- "The Woke Left Has Inherited The Stalinists' Hatred Of Freedom", Warns British Columnist
“The Woke Left Has Inherited The Stalinists’ Hatred Of Freedom”, Warns British Columnist
Authored by Olivier Bault via Remix News,
Remix sat down with Mick Hume, a journalist and author known in Britain for his focus on issues related to free speech and freedom of the press, at the MCC Feszt in Esztergom, Hungary, at the end of July to talk about what has happened to free speech in the U.K.
According to Wikipedia, you used to be a Marxist, a libertarian Marxist. That’s how you are described there, as a libertarian Marxist…
Yes, there was a time when I liked to call myself that because I found that it annoyed all the right people on both sides of the debate. The libertarians hated it, and the left hated it. But I do not have a political label that I can attach to myself these days. I think one of the problems with politics is we’re stuck with 20th-century language – left, right, conservative, Marxist… – and politics has changed. We just don’t have the right language.
Still, you considered yourself a Marxist then, didn’t you?
Yes, most certainly. I was the launch editor of the Living Marxism magazine in the 1980s, when I was in my 20s.
And you were a figure in Britain’s Revolutionary Communist Party.
Yes.
Many people think that what is happening in the West with free speech, freedom of opinion, and what we call woke ideology, which includes all this LGBT and gender stuff, is Cultural Marxism. As a former Marxist, do you agree with that?
No, I don’t think it’s helpful to call it Cultural Marxism. It’s a bit like the generals at the beginning of the First World War who were trying to fight the last war, were trying to fight yesterday’s enemy rather than realizing that the machine gun had been invented and the world had changed.
I think calling it Cultural Marxism is kind of trying to find something in the past. It’s actually something new happening. I would rather describe it as my friend Frank Furedi describes it, as a combination of technocracy, ideology-free management politics, merged with identity politics.
Identity woke politics gives the technocrats a political language in which they can justify their authority when they don’t have an ideology of their own. It is a new phenomenon. You can call it what you like, but that’s what it is.
So you probably disagree with Victor Orbán when he once said – while on a state visit to the UK, by the way – that there is a parental link between the elites coming from the 1968 revolution in the West and the former communist regimes of Eastern Europe…
Oh no, I do agree with that. All I’m saying is that if we try to find a label of the past to describe what is happening today, we’re kind of missing the point. There’s something new happening. We’re not fighting yesterday’s battle. We’ve got to fight today’s battle. But I agree with that convergence point. The woke left have inherited the Stalinists’ hatred of freedom.
When I was a young man, I thought I was left-wing because I believed that free speech and democracy, the two principles that I’ve always cared about in my life, were left-wing causes. Historically, they were.
Today, however, the left is the enemy of both of those things. And even when I was left, I was never part of that left. So my friends and I were the only people on the left who, even in the 1980s, were against the “no platform” policy of censoring fascists, censoring conservatives, saying people should be banned.
That was starting then, and from the first, we were always against that and for freedom of speech. So my principles are the same, not just in politics.
Mick Hume, second from right seen wearing a hat, taking part in a discussion panel at the MCC Feszt
In the U.K., dissidents are not only “deplatformed,” they can now get “debanked.” This has happened to Nigel Farage this year…
My old comrade. I worked with Nigel in the Brexit Party.
Well, he’s had his bank accounts closed, and we now know for sure that it happened because of his political opinions. We also know that other people like, for example, members of the Free Speech Union have been debanked too in the U.K. Is this debanking of people the newest stage of a totalitarian drift in your country?
What it demonstrates very powerfully is that what you described as woke cancel culture is not just about a few radical students trying to get feminists banned from university campuses for criticizing trans ideology. It goes to the top of society. The corporate world is now run by woke ideologists. The woman who was in charge of Nigel’s bank had to resign when it became clear that she was the one who lied to the BBC and told them that Farage had been debanked for financial reasons, not political reasons.
Her whole mission in running that bank, as she said herself, was to pursue cause-led banking. She told the BBC those lies at a dinner for a green charity. So she’s not interested in banking, she’s interested in environmental causes and diversity.
That’s what her idea of being a corporate boss was: Not making profits for the shareholders or paying back the government the billions of pounds that they spent bailing out the banks, but running an ideological institution. So, it’s very dangerous.
I’m very grateful to Nigel because he’s exposed how far this has gone. Right at the top of capitalist society, we have woke ideologues who are prepared to cancel people, to make people, as Nigel described himself, a non-person by removing their right to have a bank account. In the 21st century, if you haven’t got a bank account, you don’t exist, right? You cannot operate.
Nigel Farage said he might have to leave the U.K. if he cannot have a bank account there.
Exactly.
And he’s been refused accounts by a dozen banks.
Several others, yes. I’m sure he’ll get one now because of all this fuss. But nevertheless, he’s done a great service exposing how far this has gone. So, it’s a very important thing.
Is it specifically the banks or is it the corporate world?
It is across the corporate world. If you listen to corporate leaders talk, all they’re ever talking about now is diversity, sustainable development, and all these kinds of woke issues.
Why? What motivates them to do so?
It’s almost like capitalists don’t believe in capitalism anymore. They’ve lost the ability to justify themselves and their position in society. If I say: We’re here to employ people and make profits, that’s a dirty word, even amongst capitalists themselves. So, they’re looking for some kind of mission, some sense of worth in society.
It goes against the interests of free speech and a free society. And it does serve their interests; not financially, but woke ideology and cancel culture are really a new way of disciplining the working classes, telling ordinary people what they can say, what they can’t say, what they can think, and what they can’t think.
And it’s not just the corporate world. You wrote an article in the Daily Mail in April about a new bill, the Worker Protection Bill, which was proposed by the government of Rishi Sunak to discipline the companies that do not fall in line with this new woke ideology.
Yes, this new law would give people the right to sue their employers because they’ve heard something they don’t like in their work environment. It’s actually been proposed by a couple of Liberal Democrats, but the government has supported it. So this is another indication of how these things go to the top. The Conservative Party – this is a conservative government – is actually pushing this bill through.
When campaigning against Liz Truss for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Sunak said that, if he became prime minister, he would fight this “woke nonsense” that had “permeated public life,” he would “end the brainwashing, the vandalism, and the finger pointing”, and “protect British freedoms.”
Exactly.
So it’s another broken promise…
Yes. You know, we have to judge politicians by what they do, not by what they say about themselves. And the Conservatives are very good at making speeches about free speech, democracy, and British values. But in practice, the country is being run by civil servants and technocrats who are 100 percent committed to this woke cancel culture. And the government has not stood up to them at all. So, the Conservative Party is part of the problem, not the solution.
In fact, several British prime ministers in the past criticized what was happening at universities. Boris Johnson and Theresa May both said they wanted to restore freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, and academic freedom in universities across the UK. Has anything been done for that purpose?
They are bringing in a law that is supposed to protect academic freedom, and they say they are going to appoint someone to be in charge, a kind of free speech tsar. So you might say that’s a step in the right direction, but a law is not the answer.
We’re in a culture war. You’ve got to fight it. And just putting a law on paper and saying that free speech exists in universities will not solve the problem.
In America, they have the First Amendment, the gold standard of legal protection for free speech. That hasn’t stopped American universities from going down this road further and faster than us in terms of restricting academic freedom.
So, it is a step in the right direction, but a law is not going to fix it.
There seems to be also a problem with the British police monitoring social media. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the Polish Law and Justice Party, once cited the example of a mother who was arrested in front of her children at her home in the U.K. for calling a man a man on Twitter, whereas that man identified himself as a woman. The poor woman was in custody for several hours and prosecuted by the police. She finally won her case in appeal, but this took several years. And Kaczyński said that as long as Law and Justice governs in Poland, it will preserve people’s freedoms and Poland will not go totalitarian like Western Europe.
It is indeed quite extraordinary that the police have for several years in Britain become more interested in, as I used the slogan once, policing the tweets rather than policing the streets.
They have become a kind of thought police. They’re obsessed with what people say on social media and hassle them for things that are not a crime.
It’s not a crime to call someone a man who is a man. It’s not a crime either to call a woman a man. But somehow they’ve invented these things as crimes.
And what’s interesting about that is that they started keeping a register of what was called non-criminal hate incidents: Things that weren’t a crime, but which they’d decided were hate speech. So, your name would be in that register even if you hadn’t committed a crime but just said the wrong thing.
They were told from the top to stop doing this, and they’ve just carried on. They are a law to themselves. The British police are one of the most woke institutions in our society.
You’ve only got to look at the way that they deal with the Just Stop Oil protesters who are blocking the highways of London, with the police asking them if they can help them or if they would like some water and are all right. And when drivers come and drag those people out of the road, the police threaten to arrest the drivers, not the road blockers.
So, the police in Britain are a major problem.
This is the new kind of totalitarianism. It’s not jackboots and beating people up. It’s trying to control what people are saying and not solving crimes. If your house is burgled, the police will not come. If you say the wrong thing and call someone a man on Twitter, then they will come.
In your article about this Worker Protection Bill, you gave the hypothetical example of a bookstore inviting J. K. Rowling. So, I understand that nobody in the U.K. would dare invite J. K. Rowling. So, a renowned author who says, in line with the truth, that only biological women are real women has been socially canceled in the UK, right?
Obviously, she couldn’t care less because you can’t cancel J. K. Rowling. She’s the biggest-selling author in the world. So, she’s in a very powerful position to hit back at those who try to cancel her, but yes, she can’t appear in a public forum without there being huge protests, and anything she says on social media will be attacked from all quarters.
She’s been incredibly courageous in standing up for the fact that there are two sexes and that this is a biologically determined division and a fact of life.
However, by doing this to J. K. Rowling, making it impossible, even for someone like her to operate normally in society, you can scare a lot of other people who would think: If they can do that to her, what could they do to me? They could wipe me out. They could cancel my job. I could lose my whole livelihood.
So, it has a much greater effect on other people.
That is why we now have the problem of self-censorship, which is one of the biggest problems we’re facing today in Western society.
Not just state censorship or Twitter censorship, but people who will not say what they think because they’re scared of what the consequences are. Or they don’t know what they’re allowed to say anymore, because the terrain shifts so fast. What word am I allowed to use this week? I don’t know.
The rules keep being rewritten all the time. So, self-censorship is a big issue, and this is why it’s so important for people who believe in free speech to put the banner up so that you give people a sense of confidence that they’re not alone and there’s something they can rally around.
People in continental Europe tend to think that the U.K. at least has a diverse and free press and media. I suppose you don’t agree with that, as you wrote a book titled: “There Is No Such Thing As a Free Press – and we need one more than ever.”
Everything is relative. Compared to some countries, I love the British press. But they are very constrained. Far more constrained than they used to be when I started writing for them. Every newspaper has a diversity team who are checking the language that’s used, and it’s very disruptive. Also, we have new legal problems with the British press. We have privacy laws. Libel law in Britain has always been a big problem for the press, being sued for defamation. Now, the rich and powerful are more likely to use privacy law. This is what people like Prince Harry are using to try to police the press. The thing about these privacy laws is this is a big issue not only for free speech but for democracy because those two things are always very closely connected, and the British Parliament never passed any privacy laws.
What Tony Blair’s New Labour government did was pass the Human Rights Act based on the European Convention on Human Rights. And that gave the judges tremendous power. They have used that power to basically invent a privacy law. These judges, not parliament or the government, are the ones who have decided what can and cannot be published in the British press.
You have unlimited parliamentary sovereignty in the U.K., so a Conservative-dominated parliament could change all that very easily.
Of course, they could. And they have often made noises like “We’re going to get rid of the Human Rights Act” and “We’re going to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.”
But nothing has happened because of the different forces ranged against them on that: The judges, the lawyers, the mainstream media, the civil service…
There is a very substantial wall in support of the Human Rights Act and the judges’ power, and the government has never had the backbone, the nerve, the political will. It’s all about political will to, as you say, use parliamentary sovereignty to change that.
They’ve allowed the judges to write this privacy law, and this is a terrible situation.
So, are there still reasons for hope in the U.K.?
Well, look at the Nigel Farage incident.
On one hand, that shows you how far the problem goes. But the backlash against it, the support, the public outrage, and the fact that the people responsible for it have all had to resign… The left has been after the banks for years and never got anywhere. Nigel Farage got rid of the top bankers in a week.
So, the public outrage at that kind of attack on free speech shows you there is hope. It shows that we can rally forces for free speech as a fundamental value of our civilized society. But in order to do that, we’ve got to put the flag up and fight. We’ve got to go on the offensive.
Free speech is the fundamental liberty in our society. We can have no other freedoms without it. And it must include the right to be offensive. Spinoza said 350 years ago that in a free state, any man can think what he likes and say what he thinks. That’s still the stand that we’ve got to fight for. And we’re still not there.
* * *
A former “libertarian Marxist,” Mick Hume had a weekly column in The Times in the years 1999–2009 and has since then written regularly for leading British newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Mail. Hume was the launch editor of Spiked-online.com, and still writes for Spiked. He is now a regular columnist for The European Conservative website.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/30/2023 – 02:00 - 10 Signs That US Culture Is Being Turned Completely Upside Down
10 Signs That US Culture Is Being Turned Completely Upside Down
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
They wanted to fundamentally transform America, and they have succeeded. So now instead of a “Leave It To Beaver” society, we have a society where literally anything goes. Our families are disintegrating, traditional moral values have been completely discarded, our young people are running wild in the streets, crime is totally out of control, and our system of government is melting down right in front of our eyes. So what is going to happen to our once great nation if things just continue to get even worse?
Our politicians like to tell us that “America is great because America is good”.
But the truth is that America stopped being good a long time ago.
The following are 10 signs that U.S. culture is being turned completely upside down…
#1 It has finally happened. The elite have such disdain for the choices of average Americans that some of them are starting to float the idea that elections should be eliminated. The following comes from an article that the New York Times published just last week that was originally entitled “Elections Are Bad for Democracy”…
On the eve of the first debate of the 2024 presidential race, trust in government is rivaling historic lows. Officials have been working hard to safeguard elections and assure citizens of their integrity. But if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.
If you think that sounds anti-democratic, think again. The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens many government officials were selected through sortition — a random lottery from a pool of candidates. In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors. What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices and even presidents?
#2 The war on the family continues to escalate, and it is now being projected that 45 percent of all U.S. women in their “prime working years” will be single and childless in 2030…
We’re told by our culture that a woman who is unmarried and has no children is empowered and in charge of her own life. She has escaped the unnecessary burden of raising a family and being a slave to her husband. At least, that’s what our society has convinced us. Sadly, many women have adopted the modern feminist lifestyle and have chosen to sleep around, abort their baby if they unexpectedly get pregnant, and swear off marriage. But these cultural trends are going to have a tremendous impact on the future of American society. Morgan Stanley estimates that 45% of women in their “prime working years” (ages 25 to 44) will be single and childless by the time 2030 arrives.
#3 Theft is going to cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars this year, and at this point organized retail crime has become such a crisis that even Dollar Tree is being forced to take drastic measures…
The company, which runs Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, has “several new shrink formats” that it intends to roll out in the final six months of the year, CEO Rick Dreiling said in the morning. “Shrink” typically means theft and other types of inventory losses in the retail industry.
“It goes everything from moving certain SKUs [stock-keeping units] to behind the check stand,” he explained to those who tuned into the company’s earnings call. “It has to do with some cases being locked up. And even to the point where we have some stores that can’t keep a certain SKU on the shelf just discontinuing the item.”
#4 When I was young, I actually applied to go to school at Yale. At that time, it was one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world. Unfortunately, at this point violent crime in the city of New Haven is off the charts…
Yale University is rushing to reassure freshman students and parents after the school’s police union, which in the midst of contract negotiations, distributed flyers with stark warnings about high crime in New Haven, Connecticut — complete with a graphic of a grim reaper. They warned incoming students to avoid walking alone and avoid public transport. Forget night life: Student should stay in their dorms and “off the streets after 8 PM.”
Presented by the Yale Police Benevolent Association as “A Survival Guide for First-Year Students of Yale University,” the flyers were distributed on freshman move-in day. “The incidence of crime and violence in New Haven is shockingly high, and it is getting worse,” the flyers warned. “During the seven month period ending July 23, 2023, murders have doubled, burglaries are up 33% and motor vehicle thefts are up 56%.”
#5 One man in Texas was just “forcibly removed” from a school board meeting for reading a book that had actually been available in the libraries of that school district…
A man was forcibly removed from a Tuesday school board meeting by law enforcement while reading a passage from a sexually explicit LGBT book that was previously available in the district’s libraries.
Mike Cee was escorted out of a Fort Worth Independent School District board meeting this week when he began reading vulgar passages from the book “Flamer” by Mike Curato.
Curato’s book is described as a “semi-autobiographical graphic novel” set in 1995 that follows the story of a child named Aiden as he “navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.”
#6 It seems like there is a mass shooting somewhere in America almost every day now. The latest incident just occurred in the city of Jacksonville, Florida…
Terrifying video shows the moment a crazed, racist gunman enters a Jacksonville Dollar General armed with an AR-15 and then shoots dead three people in a racially-motivated attack.
The gunman was identified as Ryan Palmeter, 21, police confirmed on Sunday. They also detailed a manifesto he left behind, calling it the ‘diary of a madman.’
Palmeter used an assault rifle covered in Nazi swastikas in the deadly assault on Saturday before turning the gun on himself, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
#7 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is admitting that vehicle theft is completely out of control in his city, but instead of going after the thieves he has filed a lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai…
Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office announced that the city filed the lawsuit against automakers Kia and Hyundai, alleging that both companies have failed to include “industry-standard engine immobilizers” in several models of vehicles, which resulted in a “steep rise” in crime.
“The impact of car theft on Chicago residents can be deeply destabilizing, particularly for low- to middle-income workers who have fewer options for getting to work and taking care of their families,” Johnson said. “The failure of Kia and Hyundai to install basic auto-theft prevention technology in these models is sheer negligence, and as a result, a citywide and nationwide crime spree around automobile theft has been unfolding right before our eyes.”
#8 Instead of cracking down on crime, federal law enforcement authorities are using their resources to raid Amish cattle farmers…
“They came with a search warrant,” softly spoke Samuel B. Fisher, a mild-mannered cattle farmer operating a 100-acre farm tucked away in Virginia’s heartland. Fisher’s bread-and-butter, Golden Valley Farms, carves out the scenic countryside that’s a hop, skip, and a jump away from historic Farmville, a postcard-perfect small Southern town with classical Main Street charm.
The father of five had graciously invited us down to his idyllic pasture to rehash the whirlwind of unforeseen events that unfolded over the cruel summer. It was a tumultuous time on the Fisher farm, an upheaval that threatened to upend the man’s livelihood.
“Then, they tagged the meat, so that we can’t touch it; we can’t sell it; we can’t feed our family with it,” Fisher told Townhall.
#9 The number of transgender surgeries in the United States nearly tripled in just a three year period…
Transgender surgeries nearly tripled in the United States between 2016 and 2019, with breast and chest procedures accounting for 56.6 percent of all operations, results of a study published Wednesday in the JAMA Network Open show.
Close behind was genital reconstruction, making up 35.1 percent, followed by facial and cosmetic procedures at 13.9 percent. The greatest number of procedures overall were undergone by women, 19- to 30-year-olds, people with private insurance, and people with higher incomes. Most procedures occurred in the West and were performed in urban teaching hospitals.
#10 Joe Biden is asking Congress for money for a new shot, and he is admitting that it “will likely be recommended everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not”…
Biden, who is vacationing in the Lake Tahoe area, was asked by a reporter on Friday if he could say anything about the uptick of COVID cases and a new variant.
“Yes, I can,” the president said. “I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to Congress a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works.”
He added, “Tentatively it is recommended that it will likely be recommended everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not.”
Our society is going to continue to change.
Nothing can stop that.
But the direction of the change can be altered.
Those that have been transforming our culture are just going to keep on doing what they have been doing, and all that it is going to take for them to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/30/2023 – 00:05 - FT Discovers 71-Year-Old Ukrainian In NATO Training Program
FT Discovers 71-Year-Old Ukrainian In NATO Training Program
By year’s end, it’s expected that up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers will have gone through a NATO training program hosted in Germany and run by Danish, Dutch, and German officers.
The Financial Times interviewed officials involved in the training program in a fresh report, and underscored that all are acutely aware of the serious setbacks the Ukrainian counteroffensive has faced. The publication reviewed persistent problems of training as well, from translating and communication issues, to sharp disagreements between Kiev and the West over military strategy and tactics.
But there is one admission in the FT report which is most revealing, and shocking. While it’s long been known that Ukraine has had to tap untrained recruits and throw them into battle amid staggering losses as well as attempts of young men to dodge military service, the FT report mentions – almost in passing – that Kiev has been sending elderly soldiers to “train”.
Image source: NATO According to the section of the FT report in question:
By the end of the year, European trainers were full of praise for the “tremendous motivation” of the recruits, despite the stress of the brutal war they are fighting and the daily dangers to friends and family back home.
But they also said that the age and ability of the soldiers they are sent varies wildly, as Ukrainian commanders on the front line are often unwilling to spare their best men. One volunteer who turned up in Germany was 71 years old.
…that’s right: FT identified a 71-year-old Ukrainian in the ranks of the NATO-sponsored training program. While perhaps admirable in terms of the individual elderly man’s courage and willingness to defend his country, the whole scenario underscores the sad state of affairs within Ukraine military ranks, given they are sending geriatrics.
Ukraine’s military in its social media posts has, to the surprise of many, even admitted that old men and retirees are increasingly showing up in their ranks and on the battlefield…
In their 50s, 60s & beyond, these Ukrainian soldiers defy their advanced age by carrying out combat missions with dedication.
Calmly and carefully, they work to dismantle & destroy the enemy.
“We will stand and win!” they say.📷Territorial Defense Forces of Armed Forces of 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/avCtd7gGmW
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) August 28, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
This shows one particular line in the FT report to be a huge understatement…
“Teaching inexperienced soldiers how to operate a tank on the front line in just six weeks was never going to be easy,” the publication says. We might add that teaching 65+ year-olds how to become hardened and efficient soldiers was also “never going to be easy”.
Russia has of late sought to capitalize on Ukraine’s manpower woes, producing wartime propaganda videos attempting to convince untrained Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms and save their own lives, instead of sacrificing for a government that doesn’t care about them. The following video out of Russia has been widely circulating…
‼️ “This is your last chance”
Russians make an appeal to all Ukrainians dragged into the counteroffensive:
You still have a way out. pic.twitter.com/dFqTkZmQzQ
— What the media hides. (@narrative_hole) August 28, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
While young men try to hind from Ukraine’s forced conscription, the country’s defense ministry strangely “boasts” that… “In their 50s, 60s & beyond, these Ukrainian soldiers defy their advanced age by carrying out combat missions with dedication.”
* * *
But it’s not the first time this phenomenon has been documented…
In Ukraine conflict, even the elderly are getting ready to fight https://t.co/DFj8Z9EMYR pic.twitter.com/oCWgTkQE3D
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 20, 2022
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 23:45 - Fate Of 5 DC Pro-Life Activists Now Before Federal Jury
Fate Of 5 DC Pro-Life Activists Now Before Federal Jury
Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Left-wing pro-life protester Lauren Handy, the director of activism with Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, protests outside the U.S. Supreme Court, on June 15, 2022 (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times) The fate of five people accused of conspiring to obstruct access to an abortion clinic in Washington is now in the hands of a federal jury after the prosecution and defense wrapped up their respective cases in federal court last week.
Each defendant faces up to 11 years in prison.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sent jurors home on Aug. 25 after they began deliberations following closing arguments by attorneys a day earlier. Deliberations are scheduled to resume on Aug. 29.
The defendants are charged with “conspiracy against rights” and conspiracy under section 248 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which is part of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Section 248 states that it is “unlawful for a person to use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because he or she is or has been obtaining or providing reproductive health services,” according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) summary.
The FACE Act has been criticized by federal lawmakers, including Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who has said the Biden administration enforces the law selectively.
Mr. Roy and other lawmakers signed a letter in March stating that the Biden DOJ used the FACE Act more than two dozen times in 2022 against pro-life activists, but until this year, the statute “had never been used to indict individuals related to an attack on a pro-life pregnancy center or house of worship.”
Lauren Handy of Virginia and nine other defendants were indicted in 2022 for conspiring to obstruct access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic, which provides abortions, in October 2020. The indictment from last year states that “it was the purpose of the conspiracy to create a blockade to stop the Clinic from providing, and patients from obtaining, reproductive health services.”
Some in the pro-life movement refer to this kind of direct-action tactic as a “rescue” because it may save an unborn human’s life.
The DOJ said the indictment stated that “as part of the conspiracy, [seven defendants] traveled to Washington, D.C., from various northeast and midwestern states, to participate in a clinic blockade” that was broadcast on Facebook. Eight of the defendants “forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes.”
Nine defendants allegedly violated the FACE Act “by using a physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient, because they were providing or obtaining reproductive health services.”
If convicted of the offenses, each of the defendants faces a maximum of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $350,000, according to the department.
Ms. Handy and four other co-defendants—Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania, Heather Idoni of Michigan, William Goodman of Wisconsin, and John Hinshaw of New York—went on trial two weeks ago in the nation’s capital.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed in 1997 by President Bill Clinton, ruled (pdf) on Aug. 7 that the defendants may not claim in their defense that they took action to shield others from bodily harm.
“A defendant may not don a vigilante’s hood to insert themselves into a situation of their own making and subsequently claim defense of a third person to justify their actions,” the judge wrote.
The defendants “agree that they traveled to the District of Columbia to engage in preplanned activity, forcing their way into the clinic shortly before it opened. Without the imminent threat of either a greater evil or death or serious bodily injury, neither a duress nor necessity defense is available.”
Ms. Handy is the director of activism for Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, which describes its mission as mobilizing “grassroots anti-abortion activists for direct action and [to] educate on the exploitative influence of the Abortion Industrial Complex through an anti-capitalist lens.”
After being sentenced to jail time on a separate charge in July 2022, Ms. Handy said, “As a Catholic and progressive myself, I am compelled by my deeply held beliefs (religious and political) to put my body between the oppressed and the oppressor.”
Ms. Handy’s attorney, Martin A. Cannon, senior trial counsel at the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm, told The Epoch Times that he’s cautiously optimistic.
The co-defendants are “a remarkable bunch of people, just the most peaceful, loving people you ever saw,” Mr. Cannon said in an interview on Aug. 26.
The prosecution has been lumping all the co-defendants together “like they’re all the same, but the DOJ has to prove its case individually against each defendant.”
“When you step back and look at the evidence, what you really see is there’s a few people who might have been doing the things that are prohibited by FACE, but the bulk of the people were doing things that FACE does not prohibit,” he said.
“You can think of all kinds of conventional, historical Martin Luther King kind of protests that have been going on forever, that FACE does not prohibit. And most of the people in this case were actually doing stuff like that and not violating FACE.”
“The government wants to say, ‘Well, there’s two or three or four that were violating FACE—all of you conspired, so we’re just going to all throw it in together.’ And I don’t think they get to really do that. And I think the jury was paying some attention to that.”
FACE makes it a crime to use force, threats, or physical obstruction to intimidate, cause injury, or interfere with a person providing or obtaining reproductive health services, he said.
“What the DOJ missed is that Lauren was not doing this because of reproductive health services. She saw a video of this very same doctor at this very same clinic, pretty implicitly acknowledging that babies are getting born alive in his clinic. And if they do, he will just leave them alone to die.
“That is not legal. There’s no available argument that a living baby at any gestational age outside the womb is a pregnancy. And when the baby winds up outside the womb, he goes from a place of no protection into a place of protection, as the procedure from that point out, whatever happens to him is outside of the FACE Act. And he gets all the same protections that a four-year-old kid would get.”
Ms. Handy is “entitled to defend those babies just like she could defend a 4-year-old getting dragged in someplace and killed or neglected or whatever.”
“She didn’t violate the other provisions of FACE, either. She never used force. She never used threats. She never used physical obstruction. She didn’t injure. She didn’t intimidate. She didn’t interfere,” Mr. Cannon said.
Meanwhile, co-defendant Jay Smith of New York accepted a plea deal. On Aug. 7, he was sentenced to 10 months of incarceration to be followed by 36 months of supervised release, court records indicate.
The remaining four co-defendants—Jonathan Darnel of Virginia, Joan Andrews Bell of New Jersey, and Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall of Massachusetts—are scheduled to be tried on Sept. 6.
The DOJ, which is handling the prosecution, didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 23:25 - "Baltimore Is A Totally Corrupt Hell Hole": Mystery Surrounds $800 Million Covid Funds For "Learning Loss"
“Baltimore Is A Totally Corrupt Hell Hole”: Mystery Surrounds $800 Million Covid Funds For “Learning Loss”
Unveiling another astonishing revelation from the ongoing education crisis within Baltimore City, investigative journalist Chris Papst from Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore dropped a bombshell:
“STUNNING: Baltimore City Schools received 29 federal Covid grants totaling $799M to fight learning loss. Yet, in 2023, just 9.1% of all 3rd-8th graders tested proficient in math. MEANING, taxpayers gave an additional $799M and 91% of Baltimore students are NOT math proficient.”
STUNNING: Baltimore City Schools received 29 federal Covid grants totaling $799M to fight learning loss. Yet, in 2023, just 9.1% of all 3rd-8th graders tested proficient in math. MEANING, taxpayers gave an additional $799M and 91% of Baltimore students are NOT math proficient.
— Chris Papst (@chrispapst) August 29, 2023
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Maryland’s spending on education stands at some of the highest in the country. In Baltimore City, the school district’s budget is the fourth largest in the nation. Even extra Covid funds weren’t enough to push the needle to drastically improve math test scores.
Earlier this year, Papst’s team revealed that 23 schools in the crime-ridden metro area had zero students proficient in math. The investigative team has been investigating corruption in the metro area’s school district for seven years. Corruption might not stop at Baltimore but could extend to the leadership of the Maryland State Department of Education (read: Maryland Superintendent’s Deleted Texts and Hidden Email Surfaces Amid Intensifying Grade-Rigging Scandal).
Folks on X, formerly known as Twitter, are raising questions about the whereabouts of the funds:
Maybe they were using LeBron James as a consultant.
— Horse Sense (@the_capper_) August 29, 2023
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Looks like Z-E-R-O ROI; 2019 data:https://t.co/6tIUiQNh9c pic.twitter.com/n1Ujxs6TMw
— orion (@orionsxspear) August 29, 2023
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That doesn’t matter at all. What matters is that the local teachers unions have filled the campaign war chests of democrat politicians.
— Sprocket the Cat (@NicholasZeger) August 29, 2023
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So, we have to ask, where did the $799 million go, how many/who should be headed for prison, and how much of the money is recoverable?
— Senator Bulworth (@senatorbulworth) August 29, 2023
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I wonder where all the money went???
— George Goff (@Navy3241) August 29, 2023
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Are local and state officials misappropriating taxpayers’ dollars?
Baltimore is a totally corrupt hell hole. What did you expect? 😆
— migos.eth ⚡️ 5⃣8⃣0⃣.eth (@imbrue001) August 29, 2023
Why aren’t more taxpayers outraged? It’s your money.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 23:05 - CDC Now Refusing New COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports In Its V-Safe Program
CDC Now Refusing New COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports In Its V-Safe Program
Authored by David Gortler via The Brownstone Institute,
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) V-safe website quietly stopped collecting adverse event reports with no reason or explanation.
The V-safe website simply states: “Thank you for your participation. Data collection for COVID-19 vaccines concluded on June 30, 2023.” If you go there today, V-safe directs users to the FDA’s VAERS website for adverse event reporting, even though officials continually derided VAERS as “passive” and “unverified.”
VAERS and V-safe are mutually exclusive safety collection databases operated by the FDA and CDC, respectively. VAERS is an older way of collecting safety data where one can fill out a form online, or manually, or by calling a toll-free number, whereas V-safe is a device “app” which requires online registration. Both VAERS and V-safe collect personal information, lot numbers, dates and associated information, but V-safe was an active collection system geared towards a younger app-using demographic.
Here is the last report before deletion.
Does this mean that the CDC believes that the mRNA Covid-19 injections are so safe, there is no need to monitor adverse event reports any longer? What is the argument against continued monitoring, especially since the V-safe website was already up and paid for?
While CDC’s V-safe was stealthily and abruptly turned off, refusing to accept new safety reports, to this very day the CDC continues to urge everyone ages 6 months and older to stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
As a drug safety expert, I personally can’t cite another example of any agency or manufacturer halting collection of safety data. It seems even worse because mRNA technology is relatively new with long-term manifestations unknown. On top of this, both manufacturers and the FDA refuse to share the list of ingredients, such as lipid nanoparticles, which could affect individuals differently and take a long time to manifest clinically.
Safety Data Collection Should Never Stop
Now, contrast that with the fact that the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) will still accept a safety report for a 30-year-old Ford Bronco II. Indeed, this is an oddly specific example, but only because I drove this exact vehicle as a family hand-me-down as a student, through my residency, fellowship, for my tenure as a Yale professor on the mean streets of New Haven and even during my years at the FDA as a medical officer /senior medical analyst.
Like mRNA shots, Bronco IIs are still available on the market and people are still using them up to this very day. My Bronco became an intermittent topic of conversation with friends and FDA colleagues. One day, I was informed by a patrolling security guard at the FDA that it was the oldest car on campus.
I didn’t know much about cars (or mRNA technology) back then, but when a fellow FDA-er informed me that my Bronco II had noteworthy safety problems and that the NHTSA still had their eye on this vehicle (rollover accidents were more common and more fatal) I addressed the problem: I got rid of the reliable relic, even though I really liked it.
NHTSA is still accepting safety reports on things like my 30-year-old Ford Bronco II, but the CDC isn’t accepting new safety reports on 2-year old novel mRNA vaccines.
CDC No longer accepting safety reports despite rapidly increasing safety findings:
Unlike my old Bronco, mRNA injections have only been on the market for about two years, and according to the FDA Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, mRNA “vaccines” have been named the primary suspect in over 1.5 million adverse event reports, of which there are >20,000 heart attacks and >27,000 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis just in the USA alone. Worldwide numbers would be greater. According to many references, including an FDA-funded study out of Harvard, VAERS reports represent fewer than 1 percent of vaccine adverse events that actually occur.
Interestingly, the NHTSA link above on my Ford Bronco II only shows: one parts recall, one investigation and 23 complaints, and still features a button in the upper right hand corner for submitting new complaints.
Wikipedia defines an humanitarian crisis or humanitarian disaster as a: “singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people.” Based on VAERS and previous V-safe findings, adverse events from mRNA shots in the USA alone could be considered a humanitarian crisis.
Despite those alarming clinical findings, the CDC has concluded that collecting new safety reports is somehow no longer in the interest of America’s public health. Existing data from the V-safe site showed around 6.5 million adverse events/health impacts out of 10.1 million users, with around 2 million of those people unable to conduct normal activities of daily living or needing medical care, according to a third-party rendering of its findings. In other words, despite mRNA shots still being widely available and the CDC promoting its continued use, it’s “case closed” with regards to collecting new safety reports, under today’s federal public health administration.
Will the CDC opine on the existing data or justify its halting of collecting new safety data? To the best of my knowledge, stopping the collection of public health information doesn’t have a clinical justification or scientific precedence — especially when it comes to an actively marketed product.
In George Orwell’s 1984, characters were told by The Party to “reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.” Now, the CDC isn’t even allowing that evidence to be collected for viewing (and prospective rejecting). It’s a terrible idea for any product, let alone novel mRNA technologies.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 22:45 - Mystery Swirls Over Batch Of Thousands Of 2020 Voter Registration Forms In Michigan
Mystery Swirls Over Batch Of Thousands Of 2020 Voter Registration Forms In Michigan
Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Two weeks before the 2020 election, a woman dropped off more than 10,000 voter registration forms with a city clerk in Muskegon, Michigan.
Voters fill out their ballots at a school gymnasium in Lansing, Mich., on Nov. 03, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images) The number of forms was a red flag for the city clerk, Ann Meisch. Less than 4,000 of the city’s voting-age residents weren’t registered to vote.
Ms. Meisch called the police, triggering an investigation by the Michigan State Police. An Oct. 26, 2020, police report from that probe recently surfaced after Michigan state lawmakers obtained it through a Freedom of Information request.
At the time, Brianna Hawkins, the woman who delivered the forms, was employed by GBI Strategies, an out-of-state firm working to boost Democrat voter turnout in urban centers in key swing states to help then-candidate Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump. According to the police report, when questioned by Muskegon Police Department investigators, Ms. Hawkins said her job was to register voters and help them obtain absentee ballots.
State Republican Party officials Phil O’Halloran and Lori Skibo obtained the police report. Mr. O’Halloran provided it to The Epoch Times.
An article by a nationally known fact-checking service disputed recent conservative media accounts of the Muskegon episode.
“While the total number of voter registration forms submitted by that person may add up to as much as 12,500, very few of them were deemed to be fraudulent,” the fact checker said.
“Page 3 of the MSP [Michigan State Police] report says Meisch ‘turned over 42 suspected fraudulent applications to Officer Foster [of the Muskegon Police Department] for examination.’”
The fact checker didn’t state that the 42 applications were a sampling.
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Muskegon, Mich., on Oct. 17, 2020. (Rey Del Rio/Getty Images) Checking the Fact-checkers
However, the numbers tell a different story and raise a question: If there were only 42 suspected fraudulent voter registration applications submitted to the city clerk, why didn’t she register the rest of the batch?
In 2020, the population of the City of Muskegon was 38,309, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Of these, 29,800 people were of voting age.
Ms. Meisch told The Epoch Times in an August 10 email that in 2019, there were 25,957 registered voters in the city. In 2020, the number of people registered to vote increased by 2,077 to 28,034.
That means the pool of voting-age people not registered to vote that Ms. Hawkins had to work with was only 3,843.
Ms. Hawkins dropped off more than 10,000 voter registration forms in incremental batches, suggesting that thousands of the forms never made it onto the city’s registered voter roll.
“Even a casual observer can readily see that something is wrong. The numbers do not add up. The number of registration forms turned in by one person represents a third of the population of the city,” Mr. O’Halloran told The Epoch Times.
Clerk Suddenly ‘Cannot Speak’
The Epoch Times later contacted the city clerk with two more questions: Where did the completed voter registration forms filed by Ms. Hawkins come from, and are those extra voter registration forms that were rejected by her office in her custody?
In other words, what happened to the 10,423 voter registration forms that didn’t result in a person being added to the city’s voter roll?
Ms. Meisch replied in an Aug. 13 email: “I cannot speak to the facts of the case at this time. I am sorry that I cannot be of more help.”
According to the 2020 police report, Ms. Meisch told authorities that some of the irregularities found on the voter registration forms submitted by Ms. Hawkins included invalid and nonexistent addresses, erroneous phone numbers, signatures that didn’t match those on existing records, and numerous forms that appeared to be filled out and signed by the same hand.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks during a press conference in Lansing, Mich., on March 5, 2020. (David Eggert/AP Photo) Sixteen GOP 2020 electors lawfully nominated by the Michigan Republican Party to cast electoral college votes for President Trump if he carried the state were indicted in July by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, on fraud charges for allegedly knowingly and willfully advancing the “false claim” that there was large-scale voter fraud in the state during the 2020 presidential election.
Mr. O’Halloran told The Epoch Times that he hopes the exposure of the Muskegon case will help exonerate the Republican electors. He called it a “cruel irony” that Ms. Nessel, who he says appears to have helped bury “a state investigation into what appears to be actual forgery of election documents,” is prosecuting “the innocent Michigan 16 for a contrived ‘forgery’ in a case that hinges on the AG’s contention that there was ‘no evidence of fraud.'”
Attorneys for some of the 16 Trump electors argue that their clients merely positioned themselves as place-holders ready to legally step in if ongoing investigations into voter fraud determined that President Trump won the state of Michigan in 2020.
“Things Are Very Different Now”
Mr. O’Halloran, chairman of the state party’s election integrity committee, told The Epoch Times in an Aug. 21 interview that he and Ms. Skibo were motivated in their efforts by state GOP Chair Kristina Karamo, who encouraged them to “research the facts, make sure they are legit.”
Ms. Skibo told The Epoch Times that it was a Republican precinct delegate from Muskegon who brought the 2020 incident into the spotlight.
“The person saw something wrong and did something about it,” she said.
Now head of the poll challenger operation for the state party, Ms. Skibo remembered her own days as a precinct delegate and volunteer challenger at Detroit’s central vote-counting center in 2020.
“After seeing all the irregularities that night, I really believed that a team of Republican Party attorneys were going to show up the next morning demanding answers. I remember how angry I was when the state party did absolutely nothing,” she said.
“Things are very different now that we have a truly grassroots-led party.”
The actions of the two high-ranking Michigan Republican Party officials are a sea change compared with the position previously taken by a GOP-led state Senate panel. The panel released a report in June 2021 stating that its investigation could find “no systematic fraud” in the 2020 election.
What Happened to the Muskegon Probe?
Participants in the Muskegon investigation in 2020 were the Muskegon City Police, the Michigan State Police, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, representatives of the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, and, according to Michigan State Police records, the FBI.
On Aug. 14, The Epoch Times asked the FBI’s national press office whether the bureau is currently investigating or has ever investigated the Muskegon case, and if so, what’s the status or outcome of their probe.
The FBI didn’t respond by press time.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 22:25 - "The Story Is Always About Guns": Jacksonville Tragedy Becomes Flashpoint For Anti-Gunners
“The Story Is Always About Guns”: Jacksonville Tragedy Becomes Flashpoint For Anti-Gunners
Submitted By Gun Owners of America,
It didn’t take long for anti-gun politicians and talking heads to begin weaponizing the tragedy in Jacksonville, Florida, for their own political advantage.
One pundit—former Smith and Wesson executive turned Giffords Senior Policy Advisor Ryan Busse— took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to use the deaths of Americans to push his gun control agenda:
This is the rifle used in the racist mass murder in Jacksonville. It’s from Palmetto State Armory, the same company that proudly markets directly to extremists and domestic terror orgs like the boogaloo boys. pic.twitter.com/QLSvNhdHia
— Ryan Busse (@ryandbusse) August 27, 2023
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He must not have agreed with the wise words of the local sheriff who, in a press conference regarding the Jacksonville shooting, said:
“The story [in the media] is always about guns. [But] people are bad — this guy’s a bad guy. If I could take my gun off right now, and I lay it on this counter, nothing will happen.
It’ll sit there — but as soon as wicked person grabs ahold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it — there’s the problem. The problem is the individual.”
Sheriff Waters’ nugget of wisdom reveals precisely what is wrong with Ryan Busse’s push for gun control.
We’re thankful for the leadership of Sheriff Waters in Florida this weekend.⁰⁰And he’s absolutely right, the problem is the individual. Wicked people will always do wicked things.
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 28, 2023
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Until anti-gun advocates look past their desire to blame guns, they’ll never be able to address the real problems.
Ryan Busse wants to blame a gun company—Palmetto State Armory—for manufacturing the firearm used in the shooting.
But Sheriff Waters understands that the Jacksonville killer was an evil man with evil intentions.
And as it turns out, the Jacksonville killer is just copying other racist mass murderers from Buffalo, New York, and Christchurch, NZ, who also scribbled on their rifles with a white marker.
This isn’t about Palmetto State Armory—other mass murderers have used different tools, including trucks, knives, and bombs. And this isn’t about America—the same thing happened in Christchurch, New Zealand.
In fact, in the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto, he specifically outlines his desire to push gun control through his own actions, causing societal friction. In his mind, gun control could cause a second civil war in the US. Even the markings on his firearm were designed to incite the corporate media into enflaming the debate further than his awful actions could go on their own.
These tragedies are textbook cases of killers mimicking each other’s techniques. The Buffalo, NY killer wrote: “The media loves to hate on the AR-15, which may increase coverage and public outcry.” It sounds exactly like what the Christchurch shooter described in his manifesto.
As a country, we must stop sensationalizing mass murderers and their actions for the purposes of advancing a gun control agenda and look at the root causes of this violence, such as:
1. The severe mental illness driving these racist, violent actions.
2. The “media contagion effect,” which rewards mass killers for their violent actions.
Americans should demand accountability from the media for the role they play in encouraging future acts of violence.
That’s why GOA is a staunch proponent of legislation in Congress condemning the media for using mass murderers for viral content.
Resolutions introduced by Representative Andy Ogles and Senator Mike Lee called on the media to voluntarily adopt standards to minimize the “media contagion effect” and deny mass killers the publicity and infamy they desire.
If corporate media and politicians stop weaponizing tragedies, perhaps we could work together and “do something” effectively.
* * *
We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 22:05 - Meta Drops University-Based Fact-Checking Group After Bias Exposed
Meta Drops University-Based Fact-Checking Group After Bias Exposed
From Down Under comes a rare triumph for victims of manipulative social media “fact-checking.”
Facebook parent Meta has suspended the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) from its fact-checking operation after investigative reporters exposed its leftist bias and the expiration of its fact-checking certification from the entity that coordinates Meta’s policing of speech.
“Considering both the nature of the allegations against RMIT and the upcoming referendum, we have decided to suspend RMIT from our fact-checking program,” a Meta spokesman told Sky News.
The spokesman was referring to the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum, which calls for creating a new political entity to “make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government … on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.” Australians refer to it as “the Voice.”
In a lengthy August 23 exposé, Sky News uncovered multiple conflicts of interest and fact-checking policy violations by RMIT’s so-called “FactLab.” Facebook’s deputized RMIT thought-police had frequently blocked and suppressed anti-Voice journalism on Facebook, including that of Sky News. Sky found that, between May 3 and June 23, every one of RMIT’s fact-checks about the Voice scrutinized content that bolstered the case for voting ‘no’ on the measure.
Facebook is manipulating the public almost everywhere on Earth.
That is why they won’t open source their algorithm. https://t.co/iO0PUO1joF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2023
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“The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) requires participating organizations to demonstrate a commitment to nonpartisanship and fairness,” Meta told Sky News. “The IFCN will determine whether RMIT FactLab’s expired certification should be reinstated.”
RMIT FactLab is led by former Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reporter Russell Skelton. Sky reported that Skelton “has published dozens of tweets criticising conservative viewpoints and the journalists he has been tasked with fact checking.” He’d also explicitly advocated a “yes” vote on the Voice, in violation of IFCN’s published fact-checking principles.
RMIT FactLab Director Russell Skelton and his wife, journalist Virginia Trioli (Quadrant) RMIT fact-checker Renee Davidson, who has also publicly supported the Voice, reposted a tweet accusing anti-Voice politician Peter Dutton of engaging in “fear-mongering through racism.”
“The decision of a foreign headquartered social media platform to interfere with legitimate public discourse during a referendum to change the Australian Constitution is particularly egregious and cannot go unaccounted,” wrote Australian Senator James Paterson in a letter to Meta that preceded news of RMIT’s ejection from Facebook’s constellation of fact-checkers. Paterson also asked Meta to explain how it would stop putting its thumb on the scales as the vote approaches.
Though RMIT was previously certified in its fact-checking role by IFCN, that credential expired last December. The contract between RMIT and Meta authorizes Meta to void the deal if the school loses its certification, but — up until now — Meta had allowed RMIT to keep on censoring content anyway.
While it’s nice to see this rare comeuppance for the fact-checking regime, RMIT’s ejection will do little to disrupt the Big Tech-Big Media thought police regime as it relentlessly suppresses voices that counter the leftist agenda.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 21:45 - Why Cash Seizures Backfire On Oklahoma Police
Why Cash Seizures Backfire On Oklahoma Police
Authored by Dan Alban and and Daryl James via RealClear Wire,
Police recruits join the force to help others and fight crime. Research confirms it. But priorities changed when sheriff’s deputies detained Eh Wah in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, and found more than $53,000 in his car.
Law enforcement training kicked in, and the purpose of the traffic stop switched from public safety to raising revenue. The deputies seized the cash and spent the next six hours interrogating Eh Wah, looking for any excuse to justify civil forfeiture, a process that allows the government to take and keep cash, cars and other assets without a criminal conviction.
Oklahoma agencies normally keep quiet about civil forfeiture, which is why the state ranks among the worst in the nation for civil forfeiture transparency. Oklahoma publishes no statewide reports, conducts no regular audits, and tracks only limited metrics.
The silence is strategic. The more people learn about civil forfeiture, the less they like it. But Oklahoma police and prosecutors have voiced opposition in recent weeks to H.R. 1525, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR), a bill that would reform federal civil forfeiture.
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Deputy Director Brian Surber says the measure would take money from state and local agencies, making it harder to fight drug cartels and other criminal enterprises.
What happened to Eh Wah undercuts this narrative. He was not a drug lord or even a low-level dealer. He was a volunteer manager for a Christian rock band, raising money for Thai orphans and Burmese refugees. Some of the cash belonged to Eh Wah and the band members, following a monthslong tour across several states. The rest came from concert donations and belonged to the orphans and refugees.
Carrying cash is legal. The money in the car was legitimate. And none of it related to a broken taillight — the reason for the 2016 traffic stop on U.S. Route 69. Eh Wah, who neither smokes nor drinks, had nothing illegal in his vehicle. Other than driving with a burned out bulb, he did nothing wrong.
The deputies pounced anyway, putting civil forfeiture in motion.
To prevail, at least in theory, the government must link seized assets to criminal activity by a preponderance of the evidence, a low standard that means government hunches are more likely correct than not. But in the vast majority of cases, the government does not have to prove anything by any standard.
Property owners get trapped in procedural mazes and lose by default. Many people give up without ever seeing a judge. They often have no choice. Civil forfeiture includes no right to counsel, and attorney fees often outweigh the value of seized assets.
Once the process ends, participating agencies keep 100 percent of the proceeds for themselves. The result is a powerful incentive for police and prosecutors to self-fund through aggressive enforcement.
The FAIR Act would not affect Oklahoma law. But it would end “equitable sharing,” a maneuver that allows state and local agencies to transfer seized property to the federal government for civil forfeiture, and then take a cut of the proceeds when the process ends. Oklahoma agencies pocketed more than $2 million this way in 2020.
Oklahoma District 12 Attorney Matt Ballard wants to protect this revenue stream. What he fails to mention is that equitable sharing circumvents state law, which should not happen. Oklahoma agencies should follow Oklahoma law, which already makes civil forfeiture far too easy.
State and local agencies collected $6.2 million for themselves in 2020 under Oklahoma law — above and beyond equitable sharing — representing more than 75 percent of proceeds. Indeed, the civil forfeiture case against Eh Wah was brought under Oklahoma law, not through the feds.
Eh Wah fought back with free representation from our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, and recovered his cash. Now civil forfeiture apologists want to call his ordeal an “outlier.”
But they have no data to support that claim. And they miss an important point: Even if proceeds come entirely from criminals, which they do not, the process skews law enforcement priorities.
Agencies shift their focus from following criminals to following the money, which creates blind spots. At least one study shows that increased forfeiture revenue actually reduces crime closure rates.
Innocent property owners like Eh Wah suffer. But so do officers, who get stuck working as fundraisers rather than crimefighters. The FAIR Act would help refocus law enforcement on its true priority—protecting the public, not the bottom line.
Dan Alban is a senior attorney and co-director of the National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va. Daryl James is an Institute for Justice writer.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 21:25 - Chevron Evacuates Gulf Of Mexico Oil Platforms As Hurricane Idalia Approaches
Chevron Evacuates Gulf Of Mexico Oil Platforms As Hurricane Idalia Approaches
By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com
Chevron has evacuated three oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of tropical storm Idalia which is strengthening to a hurricane and expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
The U.S. supermajor said on Tuesday that it had evacuated non-essential personnel from its Blind Faith and Petronius platforms, and all staff had been removed from its Genesis platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil and gas production continued on Tuesday at Chevron’s operated platforms and other facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, a spokesperson told Reuters.
In the 7 a.m. CDT Tuesday update on Hurricane Idalia, the National Hurricane Center said that Idalia is strengthening as it moves northward over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico.
“There is a danger of life-threatening storm surge along portions of the Florida Gulf coast. Heavy rainfall has the potential to produce flash and urban flooding across portions of the west coast of Florida, the Florida Panhandle, and southern Georgia,” the National Hurricane Center said.
Idalia is expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday and create chaos and gasoline shortages just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, when more drivers are expected to hit the road, analysts say.
As of Tuesday morning, the percentage of gas stations in Florida without gasoline remains low but is constantly rising, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, said.
Gasoline demand in Florida ahead of Idalia could lead to shortages but they will be temporary, AAA Auto Club spokesman Mark Jenkins told Florida’s WUSF Public Media.
“As long as the Tampa Port remains open then gasoline will continue sailing into the region. And deliveries will be made until the actual storm itself is passing through, and then that’s considered to be unsafe to transport fuel, and most people wouldn’t be on the road at that time anyway,” Jenkins said.
Moreover, Hurricane Idalia is not expected to impact refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast supplying Florida as these are on the Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi coasts, he added.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 21:05 - Joe Biden Used Pseudonyms In At Least 5,400 Emails
Joe Biden Used Pseudonyms In At Least 5,400 Emails
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) revealed it’s in possession of some 5,400 records that contain email pseudonyms that President Joe Biden used during his tenure as vice president.
The jarring number was revealed in a letter from the Archives to the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), which last year filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for any documents that referenced three pseudonymous email accounts: robinware456@gmail.com, JRBWare@gmail.com and Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov.
“We have performed a search of our collection for Vice Presidential records related to your [June 9, 2022] request and have identified approximately 5,138 email messages, 25 electronic files and 200 pages of potentially responsive records that must be processed in order to respond to your request,” said the letter from NARA.
What will those 5,400 documents reveal about Biden’s involvement in Hunter’s so-called “business dealings”? (Andrew Harnik/AP via Politico) Roswell, Georgia-based SLF received that letter last year, but made it public on Monday as it announced it has taken its FOIA pursuit to the next level, by filing a federal lawsuit against the Archives to compel the release of the records.
“SLF requested these now highly sought after emails from NARA on June 9, 2022, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request,” said the group in a statement. “Unfortunately, after identifying nearly 5,400 potentially responsive records, NARA has dragged its feet and still has not produced a single email. SLF now turns to the court, asking it to order NARA to produce Biden’s emails.”
The revelation of the high quantity of documents comes on the heels of a push for the same documents by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer. Earlier this month, he sent a letter to NARA asking it to turn over any unredacted documents that reference the pseudonyms.
“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” said Comer in a statement.
One email to Biden’s pseudonym account referenced his call to Ukraine’s president — and Hunter was copied at a time when he served on Burisma’s board “We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates,” Comer continued. “We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest. The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption.”
While mystery swirls around the several thousand documents, we do know that one of the emails details plans for a phone call with Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko. An aide to Biden, John Flynn, copied Hunter at his email address at Rosemont Seneca Partners – while Hunter was serving on the board of Ukrainian energy giant, Burisma, which was deemed to be corrupt by the Obama-Biden State Department.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 21:00 - First COVID Deaths Were Fully Jabbed, Australian State Records Reveal
First COVID Deaths Were Fully Jabbed, Australian State Records Reveal
Authored by Jessie Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
In light of a court case launched by a group of doctors challenging the Queensland government’s COVID-19 vaccination mandates, records have revealed that the first deaths in the Australian state were individuals who were fully vaccinated.
A medical volunteer prepares the Moderna coronavirus vaccination for a first responder in Orange, Calif., on March 9, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) A list of the state’s first 183 COVID-19 deaths from the pandemic’s start on March 13, 2020, until Jan. 27, 2022, produced by Queensland’s chief health officer in an affidavit, indicates it was known to authorities as early as Jan. 2022 that the vaccines may not be preventing deaths.
The list shows that the first locally acquired COVID-19 death was one in their 80s and another in their 30s, with both having received two doses of the vaccine in December 2021 and January 2022, respectively.
While Queensland recorded seven deaths early in the pandemic, these cases were acquired outside of the state and before vaccine rollouts began.
Queensland’s border opened in December 2021 after 80 percent of the state population vaccination was reached. By Dec. 31, 2021, nearly 90 percent of the population over 16 were fully vaccinated.
Summary of Queensland’s first deaths after the vaccine rollouts. (Supplied byDystopian Down Under) Queensland’s Workplace Mandates
The case, which was launched against the state, calls for the September 2021 directive requiring employees in public health and aged-care facilities to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to be revoked.
A specialist from the case, psychiatrist Peter Parry, said that in the three decades of his career, he had never been subject to disciplinary action until now.
“I graduated from medical school 40 years ago and in all that time have never had a single complaint about me presented to a medical board or AHPRA,” he said.
The reason he chose to decline the COVID-19 vaccines was because these are “not normal vaccines.”
“We hope, by bringing evidentiary material and expert witness testimonies before the Supreme Court, that the Justices will look at the evidence and rule in our favour. If successful, large numbers of experienced nurses, allied health, and doctors will be able to return to assist an overstretched Queensland public health system,” he added.
In addition to enforced work mandates, Premier Annastacia Palazczuk barred the unvaccinated from accessing services and freedoms such as hospitals, disability services, aged care, libraries, and hospitality venues.
This was enforced by proof of vaccination requirements at venues, which the Queensland government said was to keep Queenslanders safe.
BREAKING: Fully vaccinated Queenslanders will be rewarded to keep our freedoms from 17 December or when we reach the 80% double dosed milestone. #covid19 pic.twitter.com/WICAlLvxl0
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) November 9, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Messaging Shifts to Reducing Severe Illness
Initially, in 2021, the Queensland Government closed the state’s borders and encouraged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. They aimed to reopen the borders once 80 percent of the population was vaccinated, with the goal of stopping the virus’s spread and safeguarding vulnerable citizens.
However, when the borders reopened after reaching the target, COVID-19 cases surged instead of decreasing. When it became clear that the vaccines didn’t entirely prevent infection or transmission, the focus of the messaging shifted to highlight the vaccines’ effectiveness in reducing severe illness and death.
A nurse is seen working at a COVID-19 testing clinic at Ipswich Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. on Aug. 24, 2020. (Glenn Hunt/Getty Images) It is still a condition today for most Queensland health staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to ensure the ongoing safety of employees, patients, visitors and the wider community.
“The overwhelming benefits of COVID-19 vaccination continue to outweigh the potential risks, and this is substantiated by enormous amounts of safety data based on billions of doses worldwide,” a spokesperson for the TGA told The Epoch Times in an email.
Pfizer Dismisses Concerns Over Vaccine Mandates
The news of the deaths follows a parliamentary inquiry into the COVID-19 mandates heard from the Australian heads of Pfizer Australia that the vaccine mandates coerced Australians into getting vaccinated for COVID-19, saying they had a choice.
Appearing before an Australian senate inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Pfizer Country Medical Director Dr. Krishan Thiru and Dr. Brian Hewitt, the head of Regulatory Sciences for Pfizer, dismissed concerns of senators that Australians had been coerced into getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I believe firmly that nobody was forced to have a vaccine,” Dr. Thiru said.
“Mandates for vaccine requirements are determined by governments and health authorities. I believe everybody was offered an opportunity to get a vaccine or not get a vaccine. I don’t believe that anybody was forced to take a vaccine.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Hewitt, when asked if he believed Australians in states that were subject to large-scale mandates—like Western Australia or Victoria—were not forced into getting the shot even when they found they were unable to earn a living without receiving a vaccination, replied he did not believe mandates compelled individuals into vaccinating.
“The mandates for vaccine requirements are determined by governments and health authorities. I don’t believe that the mandates actually forced individuals to get vaccinations,” he said.
Victoria Kelly-Clark contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 20:45 - California AG Sues SoCal School District For 'Outing' Trans, Pronoun Students To Parents
California AG Sues SoCal School District For ‘Outing’ Trans, Pronoun Students To Parents
California attorney general Bob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against a Southern California school district over a recently adopted policy that requires schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta “It tramples on students’ rights,” said Bonta, who’s seeking a court order to immediately halt the Chino Valley Unified School district from what he called “forced outing” of transgender students that violates their civil rights, NBC Los Angeles reports.
The move comes after Chino Valley Unified, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, adopted the policy following a shift in leadership on the school board. Other Southern California districts have adopted similar policies and Bonta said he believes they will also be affected by this litigation, though they are not named in the suit.
In a response for a request for comment, the district’s director of communications said the district was not notified of the filing until after news organizations reported on the lawsuit. The district had not been provided an opportunity to examine the lawsuit Monday morning.
So – schools are allowed to hire queer activist teachers and feature books with leather-bound gay grandfathers making out, but if they let parents know that their child is pursuing an alternative lifestyle – the state will sue them.
“At this time, the District is working with its legal counsel to review the lawsuit and its contents,” Director of Communications Andi Johnston said in an email. “Prior to the filing, District personnel had been working with complete transparency in providing Attorney General Bonta’s office with requested documents and records. Superintendent Enfield spoke with the DOJ’s legal counsel weekly to confirm the District was providing requested files, which had changed several times from the original subpoena.”
The state’s lawsuit argues that the policy discriminates against transgender and ‘gender non-conforming’ students, and is in violation of the state constitution which requires equal protection for all students (from their own parents?) regardless of their gender expression, sexual orientation, or identity.
“Every student has the right to learn and thrive in a school environment that promotes safety, privacy, and inclusivity – regardless of their gender identity,” Bonta said in a statement. “We’re in court challenging Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy for wrongfully and unconstitutionally discriminating against and violating the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ students. The forced outing policy wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home. Our message to Chino Valley Unified and all school districts in California is loud and clear: We will never stop fighting for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ students.”
Parents, meanwhile, say they have a right to know the decisions their children are making at school.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 20:25 - The Hidden Racial Bias In K-12 Education
The Hidden Racial Bias In K-12 Education
Authored by Patrick Hughes via RealClear Wire,
The Supreme Court might have ended race-based affirmative action in higher education, but as students return to the classroom this fall, the next frontier in the debate over discrimination in education and at work is already at our doorstep in K-12 public schools.
In his majority opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” The only way to achieve that constitutional imperative is for public school boards and superintendents to take a close look at the way they staff America’s K-12 classrooms.
A new report from the National Opportunity Project identifies widespread discrimination in public school employment practices. After reviewing responses to a litany of public records requests, evaluating job posts, and examining hiring criteria, the National Opportunity Project found that school districts are using divisive social and political ideologies, and in some instances race, to drive hiring decisions.
The biased K-12 hiring practices often stem from the en vogue “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or DEI, initiatives that have been adopted by school boards and administrators in recent years. Once thought to be prevalent only in higher education, research by the National Opportunity Project demonstrates the trickle-down effect of discriminatory higher education practices; they eventually are adopted by K-12 public schools.
Many school districts fail to prioritize candidates’ educational and professional qualifications, and instead focus on applicants’ answers to questions about poorly-defined political causes such as “social justice” and “equity.” For example, in suburban Chicago, Evanston Township High School requires that “applicants must demonstrate a commitment to social justice, equity, excellence and high expectations for all students.”
In Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, teacher candidates are asked, “What does equity mean to you? How do you plan to keep equity at the center of your classroom?” Responses that show strong agreement with DEI concepts like “equity journey,” “equity work,” and “understand that race is a social construct” are rated more highly on a scoring rubric. This is just a small deviation from the race-based numerical rating system that was outlawed by the Supreme Court more than 20 years ago in Gratz v. Bollinger.
Hiring committees are also instructed to assemble teaching staff that reflect certain politics, social ideologies, and racial backgrounds. City Schools of Decatur in Georgia directs school leaders to staff hiring teams for racial and gender equity by “ensur[ing] that there is at least one person of color and one woman or gender-fluid individual on the interview panel. Individuals who embody other aspects of diversity should be included as well.”
The practical effect of these policies is that teachers in many of America’s K-12 schools are not being selected based on their teaching ability or experience connecting with our country’s youngest and most vulnerable. Instead, we’re selecting teachers based on subjective, quasi-political, and sometimes illegal criteria that have nothing to do with reading, writing, and math. Plus, these types of hiring practices stifle true diversity and result in a homogenous teaching staff educating from only one ideological perspective.
America is the land of opportunity, a place where free speech and free thought are to be protected and encouraged. No matter your political stripes, we all should find these hiring practices alarming and at odds with our fundamental values.
What’s more, as the Supreme Court recently reminded us, straightforward racial discrimination is unconstitutional. And trying to smuggle such discrimination through code words like “equity” is still problematic. As the Supreme Court has stated, “What cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows.”
It’s past time to address these discriminatory hiring practices in K-12 schools. The college students fighting to end affirmative action wanted all students to be seen for who they are beyond their demographics. In the same vein, what makes good teachers must be determined by examining their qualifications, their track records, their education, and their commitment to achieving the best outcomes for their students. Teacher applicants should not—and considering recent Supreme Court precedent, cannot—be judged, ranked, or hired based on their race, gender, creed, or political views.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 20:05 - In Desperate Attempt To Boost Housing, China Cuts Mortgage Rates For First Time Since 2009
In Desperate Attempt To Boost Housing, China Cuts Mortgage Rates For First Time Since 2009
With the market urgently demanding a bazooka or some other “whatever-it-takes“ policy reaction from Beijing in response to China’s slow-motion economic and housing sector trainwreck, Xi’s regime continues to play cat and mouse with traders and continues to trickle down tiny, piecemeal stimmies on a daily basis and this morning was no different when Bloomberg reported that China’s largest banks are set to cut interest rates on trillions of yuan of outstanding home mortgages (and deposits) for the first time since the global financial crisis, as policymakers dig deeper into their toolkit to shore up growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
And indeed, shortly after the report, China – which one year ago suffered through a crippling mortgage payment boycott which brought many of the country’s property developers to the brink of ruin – confirmed that its big (state-owned of course) lenders are reducing rates on the majority of the nation’s 38.6 trillion yuan ($5.3 trillion) of outstanding mortgages, with the reductions only affecting loans on first homes, two of the people said.
At the same time, lenders such as ICBC (Industrial & Commercial Bank of China) and China Construction Bank are poised to cut deposit rates later this week for the third time in a year, people familiar said.
The moves are part of a targeted push by Beijing to spur consumer spending, drive more funds into the stock market and alleviate pressure on lenders’ profit margins. The moves will also achieve none of that since nobody will allocate capital to – and in – a country where the largest asset, real estate, remains in freefall and where everyone is expecting some form of helicopter money to eventually emerge and contain the collapse.
The cuts to mortgage rates were highly anticipated by investors after the central bank hinted at support in mid-July. While China has reduced benchmark rates and pushed the average mortgage cost to a record low, most Chinese households didn’t benefit as banks won’t reprice existing loans until the beginning of next year.
“This is an incremental policy step, not a game changer because people’s confidence is still low,” said Macquarie head of China economic Larry Hu. “I think we’re going to see property easing come through in the coming weeks, I just don’t know if it’s going to be strong enough.”
While Chinese shares gained in offshore trading after Bloomberg reported the banks’ plans, it’s unclear whether the moves will be enough to spark a sustained revival in investor confidence. Authorities have so far avoided broader stimulus measures despite a deepening property crisis and growing deflation pressures that have put the government’s economic growth target of around 5% at risk.
JPMorgan analysts estimated that the annualized rate on new mortgages stands at 4.18%, about 60 basis points lower than the outstanding borrowings. That has prompted some consumers to take out out short-term loans to repay mortgages early. This is a mirror image of the US where the effective mortgage rate is more than half below where the prevailing current 30Y mortgage yield is!
More than 90% of China’s outstanding mortgages were for first homes as of July 2021, according to the latest public data available from the banking regulator. In 2022, more than 80% of new home loans were on first homes, according to the housing ministry.
With lower mortgage rates, however, also come lower deposits rates, and the reduction in the latter is meant to help lenders protect their margins as they extend lower rates to homebuyers. Big state banks may cut rates on local-currency deposits across key tenors by between 5 and 20 basis points, according to the report. Regulators have signed off on the plan, the people added. The cut may come as soon as Friday, one of the people said.
Of course, none of this will make any difference for the big picture. China’s financial sector is already struggling with soaring defaults at shadow banks, which have triggered a fresh wave of anxiety about hidden stress and the potential spillover to state-owned lenders. A default by Chinese property giant Country Garden – said to have far more adverse consequences than the bankruptcy of Evergrande – is looming, and will further crush sentiment and spread deflationary shockwaves both domestically and across the globe. Analysts have also highlighted growing risks associated with debt-laden local government financing vehicles, with Goldman Sachs saying the exposure of banks could weaken their capital positions and lead to lower dividend payouts.
Among the various other piecemeal measures introduced by China, Bloomberg notes that as of June, 100 out of 343 Chinese cities have lowered the rate floor of new-home mortgages or removed the minimum required, the PBOC said in its quarterly monetary policy report on Thursday. That has brought the nation’s average mortgage rate to 4.11% in June, down 0.51 percentage point from a year earlier.
In an extreme scenario assuming the entire mortgage loan book is refinanced with a rate reduction of 60 basis points, earnings at Chinese bank for next year will be cut by 8%, with net interest margins narrowing by 7 basis points, according to JPMorgan. The US bank expects that about 50% of mortgage owners are likely to refinance and most of the impact on bank earnings will be in the near-term.
The last time China allowed a similar move was during early 2009, when some state-owned banks gave a discount on interest rates to qualified borrowers in certain areas in response to the global financial crisis, according to a Zhongtai Securities report.
Futures on the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index rose 0.8% in Hong Kong, building on a two-day rally that’s been fueled by a slew of market-boosting measures from authorities. The contracts are still down about 17% from this year’s high in January. And with consensus demanding helicopter money and nothing less to boost sentiment, don’t expect the gains to stick.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 19:45 - Trump Campaign Releases Video Supercut Of Democrats Disputing Republican Election Victories
Trump Campaign Releases Video Supercut Of Democrats Disputing Republican Election Victories
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has released a brand new “summer blockbuster” political ad highlighting Democrats’ well-documented history of disputing election results.
President Trump shared the roughly 10-minute video in an Aug. 28 post on Truth Social, calling it a “must-watch.”
“Republican supporters and President Trump are being ridiculed, persecuted, and even prosecuted by Biden, congressional democrats, and their radical prosecutors for raising questions about the accuracy of the 2020 victory,” the video begins.
“This may be one of the most hypocritical acts in history considering the Democrats have violently claimed that the last three Republican Presidential wins were stolen, rigged, and illegitimate, and it was Democrats who tried to stop the certification of a Republican President,” it continues.
The video goes on to cite a number of occasions in which Democrats have challenged election results, including during the 2000 presidential election when former Vice President Al Gore lost in a close-call race against President George W. Bush.
Mr. Gore ultimately challenged the results in the U.S. Supreme Court amid a clash over which candidate had received Florida’s 25 electoral votes.
The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that a previous Florida Supreme Court order for an elective manual recount of that state’s presidential election ballots was unconstitutional and Mr. Gore eventually conceded the race.
In the video, multiple Democrats—including President Biden, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—can be seen questioning the 2000 election results, with President Biden stating outright that he believes Mr. Gore won the race.
U.S. Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton makes a concession speech after being defeated by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, in New York on Nov. 9, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
Clinton, Pelosi Question Election ‘Integrity’
The video also shows footage of some Democrats refusing to participate in the official certification of the 2000 election results, including snippets of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) objecting to the “fraudulent 25 Florida electoral votes,” as well as other lawmakers declining to join in the certification.
It goes on to cite multiple other incidents in which Democrats challenged election results, including in 2004, when former President Bush defeated Democrat candidate John Kerry.
In one clip, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) can be seen calling for independent testing of voter equipment in Ohio after the election, while in another, former Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) claims there were “numerous irregularities” with the elections.
Ms. Clinton and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can also be seen questioning the “accuracy and integrity” of America’s elections.
The video later shows Democrats questioning the results of the 2016 presidential election, in which President Trump beat Ms. Clinton.
Ms. Clinton can be seen telling audience members at event that the election can be “stolen” from candidates and that President Trump “knows he is an illegitimate president.”
The video narrator went on to say that “some Democrats continued to promote the totally false narrative that President Trump had somehow conspired with the Russians” to win the election, alongside footage of multiple Democrats making false claims about the now disproven Russian interference narrative.
Former President of the United States Donald Trump, also the front runner for the Republican presidential candidate nominee, was booked and released on bond at Fulton County Jail on Aug. 24, 2023. (Fulton County Sheriff’s Office)
Trump Booked in Fulton County Jail
“The Democrats have also accused Republicans of stealing many other elections, including in Georgia, the very same place where tainted Democrat Georgia Prosecutor Fani Willis is now unfairly prosecuting President Trump for suggesting there was voter fraud,” the narrator continues, referring to Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ loss against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
“Many in America are asking why President Trump is being prosecuted for doing the very same thing Democrats like Biden and Hillary have done, and the answer is very simple. Like a third-world corrupt dictator, Biden will use any means necessary to beat the one Republican he knows he can’t beat,” the video narrator concludes.
The video from the Trump campaign comes shortly after President Trump was booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Aug. 24 after surrendering himself to authorities following his indictment on racketeering and conspiracy charges.
After handing himself over to authorities, President Trump, 77, had his fingerprints and mugshot taken before being released on a $200,000 bond roughly 20 minutes later.
He later described the experience as “terrible” and a “very sad day for our country.”
The indictment charges President Trump and 18 others in relation to their efforts to dispute the results of the 2020 election in the state.
President Trump was booked on 13 charges including a violation of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, and conspiracy to commit filing of false documents, among others.
He has denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly claimed he is the victim of a political witch hunt.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 19:25 - "A Very Dangerous Moment" – Hungary's Orbán Warns Tucker "A 3rd World War Is Knocking On The Door"
“A Very Dangerous Moment” – Hungary’s Orbán Warns Tucker “A 3rd World War Is Knocking On The Door”
During Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Budapest, where he gave a speech apologizing for the “disgusting” behavior of the US Ambassador to Hungary, the former Fox News anchor sat down with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Orbán – Hungary’s longest-serving prime minister – knows a thing or two about Russia (having grown up under their occupation, and been arrested and thrown into jail by Russian-backed police for his efforts to liberate the country) and Ukraine (a nation with which is shares a border), and so Tucker sat down to ask him – what exactly is going on in Ukraine right now (given the propagandic opacity of news in America).
“It is not just a misunderstanding, it is a lie,” Orban begins, when asked about the fact that American media continue to claim that ‘Ukraine is winning’ the war.
He suggests that the Biden administration misunderstands Russia, and attempting to remove Putin could lead to dangerous instability.
“To understand the Russians it’s a difficult thing, especially if you have an ocean between you and Russia.”
Orbán points out that Western political conversations often center on freedom, while Russian conversations focus on keeping the country together, and warns against the dangerous implications of the U.S. strategy, particularly for countries like Hungary that are geographically closer to the conflict.
“Don’t misunderstand the Russians. So they’re not going to get sick of Putin and throw him out, come on, it’s a joke.”
He criticizes Vice President Kamala Harris for suggesting that Ukraine could join NATO, saying it was an unrealistic proposal that escalated tensions.
Instead, the Hungarian PM urges a new security architecture that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty but doesn’t include NATO membership.
Seemingly for his unwillingness to simply acquiesce to every talking point provided by Washington, and instead to put his nation’s people first – and their energy and food needs – Orbán has been called a “fascist” numerous times by western media, a ‘puppet of Putin’ and ‘friend of Russia’..
Carlson asked Orbán, “are you worried about being crushed by the US?”
“It’s dangerous,” replies the Hungarian PM, recognizing that “I am not the favorite politician of the liberals, but nobody’s perfect.”
But, he adds that he doesn’t care because there are more important values required to uphold a civil society:
“There are certain things that are more important than me, than my ego: family, nation, god.”
“To be Hungarian is to be very proud of it. We love the nation, we love the country, and we are proud of it. It’s not every much mainstream thinking, political thinking of a western society.
But in Hungary, we are still very patriotic and Christian and committed to those values. Not from an ideological level, but on the streets everyday,”
The Hungarian approach is simple, he explains, “Washington is far away, Russia and Ukraine are close,” noting that decisions made in the US can have immediate impacts for his nation.
“It’s dangerous is my answer. So we should not neglect the importance of that fact and when the United States and this administration does not like you, or considers you as an enemy or a having a backtrack, it’s dangerous in international politics,”
Reflecting on NATO’s stance in the Ukraine war, Orbán exclaims:
“this is a bad strategy, we have to stop it” adding that “we cannot beat [the Russians], we will not kill their leader, they will never give it up, they will invest more.”
“What finally will count is boots on the ground, and the Russians are far stronger.”
Orbán then makes the ultimate mistake among global leaders, he praises former US president Trump:
“Call back Trump. That’s the only way out. Call back Trump,” Orbán said.
“Because you know, you can criticize him for many reasons. I understand all the discussion. But the best foreign policy of the recent several decades belonged to him. He did not initiate any new war. He treated nicely the North Koreans and Russia, even the Chinese. You know, he delivered a policy which was the best one for the Middle East, Abraham Accords. So he had very good foreign policy.”
“He’s [Trump] criticized because he’s not educated enough to understand foreign policy. This is not the case,” Orbán told Carlson.
“Facts count and his foreign policy was the best form for the world in the last several decades I have seen. And if he would have been the president at the moment the Russian invasion started, no, it would not be possible to do that by the Russians. So Trump is the man to save the world and probably the human beings in the world as well.”
Additionally, commenting on the fact that the US government is currently indicting the former president, the Hungarian leader frowns and says:
“…using the justice system against a political opponent… in Hungary, that’s impossible to imagine… that was done by the communists.”
His most ominous warning comes last:
“This is a very dangerous moment now,” he concludes, adding that it should be obvious to everyone that “the third world war is knocking on our door.”
Watch the full interview below:
Ep. 20 Hungary shares a border with Ukraine. We traveled to Budapest to speak with the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán. pic.twitter.com/LOzpMrQNIz
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 29, 2023
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 19:05 - Murderer Scheduled To Be Executed With Unconventional Method Triggers Death Penalty Debate
Murderer Scheduled To Be Executed With Unconventional Method Triggers Death Penalty Debate
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Alabama could become the first state to execute a prisoner by forcing him to breathe in pure nitrogen, a novel method that has never been used.
The gurney in Huntsville, Texas, where Texas’s condemned are strapped down to receive a lethal dose of drugs in this May 27, 2008 file photo. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan) Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office asked the Alabama Supreme Court in a court filing on Aug. 25 to schedule the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder-for-hire killing of a preacher’s wife in the 1980s.
“It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,” Mr. Marshall said in a statement.
That court filing to the state’s top court also indicated that Alabama plans to execute Mr. Smith via nitrogen hypoxia, according to a news release from the attorney general’s office. The method of execution is authorized in three states, including Alabama, but it’s never been tried before.
While nitrogen makes up about 78 percent of the air inhaled by people and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen, the execution method will force the inmate to breathe 100 percent nitrogen. The method would deprive the death row inmate of oxygen before they would then pass out “within a minute” before dying shortly after that, some experts have said.
“Placed into a pure nitrogen environment, the convict would be unconscious within a minute (possibly even after a breath or two) and would be dead soon after,” Charles Blanke, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, said in a Fox News interview. “Its failure rate, that is, cases in which the prisoner survives, would likely be much lower than what we see with current death penalty methods.”
Proponents of the execution method say that it would likely be painless. However, opponents have said it’s essentially a form of experimentation on people.
“No state in the country has executed a person using nitrogen hypoxia and Alabama is in no position to experiment with a completely unproven and unused method for executing someone,” the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that provides legal representation to those who may have been denied a fair trial, told the Associated Press.
Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 amid a shortage of drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia, but have not used it.
However, Alabama likely doesn’t have to prove whether a pure nitrogen-based execution in humane, one professor said.
“The burden is on the condemned inmate to show that it is torturous rather than the burden being on the state to show that it’s not,” Richmond University law professor Corinna Barrett Lain in an interview with Scientific American. Ms. Lain said that the most humane method of execution is likely death via firing squad.
Alabama has been working for several years to develop the nitrogen hypoxia execution method, but has disclosed little about its plans. The attorney general’s court filing did not describe the details of the how the execution would be carried out. Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told reporters last month that a protocol was nearly complete.
Meanwhile, a number of Alabama inmates seeking to block their executions by lethal injection, including Mr. Smith, have argued they should be allowed to die by nitrogen hypoxia.
According to the Alabama attorney general’s office, the pastor of the Westside Church of Christ in Sheffield, Alabama, in March 1988 sought to hire a hitman to kill his wife after incurring substantial debts and having an affair with another woman. The pastor, Charles Sennett, then took a large life insurance policy on his wife, Elizabeth Sennett, before hatching a scheme to have his wife murdered.
Mr. Sennett, according to the release, then hired Mr. Smith and John Parker, a friend of Mr. Smith, to kill Mrs. Sennett and pay them $1,000 each for the killing. The release said she was “ambushed,” beaten, and stabbed multiple times before her death. A week after his wife’s slaying, Mr. Sennett committed suicide and was never charged.
Mr. Smith was tried for the murder in 1989 and again in 1996. He was convicted both times with capital murder, receiving the death penalty both times.
In July 2010, Mr. Parker, who was convicted and sentenced to death, was executed for Mrs. Sennett’s death via lethal injection at the Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama. The U.S. Supreme Court at the time rejected a stay minutes before the execution began.
“I’m sorry. I don’t ever expect you to forgive me,” Mr. Parker told the woman’s family before his execution. “I really am sorry.”
At the time, Charles Sennett told outlets that the execution was “one of the steps we have to take to get closure and justice,” adding that “we still have another step with Smith, but tonight was a step in the right direction.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/29/2023 – 18:45
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