Aug 30

Today’s News 30th August 2022

  • Sweden's Leftist Leader Vows To Put A Stop To Ethnic Ghettos
    Sweden’s Leftist Leader Vows To Put A Stop To Ethnic Ghettos

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Sweden’s leftist Prime Minister has vowed to abolish ethnic ghettos, asserting that she doesn’t want to see the emergence of “Somali-towns” in the Scandinavian country.

    Social Democrats leader Magdalena Andersson made the comments during an interview with the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

    “We don’t want Chinatowns in Sweden, we don’t want ‘Somali-towns’ or Little Italys,” she said in reference to migrant ghetto areas where one particular ethnic groups becomes concentrated.

    Skeptics have suggested that Andersson’s comments are merely a ploy to erode support for anti-mass migration party the Sweden Democrats, which is likely to become the second biggest in parliament after the September 11 elections.

    However, she made similar remarks following ethnic riots earlier this year that left more than 100 police officers injured.

    Acknowledging that integration had failed, Andersson stated, “Segregation has gone so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden. We live in the same country, but different realities.”

    “Integration was poor, and alongside, we have experienced intense immigration. Our society was too weak, while money for the police and social services too little,” she added.

    Andersson was part of the government that accepted around 180,000 migrants during the “refugee crisis,” a decision she later said she “regretted.”

    Having been one of the safest countries in Europe 20 years ago before mass uncontrolled immigration, Sweden is now the continent’s second most dangerous in terms of gun crime behind only Croatia.

    Last year, Germany’s Bild newspaper ran the headline: ‘Sweden is the most dangerous country in Europe.’

    Ukrainian refugees also expressed the desire to avoid being sent to Sweden, feeling that it was too unsafe.

    Ukrainian women in Sweden were also warned not to dress in a way that could “provoke” Muslim men.

    As we highlighted earlier this month, Swedish Migration Minister Anders Ygeman has suggested that Sweden should follow the example of Denmark in seeking to place a limit on the population of non-Nordic migrants living in troubled areas.

    The Danish government has enacted a policy which has seen parts of migrant ghettos demolished, with residents moved elsewhere in a bid to put a stop to ‘parallel societies’ that breed crime and social dislocation.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/30/2022 – 02:00

  • Document Outlines Biden Admin's Plan To Give IDs To Illegal Immigrants
    Document Outlines Biden Admin’s Plan To Give IDs To Illegal Immigrants

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A newly obtained document outlines the Biden administration’s plan to give identification cards to illegal immigrants.

    A Border Patrol agent organizes a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    The document describes how a pilot program called the “Secure Docket Card” would give some illegal aliens a card with a photograph, counterfeit-resistant security features, and a quick response (QR) code.

    The card would replace “the current ad-hoc system” and could save Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) time and resources by enabling officials to more quickly verify an illegal immigrant’s status and help immigrants make it to court hearings, according to the document.

    Biden administration officials already confirmed that such a pilot program was being prepared, but the document sheds more light on details on the program, including its scheduled start date and estimated cost.

    Key components of the program were slated to begin on Aug. 1, according to the document, including designing the identification card, developing an online portal with information for the immigrants such as court dates, and identifying personnel who will work on the program.

    Those components are slated to be completed by March 1, 2023. After that, the plan calls for temporary cards to start being produced in two ICE field offices and permanent cards to start being produced at an unidentified central location.

    The program is slated to run through Sept. 30, 2023.

    The following month, a feasibility study is scheduled to take place to evaluate whether the pilot can be expanded. Also planned: looking at whether illegal immigrant cardholders can access basic information on the online portal without assistance; whether the pilot was having an effect on the “Fugitive Rate,” or rate of illegal immigrants who skipped their court hearing; how much the program was increasing the workload for officials; and whether any forged cards were appearing.

    The estimated total costs were pegged at $2.5 million.

    “It is outrageous and absurd that the Biden administration intends to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money designing and issuing identity cards for the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens they are waving in at the border,” Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that studies immigration, told The Epoch Times after reviewing the document.

    “Instead of issuing these documents, they should be sending them back to their home countries,” she added.

    No Update

    After obtaining the document through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, The Epoch Times asked ICE for updates on the pilot, including whether parts of it began in August as scheduled and whether the estimated costs remained the same.

    An ICE spokeswoman sent the exact same statement as she did in July, when the agency confirmed the pilot’s existence.

    The program “is still in its infancy,” a spokesperson for the agency said when pressed on whether it had started. “There is nothing further to add at this time.”

    “The ICE secure docket card concept is a pilot program that would modernize documentation provided to some noncitizens. While the specifics of the program are under development, it is important to note the secure card will not be an official form of federal identification. The secure card will indicate it is for use by DHS agencies and would be provided only after national security background checks have been performed,” ICE said in its previous statement.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 23:40

  • One Of China's Biggest Commodity Traders Faces Liquidity Crisis
    One Of China’s Biggest Commodity Traders Faces Liquidity Crisis

    Citing “temporary difficulties in logistics, transportation and product sales due to Covid flareups in China,” one of China’s most influential commodities traders is pushing for a government bailout as a deepening property market collapse and ongoing Zero-COVID policy shutdowns has pressured many commodity companies as credit conditions tighten.

    As Bloomberg reports, He Jinbi – founder and chairman of Maike Metals International – has asked the government and financial institutions for help after liquidity issues forced his company to delay some payments for imported copper. Additionally, He admitted that some suppliers have canceled deliveries due to concerns over the company’s ability to pay.

    The company “is suffering temporary difficulties in logistics, transportation and product sales due to Covid flareups in China,” company founder and Chairman He Jinbi said in an interview on Friday

    Bloomberg reports that, according to people familiar with the matter, BHP Group, the world’s biggest miner, is among suppliers that are diverting shipments away from Maike for now. Additionally, Chile’s Codelco, the biggest global copper producer, has reportedly paused sales to Maike.

    For now, Maike’s chairman claims the problems are only affecting 10,000 to 20,000 tons of refined copper, which accounts for a very small portion of the company’s supply, but one wonders why he would be urging government aid if this were a one-off, or a mere hiccup?

    The company – which historically has been one of the biggest traders of copper in China – holds a substantial amount of the metal in Shanghai’s bonded zone, which is the center of refined copper trading in China. Copper rpices have been rather more volatile in the last week or so, spiking as Maike’s news made headlines and tumbling after The Fed’s hawkishness…

    …but, as Bloomberg notes, this instance of financial stress comes after growing caution around commodities financing in the wake of high-profile losses – especially in the nickel market – and huge price volatility fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In China, several alleged scandals this year involving missing aluminum and copper ores have further reduced liquidity to the industry.

    Watch this space…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 23:20

  • Legal Challenges To Pentagon's Vaccine Mandate Just Getting Started, Military Insiders Say
    Legal Challenges To Pentagon’s Vaccine Mandate Just Getting Started, Military Insiders Say

    Authored by Michael Washburn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Department of Defense’s (DoD) requirement that all members of the Armed Forces receive COVID-19 vaccinations, even if they’ve already had the virus and developed immunity, has had a severely disruptive effect within military ranks, resulting in the denial of promotions and assignments to those who refused vaccination and in thousands of service members having to leave the military.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at a meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, on June 16, 2022. (Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images)

    The vaccination order has given rise to a spate of lawsuits and is likely to spur more challenges as more people come to see that officials who grant exemptions on other grounds are unwilling to accommodate those who file religious accommodation requests (RARs), service members and military experts have told The Epoch Times.

    “I have talked to military members and no one likes this policy; no one thinks it’s a good idea. I agree with them that this policy is going to backfire in a big way. It’s going to force out people who are moral, ethical service members out of the military and will leave a readiness gap. But the other problem is this is a relatively untested vaccine and we’re all just now starting to see what the health effects are,” Susan Katz Keating, a journalist specializing in military affairs and the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine, told The Epoch Times.

    The vaccine mandate has been enshrined in DoD policy as a consequence of President Joe Biden’s July 29, 2021, order to the department to add COVID-19 to its list of required vaccinations. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s subsequent memorandum on Aug. 24, 2021, required each branch of the military to vaccinate all service members.

    The order quickly met with resistance from military personnel seeking exemption on various grounds, from concerns about the safety and unknown long-term side effects of vaccines that they felt had been rushed through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process, to religious objections on the part of those who take issue with the use of fetal cell lines in the development of the drugs.

    A Professional Soldier’s View

    Active-duty military personnel who spoke to The Epoch Times acknowledged broad disapproval of the DoD’s stance on vaccinations, and some of them signaled that, no matter how mixed the results so far, legal challenges to the policy are just getting started.

    Opposition runs high among military personnel, Rob Green, an active-duty Navy commander (O5) currently serving with Maritime Expeditionary Security Group Two, told The Epoch Times.

    “I don’t want to speak for 2.1 million of my friends, but I’ll say that there are many who did not want to get vaccinated. They’re being told that they have to, but common sense told these people that if a pandemic has a 99.99 percent survivability rate, and you’re in the healthiest possible age group in America, ‘Why am I going to take this risk?’” Green said.

    Green described Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine as an emergency-use product that never went through the twelve-year cycle of approval and review which a vaccine would ordinarily be subject to, but instead was rushed through the process in one year, with important testing left undone.

    He noted that Comirnaty-labeled vaccines—the drug that received full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval—became available for the DoD to order only as of May 20 this year. According to Green, this means that, going back as far as Aug. 24, 2021, the DoD had been illegally pushing the use of a drug that still had the status of an Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) product, and one that service members, therefore, had every legal right to refuse.

    “The order to vaccinate is not a lawful order. As a matter of fact, in federal court, the Department of Justice, on behalf of the Department of Defense, admitted on May 20 that basically they had no licensed product before then,” Green said.

    No statutory basis exists for denying any American the right to refuse to a EUA drug, Green believes. Under EUA law 21 USC § 306bbb, the government has far-reaching responsibilities when it comes to advising people of their rights concerning the administration of vaccines and other drugs, according to a whistleblower report circulated by Green and obtained by The Epoch Times.

    While the military can make use of a presidential waiver process under 10 USC §1107a, this waiver does not mean that service members are legally required to use a EUA product, only that the requirement to inform them of their right to refuse does not apply, the report states.

    The vaccines forced on service personnel before May 20, 2022, were not Comirnaty-labeled, and hence did not meet a fundamental legal obligation, Green argued.

    “Labeling is a legal requirement in order to have a licensed product. You can’t waive proper labeling. That amounts to fraudulent labeling, which actually has its own statute law. They knew what they did was illegal,” Green said.

    The Pentagon has issued a policy (pdf) saying the FDA-approved Comirnaty and EUA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are interchangeable, but the legality of this directive is contested by service members opposing the mandate.

    Green said he knows many service members who have been unfairly, and illegally, penalized for their refusal to take the vaccine, including one young man who he identified for purposes of this article as Owen. In Green’s telling, Owen enlisted under a delayed entry program. The DoD rolled out its vaccine mandate after Owen had signed up, but before he arrived at boot camp. When Owen put in an RAR, he was told that the process required him to confer with a chaplain, but, being in boot camp, he had no access to a chaplain. In the end, the military kicked Owen out after only 39 days of service.

    A New Challenge

    Military personnel are not lying dormant in the face of what they view as an illegal and selectively enforced mandate.

    Last week, 14 Marines residing in the states of Texas, Washington State, Louisiana, Minnesota, and North Carolina filed a class-action lawsuit in a federal court in Texas against Defense Secretary Austin. In their complaint, the plaintiffs, citing “sincerely held religious beliefs,” claim that military officials have been inconsistent in their treatment of service members seeking exemptions. While, in theory, it is possible to seek an exemption on medical, administrative, or religious grounds, the last category does not carry any weight with DoD officials, the plaintiffs allege. “Religious accommodation requests are universally denied unless the requester is already imminently leaving the Marines,” the complaint charges.

    Military officials’ refusal to grant exemptions on religious grounds is not only inconsistent with their willingness to exempt service members on other grounds but violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the Administrative Procedure Act, the plaintiffs claim.

    The complaint lists a number of negative consequences for the careers and lives of those service members who refuse vaccinations. The DoD threatened those who refused to comply with court martials, involuntary separation from the services, negative performance evaluations, the loss of leadership positions, removal from consideration for promotions, the inability to retire in good standing, non-deployable status, denial of benefits and special pay, and the loss of leave and travel privileges, among other penalties and punishments.

    Its legality aside, the DoD’s vaccination push has been largely successful—with the overwhelming majority of active-duty Marines now vaccinated—and recent developments in related cases do not look promising for the plaintiffs in the Texas class-action suit.

    In March, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that the Navy had the authority to decide whether or not to deploy personnel who refused the vaccine mandate. That case, too, was originally filed in Texas before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals took it up.

    Readiness and Morale

    As of the end of April, the military had expelled 3,400 troops for refusing vaccine shots, and the numbers continue to rise.

    For the military to lose so many personnel so abruptly, and with more involuntary separations likely as the legal challenges play out, is reckless from a security standpoint, Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, a Livonia, Michigan-based public policy institute, told The Epoch Times.

    “Of course the size of the All-Volunteer Force matters, and anyone claiming otherwise should be held accountable. Short-handed units put heavy work burdens on others, making deployments more difficult and weakening deterrence, morale, and overall readiness. The military services and academies keep pushing an inflexible, unreasonable ‘get vaccinated or get out’ policy, which has become a national security issue,” Donnelly said.

    In Donnelly’s view, the traditional criteria that guided military leaders’ decision-making—namely, what is in the best interests of American readiness and security—have been eclipsed by a tendency to assert their own absolute power in a context where service members are expected to obey commands without question.

    “Military vaccinations have little to do with the health of the force and everything to do with the power of military officials to implement policy. The military is uniquely vulnerable to power plays such as this because personnel are not truly free to dissent, and federal courts are reluctant to second-guess military judgments and decisions,” she said.

    Military Priorities

    Donnelly pointed out the irony that DoD officials should take such an inflexible, and coercive, stance toward those who dissent on religious grounds, given the overall orientation of the military today toward accommodating all who say they want to serve, without regard for such traditional standards and requirements as physical strength and endurance.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 23:00

  • Miami's Gun Buyback Program Preys On Residents To Hand Over Firearms To Support Fight Against Russia
    Miami’s Gun Buyback Program Preys On Residents To Hand Over Firearms To Support Fight Against Russia

    The City of Miami has become very creative in an attempt to disarm residents through a voluntary gun buyback program that will supposedly help “provide safety and defense equipment to Ukraine.” 

    Called “Guns 4 Ukraine,” the flyer on the Miami government website reads: 

    Your donations will be used to assist the Ukraine support efforts. Receive a gift card starting at $50 for an old, unused, or found weapons, no questions asked. Do your part to make our streets safer. Visa Gift Cards will be exchanged for the weapons in the following amounts: $50 Firearm, $100 Shotgun or Rifle, and $150 High-powered assault rifle (.223 Caliber, AR-15, AK-47). 

    City officials outlined how no “homemade firearms” will be accepted in exchange for gift cards. It appears they learned a valuable lesson from a Houston, Texas, gun buyback program earlier this month when a man 3D-printed 62 pistols and was able to collect thousands of dollars. 

    While the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that most Americans support helping Ukraine fight against Russian aggression, Miami is preying on the sentiment of its residents to give up their guns for NATO’s proxy fight against Russia in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, located in Eastern Europe. 

    Miami’s gun buyback program sounds like a very cunning scheme to disarm residents under the guise of helping Ukraine. 

    Ukrainians don’t need guns from Miami residents when they have billions of dollars in weapons supplied by the US military-industrial complex, courtesy of the war hawks in the Biden administration. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 22:40

  • American Drivers Go Deeper Into Debt As Inflation Pushes Car Loans To Record Highs
    American Drivers Go Deeper Into Debt As Inflation Pushes Car Loans To Record Highs

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As vehicle prices rise amid inflationary pressure, Americans buying new cars are taking on higher loans and pushing themselves deeper into debt, according to credit-monitoring company Experian.

    Used cars for sale are on display, on June 24, 2021, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

    Both the average loan amount and monthly payments for new and used cars have risen over the recent quarters, the firm said in an Aug. 25 news release. In second quarter 2022, the average loan amount for a new vehicle rose 13.21 percent year over year, to $40,290. During this period, monthly payments rose from $582 to $667, an increase of 14.6 percent.

    For used vehicles, average loans jumped 18.66 percent, to $28,534, while the average monthly payment rose from $440 to $515.

    Experian also found that consumers were shifting back to used vehicles, accounting for 61.78 percent of all vehicle financing during second quarter 2022, which is up from 58.48 percent during the year-ago period.

    “Between the inventory shortage and rising vehicle costs, consumers are looking to make the most cost-effective decision, which is often a used vehicle,” said Melinda Zabritski, Experian’s senior director of automotive financial solutions.

    “The benefit of higher vehicle values is that consumers are able to get more for their trade-ins, which can help offset the increased cost of their next vehicle.”

    According to market research firm J.D. Power, the average transaction price for a new vehicle is expected to hit a record high of $46,259 in August, up 11.5 percent from a year back.

    The 12-month Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, registered an 8.5 percent increase in July, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices of new vehicles rose by 10.4 percent. while used cars and trucks saw prices jump by 6.6 percent.

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

    Rising Auto Loans, Slowing Sales

    The jump in average car loan amounts and monthly payments are happening amid an increase in auto loans. According to an Aug. 2 report published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data, household auto loans in Q2 rose by $33 billion to $199 billion, continuing an upward trajectory that has been in place since 2011.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 22:20

  • Unvaxxed Coast Guard Cadets Given 24 Hours To Leave Campus
    Unvaxxed Coast Guard Cadets Given 24 Hours To Leave Campus

    Coast Guard Academy cadets who have refused the Covid-19 vaccine on religious grounds were ordered to vacate the campus within 24 hours of receiving notification that their cases had undergone final military adjudication, after their religious accommodation requests (RAR) for exemptions were denied in May.

    In June, the Coast Guard Academy gave notice that the unvaccinated cadets would be disenrolled, while the appeals were formally rejected on Aug. 15. They failed to notify the cadets for three days, after which they gave them just one day to vacate the campus, according to Just the News.

    After being ordered to leave within 24 hours of being notified that their disenrollment appeals were denied, the seven unvaccinated Coast Guard cadets had to pack up everything and figure out how to get themselves and all their belongings home before the deadline, one cadet told Just the News on Monday.

    The cadets are still enrolled in the academy and receive pay — which the cadet said is like “pennies,” anyway — as they’re on temporary duty at their home addresses. Thus, they are required to attend their military trainings online, despite being unable to attend classes that started on Aug. 22. -Just the News

    What’s more, because they’re still technically enrolled, they can’t leave the Coast Guard to seek other options for education or work. One cadet told JTN that it’s too late to transfer to another college at this point in the semester, and that only part of their credits would transfer over to another institution anyway. 

    Two of those told to leave are seniors, one is a junior and four are sophomores.

    According to the caadet, the academy claims they aren’t violating a protected stay order in a class action lawsuit against the vaccine mandate, Clements v. Austin, which allows the unvaccinated cadets to remain enrolled at the academy through Sept. 1, after which they can be disenrolled.

    Attorneys for the cadets have requested a temporary restraining order against the vaccine mandate for the duration of litigation. The lawsuit claims that because the COVID-19 vaccine was ordered under emergency use authorization (EUA) – vs. full FDA approval – that the military can’t force them to take it.

    “The steps taken by the Coast Guard Academy are clear religious discrimination against Christians and reflect a total disdain for the faith and constitutional rights of cadets,” Military attorney R. Davis Younts told Just the News on Tuesday. “The actions of the Coast Guard continue to have a devastating impact on morale and military readiness. Worse, these actions appear to be based on a lack of moral courage among the leaders of the Coast Guard. With the new CDC guidance, there is simply no medical or scientific justification for treating young men and women who have worked so hard to earn a commission like pariahs.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 22:00

  • Bitcoin Aligns Incentives In The Perfect Way
    Bitcoin Aligns Incentives In The Perfect Way

    Authored by Conor Chepenik via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    When a nocoiner asks me about Bitcoin, it’s hard not to take a “Michael Saylor breath” and embark on a four-hour conversation about how there is no second best.

    My Bitcoin elevator pitch has become better over time, but it’s hard explaining why the world so desperately needs an honest monetary ledger in 30 seconds. Proof-of-work is required to have the glorious experience of going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. In this piece I attempt to lay out why the incentives of the network are so well thought out at every level.

    Humanity has never before had such a fair game. A truly free market ledger that anyone can access, verify and update if they play by the rules. From individuals to small businesses, followed by grid operators and energy companies, and finally nation-states, everyone benefits in the long run by playing fairly with electricity rather than through coercion and violence. While I’m most hopeful that Bitcoin can help empower sovereign individuals, it appears we are entering the point where institutions start stacking sats.

    As the network continues to grow in size, Bitcoin will reach a point where every company and nation-state will adopt the technology in some form or fashion, just like they have with TCP/IP. The Bitcoin rabbit hole makes learning fun and teaches people about energy, finance, philosophy, physics, history, game theory, economics, computer science and a bunch of other subjects. At my local Bitcoin meetups in Massachusetts, I’ve heard many similar stories of people starting to study and learn about subjects they otherwise would never have bothered to study. In order to have a good understanding of Bitcoin you must commit hundreds, if not thousands of hours. At which point you are just getting started because “no one has found the bottom of the Bitcoin rabbit hole.” Once you start to grasp what Bitcoin means for humanity, it almost feels like a cheat code for life. An apolitical, censorship-resistant, truly scarce, decentralized ledger that is being adopted by the masses from the ground up. It’s a blessing that the anonymous person or group named Satoshi Nakamoto solved the Byzantine generals problem. 

    (Source)

    INDIVIDUALS

    Socialism doesn’t work because people are self-interested. I’d love to live in a utopia where everyone cooperates and helps their neighbor. I firmly believe that when you give via your own free will, it is one of the best feelings in the world. However, it does not feel very good to give when you are forced to do so in order to avoid violence. Throughout history, taking away the ability for people to keep the fruits of their labor has always ended poorly. Telling people they must produce for “the greater good” is a recipe for disaster. One example of this is what happened in China between 1959-1961. The country experienced what is now referred to as the Great Famine under Mao Zedong.

    “Taking away all means of private food production (in some places even cooking utensils), forcing peasants into mismanaged communes, and continuing food exports were the worst acts of commission. Preferential supply of food to cities and to the ruling elite was the deliberate act of selective provision.” 

    – Vaclav Smil

    This is just one example of what happens when the government takes away the ability for its citizens to work on what they themselves deem worthy. It ruins the incentive structure for productive people to work on meaningful tasks. The world is not a utopia no matter how badly socialists want it to be. It is one thing to demonize monopolistic practices because they hinder the free market from operating properly. It is a completely different thing to demonize profit. If people can’t make a profit they won’t spend their time and resources making something of value. That is unless they are forced to do so by the threat of violence. The more coercion is applied, the less value is created because someone working for profit is a lot more motivated than someone working because they are being forced to do so.

    One monopolistic practice hindering our modern world today is the monopoly central banks have on fiat currency. By centrally planning interest rates and having the ability to create fiat money without facing an opportunity cost for doing so, the free market becomes corrupted. This leads to distorted price signals and individuals being pushed out on the risk curve.

    “Every day that goes by and Bitcoin hasn’t collapsed due to legal or technical problems, that brings new information to the market. It increases the chance of Bitcoin’s eventual success and justifies a higher price.” — Hal Finney

    While bitcoin becomes less risky every day it exists, I tip my hat to the individuals who understood its importance before buying bitcoin was a mainstream thing. Before exchanges like Mt. Gox, people were not using fiat currency to buy bitcoin. They were using electricity and computers to mine it, which is what made Bitcoin so special. A new system that is completely outside the traditional one of relying on credit and growth. Many projects that came before Bitcoin failed in the long run, but various ideas from these projects were referenced in Nakamoto’s white paper. Logically, over time, more people will come to the Bitcoin network to protect their purchasing power as long as the network keeps adding blocks of transactions approximately every 10 minutes.

    The more people who see the impact that fiat currency debasement has on their purchasing power, the more likely they are to look for alternatives to protect said purchasing power. This is what initially attracted me to buy some bitcoin in early 2017. My friend told me about this new form of currency that had appreciated greatly since its inception. I watched the documentary “Banking On Bitcoin,” which I still highly recommend because it helped open my eyes to the fact that money is just a ledger. Unfortunately, I didn’t fully go down the rabbit hole at that time. I spent the first couple of years of my journey looking at my exchange balances as my bitcoin and altcoins multiplied 10 times, only to be depressed when my gains came crashing down after the bull market ended. Like most who are initially attracted to cryptocurrency for the speculation, I obsessed over the fiat price. Doing so caused me to miss the whole point of not having to rely on any counterparties to verify and hold bitcoin. While it sucked losing all the fiat gains I had made, it taught me some very valuable lessons.

    “The danger is if people are buying bitcoins in the expectation that the price will go up, and the resulting increased demand is what is driving the price up. That is the definition of a BUBBLE, and as we all know, bubbles burst.” 

    – Hal Finney

    As Finney so eloquently pointed out in those early days, when something goes parabolic superfast it will likely crash just as fast. Pain is the best teacher and this was my first hint at why having a low time-preference is so important. It also served as a lesson for myself to focus on Bitcoin, not crypto. I kept an interest in Bitcoin, but it wasn’t until 2020 that I really started digging into the rabbit hole. When I got a stimulus check in the mail for doing nothing, that set off an alarm inside my mind. While free money is always nice, it was obvious that there would be consequences to the United States government handing out cash to its citizens. I didn’t fully understand why at the time. It was annoying me that I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong so I started down the Bitcoin rabbit hole which led me to Austrian economics and how money actually works. It was both frustrating and enlightening to learn about Bretton Woods, 1971 and why central banks are in a race to debase their currency.

    When I learned that most U.S. dollars are held on a server (in an SQL database) at the Federal Reserve, I was shocked. These people can press buttons on a keyboard and print trillions. By granting 12 unelected officials the privilege to centrally plan the cost of borrowing money we have hindered the free market’s ability to effectively tell market participants what the cost of capital is. Fiat is latin for “by decree”; thus, it makes a lot of sense why central bankers will fight tooth and nail to keep the ability to control money. The Fed claims to be an apolitical organization, but as debt levels increase to numbers typically seen during times of war, central bankers are pressured politically to debase their currency. The other option is to default on the debt and that is never politically viable. The silver lining is that more people are waking up because they get frustrated watching their purchasing power decline rapidly in inflationary environments. Being self-interested is not a bad thing. It is what motivates individuals to work hard so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Bitcoin optimizes for this, while the Keynesian economic models of ever-expanding credit steal the fruits of people’s labor. No one knows how it ends but over time it makes sense more people would end up saving their “fruits” in the harder money. 

    Figures with a Bitcoin flag, walking on the U.S. dollar

    SMALL BUSINESSES

    Visa and Mastercard have a combined market capitalization of about $775 billion dollars at the time of this writing. They charge around 3% of retailers’ revenue for their services which eats into the profits or get passed onto consumers of the companies accepting debit and credit cards. While cards make it much easier to transact, many businesses and consumers would be happy to avoid these fees if possible. There is an option of going cash-only for final settlement, but that means missing out on business from younger generations who don’t carry cash. By accepting bitcoin, these companies not only avoid the fees, but they also receive final settlement transactions just like cash. No more waiting 90 days to make sure a credit card doesn’t get charged back. Bitcoin will massively disrupt many financial rails we have today. Many in the Western world might not appreciate what a big deal this is because our financial rails are pretty well established. However, those in less developed countries know perfectly well what a pain it is to have hucksters butting in to take a cut. It won’t be instant, but bitcoin can help wean small businesses off middlemen who are no longer necessary. Bitcoin can also serve as an incredible marketing tool. I’d gladly spend some satoshis at any local small businesses that took bitcoin. Tahinis is a great example of a small business who leveraged bitcoin to get some brand awareness. I’ve never been to Canada, but if I ever go, I’d like to eat at Tahinis so I can use bitcoin to buy shawarma. Bitcoin forms a special bond between people to the point where you literally want to support their business because you know they have taken the orange pill.

    (Source)

    ENERGY COMPANIES AND GRID OPERATORS

    Energy companies and grid operators also have a massive incentive to adopt a bitcoin strategy. Rather than just having one buyer on the grid that demands more energy during the day than at night, the grid could have a second buyer who is willing to consume energy 24/7, 365 days/year. Bitcoin miners can monetize energy that would otherwise go to waste. There is the up-front cost of buying an ASIC and having the technical whereabouts to maintain and run said ASIC. This means more jobs for the talented individuals who understand how to do so. More talented workers creating value means more energy efficient grids. It amazes me how much fear, uncertainty and doubt gets spread about Bitcoin’s energy usage, when the reality is Bitcoin can stabilize grids and make the capital put up to build green energy infrastructure much less risky. 

    If you wanted to build a massive hydro plant in a rural area before there was Bitcoin, it would be very hard to raise the capital. Investors would not want to put up their money for a power plant that did not have buyers for the power being generated. With Bitcoin, the investors can rest assured there is always a buyer for that power. While I think there will be a point when miners just keep the bitcoin, they can also sell them for fiat at any point in time. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin never stops trading. Since fiat depreciates over time, the most efficient miners will be able to hold and accumulate their bitcoin, while the less efficient miners will have to sell for money that is constantly being debased by the money printer. The best companies will thrive over the long run, while the inefficient operators will have to adapt or die. It is the free market doing its job. 

    The more I learn about how grids operate, the more apparent it becomes that bitcoin can help usher in an abundant energy future where energy prices aren’t going parabolic because of poor decisions made by central planners who are printing money at unheard-of rates. The whole green energy and environmental, social and governance (ESG) narrative is an antihuman farce meant to hide the disaster that the central banks have created. These greeniacs claim that CO2 is going to suffocate the world, but this chart in Alex Epstein’s “Fossil Future” shows why more fossil fuel use is needed.

    (Source)

    Energy is the base layer of society. Without reliable and reasonably priced energy, things will get ugly fast. Just look at what happened to Sri Lanka who had one of the highest ESG ratings in the world before their economy collapsed. Every example of hyperinflation stems from irresponsible monetary policy. Calling currency debasement “quantitative easing” doesn’t change the fact that it results in more money chasing the same number of goods. People joke that Bitcoiners are psychopaths who can’t stop talking about magic internet money, but the truth is we just want others to take the orange pill so we can stop suffering from the central planners. Bitcoin Maximalists have a reputation of being mean online for calling out bad actors, but almost every Bitcoiner I’ve met in person turns out to be one of the most genuine, kind and intelligent people I meet. In person, I’ve seen that Bitcoiners are willing to help onboard as many people as they can because we all strongly believe Bitcoin is the best way to achieve a pro-human future where we have an abundance of food, energy and choice.

    In my opinion, helping people understand that bitcoin is the life raft is one of the most noble things a person can do. History has shown that the free market will ultimately end up with one form of money winning out. Before bitcoin that was gold and then we ended up with fiat to keep up with the speed of commerce. Now that we have bitcoin, I believe fiat will continue to rapidly lose its purchasing power as more people and businesses realize that bitcoin can’t be debased by a single entity.

    NATION-STATES

    This one is a double-edged sword. I want as many individual people to adopt bitcoin before the nation-states start accumulating. I’m hopeful that the nation-states who do end up adopting bitcoin will be able to utilize its fiat price appreciation to create a more abundant society for the individuals that live there. At the time of writing, two countries have adopted bitcoin as legal tender. According to the World Population Review’s prosperity index, El Salvador ranks 98 and the Central African Republic ranks 165 out of 167 countries. Neither of these countries is in the top 50% of prosperous nation-states and they were the first to adopt bitcoin. I believe this trend will continue since the most prosperous countries have much more to lose by not being able to “decree” what happens with their country’s money. Before bitcoin, El Salvador was a dollarized economy. Now they allow both USD and BTC to operate as legal tender. The Central African Republic had the CFA franc as its currency. According to Wikipedia:

    “Critics point out that the currency is controlled by the French treasury, and in turn African countries channel more money to France than they receive in aid and have no sovereignty over their monetary policies.” 

    Top: Central African Republic flag. Bottom: El Salvador flag

    It is encouraging to see nation-states that are at the mercy of foreign central banks adopt bitcoin to get around these monopolies. I imagine at some point the richest nation-states will be forced to adopt bitcoin if their currency is hyperinflated because it will be the only viable way to trade with other countries. These wealthy nations will fight for as long as they can to keep control of their monopoly on fiat currency. It is the poorer nations who don’t have complete sovereignty over their money that will look to bitcoin to protect their purchasing power because they have the least to lose. 

    If you are a nation-state and you can’t create your own money to fund government spending, you are much more likely to invest in a truly scarce currency than another nation-state that can create more of its own currency out of thin air. While El Salvador might not be in the green in terms of where they bought bitcoin on the spot market, they have made up for it with the massive boost in tourism and interest in their country. Personally, I would love the opportunity to visit El Salvador and use bitcoin to buy stuff. El Salvador will likely continue to experience a massive influx of tourism as more Bitcoiners, like myself, start to plan trips there so they can use this new form of money. The cyber hornets don’t mess around and as more countries notice the impact bitcoin can have on their local economies, the logical conclusion is to adopt it as legal tender and attract tourists to bolster their economy.

    (Source)

    CONCLUSION

    It might get messy. Rich nations, the World Bank and The International Monetary Fund aren’t just going to toss up their hands and go, “Well, it was fun controlling fiat while it lasted.” Just look at the U.S. who passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes hiring and arming an additional 87,000 IRS agents. The United States is planning on printing money out of thin air so they can pay citizens to do this.

    (Archived source)

    It is quite ironic that the nation which was created because we demanded no taxation without representation is doubling down on its tax force.

    The people in power will fight tooth and nail to protect their interests and hinder bitcoin’s adoption. Top-down controls can only go so far. Individuals, companies and nation-states are all self-interested. No one likes a parasite when they are the one dealing with the consequences that are draining their resources, time and value. Over a long enough time horizon, it seems bitcoin will bleed these parasites dry as they lash out and try to impose top-down controls across the world. The truth can only be hidden so long; it always comes out in the end. Bitcoin can fix energy, monopolistic central banks, credit-based systems and massive surveillance states. It can help disincentivize violence because if someone stores their private keys in their head, no one can steal that bitcoin. They can kill the person who holds the keys, but if they were not able to torture those private keys out of the victim’s head, that just results in a donation to the rest of the network since that person’s bitcoin will never be moved.

    If enough people adopt bitcoin and use solid safety practices, powerful entities stand to gain more by cooperating with these sovereign individuals rather than killing them. I don’t want it to get messy and I truly believe the best way to avoid conflict is by getting more people to take the orange pill and showing them how to run a node. Individuals, companies and nation-states theoretically no longer need banks to transact.

    As a U.S citizen, I hate to see America in disarray. Ray Dalio makes some excellent and terrifying points about the state of our republic in his book “The Changing World Order.” The U.S is a declining empire at this point and China is on the rise. This chart from Dalio really helped me understand what it means to have world reserve currency status.

    Estimates of ‘power’ levels of empires relative to others.

    The Netherlands had reserve currency status and lost it to the British, who lost it to the United States. Now it looks like China is getting ready to gain world reserve currency status over the U.S. There is little hope of reversing the trend of USD no longer being a global reserve currency. While losing reserve status is never a fun experience, the U.S could benefit greatly from having bitcoin as a neutral world reserve currency rather than the Chinese yuan. Having a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as the reserve currency would serve as the ultimate tool for central planners to corrupt the free market and wreak havoc on value creation. As a country, China has a deep, rich history and a nation full of hardworking people. However, their massive surveillance state and CBDCs are not something that will ever fly in a free country. It is up to the masses to say “enough!” and opt out.

    Future generations deserve a better world than one where the government can turn off access to its citizens’ money with the flick of a switch. These past two years have been absolutely insane. We are seeing people get their bank accounts frozen because they donated to a peaceful protest put on by truckers in Canada. We are seeing an attack on farmers across the globe to meet antihuman ESG agendas that will destroy countries in the same way it did Sri Lanka. We are even seeing the greatest nation on the planet come after its own citizens by devaluing their currency at unprecedented levels, hiring more IRS agents and raising taxes during a recession. All of this is what is at stake if the masses don’t wake up and peacefully opt out from these corrupt regimes with bitcoin.

    All we have to do is use an old computer or a Raspberry Pi and run Bitcoin Core. Now, it is that easy to transact with anyone in a peer-to-peer manner and verify that only 21 million bitcoin will ever be created. It brings a warm, tingly feeling to my heart thinking about the freedom, prosperity and abundance bitcoin can bring to the world.

    “Abundance in money creates scarcity everywhere else, and scarcity in money creates abundance.” 

    – Jeff Booth

    Once the masses understand this, they will understand why the phrase “Fix the money; Fix the world,” is the embodiment of the Bitcoin ethos.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 21:40

  • US Embassy Anti-Air Defenses Activated Over Baghdad As Death Toll Rises In Night Of Chaos
    US Embassy Anti-Air Defenses Activated Over Baghdad As Death Toll Rises In Night Of Chaos

    Update(2140ET): The American embassy in Baghdad has reportedly engaged inbound rocket attacks with its air defense system, the C-RAM which protects aerial threats against the Green Zone.

    Some reports suggest the streets have finally grown calmer in the early morning hours (local time), but this is after an evening and overnight death toll of at least 15, including unconfirmed reports of police casualties. AFP citing local medical sources also says some 350 protesters were injured. 

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    Currently the Kuwaiti embassy in Iraq is urging all of its citizens to leave the country, and its likely that more regional and gulf states will follow, especially if violence spreads to other provinces. 

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    Below: a brief collection of videos from some of the night’s chaotic scenes of clashes between pro-Sadr protesters, rival militant factions, and security forces…

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    * * *

    Update(1702ET): By all accounts the situation into the overnight hours (local time) Baghdad has continued to spiral, with one well-known regional Mideast correspondent describing a “full implosion” – despite security forces attempting to enforce a strict curfew meant to clear the streets. The Republican Palace, which is where Iraq’s gridlocked parliament meets (though which has now been suspended by acting prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi), was occupied by armed protesters earlier in the evening.

    CNN reports of the latest, “At least five people have been killed and more than 40 have been injured in violent clashes that erupted in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Monday, following an announcement by powerful Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that he was withdrawing from political life, medical sources told CNN.” Earlier, though unconfirmed reports, said at least eight had died amid clashes with police. These numbers were quickly updated and the death toll is expected to go higher into the night: At least 12 protestors killed (AFP), 2 security members killed (Arabiya). State trying to impose a curfew but situation is out of hand. Protestors aggravated by status quo, militias roaming Baghdad, Gov MIA… Long night for Iraq,” Joyce Karam summarizes.

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    “Several witnesses told CNN the security forces pushed protesters out of Iraq’s Republican Palace by firing tear gas and live bullets. Hundreds of protesters stormed the building inside the Green Zone following al-Sadr’s announcement, Iraqi security officials told CNN on Monday.”

    The White House previously denied widespread claims that an embassy “evacuation” was in progress – but at this point it seems more than likely that key personnel are being whisked to safety given the crumbling security situation in the supposedly ‘high-secure’ Green Zone.

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    In a twisted bit of tragic irony, all of this is of course happening the very week, almost to the day, of another anniversary and grim legacy of America’s two-decade long ‘war on terror’…

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    Pro-Sadr protesters were earlier seen taking over the swimming pool at the iconic Republican Palace built by Saddam and kept in tact after the 2003 US invasion.

    More video to emerge showing just how intense ongoing clashes among political factions and with police are:

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    * * * 

    Update(1337ET): The White House is addressing viral video which purported to show a military helicopter on top of the US Embassy in Baghdad following Iraqi protesters breaching the high-secure Green Zone.

    “Reports of an Embassy evacuation are false. Ensuring the safety of US government personnel, US citizens, and the security of our facilities remains our highest priority,” a White House official said in the hours after the security situation unraveled. The official called reports of violent confrontation with police “disturbing” after a curfew for the Iraqi capital went into effect.

    “Now is the time for dialogue, not escalated confrontation,” the official said. “We join the call by parties across the Iraqi political spectrum to remain calm, abstain from violence, and resolve their political differences through a peaceful process guided by the Iraqi constitution.”

    Though little is confirmed, there are reports of several killed as videos of gun fights continue to emerge. Currently there are reports that pro-Sadr militants are roaming around Tahrir Square and near the Green Zone at the moment, with key government buildings also having been breached.

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    * * *

    Days of pro-Muqtada Sadr protests and unrest have reportedly resulted in Baghdad’s high secure Green Zone being breached Monday, placing international diplomatic missions and foreign embassies under threat.

    AFP is reporting that an exchange of gunfire has been observed as dozens or possibly hundreds of supporters riot, with police using riot control measures like water cannons to repel an attack on the Green Zone. There are unconfirmed reports that the sprawling and iconic Iraqi Republican Palace has been forcibly breached with protesters inside.

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    The fresh unrest appears to be in response to Sadr being pressured to exit politics, with the influential Shia cleric tweeting earlier in the day, “Earlier I decided that I would not interfere in political affairs. And now I announce my final retirement (from politics) and the closure of all institutions (belonging to the Sadr movement).”

    The past months have witness periodic unrest as Shia factions struggle to form a government, which has also resulted in sporadic violence amid gridlock in parliament. Against this backdrop, for the last two years pro-Iran militia groups have launched occasional rocket attacks on US bases and even at times the heavily fortified American embassy. Sadr’s supporters believe there’s a conspiracy against him.

    Though as yet unconfirmed from the US side, there are widespread reports that the United States Embassy which is located inside the Green Zone is currently being evacuated.

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    Convoys of international vehicles have also been seen speeding from the areas of unrest, exiting the confines of the Green Zone.

    Below are some developments according to Iraqi war correspondent Ali Almikdam:

    • closure of the shrine of Imam Al Kadhim
    • Intense security deployment near Baghdad International Airport.
    • Sadr’s supporters storm the government palace & the Republican Palace.
    • Curfew in Baghdad.
    • US embassy is evacuating

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    Purported footage of protesters breaching the symbolic seat of government for the Iraqi state, which is at the heart of the walled Green Zone:

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    developing…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 21:40

  • Student Loan Forgiveness May Result In A State Tax Bill In Over A Dozen States
    Student Loan Forgiveness May Result In A State Tax Bill In Over A Dozen States

    Those excited about the forthcoming student loan forgiveness are now finding out that they may wind up getting hit with a state tax bill on forgiven loans. 

    While the student loan forgiveness is set to be tax-free on federal returns, some experts have said that the cancellation may wind up triggering a state tax bill, as some states may count the cancelled debt as income. 

    The rules could affect borrowers in more than 12 states, according to a writeup by CNBC. They may also add a state liability of roughly $300 to $1,100, the report says. The states that may be included are Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin, the report says.

    As a result of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, the forgiveness is Federally Tax Free through 2025. 

    Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation, said: “Generally speaking, states use the federal tax code as a baseline for how they define taxability.” States use “conformity” to follow Federal legislation, he said. In rare cases states may decouple from Federal guidelines and make their own. 

    He said of handling the forgiveness: “States could come back very early in the next legislative session, update their conformity statute and make it effective immediately. This is not a niche issue that only affects a few people. It affects a very large number of people and hopefully, there will be clarity provided on it.”

    Many borrowers making under $125,000 per year individually or $250,000 per year married will qualify for up to $10,000 of forgiveness under the bill. Pell Grant recipients will receive up to $20,000 in forgiveness. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 21:20

  • Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Administration's Transgender Medical Mandate
    Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Administration’s Transgender Medical Mandate

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a Biden administration statute that forced doctors to perform medical procedures, including gender-transition procedures, against their religious beliefs.

    Jean Ballard protests Fairfax County school board’s pro-transgender policy outside of the Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church, Va., on June 16, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unanimously upheld a lower court’s ruling in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra which protected around 19,000 health care professionals in Franciscan Alliance, a Catholic health care network, from performing medical procedures against their conscience.

    The lower court’s ruling had permanently prohibited the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) “from requiring Franciscan Alliance to perform gender-transition surgeries or abortions in violation of its sincerely held religious beliefs.”

    Becket, the legal counsel representing Franciscan Alliance, said the court explained that permanent protection from the statute was appropriate for health care workers.

    “This ruling is a major victory for conscience rights and compassionate medical care in America,” said Joseph Davis, counsel at Becket, in a statement. “Doctors cannot do their jobs and comply with the Hippocratic Oath if the government requires them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise.” 

    The court noted that the Biden administration argued for more chances to show why it needed religious health care providers to participate in gender-transition surgeries, but that the ACLU, a co-appellant, cited a previous case that worked against their argument, according to court documents (pdf).

    “For years, our clients have provided excellent medical care to all patients who need it,” Davis said. “Today’s ruling ensures that these doctors and hospitals may continue to do this critical work in accordance with their conscience and professional medical judgment.”  

    Mandate

    The mandate was first issued six years ago as part of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Becket noted that this applied to “virtually every doctor nationwide.”

    Section 1557 of Obamacare prohibits health care programs that receive federal funds from discriminating against patients on the basis of sex.

    In May 2016, HHS issued a rule interpreting Section 1557’s prohibition of “discrimination on the basis of sex.” It defined sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of “termination of pregnancy” and the disputed concept of “gender identity.”

    Franciscan Alliance claimed the 2016 rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by defining “sex discrimination” inconsistently with Title IX, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.

    This rule was swiftly challenged by nine states and a group of religious organizations and received protection from federal courts in North Dakota and in Texas.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 21:00

  • Iran Gives West Ultimatum On Nuclear Deal As It Starts Enriching Uranium At Natanz
    Iran Gives West Ultimatum On Nuclear Deal As It Starts Enriching Uranium At Natanz

    Iran has issued an ultimatum which further suggests that at a moment a restored nuclear deal is reportedly at the ‘finish line’ (or hanging by a thread, depending on the source) – it could be on the brink of unraveling in this final crucial stage. 

    “Iran’s president warned Monday that any roadmap to restore Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers must see international inspectors end their probe on man-made uranium particles found at undeclared sites in the country,” the AP reports.

    AFP via Getty Images

    This has been a key demand of the Iranian side particularly over the past months, but the US and its ally Israel in the background have claimed the withdraw of inspectors will only more easily allow the Islamic Republic to pursue a covert nuclear weapons program under cover of a restored JCPOA.

    The IAEA has long demanded answers after man-made uranium particles were found at undeclared sites inside Iran. President Ebrahim Raisi addressed this in his Monday speech:

    As a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran is obligated to explain the radioactive traces and to provide assurances that they are not being used as part of a nuclear weapons program. Iran found itself criticized by the IAEA’s Board of Governors in June over its failure to answer questions about the sites to the inspectors’ satisfaction.

    Raisi mentioned the traces — referring to its as a “safeguards” issue using the IAEA’s language.

    “Without settlement of safeguard issues, speaking about an agreement has no meaning,” Raisi said.

    Thus his words point to an agreement on the “final text” being anything but a done deal.

    Complicating things further, Reuters in a Monday afternoon report, citing the IAEA, says:

    Iran has started enriching uranium with one of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at its underground enrichment plant at Natanz, a report by the U.N. atomic watchdog to member states seen by Reuters said on Monday.

    Iran is using the cascade of up to 174 machines to enrich uranium to up to 5% purity, the confidential report said.

    Critics of the negotiations and a restored JCPAO will be sure to pounce on this, particularly at a moment that top Israeli officials are in Washington seeking to lobby the White House against a deal. 

    Meanwhile, Iranian state media is reporting that Tehran is still reviewing Washington’s response to the ‘final text’ after the EU delivered it last week, and is not expected to give formal reply until Friday, September 2.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 20:40

  • The Fed Is Openly Cheering The Stock Market Plunge Following Jackson Hole
    The Fed Is Openly Cheering The Stock Market Plunge Following Jackson Hole

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    After actively promoting bubbles in housing and the stock market for years, the Fed is now rooting for a price crash…

    Neel Kashkari ‘Happy’ to See the Stock Market’s Reaction to Jackson Hole

    Bloomberg reports Neel Kashkari ‘Happy’ to See the Stock Market’s Reaction to Jackson Hole

    “I was actually happy to see how Chair Powell’s Jackson hole speech was received,” Kashkari said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on Monday, reflecting on the steep drop after Powell spoke. “People now understand the seriousness of our commitment to getting inflation back down to 2%.”

    “I certainly was not excited to see the stock market rallying after our last Federal Open Market Committee meeting,” he said. “Because I know how committed we all are to getting inflation down. And I somehow think the markets were misunderstanding that.”

    “One of the biggest mistakes they made in the 1970s at the Fed is they thought that inflation was on its way down. The economy was weakening. And then they backed off and then inflation flared back up again before they had finally quashed it,” Kashkari said. “We can’t repeat that mistake.”

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    Actively Promoting Bubbles

    The Fed actively promoted a housing bubble to bail out banks following the DoCom crash. Of course, the DotCom bubble was openly embraced by Greenspan as a productivity miracle.

    Not understanding bubbles and crashes, the Fed promoted the “Everything Bubble” as it is now called in response to the housing crash and great recession. 

    Finally, the Fed actively promoted the biggest bubble of them all in response to the Covid pandemic by the most QE and monetary stimulus ever coupled with the biggest fiscal stimulus in history.

    Actively Popping Bubbles

    Now, the Fed has decided it does not like the inflation it created.

    The only way it knows how to fix inflation is via demand destruction. The way to do that is to kill the wealth impact from the bubbles it created. 

    So now the Fed is cheering the stock market decline. 

    Gaps Galore on the Stock Market, Where Is the Market Headed and When?

    Earlier today, I commented Gaps Galore on the Stock Market, Where Is the Market Headed and When?

    I think the S&P is headed to the 2400 level and the Nasdaq to the 6,000 level. 

    That’s roughly a 50% decline from the top on the S&P 500 and a 64% decline from the to on the Nasdaq.  

    Fed Pivot? Forget It!

    The Fed has eliminated any talk of a pivot. It might do so, but only if there is a credit event.

    We cannot rule that out, but this is not 2008. 

    Housing is in a bigger bubble from a price perspective, but this time there is not the underlying liar loan problem. Nor is there a huge wave of layoffs coming. 

    The job market is tight and unlike most other economic bears, I expect this recession will have a minimum unemployment rate rise.

    Employment Levels in Retirement Age Groups 

    With over 22 million people aged 60 or over and roughly half of them 65 or over, millions of boomers will be retiring in the next couple years.

    Employment lost due to retirement will not add to the unemployment rate. 

    Powell has plenty of room to hike at will especially given the massive number of openings in the Leisure and Hospitality sector. 

    Expect a Long Period of Weak Growth, Whether or Not It’s Labeled Recession

    On August 19, I commented Expect a Long Period of Weak Growth, Whether or Not It’s Labeled Recession

    On August 26, at Jackoson Hole, Fed Chair Jerome Powell Pledges to “Act With Resolve” to Beat Inflation

    Key comments: “Reducing inflation is likely to require a sustained period of below-trend growth.”

    Stocks are priced for perfection, not a long period of weak growth, and with the Fed openly cheering their demise.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 20:20

  • "Get The F*** Out Of This Province!" Canadian Deputy PM Pounced On In Alberta
    “Get The F*** Out Of This Province!” Canadian Deputy PM Pounced On In Alberta

    Canadian deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland received an icy welcome to Alberta on Friday, as a man accosted her in a city hall building, calling her a traitor and a “fucking bitch.” Video of the incident has been circulated on social media. 

    When the Canadian government confronted “freedom convoy” truckers paralyzing downtown Ottawa earlier this year in protest against vaccine mandates, Freeland — who is also finance minister — was the smiling face of the country’s alarmingly tyrannical response.  

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    After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act for the first time in the country’s history, Freeland orchestrated the freezing of financial accounts of hundreds of protesters — without any due process. 

    On Friday, Freeland — who was born in Alberta — was about to board an elevator in a Grand Prairie city hall building when a man in blue jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt called her first name. Freeland turned and cheerfully replied, “Yes?”

    Then came a blistering verbal tirade that carried on until the elevator doors closed, with Freeland, surrounded by three other women, smiling and hugging the corner of the car: 

    “The fuck you doing in Alberta? You fucking traitorous fucking bitch. Get the fuck out of this province! You’re a fucking traitor, you fucking bitch!”  

    A woman who was accompanying the man and recording the action chimed in, “You don’t belong here.” 

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    After that, another man approached the outspoken man and told him to “get.” 

    “Don’t tell me to ‘get.’ I’ll walk off on my own power, ok, so back off, fucking back off,” he replied. “That fucking cunt shouldn’t be even allowed be allowed in Alberta. She’s destroying this country and your kids are gonna have no future. Ok? I hope you get it. Somebody’s gotta get it, because we’re the only ones fighting for this country right now!” 

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    According to CTV News, the man who accosted Freeland may be Grand Prairie resident Elliot McDavid, who “has been an active organizer of freedom convoy events in his area.”

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    “What happened yesterday was wrong,” Freeland tweeted on Saturday. “Nobody, anywhere, should have to put up with threats and intimidation.” 

    In a Sunday address, Trudeau condemned the verbal attack and, in true leftist style, predictably portrayed it as an act of intolerance: 

    “We are seeing increasingly people in public life and people in positions of responsibility, particularly women, racialized Canadians, people of minority or different community groups, being targeted almost because of the increasing strength of your voices.”  

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 20:00

  • US Hints At Preparing Military Option Against Iran To Israeli Officials
    US Hints At Preparing Military Option Against Iran To Israeli Officials

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    An Israeli official said that the US hinted it was preparing a military option against Iran during a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Friday, The Times of Israel reported.

    The Israeli official said that Gantz told Sullivan that Israel “needs” the US to have a credible military option against Iran. The meeting came as Washington and Tehran are engaged in negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Defense Minister Benny Gantz in a June 2021 meeting, via AP.

    The official said that Gantz received “good hints” that the US was preparing a military option. The official didn’t offer details but said the idea of the military option that Israel wants would be to get Iran to make more concessions in negotiations. If not, the US could potentially take military action against the Islamic Republic alongside Israel.

    Gantz expressed his opposition to the nuclear deal in the meeting with Sullivan, and the Israelis are stepping up pressure on the Biden administration to abandon the talks. As part of the pressure campaign, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, is heading to Washington next week.

    Barnea is expected to brief members of the House and Senate intelligence committees on Israel’s opposition to reviving the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. He will also meet with CIA Director William Burns and other Biden administration officials.

    On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid slammed the EU’s recent proposal to revive the JCPOA, calling it a “bad deal.” Iran is currently reviewing the US response to the EU proposal, which came after Tehran gave a response of its own.

    Lapid said that the EU proposal is not something President Biden said he would pursue during his trip to Israel in July. “We told the Americans: ‘This is not what President Biden wanted.’ This is not what he talked about during his visit to the country,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 19:40

  • Student Loan Forgiveness Proves All Those College Degrees Really Are Worthless
    Student Loan Forgiveness Proves All Those College Degrees Really Are Worthless

    What is a college degree actually worth?  We know what secondary schools charge for the “opportunity” to study with them, but this does not really tell us much about the value of the services they offer.

    On average, college tuition costs around $10,000 per year for a person studying in their home state, and $25,000 a year for those studying out-of-state.  Federal student loans can cover these costs, but this is the application of public tax dollars with the expectation of returns; it is not supposed to be free money.  And to be clear, NO ONE is entitled to a secondary education, let alone for free.  

    The average interest rate on a student loan is around 5% these days, and such loans include stipulations that they cannot be erased through bankruptcy.  The argument among people who support loan forgiveness is that the cost of a degree is too high and the loans are impossible to pay or escape.  On top of that, many of these graduates can’t even get a job once they leave college.  

    Surveys over the past couple years show that at least 45% of college graduates are unable to find a job once they enter the private sector.  Those that can find a job usually end up working outside the scope of their field of study.  Keep in mind this is happening during a period of very low official unemployment.   

    The result?  Four year or eight year degree holders end up working side-by-side with high school graduates in lower wage jobs.  This is extremely common and is fueling a rise in worker discontent.  Their fantasies of six-figure incomes and a life of prestige suddenly hit a wall called reality, and now these students are angry and in debt to the tune of $36,000 or more on average.

    But do they have a right to be angry?  No, not really.  

    The problem with this line of thinking is once again about real world value.  When these students chose their field of study, were they considering the value of the work they would eventually be able to do?  Were they considering the job that their degree would afford them, or were they only thinking about how easy it would be to take those particular classes?

    As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently noted:  “It’s very unfair to have a truck driver have to pay back a loan for somebody that got a PhD in gender studies. That’s not fair. That’s not right.”              

    This is an accurate assessment.  The loan could have been used for anything – Any field of study with limitless potential for job growth and success, but 45% of these kids chose idiotic majors with zero earning potential.  The money was wasted on nothing, and now, many of these graduates that made foolish decisions are being rewarded for it with loan forgiveness by the Biden Administration.

    What’s worse is that these same children now act as if they were “victimized” by receiving the loans in the first place.  No one made them take the loans, and no one made them pick a field of study that was lazy and worthless.  They can’t use the excuse that the jobs market is unfavorable, because according to Joe Biden this is the “best employment environment ever.”

    So what is the root disconnect?  What is the question that no one is asking?  Well, if the degrees were worth the cost of the loans then wouldn’t it be easy for graduates to pay them off as high level producers and money makers?  Why does the federal government need to step in at all?  Shouldn’t graduates be able to pay off their loans with the vast number of jobs available under Joe Biden?  Why would they need the help if the economy is flying?  

    There are multiple points to make here:

    1)  Someone has to pay for the debt that is created, it doesn’t disappear because Joe Biden says so.  It gets added directly to the national debt and the deficit and every taxpayer has to take on that cost, along with the increased drag on the economy.  Why should we pay for the mistakes of a bunch of low expectation college kids, or for educational services that add no value to the financial system?  

    2)  Is it legal for Joe Biden to essentially buy votes from college students by offering them free tuition as long as he stays in office?  Isn’t this what he is doing, or is this really Joe giving the kids a break from the goodness of his heart?  Because we all know if Joe can do this successfully once, he will do it again.      

    3)  Loan forgiveness only confirms what many of us already suspected; that at least half of all degrees are worthless and pointless.  If they were worth something, then there would be no need for forgiveness because the graduates would be able to pay off their loans without aid.

    4)  If we accept the fact that half of student loans are for worthless degrees, then we also have to then ask why they were given out in the first place?  Shouldn’t student loans for necessary fields such as STEM fields or business fields be prioritized and loans for meaningless fields like social sciences be turned down?  Why not only give loans in fields where there are insufficient applicants and a high demand for trainees?  Why not incentivize students to take on a field of study that is difficult and needed?  Wouldn’t this be smarter than adding hundreds of billions (potentially trillions) of dollars onto the national debt with the stroke of a pen?

    5)  Finally, maybe it is good to make people pay for their mistakes?  Maybe this builds character and forces them to work harder to rectify their lives.  If we subsidize their mistakes, then won’t they simply learn that they can continue doing whatever they please without consequences?  Doesn’t this incentivize stupidity?   

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 19:20

  • DeSantis Suspends Four Broward County School Board Members
    DeSantis Suspends Four Broward County School Board Members

    Authored by Jannis Falkenstern via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended four Broward County School Board members on Aug. 26, following a grand jury recommendation citing “incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority.”

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks to the media in Miami, in April 2022. (Courtesy, The Florida Governor’s Office)

    A Statewide Grand Jury released a 122-page report accusing the four of a range of “inexcusable actions… and unacceptable behavior” relating to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Feb. 14, 2018, when 17 students and staff lost their lives.

    The governor said he took the report’s recommendations and decided to act on his constitutional authority as governor.

    “It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance,” DeSantis said in a written statement. “We hope this suspension brings the Parkland community another step towards justice. This action is in the best interest of the residents and students of Broward County and all citizens of Florida.”

    In announcing the suspensions, DeSantis said, “These are inexcusable actions by school board members who have shown a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement, across the district.”

    In 2019. the governor asked the Supreme Court to convene the grand jury to look into safety and security issues statewide in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy.

    The grand jury’s report, which was completed in April 2021, but was not released until Aug. 19, 2022, details accounts of mismanagement within Broward schools after the shooting.

    Former Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie was indicted on perjury charges by the grand jury in April 2021. He stepped down in August 2021. Much of the report was highly critical of Runcie’s leadership, but the four now-suspended board members continued to support him.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 19:00

  • Airline Ticket Sales Unexpectedly Tumble
    Airline Ticket Sales Unexpectedly Tumble

    One of the big drivers of inflation during the late spring and early summer was – in addition to the relentless meltup in energy and commodities – the surge in airplane ticket prices amid seemingly endless demand, as millions of Americans were willing to pay anything after two years of quarantine, just to go travel anywhere and feel normal again.

    But now that prices have more than caught up with travel enthusiasm, demand is tumbling, and as BofA airline analyst Andrew Didora writes today, system net sales (i.e., total bookings) took a sizable step back this week to -23.6% vs 2019 for the week ending 8/21 (compared to last week’s down -9.3%) the biggest drop since February. System volumes and pricing decelerated to -23.5% vs 2019 (vs -11.5% last week) and -0.1% vs 2019 (vs +2.5% last week).

    As Didora explains, “we typically only see this type of weekly change around holidays, so the change is surprising. The only comp issue we have found is that in 2019 Hurricane Dorian was approaching the US at the end of August, which could have pulled forward some bookings.”

    Some more details on the recent plunge in bookings:

    • Domestic/int’l volumes decline with international pricing still > 2019
    • Overall international net sales (-21.1% vs 2019) remain ahead of domestic net sales (26.0%) relative to 2019.

    • However, international volumes declined to down -24.0% vs 2019 (vs -9.8% last week) and are now slightly behind domestic volumes for the first time since mid-May (excluding choppy comps), which were down -23.3% vs 2019 (vs -12.4% last week).

    • Both channels saw pricing step back with domestic and international pricing now down -3.5% vs 2019 (vs -1.9% last week) and +3.8% vs 2019 (vs +6.3% last week), respectively. 

    Finally, in a peculiar divergence, while leisure tickets slumped a notable 22%, it was corporate travel that really cratered, tumbling 37% Y/Y.

    Looking ahead, the BofA strategists caution that if this softness is not reversed in the next 1-2 weeks, “that would indicate more of an underlying demand problem and create risk to 3Q22 outlooks, which call for 100-200bps of sequential total revenue improvement.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 18:40

  • The Strangest Thing About "Semi-Fascist" Trump
    The Strangest Thing About “Semi-Fascist” Trump

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

    Of the last three presidents, Trump was either the most indifferent or the most obstructed when it came to using government agencies for his own partisan political advantages or to neuter his enemies.

    For the Left, Donald Trump is synonymous with “fascism” (or “semi-fascism,” as Joe Biden put it the other day). And for Liz Cheney and most of the NeverTrumpers, he remains an existential threat to democracy. 

    But to quantify those charges, what exactly has Trump done extralegally – as opposed to his bombast and braggadocio about what he might have wished to have done? 

    And what are the standards by which to judge this supposed menace?

    Did Trump illegally and with a mere signature nullify over $300 billion of contracted student loans—to firm up his college-student and college-graduate base nine weeks before the midterm elections?

    Did Donald Trump weaponize the feared IRS, the logical place to find fascistic tendencies of any president bent on using government to punish his enemies? Did he push through a plan to add 87,000 new IRS investigative agents at a time of national discord?

    For the last five years, Trump was rumored to be under investigation by the IRS. Currently, his accountant is facing felony sentencing for advising improper write-offs. 

    Certainly, from the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the remarks of Hunter’s associates like Tony Bobulinksi, the Biden family raked in millions of foreign dollars. Evidence so far suggests Joe Biden was a recipient (as the “Big Guy”) of 10 percent of these quid pro quo payments. At times, Bobulinksi may have sent a strapped and broke Hunter thousands of dollars in cash gifts. Were any of these stealthy transactions taxed? Does the recently heavily Biden-endowed IRS care?

    If Trump wished to abuse his power over the IRS, he would have followed the Obama model of weaponizing it during a reelection year to go after his ideological enemies. 

    In Obama’s case, the tax agency slow-walked or denied nonprofit status for groups whose ideology was deemed not helpful to Obama’s campaign in 2012. There was a reason Lois Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment, and it was not to protect Donald Trump.

    Politicized National Security

    Did Trump blatantly use the national security apparatus of the government to enhance his own reelection bid in 2020?

    That is, did he do anything analogous to Obama’s gambit with Vladimir Putin in 2011? 

    Was Trump ever caught on a hot mic promising a Russian president that he would try to ease Russian worries about Eastern European missile defense if only the Russians would give him space during his 2012 campaign for president against Mitt Romney?  

    What we forget about the 2011 Seoul, South Korea hot-mic Obama exchange with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was that all the conditions outlined in their hushed 2011 recap were adhered to by both parties: Obama did dismantle plans for a joint U.S.-Eastern European long-range missile defense—a system that might be now of advantage to the U.S. and its allies. Putin did stay quiet during the Obama campaign cycle. Obama did get reelected. And Putin did invade Ukraine and Crimea only after Obama was elected (or, a cynic might put it, because Obama was reelected). 

    A current Trump “collusion” critic, mutatis mutandis, might have surmised that a colluding Barack Obama put the national security of the United States and its allies at risk in order to use his office to massage campaign advantages over Mitt Romney in 2012. And the ultimate result of such machinations was a loss of U.S. deterrence that in part explained Russian aggression in 2014.

    Weaponizing Justice

    Did Trump weaponize the FBI? That is, did the FBI go after journalists, former Obama officials, or Democratic Party activists who variously were attacking Don Jr. or Ivanka on the pretenses of retrieving one of their lost laptops or diaries? 

    Did Trump use Republican National Committee firewalls to transfer money to private lobbyists and law firms to find dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then turn it all over to the FBI to launch a Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Clinton, centered around a Trump-hired ex-spy who became a paid FBI informant? 

    Are there texts of Trump-era FBI agents talking about how to “stop” Hillary Clinton’s or Biden’s election bid?

    Did Trump’s FBI, in the predawn hours, burst into the homes of New York Times reporters—in James O’Keefe -style—and march them outside in their underwear, all for the possible “crime” of receiving a stolen draft of the Supreme Court early draft of the Dobbs decision? Which is the greater “crime”—trafficking in clearly stolen confidential Supreme Court papers or looking at the abandoned, lost, and lurid diary of a wayward presidential daughter?

    Did the Trump Justice Department start an investigation of the suspected illegal lobbying of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, who used the former’s political connections to win large cash payments from foreign governments? Were there Trump officials in the permanent Justice Department who went after his various political opponents on the pretexts of the Logan Act?  Or did the Trump Administration help spread the allegations of any hired anti-Clinton ex-spies and salt them around the bureaucracies?

    Speaking of Trump and threats to the democratic order, did any Trump attorney general refuse a congressional subpoena, as former Attorney General Eric Holder did? Was anyone held in contempt of Congress, as Holder was? Did any simply refuse to honor subpoenas and withhold requested documents from Congress, as the Obama Administration did time and again?

    Did Trump order an FBI raid on the Obama home, on rumors that there were thousands of documents under dispute with the National Archives in his possession, especially given the Obama record of fiercely fighting any Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to release his documents? 

    Was a John Podesta put in leg irons by the FBI? Was Robbie Mook’s house stormed to learn of what he knew about Hillary Clinton’s missing emails? 

    Was Jake Sullivan’s phone grabbed by the FBI at an airport to determine his role in the Russian collusion hoax? 

    Or, with a look ahead to his own reelection, did Trump in 2018 order a raid on the Biden home, in search of “lost” Biden vice presidential documents, supposedly improperly removed after Biden’s tenure that might have shed light on the Biden family’s extracurricular foreign lobbying?

    Where Is Trump’s Deep State?

    Are there now any former Trump loyalists who, as “anonymous” officials in cabinet agencies or obstructionists on the National Security Council, are writing op-eds about their stealthy daily efforts to undermine Biden’s executive orders or his administration’s action?

    Is anyone listening to Biden’s phone calls with foreign leaders while working with Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and while prepping a “whistleblower” to find grounds for impeachment based on some of the things Biden has allegedly said to foreign leaders? 

    Did Pfizer rush prematurely to announce a viable COVID-19 vaccination to aid Trump’s reelection—or in contrast, did it slow walk a viable vaccination’s rollout until after the election to massage the result?

    Are there now “50 former intelligence officials” who signed affidavits in support of Trump’s allegations about the authenticity of Hunter’s laptop? Are there dozens of retired four-stars now opportunely blasting Joe Biden’s historic humiliation of the United States in Kabul? Have any retired admirals mocked the Uniform Code of Military Justice to write New York Times op-eds suggesting a befuddled Biden leave office “the sooner, the better”?

    Are there former Trump officials writing in Foreign Policy that Biden is a disaster who could be removed by impeachment or the 25th Amendment—or more rapidly by a military coup? Are retired officers writing to General Mark Milley urging him to act should he feel in the next election that a likely Republican loss seems suspicious?

    Election Interference and Denial? 

    Between 2017 and 2020, did Trump’s team systematically seek to change the voting laws in key states to radically transform traditional balloting, in a mail-in or early voting revolution, in which only 30 percent of the electorate would vote on Election Day?

    If Trump improperly questioned the ballot result of the 2020 election, then he sinned in the long tradition of presidential ballot objectors, including former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), January 6 committee chairman himself Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), and Hillary Clinton, who claimed Trump was an illegitimately elected president and advised Biden not to concede if he lost the 2020 popular vote. A defeated Stacey Abrams toured the country claiming she was the “real” governor of Georgia, yet nobody smears her as an “election truther.”

    Was there any “dark money” effort analogous to the efforts of corporate and tech money along with DNC activists and Biden operators in what Time magazine’s Molly Ball described as a “conspiracy” to ensure the defeat of Trump’s opponent? 

    Did Trump’s team coordinate with right-wing billionaires to infuse hundreds of billions of dollars to modulate street protests, to absorb the work of state and local registrars in key precincts, and to censor unfavorable stories on social media? 

    Trump impotently railed and bayed to the wind about the “fake news” reporters at his rallies. By contrast, the Left, both private elites and public officials, kept quiet and injected half a billion dollars to alter the way people voted and effectively to censor the way people produced and consumed the news.

    Restoring Our Norms?

    How about Trump’s efforts to revolutionize the very system of government? Did he promote a court-packing scheme to ensure he might not just get a 5-4 majority, but perhaps an 11-4 conservative advantage in a new 15-justice Supreme Court? 

    Did he keep mum while right-wing demonstrators swarmed the homes of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan? Did his attorney general ignore the obvious felonies involved in such threatening tactics? Did Trump work with his Republican Congress in 2017 to end the filibuster to ensure his legislation would not be stonewalled? Did he dream up ways of getting rid of the Electoral College so the “blue wall” might never return? 

    It’s alleged that Trump was insincere when he approved the request for thousands of federal troops to be available to local law enforcement on January 6, or that he did not really mean it when he instructed pro-Trump demonstrators on January 6 to “Peacefully and patriotically march to the Capitol.” 

    Perhaps even the hint of encouraging any type of protest was reckless in such partisan times. But just days after violent protestors attacked Secret Service agents manning barricades and had sought to storm onto the White House grounds, did Trump boast to the nation of the ongoing demonstrations, as did Kamala Harris, soon to be a vice presidential candidate?

    They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And that should be—everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.

    Was that a sober or insurrectionary thing to advise in a summer of rioting that saw 120 days of violence, $2 billion in damage, 35 dead, and hundreds of police officers injured?

    Did Trump as president meet with CIA and FBI directors who, in their weekly and daily briefings, apprised him of efforts to monitor, spy, and infiltrate the campaign of Joe Biden?

    Was there, after 2017, a Republican majority committee investigating the former Obama role in launching Operation Crossfire Hurricane, or Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s secret meeting with Bill Clinton while she was investigating Hillary Clinton? And if there were, would Obama loyalists in the House be excluded by the Republican speaker from participating in House investigations that also would allow no hostile or even neutral witnesses, no general counsel’s report, and no cross-examinations?

    The strange thing about Trump was that he did not use extraordinary powers to investigate anyone unlawfully. He boasted, he railed, he screamed, he whined, he became at times crude and obnoxious. But he did not use the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, or the IRS to go after the Obamas, the Clintons, or the Bidens. 

    Instead, he became the most investigated, probed, smeared, and autopsied president in modern history. Trump’s legislative agenda did not include revolutionary changes in the Electoral College or the filibuster, or radical changes to the Supreme Court.

    In fact, of the last three presidents, Trump was either the most inept or indifferent, or the most obstructed concerning any issue of using government agencies for his own partisan political advantages or to neuter his enemies. 

    In truth, the entire apparatus of permanent government—the Pentagon hierarchy, the Washington elites at the FBI and CIA, the permanently entrenched at the Justice Department, and the apparat at the IRS all despised Donald Trump. And they did not just hate him but acted on their antipathy by using their powers of government to destroy his campaign in 2016, to undermine his transition, to either obstruct or sabotage his initiatives while president, and to hound him as an ex-president. As ex-felon and FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith put it of his own illegal effort to destroy a president, “Viva le [sic] resistance.” Is that the sort of FBI we want—a cadre of self-described revolutionaries?

    Donald Trump was impeached for raising the question of Biden family corruption in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president and delaying offensive military aid that had never been approved by a Democratic president.

    Evidence since Trump’s impeachment suggests he was prescient in his warning to the Kyiv government to stay out of domestic American politics. Everything thing we know since that 2021 impeachment vote solidifies—not contradicts—Trump’s point that the Biden family was corrupt, and Hunter Biden was receiving large sums of money from Ukraine and China solely because Joe Biden had been vice president and was seen as a possible or even likely future president worthy of such corrupt investment. Or to put it another way, why would those with contacts with the Ukrainian government ever pay millions to an incompetent, drug-addicted miscreant like Hunter Biden, if not for pay-for-play influence?

    In that context, Joe Biden’s early boast that he got a Ukrainian attorney general fired, most likely for probing too deeply matters involving his family, gives credence to Trump’s instincts. So does the fact that both Obama and Biden for a time stopped shipments of offensive weapons to Ukraine, while Trump for a time only delayed them but eventually gave them what they wished.

    The result of this unprecedented effort to accuse Trump of using government fascistically while fascistically using government to destroy a president is all too clear in the destroyed careers who sought to undermine constitutional government. What John Brennan, James Clapper, Kevin Clinesmith, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and a host of retired flag officers and intelligence operatives share is not just their venomous antipathy toward an elected president and their efforts rhetorically and often concretely to neuter him, but their subsequent disgrace even among those who once cheered them on.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/29/2022 – 18:20

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