May 30

Today’s News 30th May 2023

  • China To Put Humans On The Moon By 2030
    China To Put Humans On The Moon By 2030

    Weeks after Russia’s former head of the Roscomsmos space agency cast doubt on the US moon landing in 1969, China announced plans to put a person on the moon by 2030.

    Moon Base Alpha by digital painter Jon Hrubesch

    In a Monday announcement, Lin Xiqiang, the deputy director of China’s Manned Space Agency, said that the CCP’s moon landing project – part of the country’s broader Lunar Exploration Project (Chang’e Project, named after the Chinese moon goddess) – had only “recently” been kick started. The project seeks to eventually enable short-term stays on the lunar surface, as along with the collection of samples and other research, The NY Times reports.

    Chinese scientists have previously nodded at a 2030 goal in a less formal capacity; for example, the chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program said last month that a 2030 landing would be “no problem.”

    The Monday announcement came at a news conference to mark the liftoff of three new astronauts on Tuesday to China’s new space station, which was completed late last year.

    A manned lunar landing would be a major milestone for China’s, and the world’s, space exploration: No human has been on the moon since the United States’ Apollo missions in the 1960s and ’70s. And it could mark a significant achievement for China in its burgeoning competition with the United States in space. China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has said that the country should become a “great space power.”

    The announcement follows one by NASA, which announced a plan to put a team on the moon by 2025 as part of the (repeatedly delayed) Artemis program.

    A painting of a prospective future lunar colony by artist Rick Guidice for NASA

    Both Beijing and Washington want to build research stations on the moon, and to land people on Mars.

    The Times frames the announcement as a point of contention between the US and China, echoing the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

    NASA’s administrator, Bill Nelson, has said that the United States should “watch out” for Chinese attempts to dominate the lunar surface and keep Americans out. A Pentagon report last year warned that China could overtake American capabilities in space by 2045. -NY Times

    China has accelerated its space program in recent years, and is currently the only country (known) to have landed anything on the moon in the 21st century. The CCP also landed a lunar probe on the moon’s far side for the first time in history in 2019.

    If the moon is next for humans, it might be a good time to bone up on your Heinlein.

    Careful, China. You never know what’s up there!

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 23:30

  • Remember The Fallen… And Those They Left Behind
    Remember The Fallen… And Those They Left Behind

    Authored by Brooke Rollins via RealClearPolitics.com,

    The Christmas season of 1942 was clouded by war in the small town of Waterloo, Iowa, but for Mrs. Alleta Sullivan, it was especially dreadful. A rumor was going about town, and it was about her sons. Or rather, it was about all five sons, each of whom had volunteered for the Navy — and elected to serve together aboard the same ship. The brothers meant to fight as they lived, as a team, as a family, each helping the other out — on the vast and distant Pacific as much as in idyllic Iowa. 

    The rumor that reached their mother was that their ship, the light cruiser Juneau, had sunk off Guadalcanal. But Mrs. Alleta Sullivan had received no news. 

    So, she did something very American. She wrote to the Navy. “Dear Sirs,” she began, “I am writing you in regards to a rumor going around that my five sons were killed in action in November. A mother from here came and told me she got a letter from her son and he heard my five sons were killed.”

    The next line, even softened by 80 years, still breaks the heart in its simplicity and directness: “It is all over town now, and I am so worried.”

    Mrs. Sullivan would have been entirely justified in demanding news of her boys. She would have been justified in demanding that the Navy account for them, that she did not have to endure the quiet hell of rumors of her sons. Instead, she does something remarkable, and reading it now is a window into a different — and better — America. She writes that even if her five sons are gone, she will still do her own duty. 

    “[P]lease let me know the truth. I am to christen the U.S.S. TAWASA, Feb. 12th, at Portland, Oregon. If anything has happened to my five sons, I will still christen the ship as it was their wish that I do so.”

    Stop there for a moment and re-read that. Even in the shadow of the most terrible prospect a mother can face, Mrs. Alleta Sullivan tells the Navy it can count on her to keep her commitments. She would never have said it, but here you can see from whom her five sons inherited their own sense of sacrificial devotion. 

    “I hated to bother you,” she continued as if she had anything at all to apologize for, “but it has worried me so that I wanted to know if it was true. So please tell me. It was hard to give five sons all at once to the Navy, but I am proud of my boys that they can serve and help protect their country.”

    Mrs. Sullivan did not have to wait long for her answer. Her letter went to the Navy and crossed paths with the inbound casualty notification. Her letter went out in early January 1943. On the early morning of January 11, three Navy officers arrived at the little house on 98 Adams St. in Waterloo. Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan knew why they had come. The officer in charge knew he could not soften the blow.

    “I’m sorry,” he said, “All five.”

    The story of the Fighting Sullivans is a famous one, notable for its contrast of great virtue — five brothers, on fire with duty imparted by their parents — and great tragedy, in their death together on a black day off the Solomon Islands. We have an obligation to remember. We should also remember that it is not the only tale of its kind. We today are as far from World War II as it was from the Civil War. In that war, there was the heartbreaking episode of Mrs. Bixby and her five sons, all fallen in battle, of whom President Lincoln wrote that they were “so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.” In his 2013 “The Guns at Last Light,” Rick Atkinson tells a lesser-known tale of an elderly widower in Missouri, one Henry A. Wright, who waits at his small-town train station for the casket bearing his son, killed on Christmas Eve 1944 in the Ardennes.

    He also received the remains of another son, who died in a German prison camp. He also received the remains of still another son, who died in combat in Germany, 10 days before war’s end.

    Atkinson writes that the three brothers were buried “side by side by side beneath an iron sky.”

    These stories of the grievous loss of the young, strong, brave, and parents burying their children, hit us hard. They should. If they do not, then we are undeserving of the fallen. The five Sullivans, the five Bixbys, and the three Wrights seize our attention and hearts because of the numbers. But make no mistake: the mother, the father, the brother, and the sister who lose a single son at war, do not grieve less because it is just one. 

    For them, there is the consolation in the grace that is only God’s to give.

    On this Memorial Day, we remember all the fallen — and we remember those whom they left behind. We have a sacred obligation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan” — and that obligation increases a hundredfold because the battle was borne, and the wife was widowed, and the child was orphaned, for us. “Freedom is not free” is an overused phrase, almost cliche, which does not mean it should not be said. But this Memorial Day, when you say it, think of what it means on the most human level. You live in the greatest nation, among the greatest people, in the history of the world.

    You have that privilege because, across three centuries, unnumbered Americans laid down everything for it.  

    A young man died in battle on a sunny morning on the road to Concord.

    A loving father fell in the wheatfield at Gettysburg. 

    A draftee determined to make his father proud died on the Imjin.

    A bright and eager student breathed his last at Khe Sanh.

    A young woman took her final flight over Fallujah. 

    Remember them. Let the memory steel you – to deserve them.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 23:00

  • Total Farce: Real Spending Under Debt Ceiling Deal Actually Goes Up Next Year
    Total Farce: Real Spending Under Debt Ceiling Deal Actually Goes Up Next Year

    Late last week, we were the first to correctly summarize what the bottom line of the so-called “debt ceiling deal” meant for the US, for future generations of Americans, and for the ridiculous melodrama gripping Washington: a -0.2% of GDP cut in nominal spending.

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    That’s right: that 0.2% cut in spending is what all the brewhaha was over, a cut which will not only push total debt to $35 trillion by the end of Biden’s term, but will not even put a dent in the long-term US debt trajectory which even the CBO has no problem as showing in its full, hyperinflationary glory.

    Still, to Kevin McCarthy who “negotiated” on behalf of America’s conservatives, that paltry, laughable nominal “spending reduction” was apparently something to be very proud of, as he repeatedly pointed out on his twitter feed…

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    … if only a closer look reveals that not all is as it seems.

    In its post-mortem of the debt ceiling deal published this evening, Goldman summarizes the outcome as follows: “the spending deal looks likely to reduce spending by 0.1-0.2% of GDP yoy in 2024 and 2025, compared with a baseline in which funding grows with inflation. That said, the boost to funding Congress approved late last year for FY23 was so large (nearly 10% yoy) that overall discretionary spending is likely to be slightly higher in real terms next year despite the new caps.”

    Translation: the “deal” may result in a nominal 0.1% drop in spending (just for next year, after that it ramps up again), but adjusted for inflation, spending in 2024 will be higher yet again!

    Below we excerpt several highlights from the Goldman note, first focusing on the probability of the deal becoming enacted; according to Goldman, the deal is “very likely to pass both chambers of Congress in the coming week” although there are two points of uncertainty in the House.

    • First, the Rules Committee will meet to vote Tuesday (May 30) afternoon/evening on the rule for debate on the debt limit bill, a necessary step before the vote on the House floor. The committee has 9 Republicans and 4 Democrats, but 2 of those Republicans (Reps. Roy and Norman) appear to oppose the bill, with the position of a third (Rep. Massie) unclear. If all three vote against and no Democrat votes in favor, the bill will fail. (Goldman thinks the Rules Committee is very likely to send the bill on to the House Floor, as a majority of the committee will vote for the package even if it takes Democratic support  – it is uncommon but not unheard-of for the minority party to support the majority party’s efforts in the Rules Committee).
    • Assuming Rules Committee passage on Tuesday, the House is likely to vote late on Wednesday (May 31). While it is not entirely clear how Republican and Democratic lawmakers will divide the responsibility for passing this legislation–most lawmakers likely want it to pass but few want to vote for it. As such Goldman is confident that a failed vote in the House is very unlikely. Assuming the House clears the bill Wednesday, the Senate is unlikely to vote on final passage before Friday (June 2) and procedural delays could easily push the vote into the weekend. That said, there is less uncertainty regarding support in the Senate than there is in the House, so this is more a question of timing than outcome.

    … and second, why the so-called spending cuts are a joke:

    The main source of budgetary savings in the deal is a two-year cap on federal discretionary spending. Congress appropriates this segment of spending annually and it accounts for around 25% of total federal spending, with slightly more than half dedicated to defense and the remainder to other “non-defense” spending (generally domestic programs outside of the major benefit programs). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will estimate that the spending caps in the deal will reduce discretionary spending by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and reduce interest expense by around $160-170bn over that period. On paper, this would reduce projected deficits over the next decade by an average of 0.4-0.5% of GDP.

    That said, the actual spending cut will be much smaller, for two reasons.

    • First, the caps apply for only two years, so most of the projected savings will depend on policy decisions made after the next election. (The description of the deal states that caps apply for 6 years, but they are only enforceable via sequestration for 2024 and 2025 and should have little effect thereafter.)
    • Second, the deal included other details that lessen the effect of the cuts, particularly in 2024. This includes counting the bill’s rescissions of unused COVID funding against spending for the coming year, pre-funding certain items so the spending is excluded from the caps, and a side agreement that $20bn in IRS enforcement funding that would have been spent later in the decade will be redirected toward domestic spending without counting toward the cap. With these adjustments, the White House has indicated it believes non-defense spending will be roughly flat in nominal terms in FY24 compared with this year.

    The chart below provides a rough estimates of the effect of the spending caps with and without the adjustments just described, compared with the White House’s initial reported offer (a freeze in discretionary spending for FY24, and a 1% increase for FY25) and the Republican bill the House passed in April.

    Other things equal, the adjusted caps look likely to reduce spending by 0.1-0.2% of GDP yoy in 2024 and 2025 (lower left chart).

    And here is the punchline: because the increase in funding for FY23 that Congress approved late last year was so large (nearly 10% yoy) some of that spending boost will spill over into FY24 and overall spending is likely to be higher in real terms next year despite the new caps (lower right chart).

    And just like that the uniparty has sold America down the river yet again.

    * * *

    More in the full Goldman note available to professional subscribers in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 22:39

  • "Trans Rights" Means Trans Entitlements And The End Of Civil Society
    “Trans Rights” Means Trans Entitlements And The End Of Civil Society

    Authored by Wendy McElroy via The Mises Institute,

    A “civil society” is a community of individuals who are linked together by common interests and activities. Common interests include being able to walk the streets safely (peace) and to exercise such rights as freedom of speech (individual freedom). These shared interests allow common activities to flourish, including commerce and the education of children.

    Civil society is possible only because most people want to live securely, protect their loved ones, and prosper. This laissez-faire attitude used to be a defining characteristic of Americans, but an engineered and well-financed cultural war is destroying America’s renowned tolerance. If the common interests of society break down and peace and freedom are replaced by violence and privilege, then common activities like free-market commerce and education cannot function.

    One movement captures the raw destruction of this culture war against civil society – a demand for “Trans rights!” blasts across America. But a sharp backlash against it has also developed, epitomized by the boycott of Bud Light beer over the company’s use of trans activist Dylan Mulvaney as a new “woman” ambassador for its brand.

    The media characterizes this backlash as antitrans hatred by conservatives, Christians, and other troglodytes. But few people care about the sexual or gender orientation of their neighbors. Critics of the trans movement are rebelling against the forced redefinition of biology, the destruction of women’s sports by trans athletes, the hijacking of children’s education, the medical experiment of gender-transitioning children, and the intrusion of penises in women-only spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, and shelters. Critics don’t want to oppress anyone; they want a return to civil society of peace and individual rights.

    To understand why the “trans rights” movement has caused such damage, it is necessary to ask three questions.

    1. What is a “transgendered” person?

    2. What are “rights”?

    3. What is produced by the actions the movement takes?

    What is a transgendered person? Already we’re in trouble. Many prominent intellectuals today can’t even answer the simpler question, What is a woman? This article uses a common definition: “Transgender describes people whose gender identity does not match their assigned gender at birth.” It is one of many gender categories being advanced by social justice. There are as many as eighty-one distinct categories, all of which are said to be fluid or constructed over time.

    Politically speaking, transgenderism and the other gender categories are a continuation of identity politics. This is a fairly standard definition of identity politics: “The politics of group-based movements claiming to represent the interests and identity of a particular group, rather than policy issues relating to all members of the community. The group identity may be based on ethnicity, class, religion, sex, sexuality, or other criteria” (emphasis added). It is an attempt to splinter society into groups and categories, all of which are at war with each other because their interests are said to conflict. What does this war look like?

    Consider a controversial example: gender transitioning. This is when a person uses reassignment therapy, hormone replacement, and sex reassignment surgery to change their birth sex. Few argue against the gender transition of adults who pay for the process themselves. But the trans movement demands the gender transitioning of children, often at taxpayer expense; that is, a tomboy might become a “boy” through methods that include irreversible surgery.

    There are at least two flash points here. One is the minimum age at which a person should transition. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health claims hormones can start at age fourteen and some surgeries at fifteen—in other words, at the height of a teenager’s sexual confusion. Recently, a licensed social worker at a children’s medical center in Austin, Texas, was reportedly recorded as saying the center provided gender modification to children as young as eight. On April 25, Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Chip Roy submitted a formal request to the center for information on how gender dysphoria is diagnosed, how federal dollars are spent in the process, and whether patients under eighteen underwent “experimental medical procedures.”

    The group war here is between a child’s right against physical abuse and trans activists’ demands for children’s access to transition. The other flash point is that transitions are often performed without parental consent or despite parental objections. The rights war here—trans activists are usurping traditional parental rights, and parents are outraged.

    The idea that the rights of one group conflict with those of another is perverse because it destroys the very basis of human rights. Human rights are universal because they are rooted in human nature. All human beings possess the same rights to the same degree. Rights are not based on secondary characteristics such as gender; they rest on a shared humanity. In other words, a trans person has the same rights to the same degree as every other person in society. No more, no less.

    The “rights” demanded by trans activists are actually entitlements or group privileges. This is made clear by the claim of historical oppression, which is used to justify many demands. What is really being claimed is victimhood, upon which their entitlements are based. For trans activists to sustain their victimhood status, however, those who oppose them must be cast as oppressors and endless haters. Conveniently, this characterization removes the need to deal with any argument the “haters” present, such as the need for real human rights.

    Again, this trans stance is a perversion. If the trans movement has been historically oppressed—and I do not argue against this—then the movement should value individual rights more than the average person. These freedoms are how an aggrieved individual rises to his or her feet. But trans activists do not want to be treated as equal individuals; they want to be a privileged group that imposes huge costs on the majority of society to their great benefit. Individual rights are an obstacle.

    Gender transition is one area in which civil society is being replaced with civil warfare, but there are many others:

    • Trans “women” housed in women-only venues, like prisons and shelters, put biological women there at risk of sexual assault. Rapes are already happening.

    • Trans curricula in American public schools indoctrinate children at the expense of teaching basic life skills, like math and literacy.

    • A prominent doctor on Fox News warned, “First-year medical students [are] exposed to woke ‘sex and gender primer’ lesson.” This shifts the focus away from medical problems; it could also damage relationships with patients who do not share woke ideology or are not in a privileged group. The same is happening in law schools.

    • The trans agenda violates constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech in myriad ways, from forcing schools to use pronouns like “xe” and “hir” to shouting down speakers or violently attacking them.

    • Draconian hate speech laws are destroying meaningful public discourse. A new bill passing through the Irish parliament, for example, outlaws communication or the possession of material that might incite hatred against “protected” classes, including gender. This is punishable by up to five years in prison.

    • The demand to include trans athletes in women’s sports is destroying the entire field.

    • Transitioned children who deeply regret transitioning are generally silenced or dismissed.

    One way detransitioners are dismissed is through studies and statistics into which little trust can be invested. An article in the Associated Press claims, “In a review of 27 studies” of transgender surgeries, “1 percent on average expressed regret.” If this is true, it is good news. But is it true? The incessant ideology pumped through academia and the airwaves is yet another cost to civil society. Academics, journalists, and so-called experts have earned the public’s scorn. Studies and research have become just one more front in this war of all against all.

    The media and authorities richly deserve this summary judgment from the public. Consider how they handle acts of violence. Every act of violence against a trans person seems to be widely reported and condemned, as it should be. But trans violence against biological women or other outsiders seems to be ignored or excused. Even the trans shooter in Nashville who killed three nine-year-old school children and three adults is protected by authorities who refuse to release the shooter’s manifesto. And media reports often expressed more concern about a backlash against trans people than about the dead children. SAVE Services, an agency that works to assure due process and fairness in schools, has an interesting page called “Stop the Wave of Transgender Violence” where many cases of trans violence are documented. In this environment, it is simply not possible to know what’s true about the levels of violence and against whom.

    I would end by asking, can a more general violence—a savage civil unrest—be far behind? I believe it is already here.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 21:50

  • More Than 50,000 US Stores Will Close By 2027 According To UBS
    More Than 50,000 US Stores Will Close By 2027 According To UBS

    Over 2,000 stores across all retail sectors have closed in the past 12 months according to a recent report from UBS retail analyst Michael Lasser (available to pro subs in the usual place), and that is just the beginning. “As of 3Q’22 (latest available data), retailers shed -1,500 net stores. This number is already up significantly in ‘23 with the likes of Bed Bath & Beyond, Foot Locker, Tuesday Morning and others closing stores recently” the UBS economists wrote.

    “We believe this trend should continue in the years to come, with consumers consolidating their trips and shifting towards online channels. As underperforming retail stores are shuttered, it should help the store productivity of surviving locations,” the report authors said, and predicted that over the next 5 years, “another 50,000 stores will close on the current store base of ~940K stores in the US (ex. gas and food service).”

    “This simply implies that there will be -5% fewer stores by the end of ’27. As this happens, we believe this trend will benefit the large, well-capitalized retailers HD, LOW, WMT, TGT, COST) and those with unique differentiations (FND, ASO, EYE) who stand to capture a disproportionate amount of market share.” In other words, just like with US banks, the big players will only get bigger while the small ones disappear.

    To put this in perspective, UBS calculates that assuming 50k stores close over the next five years and that the average sales per store is $5.7mm, it would translate to $285b of retail sales that are “up for grabs”. Assuming that 26% of these sales go online (the bank’s ’27 estimate for penetration), it would mean that retailers like WMT, HD and COST have the potential to attract $210b in sales. This translates to $1,600 annual spend per household that has the potential to shift to the leading retailers.

    The good news for big retailers is bad news for the small ones:

    In our view, these smaller chains and mom & pops are most at risk of closures given these firms typically have less access to capital needed to invest in developing a robust omni-channel offering. As of 2020, 57% of retail stores are operated by firms with less than 20 employees and 68% of stores are operated by chains with less than 500 employees. These smaller chains shed -40K stores in the past 10 years while chains with 500+ employees added 17K stores.

    It could get even worse: the base case scenario assumes that retail sales growth continues at 4% annually which is inline with the long-term trend. However, in a downside case, the protracted US recession would put downward pressure on the UBS store closure forecast where if retail sales only grow 3.0-3.5% it would result in 70K-90K closures

    UBS highlighted several factors that are driving retail store closures. They include higher costs, which raise the bar for keeping stores open; a decline in units per store in most retail sectors; and the likelihood that store closures will disproportionately affect smaller chains.

    From 2007 to 2019, firms with less than 500 employees closed about 40,000 stores, or 5% of their base, while retailers with more than 500 employees added 17,000 stores. The overall cost of doing business rose significantly in the last 12 months, due in part to higher wages. Retail hourly wages, which are typically the largest cost component of running a store, increased about 5% over the last years, the analysts said.

    On top of that, retailers will need to increase store productivity by 4.5% annually as retail rents per square foot increase for neighborhood and community centers. “These costs will likely continue to move higher, increasing the hurdle rate to keep stores open,” UBS said.

    As RetailDive notes, about 14,000 of the estimated closings will be in the softlines sector. UBS forecasts that department stores and specialty retailers will remain net store closers. And while retailers with a heavy mall presence will continue store closings, there is a faint silver lining for off-price retailers who should grow units.

    The report also singles out consumer electronics and home furnishings as retail sectors that also need to shrink their store footprint. Consumer electronics retailers should close about 9,000 stores, while home furniture stores should shrink by about 4,000 locations.

    One change that’s become essential versus discretionary for retailers is an increasing embrace of digital investments like buy online, pay in store; ship from store; same-day delivery; and buy online, return in store. UBS says online retail spending per household was $9,900 in 2022, up from $8,900 a year ago and up from $4,000 in 2015. Companies with a strong DTC focus combined with high brand loyalty, like Nike and Levi’s, are best positioned for the ongoing shift to digital fulfillment.

    Finally, while there is much more in the full report, here are the 9 main takeaways:

    • Takeaway #1: We estimate 50K+ stores will close by ‘27 if online penetration goes to 26% & retail sales grow 4%
    • Takeaway #2: Store closures will vary by subsector
    • Takeaway #3: In 2022, there were net store closings, a reversal from strong store openings in 2021
    • Takeaway #4: We assume 4% retail sales growth until 2027, in-line with its long-term average
    • Takeaway #5: A step change in banks willingness to lend tends to be a leading indicator of an acceleration in store closures
    • Takeaway #6: Higher costs raises the hurdle rate on keeping stores open
    • Takeaway #7: Store closures will likely impact smaller chains disproportionately
    • Takeaway #8: Several sectors are at or near peak store productivity
    • Takeaway #9: Units per store declined for most sub-sectors in 2022 (trends vary by sub-sector)

    Much more in the full report and slideshows available to pro subs in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 21:15

  • There Are 99 Pages Of Details In The Debt-Ceiling Deal, And A Big Trap On Republicans
    There Are 99 Pages Of Details In The Debt-Ceiling Deal, And A Big Trap On Republicans

    By Mish Shedlock of Mish Talk

    Semifinal Details 

    If you wish to wade through 99 pages of details, here’s the full text of the Allegedly Final Debt-Ceiling Deal.

    The Wall Street Journal has a synopsis in Biden, McCarthy Agree to Final Details of Debt-Ceiling Deal

    With some conservative Republicans in both chambers signaling initial opposition to the deal, Biden urged both chambers of Congress to approve the agreement and said McCarthy would have sufficient votes in the Republican-led House to secure passage.

    He also sought to quell concerns among Democrats over some of the deal’s provisions, such as additional work requirements for certain government safety-net programs, and rejected criticism from some progressive lawmakers that the agreement would let vulnerable people go hungry. “That’s a ridiculous assertion,” Biden said.

    Republican Dissent

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    Essentially What the Democrats Wanted

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    Trojan Horse View

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    Democrats Got Everything They Wanted

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    Deal is Insanity

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    “A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to.”

    Democrats Oddly Calm

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    “Notice how oddly calm Democrats are for a change? This is why…”

    Framework for a Deal

    Despite the WSJ headline, this will not be the final deal. First, the bill has to clear the House. I suspect some House revisions. 

    Even if not, the Senate is also highly likely to make changes which will then have to be approved by the House.

    Complete Surrender

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    What’s Currently Inside?

    1. A small cut in nonmilitary spending for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, and a 1% cap on spending increases for the 2025 fiscal year. Veterans’ health programs would be exempt.
    2. Military spending in fiscal 2024 would be roughly at the level of Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget request, according to two people familiar with the matter, which would amount to about a 3% increase.
    3. A $21.4 billion reduction in funds that Congress approved last year for the IRS to boost tax enforcement and modernize its technology. [The original funding was $80 billion].
    4. A provision aimed at pushing Congress to give up its practice of funding the government through a single, omnibus bill, as it has done in recent years, and to return to the tradition of passing 12 appropriations bills that cover the various parts of the federal budget. The measure has potential to win conservative support for the deal and was pushed by an influential Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who believes that Congress should follow regular order when conducting its business.
    5. The provision would call for the U.S. government to operate under a so-called continuing resolution at 99% of the prior year’s spending levels until the spending bills were enacted. Lawmakers were awaiting text to see the date at which the cuts would be triggered.
    6. An expansion through 2030 of the requirement that some able-bodied people without dependents hold a job or be enrolled in a job training program to receive food stamps, which is a Republican priority. [This unfortunately excludes Medicaid. And it only applies to low-income adults without dependents between the ages of 49 and 54. It will be phased in over three years. All of these are far less than the original deal passed by McCarthy] 
    7. Imposition of a one- or two-year time limit to complete environmental reviews for energy and infrastructure projects. The bill allows a project’s developer to sue if the review isn’t completed in time. [I suspect this is a huge trap, more comments below]
    8. Currently, reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 take an average 4.5 years to complete and can involve multiple agencies. The deal calls for a single agency to assume responsibility for the study. Speeding up the reviews has been a priority for Republicans. [This too is a huge trap]
    9. Expediting the remaining permits necessary to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile natural-gas pipeline between West Virginia and Virginia. 

    Understanding the Trap

    The above points are quotes from the WSJ plus my comments in brackets[].

    Points seven, eight, and nine are part of the trap. Point nine will be debated in the Senate. Expect fireworks. 

    Both sides seem to be in favor of points seven and eight. But one side is sure to be wrong.

    With Biden as President, it’s easy to see who fell into the trap. Democrats will speed up and approve every clean energy boondoggle imaginable at great speed. 

    Republicans will have every project rejected at great speed.

    This situation will reverse if Republicans win the White House in 2024. But a lot of boondoggles will be approved in the interim.

    Best Part of the Deal and Overall Analysis

    The best part of the deal are points four and five. A no earmark provision needs to be added to those points.

    But Democrats get far more out of this than Republicans.

    Hold the Line

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    35 GOP House Representatives will likely vote against this deal.  Republicans only have four votes to spare. 

    Expect More Boondoggles Like These

    Question and Answer of the Day

    Q: Will This Pass?
    A: Yes, easily.

    Don’t be surprised if more Democrats vote for this version than Republicans. Look no further than trap points seven and eight above to understand why.

    In return for minor cutbacks in spending, and a token roll-in work requirement for food stamps, Democrats will get to rubber stamp every pet clean energy boondoggle they seek. 

    I mentioned this in a previous post and still have not seen it mentioned elsewhere. Don’t be surprised if this deal costs McCarthy his job as Speaker of the House.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 20:40

  • No Laughing Matter: John Cleese Holds Line Against Calls To Cancel Scene In 'Life Of Brian'
    No Laughing Matter: John Cleese Holds Line Against Calls To Cancel Scene In ‘Life Of Brian’

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have previously discussed how comedians have been objecting that woke activists are killing comedy. The complaint is that a group of perpetually pissed off, humorless people are remaking the world in their own image.

    It began with college campuses where comedians are now saying are dead as venues since you cannot safely make any joke that insults any group other than white straight males or Christians or conservatives. Others have objected to hate speech laws limiting comedians, particularly after some comedians have been prosecuted for “malicious communications” or insulting groups or religious figures. Six out of ten students view offensive jokes as hate speech. This week, however, activists appear to have met their match in a legend of comedy who has opposed the cutting of  a scene from the movie The Life of Brian. 

    No, activists are not upset with the endless jokes about Italians, Christians, and Jews. It is the scene involving a man who wants to become a women and have a child. 

    John Cleese is refusing to yield.

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    In The Life of Brian, the scene involves “Stan” who announces that he wants to be a woman named Loretta and have babies. 

    Activists objected that it made fun of transgender people and demanded that it be cut from the film.

    The scene shows Stan declaring “I want to be a woman… It’s my right as a man. I want to have babies… It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.” After Cleese’s protest, the character snaps, “Don’t you oppress me!”

    Some reported that Cleese had agreed to cut the scene. However, Cleese tweeted out a correction of the “misreporting.”

    What is interesting is that Rob Reiner is reportedly working on the reboot. Reiner is known as someone who is a champion of the left in Hollywood. This may be an inauspicious start for the reboot effort.

    Cleese is not alone in raising this alarm. Comedians including Chris Rock blamed the range of “unfunny TV shows” on the fact that “everybody’s scared to make a move”. Ricky Gervais objected that the BBC is now paralyzed in fear of offending anyone.  Jennifer Saunders that people now “talk themselves out of stuff now because everything is sensitive.”

    The same complaint has been made in the age of woke advertising that funny commercials seem increasingly rare as oppose to corporate virtue signaling.

    The director of the classic comedy Airplane! observed that humor is being squeezed out of Hollywood and the movie today would have virtually every joke removed. David Zucker called it the “death of creativity.”

    They are now set upon by a legion of humorless people who seek to reduce the world to their own narrow range of acceptable levity or irony.  These comedy giants are set upon by an Army of Lilliputians who have contributed little to culture beyond chilling artists and writers into obedient silence or compulsive comedy criteria.

    Of course, Cleese could always use the line from Bryan’s mother: “He’s a very naughty boy! Now, piss off!”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 20:25

  • Philadelphia Crime Wave Of Burglary, Larceny And Auto Theft Spills Into Nearby Suburbs
    Philadelphia Crime Wave Of Burglary, Larceny And Auto Theft Spills Into Nearby Suburbs

    The crime wave that has been actively taking place in Philadelphia (among many other U.S. cities) is now starting to spread to the suburbs. 

    Crime statistics were up “double-digit percentages” in Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks counties – three major suburban counties that border Philadelphia county – from 2021 to 2022, according to the Delaware Valley Journal. 

    The Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System shows that increasing crimes include burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Oddly, the report notes that Chester County, usually seen as a hotbed of crime near Philadelphia, saw its numbers decrease in almost ever statistical category. 

    In other words, the crime wave that started near the middle of 2020 appears to be moving out of the city and into the nearby suburbs. Larceny and auto thefts are seeing two of the biggest increases, the report wrote:

    Taking the four counties combined, auto thefts climbed from 2,302 in 2021 to 2,834 in 2022, an increase of 23 percent. Those figures compare to a dramatic spike in auto thefts in Philadelphia. In 2022, the city reached a two-decade-long high of 14,533 car thefts, up from 11,341 in 2021. This year, however, the city is set to blow past both of those figures, as the current trend shows Philadelphia will likely surpass 20,000 car thefts in 2023.

    In the four counties, larceny counts went from 23,690 in 2021 to 30,496 in 2022. Burglaries are up 32%, 24% and 17% in Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery counties, the report notes. 

    Montgomery County DA Kevin Steele’s website has focused instead on gun crimes, which don’t show in the above categories. His office’s website says he is “strategically focused on: A) homicides; B) illegal guns on our streets: ghost guns and gun traffickers putting deadly weapons in the hands of criminals; C) drug traffickers who are killing people by peddling their deadly poisons like fentanyl and other drugs; and D) those who cause harm to women and children.”

    In Bucks County, DA Weintraub commented: “One trend we’re seeing across the state is younger and younger people, especially minors, are the population rising the quickest [for] carrying firearms.”

    And Delco DA Jack Stollsteimer wrote an op-ed in January which stated: “We have reduced the gun violence homicide rate in the City of Chester by 60 percent and the overall number of gun violence incidents by 46 percent,” Stollsteimer wrote. The only other measurement he provided in the piece was to say, “Through collaboration and innovation, my team has spearheaded a 30 percent reduction in the prison population here in Delaware County.”

    The city is already starting to implement changes, electing former state representative and city councilor Cherelle Parker as the Democratic nominee for mayor, which nearly assures her win in November. Parker was seen as the most pro-law enforcement candidate of the left, running on bolstering the police’s ranks and supporting policies like stop and frisk.

    Now the only question is whether the suburbs will have to be next in addressing the issue…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 20:05

  • VDH: It Was Always Only About Power With The Left
    VDH: It Was Always Only About Power With The Left

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    Why do so many liberal climate-activist grandees fly on private jets? Or why do those who profited from Black Lives Matter have a propensity for estate living? Or why do the community-activist Obamas prefer to live in not one, but three mansions? 

    The answer is that calls for radical equity, “power for the people,” and mandated equality are usually mostly sloganeering for those who enjoy power and the lucre it brings, and their wish is to augment both for themselves. The result is that the issue du jour of mandated equality often becomes secondary if not irrelevant. There is neither fear of inconstancy nor hypocrisy, given the central theme that governs a leftist party line is political utility—or the ends of power always more than justify the hypocritical means used to obtain it. 

    Spout racialist nonsense for 40 years? Harass women and young girls by blowing in their hair and squeezing them too tightly? Create a family grifting syndicate to leverage foreign cash in quid pro quo fashion? Praise racial segregationists?  

    Joe Biden did all those things and more. But he also did them in service to a supposed noble cause, sort of like the current board president of the NAACP promoting a black travel ban on Florida, while he lives—in Florida!

    Keep political utility in mind and the baffling hypocrisy of the Left makes all too perfect sense. 

    January 6 vs. the “Summer of Love” 

    From all the tens of thousands of January 6 Capitol protesters a small percentage entered the Capitol itself. Of that group, an even smaller number committed violent acts. Most of those seriously injured that day were among the protesters themselves. Despite official propaganda, there were not five police officers killed on January 6 as alleged by the Left. 

    Instead, the only likely death at the hand of another was the diminutive, 5’2’’, 14-year-military veteran and unarmed Ashli Babbitt. She was lethally shot by a Capitol officer Michael Byrd for the likely misdemeanor of trespassing and—illegally entering a broken window to the Capitol. 

    Yet over a thousand protesters were arrested, tried, and mostly convicted of various charges from parading without a permit to insurrection. Many of them were sentenced to long prison sentences. Some may spend most of their remaining lives in prison.  

    The Left has justified long sentences on three grounds: One, the protesters targeted iconic government buildings as the object of their attacks. Two, the protesters were ideologically motivated and seemed bent on insurrection to warp the political process. Three, the protesters were attempting to nullify an election by their massing at the Capitol and therefore questioned the very integrity of the 2020 election.  

    In theory these were legitimate reasons to treat harshly any convicted of such insurrectionary crimes. But in reality, the Left cared little about its pretexts justifying harsh responses, much less proving their charges. What mattered were the political opportunities offered by January 6, and the chance to leverage the occasion to consolidate power.  

    Why and how can one assume that? 

    In 2020, for 120 days, left-wing mobs led by Antifa and Black Lives Matter wrought far greater destruction in nonstop rioting, arson, looting, and assault. Over 35 people died. Two billion dollars in property damage followed. Some 1,500 officers were assaulted and injured. Over 14,000 protesters were arrested. 

    Yet few were convicted of any serious crimes; fewer were sentenced to long sentences—given prosecutors, state and federal, claimed the violence was merely a result of protesters exercising their “constitutional right” of dissent.  

    Left-wing politicians and activists from then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris (“They’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.”) to Nikole Hannah Jones (“Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”) either excused the often violent protests or urged that they continue.  

    Far from sending in 20,000 federal troops, as occurred after January 6, the Left demanded that then President Trump not resort to such Draconian measures.  

    Note that there were lots of government properties deliberately targeted in iconic fashion. A Seattle police precinct (with officers inside ) was set afire. A mob in Washington, D.C. tried to storm the White House grounds in a fashion that sent the president and secret service agents into a subterranean bunker. A historic Washington, D.C. church was torched. Violent mobs set federal and state courthouses on fire in Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Portland. 

    Second, note these riots and violence were not random. They were coordinated and seemed to wax and wane with some sort of precise coordination—a fact deemed useful in an election year by the Democratic Left.  

    In her now notorious self-confessional Time essay, Molly Ball bragged that, “There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs.”  “The conversation that followed was a difficult one,” Ball explained, “led by the activists charged with the protest strategy . . . We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses of people into the street.” 

    Third, had Trump won the 2020 election, the Left was gearing up for yet another round of violence under the pretense that the election had been stolen, in the fashion of its coordinated Washington, D.C. violence on the day of Trump’s 2017 inauguration. 

    Left-wing election denialism—and real efforts to overturn a presidential election—were certainly not new. After the 2016 election, wealthy leftists and celebrities ran television ads begging electors to reject their constitutional fidelity and the popular vote counts in their states, and instead, in insurrectionary style, cast electoral ballots for Hillary Clinton. 

    Prominent leftists from Jimmy Carter to Hillary Clinton also had been on record following the 2016 election claiming that Trump was an illegitimate president and the 2016 election had been rigged in Trump’s favor due to the hoax of Russian collusion.  

    Hillary Clinton—who paid Christopher Steele to use Clinton-related fake sources to compile fabrications and destroy her 2016 rival—later even bragged she was joining “La Résistance.” The chairman of the January 6 committee that damned Trump’s supposed election denialism, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), himself was an election denialist par excellence, who absurdly voted in the Congress to reject George Bush’s popular vote victory in Ohio that decided the 2004 election. 

    By any fair measure the violence of 2020 was a far greater and more deadly threat to the republic than anything occurring on January 6, 2021. But most of the 14,000 arrested perpetrators who were responsible for that incredible summer of violence were exempted because their mayhem was deemed politically useful—in the same fashion it was advantageous to turn the buffoonish Capitol protesters into seasoned revolutionaries. The common denominator was only the Left’s efforts to warp events to achieve power. 

    Liberalism That Loses Utility is Left Behind 

    California has been building massive solar farms in pristine deserts and rural areas. Many spread over thousands of acres and require disruptive supporting infrastructure. In the American Midwest, these new generations of solar farms are unlike anything in our recent past. Often in size larger than Manhattan, they take out of production tens of thousands of acres of prime farmland.

    What is curious about all these next-generation projects is the relative silence of environmentalists to the radical disruptions and dangers they pose to fragile and pristine natural landscapes, rare species of flora and fauna, and quality of life for surrounding rural communities.  

    In the case of hundreds of thousands of lost farm acres, prior liberal advocacy for preserving America’s heartland, and its precious family farm acreage and those who work it, likewise go out the window. 

    Yet if any clean-burning natural gas plant, affordable housing development, a border wall, retirement community, or farming operation caused as much havoc to the environment as solar—and often wind—farms, there would arise leftist outrage replete with environmentalist-driven court injunctions. In other words, left-wing environmentalism is calibrated only by whether the Left or the Right is reengineering the landscape.  

    Irina and Tamara Press, c1960s. Schirner/ullstein bild via Getty Images

    Title IX was an addendum to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex. Through liberal lawsuits and the intervention of activist courts, the statute soon was transmogrified into a sports equity act. Title IX then began to revolutionize high school and college sports programs by demanding equity—in the sense of mandating equal budgets and facilities for women’s and men’s sports.  

    The rationale was that women’s athletics could only achieve parity with male sports if they were gifted the same sorts of budgets, infrastructure, and institutional support. Whatever the intent of the original statute, whatever the effects of activist court intervention, the result was that women’s sports did achieve a much higher social and cultural profile.  

    So how ironic, then, that a half-century of athletic transformation has been completely undermined by the current ritual takeover of the sport by biological men declaring themselves transgendered women. The transgendered have done more damage in three years to women’s sports than a century of chauvinist pigs. 

    In almost every category of competition—track and field, swimming, team sports—prior women’s records have been shattered by athletes who enjoy huge advantages in natural musculoskeletal mass, body size and weight, and innate strength. In the Cold War past, males competing as females were largely a Soviet or Eastern European phenomenon—most notably the Ukrainian sisters, Tamara and Irina Press. The communist bloc, as the Third Reich had earlier in the case of Heinrich Ratjen, scored propaganda points by using males to win “women’s” events. 

    Soon in reaction, hormonal testing and eventually DNA tests were used to ensure an equal playing field for biological women. No matter. What was once a feminist issue is now considered a right-wing hate crime of insisting that biological males not be allowed simply to redefine an entire segment of American life and culture.  

    Note that the Left has sided against feminism in its near hysterical promotion of its newest cause célèbre, transgenderism. Note further that biological women do not win many, if any, events as transgendered males, despite the shibboleth that one can construct one’s own sexual identity that will be equivalent to a biological one. 

    Finally, note that there is no transgendered effort to create a separate category of transgendered sports. Apparently a transgendered Olympics or NCAA event would not offer transgendered contestants and champions the attention and lucre they now achieve by dominating women’s sports. Again, “equity” and feminism were never left-wing positions, but simply useful malleable issues to embrace or reject depending on where and how contemporary political advantage was calibrated. 

    From Reining in Government Abuse to Cheering It 

    Read the contemporary news accounts of the 1975-76 so-called “Church Committee,” a select Senate committee formed to expose and rectify dangerous abuses of civil rights and constitutional norms by the CIA, NSA, and at times the FBI.  

    Most Democrats cheered the post-Watergate committee on, eager to virtue signal as civil libertarians and to stop the rogue and often politically weaponized antics of our investigatory and intelligence agencies.  

    But while there were true civil libertarians, Left and Right, who weighed in on the committee, the general left-wing giddiness over the investigations was predicated on the post-Watergate Democratic revival—one that ensued from ridding the nation of Richard Nixon and using his disgrace to discredit what were considered conservative institutions.  

    Fast forward to 2015-23. Over the last eight years it is hard to imagine any illegal act that the CIA, NSA, or FBI would not commit. Their directors—James Clapper, John Brennan, and Andrew McCabe—have all confessed to lying under oath. A more insidious Robert Mueller, James Comey, and Christopher Wray simply invoke amnesiac excuses or plead ignorance when asked directly about the wrongdoing of their agencies or investigations.  

    The U.S. government, along with the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, paid a foreign national to spy on a rival campaign, compile lies about a rival candidate, and then spread them through government and the media. The FBI arguably sought to alter both the 2016 and 2020 elections. 

    In this same eight-year period, a FISA court was deluded, and an FBI lawyer altered court documents. Phone records were wiped clean. Subpoenaed devices were destroyed. Key evidence that affected a current campaign was put under FBI wraps. Agents openly texted their intent to ensure a predetermined presidential election result. Americans in general were routinely spied upon. Many were framed by FBI skullduggery and had their lives ruined.  

    The extent of the lawbreaking and the warping of elections dwarfs anything discovered during Watergate. And yet the Left never objected to these violations of civil rights or the illegal freelancing of intelligence agencies. Far from it—the Left cheered on the illegality.  

    Why? Because for them hating or worshiping the CIA, NSA, and FBI—or for that matter the Pentagon, IRS, and Justice Department—was never a matter of consistent principle. Instead these bureaucracies were deemed pathological when associated with conservatism and traditionalism, and angelic when their extralegal efforts were put to use for the progressive agenda. 

    There are some grassroots leftists who are deluded into sincerely believing “equity” can be achieved by government confiscation and redistribution. But for most of the elite, the cause is a means to personal and professional power, a fact that explains why one day walking only on four leftist legs is alone correct, the next day just two.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 19:30

  • 64% Of Americans Don't Work-Out At All
    64% Of Americans Don’t Work-Out At All

    How do Americans work out?

    While hitting the gym is something that around a third of those who practice sports do at least occasionally, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes below that the Great Outdoors is also a major pull for people looking for some (light) physical exercise.

    According to a survey by Statista Consumer Insights, hiking is the most popular form of exercise in America, with 35 percent of those who do sports engaging in it at least from time to time.

    Other popular outdoorsy pursuits are hunting and fishing (26 percent of sporty Americans do this) and cycling (25 percent). Running is slightly less popular at just 21 percent of respondents naming it as an exercise of choice.

    Infographic: Hitting the Gym or the Great Outdoors? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    At 29 percent, basketball is the most popular ball game or team sport on the list, followed by (flag) football (25 percent) and baseball/softball (20 percent). Another quarter of the survey’s respondents said they liked to get a workout in by boogieing down on the dancefloor (or maybe just in their living room).

    Responses picked less frequently include soccer (13 percent), cricket (11 percent), table tennis (10 percent) and rugby (6 percent).

    However, 64 percent of Americans do not work out at all according to the survey.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 18:55

  • Gaslighting: The American People Are Trapped In A Textbook Abusive Relationship
    Gaslighting: The American People Are Trapped In A Textbook Abusive Relationship

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Imagine this.

    A woman, for the sake of my story, is in a marriage with a partner who does not respect her. He insults her regularly, belittles her efforts to improve herself or her situation, and minimizes her feelings.

    In fact, when she tries to stand up for herself, things get even worse. The partner calls into question her memories of the event. He dismisses the way things made her feel, calling the emotions “ridiculous” or “stupid.” He convinces her she’s overreacting and that he was only trying to do what was best for her. When she brings something up, he completely rewrites the event, causing her to doubt what actually happened because she’s in a vulnerable state due to the constant abuse.

    In a situation like this, the abused partner often feels powerless, confused, and unable to leave the situation. They are at a disadvantage because they’ve been influenced to doubt their own reality. This leaves them trapped deeper and deeper in the abusive scenario. They feel unable to escape because they’re really not sure what actually happened. Were they blowing things out of proportion? Are they, in fact, stupid, forgetful, and inept?

    Abusive relationships follow a pattern. There’s a period of breaking the victim down, isolating them from their support systems, and making them dependent on the abuser. Then, the abused partner is maneuvered into the belief that she can’t get by on her own.

    This master manipulation is how people become trapped in abusive relationships.

    And, as I’m about to show, not all abusive relationships are one-on-one romantic relationships.

    What is gaslighting?

    Medical News Today defines gaslighting.

    Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which a person or group causes someone to question their own sanity, memories, or perception of reality. People who experience gaslighting may feel confused, anxious, or as though they cannot trust themselves.

    The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 classic film (and before that, the play), Gaslight. In the story, a husband tries to make his wife believe she is suffering from a mental illness. Starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, it’s well worth a watch.

    Gaslighting is a form of narcissistic abuse. For a quick refresher on the definition of a narcissist and the techniques they use, go here.

    Forbes offers the following signs you are being gaslit:

    Signs to watch for include:

    The “Twilight Zone” effect. Victims of gaslighting often report feeling like a situation is surreal—like it’s happening on a different plane from the rest of their life.

    Language describing you or your behavior as crazy, irrational or overemotional. “When I asked women about their partners’ abusive tactics, they often described being called a ‘crazy bitch,’” Sweet writes in “The Sociology of Gaslighting” in American Sociological Review. “This phrase came up so frequently, I began to think of it as the literal discourse of gaslighting.”

    Being told you’re exaggerating.

    Feeling confused and powerless after leaving an interaction.

    Isolation. Many gaslighters make efforts to isolate victims from friends, family and other support networks.

    Tone policing. A gaslighter may criticize your tone of voice if you challenge them on something. This is a tactic used to flip the script and make you feel that you’re the one to blame, rather than your abuser.

    A cycle of warm-cold behavior. To throw a victim off balance, a gaslighter may alternate between verbal abuse and praise, often even in the same conversation.

    Gaslighting is a deliberate attempt to provoke self-doubt, confusion, and dependence.

    How does someone gaslight another person?

    Again, let’s look to the experts. Medical News Today provides these examples of how gaslighting might take place:

    • Countering: This is when someone questions a person’s memory. They may say things such as, “Are you sure about that? You have a bad memory,” or “I think you are forgetting what really happened.”
    • Withholding: This involves someone pretending they do not understand the conversation, or refusing to listen, to make a person doubt themselves. For example, they might say, “Now you are just confusing me,” or “I do not know what you are talking about.”
    • Trivializing: This occurs when a person belittles or disregards how someone else feels. They may accuse them of being “too sensitive” or overreacting in response to valid and reasonable concerns.
    • Denial: Denial involves a person refusing to take responsibility for their actions. They may do this by pretending to forget what happened, saying they did not do it, or blaming their behavior on someone else.
    • Diverting: With this technique, a person changes the focus of a discussion by questioning the other person’s credibility. For example, they might say, “That is just nonsense you read on the internet. It is not real.”
    • Stereotyping: An article in the American Sociological Review says that a person may intentionally use negative stereotypes about someone’s gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, or age to gaslight them. For example, they may say that no one will believe a woman if she reports abuse.

    After a period of time, this emotional barrage results in the target of the gaslighting suffering from confusion, doubt, and self-blame.

    • feeling uncertain of their perceptions
    • frequently questioning if they are remembering things correctly
    • believing they are irrational or “crazy”
    • feeling incompetent, unconfident, or worthless
    • constantly apologizing to the abusive person
    • defending the abusive person’s behavior to others
    • becoming withdrawn or isolated from others

    The Forbes article offered these specific examples of gaslighting in romantic relationships.

    “Ebony’s partner would steal her money and then tell her she was ‘careless’ about finances and had lost it herself.”

    “Adriana’s boyfriend hid her phone and then told her she had lost it, in a dual effort to confuse her and prevent her from communicating with others.”

    “Jenn described her ex-boyfriend as a ‘chameleon’ who made up small stories to confuse her, like lying about what color shirt he had worn the day before to make her feel disoriented.”

    “Emily described her ex-husband stealing her keys so she could not leave the house and then insisting she had lost them ‘again.’”

    But if you think this phenomenon is limited to women being abused by their husbands or boyfriends, you’d be wrong.

    Gaslighting doesn’t just happen in romantic relationships.

    Gaslighting is a complicated thing. While it’s common in abusive romantic relationships, it can also occur in unhealthy parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, or even workplaces. But that’s not all. It can also occur on a much broader scale.

    Racial gaslighting

    According to an article in Politics, Group, and Identities, racial gaslighting is when people apply gaslighting techniques to an entire racial or ethnic group in order to discredit them. For example, a person or institution may say that an activist campaigning for change is irrational or “crazy.”

    Political gaslighting

    Political gaslighting occurs when a political group or figure lies or manipulates information to control people, according to an article in the Buffalo Law Review.

    For example, the person or political party may downplay things their administration has done, discredit their opponents, imply that critics are mentally unstable, or use controversy to deflect attention away from their mistakes.

    Institutional gaslighting

    Institutional gaslighting occurs within a company, organization, or institution, such as a hospital. For example, they may portray whistleblowers who report problems as irrational or incompetent, or deceive employees about their rights.

    This often occurs to cover up a mistake that could result in the person who erred facing punitive consequences or to keep people “in their place.” It’s a control mechanism, pure and simple.

    Have we been gaslit by our own government?

    I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that we, the people of the United States of America, have been gaslit.

    Does this sound familiar? Lockdowns that keep you away from friends and loved ones? Losing your income and becoming dependent on handouts doled out by the government? Being censored and mocked when you say anything that is not in line with the official narrative? Being treated like a crazy conspiracy theorist who should be punished because of the harm you’re causing to others if you refuse to go along?

    When you look at it this way, it feels like the entire US government and media have colluded to abuse the people. Many of the Covid-related “truths” that were promoted by the government and the media that we were not allowed to dispute have now been proven to be false. Stories we couldn’t question about the origins of the pandemic have been proven false. In another incident of broad-scale gaslighting unrelated to the pandemic, a lot of evidence has been produced that shows the Biden family may have received money from influence-peddling, but the media tells us not to believe it.

    And like good little victims, it seems like a hefty portion of the country is refusing to believe the evidence, instead believing in the good intentions of their abusers. They’ve been gaslit, brainwashed, and are unable to break free of the manipulation.

    And it’s still going on.

    Recently Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a scathing opinion of the US government’s handling of the Covid pandemic, saying that we “have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

    “Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too. They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct. They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent,” he said.

    At the federal level, he highlighted not only immigration decrees but vaccine mandates, the regulation of landlord-tenant relations and pressure on social media companies to suppress “misinformation.”

    The gaslighting blowback was immediate, with breathlessly outraged headlines.

    Slate eloquently opined, “Neil Gorsuch’s List of “Civil Liberties Intrusions” Is, Uh, Missing a Few Things.” making sure to throw plenty of insulting talking points into their introductory paragraph in their attempt to liken a Supreme Court Justice who was educated at Harvard Law, Oxford, Georgetown, and Columbia, to an ignorant relative one merely tolerates. And they insinuated he was a racist.

    Gorsuch has long railed against such policies, and his opinions have taken on an increasingly shrill tone, like the Fox News–poisoned uncle who hectors you about the plandemic in 3,000-word Facebook comments. The justice’s rant in Arizona v. Mayorkas, however, hits a new low, moving beyond the usual yada-yada grievance parade to issue a thesis statement of sorts…

    …As Vox’s Ian Millhiser quickly pointed out, this sweeping claim leaves out two “intrusions on civil liberties” that any person with a basic grasp of history and sanity would surely rank as worse than pandemic policies: slavery and Jim Crow.

    An opinion piece published in the NY Times gasped, “Neil Gorsuch Has Given Himself Away,” made it seem as if the Justice was belittling every other civil rights mishap in the history of America while also blithely disregarding the folks who died during the pandemic.

    The New Republic condescendingly liberal-splained to the rest of us “What Neil Gorsuch Got Wrong About the Pandemic,” stating that “The justice’s vision of the judiciary’s role in public health may be more dangerous than any Covid-era restriction.”

    The site Above The Law literally said Gorsuch was stupid in the piece, “For An Originalist, Gorsuch Is Clearly Slacking On His Definitions And Their Historical Meanings.” The subheading reads, “Is what he said stupid? Yes. But let’s be technical here.”

    Law and Crime website also played the race card and did so right in the headline: Neil Gorsuch implies COVID restrictions were worse than slavery and Jim Crow, and the internet noticed.

    Let’s look at that definition of political gaslighting again…

    For example, the person or political party may downplay things their administration has done, discredit their opponents, imply that critics are mentally unstable, or use controversy to deflect attention away from their mistakes.

    Oof. If that textbook case of gaslighting isn’t embarrassing, it should be.  Then again, narcissists are rarely embarrassed.

    The gaslighting will escalate.

    Another thing about narcissists: they just get angry when they’re called out. They will respond by gaslighting you harder or seeking to “ruin” you. (source) They’ll punish you with a loss of “privileges,” money, material goods, and freedom. We’ve watched it happen again and again in our cancel culture media. Some of us have been unfortunate enough to have personal relationships with narcissists and learned this the hard way.

    The only way to end narcissistic abuse and gaslighting is to recognize it and remove yourself from the situation as much as you can. Obviously, when it’s our entire government and society, that becomes complicated. You may be stuck with just recognizing it. But that in itself gives you a certain amount of freedom and personal power. It helps you get off the hamster wheel, and you begin to spot the manipulations more easily.

    One thing we can be sure of is that this will escalate as more and more people say, “No, that’s not what happened.” This is something we can expect, and in some small way, maybe we can take comfort in the response. Perhaps we can smile to ourselves because we know those who were trying to manipulate us all are on the defensive.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 18:20

  • Chinese Developers Resorting To "Negative Down Payment" Practices
    Chinese Developers Resorting To “Negative Down Payment” Practices

    In its attempt to reboot China’s real estate property market bubble, which burst spectacularly in late 2021 when most housing developers blew up in the aftermath of Evergrande’s historic bankruptcy amid Beijing’s ill-fated deleveraging push, and which according to Goldman calculations is the world’s largest real estate bubble…

    … China’s real estate agencies have been quietly resorting to some of the oldest tricks in the US housing bubble book, such as marketing homebuying with “zero down payment” or “negative down payment” so that consumers not only don’t need to pay for down payment but also can obtain funds for future renovation, according to media reports.

    Of course, with Beijing still stuck in some bizarro Schrodinger economic purgatory where the government both wants housing to reclaim its pre-bubble all time highs yet is loath to inject the massive amounts of credit required, the It didn’t take long for some local overzealous bureaucrat to spill the beans, and as the Global Times reports, the Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association in South China’s Guangdong Province released a notice on Friday, cautioning local agencies to avoid participating in or assisting the illegal practices of “zero down payment” and “negative down payment,” which have sparked discussion among homebuyers.

    One real estate agency based in Shenzhen reportedly was telling clients that if a property is evaluated at 5.7 million yuan ($806,828) the owner would sell it at 5.2 million yuan, the homebuyer could then buy the property in full using a bank loan of 5.7 million yuan while using the remaining 500,000 yuan for renovation, cnr.cn reported.

    As for the so-called “negative down payment,” the report said that it is executed through developers using down payment installments and returning down payment to buyers or setting a relatively high contract price for consumers to apply for a larger bank loan.

    If the funds returned to the buyer from the developer, or the bank loan secured against the property exceed the original down payment, the a “negative down payment” is “achieved,” per the report from cnr.cn.

    The Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association on Friday issued the reminder to caution the market, stressing that the so-called practices of “zero down payment” and “negative down payment” violate China’s financial and credit policies. It warned local agencies and practitioners to strictly abide by the principle that “houses are for living in, not speculation,” calling for review and adjustment of agency management and prohibiting any form of participation in similar practices.

    If local agencies and practitioners are found to have been involved in offering assistance in implementing these illegal practices, the association will immediately report these parties to the competent administrative departments for investigation and punishment in accordance with the law.

    The so-called “negative down payment” is essentially the creation of a fictitious purchase agreement, which in turn inflates the purchase price of a home in order to fraudulently obtain a larger loan for the down payment, Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, told the Global Times.

    Yan stressed the importance for financial regulators to monitor the situation, aiming to prevent the emergence of financial instability or financial risk, calling for a greater effort to regulate fraudulent contracts, falsified loan materials, and lax bank audits.

    Yan also noted that the concept of a “negative down payment” is illegal and comes with high risk. The leverage will be easily raised if a home purchase is not backed by a real down payment, burdening subsequent payment pressure for homebuyers and resulting in a higher risk of mortgage default.

    Chinese authorities issued a notice in 2017, strictly banning domestic developers and real estate intermediaries to engage in illegal practices such as providing down payment financing or down payment installments.

    Earlier in May, Huizhou in Guangdong issued a notice to further strengthen regulation and on property sales tackling the aforementioned illegal practices, according to media reports.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 17:45

  • South Dakota Governor Tells Higher Education Board To Remove Mandates On Preferred Pronouns
    South Dakota Governor Tells Higher Education Board To Remove Mandates On Preferred Pronouns

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem issued a letter on May 25 to the governing board that oversees the six public universities in the state. In it, she lamented about the situation of higher education in the country, and challenged the board to a series of actions to “show the nation what quality higher education is supposed to look like.”

    Among several points, the Republican governor told the board it should ban drag shows on university campuses, and, separately, remove all preferred pronouns in school materials, as well as remove all mandates that compel people to use preferred pronouns.

    However, what appears to be the priority is the first point of action she raised, which is that the board should aim to raise graduation rates across its six universities to 65 percent by 2028, compared to the current graduation rate of 47 percent. Meanwhile, in 2020, the national graduation rate was 63 percent.

    “At the K-12 level, we are taking steps to improve our standards and expand school choice in South Dakota so that all kids have access to a high-quality education that prepares them for whatever comes next after high school,” Noem told the board in her letter (pdf).

    “For those who choose to start attending a university after graduating, less than half are graduating. We must do better than that. I look forward to working with you all on ideas to improve our graduation rates.”

    The Epoch Times has emailed the Board of Regents for comment.

    ‘State of Crisis’

    Noem said that higher education across the United States is in a “state of crisis.”

    “For the last several decades, many states have allowed liberal ideologies to poison their universities and colleges. Once a hotbed of ideological diversity, debate, and the pursuit of truth and discovery, many institutions have become one-sided, close-minded, and focused on feelings rather than facts,” she wrote.

    “Professors have discarded reason and logic in favor of subjectivity and relativism. Higher education leaders have rejected universal truth and knowledge and replaced it with ‘individual truth.’”

    She said that students on campuses across the United States “have been taught the importance of diversity and equity and given access to ‘safe spaces’ instead of learning to tolerate the disagreement, discomfort, and dissent that they will experience in the real world.”

    “In many cases, students and their parents are not even aware of the damage these ideas have caused,” she said.

    Regarding drag shows, she wrote: “Just as other dangerous theories have been allowed to thrive on college campuses, gender theory has been rebranded and accepted as truth across the nation.

    “These theories should be openly debated in college classrooms, but not celebrated through public performances on taxpayer-owned property at taxpayer-funded schools.”

    Regarding preferred pronouns, she wrote that mandating them at some campuses has “compelled and coerced” some students to “provide speech they do not agree with.”

    “Students should have the ability to exercise their right to free speech. Colleges and universities should never compel students to speak or take a position on any issue,” the governor said.

    Noem also told the board her administration has created a new whistleblower hotline where students, faculty members, parents, or taxpayers, can report concerns at institutions of higher education in the state, by calling 605-773-5916.

    “Our children are our future, and South Dakota universities and technical colleges should best prepare them for our future,” Noem said in a post on Twitter.

    The governor noted that she recently appointed two members to the board, and will be making more appointments soon.

    Five Other Points

    Besides raising graduation rates, banning drag shows, and removing preferred pronouns and their enforcement, Noem noted that some universities have restricted speech on topics some people find “offensive.”

    “The Board of Regents should remove any policy or procedure that prohibits students from exercising their right to free speech,” she said.

    “Black Hills State University was recently challenged on and ultimately removed a policy that allowed administrators to silence opinions they disagreed with,” the governor noted, adding that colleges and universities should review and revise all policies that infringe on students’ right to free speech. The colleges should also adopt policies that “develop and strengthen resiliency among students” for when they encounter opposing ideas.

    Noem also wanted the Board of Regents to “take more steps to partner with businesses on registered apprenticeship programs and offer the lowest possible credit rates.” She noted that roughly 43 percent of students who graduated still found themselves unemployed or underemployed.

    The other three action points she presented to the board were: to cut costs to make higher education more affordable; to require a course in American Government and a course in American history as part of graduation requirements; and to remove any monetary influence, whether by funding or donations, from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    “The [CCP] has been known to fund Confucius Institutes and other similar centers at American universities in order to provide skewed Chinese cultural training for U.S. students,” said Noem.

    “This is part of a multi-faceted propaganda effort, and money from the CCP has no place in South Dakota. The Board of Regents should reject any donations from sources and any other government that is hostile to the United States.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 17:10

  • Liberal US Cities Top Global List For Highest Homelessness Problem
    Liberal US Cities Top Global List For Highest Homelessness Problem

    Insider Monkey, a finance website, revealed a list of the top 30 cities worldwide with the highest homeless population. Notably, a handful of the US cities on the list are governed by progressive leadership, which may not surprise readers. While it is evident that some unfortunate individuals are facing homelessness, a trend exacerbated by recent inflationary pressures and a drug addiction crisis, some liberal policies have enabled others to sustain their nomadic lifestyles with taxpayer funds. 

    Insider Monkey found New York City is number 5 on the list, with a homeless population of about 69,000. Next is Chicago, at number 7 with 65,611. Washington, DC, is number 8 with 57,416, Los Angeles number 13 with 41,980, and San Fransisco number 14 with 38,000. 

    Even with the US government spending $54 billion on several programs to tackle the homelessness crisis, hundreds of thousands of Americans are still wandering the streets. This has been made worse by inflation in recent years and an out-of-control drug addiction crisis. 

    As for the rest of the world, Manila, Philippines, ranks number 1 with a staggering 3 million homeless. Buenos Aires, Argentina, is number 2 with 198,000. Moscow, Russia, is number 3 with 100,000, and Kanpur, India, is number 4 with 81,000.

    Here’s the partial list of 6 through 30:

    6. Kolkata, India

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 68,798

    Kolkata is one of India’s largest cities. It has played a crucial role in the country’s history due to its port.

    7. Chicago, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 65,611

    Chicago is one of the largest cities in the U.S. in terms of population and one of the largest business hubs in the country.

    8. Washington, D.C., United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 57,416

    Washington D.C. is one of the most expensive places to live in America – making it unsurprising that it also has a high number of homeless people.

    9. Mumbai, India

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 57,415

    Mumbai is India’s financial hub, but it is also famous for generations of homeless who are born and die on the streets.

    10. Lagos, Nigeria

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 50,000

    Lagos is one of the largest cities in the world with more than 24 million people living in the city.

    11. Damascus, Syria

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 50,000

    Damascus is the capital of Syria and one of the oldest cities in the world as it has been inhabited for thousands of years.

    12. Delhi, India

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 46,724

    Delhi has more than ten million residents and is one of the most historic cities in the world.

    13. Los Angeles, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 41,980

    Los Angeles is the second largest city in America in terms of population. It is a cultural center place for its state and the U.S.

    14. San Francisco, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 38,000

    San Francisco is a cultural and economic hub and a city that is notorious for high housing costs.

    15. Surat, India

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 36,144

    Surat is a Western Indian city in the state of Gujrat. It is the second largest city in its state and a hub for the global diamond industry.

    16. Sao Paulo, Brazil

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 31,884

    Sao Paulo is the largest city in Brazil in terms of both its population and economic output.

    17. Mexico City, Mexico

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 30,000

    Mexico City is the capital of Mexico. It is one of the largest cities in the world with a population of 9.2 million people.

    18. Athens, Greece

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 20,000

    Athens is one of the most historical cities in the world and the capital of Greece.

    19. Auckland, New Zealand

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 18,417

    Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand and has a population of 1.4 million people. It is an economic hub in its country and accounts for a large portion of New Zealand’s economic output.

    20. Tampa, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 16,000

    Tampa is a coastal Floridian city with one of the biggest ports in its state.

    21. Seattle, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 11,751

    Seattle is a highly developed city in the U.S. state of Washington.

    22. San Jose, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 10,028

    San Jose is an economic hub in the U.S. with a large presence of the technology industry.

    23. Budapest, Hungary

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 10,000

    Budapest is the capital and largest city of Hungary with nearly a million residents.

    24. Oakland, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 9,747

    Oakland is a Californian city. It is one of the busiest port cities in America.

    25. Dublin, Ireland

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 8,523

    Dublin is the capital of Ireland and the largest city in terms of population. It is also a hub for global multinational firms.

    26. San Diego, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 8,427

    San Diego is one of the most populous cities in America with a population of more than a million people

    27. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 7,865

    Rio De Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil. It also has the second largest economy in the country.

    28. Rome, Italy

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 7,709

    Rome is the capital city of Italy and one of the largest cities in the world with a population of more than 2.8 million people.

    29. Denver, United States

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 6,888

    Denver is the capital city of the U.S. state of Colorado. It has a population of more than seven hundred thousand people and is an economic hub in its state.

    30. Lisbon, Portugal

    Estimated Number of Homeless People: 3,780

    Lisbon is the capital city of Portugal. It is also the largest city in the country, with more than half a million people living in its boundaries.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 16:35

  • The Great Silence
    The Great Silence

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

    The kids are two years behind in education. Inflation still rages. White-collar jobs are disappearing thanks to the reversal of Fed policy. Household finances are a wreck. The medical industry is in upheaval. Trust in government has never been lower.

    Major media too is discredited. Young people are dying at levels never seen. Populations are still on the move from lockdown states to where it is less likely. Surveillance is everywhere, and so is political persecution. Public health is in a disastrous state, with substance abuse and obesity all at new records.

    Each one of these, and many more besides, are continued fallout from the pandemic response that began in March 2020. And yet here we are 38 months later and we still don’t have honesty or truth about the experience.

    Officials have resigned, politicians have tumbled out of office and lifetime civil servants have departed their posts, but they don’t cite the great disaster as the excuse. There is always some other reason.

    This is the period of the great silence. We’ve all noticed it. The stories in the press recounting all the above are conventionally scrupulous about naming the pandemic response much less naming the individuals responsible.

    Maybe there is a Freudian explanation: things so obviously terrible and in such recent memory are too painful to mentally process, so we just pretend it didn’t happen. Plenty in power like this solution.

    Everyone in a position of influence knows the rules. Don’t talk about the lockdowns. Don’t talk about the mask mandates. Don’t talk about the vaccine mandates that proved useless and damaging and led to millions of professional upheavals.

    Don’t talk about the economics of it. Don’t talk about collateral damage. When the topic comes up, just say, “We did the best we could with the knowledge we had,” even if that is an obvious lie.

    Above all, don’t seek justice.

    Where’s the National Commission?

    There is this document intended to be the “Warren Commission” of COVID slapped together by the old gangsters who advocated for lockdowns. It is called Lessons from the Covid War: An Investigative Report.

    The authors are people like Michael Callahan (Massachusetts General Hospital), Gary Edson (former deputy national security adviser), Richard Hatchett (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), Marc Lipsitch (Harvard University), Carter Mecher (Veterans Affairs), and Rajeev Venkayya (former Gates Foundation and now Aerium Therapeutics).

    If you have been following this disaster, you might know at least some of the names. Years before 2020, they were pushing lockdowns as the solution for infectious disease. Some claim credit for having invented pandemic planning. The years 2020–2022 were their experiment.

    As it was ongoing, they became media stars, pushing compliance, condemning as disinformation and misinformation anyone who disagreed with them. They were at the heart of the coup d’etat, as engineers or champions of it, that replaced representative democracy with quasi-martial law run by the administrative state.

    The first sentence of the report is a complaint:

    We were supposed to lay the groundwork for a National COVID Commission. The COVID Crisis Group formed at the beginning of 2021, one year into the pandemic. We thought the U.S. government would soon create or facilitate a commission to study the biggest global crisis so far in the 21st century. It has not.

    That is true. There is no National COVID Commission. You know why? Because they could never get away with it, not with legions of experts and passionate citizens who wouldn’t tolerate a coverup.

    The public anger is too intense. Lawmakers would be flooded with emails, phone calls and daily expressions of disgust. It would be a disaster. An honest commission would demand answers that the ruling class is not prepared to give. An “official commission” perpetuating a bunch of baloney would be dead on arrival.

    This by itself is a huge victory and a tribute to indefatigable critics.

    ‘We Didn’t Crack Down Hard Enough’

    Instead, the “COVID Crisis Group” met with funding from the Rockefeller and Charles Koch foundations and slapped together this report. Despite being celebrated as definitive by The New York Times and The Washington Post, it has mostly had no impact at all.

    It is far from obtaining the status of being some kind of canonical assessment. It reads like they were on deadline, fed up, typed lots of words and called it a day.

    Of course it is whitewash.

    It begins with a bang to denounce the U.S. policy response: “Our institutions did not meet the moment. They did not have adequate practical strategies or capabilities to prevent, to warn, to defend their communities or fight back in a coordinated way, in the United States and globally.”

    Mistakes were made, as they say.

    Of course the upshot of this kvetching is not to criticize what Justice Neil Gorsuch calls “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.” They hardly mention those at all.

    Instead they conclude that the U.S. should have surveilled more, locked down sooner (“We believe that on Jan. 28 the U.S. government should have started mobilizing for a possible COVID war”), directed more funds to this agency rather than that and centralized the response so that rogue states like South Dakota and Florida could not evade centralized authoritarian diktats next time.

    The authors propose a series of lessons that are anodyne, bloodless and carefully crafted to be more-or-less true but ultimately structured to minimize the sheer radicalism and destructiveness of what they favored and did. The lessons are clichés such as we need “not just goals but road maps,” and next time we need more “situation awareness.”

    There is no new information in the book that I could find, unless something is hidden therein that escaped my notice. It’s more interesting for what it does not say. Some words that never appear in the text: Sweden, ivermectin, ventilators, remdesivir and myocarditis.

    ‘Look, Lockdowns and Mandates Worked!’

    Perhaps this gives you a sense of the book and its mission. And on matters of the lockdowns, readers are forced to endure claims such as “all of New England — Massachusetts, the city of Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine — seem to us to have done relatively well, including their ad hoc crisis management setups.”

    Oh really! Boston destroyed thousands of small businesses and imposed vaccine passports, closed churches, persecuted people for holding house parties, and imposed travel restrictions. There is a reason why the authors don’t elaborate on such preposterous claims. They are simply unsustainable.

    One amusing feature seems to me to be a foreshadowing of what is coming. They throw Anthony Fauci under the bus with sniffy dismissals: “Fauci was vulnerable to some attacks because he tried to cover the waterfront in briefing the press and public, stretching beyond his core expertise—and sometimes it showed.”

    Ooooh, burn!

    “Trump Was a Comorbidity”

    This is very likely the future. At some point, Fauci will be scapegoated for the whole disaster. He will be assigned to take the fall for what is really the failure of the national security arm of the administrative bureaucracy, which in fact took charge of all rule-making from March 13, 2020, onward, along with their intellectual cheerleaders. The public health people were just there to provide cover.

    Curious about the political bias of the book? It is summed up in this passing statement: “Trump was a comorbidity.”

    Oh how highbrow! How clever! No political bias here!

    Maybe this book by the Covid Crisis Group hopes to be the last word. This will never happen. We are only at the beginning of this. As the economic, social, cultural, and political problems mount, it will become impossible to ignore the incredibly obvious.

    The masters of lockdowns are influential and well-connected but not even they can invent their own reality.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 16:00

  • World's First "Battery Tanker" Slated For 2026 Sea Trials
    World’s First “Battery Tanker” Slated For 2026 Sea Trials

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a bold prediction in 2017: “Everything will go fully electric, apart from (ironically) rockets. Ships are the next easiest to solve after cars.” Six years later, the world’s second-richest person might be right about the next battery boom in ships. 

    Japanese battery startup PowerX Inc. revealed a 140-meter-long electric propulsion vessel capable of transporting stored electricity across oceans. The “battery tanker” will be equipped with 96 containerized marine batteries that can haul renewable energy worldwide, connecting grids, islands, and offshore wind farms. The completion of the vessel is slated for 2025, with sea trials in 2026. 

    “For instance, in Japan, a battery tanker can carry power from regions with high renewable energy supply potential, such as Kyushu and Hokkaido, to high-demand areas of Honshu or for inter-island power transmission,” the company explained.

    While electric propulsion vessels might be the future to decarbonize the shipping industry, there appears to be a need to haul stored renewable power to other grids worldwide via a new tanker class. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 15:25

  • Taiwan Says It's In Talks On Being Brought Under US Nuclear Umbrella
    Taiwan Says It’s In Talks On Being Brought Under US Nuclear Umbrella

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Taiwan’s foreign minister said last week that the US and Taiwan are in talks on the possibility of the island being brought under Washington’s nuclear umbrella, a step that would make a catastrophic war between the US and China much more likely.

    Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu made the comments before Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan. Wu declined to detail the talks when pressed if Taiwan had asked the US to bring the island into its nuclear umbrella.

    US military file image

    “Regarding the discussion of this issue with the United States, it is not suitable for me to make it public here,” Wu said, according to The South China Morning Post.

    Many of the US’s allies are considered to be under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella, including Japan, South Korea, and every member of NATO.

    Giving such a guarantee to Taiwan would mean the US could use nuclear weapons if China invades the island or if war breaks out by other means. According to the SCMP report:

    As Washington and Beijing ramp up their military signaling on Taiwan, the self-ruled island has started to discuss what was once unthinkable – to come under the US nuclear umbrella that has successfully protected Japan, South Korea and Australia for decades.

    The debate was set off after Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu suggested on Monday that the island had been in talks with the United States on the nuclear umbrella issue.

    Such a guarantee is unlikely to happen in the near term as it would require a radical change to US policy. While President Biden has vowed to send troops to intervene if China attacks Taiwan, the official policy on how the US would react to a Chinese invasion is still ambiguous.

    But the fact that the idea is being discussed will be viewed as a major provocation in Beijing. China has a no-first-use policy for its nuclear arsenal, but US policy leaves open the option to use nukes in response to a conventional attack.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 14:50

  • DOJ, Prosecutors Trying To Claw Back Donations Made To J6 Defendants
    DOJ, Prosecutors Trying To Claw Back Donations Made To J6 Defendants

    While BLM protesters got a Kamala Harris-endorsed bail fund during the violent and destructive mostly peaceful George Floyd riots, the Department of Justice is trying to claw back donations made to January 6th political prisoners.

    According to AP, the DOJ is trying to seize over $25,000 raised by Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn, who appeared on Tucker Carlson’s former Fox News show where he promoted a website for political donations.

    The AP looked at over 1,000 criminal cases from Jan 6., and noted that prosecutors have been asking judges to enhance fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters.

    Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

    Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money.

    Were any of the BLM-linked fundraisers, or BLM itself, subject to DOJ scrutiny?

    As the AP notes, the success many J6 prisoners have had fundraising “suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 6 rioters as patriots and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump.”

    Virginia resident Markus Maly, who is set to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised over $16,000 from an online campaign. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000 fine, noting that he had a public defender and didn’t owe any legal fees.

    “He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to ‘capitalize’ on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way,” wrote a prosecutor in a court filing.

    A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Dr. Simone Gold, a California physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday.

    Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have “substantial financial means,” living in a home that was purchased for more than $3 million last year. -AP

    So far in 2023, prosecutors have sought to levy $390,000 in fines against at least 21 defendants, with amounts ranging from $450 to over $71,000, per AP. Of that, Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants YTD, while in the past two years, over 100 defendants have been ordered to pay more than $240,000 in fines.

    Separately, hundreds of convicted rioters have been ordered to pay over $524,000 in restitution to the government to offset over $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other J6 related expenses.

    We don’t recall BLM protesters being ordered to help pay to clean up cities they set on fire. Wonder why?

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 14:15

  • 25,000 Traders Bet On ChatGPT's Stock Picks
    25,000 Traders Bet On ChatGPT’s Stock Picks

    Authored by Andrew Fenton via CoinTelegraph.com,

    Almost 25,000 investors have signed up to trade alongside ChatGPT as they follow the GPT Portfolio experiment from copy trading firm Autopilot.

    The traders have bet a combined $14.7 million on the AI’s stock picks, which would average about $600 each if they all invested after signing up. They’re hoping to take even a small slice of a purported 500% return from one of the strategies backtested in academic research.

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    The GPT Portfolio gets the AI to analyze 10,000 news articles and 100 company reports to select 20 stocks for the $50,000 portfolio, updated each week. The initial picks included Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, D.R. Horton and Davita Health. After two weeks, the portfolio is up around 2%, which is pretty much the same as the stock market. 

    Interestingly the bottom five picks lost more in percentage terms than the top five gained — Dollar Tree lost 17% after it missed earnings — so it might be more sensible in future to only invest in GPT-4’s best five or 10 ideas, but we’ll see how it works out.

    The smaller-scale ChatGPT Crypto Trader account is tweaking a similar strategy that gets GPT-4s advice on when to go long on Ethereum. He says it shows a profit of 11,000% backtested to August 2017, but in the real-world experiment since January, the portfolio is up by a third, while the Ethereum price has gained 60%.

    It’s worth being careful using AI for trading, however. Crypto derivatives platform Bitget recently abandoned its experiment of using AI on the platform due to the potential for misinformation. A survey of its users found 80% of users had a negative experience with the AI, including false investment advice and other misinformation. 

    Bitget Managing Director Gracy Chen says:

    “AI tools, while robust and resourceful, lack the human touch necessary to interpret market nuances and trends accurately.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/29/2023 – 13:40

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