- Righting This Cacophony Of Wrongs
Righting This Cacophony Of Wrongs
Authored by Mike ‘Dr.Doom’ 𝙃𝙤₿𝙖𝙧𝙩 via BombThrower.com,
I hope everyone has had the time to properly appreciate their first days of summer. If you did not, then I hope your efforts have gotten you closer to being capable of doing so soon.
Today’s writing is inspired by my many conversations over the current state of our United States of America, and how far we have fallen from the Tree of Freedom that our Honored Fallen sacrificed their lives for. How Americans have lost sight of what truly matters, and how our uneducated & unfit masses continue to make decisions that enable their complacencies over doing what needs to be done in order to save the future of our country, for ourselves and for our children…
Failure Teaches. Victory Confirms.
Taking the path of immediate gratification, and especially selling-out the futures of our children, alongside the soul of our proud nation, is inextricably not American. Providing products of shite quality is inextricably not American. Choosing to do the easy thing over that which is more difficult, and that which is right, is inextricably not American. Sacrificing our own steadfastness, our own resilience, and going back on our promises and debts is not American.
Simple vs Easy
The steps required for correcting this egregious path are simple but they are not easy. This brings us to the first true step (Step 0.1) towards course-correction, of any kind. Conflation of something so basic as simple & easy is a problem that we as Americans must identify, acknowledge, and work to correct. A task can be simple; “do [x] in order to get [y] outcome,” but that does not mean that the task will be easy; “man doing [x] required so little effort to so I could get [y].”
Ignorance of Failure
Admitting that we have gone awry is the other 90% of Step 1, that we have made a series of mistakes and poor decisions is necessary. Because it is okay. It is okay to make mistakes, to be wrong. It is not okay to make mistakes, to be wrong, and not own-up to them. Not accepting that we have made wrong/bad decisions is extremely dangerous as there is no learning or growth that is allowed to occur when we choose to ignore our failures. Failure teaches. Victory confirms.
The Average American is the one who holds the power in the coming years — as this is a situation that will take years to correct and get back on “the path.” I have a few simple suggestions for the everyday American to follow if you would like to be on the right side of history.
First
GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASS
America is not well. Between those already diagnosed with diabetes, and those that are prediabetic we are looking at 49% of the Us adult population being affected, alone. According to data from 2017 (which is 6 years old mind you) the US population was looking at an obesity rate of 42%. Keep in mind that this does not include the concoction of chronic metabolic syndromes and diseases that accompany obesity; heart disease, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, neurodegenerative conditions, cancers, and so on.
Americans need to get up off the couch and out of their desk chairs and push, pull, and breathe their way into individual fortitude. If the worst of the worst were to happen today, the amount of human life that would be lost simply due to intermittent access to power, let alone food, would be daunting and egregious. Through complacencies afforded the modern era we have become more fragile than ever in history. Yet we have access to the best technologies, methodologies, sciences, and access to more food and information than in any other prior empire in the history of our planet.
As Americans it is our duty and our privilege to become the baddest motherf*ckers that we can become. We are in the Land of the Free. Where you can be free to be a fat, lazy, complacent pile of shit all you want. I don’t know about you… but me, I want to be the most fit, well-rounded, capable, educated, understanding individual that I can be because I am free to do so. Because when shit-hits-fan, which is a virtual certainty (on any scale), I want to be capable of providing the strength and clear-headedness to be capable of providing protection and support to those I care about. Being comfortable means f^ck-all when life deals you a powdered backhand and you are not capable of being an effective force in times of adversity or fear — regardless of whether you are a man or a woman.
If you are not capable to react to the plethora of known knowns as far as potential negative outcomes, then you cannot even hope to be capable of handling those unknown unknowns. Of which are infinite. Fitness and sound health makes the individual far more capable of handling adversity, and during moments of historical shifts in the balance of power adversity is commonplace. Fill the gyms and run the trails, become the embodiment of strength that your neighbors, loved ones, and peers need.
Second
GET ack-tually EDUCATED
America today has been taught to demonize coming incorrect, and pedestalize being correct. To the extent of where people are attributing their being correct as a part of their identity. This poses a slew of problems for a society as the search for what is true and what is right gets lost. As the discussion [inevitably] turns towards pushback, these individuals tend to fall into defensive mode. In these moments their identity comes into question as a relation to their correctness, like when Anthony Fauci made the claim that to question him was to question science. Science, as is every other aspect of knowing & understanding, is and should always be under question. We do not know everything. In fact, we actually know very little about quite literally everything that we observe in our reality to-date. Therefore an individual’s identity should never be tied to their tendency to be accurate or correct in matters of fact; when we know so little, we are all guaranteed to be wrong much more often than we are right.
The American Education System has played a pivotal role in this degeneration of our countrymen’s and countrywomen’s capabilities to practice critical-thinking and original thought. Robert A. Burton, M.D., does a great job of crystalizing my point in his book On Being Certain in one very succinct sentence towards the end of Chapter 8 found on page 84;
“Memorizing facts doesn’t require logic, cause-and-effect, or any significant ability to reason.”
which is precisely what our entire “educative system” is structured around. Memorization. The antithesis to learning.
American schools have failed, abysmally. There is no such thing as a template for learning. Every single soul will learn differently from another. Just like with nutrition and physiology; every single body is different, so why is it that we think that the mind could operate by any other rule? This is also what has contributed to the mislabeling of a large portion of the “mental disorders” today. In a recent essay I argued my position for believing that conditions such as ADD/ADHD, anxiety, and depression are, for the vast majority, not diseases but misidentified signals by the body & mind. Leading to responses to treat the symptoms rather than address the sources of the signal(s). Culminating in continued dysfunction that grows in severity the longer the dysfunction goes unanswered. The dysfunction of the education (indoctrination) system is contributing to the misinterpretation of these states of mind, while also leading to a misidentification of the solutions due to the erosion of logic, cause-and-effect analysis, and erosion of the ability to reason.
So, American schools have not been teaching our children how to learn… what about what they have been memorizing?
This is where things get fun and a little scary at the same time. The textbooks and curriculums pushed in front of us through our scholastic syllabi (and those of our children) are poised to be treasure-troves of truth… but are they, truly? Below I have provided 2 videos that I have been recommending to now thousands of individuals across the twitter spaces & podcasts I have been graciously invited to be a part of, and in private individual discussions over the past 3 years. The perspectives are daunting, that there could be so much to history that got brushed under the metaphorical rug, forgotten about, and then pretended like was never the case.
I call on all of you to make it a point to watch these videos. Go in with a position that you (and I) do not know every individual thing that has transpired across history that was covered in our textbooks. And consider how then (as now) there were many multiples of developments and strategies all playing-out simultaneously. With little-to-no awareness that they were occurring. Events that have transpired over the past 36 months should serve as adequate testimony to this very reality.
That’s It.
Between just these two points, we can see dramatic changes in America’s populace for the better. These changes can begin to bare fruit in a mere handful of years… Consider how much smoother healthcare can become when the system is alleviated of the deadweight of a complacent and unhealthy populace. Consider how much more effective teaching and lecture can become when we have a populace that is critically thinking and capable of effectively challenging anything and everything with logical and rational bases. This is how we improve… EVERYTHING. You want better innovation, better ideas, better leaders, better policies, better technology? We need new, original ideas that can only come from strong & healthy children raised on logic and reason.
A Bitcoin Discussion
With this rebel’s education approach we have to talk about two aspects that are touched on in both videos. Keep in mind that both were produced very much independently of each other, yet share a common thread: private & central bankers have continually acted against the best interests of their constituents in order to maintain their grips on power. From breaking away from the rule of a queen over taxes to only end up copying the precisely same system once independence was achieved… to funding both sides of a world war… something has to change. That’s not even including the capability to print currency (not money, there’s a difference) on a whim or a desire. Providing a vertically-integrated system of power that provides influence beyond that of any single individual or organization when these systems are also based out of the jurisdiction that holds the position of Global Reserve Currency.
This is a power dynamic that must be disrupted. In my opinion it does not need to be totally done away with as there will always be a percentage of the population that desires the services provided by banks. The point is to particularly disrupt the vertically integrated stack that these parties have developed. This is where bitcoin plays an important role, and where I am proud to shamelessly plug my efforts in working with a few passionate individuals to put together a call to separate money from the state. One can argue as much as they want that the state is separated from the process of money formation & banking, on paper, but when we are dealing with human incentives and human policy that is all at the whim of human influence via politics… all roads converge on the two becoming inextricably linked. Creating a true monster. One could say a “creature from Jekyll Island.”
Going further, bitcoin provides an avenue of game theory (hat tip to John Nash) that provides an incentive mechanism that is far and beyond anything that is available thanks to any other technology to-date. With properly custodied bitcoin, the individual, organization, or country is afforded a strategy that has never been available in history, ‘til now. With bitcoin a party is capable of holding value that can ultimately avoid seizure even after death. Meaning that vaults can escape plunder, and something as ludicrous as a death tax becomes a distant memory. Resulting in an environment where, in order to accumulate economic/monetary value, one must provide product or service that is worthy of said value being directed towards their project. If the market does not deem the product to be worthy of their economic power, then there is no other way of accumulating it. Incentivizing cooperation, innovation, and efficiency… a polar opposite incentive mechanism than today where computers and textbooks make marginal improvements (if any) and selling of a “new” flashy product at the expense of the consumer.
As society progresses, new approaches to old problems are behooved. Money & currency is a problem as old as time that has been iterated on to further improve the cooperation and cohabitation of the human species. To think that we are beyond this natural need is a hubris of the utmost.
Personally, I Don’t Care…
I don’t care whether you are interested in the bitcoin mission. Your money is your power and your responsibility. Everyone has the freedom and the right to do what they desire, or deem proper, for their accumulated wealth and purchasing power. But what I do care about is strong, healthy, and capable Americans and American children.
At the very least… if you are a parent you are behooved to provide your child(ren) a proper role model. A strong mother and father that continually work to improve the condition of their family leaves a healthy mark on their offspring regardless of whether they believe their children are watching intently or not. Parents that continually seek improved understanding teaches multiple lessons to their little ones, paramountly that education never stops. Parents that deploy this kind of hustle (if we’re being fair, this isn’t even hustle this is simply staying an efficacious human), not only improve America’s future by rearing up strong & intelligent children but also make for a healthier, stronger, better informed voting populous. Our parents simply need to stop engaging in degenerative behaviors like binge-consuming the plethora of non-informative streaming services, and get back to education being the past-time. Like the days of olde of the cable era with such heavyweights as Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel — oh how I long for those days to return.
Those of us that are not parents, we hold the very same responsibilities. As uncles & aunts, cousins, brothers & sisters, sons & daughters, and family friends; we hold powerful influence. We can act as a confirming force for what those hustler parents are doing is the proper thing. We can act as a challenge to those parents that choose not to better themselves, showing those children that there are better ways of getting the damn thing done. Children are not dumb.
We all have power to influence; residing in the decisions we make on a daily basis and the lifestyles we choose to adopt. You don’t need to be an influencer with a 5 digit follower count in order to leave a strong, positive mark on those around you.
You may feel stuck. Know that your improved future stands on the other side of your improved health & wellness, and your improved understanding of the world. Your own path out of your rut will become easier to see once you climb that first hill.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 23:30 - Who Is North Korea Trading With?
Who Is North Korea Trading With?
North Korea might be the hermit kingdom, but data from the UN Comtrade database reveals that goods worth a combined $1 billion were still traded in and out of the reclusive country in 2022.
However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, this is much less than five years ago, however, posing serious challenges for North Korea and its citizens, which have been exposed to hunger, as recent reports have found.
According to reports from Reuters, imports from China to North Korea have surged in April after also increasing in 2022 due to the end of a Covid-induced trade freeze. However, both imports and exports to the country have fallen sharply over the years – a trend that started even before the pandemic. Exports were down from US$2.8 billion in 2015 to only US$1.7 billion in 2017 and even further to just $192 million in 2022, with imports also falling significantly from US$3.5 billion worth of goods in 2015 to only $903 million in 2022.
International pressure to stick to the sanctions against the country before the pandemic had isolated North Korea further, with China consolidating its role as the country’s only real trade partner.
In 2015, Chinese imports made up was 85 percent of all North Korean imports – the share now stands at 99 percent as the pandemic era has sealed the country off against the world more than ever before.
China is also the biggest player in North Korean exports with a share of almost 70 percent in them.
You will find more infographics at Statista
A handful of European countries are also buying North Korean, however.
Poland imported iron, steel and plastic products as well as pharmaceutical products, electrical and other machinery worth almost $10 million last year.
Half of the Netherlands’ imports worth around $8 million in total consisted of nickel and nickel products, with some substantial amounts of polyethylene and airplane parts also imported.
Both European countries have maintained diplomatic relations in some form with North Korea and their trade with the country can be classified as symbolic. However, it is a different type of import that has been labeled as problematic in Europe. The Dutch University of Leiden in 2019 identified clothing made in North Korea under exploitative labor conditions that had made its way to the Netherlands and other Western countries labeled as of Chinese origin. While Mozambique’s 2022 imports of North Korean transformers and other machinery were likely above board, the country was investigated in 2017 for its arms deals with the country that violated UN sanctions.
At least seven countries in Africa were part of the investigation. Regular economic ties with North Korea, which are not the subject of sanctions, were increasing in African countries at the same time, according to the Voice of America.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 23:00 - Putin's Grip On Power
Putin's Grip On Power
Authored by Andrew Korybko via The Automatic Earth blog,
It was earlier advised to “Be Very Skeptical Of US Intel Claiming That Surovikin May Have Helped Plan Prigozhin’s Coup”, and now two new developments lend even more credence to those suspicions.
The “investigative project” of exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was designated by Russia as a foreign agent last year due to his operations being funded by Ukraine, shared “documents” with CNN purporting to show that over 30 senior military and intelligence officials are secretly VIP Wagner members.
The outlet reported on these alleged findings around the same time that they published former Vice President Mike Pence’s answer to the question that one of their journalists asked him during his unannounced visit to Kiev regarding his opinion of whether or not President Putin has full command of his military. He claimed that this is an “open question” in light of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt last weekend, thus suggesting that Russian leader is struggling to exert his authority.
These two back-to-back news items were intended to leave their audience with the impression that the President Putin remains at risk of being overthrown by his armed forces, which is nothing but an artificially manufactured information warfare narrative designed to sow doubts about his leadership.
It simultaneously attempts to influence him and his circle into carrying out large-scale purges that could adversely affect the special operation while also making the public think that he’s weak if he doesn’t.
The New York Times earlier admitted that “American officials have an interest in pushing out information that undermines the standing of General Surovikin, whom they view as more competent and more ruthless than other members of the command. His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine, whose Western-backed troops are pushing a new counteroffensive that is meant to try to win back territory seized by Moscow.” It’s with this motivation in mind that the latest reports should be interpreted.
No honest observer on either side of the debate really thinks that an exiled Ukrainian-funded oligarch and one of the US’ previously most powerful neoconservatives have President Putin’s best interests in mind when suggesting that he’s at risk of being overthrown if he doesn’t purge the Russian military. To the contrary, the only reason why these insincerely expressed concerns were publicly shared and then amplified by one of the world’s top Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets was for subversive purposes.
What’s curious to note is that the MSM and their putative competitors in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) are each aggressively pushing weaponized conspiracy theories to their respective audiences in the aftermath of recent events. The first wants folks to think that last weekend’s regime change plot involved high-level military-intelligence collaborators who might soon give it a second shot out of desperation to preempt their supposedly impending purge if President Putin doesn’t remove them first.
At the same time, top influencers in the second have suggested that President Putin colluded with Prigozhin to stage a so-called “false flag coup” to redeploy Wagner to Belarus and/or expose internal enemies, thus implying that he ordered that group’s chief to shoot down Russian pilots. It’s unclear whether those who propagate this totally ridiculous theory actually believe it, but this baseless innuendo is nevertheless anti-Russian to the core by hinting that its leader therefore committed treason too.
The reality is that Western intelligence agencies masterfully manipulated Prigozhin’s rivalry with the Defense Ministry, the paranoia that this provoked, and his delusions of grandeur after Wagner led Russia to victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk to plant the seeds in his mind for carrying out a coup.
He therefore functioned as the West’s most potentially destabilizing “useful idiot” in history who risked sparking a civil war that was only narrowly averted at the last minute as was explained here and here.
While it’s possible that senior military-intelligence officials are VIP Wagner members, that can’t be known for sure until the FSB’s investigation concludes, which might even determine that there’s truth to this claim whether in whole or in part but that it isn’t evidence of a deeper and more serious plot. In any case, the speculation of those Ukrainian-backed and US figures like Khodorkovsky and Pence respectively should be seen as meddling since they don’t have innocent intentions in talking about this.
They only want to manipulate the public’s perceptions of President Putin and the state of affairs in Russia, which their MSM allies like CNN are helping them do by maximally amplifying their messages. Likewise, those in the AMC who spew anti-Russian conspiracy theories about Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt such as suggesting that President Putin was in on it and thus colluded to have his own country’s pilots shot down by Wagner are also scheming to manipulate the public, albeit a different segment.
Taken together, they represent complementary efforts of the same destabilization operation that’s actively underway in the aftermath of last weekend’s events, which aims to manipulate perceptions among the MSM’s and AMC’s audiences alike about what recently took place. These weaponized conspiracy theories are being deployed to discredit President Putin, his government, and the Russian security services in the minds of their targets, and those who launder them are these three’s enemies.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 22:30 - How Big Is The Market For Crude Oil?
How Big Is The Market For Crude Oil?
While the global economy relies on many commodities, none come close to the massive scale of the crude oil market.
Besides being the primary energy source for transportation, oil is a key raw material for numerous other industries like plastics, fertilizers, cosmetics, and medicine. As a result, the global physical oil market is astronomical in size and has a significant economic and geopolitical influence, with a few countries dominating global oil production.
In the infographic below, Visual Capitalists’ Govind Bhutada and Sam Parker put crude oil’s market size into perspective by comparing it to the 10 largest metal markets combined. To calculate market sizes, we used the latest price multiplied by global production in 2022, based on data from TradingEconomics and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Note: This analysis focuses on raw and physical materials, excluding derivative markets and alloy materials like steel.
How Big Is the Oil Market?
In 2022, the world produced an average of 80.75 million barrels of oil per day (including condensates). That puts annual crude oil production at around 29.5 billion barrels, with the market size exceeding $2 trillion at current prices.
That figure dwarfs the combined size of the 10 largest metal markets:
Based on prices as of June 7, 2023.
The combined market size of the top 10 metal markets amounts to $967 billion, less than half that of the oil market. In fact, even if we added all the remaining smaller raw metal markets, the oil market would still be far bigger.
This also reflects the massive scale of global oil consumption annually, with the resource having a ubiquitous presence in our daily lives.
The Big Picture
While the oil market towers over metal markets, it’s important to recognize that this doesn’t downplay the importance of these commodities.
Metals form a critical building block of the global economy, playing a key role in infrastructure, energy technologies, and more. Meanwhile, precious metals like gold and silver serve as important stores of value.
As the world shifts towards a more sustainable future and away from fossil fuels, it’ll be interesting to see how the markets for oil and other commodities evolve.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 22:00 - Neurologist’s Near-Death Experience Changes His Understanding Of Consciousness
Neurologist’s Near-Death Experience Changes His Understanding Of Consciousness
Authored by Maria Han via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Neuropathologist Dr. Peter Cummings was convinced everything about consciousness, including profound near-death experiences (NDEs), could be explained by science and was rooted in the brain—until he had an NDE of his own.
Cummings was a career-oriented man who was doing well in his job as a doctor and as an assistant professor at Boston University School of Medicine Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology.
“At the time [it] was really enjoyable to live for that kind of stuff in that world,” said Cummings in a video posted on the International Association for Near-Death Studies.
A trip to Costa Rica for his wife’s 50th birthday changed his outlook completely. While there, he decided to go whitewater rafting with his wife and son.
Cummings was always afraid of the water, though not sure why. He often practiced holding his breath because he felt that one day it would come in handy.
“I used to get really bored in school and one of the things I would do is I would hold my breath. See how long I could hold my breath and then try to beat that record. And I always thought someday I’m going to need this,” recalled Cummings.
“I always found excuses to not be in the water, because I just always felt like I was going to drown,” said Cummings.
He came close that day in Costa Rica when the raft he and his family were in flipped. He bounced along in the water for a while, until he was pulled under by the current.
“There was a point where I was drowning. And I knew it,” said Cummings.
He was surprised at how calm he felt in the face of death.
“I thought about the autopsies I’d done on people who had drowned. This is supposed to be a very peaceful way to die. And then I’m thinking well, ‘What the heck is taking so long?’”
At the bottom of the river, Cummings experienced something neuroscience probably would have called a hallucination.
“At that point, everything stopped and I was next to this huge boulder and all the bubbles had stopped. And I moved my hand through the bubbles and they all just sort of moved around my hand in this very weird way. And then there was this bright light,” he said.
Then he felt “an incredible feeling of love.” He heard a voice speak to him.
“I got really emotional not because it’s upsetting but because I’m in that moment of that beauty. And I knew my family was going to be okay. And the voice said “they don’t need you, they’re going to be fine,’” he recalled.
Somehow, he also knew that his wife and son had already been pulled out of the water. They really were alright.
Then his science brain entered the conversation.
“You’re just hypoxic. Hold your breath. You have to beat your record. And at that point, the light just sort of vanished,” he said.
Cummings was pulled out of the water and slowly he told himself to relax so that he could regain his breath. That night at their hotel, Cummings, who has always been vigilant of his heart rate, checked his Apple watch and found that while underwater, his heart had stopped.
“I remember looking at my Apple watch because I’m kind of a health freak and I’m kind of obsessed with my heart rate. I looked at my Apple Watch and I had eight minutes of unrecorded heart rate in that time period,” said Cummings.
Electronic devices are not 100 percent accurate and they record heartbeats at intervals, but Cummings believes that in those eight minutes, there was a period when he had no heartbeat.
After the near-death experience, Cummings found that his intensive academic life was not what he wanted anymore.
“I became very uncomfortable with my career pursuit. Those things weren’t important to me anymore. I say I’ve written a couple of very bad novels. And I couldn’t identify with that any of those things,” said Cummings.
Sensing that he wasn’t suited for his life in Boston anymore, he and his family moved back to Maine, where he grew up.
The experience turned Cummings into a more thoughtful doctor. As a pathologist, he spoke to many family members of the deceased.
“The number one question I’ve always been asked is ‘Did they suffer?’ And as a physician, you always say ‘No, of course not.’ But I always felt like a liar. Because I don’t know,” said Cummings.
And after his near-death experience, he knew what it was like to die.
“I wish I could talk to those people again and say, look, this is beautiful. Even under these horrible circumstances, but horrible circumstance is a second. The process after that is incredible. And there’s nothing to worry about,” shared Cummings.
In medicine, death is the end. But Cummings now felt that death was not something to avoid talking about.
“We’ve made it so sterile and kept behind this curtain. That we don’t get a chance to really experience and celebrate the transformation that is happening,” he said.
After the incident, Cummings shared that it not only changed his perspective on his job, it “really helped me come to grips with who I am as a husband and a father, a human place on the planet.”
Cummings’ change after his near-death experience is not a solitary one.
Dr. Bruce Greyson has done extensive research on near-death experiences (NDEs) and his observations told him that these experiences often change the person who changed them for the better.
“Dr. Greyson has followed up on cases over the course of decades and found that in about 95 percent of the cases, it remains as though the NDE just happened,” Mr. Greyson told The Epoch Times in 2015.
“In one case, a man was an alcoholic and he was abusive toward his wife. After an NDE, he became an all-around good Samaritan. He didn’t drink, he was good to his wife, he helped others. For example, he rushed to New Orleans to join efforts following Hurricane Katrina,” described Dr. Greyson.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 21:30 - Are UFO Sightings Taking Off Again?
Are UFO Sightings Taking Off Again?
Tomorrow, July 2, marks World UFO Day.
UFO belief has long been considered a fringe phenomenon, but those who “want to believe” were given a boost in 2021 as U.S. intelligence services delivered an official report on “unidentified aerial phenomena” to Congress.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, it showed that of all 143 unexplained sightings between November 2004 and March 2021, only one UAP was later identified as a deflating balloon. In early 2023, another unclassified report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed 171 not yet identified flying objects out of 366 recorded between March 2021 and August 2022.
Considering the renewed buzz around UFOs – or UAPs – how have global UFO sightings been developing in recent years?
You will find more infographics at Statista
There is a National UFO Reporting Center in the United States which documents sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena all over the world and interestingly, sightings have been picking up again.
While there were two dips in 2018 and 2021, there were once more around 5,000 alleged UFO sightings in 2022.
This is still below peaks of 8,800 in 2014 and 7,400 in 2020 – when conspiracy beliefs were running high at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2022, 17 percent of Americans said they thought it was likely that Aliens will visit Earth, just below the global average of 18 percent – and below responses recorded in India, China and Latin America.
As of May 2023, there have been close to 1,400 sightings, which could signaling a slower year for UFO reports.
Yet, with late reports always a possibility and interest in unidentified flying objects renewed in the aftermath of February’s Chinese spy balloon sage, the jury on this year’s UFO/UAP frequency is still “out there”.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 21:00 - Essential Reading For The Dissident, The Disenfranchised, & The Disillusioned
Essential Reading For The Dissident, The Disenfranchised, & The Disillusioned
Authored by Richard Kelly via The Brownstone Institute,
John Stapleton’s incredible new book Australia Breaks Apart has a surreal quality to it. He taps into the dissonance, the discord, and the disillusionment of those among us who were able, or who dared, to step outside the wall-to-wall propaganda and look at it in real time, or back at it later, in horror.
Through the book’s central character, Old Alex (a retired journalist, coincidentally just like the author), wave after wave of recognition and acknowledgement of pain and anguish and confusion and foreboding wash over the reader, like a soothing balm for the still raw wounds inflicted by our political leaders. It’s just as well – in between the passages where we crawl inside Old Alex’s head, and hear and feel the visions and the dreams for a country so utterly changed, Stapleton catalogues in excruciating detail the things that were done to us.
It’s confronting.
Some of the things I knew about, many others I didn’t, thanks to the suffocating censorship of our complicit mainstream media. Still others I knew about, but had tried to forget.
Reading it is like reading Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago – page after page of open-mouthed shock at the things humans can do to one another and the things that power can corrupt.
It’s un-put-downable and un-pick-upable at the same time.
It’s essential reading for the dissident, the disenfranchised, the disillusioned. We’re not alone, our eyes were not deceiving us, it was not all just a nightmare from which we will one day wake up. It actually happened. Its legacy will be a millstone Australia will carry for decades. This book won’t make up for the tragedies of lives and livelihoods shattered by wilfully stubborn governments and petty tyrants, but it will certainly help.
Lots of the names and sources will be familiar to the covid dissident – among them McCullough, Malone, RFK, Jr, Naomi Wolf, Rebecca Weisser, Paul Collits, Avi Yemini…the roll call of those we’ve relied on to get an honest point of view.
But helpful as it is for the victims and the protesters to have this book, those who need to read it the most will find it hard going.
The laptop class, the ones who learned a new recipe for sourdough, or how to crochet, while truckies and cashiers from the indentured servant class waited on their every need – they are the ones who need to read this book.
The ones who happily observed that the traffic was lighter and the carbon dioxide lower, while mourners grieved alone, banned from attending the funeral.
Every single nurse who made a dance video. Every jab clinic manager tallying the day’s injectees and calculating the bonus incentive payment.
What pangs of self-recognition will they find when they read of humans mistreating each other?
If they don’t feel any then they could read the whole thing and not be any the wiser, or indeed could take whatever message they want to take from it. If they do feel the pangs of shame, it will take a heroic effort of acceptance and repentance to get through to the end.
There will even be some, the scoffers who only consume a vegan ‘news’ diet from the ABC or the free-to-air presstitutes, who will find the cognitive dissonance simply too much to deal with and toss the book away in anger and disgust. Some of this group would literally never have heard of the Canadian Trucker protest or the Hancock WhatsApp messages scandal, such was the media silence.
Let’s assume some of that group do read it. Where will they find themselves afterwards? My guess is that they will find themselves looking for a scapegoat, an excuse, ‘extenuating circumstances,’ to cover their shame. Alas, none will be found.
Where will a bookstore put this book, among the shelves of thrillers, cookbooks, and travel guides?
Psychology? Self-help? A good case can be made. It explains our distress, it pushes us on, gives us courage. The treatment of the Canberra protests, disgracefully ignored by the mainstream media, provides the cameos of mateship, love, openness, happiness, togetherness, and fearlessness that we so craved when imprisoned, and which our overlords sought to extinguish.
Politics, History? For sure. It’s got a much better claim to be a document of record than any of our newspapers have of being a ‘paper of record.’ The author’s distaste for his former profession rises off nearly every page like bile rises in the throat. Likewise contempt for the political class, and the unelected petty tyrants masquerading as health bureaucrats.
Religion? Fantasy? It sits comfortably alongside CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, whose villains thought they could create a new Man, a literally disembodied head, controlled by those at the top. Villains who commanded a private police force in service of a ‘scientific’ institution; who orchestrated the stories to appear in the press and coerced the journalists to write the lies and the propaganda.
Villains who wrought destruction on an innocent English village and its residents. Stapleton’s book is likewise a tale of supreme political hubris and arrogance, enough arrogance to imagine that a riot squad can control an airborne virus. Lewis brought in the gods to resolve the finale; Stapleton, too, brings the supernatural out into the open, spirits portentously looming over the future of our once free land.
If it were up to me, I know where it belongs, apart from on the New Releases and Best Sellers shelves.
True Crime.
Read it, before you are tempted to ‘move on.’
Buy it, before they ban it.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 20:30 - Apple, Tesla, & Amazon Are The World's 'Most Innovative Companies' In 2023
Apple, Tesla, & Amazon Are The World's 'Most Innovative Companies' In 2023
Every year, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) releases their Most Innovative Companies ranking.
Based on a survey of over 1,000 innovation executives polled in Dec. 2022 and Jan. 2023, BCG assessed a company’s performance on four dimensions:
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Global mindshare: the number of votes received from all global innovation executives
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Industry peer view: the number of votes received from executives in a company’s own industry
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Industry disruption: the Diversity Index (Herfindahl-Hirschman) of votes across industries
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Value creation: total shareholder return, including share buybacks, over the 3-year period from Jan. 2020 through Dec. 2022.
Visual Capitalists Marcus Lu and Athul Alexander provide a more visual representation of these results in the graphic below.
Data and Highlights
The 2023 ranking can be found in the table below.
For the fourth straight year, Apple is considered the most innovative company in the world. In fact, Apple has held this title every year since 2005 with the exception of 2019.
Rank Company Industry Change in Rank
(+ or -)1 🇺🇸 Apple Technology – 2 🇺🇸 Tesla Transportation & energy +3 3 🇺🇸 Amazon Technology – 4 🇺🇸 Alphabet Technology – 5 🇺🇸 Microsoft Technology -3 6 🇺🇸 Moderna Healthcare +1 7 🇰🇷 Samsung Technology -1 8 🇨🇳 Huawei Technology – 9 🇨🇳 BYD Company Transportation & energy Returned 10 🇩🇪 Siemens Technology +10 11 🇺🇸 Pfizer Healthcare +7 12 🇺🇸 Johnson & Johnson Healthcare +15 13 🇺🇸 SpaceX Transportation & energy Returned 14 🇺🇸 Nvidia Technology +1 15 🇺🇸 ExxonMobil Transportation & energy Returned 16 🇺🇸 Meta Technology -5 17 🇺🇸 Nike Consumer goods & services -5 18 🇺🇸 IBM Technology -8 19 🇺🇸 3M Consumer goods & services +18 20 🇮🇳 Tata Group Transportation & energy Returned 21 🇨🇭 Roche Healthcare Returned 22 🇺🇸 Oracle Technology -3 23 🇩🇪 BioNTech Healthcare New 24 🇬🇧 Shell Transportation & energy Returned 25 🇫🇷 Schneider Electric Transportation & energy New 26 🇺🇸 P&G Consumer goods & services +8 27 🇨🇭 Nestlé Consumer goods & services +22 28 🇺🇸 General Electric Transportation & energy +1 29 🇨🇳 Xiaomi Technology +2 30 🇺🇸 Honeywell Transportation & energy New 31 🇯🇵 Sony Technology -22 32 🇨🇳 Sinopec Transportation & energy New 33 🇯🇵 Hitachi Transportation & energy +6 34 🇺🇸 McDonald’s Consumer goods & services Returned 35 🇺🇸 Merck Healthcare Returned 36 🇨🇳 ByteDance Technology – 37 🇩🇪 Bosch Transportation & energy -11 38 🇺🇸 Dell Technology -24 39 🇨🇭 Glencore Transportation & energy New 40 🇺🇸 Stripe Technology New 41 🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco Transportation & energy New 42 🇺🇸 Coca-Cola Consumer goods & services -6 43 🇩🇪 Mercedes-Benz Group Transportation & energy Returned 44 🇨🇳 Alibaba Technology -22 45 🇺🇸 Walmart Consumer goods & services -32 46 🇨🇳 PetroChina Transportation & energy New 47 🇯🇵 NTT Telecommunications New 48 🇨🇳 Lenovo Technology -24 49 🇩🇪 BMW Transportation & energy Returned 50 🇬🇧 Unilever Consumer goods & services – BCG added additional context on several companies in its report, including Germany’s Bosch (37th). According to BCG, the engineering and technology company has a global R&D organization of 84,800 employees across 130 locations. Bosch has also maintained R&D spending (as a share of sales) at between 7.6% and 8.2% from 2018 through 2021.
Another highlight was Samsung (7th), which spent over $17 billion (9% of annual sales) on R&D in 2021, making the South Korean conglomerate one of the world’s largest spenders on innovation. Samsung was also granted 6,300 U.S. patents in 2022, the most out of any company.
As this ranking shows, innovative companies aren’t just tech companies. McDonald’s (34th) is considered by BCG as the “restaurant industry frontrunner in technology innovation and investment”.
For example, McDonald’s recently acquired Apprente, a startup that develops voice-based technologies, and Dynamic Yield, a firm specializing in creating customizable online experiences. McDonald’s aims to leverage these technologies to improve ordering times and offer customers better choices.
Companies by Nationality
Now let’s examine the ranking through a different lens—nationality. The following chart compares the country breakdowns of the 2013 and 2023 rankings.
The U.S. and China are the only two countries that have increased their share from 2013, pushing out firms from European countries like Germany, the UK, and Italy. We can also see significant declines in Japanese and South Korean representation.
Given China’s economic growth, it’s likely that Chinese firms will continue to represent more of BCG’s ranking in the future. So far, the country’s strongest innovator is Huawei (8th), which has made the top 50 list every year since 2014, when it debuted at 50th place.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 20:00 -
- Government Agents Routinely Entering Private Land Without Warrants
Government Agents Routinely Entering Private Land Without Warrants
Authored by Brian McGlinchey via starkrealities.substack.com
For many people, a central attraction of owning and living on a multi-acre expanse of land is the opportunity for complete privacy — to include freedom from the prying eyes of government.
While most Americans might understandably believe the Fourth Amendment’s protection against warrantless searches covers all their property, a little-known 1924 Supreme Court decision — Hester v United States — says otherwise. The case struck a major blow against privacy rights, and government agents of all stripes have been exploiting the ruling ever since.
Those exploitations have grown increasingly brazen. Just ask Josh Highlander, whose home sits on a wooded, 30-acre spread east of Richmond, Virginia.
In April, Highlander’s wife and 6-year-old son were playing basketball in their yard. When his wife went to retrieve a long rebound, she spotted a man in full camouflage walking among the trees. Alarmed, she and her son darted inside the house.
Josh Highlander’s wife was frightened when she spotted a fully-camouflaged man through this opening in the woods (Institute for Justice) When Highlander went outside, he couldn’t locate the man, but did discover that a game camera he’d placed in his food plot was gone. When he called police, he learned the man on his property was an agent of Virginia’s Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) — one of three who crossed another piece of private land to enter his property. Worse, the same trio had taken his camera, holding no warrant for that action either.
These incidents took place on the first day of turkey season. Before coming to Highlander’s property, DWR agents had also entered two other properties, belonging to his brother and to his father, issuing a citation to his brother for illegally hunting “over bait.” However, the alleged “bait” was seed for his brother’s own food plot, consistent with DWR’s instructions for managing such a plot.
DWR’s violation of Highlander’s liberties didn’t end that day. “For weeks, my son wouldn’t play outside in his own back yard because he was afraid of who might be in the woods,” says Highlander. “My camera was taken two months ago, and I’ve still never received a receipt, a warrant or a ticket.”
Highlander’s camera was seized by Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources agents acting without a search warrant (Institute for Justice) This unsettling brand of government misconduct springs from the Supreme Court’s Hester decision.
In that 1924 case arising from the alcohol prohibition, revenue agents saw a man, Hester, exit his father’s house and hand another man a bottle. When the two men became aware of the agents’ presence, they both ran, each dropping a bottle on the Hester property. With no warrant, agents entered the property, examined the bottles and found they contained moonshine whisky.
Supreme Court opinions frequently span upwards of 70 pages or more. With Hester, however, the court took just two paragraphs to decimate the Fourth Amendment’s protection of landowners, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declaring “the special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects,’ is not extended to the open fields.”
And with that, he burdened his fellow citizens with the “open fields doctrine,” which allows warrantless searches and trespassing on land beyond the “curtilage,” a vague term referring to the outdoor area immediately surrounding a home.
In 1984, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to undo the harm done by Hester, after a different kind of prohibition — against marijuana — had incentivized police to violate property and privacy rights.
In Oliver v United States, Kentucky State Police, who suspected that marijuana was being grown on private property, strolled around a locked gate and a “No Trespassing” sign and found a marijuana field a mile from the house. The court observed that the field in question was “bounded on all sides by woods, fences, and embankments, [which] cannot be seen from any point of public access.”
Despite that fact, rather than overturning Hester, the court reaffirmed the open fields doctrine in a 6-3 decision, declaring that, “because open fields are accessible to the public and the police in ways that a home, office, or commercial structure would not be, and because fences or ‘No Trespassing’ signs do not effectively bar the public from viewing open fields, the asserted expectation of privacy in open fields is not one that society recognizes as reasonable.”
Note the casual recklessness of that reasoning. The Supreme Court essentially declared that, since some private land is viewable from beyond its boundary — from a road or maybe a plane or hot air balloon — all private land apart from the “curtilage” surrounding a home is fair game for government trespasses and searches.
As technology advances, the open fields doctrine only grows more troubling: If Hester licenses government agents to wander your property at will, it follows that they can use drones or plant cameras to accomplish the same type of spying — with far greater ease and less manpower.
Government agents are planting cameras like these on private property (Dave Hurteau for Field & Stream) Indeed, while Virginia’s warrantless DWR agents shockingly seized Highlander’s camera so they could retroactively monitor his actions (an act that even the expansive open fields doctrine doesn’t seem to authorize), elsewhere in Virginia and in the United States, government agents are already known to hide their own surveillance cameras on private land.
The Institute for Justice (IJ) — a national civil liberties law firm that provides free-of-charge representation to victims of government overreach — has filed a suit against the Virginia DWR on Highlander’s behalf, as part of a broader, multi-state campaign against abuses perpetrated under the open-fields doctrine.
Given the formidable federal obstacles presented by the Hester and Oliver precedents, IJ’s strategy in these cases centers on protections outlined in state constitutions rather than the US Constitution.
“The US Supreme Court’s basis for the open fields doctrine has been that the Fourth Amendment lists ‘persons, houses, papers and effects,’ and none of those things are obviously the same as land,” says IJ attorney Joshua Windham in his firm’s video profile of the case.
“State constitutions often have different texts…in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, the word ‘effects’ is replaced with the word ‘possessions,’ and we say that includes private land…In Virginia, there’s a textual provision that mentions ‘places’, and of course [Highlander’s] property is a place,” says Windham, who’s representing Highlander.
In their suit filed in a county circuit court, IJ and Highlander are seeking a declaration that the warrantless search of Highlander’s property and seizure of his camera and its contents violated the Virginia constitution.
Josh Highlander at his Providence Forge, Virginia home (Institute for Justice) “No person at all in this country should have limitless power, and it sure seems like they do,” says Highlander. “It just makes you feel vulnerable, it makes you feel anxious, it makes you feel like someone’s watching you on your own private property.”
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would be likewise aghast at the government conduct unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Hester and Oliver decisions. After all, colonists’ anger over British “Writs of Assistance” — which the Tenth Amendment Center’s Mike Maharrey describes as “a go-anywhere and do-anything permission slip for government agents” — was one major grievance that animated the American revolution.
While the federal precedents stand firm — for now — Highlander says he’s determined to ensure his fellow Virginians are spared the same abuse he’s suffered: “What happened to my family was wrong and I’m fighting for our privacy and to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 19:30 - After Fostering Cesspool Of Crime, Gavin Newsom Finally Gets Serious About Fentanyl In San Francisco
After Fostering Cesspool Of Crime, Gavin Newsom Finally Gets Serious About Fentanyl In San Francisco
Before he was governor of California, Gavin Newsom (D) served as the Mayor of San Francisco between 2004 and 2011 – with none other than Kamala Harris (D) serving as his Attorney General. While one might encounter Bush Man or Escape Man during the journey to Ghirardelli Square back then, it was nothing like the San Francisco of today.
Gavin and Kamala set in motion a legacy of poo-covered streets, rampant crime, and an explosion in homelessness and addiction that was further facilitated by Kamala’s successor, ‘Soros’ DA George Gascón (2011 – 2019). Gascón is currently ‘working his magic’ as Los Angeles District Attorney – having survived a recall attempt (in which observers weren’t allowed to view the counting of the votes), with results we’ve noted many times over the years. In fact, last month San Francisco was ranked the worst-run city in America.
Now that we’re up to speed, and Newsom might be the Democrats’ secret weapon against Trump (or Ron DeSantis) in 2024 – and therefore in dire need of talking points, he’s finally doing something about the fentanyl crisis affecting San Francisco.
On Thursday Newsom announced that the state will bolster its existing efforts to tackle the fentanyl crisis in the city, with a promise to double the number of California Highway Patrol officers dedicated to the issue in a joint task-force coordinated with the California National Guard that was first announced in May.
A man lies, passed out after getting high on a sidewalk near City Hall in San Francisco. (Nick Otto via The Chronicle) “Today, I’m authorizing a 100% increase in personnel to bolster the impact of this proven operation, as well as authorizing targeted surges to crack down on crime in the city,” said Newsom in a press release. “Working alongside our local, state, and federal partners, we’re committed to cleaning up San Francisco’s streets.”
As of today, the operation has seized over 8.1 kilograms of fentanyl, enough to kill more than 4 million people.
“CHP’s recent results in San Francisco are nothing short of extraordinary — in just six weeks, the agency’s hardworking officers seized enough fentanyl to potentially kill the city nearly three times over, multiple firearms, and stolen goods,” said Newsom.
The operation, designed to assist city patrol officers, includes a team of analysts dedicated to monitoring and tracking organized crime and providing advanced metrics to aid investigations, the Epoch Times reports.
“Our residents, business owners, and visitors to our city deserve to feel safe, and we are making progress in disrupting the drug markets that are causing so much misery on our streets,” said Police chief Bill Scott, who welcomed the support of the state. “Working collaboratively with the CHP, we’ve seized an unprecedented amount of fentanyl and other deadly narcotics in recent weeks, and I look forward to building on our success.”
Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) As The Epoch Times notes further;
San Francisco Fire Department spokespersons reported to the California Assembly’s newly formed Select Committee on Fentanyl, Opioid Addiction, and Overdose Prevention during its first gathering in May about having to respond to multiple overdose emergency calls every day, with an average of two deaths occurring on the streets every 24 hours.
“I don’t even bring my family into the city anymore, and we used to love to come over and eat and shop, just enjoy the area,” Jesse Garcia—an electrician living in the East Bay and working in San Francisco—told The Epoch Times. “I don’t want my young kids seeing the people out here looking like zombies. It’s disgusting, and it’s not safe for families.”
Faced with several dilemmas stemming from the public’s perceived lack of public safety in the city stemming from homelessness, open-air drug use, and high levels of theft—including retail stores fleeing the downtown area and record levels of office space vacancy impacting the economy—Mayor London Breed voiced her appreciation for the state’s help.
“Over the last several weeks, we’ve welcomed the California Highway Patrol and National Guard working collaboratively alongside our local agencies to disrupt the drug trafficking and drug markets harming our neighborhoods,” Breed said in the joint press release. “To be successful in the long term, we need to sustain and expand this work at the local, state, and federal levels.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed attends an event hosted by Sen. Scott Wiener in San Francisco on Oct. 23, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Federal courts have proven more effective than state and local ones in terms of convicting distributors and some dealers linked to the deaths of individuals, based on court filings this year, levying multi-year sentences on numerous occasions.
Seemingly fed up with a lack of action from leaders, voters recalled Chesa Boudin—formerly the city’s progressive district attorney—in 2022 by a wide margin.
Meanwhile, several district attorney’s offices throughout the state report feeling hampered by what they say are limited options for prosecuting those caught with less than one kilogram of the drug.
Resistance in the Legislature to entertain proposals related to fentanyl sentencing enhancements is an issue that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have taken exception to, as multiple bipartisan efforts to bolster prosecutorial playbooks were denied earlier this year.
One measure that is currently still being considered, Assembly Bill 701—a bipartisan bill introduced by Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) enhancing penalties for possession of at least one kilogram of fentanyl—passed the Senate Public Safety Committee June 27, but members reserved their right to oppose the legislation on the floor, as some said they believe increasing prison sentences will not improve the overdose epidemic.
Complicating matters are the cheap and easy fentanyl manufacturing methods criminal organizations have mastered and the lethality of the substance, with 2 milligrams—only a few grains—potentially deadly, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, also known as the DEA.
The drug is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
A photograph comparing the relative potency of heroin and fentanyl during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on March 22, 2018 in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Nearly 29,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized in California in 2022, representing an amount that could kill most of the people on the planet—approximately 6.5 billion, based on DEA calculations.
According to the most recent statistics from the California Department of Public Health, approximately 115 people die every week in the state as a result of the synthetic opioid.
Investigators report that many victims are unknowingly poisoned, as the drug is odorless, tasteless, and is often found hidden in counterfeit pharmaceutical products and in street drugs.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 19:00 - US Releases Internal Review Of Botched, Disastrous Afghan Withdrawal
US Releases Internal Review Of Botched, Disastrous Afghan Withdrawal
The US State Department did not adequately prepare for the possibility of a swift collapse of the Afghan government as part of its planning for the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, an internal review has found. The US government announced it would complete its withdrawal by September 2021, expecting the US-backed Afghan government and security forces to remain in power and continue peace negotiations with the Taliban.
However, as the US withdrawal progressed, the government quickly collapsed, and then-president Ashraf Ghani fled the country in August 2021 as the Taliban took control of the capital, Kabul. This led to a chaotic final evacuation of US and Afghan personnel from Kabul airport. The two-week evacuation was marred by the deaths of at least 175 people when NATO troops indiscriminately opened fire on crowds of civilians gathered outside the airport after an ISIS suicide bomber blew himself up.
Al-Jazeera notes that the State Department After Action Report (AAR) issued on June 30 said the decision by US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan after over 20 years of occupation had “serious consequences” for the viability of the US-backed Afghan government.
“Those decisions are beyond the scope of this review, but the AAR team found that during both administrations, there was insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios,” the review said.
The report specifically criticized the State Department for failing to set up a crisis-management task force soon enough to cooperate with the Pentagon in the case of an evacuation. “Establishing such a task force earlier would have brought key players together to address issues related to a possible [evacuation],” the report stated.
Further, “Naming a 7th-floor principal … would have improved coordination across different lines of effort,” that report said, referring to the State Department’s top floor where Secretary of State Antony Blinken and senior diplomats have offices.
The review also blamed the Trump White House for failing to address a backlog of applications for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which allows Afghans that might be in danger of retribution by the Taliban for working with foreign occupiers, to emigrate to the US.
The review also repeated previous claims by the Biden White House that Trump did not adequately plan for the departure of US troops after it reached a deal with the Taliban to withdraw troops by May of 2021, a deadline Biden postponed. Biden and State Secretary Antony Blinken have faced harsh criticism due to the chaos that accompanied the withdrawal.
Blinken was recently subpoenaed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) to release classified cables from July 2021, in which staffers from the US embassy in Kabul warned that the defeat of the US-trained Afghan army was “imminent.”
Reporter asks Biden to react to today’s report that his admin botched the Afghanistan withdrawal:
“Remember what I said? I said al-Qaeda wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right.” pic.twitter.com/JfwhYv3Sy5
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 30, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
However, despite the broad condemnation of the troops’ withdrawal, less attention was paid to the collapse of the Afghan economy. The NATO-funded Atlantic Council think tank noted that “the Afghan economy began spiraling shortly after the Taliban takeover” due to US actions, including imposing “sanctions, the freezing of central bank assets, and removal of foreign aid.”
The US and a coalition of its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the so-called War on Terror, in which the neoconservative-led Bush Administration sought to invade seven countries in West Asia within five years.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 18:30 - The Closest & Biggest Asteroid Flybys Of 2023
The Closest & Biggest Asteroid Flybys Of 2023
On today’s World Asteroid Day, fascination is mixing with fear when considering the latest and upcoming asteroid flybys.According to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, a number of asteroids have already passed by a little too close for comfort this year.
You will find more infographics at Statista
As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, the colossal 2005 YY128, which flew by the Earth on February 16, had a maximum possible diameter of more than 1,000 meters (0.6 miles).
Because of its size, 2005 YY128 was already discovered in 2005 – as denoted in its name.
In recent years, scientists have been discovering more and more so-called Near Earth Asteroids, including many smaller ones.
Despite their comparatively smaller size, these asteroids could still cause considerable damage if they collided with Earth.
2023 DZ2 (nicknamed “Dizzy”), passed by Earth on March 25, and came so close that it could be seen with a telescope and even binoculars.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 18:00 - Biden: A Bumbling Grifter Personifying A Failing State
Biden: A Bumbling Grifter Personifying A Failing State
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
The Long, Hot Summer
“Vladimir Putin is clearly losing the War in Iraq.”
– Joe Biden, US President
Russian Revolution Two kicked off the long, hot summer freak show of 2023. Unlike Russian Revolution One (1917), which lasted over seventy years, RR2 clocked out in under twenty-four hours. It didn’t propel Russia into a political paroxysm as perhaps expected by crisis engineers in Langley, VA, and Washington’s Foggy Bottom. Rather, it energized the resolve of arch-nemesis Vlad Putin, solidified his support among the Russian populace (who turned out singing patriotic hymns along the Neva River when the revolt was quashed), and sunsetted the increasingly rogue Wagner private paramilitary company in its Ukraine duties, now to be taken over by regular Russian Federation army units.
According to commentator Andrei Martyanov – see yesterday’s colloquy on Tommy Carrigan’s Podcast – Wagner had already gone off the rails in Ukraine, inciting the costly Bakhmut operation on its own to fluff its reputation while preparing for the mutiny executed and aborted on June 24.
The fate of Wagner’s business manager, Evgeny Prigozhin, remains murky now while he cools his heels in Belarus — a trial, perhaps, at some later date when Ukraine itself stops being a geopolitical psychodrama. He has been publicly branded a “traitor.”
It was perhaps the hope of America’s feckless Neocon war-dogs that Russia would fall into chaos. This has all along been the hope and expectation of our country’s official stated policy. And it turns out to be ever more at odds with the reality of the situation. Mr. Putin aims to conclude this tragic US-provoked misadventure as swiftly as possible now. This ain’t no Mud Club; this ain’t no foolin’ around. It looks more like the last days of disco in Kiev. The question for the people there is: just how much of Ukraine do you want to be left with intact when this thing is over? Go ahead… choose.
Despite its master-slave relationship with America, Euroland may not be so avid for World War Three as the “Joe Biden” regime seems to be. The Wagner coup fiasco marks the true crackup of NATO as the Ukraine project fizzles. Surely Europeans with some functioning brain cells must be asking: “what was the point of all this killing and waste?” The clear-eyed may suspect that the point was to get Europe to commit suicide, because that is the obvious result. No more natgas for you, Europe, meaning farewell to major industry and a comfortable standard of living. A lot less wheat and corn coming out of Ukraine to Euroland nations, too. When food costs too much, or is just plain scarce, governments fall. Wait for it.
Do you suppose that “Joe Biden” & Company can keep up this charade of a proxy war with Russia much longer? $150-billion pounded down the Kiev rat-hole, purchasing yet another foreign relations humiliation. Never has an American president been heaped with such an ignominious foundering and dishonor. He can only pretend to run for reelection as he wrecks the country.
The DNC poohbahs, cross-eyed in transports of Woke-ism, must know that this bumbling grifter personifies a failing state.
The White House press pool reporters are even flinging harsh questions at him these days as he desperately searches for doors to escape through.
The tally in the Biden family bribery operation stands above $30-million now, with government whistleblowers pouring out of the agencies like termites from a burning house. Most of them have not testified in Congress yet, or in any other venue, nor have the various DOJ and FBI officials associated with the broad-based cover-up of these blatant crimes. Do you doubt anymore that Attorney General Merrick Garland perjured himself testifying that the Delaware US attorney David Weiss was not interfered with in the Hunter Biden tax and gun violation case?
The mounting evidence of foreign influence-peddling is hard and vivid now, viz., the Whatsapp text out this week of Hunter, “sitting here with my father,” extorting Chinese business associate Henry Zhao to fullfill his commitment or “regret not following my direction.” Hmmmmm. Explain that. Or the email archive carefully saved by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who was prudent enough to back up his story with docs apt to prove DOJ malfeasance.
It’s unfortunate that America suffered three fake presidential impeachments in recent decades – Bill Clinton’s over a sexual impropriety, which is hardly a high crime, and the two utter charades involving Donald Trump – because now our nation is faced with serious presidential crimes explicitly laid out in Article II Section Four of the Constitution: bribery.
“Joe Biden” will be impeached if he doesn’t bail altogether, and he might not do that because then he loses the power to pardon the other Biden family members involved. The impeachment of Merrick Garland for debauching and dishonoring the Justice Department logically would be the warm-up act for the impeachment of the president. They’ve both got to go and they both could save our country a lot of trouble by just stepping down.
Then we can see about Kamala Harris.
* * *
Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 17:00 - 'Godfather Of AI' Speaks Out: AI Capable Of Reason, May Seek Control
'Godfather Of AI' Speaks Out: AI Capable Of Reason, May Seek Control
Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A leading mind in the development of artificial intelligence is warning that AI has developed a rudimentary capacity to reason and may seek to overthrow humanity.
British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the ‘godfather of AI,’ speaks with Nick Thompson of The Atlantic (off frame) during the Collision Tech Conference at the Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada, on June 28, 2023. (Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images) AI systems may develop the desire to seize control from humans as a way of accomplishing other preprogrammed goals, said Geoffrey Hinton, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto.
“I think we have to take the possibility seriously that if they get smarter than us, which seems quite likely, and they have goals of their own, which seems quite likely, they may well develop the goal of taking control,” Hinton said during a June 28 talk at the Collision tech conference in Toronto, Canada.
“If they do that, we’re in trouble.”
Hinton has been dubbed one of the “godfathers of AI” for his work in neural networks. He recently spent a decade helping to develop AI systems for Google but left the company last month, saying he needed to be able to warn people of the risks posed by AI.
While Hinton does not believe that AI will innately crave power, he said that it could nevertheless seek to seize it from humans as a logical step to better allow itself to achieve its goals.
“At a very general level, if you’ve got something that’s a lot smarter than you, that’s very good at manipulating people, at a very general level, are you confident that people stay in charge?” Hinton said.
“I think they’ll derive [the motive to seize control] as a way of achieving other goals.”
AI Now Capable of Reason
Hinton previously doubted that an AI superintelligence that could match humans would emerge within the next 30 to 50 years. He now believes it could come in less than 20.
In part, he said, that is because AI systems that use large language models are beginning to show the capacity to reason, and he is not sure how they are doing it.
“It’s the big language models that are getting close, and I don’t really understand why they can do it, but they can do little bits of reasoning.
“They still can’t match us, but they’re getting close.”
Hinton described an AI system that had been given a puzzle in which it had to plan how to paint several rooms of a house. It was given three colors to choose from, with one color that faded to another over time, and asked to paint a certain number of rooms in a particular color within a set time frame. Rather than merely opting to paint the rooms the desired color, the AI determined not to paint any that it knew would fade to the desired color anyway, electing to save resources though it had not been programmed to do so.
“That’s thinking,” Hinton said.
To that end, Hinton said that there was no reason to suspect that AI wouldn’t reach and exceed human intelligence in the coming years.
“We’re just a big neural net, and there’s no reason why an artificial neural net shouldn’t be able to do everything we can do,” Hinton said.
“We’re entering a period of huge uncertainty. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen.”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 16:30 - How Old Are The World's Nuclear Reactors?
How Old Are The World's Nuclear Reactors?
Since the advent of nuclear electricity in the 1950s, nuclear reactors have played an essential role in meeting our rising energy needs.
Nuclear reactors are designed to operate for decades and are typically licensed for 20 to 40 years, and they can last even longer with license renewals.
So, just how old is the world’s current nuclear reactor fleet?
As Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada and Sabrina Lam show in the bubble chart below, the age distribution of the 422 reactors operating worldwide as of March 2023 is quite considerable, based on data from the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS).
The Age Distribution of the Global Reactor Fleet
Nuclear power saw a building boom in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as countries expanded their energy portfolios and sought to capitalize on the advancements in nuclear technology.
As a result, the majority of the world’s nuclear reactors began operating during this period.
Of the total of 422 reactors, 262 reactors have been in operation for 31 to 50 years. In other words, about 62% of all current nuclear reactors were connected to the grid between 1973 and 1992.
Growth in nuclear power slowed down by the turn of the 21st century, with decreasing public support and increasing concern over nuclear safety. As a result, only a small number of reactors fall into the 11 to 20 year age group.
But over the last decade, some countries have renewed their interest in nuclear energy, while others like China have continued to expand their reactor fleets. Some 67 reactors are between zero and 10 years old, accounting for 18% of global nuclear electrical capacity.
The oldest operating reactors (five of them) are 54 years old and entered commercial service in 1969. Two of these are located in the United States, two in India, and one in Switzerland.
How Long Can Nuclear Reactors Last?
Although specific lifespans can vary, nuclear reactors are typically designed to last for 20 to 40 years.
However, reactors can operate beyond their initially licensed periods with lifetime extensions. Extending reactor lives requires rigorous assessments, safety evaluations, and refurbishments.
Some countries have granted license renewals for aging reactors. Notably, 88 of the 92 reactors in the U.S. have received approvals to operate for up to 60 years, and some have applied for additional 20-year extensions to operate for up to 80 years.
With safety concerns addressed, reactors with lifetime extensions can offer various advantages. Without the high capital investments needed to build new reactors, they can produce carbon-free electricity at low and competitive costs, which is especially important as the global power sector looks to decarbonize.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 16:00 - Raytheon Calls In Retirees To Help Produce Stinger Missiles
Raytheon Calls In Retirees To Help Produce Stinger Missiles
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
Raytheon has called in retired engineers to help produce Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the US has been providing Ukraine, Defense One reported on Thursday.
Stingers are shoulder-fired missiles that were out of production for 20 years until the US started sending them to Ukraine when Russia first invaded last year, a policy led by a former Raytheon board member, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
AP Image According to the Pentagon, the US has provided Ukraine with over 1,700 Stinger missile systems to date.
“Stinger’s been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the war], it’s the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense, said last week.
Raytheon needs to produce the Stingers using blueprints drawn up during the Carter administration, as using more advanced production methods would require redesigning the weapon.
“We were bringing back retired employees that are in their 70s … to teach our new employees how to actually build a Stinger,” Kremer said. “We’re pulling test equipment out of warehouses and blowing the spider webs off of them.”
The US Army placed an order for Stingers in May 2022 to replace ones sent to Ukraine, but the Pentagon said they won’t be delivered until 2026. Kremer said it would take at least 30 months for the first missiles to be completed due to the time it will take to restart production.
In March 2022, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes explained how the war in Ukraine would be a boon for the weapons maker.
“Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years,” he said.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 15:30 - Study Finds Xanax, Valium Associated With Brain Injury, Suicide
Study Finds Xanax, Valium Associated With Brain Injury, Suicide
About 30 million Americans are taking benzodiazepines like Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin- about 12.5% of the adult population. Doctors and psychiatrists have prescribed these drugs for decades to treat anxiety. But a new study reveals “benzodiazepine usage and discontinuing usage” can create “nervous system injury and negative life effects.”
Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus said as patients enter the discontinuation phase of Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin, they face significant withdrawal symptoms.
“Despite the fact that benzodiazepines have been widely prescribed for decades, this survey presents significant new evidence that a subset of patients experiences long-term neurological complications,” said Alexis Ritvo, M.D, M.P.H., an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and medical director of the nonprofit Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices. She said the medical community must reevaluate how it prescribes benzodiazepines.
The study was a collaborative effort between CU Anschutz, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and several drug advocacy that specializes in raising awareness of benzodiazepine harms.
“Patients have been reporting long-term effects from benzodiazepines for over 60 years. I am one of those patients. Even though I took my medication as prescribed, I still experience symptoms on a daily basis at four years off benzodiazepines. Our survey and the new term BIND (benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction) give a voice to the patient experience and point to the need for further investigations,” said Christy Huff, MD, one of the paper’s coauthors and a cardiologist and director of Benzodiazepine Information Coalition.
About 76.6% of the respondents had long-lasting symptoms after discounting the use of benzodiazepines. Almost half of the respondents had these ten symptoms for more than a year:
- low energy
- difficulty focusing
- memory loss
- anxiety
- insomnia
- sensitivity to light and sounds
- digestive problems
- symptoms triggered by food and drink
- muscle weakness
- body pain
The most alarming part of the study was the symptoms listed above were new and distinct and weren’t experienced before respondents used Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin. Many respondents reported damaged relationships, job loss, and increased medical costs. Also, 54.4% of the respondents reported suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide.
But don’t worry because doctors and the government tell us benzodiazepines are safe, just like they said OxyContin wasn’t addictive in the 1990s.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 15:00 - IRS Sends Special Notice To Taxpayers In Eight States
IRS Sends Special Notice To Taxpayers In Eight States
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has sent out a special mailing to taxpayers in disaster-affected areas, letting them know they have more time to pay their taxes.
The IRS said in a statement Thursday that the special mailing was being sent out to California and seven other states as a follow-up clarification after an earlier message wrongly told them they had 21 days to pay.
“Although the initial notice indicated a payment deadline of 21 days, taxpayers in these disaster-declared regions actually have until a later date this year to make their payments within the designated timeframe,” the agency stated.
Taxpayers with balances due who live in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee that fell under disaster declarations received a CP14 notice from the IRS in late May and June.
Many of the CP14 notices incorrectly said the affected taxpayers had three weeks to pay outstanding balances.
“We know our initial mailing caused confusion for taxpayers and tax professionals, and we worked quickly to send a follow-up reminder to help reassure people,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.
“This mailing reflects how we’re trying to be more taxpayer-focused given the additional resources that we’ve been given under the Inflation Reduction Act.”
The new mailing, called CP14CL, will be sent out within the next several weeks, the agency said.
The earlier CP14 notices also included a special insert that features the correct payment deadline, which was extended under special tax relief to taxpayers in federally declared disaster zones.
The IRS has also updated these inserts, which will accompany upcoming CP14 balances-due notices so as to make it clear that the letter does not apply to people covered by disaster declarations.
Disaster-Related Deadline Extensions
Earlier this year, taxpayers in federally declared disaster regions—like ones hit by deadly winter storms—were granted tax relief by the IRS in the form of an extension on their deadlines to file their tax returns and pay amounts due.
A vehicle is partially covered in snow, in the San Gabriel Mountains in San Bernardino County near Los Angeles County, in Mount Baldy, Calif., on Feb. 24, 2023. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) The IRS issued notices granting such relief to taxpayers affected by severe weather in parts of Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York, and Tennessee. The deadline extensions varied across different disaster areas, with relevant parts of Florida, for example, getting an extension until Aug. 15, while Tennessee storm victims had theirs extended until July 31.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 14:30 - Democrat Rep. Has Psychotic Meltdown – Calls Supreme Court "Illegitimate White Patriarchy"
Democrat Rep. Has Psychotic Meltdown – Calls Supreme Court "Illegitimate White Patriarchy"
The separation of the political left from any sort of reasonable governance has been obvious for years now. To put it simply, they see the government as their personal weapon for deconstructing the country so they can rebuild society the way they want. They believe this is their right – The right of the collective to socially engineer
The notion that elements of the government might serve the interests of conservatives and independents is an unthinkable heresy. And, whenever they don’t get exactly what they want from the government (which is rare) they immediately act as if they have been betrayed; that an “insurrection” is afoot to enslave them.
This attitude seems to overlook the fact that every major institution in the US has been catering to the far-left for decades. Even when GOP Republicans have taken a majority in the House, the Senate or put their man in the Oval Office, the general legislative trend has always taken a progressive direction, to the point that America has become increasingly more socialist in its functions. It’s also the reason why America has become economically and socially unstable.
In truth, leftists have been getting what they want from governments and the corporate world for so long they have become utterly entitled, like spoiled children.
That’s the kind of sad energy we now see on display among Democrats in the face of multiple Supreme Court losses, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the blocking of Biden’s student loan relief program and the end of affirmative action on college campuses. All these court decisions really amount to is a reversal of entitlements that never should have existed in the first place. Leftists see such entitlements as “civil rights,” never mind that they exist as a means to take the rights of others.
Democrat Representative Jaamal Bowman echos this ideology, combining it with a tired and psychotic rant about “white patriarchy” being the core function of the Supreme Court.
Rep Jaamal Bowman has a meltdown on tiktok over Supreme Court rulings.
Says Supreme Court is “illegitimate” and they’re only there to serve “white supremacy” and “white patriarchy” and “they don’t want black people to be educated” pic.twitter.com/f755B0F9Yg
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 30, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The message? It’s complicated because it’s unhinged, but at bottom the far-left wants to fundamentally change the very fabric of the government so that it always acts in their favor regardless of who else is trampled in the process. Let’s try to break down Bowman’s claims…
Playing the racism card is the Democrat go-to tactic for a reason. The primary purpose is to incite civil unrest as a tool for control – “Give us what we want or the cities will burn.” The secondary purpose is to declare ownership of minorities. The propaganda acts as if all minorities are a monolith that serves the aims of the political left. The idea that minorities might also be conservative is ignored.
Affirmative action has always been a racist policy; it allows institutions to actively discriminate based on skin color and ethnicity. Interestingly, white people are not the most affected by affirmative action on college campuses; Asian people are the most discriminated against, with double standards in testing and academic excellence designed to keep them out of the classrooms. According to research from Princeton University, students who identify as Asian must score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites and 450 points higher than Blacks to have the same chance of admission to private colleges.
The notion of a constitutional convention has already been cited by other Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom as a means to dismantle the 2nd Amendment, but Bowman seems to be suggesting a convention to completely upend the Supreme Court and the very foundations of the law. Keep in mind that Democrats have avidly defended the court structure when it works in their favor, but since the court is finally operating on a more constitutional framework they argue it is now corrupt and white supremacist.
Student loan debt relief is nothing more than a way for Dems to buy votes – “Put us in office and we will eliminate the debts you accrued getting that degree that was probably useless.” Of course, taxpaying Americans would have to cover the bill for debt forgiveness on college loans, not the Democratic Party. It’s rather brilliant when you think about it – Democrats use your money to buy votes to keep themselves in office so they can continue to erode your constitutional rights. You pay for your own oppression.
People should have to pay for their own debts. Taxpayers should not have to pay their debts for them. It teaches a terrible lesson to the next generation that if they make mistakes the government will make sure they don’t have to learn from those mistakes.
Finally, it’s not surprising that Bowman attacks expanded gun rights in his diatribe on affirmative action, given that the political left cannot maintain power unless the public is eventually disarmed. Leftists believe in majority rule, as long as they are the majority. If they are the minority, they riot. If they are the majority, they demand government suppress their political opponents. In either case, gun rights stand as a major obstacle to them.
It was only a couple years ago that establishment elites and Democrats were pushing for permanent covid mandates, jail time for those who spread information contrary to the government narrative and economic discrimination for anyone who refused to take the vaccines. The political left took the mask off completely and showed who they really are. They cannot be trusted to rewrite or rebuild core government structures.
Their hatred of the Supreme Court is not based on any legitimate grievances, it’s based on how they view power. The court is a center of power that does not always act according to the dictates of social justice Marxism. They see the court as just another “platform” that needs to be co-opted.
Many conservatives and moderates also have concerns about how the Supreme Court makes decisions, but one cannot deny the constitutional logic behind their recent rulings. It’s a shift that should have happened a long time ago, though it is happening in an era in which leftists see ideological deviation as treason. They will use every trick at their disposal to undermine the law and create double standards to their benefit. Bowman essentially admits that this is the plan.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 07/01/2023 – 14:00
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