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 19:40 - Mexico Demands Russia's Participation In Saudi-Hosted Ukraine Talks
Mexico Demands Russia’s Participation In Saudi-Hosted Ukraine Talks
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that his country would attend talks on Ukraine that are set to be held in Saudi Arabia this weekend only if Russia is invited.
“If there’s acceptance from both Ukraine and Russia to look for solutions to achieve peace, we’ll participate,” Lopez Obrador said, according to Reuters. “We don’t want the Russia-Ukraine war to continue, it’s very irrational … The only thing that benefits from it is the war industry.”
While being billed as peace talks, Russia has not been invited to the summit in Saudi Arabia. Nations that are not aligned with the US and NATO on the war have been invited, including India, Brazil, and China, but it’s not clear at this point which countries will attend.
Ukraine and its Western backers intend to use the summit to try and convince non-aligned nations to adopt Kyiv’s demands for peace, which include a full Russian withdrawal from all territory that’s been captured, a non-starter for negotiations with Moscow.
Ukraine is also demanding Russia cede Crimea, which has been controlled by Moscow since 2014 and is populated by people who are happy they are part of the Russian Federation.
For their part, Russia insists any future peace deal must recognize the territory it has annexed in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhzhia, demonstrating how far apart the two sides are. Russia said that it would monitor the talks in Saudi Arabia this weekend.
“Undoubtedly, Russia will keep an eye on this meeting. We’d have to fully understand what goals are being set and what the organizers actually plan to talk about. We have repeatedly said that any attempts to somehow contribute to a peaceful settlement deserve a positive assessment,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
President AMLO says Mexico will only participate in Saudi Arabia’s Ukraine peace summit if Russia is also present pic.twitter.com/NhSOZTQzqg
— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) July 31, 2023
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Peskov added that a peace deal with the Ukrainian government at this time was “impossible” as long as Ukraine is “used exclusively as a tool in the collective West’s war against Russia.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 19:20 - JPMorgan Processed $1.1 Million From Jeffrey Epstein To "Girls Or Women" Despite Firing Him As Client
JPMorgan Processed $1.1 Million From Jeffrey Epstein To “Girls Or Women” Despite Firing Him As Client
JPMorgan Chase facilitated over $1.1 million in payments from Jeffrey Epstein to “girls or women,” despite having fired the convicted sex offender as a client, an attorney representing the US Virgin Islands told a judge on Monday.
Many of the girls had Eastern European surnames, according to a filing by attorney Linda Singer to Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff.
Over $320,000 of the payments were made to “numerous individuals for whom JPMorgan had no previously identified payments,” Singer wrote, accusing the bank of failing to disclose the payments until after the end of discovery – the period in which parties in a lawsuit exchange evidence.
Singer has since asked Rakoff to impose monetary damages on the bank for failing to provide the information during discovery, and order the bank to turn over “all financial records for any newly disclosed girls or women to whom Epstein made payments,” CNBC reports.
The Virgin Islands in its suit alleges that JPMorgan facilitated and financially benefited from sex trafficking by Epstein of young women during the years when he was a client.
Epstein maintained a residence on a private island in the American territory where he sexually abused scores of women, and during that time kept tens of millions of dollars on deposit at JPMorgan.
JPMorgan says it cut ties to Epstein in 2013. But Monday’s court filing challenges the bank’s timeline. -CNBC
According to a spokeswoman for the bank, Patricia Wexler, “There is no proof this is accurate.”
The USVI claims that documents recently turned over by JPMorgan contains new, previously unseen information that had been sought by the DA. It was assembled internally by the bank in October 2019, over three months after Epstein was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.
“There is no legitimate reason for JPMorgan failing to identify payments to girls or women the bank itself identified as being related to Epstein — and potential evidence of Epstein’s sex trafficking venture — years before receiving the USVI’s discovery requests,” reads the filing, adding that a spreadsheet prepared by JPMorgan listing the dates and beneficiaries of more than 9,000 transactions payable to Epstein-related individuals between 2005 and 2019, “had a combined value of over $2.4 billion.”
“Many of the entries reflected accounts and payments, numbering in the thousands and totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars in value, of which USVI had no prior knowledge or information from JPMorgan’s responses and productions during the fact discovery period,” wrote Singer.
JPMorgan has argued that the information wasn’t provided earlier “because it was not in a custodial production and/or did not relate to individuals specifically identified by the USVI as related to Epstein.”
Singer, however, says that “The USVI has repeatedly made clear that its discovery requests are not limited to individuals it specifically identified as being related to Epstein.”
“The USVI specifically identified the individuals it knew were related to Epstein to make its discovery requests clearer — not relieve JPMorgan of its duty to produce known relevant documents,” reads the filing.
What’s more, Singer says JPMorgan may not have disclosed everything, and has asked Judge Rakoff to force the bank to produce all documents and information concerning its 2019 review of Epstein matters, including “all financial records for any newly disclosed girls or women to whom Epstein made payments.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 19:00 - Mom Accuses FBI Of Entrapping Her 'Neurodiverse' Teenager In Terrorism Scheme
Mom Accuses FBI Of Entrapping Her ‘Neurodiverse’ Teenager In Terrorism Scheme
Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,
In June 2022, Colorado woman Deanna Meyer contacted her local sheriff’s office about violent and terroristic statements that her mentally ill 17-year-old son, Davin Meyer, was making at the time.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation building headquarters is seen in Washington. / PHOTO: AP The local sheriff, in turn, contacted the FBI, which then began communicating with the teenager online. Months later, the FBI arrested Davin as he was about to board an airplane, ostensibly to travel to the Middle East to join ISIS.
But Davin’s mother says he is no ISIS fighter. Instead, he’s an 18-year-old with no friends, who suffers from numerous mental health issues, including autism, depression and anxiety, according to the mom.
At a detention hearing on Friday, Deanna reportedly expressed remorse that she ever sought help from law enforcement, blaming the FBI for ensnaring her son in a phony terrorism plot.
“I bet my life he would never do that without that encouragement [from FBI informants],” she said Friday, describing how her son communicated with at least two FBI informants in chat rooms from last November until he was arrested.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Reid Neureiter disregarded Deanna’s pleas on Friday and ordered Davin to remain in custody. Neureiter pointed to the fact that Davin allegedly threatened his mother’s life when he was still a juvenile—even though the mother said he hasn’t threatened her since he turned 18.
The judge did acknowledge the mother’s arguments in his five-page order.
“The mother testified at the detention hearing that she never believed he would likely move ahead with his expressed intentions, and the defendant only took steps to travel to the Middle East after finding a ‘community’ online, which included confidential FBI sources,” Judge Neureiter said.
“According to the defendant’s mother, he has ‘never had a friend’ and finding this community that appeared to be supportive of his plans is what likely caused him to act by buying the ticket to fly to Turkey.”
Neureiter also acknowledged Davin’s mental health problems.
“The defendant is ‘neurodiverse’ and was diagnosed at the age of nine of being on the autism spectrum, and he has also been diagnosed with having a low processing speed and massive depression. The defendant may also have obsessive compulsive disorder,” the judge said.
“The defendant has received diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood; specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics; and major depressive disorder, recurrent episode, moderate.”
However, Judge Neureiter said it’s in the public interest to keep Davin incarcerated.
“This is a difficult situation, and must be extremely heart-wrenching for the defendant’s family, in particular his mother, who has long believed the defendant needs help and therapy,” he said.
“Putting a defendant with his disabilities in jail, pending trial, will not address his condition nor provide the therapy that he apparently needs. It will, however, ensure that he cannot do violence to anyone.”
The judge concluded by saying he’d reconsider his order if the Meyer family can find a suitable mental health facility to house Davin.
Other bizarre details about the Meyer case can be found in the arrest affidavit of FBI task force officer Joni Tangeman.
For instance, Tangeman said Davin followed “white supremacist ideology” when he was 15-years-old, before he began practicing Islam in late 2020. Tangeman further said that Davin said when he was 17 that if he didn’t go to the Middle East, he would build a fertilizer bomb in the United States—the same bomb used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Additionally, the FBI officer admitted she knew about Davin’s mental health issues when investigating him.
“I am aware that MEYER has previously received mental health treatment, including residential treatment programs,” she said, adding that Davin apparently refused to take his medication when he converted to Islam.
“MEYER refused to take any prescription medication prescribed by the psychiatrist because it would be against his Islamic religion, and he also refused to go to school or participate in online school programs,” Tangeman said.
“Records show that MEYER has received diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood; specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics; and major depressive disorder, recurrent episode, moderate.”
The Meyer case follows the FBI arresting another mentally challenged 18-year-old, Mateo Ventura, for allegedly intending to help ISIS. Last month, The Intercept published an interview with Ventura’s father, who also accused FBI informants of entrapping his son.
“He was born prematurely, he had brain development issues. I had the school do a neurosurgery evaluation on him and they said his brain was underdeveloped,” Ventura’s father, Paul Ventura, told The Intercept. “He was suffering endless bullying at school with other kids taking food off his plate, tripping him in the hallway, humiliating him, laughing at him.”
Ventura is currently in a private mental health facility as his case proceeds. Meyer’s preliminary hearing is set for July 31.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 18:40 - Goldman Sachs Analyst Found Dead In NYC Water
Goldman Sachs Analyst Found Dead In NYC Water
The 27-year-old Goldman Sachs senior analyst who went missing after a “Zeds Dead” concert in New York City’s Brooklyn borough early Saturday morning has been found dead.
The father of Goldman’s John Castic told Fox 5 New York that his son was found floating in the waters of Newtown Creek Tuesday — about a half mile from where he went missing.
“They have found his body and confirmed it’s him.
“It appears to have been death by misadventure. His wallet and phone were found on him,” his father, Jeffrey Castic, told Fox 5.
Castic was last seen at 0230 ET Saturday, leaving a Zeds Dead concert at The Brooklyn Mirage in East Williamsburg.
The New York Post said, “At about 11 a.m. on Tuesday, a man spotted a bloated, shirtless body floating face-down in the English Kills, a branch of the East River tributary, near 1100 Grand Street.”
Fox 5 pointed out that another young man also vanished from the same music venue in June and turned up dead five days later in Newtown Creek.
Police said the deaths are both being investigated. Some have speculated there might be some connection.
This is the second Goldman analyst to have perished in about a year.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 18:20 - Confidence In US Military At Lowest Point In 26 Years: Gallup Poll
Confidence In US Military At Lowest Point In 26 Years: Gallup Poll
Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,
Confidence in one of the most trusted institutions in the United States, the military, has fallen to its lowest point in more than 25 years, according to a new poll by Gallup.
On Monday, Gallup shared the results of a June poll, which found about 60 percent of U.S. adults who were surveyed expressed either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the U.S. military, while the remainder expressed “very little” or only “some” confidence in the military. This figure marks the lowest level of confidence in the U.S. military since 1997.
The drop in support was most significant among respondents who identified as Republican. Since Gallup began polling trust in the military in 1975, Republicans have typically held the highest degree of confidence in the U.S. military. In the final year of President Donald Trump’s presidency, 91 percent of Republican respondents had expressed moderate to high confidence in the military. Now only 68 percent of Republican respondents feel that way, a 23-point drop.
The U.S. military also lost a significant measure of trust and confidence from independent voters. In 2019, 73 percent of independents felt a moderate to high confidence in the military, but that number fell to 68 percent in 2020 and has since dropped an additional 13 points.
Democratic confidence in the military has not seen much resurgence since President Joe Biden took office. During Mr. Trump’s term, the portion of Democrats who had moderate to high confidence in the military fell from 69 percent in 2016 to a low point of 58 percent in 2019. Just 61 percent of Democratic respondents had moderate to high confidence in the military near the end of Mr. Trump’s presidency in 2020. Democratic confidence in the military did rise in the first two years of Mr. Biden’s presidency, up to 68 percent last year, but has fallen back down to 62 percent this year. Democratic confidence in the military was higher in 2017 and 2018 under Mr. Trump than it is now.
While trust in the military has reached a low point not seen in a quarter century, the military still remains one of the most trusted institutions in the country. In fact, the military was second only to small businesses as the most trusted institution, with 65 percent of respondents expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in those businesses.
Twenty-six percent of respondents expressed a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency, placing that institution alongside public schools, banks, and big tech companies in terms of public trust, while 14 percent of respondents shared a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in big businesses and just 8 percent felt the same about Congress.
Declining Trust in Military
The Gallup poll did not include additional questions about what is contributing to the loss of confidence in the military.
Other recent polling has also indicated a loss of confidence in the U.S. military. In February of last year, the Pew Research Center published results (pdf) finding 74 percent of respondents had at least a fair amount of confidence that the U.S. military’s ability to act in the best interests of the U.S. public. That number was down from 83 percent who felt the same way in November of 2020.
In November of last year, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation published its National Defense Survey results (pdf) for 2022, finding just 48 percent of respondents had “a great deal” of trust and confidence in the military. Seventy percent of respondents had felt “a great deal” of trust and confidence in the military in 2018 when the Reagan Foundation first began the survey, showing a 22-point drop.
Sixty-two percent of respondents in the Reagan Foundation survey said military leadership becoming overly politicized contributed to their declining confidence. Those concerns about politicization were held by 60 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Independents, and 65 percent of Republicans. Fifty percent of that survey’s respondents blamed “wokeness” in the military for hurting their confidence, while 46 percent said “far-right or extremist individuals” hurt their confidence in the military.
Fifty-nine percent of the respondents in the Reagan Foundation survey said the performance and competence of the president had decreased their confidence in the military.
The military struggled to reach its recruiting goals last year.
The U.S. Navy hit its recruiting goal for active-duty enlisted personnel but missed its goals for recruiting new active and reserve officers and reserve enlisted personnel. The U.S. Air Force also met its active-duty recruiting goals but missed its recruiting goals for the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.
The U.S. Army saw the biggest miss of all branches last year, with the service falling 15,000 recruits short of its 60,000 recruit goal for fiscal year 2022—a 25 percent shortfall.
In April, Army, Navy and Air Force leaders predicted they could miss their recruiting goals again this year, the Military Times reported.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 18:00 - Trump Indicted (Again) For 'Efforts To Overturn 2020 Election'; DeSantis Defends
Trump Indicted (Again) For ‘Efforts To Overturn 2020 Election’; DeSantis Defends
Update (1834ET): As reactions to Trump’s latest indictment roll in, one notable defender is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who tweeted that he would, as president, “end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans.”
DeSantis added that DC is a “swamp,” and that it’s “unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality.”
As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans.
While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment. I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right…
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 1, 2023
More reactions:
It’s official. Unelected reckless prosecutors and unelected Democrat DC grand jurors are trying to decide the presidential election. Democrat DAs and the earlier indictment, same thing. Talk about attempting to deny voters the right to choose the next president — that IS what…
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) August 1, 2023
Free speech has been indicted. Read this section of the indictment.
It acknowledges that Trump has the right to say, even falsely, the results were fraudulent and claim he won the election. That’s protected by the First Amendment.
But the indictment says he can’t lie about… pic.twitter.com/tKDBP93j3Z
— Will Cain (@willcain) August 1, 2023
The sanctimony is putrid. Talk about a nothing burger. Out of control DOJ.
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) August 1, 2023
Jack Smith cites CISA — which interfered in the 2020 election by censoring, directly and by proxy, millions of Americans and their speech about the election — as an authority to indict Trump. Can’t make it up pic.twitter.com/Rx7f7OkX4B
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) August 1, 2023
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries call the Jan. 6 indictment “the most serious and most consequential thus far.” pic.twitter.com/ZQLq6Bjsjr
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 1, 2023
BREAKING: Attorney General Merrick Garland makes a statement about the indictment of former President Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/cxzCRS8cmT
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) August 1, 2023
…The press conference held by Smith only deepened the unease for some of us. Smith railed against the January 6th riot and made it sound like he was indicting Trump on incitement. He didn’t. The disconnect was glaring and concerning.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 1, 2023
* * *
Another day, another indictment aimed at keeping former President Trump out of the Oval Office.
“I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!” he continued.
And on Tuesday, Jack Smith did just that – indicting Trump yet again for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment focuses on schemes by Trump and his allies to subvert the transfer of power and keep him in office despite his loss to Joe Biden.
Trump has been indicted on four counts:
The Conspiracy
From on or about November 14,2020, through on or about January 20,2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government.
The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.
Special Counsel Jack Smith gave a lame speech following his latest ‘win’ (that surely won’t actually help Trump, right?)
Watch:
…
The Defendant, his co-conspirators, and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
These prolific lies about election fraud included dozens of specific claims that there had been substantial fraud in certain states, such as that large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots, or that voting machines had changed votes for the Defendant to votes for Biden.
These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.
In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue—often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts – and he deliberately disregarded the truth.
Read the full docket below:
It’s the third criminal case brought against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, on Monday, Trump called the indictments “election interference” and “prosecutorial misconduct,” adding that they’re being used to distract from investigations into the Biden family’s own dealings with foreign nationals.
“The Radical Left Democrat Thugs shouldn’t be allowed to investigate me during, and in the middle of, my campaign for President. Why didn’t they file these ridiculous charges 2.5 years ago?” Trump wrote, adding “They waited because they wanted to illegally and negatively influence the 2024 Presidential Election, arguably the most important Election in the history of the USA. We are going to take our now Third World Nation (Airports, Elections, Roads/Highways, Borders, etc.) and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. BE STRONG!”
Trump’s defenders jump into action
“Yesterday was an awful day for the @JoeBiden crime family,” tweeted former Arizona Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R), referring to bombshell allegations against the Biden family over international corruption. “The regime desperately needs a distraction for their Pravda Press to spread.”
“Watch as they indict @realDonaldTrump again to change the narrative.“
Yesterday was an awful day for the @JoeBiden crime family.
Their corrupt house of cards is crashing down.
The regime desperately needs a distraction for their Pravda Press to spread.
Watch as they indict @realDonaldTrump again to change the narrative.
It’s like clockwork.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) August 1, 2023
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Trump is “burning through money on legal fees so fast that it risks leaving him short of cash just when he will need it most — in a potential general election rematch against President Joe Biden next fall.”
The former president raised $54 million from donors in the first six months of the year – more than any other Republican candidate, but that his legal bills are emptying his coffers nearly as fast as he fills them.
Nearly half of Trump’s January-to-June haul went to lawyers, $25.5 million, draining cash reserves left from the midterm cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. A person familiar with the finances of Trump’s committees said legal expenses were actually closer to $40 million.
…
Two entities, Save America and Make America Great Again PAC — which is separate from MAGA Inc. — are footing his legal fees. They ended June with only $4.2 million cash on hand, about enough to cover another month’s worth of costs. The expenditures forced Save America, which donated $60 million in 2022 to Trump’s super PAC, to ask for a refund. It got $12.3 million back.
To keep the entities paying his legal fees funded, Trump will have to divert about half the money he raises through a joint fundraising committee. From January to June, the joint fundraising committee transferred $29.2 million to Trump’s campaign and $2.2 million to his leadership PAC and ended June with $5.7 million cash on hand. The remainder was spent on fundraising expenses. -Bloomberg
“The weaponized Department of Justice has continued to go after innocent Americans because they worked for President Trump,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung. “To protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed, the leadership PAC contributed to their legal fees.”
Trump, meanwhile, can continue to tap his allied super PAC, Make America Great Again, Inc, which had $31 million at the end of June after depleting 44% of its cash in the first six months of 2023.
More via the Epoch Times;
Mr. Trump said on July 27 that his lawyers had met with the Justice Department and had a “productive meeting,” and that “an indictment of me would only further destroy our country.”
Jurors were seen entering a courthouse Thursday morning, and news reports had claimed an indictment could come as soon as that same day.
More than 1,000 people have already been charged with Jan. 6-related offenses.
Multiple Cases
Mr. Trump is facing another investigation in Georgia, where Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Monday rejected Mr. Trump’s bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the case.
The criminal investigation centers around a phone call Mr. Trump made to Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2020, asking about the number of votes for him in the state.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” then-President Trump said to Mr. Raffensperger.
Ms. Willis maintains that Mr. Trump tried to illegally overturn the results of the presidential election in the state of Georgia. Mr. Trump says the investigation is “strictly a political witch hunt.”
Mr. Trump’s legal team argued that she had a partisan interest in the case, which should disqualify her. Judge McBurney wrote that the team failed to show Ms. Willis was biased in her actions.
The case will be heard on Aug. 10.
Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has been contacted by Mr. Smith’s office, presumably about the Jan. 6 case.
Mr. Smith is also in charge of the Mar-a-Lago case concerning classified documents, in which he last week announced three new charges.
Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump at the Justice Department in Washington on on June 9, 2023. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Last week, the special counsel charged Mr. Trump with willful retention of national defense information and two charges in connection to the claims that he told a Mar-a-Lago worker to delete security tapes to prevent a grand jury from seeing them. In that filing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) named Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira as a third defendant in the complaint.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump denied all three charges.
“Mar-a-Lago security tapes were not deleted,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They were voluntarily handed over to the thugs, headed up by deranged Jack Smith. We did not even go to court to stop them from getting these tapes. I never told anybody to delete them. Prosecutorial fiction & misconduct! Election interference!”
“They knowingly accuse you of a fake crime, a crime that they actually make up, you fight these false charges hard, and they try and get you on ‘obstruction,’” Mr. Trump wrote. “We are dealing with sick and evil people!”
Alina Habba, spokesperson and attorney for Mr. Trump, told Fox News in a July 30 interview that Mr. Trump never directed an employee to delete tapes.
“When he has his turn in court, and when we get to file our papers, you will see that every single video, every single surveillance tape that was requested, was turned over,” Ms. Habba said. “If President Trump didn’t want something turned over, I assure you, that is something that could have been done. But he never would act like that. He is the most ethical American I know.
“The new superseding indictment that came out, which they tried to get another headline for President Trump, was facts that said that President Trump did what? What was the obstruction of justice because no tapes were deleted. He turned them over; he cooperated as he always does. But they would like the American public to believe in these bogus indictments that there are some facts that say that President Trump was obstructing justice.”
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and maintains that as president, he had the right to take the documents as well as the right to declassify them. The case is set to go to trial in May 2024.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/01/2023 – 17:40
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