- Schlichter: Imagine If They Hadn't Lied To Us For The Last 18 Months
Schlichter: Imagine If They Hadn’t Lied To Us For The Last 18 Months
Authored by Kurt Schlichter, op-ed via Townhall.com,
Everybody wrap something around your face again even though they said you wouldn’t need to if you got vaxxed! But they didn’t lie – no, apparently a bunch of people – and not just those evil white nationalist-Christian-gun-Jesus-flag people – are refusing to get the vaccine, and the reason is that they are moral defectives somehow in thrall to Tucker Carlson’s Svengali-like powers of persuasion.
You see, the people who won’t get it are stupid people who hate science because they refuse to trust the people who have spent the last year-and-a-half lying to them.
I don’t blame those folks a bit.
Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine our ruling class was not as utterly corrupt, dishonest, incompetent and downright stupid as it manifestly is. I know that’s hard, but go with me.
This weird new virus appears and starts spreading. Instead of leveraging it to take down Trump, the Democrats appear with the Republican president and GOP leadership to announce they are working together to solve the problem. Imagine that instead of shaming people, first about wearing masks, then about not wearing masks, then about not wearing two masks, then no masks, then masks again, they went with transparency.
“We are not sure how much, if at all, masks work. We’re running test trials to see and we’ll tell you what we find as soon as we have the data. In the meantime, let’s all wear them just in case.” And then, when they ran the studies, they would tell us the answer.
Have you seen any studies about masks? We get a lot of that fascist gnome and others telling us to wear masks (after initially telling us they were useless – remember that memory-holed narrative?) but where’s the actual science?
See, you have to believe the science, and believe them when they tell you what it is yet won’t show you. Obey!
But trust is earned, and these people act like it is their right to have our trust, that we owe them to take it on faith that whatever these people say is the Gospel. Except they are wrong all the time, and instead of owning up to it, they treat you like some sort of idiot for noticing. When you don’t trust people who are perpetually wrong, that’s not denying science. That is science – you are making observations, and drawing reasonable conclusions. In this case, the observation is that our establishment sucks, and that it can’t be trusted.
How far would a little humility gone? Very far. Imagine, and this will be hard, these masterminds getting up and saying,
“America, we were wrong about something. We thought it was right, but we tested it and we found we were not right. Here is the data, and now that we have better information, we are changing our recommendation.”
What would we say?
“Oh, okay. They were doing the best they can and being straight with us. People make mistakes. We need to learn from them. After all, it’s been a century since the last pandemic so we have a lot of lessons to re-learn. Let’s move forward.”
But no. No, there’s no humility. They make a mistake and they don’t stand up and admit it. Instead, they just change the narrative and act as if the narrative du jour was always the narrative. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. But we’re not blind or stupid for noticing.
They tell us the vaccine is going to make us immune from COVID. Then it turns out you can still get it, just not as bad. Yet when people notice this 180-degree spin, the smart set shrieks like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Just imagine if they had been honest and forthright. But that was not in the cards. The ruling caste’s conceit is that we are idiots, unable and unworthy to make simple decisions for ourselves. We must be guided, nudged, or intimidated, if necessary, into making the right choice. And we do not deserve explanations, because the last thing our elite wants is accountability.
Instead, they want unlimited power. Look at their arbitrary emergency rules and regulations. You could go to a strip club but not a church. Huh? And the courts, again, let us down initially by not enforcing the Constitution. It was an emergency, after all, and as we all know, in an emergency you need to rule by decree, say our betters. So, we got to watch idiots walking around in the sunshine with mouth thongs on while cops busted mommies for letting little Billy play on the slide. At no time did most of the establishment reconsider or change. No, it doubled down on failure. Yet we’re supposed to trust it?
And then there are the revelations about where it came from. They first blamed the innocent pangolin. But it looks like it was our elite’s buddies the Chi Coms, except when people raised that notion earlier, they got banned by social media. Our establishment limited our ability to speak about something true. Think about that. And they want to do it again.
And that’s where the vaccine hesitancy comes in. The smart set squanders its trust then is shocked to find that its trust has been squandered. People are seeing side effects from the vaccine. Those were always going to happen. But our elite is unwilling to level with people about them and let individuals manage their own risks. Instead, our garbage elite dismisses people with questions as “anti-vaxxers” instead of engaging with them and earning their trust. See, we peasants are unworthy of engagement. How dare we seek to choose for ourselves? The nerve of us serfs!
I got the vaccine. I also had the disease. I talked to conservative doctors I trusted about my unique situation and made my decision. You should do the same – you know your situation, and you should balance the risks. I don’t tell other people what to do because it’s not my business and I don’t know their story. I’ve had people get on me for mine, and they need to back off – they don’t know my situation and it’s none of their business. Similarly, theirs is none of mine.
The establishment has squandered its credibility, which is why its demand that everyone take the shot is getting shriller and the attempts to force people more punitive. Imagine if they had been honest from the beginning. Imagine if they had been held accountable. But to do that, you have to imagine having a ruling class that doesn’t suck. And that’s more imagination than anyone can muster.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 23:40 - Western Governors Call For Federal Aid To Fight Wildfires During Meeting With Biden
Western Governors Call For Federal Aid To Fight Wildfires During Meeting With Biden
Governors of seven Western US states met with President Biden Friday and urgently requested federal funds to combat dozens of large wildfires that raged across the region, according to CNN.
On a virtual call, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, Jay Inslee of Washington, Kate Brown of Oregon, Geg Gianforte of Montana, Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Mark Gordon of Wyoming.
Montana Gov. Gianforte said, “I can take you 10 miles west of the state capitol in Helena and show you a forest where 90% of the trees are standing dead.” He added that extreme drought conditions had transformed forests into “tinderboxes.”
Washington Gov. Inslee said his state needs “additional aerial assets” to surveil the burning fires. The largest fire in the state, or possibly the country, is dubbed the “Bootleg Fire,” has burnt more than 400,000 acres in the southern part of the state.
Inslee also said infrastructure is key to preventing wildfires. He said, “the fact of the matter is there is nothing in human intervention against these fires if climate change continues to ravage our forests.“
“There is only one way to save these forests from the ravages of climate,” Inslee added. “We won’t recognize these forests as forests anymore unless we realize your vision.”
Biden replied to the governors and said, “we can’t ignore how the overlapping and intertwined factors — extreme heat, prolonged drought and supercharged wildfire conditions — are affecting the country. And so this is a challenge that demands our urgent, urgent action.”
Biden: “We can’t ignore how the intertwined factors (of climate change)—extreme heat, prolonged drought and supercharged wildfire conditions—are affecting the country” pic.twitter.com/hrtwLEYNxE
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) July 30, 2021
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“We’re in a for a long fight yet this year and the only way we’re going to meet those challenges is by working together. Wildfires are a problem for all of us and we have to stay closely coordinated in doing everything we can for our people,” the president said.
Congressional Democrats have been pushing to fund the Civilian Climate Corps in the infrastructure bill that would hire young adults to work on projects to mitigate future wildfires. The president said, “the truth is it’s not fundamentally different in the help it could provide than the civilian corps put together in the Depression.”
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there are currently 83 large fires that have burned 1,741,281 acres in 13 states. Exceptional drought conditions and heat waves turned the Western half of the US into a tinder box that is likely to see more wildfires as the fire season progresses.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 23:20 - Disband The FBI
Disband The FBI
Authored by Chris Farrell via The Gatestone Institute,
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) continues its downward spiral into terminal corruption. Sadly, the scandals, criminality and ethical abuses of the organization are largely ignored by the American public and by the institutions of government charged with oversight and correction. Outrage after outrage is reported, hearings are held, Inspector General reports are issued — but the systemic corruption is never really tackled and dirty cops skate away virtually unscathed.
This situation is constitutionally unacceptable, corrosive to public trust in law enforcement, and a threat to the survival of the republic.
In the past few days alone, we have learned that the October 2020 Michigan governor kidnap plot was largely a creation of the FBI; a “senior FBI official” was on the take from media organizations; and another assistant director was in a “romantic relationship with a subordinate” and involved in “other misconduct.”
The leadership failures documented by the Office of the Inspector General are now almost standard and part of a tiresome media drip-torture for the public to endure.
Meanwhile, the FBI had the audacity to issue a Stasi-like tweet urging “monitoring of ‘family members and peers’ for extremism.”
Remember: what we learn about the FBI in the press are only the stories that are SO outrageous that the FBI cannot keep a lid on them and is forced to make disclosures via a toothless Inspector General report — but never anything that results in a criminal indictment. Imagine what the ordinary day-to-day misconduct in FBI offices across the country could be. And these scandals don’t just amount to “bad press” – in several of these, federal courts scourge the FBI for lawbreaking. Additionally, Inspector General report after report details FBI abuses such as whistleblowers being retaliated against and ignoring “high-risk” employees who fail polygraph tests.
There are still apologists for the FBI. Some seek to defend the organization with the rationalization that “it’s always been that way.” That sort of thinking is a cynical effort to inoculate and immunize real criminality as something normal and regular. “Get used to it kid, that’s the way of the world,” they offer with a shrug and a grin. Others, like Sean Hannity, cling to the “just a few bad apples” excuse. That sort of FBI cheerleading flies in the face of a litany of systemic abuses and pervasive abusers. The FBI ran a coup against President Trump. It failed. The following got away: Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Clinesmith, Pientka, Brower, Baker, et al. Any real consequences for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States? No.
In May 2018, veteran reporter Eric Lichtblau of Time magazine wrote an article titled, “The FBI Is in Crisis. It’s Worse Than You Think,” wherein he detailed:
“The bureau, which is used to making headlines for nabbing crooks, has been grabbing the spotlight for unwanted reasons: fired leaders, texts between lovers and, most of all, attacks by President Trump … internal and external reports have found lapses throughout the agency, and longtime observers, looking past the partisan haze, see a troubling picture: something really is wrong at the FBI… other painful, more public failures as well: missed opportunities to prevent mass shootings that go beyond the much-publicized overlooked warnings in the Parkland, Fla., school killings; an anguishing delay in the sexual-molestation probe into Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar; and evidence of misconduct by agents in the aftermath of standoffs with armed militias in Nevada and Oregon. FBI agents are facing criminal charges ranging from obstruction to leaking classified material.”
Four years later and the situation has not improved.
Let us go back to the Michigan governor “kidnap plot” for a moment. The entire operation was an anti-Trump political smear job — and was called into question for being exactly that back when the story broke in October 2020. Now we find out that the FBI was running at least a dozen paid “confidential informants” in the plot. It was a plot they dreamed up. It was actually a rehash of an Obama-era 2010 FBI plot by the so-called “Hutarees” that fell apart in court.
The FBI worries about “entrapment” in these cases because the FBI must demonstrate that there is reasonable suspicion that the subject in a case is about to be or is engaging in criminal activity. The government then allows the criminal/terrorist the opportunity to commit the act. In these cases, the FBI has good reason to worry.
More disturbingly, this is nothing new. Look at the “Herald Square Bomber” case as another instance in which the FBI identifies, recruits, trains, dispatches and then arrests the very informant they recruited in the first place. The FBI appears to have fabricated plots and terrorists to advance their own agenda and statistics. It looks, walks, and talks like “entrapment.” Are there really no other bad guys out there for the FBI to go after? They need to focus on this modus operandi?
Questions are now being raised as to whether the FBI had a role in the Capitol Hill protests of January 6, 2021. When one examines the FBI’s involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses; standing by idly while in possession of Hunter Biden’s Ukraine and Burisma-laden laptops, while President Trump endured a second phony impeachment; and the frame-up of Trump’s National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn – it is not too difficult to imagine. And that is just the problem: It is not difficult to imagine. It should be an “impossibility.”
The FBI needs to go away. It should happen in an orderly and thoughtful process, over a period of months. Congress should authorize and create an investigative division in the U.S. Marshals Service and open applications for law enforcement officer seeking to be rigorously screened, vetted and then accessed into the new organization. Similar action was taken before in the very creation of the FBI. It is now time to clean house and restore the public’s trust in the “premier investigative agency” of federal law enforcement.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 23:00 - Autonomous Race Cars To Compete At Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Autonomous Race Cars To Compete At Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Race fans are in for a spectacle this fall as artificial intelligence-powered race cars are headed for Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) to compete.
University teams and companies worldwide are set to compete in the physical Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) race in October 2021. The difference in this race is that there’s no driver, instead a highly specialized AI computer will navigate the race car around the track.
Each of the teams competing in the race will receive the same Dallara-produced AV-21 race car that has been retrofitted with radar, cameras, ultrasonic and infrared sensors, along with LiDAR. Dallara has produced race cars for the Indy series for the last two decades.
IAC showed off one of the autonomous race cars that are capable of high speeds.
IAC was organized by IMS and Energy Systems Network (ESN), an Indianapolis-based nonprofit. The race seeks to advance the safety and speed of autonomous vehicles.
The winning team will receive $1.5 million. The speedway is the ideal track to showcase autonomous racing for millions of Americans.
“It could wake up the average motorsports fan and the average citizen,” Mitchell said during his remarks at the block party. “They’ll say, ‘Gee, if these cars can go 180 or 200 miles-per-hour without a driver, then maybe [an autonomous] car on the highway is something I can feel comfortable with and safe using.”
We’ve noted before the next generation of motorsports is upon us as high-performance flying cars are also set to race later this year.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 22:40 - Beer & Exercise – Just Do It!
Beer & Exercise – Just Do It!
Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience.com,
After a grueling sports match or a brutal workout, there’s often nothing more refreshing than a nice cold beer…
But what about the drink’s intoxicating effects?
When the human body requires recovery after strenuous exercise, will downing a beer actually backfire?
Patrick B. Wilson, an assistant professor in exercise science at Old Dominion University, and Jaison Wynne, a PhD student in the Department of Human Movement Sciences at Old Dominion explored this, and a variety of other questions in the first systematic review of beer’s effects on exercise performance, recovery, and adaptation. Here are four key takeaways:
1. Athletes are much more likely than non-athletes to drink beer. Numerous surveys suggest that athletes from the collegiate level to the elite level are more likely to drink beer than non-athletes. This seems counterintuitive, as one might think that people who need their bodies to operate at peak performance would drink less. Not so.
2. Beer isn’t great for hydration after exercise. Wynne and Wilson found two studies where the researchers asked subjects to strenuously exercise, then drink beer. The exercise prompted the participants to profusely sweat, leading to an average 2% reduction in body mass from water loss. Afterwards, the researchers gave subjects water, nonalcoholic beer, ~5% alcohol beer, or a sports drink to replace all the fluids they lost. Subjects given beer retained fewer fluids, urinated more, and had worsened fluid balance a couple hours after exercise. These differences disappeared after a few more hours, however.
3. Moderate drinking the night before a competition likely won’t impair performance. A study that had athletes consume between zero and six beers the night before a test of muscle strength and endurance found that drinking two beers or less did not impact performance. However, drinking four or more was detrimental.
4. Regular drinking doesn’t seem to hinder athletic gains over many weeks of exercise. In one study, subjects were prescribed ten weeks of high-intensity interval training along with drinking either vodka, water, or beer after their workouts. There was no difference in physical outcomes between any of the groups – they all got fitter to the same degree. In another study, participants took part in a vigorous aerobic exercise program while drinking six 750-mL bottles per week of either 0.9% or 5.0% beer. Both groups’ cardiorespiratory fitness increased by the same amount, although the low-alcohol beer group enjoyed other metabolic benefits that the high-alcohol group did not, such as lower blood pressure and lower blood lipid levels.
Overall, Wilson and Wynne found that moderate beer consumption after exercise was generally harmless.
“Chronic changes in body composition, as well as muscle performance, adaptation, and recovery, seem largely unaffected by moderate beer consumption,” they wrote.
Here’s proof…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 22:20 - Countdown To The Next Lockdown: Biden Says "In All Probability" US Will See More Restrictions
Countdown To The Next Lockdown: Biden Says “In All Probability” US Will See More Restrictions
By now the narrative has gotten so absurdly grotesque and stupid, it’s as if a platoon of monkeys or, worse, woke SNL writers put it on the back of a shampoo bottle.
Today, when we discussed how US consumers have already burned through almost all of their savings from Biden’s fiscal firehose…
… just as the next burst of inflation is about to come and unleash a stagflationary recession or worse, we said that “there is just one event that could short circuit what appears to be a near-certain recession heading into 2022 and mid-term elections which would be devastating for Democrats faced with an imploding economy: another multi-trillion stimulus, just enough to kick the can by another 4-6 months. But for that to happen, the US economy needs to be shut down again which will only happen only once there is enough covid Delta-variant fearmongering. Which should also explain everything that’s happening right now.”
Well, guess what: after the CDC’s legendary flipflop which has steamrolled the credibility of “science”, and concurrent narrative whiplash it has made even the head of ultra-left liberals spin, today the president who earlier needed an aide to tell him he has “something” stuck to his chin, laid out the Delta endgame when he said that the US will, “in all probability,” see more guidelines and restrictions amid rising coronavirus cases…
🚨‼️ Did Biden just signal another LOCKDOWN???
“IN ALL PROBABILITY” more restrictions are on the way, says Biden ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ZMbldhJjdJ
— Chad Gilmartin (@ChadGilmartinCA) July 30, 2021
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… even if actual deaths – you know, the supposed reason why the CDC is so terrified of covid – have not budged.
Coming from a president who needs a teleprompter to be reminded what day it is, it wasn’t exactly surprising that Biden refuted the official White House position set just hours earlier on Friday, when White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “the way we see this is that we have the tools in our tool belt to fight this, this, this variant,” adding, “we are not going to head towards a lockdown.” She added that “our goal is to make sure that we are not headed towards that — that is not going to be the direction that we take, because we have the tools to prevent that,” Jean-Pierre said, unaware that her boss would make a mockery of her words just minutes later.
The administration’s conflicting comments come as a new study, leaked Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that the variant produces similar amounts of virus in vaccinated and unvaccinated people if they get infected, in effect also making a mockery of the entire previous “get vaccinated and be safe” narrative. But there was no choice: the finding “was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said Friday.
What she meant is that to have all the narrative pieces that the media needs to persuade America that another lockdown is in its own favor in order to release another $1-2 trillion in stimmies in a time when the admin is openly paying vaccine holdouts hundreds (and soon thousands) of dollars to get a jab, some sacrifices in terms of script continuity had to be made. As for the rest – well, that’s what a propaganda media is for.
Seeking to further demonize the unvaccinated, yet terrified of signing an unconstitutional executive order demanding everyone gets a jab with an experimental vaccine that still hasn’t gotten official FDA approval, the president has instead been urging corporations to do his dirty work for him and demanding that all employees get vaccinated. The wokest of them are already complying.
Biden also announced a number of new steps his administration will take to try to get more Americans vaccinated, including requiring that all federal employees must attest to being vaccinated against Covid-19 or face strict protocols (except for the USPS of course – one can’t piss off that particular labor union or the republicans will be celebrating an avalanche next November). And just to ensure that social animosity and hatred hits a new record, Biden slammed those unvaccinated Americans who believe they should have the final say over what goes into their bodies, be it a Chinese-engineered virus, or an experimental drug meant to enrich Pfizer shareholders: “You present a problem to yourself, to your family and to those with whom you work” Biden said.
And then there were the bribes: like any self-respecting liberal, Biden decided that the best way to incentivize tens of millions is to just give them free money, and this week the administration called on states, territories and local governments to do more to incentivize vaccination, including offering $100 to Americans for getting vaccinated, paid for with American Rescue Plan funding. Of course, since not everyone is an idiot, the unvaccinated now have an even greater reason to hold out, waiting for the bribe to grow to $200, $400, $800 and so on. Which in a country where printing and handing out money is the only business model left, may well be the real motive.
The administration chickened out short of pursuing a vaccination requirement for the entire country, however. Biden said Thursday that he didn’t know yet whether the federal government had the power to require vaccines, and White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the administration is not considering a nationwide requirement.
“That’s not an authority that we’re exploring at all,” Zients said; so instead of doing what Biden believes in – or at least pretends to – he will pass the potato and force corporations to do Biden’s dirty work for him and fire all those who refuse to get jabbed. At least they have many more years of stimmies to look forward to: after all, we are only on the Delta variant – by the time we get to Omega, the Fed will be printing a few hundred quadrillion every day…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 22:04 - Delta Variant Causes One Of China's Worst Outbreaks Since Wuhan
Delta Variant Causes One Of China’s Worst Outbreaks Since Wuhan
The delta variant has finally taken hold in China.
China, the original home of the coronavirus which first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, has reported its biggest outbreak of the delta variant yet after an outbreak centered around the city of Nanjing has spread across the country. As of Friday, Chinese officials have counted 206 new cases since July 20, with most of them occurring around Nanjing, although they have spread to 13 cities in at least 5 difference provinces.
Authorities say they have traced the outbreak back to a crew of airport workers who were cleaning a plane that had just arrived from Russia.
State media reported that a couple of the workers tested positive after failing to follow rigorous hygiene guidelines. So far, 7 people infected in the latest outbreak are in critical condition, not surprising considering that delta is believed to be more virulent and infectious, causing more severe infections in younger patients.
It’s the first outbreak in China since last month’s outbreak in Dongguan. Officials responded to that outbreak in the usual way – by locking down part of the city and ordering mandatory testing.
Beijing has a set strategy for handling COVID cases in keeping with the “zero tolerance” approach, something China’s public health authorities share with Australia, which is struggling with the economic fallout from its latest round of lockdowns. It typically involves new lockdown measures (or at least some kind of temporary restrictions on movement) while millions in the area are tested. Officials reportedly plan to test all of the 9MM+ people in Nanjing.
Nanjing is situated in China’s Jiangsu province, where thousands are currently locked down. Sichuan and Liaoning provinces have also reported cases.
The latest outbreak is also raising more questions about the efficacy of China’s Sinovac vaccine, which is facing criticism for its low efficacy. Several Asian countries have opted to ditch the Sinovac jab despite its favorable price.
And now that delta has finally taken hold in China, the variant will put these vaccines to the test, just like it did in the UK, Continental Europe, India and – of course, – the US.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 22:00 - The Roots Of The Elite Left's Attack On Freedom
The Roots Of The Elite Left’s Attack On Freedom
Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),
“The CRT debate is just the latest squall in a tempest brewing and building for five years or so,” wrote Andrew Sullivan earlier this month in “What Happened to You: The radicalization of the American elite against liberalism.” Sullivan is correct that the left has turned sharply against freedom in recent years. And he vivisects the illiberal ideology about race and justice espoused by many schools, private corporations, and government agencies. However, in dating the origins of the larger tempest, Sullivan is off — depending on how you count — by about 50 years, 100 years, or perhaps 250 years.
Many Americans associate the recent round of the culture wars to the Yale University Halloween costume imbroglio of 2015. That autumn, a university official sparked outrage among undergraduates by suggesting that they should manage their own Halloween parties. Erika Christakis — at the time a lecturer in Yale’s Child Study Center and associate master at Silliman College — advised students that they were capable, without the aid of university authorities, of using their own good judgment when choosing a Halloween costume and letting classmates know if they crossed the line of good taste or failed to respect the feelings of others.
Some students vehemently disagreed. A vocal group demanded that the university oversee their parties and punish those whose holiday garb offended other students’ sensibilities.
Yale’s faculty said little. But university President Peter Salovey concluded that the controversy somehow confirmed — despite many years of effort and the expenditure of considerable sums of money to increase minority representation on campus —the persistence of deep-seated racism at the university. He announced the allocation of tens of millions of additional dollars to support racial-sensitivity training for administration, faculty, and staff, and the hiring of a decidedly more diverse — that is, racially diverse — faculty.
Student authoritarians — the same should be said of faculty and administration authoritarians — of this generation are the spiritual descendants of the student rebels of the 1960s. Students’ importuning universities to curb campus freedom today may seem like the opposite of students a half-century earlier who rebelled against university-imposed restrictions on freedom of expression, not least student attire. But the former carry forward the work of the latter. In the 1960s, students fought for free speech but as a means to give voice to their cutting-edge progressive sensibility, which included contempt for the logic and achievements of existing institutions and for the wisdom contained in old books and ideas. Today’s students, sustained by a campus culture in which that progressive sensibility prevails, wish to impose it on everybody — in part, by stifling free speech.
However, it was not university students — either today’s or those of the 1960s — who first introduced the idea that progressive moral and political ideas were objectively true, beyond reproach, and should be affirmed by all. That conceit we owe to the founders of the progressive era.
For example, in a 1912 essay, “The New Meaning of Government,” then-governor of New Jersey and soon-to-be president of the United States Woodrow Wilson worked out some implications of the progressive convictions that he had been articulating for decades both as a political scientist and president of Princeton University. Government, he argued, should be “an instrument of civilization and of humanity” managed by a new professional class of highly trained and scientifically adept technocrats. By virtue of their education and impartiality, they would rise above the mere “consent of the governed” in which the nation’s founders grounded the legitimate exercise of political power. They would discern “genuine public opinion” — that is, not the preferences people expressed through voting and the choices they made in all the other areas of their lives but the policies that the experts determined would promote the people’s better selves and best interests. Through efficient, rational, central administration, the experts would implement public policy that was unlimited by any consideration — including citizens’ expressed preferences — other than the experts’ authoritative reconstruction of “the purpose of the people of the country.”
On what grounds did progressives suppose that power must be shifted to experts because the people cannot be trusted to identify their own interests, much less the public policies that would advance them? “The Social Contract,” a 1762 treatise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, gave classic expression to the idea that the will of the people was something other than what the people said they wanted or for which they voted. His point of departure in search of “some sure and legitimate rule of administration” was the proposition that “[m]an is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau had in mind the chains of custom and tradition which, he believed, corrupt minds and hearts. A properly organized government, he argued, must see to it that each citizen “shall be forced to be free” of inherited beliefs, practices, and associations. Such coercion, Rousseau emphasized, must only be undertaken by those capable of accurately discerning the “General Will,” which reflects the people’s true interests and is “constant, unalterable, and pure.”
In line with Rousseau’s thinking, his intellectual and political minions through the centuries have believed that imposing on people what they ought to want reflects the highest expression of freedom and the purest form of democracy. However, these closet — and often not-so-closet — authoritarians tend to overlook Rousseau’s stern insistence that identifying and executing the General Will require exceedingly rare intelligence and character.
In “If you hate the culture wars, blame liberals” — a short, perceptive essay to which Andrew Sullivan refers in his analysis of the left’s intensifying illiberalism — progressive Kevin Drum provides evidence that his colleagues on the left would do well to take Rousseau’s stern insistence to heart. “It is not conservatives who have turned American politics into a culture war battle,” writes Drum. “It is liberals. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise: Almost by definition, liberals are the ones pushing for change while conservatives are merely responding to whatever liberals do” [emphasis in the original]. Left-liberals, however, are a peculiar sort of aggressor. While, as Drum observes, “Democrats have been moving further and further away from the median voter for years” on issues such as crime, immigration, and race, they also have been demanding greater and greater submission on the part of the public to progressive moral judgments and policy prescriptions. In other words, the left has adopted the quasi-Rousseauian view that the public is not merely mistaken but must be emancipated from their errors — in the contemporary case through the regulation of speech and the redistribution of privileges and punishments based on race, sex, and gender properly understood.
Drum suggests that many on the left err in seeing conservatives as the “culture-war mongers” owing to a distortion explained by behavioral economics. Since the pain of losing something is greater than the pleasure of gaining a good of similar value, conservatives have reacted more intensely to “‘losing’ the customs and hierarchies that they’ve long lived with” than have progressives to their victories — for example, in the Supreme Court’s recognition of the constitutional right to same-sex marriage; in spread of the idea of gender fluidity; and in the imposition of narrative control in the mainstream media, on giant social media platforms, and within universities. “This,” according to Drum, “produces more outrageous behavior from conservatives even though liberals are actually the ur-source of polarization.”
Drum’s principal concern is electoral. He believes that the Democratic Party’s leftward lurch, especially “the whole woke movement in general,” is in danger of driving away enough “moderate Black and Hispanic voters” to give Republicans the edge. He is right that tempering its positions while exercising “empathy and tact” would go a long way to enabling the left to reach out “to the vast middle of the country.” But he fails to appreciate that the casual disdain for those who depart from the progressive party line has been assiduously cultivated by elite institutions since at least the late 1960s. And that the squall through which he wants to help the left maneuver to safety is part of a tempest that has been swirling for 250 years.
To contain the culture wars, it is necessary to counter the left’s intolerant doctrine that the job of government is to force people to be free. Schools can do their part by teaching students the alternative set forth four years after the publication of “The Social Contract” in the Declaration of Independence. By helping students to understand how a government assigned the limited task of securing rights shared equally by all enables a diverse people to prosper, schools not only transmit crucial facts about American history but also foster the toleration on which free societies depend.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 21:40 - Manhattan's Hudson Yards Closes Iconic Building After Fourth Suicide, Developer Mulls Permanent Closure
Manhattan’s Hudson Yards Closes Iconic Building After Fourth Suicide, Developer Mulls Permanent Closure
The Vessel at Hudson Yards in Manhattan has been closed again after a 14-year-old boy jumped off the elaborate honeycomb-like structure that rises 16 stories Thursday afternoon. The teen’s death is the fourth suicide in 18 months since installation. The billionaire property developer behind the public sculpture is contemplating a permanent closure.
The New York City Police Department confirmed a 14-year-old boy jumped off the 150-foot set of spiraling staircases Thursday afternoon, just before 1300 local time, according to NBC News.
The public sculpture reopened in May after new rules and a ticket fee. It was closed in January after the third suicide was seen in less than one year. All of the victims are ages between 14 and 24.
Stephen Ross, the property developer who constructed the Hudson Yards complex, told NBC News, “It’s hard to really fathom how something like that could happen.”
“But I feel terrible for the family,” Ross said. “I want to explore every feasible possibility we can, but for now the Vessel is closed.”
He told The Daily Beast he was discussing permanently closing the Vessel.
Hudson Yards spokeswoman Kimberly Winston said, “we’re heartbroken by this tragedy and our thoughts are with the family of the young person who lost their life. We are conducting a full investigation. The Vessel is currently closed.”
The Vessel opened to the public in 2019, offering anyone who wants to climb 154 flights of stairs magnificent views of the western part of Manhattan and the Hudson River.
Although Vessel had been initially slated to cost $75 million, projections were later revised to $150 to $200 million.
The only way to prevent suicides is to extend the height of the railings, but that may block views.
So what will Ross do with his massive $200 million public art sculpture?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 21:20 - Buchanan: For What Will We Go To War With China?
Buchanan: For What Will We Go To War With China?
In his final state of the nation speech Monday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte defended his refusal to confront China over Beijing’s seizure and fortification of his country’s islets in the South China Sea.
“It will be a massacre if I go and fight a war now,” said Duterte.
“We are not yet a competent and able enemy of the other side.”
Duterte is a realist.
He will not challenge China to retrieve his lost territories, as his country would be crushed.
But Duterte has a hole card: a U.S. guarantee to fight China, should he stumble into war with China.
Consider. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Manila we would invoke the U.S.-Philippines mutual security pact in the event of Chinese military action against Philippine assets.
“We also reaffirm,” said Blinken, “that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”
Is this an American war guarantee to fight the People’s Republic of China, if the Philippines engage a Chinese warship over one of a disputed half-dozen rocks and reefs in the South China Sea? So it would appear.
Why are we threatening this?
Is who controls Mischief Reef or Scarborough Shoal a matter of such vital U.S. interest as to justify war between us and China?
Tuesday, in Singapore, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed the American commitment to go to war on behalf of the Philippines, should Manila attempt, militarily, to retrieve its stolen property.
Said Austin:
“Beijing’s claim to the vast majority of the South China Sea has no basis in international law. … We remain committed to the treaty obligations that we have to Japan in the Senkaku Islands and to the Philippines in the South China Sea.”
Austin went on:
“Beijing’s unwillingness to … respect the rule of law isn’t just occurring on the water. We have also seen aggression against India … destabilizing military activity and other forms of coercion against the people of Taiwan … and genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.”
The Defense secretary is publicly accusing China of crimes against its Uyghur population in Xinjiang comparable to those for which the Nazis were hanged at Nuremberg.
Austin has also informed Beijing, yet again, that the U.S. is obligated by a 70-year-old treaty to go to war to defend Japan’s claims to the Senkakus, half a dozen rocks Tokyo now occupies and Beijing claims historically belong to China.
The secretary also introduced the matter of Taiwan, with which President Jimmy Carter broke relations and let lapse our mutual security treaty in 1979.
There remains, however, ambiguity on what the U.S. is prepared to do if China moves on Taiwan. Would we fight China for Taiwan’s independence, an island President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger said in 1972 was “part of China”?
And if China ignores our protests of its “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against the Uyghurs, and of its human rights violations in Tibet, and of its crushing of democracy in Hong Kong, what are we prepared to do?
Sanctions? A decoupling of our economies? Confrontation? War?
This is not an argument for threatening war, but for an avoidance of war by providing greater clarity and certitude as to what the U.S. response will be if China ignores our protests and remains on its present course.
Some of us can still recall how President Dwight Eisenhower refused to intervene when Nikita Khrushchev ordered Russian tanks into Budapest to drown the 1956 Hungarian revolution in blood. Instead, we welcomed Hungarian refugees.
When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, President John F. Kennedy called up the reserves and went to Berlin to make a famous speech, but did nothing.
“Less profile, more courage!” was the response of Cold War hawks.
But Kennedy was saying, as Eisenhower had said by his inaction in Hungary, that America does not go to war with a great nuclear power such as the Soviet Union over the right of East Germans to flee to West Berlin.
Which brings us back to Taiwan.
In the Shanghai Communique signed by Nixon, Taiwan was conceded to be a “part of China.” Are we now going to fight a war to prevent Beijing from bringing the island home to the “embrace of the motherland”?
And if we are prepared to fight, Beijing should not be left in the dark. China ought to know the risks it would be taking.
Cuba is an island, across the Florida Strait, with historic ties to the United States. Taiwan is an island 7,000 miles away, on the other side of the Pacific.
This month, Cubans rose up against the 62-year-old Communist regime fastened upon them by Fidel and Raul Castro.
By what yardstick would we threaten war for the independence of Taiwan but continue to tolerate 60 years of totalitarian repression in Cuba, 90 miles away?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 21:00 - First Hong Konger Jailed Under Freedom-Crushing National Security Law Gets 9 Years
First Hong Konger Jailed Under Freedom-Crushing National Security Law Gets 9 Years
Tong Ying-kit, the Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrator who was convicted earlier this week for riding his motorbike into a crowd of Hong Kong police while carrying the Hong Kong liberation flag, has just been sentenced to nine years in prison, the first
Tong was arrested in July 2020, and he is the first of the more than 100 people arrested for their involvement in the demonstrations (which, at their peak, brought 2.2MM Hong Kongers out into the streets). According to the BBC, the hefty sentence “set the tone for how future cases might be interpreted,” according to BBC.
The arrests began after Beijing imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong, using a loophole in the Basic Law, the quasi-constitution that governs (or rather, once governed) the former British colony.
Others who are awaiting their own trials include Joshua Wong, the former student activist who achieved international reknown for his leadership of an earlier wave of pro-democracy protests in 2014, and publisher Jimmy Lai.
Tong was officially convicted on seccession charges because of the slogan on his liberate Hong Kong flag, and terrorism charges due to his “deliberate challenge against the police”. Much of Tong’s 15-day trial focused on the meaning of “Liberate Hong Kong revolution in our times,” the slogan written on Tong’s flag. The prosecution argued that the slogan calls for Hong Kong’s independence, which is explicitly illegal under the new national security law.
In the end, the judge agreed tht the phrase might “insice others to commmit seccession” and ruled that Tong was guilty.
Human rights lawyers immediately denounced the sentence as inhumane and “unreasonably long”.
“The casualty here is freedom of expression,” said human rights lawyer ark Daly to the BBC.
However, one Hong Kong lawyer explained that the sentence is well within the guidelines of the new national security law, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Whether any of the remaining activists will receive even harsher sentences of course remains to be seen. But this is hardly an encouraging sign. The decision even reportedly added to the headwings weighing on US stock futures Friday morning, as President Biden has sanctioned Chinese officials over Hong Kong. It’s certainly possible that the UK or US might at least directly denounce the sentence, further straining relations with Beijing.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 20:40 - When Society Collapses, Will The US Be One Of The Best Places To Be Located?
When Society Collapses, Will The US Be One Of The Best Places To Be Located?
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
On some level, we all know that it is just a matter of time before our society implodes. When that day finally arrives, where will you want to be living? I know that most of you have thought about this at some point. Even if we don’t admit it to others, most of us have spent at least a little bit of time thinking about worst case scenarios. Our world is getting a little bit crazier with each passing day, and that was definitely true today. We are cruising down a highway that doesn’t lead anywhere good, and it won’t be too long before the wheels start coming off. When the music finally stops and everyone is scrambling to find a chair, where will you be located?
Earlier today, I was surprised to learn that a scientific study was recently conducted to determine the best place to live during a global societal collapse.
According to that study, the best place to live when our world goes completely haywire will be New Zealand…
New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.
In recent years, New Zealand has become extremely popular with the elite. Many wealthy individuals have gobbled up properties in prime locations in anticipation of what is coming.
I used to recommend New Zealand too, but after what I have witnessed during this pandemic I can no longer do that. The top politicians in New Zealand have shown that they are authoritarian control freaks, and at this point I am urging everyone to avoid the country.
One thing that you will notice about the top five names on the list is that they are all islands. Having the natural protection of the ocean is definitely a desirable thing, but being close to shore also makes you vulnerable to tsunamis and rising sea levels.
Of course no place is perfect. Wherever you live, there are going to be certain risks.
The researchers that conducted this study said that a number of different factors were used to come up with the final results…
To assess which nations would be most resilient to such a collapse, countries were ranked according to their ability to grow food for their population, protect their borders from unwanted mass migration, and maintain an electrical grid and some manufacturing ability. Islands in temperate regions and mostly with low population densities came out on top.
When they were asked about the United States, the researchers said that the inability of the U.S. to prevent mass migration pushes it just out of the top 5…
That’s because its giant land borders make it vulnerable to migration from people who would be trying to escape climate disasters in their own countries: Think streams of people pouring over the southern border from Mexico or the northern border from Canada, for instance.
Still, the U.S. would have fallen somewhere just out of the Top 5, the researchers at Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. told DailyMail.com.
Unfortunately, I believe that there are other factors which need to be considered which should push the U.S. way down the list.
For example, during the riots of 2020 we clearly witnessed the potential for widespread civil unrest in this country. Major cities were burning from coast to coast last summer, and since that time we have been experiencing an unprecedented spike in violent crime.
So when things really start falling apart, I would strong recommend avoiding any of our core urban areas.
Another factor to consider is how authorities would react during a major pandemic. This week, the authoritarian side of Joe Biden has come out, and it has been quite frightening to watch.
I think that one lesson that we have all learned over the past year is that during a global health crisis you really want to be some place where you can simply be left alone.
The potential for natural disasters is another very important factor that was not mentioned by the researchers that conducted the study. Our world is not a stable place, and we saw another very clear example of this on Thursday. Alaska was hit by a magnitude 8.2 earthquake, and that represented the largest quake to hit the United States in more than 50 years…
The largest Alaska earthquake since 1965 caused a tsunami warning and local evacuations along the southwest Gulf of Alaska coast late Wednesday. After tsunami waves of less than 1 foot arrived onshore, the warning was canceled and coastal residents returned home.
Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said he expects any damage from the earthquake may be revealed in the morning.
We are being told that it was the sixth largest earthquake in the recorded history of North America, and it really shook a lot of people up…
In Sand Point, Patrick Mayer, the superintendent of schools for the Aleutians East Borough, was sitting in his kitchen when the shaking started.
“It started to go and just didn’t stop,” he said. “It went on for a long time and there were several aftershocks, too. The pantry is empty all over the floor, the fridge is empty all over the floor.”
Sadly, the truth is that this is just the beginning.
As I have detailed in “Lost Prophecies” and “7 Year Apocalypse”, I am deeply concerned about the potential for great natural disasters on both coasts and along the New Madrid fault zone in the middle of the country.
War is another factor that the researchers should have considered.
It is hard to imagine an entirely peaceful global societal collapse. And when a major war does erupt, it is probably inevitable that the United States will be right in the middle of it.
Right now, military experts are telling us that Taiwan is one of the key hotspots that could potentially spark a major war, and we just learned that China recently simulated an invasion of the island…
FEARS of World War Three have been sparked after China staged massive military drills “invading Taiwan”.
Beijing also boasted about defeating the US and the UK in any conflict – and says it is confident the advantages are on its side.
And I also think that it is very noteworthy that Russia and China are planning to conduct “joint military exercises” next month…
Russia and China will conduct joint military exercises involving 10,000 troops in mid-August, the Interfax news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Thursday.
So many of the trends that I have been watching for years are now starting to accelerate.
The hour is late, and time is running out.
But of course any sort of a “global collapse” is simply unimaginable to most Americans, and for now ignorance is bliss.
* * *
It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 20:20 - Survey Reveals How Americans Cope With Brutal Heat Wave
Survey Reveals How Americans Cope With Brutal Heat Wave
The Western half of the US has been plagued with a megadrought. Record-breaking heat waves pound the Pacific Northwest, and the wildfire situation in the region is worsening. All of these fast-changing weather phenomena have impacted Americans’ well-being.
Piplsay, a global consumer research platform, conducted a survey this month to get insights into what Americans are thinking and how they cope with the severe weather.
They found after polling 26,292 people that 47% of Americans say the ongoing heat waves have impacted their family’s health. Another 47% said their travel plans had been affected because of the extreme heat. About 61% of the respondents believe the ongoing heat waves and wildfires are a result of climate change.
The increasing frequency and intensity of such weather events have begun to impact how Americans cope with the heat. About 34% of respondents said they spent more of their time inside due to excessive heat. Twenty-one percent said they purchased an air condition unit, and 15% said they frequent beaches and pools.
The virus pandemic has already upended life in America. Now it appears extreme climate volatility is also changing how people live.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 20:00 - Biden Keeps Up Monthly Warship Transits Through Taiwan Strait
Biden Keeps Up Monthly Warship Transits Through Taiwan Strait
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
The Biden administration is sending warships through the Taiwan Strait on a monthly basis to stoke tensions with Beijing. The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold steamed through the sensitive waterway on Wednesday, the seventh such passage during Biden’s presidency.
In 2020, the Trump administration sailed warships through the Taiwan Strait 13 times, a record high, and a reflection of the US military’s new focus on China. The US also stepped up provocations in the South China Sea in 2020, conducting nine passages near Chinese-claimed islands in the disputed waters, also a record high.
USS Benfold (DDG-65), image source: US Navy On Thursday, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) slammed the US for its latest provocation in the Taiwan Strait. “The US is the biggest destroyer of peace and stability … and the biggest maker of security risks across the Taiwan Strait,” the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said in a statement.
China also reacted to a speech by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that he made on Tuesday in Singapore. The Pentagon chief stressed the importance of alliances in the region and slammed what he called Beijing’s “destabilizing military activity and other forms of coercion against the people of Taiwan.”
China’s embassy in Singapore published a statement on Thursday responding to Austin’s comments:
“He not only interfered in China’s internal affairs by referring to matters relating to Taiwan and Xinjiang, but also played up the so-called China threat in an attempt to drive a wedge between China and its neighbors. These remarks distorted facts and created falsehoods, only to serve the US geopolitical strategy,” the statement said.
The Biden administration views alliance building in Asia as part of its anti-China strategy.
Forward-deployed #USNavy guided-missile destroyer #USSBenfold conducts routine Taiwan Strait transit: https://t.co/JA38N4mdWb #DDG65 #FreeAndOpenIndoPacific @US7thFleet pic.twitter.com/zMgpH7VMDh
— U.S. Pacific Fleet (@USPacificFleet) July 28, 2021
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Austin also made stops in Vietnam and the Philippines this week to boost cooperation. Austin has vowed to focus on China, and his Pentagon has identified Beijing as the top “pacing threat” facing the US military.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 19:40 - "Extreme Staffing Shortages" Causes Trash Pile Up In Maryland
“Extreme Staffing Shortages” Causes Trash Pile Up In Maryland
President Biden’s socialist policy of having the government match or even surpass what private firms are paying has resulted in labor shortages countrywide. Shortages are rippling through every low-skill/low-paying job as people don’t want to work anymore. The problems are becoming so severe in one Maryland county that essential services, such as solid waste collection, are being affected.
Baltimore County, the third-most populous county in the state and borderlines Baltimore City, employs dozens of private companies to pick up residential trash. At least one company is experiencing a severe labor shortage of either CDL drivers or trash throwers, according to local news Fox45. This has resulted in trash, recycling, and yard material collection delays, and in some neighborhoods, garbage is piling up.
“We went to the hauler and asked what the situation is,” Michael Beichler, bureau chief of Baltimore County’s solid waste management department, said. “He’s having a rather common issue at this time. Lack of staffing … From unemployment compensation to people just who don’t want to do the work anymore.”
The situation is so dire that some trash trucks are being operated by just one person, instead of two or three:
“I’ve seen drivers out there that are stopping, getting out of their truck, dumping the trash in the back, and then getting back in and driving,” Beichler said. “Those are the heroes. They’re working without their labor force.”
At least one of the 36 private trash firms that pick up trash in the county is experiencing severe labor shortages, and that number is likely to rise.
‼️ UPDATE FROM THE BALTIMORE COUNTY BUREAU OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT:
Some trash, recycling and yard material collections in the #Catonsville area are running behind due to an extreme staffing shortage. The hauler is working hard to pick up materials when and where possible.
— Baltimore County (@BaltCoGov) July 21, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
What this means for county residents is that trash on specific routes will sit on the curb longer and could be susceptible to animals digging through or homeless searching for valuables.
The labor shortage is no longer affecting just the private sector but now essential services.
At the moment, there are approximately 9 million US job openings as Biden checks dish out generous benefits that disincentivize people from working.
What could worsen the labor shortage is another “emergency” stimulus round of a trillion or two in stimmies as economic activity has peaked.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 19:20 - The Shadow State: Twitter Suspends Commentator For Criticizing Vaccine Policies
The Shadow State: Twitter Suspends Commentator For Criticizing Vaccine Policies
I recently discussed how the Biden Administration was actively encouraging corporations to limit speech and impose vaccines mandates as a type of shadow state.
Rather than take such actions directly ( and face both legal and political challenges), the Administration is relying on its close alliance with Big Tech and other companies to carry out such tasks. That surrogate relationship is particularly clear in the expanding censorship program carried out by the Twitter, Facebook and other companies.
Twitter’s actions against political commentator Dave Rubin is an example of how these companies are now dispensing with any pretense in actively barring criticism of government policies and viewpoints.
Rubin was locked out under the common “misinformation” claim by Twitter. However, his tweet was an opinion based on demonstrably true facts. One can certainly disagree with the conclusion but this is an example of core political speech being curtailed by a company with a long history of biased censorship, including the barring of discussions involving Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election. With a new election looming, these companies appear to be ramping up their censorship efforts.
In his tweet, Rubin stated:
“They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines which are clearly not working as promised just weeks ago. People are getting and transmitting Covid despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in a sane society.”
Even President Biden admitted yesterday that he was wrong weeks ago when he assured people that if they took the vaccine, they would not be at risk for the variants and could dispense with their masks. There are breakthrough cases that have taken many officials by surprise. It is also true that there is now talk of likely booster shots.
Rubin takes those facts and adds his opinion that we should “take a pause.”
Twitter declared that to be a violation of its policy “on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.”
As always, Twitter simply refuses to explain its censorship decision beyond these generalized, categorical statements. It is not clear if Twitter is calling these facts misinformation or objecting to Rubin’s opinion about a pause. It does not matter. Twitter does not like his viewpoint and does not want others to read it or discuss it.
This is precisely what Democratic leaders pressed Twitter to do in past hearings. As previously discussed the hearing with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who followed up his apology for censoring the Hunter Biden story but pledging more censorship. One of the most chilling moments came from Delaware Senator Chris Coons who demonstrated the very essence of the “slippery slope” danger.
Dorsey: Well, misleading information, as you are aware, is a large problem. It’s hard to define it completely and cohesively. We wanted to scope our approach to start to focus on the highest severity of harm. We focused on three areas, manipulated media, which you mentioned, civic integrity around the election, specifically in public health, specifically around COVID. We wanted to make sure that our resources that we have the greatest impact on where we believe the greatest severity of harm is going to be. Our policies are living documents. They will evolve. We will add to them, but we thought it important that we focus our energies and prioritize the work as much as we could.
Coons: Well, Mr. Dorsey, I’ll close with this. I cannot think of a greater harm than climate change, which is transforming literally our planet and causing harm to our entire world. I think we’re experiencing significant harm as we speak. I recognize the pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm, but I’d urge you to reconsider that because helping to disseminate climate denialism, in my view, further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world. So thank you to both of our witnesses.
Notably, Dorsey starts with the same argument made by free speech advocates: “Well, misleading information, as you are aware, is a large problem. It’s hard to define it completely and cohesively.” However, instead of then raising concerns over censoring views and comments on the basis for such an amorphous category, Coons pressed for an expansion of the categories of censored material to prevent people from sharing any views that he considers “climate denialism”
There is, of course, a wide array of views that different people or different groups would declare “harmful.” Indeed, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal seemed to take the opposite meaning from Twitter admitting that it was wrong to censor the Biden story. Blumenthal said that he was “concerned that both of your companies are, in fact, backsliding or retrenching, that you are failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.” Accordingly, he demanded an answer to this question:
“Will you commit to the same kind of robust content modification playbook in this coming election, including fact checking, labeling, reducing the spread of misinformation, and other steps, even for politicians in the runoff elections ahead?”
“Robust content modification” has a certain Orwellian feel to it. It is not content modification. It is censorship.
The Rubin controversy captures this raw and biased censorship by Twitter and the other Big Tech companies. They do not want people to read such dissenting views so they declare them to be misinformation and ban the poster. It also shows how such censorship becomes insatiable and expansive with time. Once you give censors the opportunity to silence others, history shows that the desire for greater and greater censorship builds inexorably. We now have the largest censorship system outside of China and it is entirely run by private companies closely aligned with one party.
As Orwell wrote in 1984:
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 19:00 - America's Top Graduates Don't Want Jobs On Wall Street
America’s Top Graduates Don’t Want Jobs On Wall Street
Even after trading Midtown and Wall Street skyscrapers for the familiarity of their parent’s basement, the army of junior investment banking analysts employed at Goldman Sachs and the other major investment banks quickly found that there was no way to avoid the punishing 90+ hour weeks that are a hallmark of the investment-banking analyst programs across Wall Street. However, with the explosion of deals during the pandemic, a cadre of Goldman junior analysts decided to go public with their complaints about the hopelessly skewed work-life balance.
That sparked a conversation about whether investment banking analyst slots, once seen as a virtually guaranteed path to success in one of the world’s most lucrative industries, were still worth the tremendous effort required to succeed. While the jobs typically offer six-figure compensation packages, competition from the world of tech – not to mention the buy side, where both work-life balance and compensation are more desirable – has stunted their allure.
And as bankers rebel against management’s demands that they return to offices full-time, the NYT has just published a story proclaiming that “the lure of investment banking is fading” for the youngest members of the workforce.
To try and give their reporting an empirical basis, the NYT cited data from top MBA programs showing fewer graduates are finding jobs on Wall Street.
The number of applicants to banking analyst programs is hard to track, but business school data, which captures a slightly older cohort of potential financiers, shows a broad decline in interest in investment banking. Last year, the five top-ranked U.S. business schools sent, on average, 7 percent of graduates from their master’s of business administration programs into full-time investment banking roles, down from 9 percent in 2016. The decline was pronounced at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where bankers were 12 percent of the M.B.A. cohort in 2020, compared with more than a fifth of the class a decade earlier. Harvard sent just 3 percent of its 2020 class.
After the data, the reporters included a comment from an Accenture consultant who specializes in recruiting.
“The industry is not as attractive” as it once was, said Rob Dicks, a consultant at Accenture who specializes in recruiting in financial services. “Employees want a hybrid model, and the banks are saying no,” he said, referring to a combination of in-person and remote work. “The message is: ‘The bank knows best, we have a model for doing this, and you will conform to that model.'”
But perhaps the most tantalizing detail included in the story was an interview with Jamie Lee, the son of legendary JPM banker Jimmy Lee. Apparently, before his death, Jimmy Lee advised his son not to accept an offer for an analyst position.
“The technology sector has just completely changed the game,” said Jamie Lee, 37, who worked in banking before starting a venture-capital firm this year. “The opportunity cost is simply too high to be sticking around in a job where you’re not getting the treatment that you want.”
Mr. Lee’s father, the JPMorgan banker Jimmy Lee, was for decades one of the best-known players in his field, advising companies like Facebook and General Motors before he died in 2015. But when the younger Mr. Lee was finishing college in the mid-2000s, his father urged him to avoid the analyst programs.
“He said, ‘Honestly, J, the way that I’ve seen that we work these kids, I’m not sure that I want that for you,'” Mr. Lee recalled.
Even foreign students who once comprised one of the most reliable cohorts for young Wall Street recruits due to the high pay and visa help see tech companies as their No. 1 choice. If they are going into banking, most are hoping to work as an engineer, not a banking analyst.
Before graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 2016, Areeba Kamal worked for a summer as a trading intern handling complex bond products at Bank of America’s Midtown Manhattan tower. She arrived around 8:30 a.m. and often stayed until 10:30 p.m., trying to learn the intricacies of her product. She sent money to her family in Pakistan.
“If you’re an international student, early on you realize your two options are finance and tech,” said Ms. Kamal, 29, noting that those fields offer the most pay and help with work visas.
But after that summer in finance, she gravitated toward tech. “I don’t want to work 14 to 15 hours a day on something I don’t care about because it pays a ridiculous amount of money,” Ms. Kamal said. She now works for Apple.
In summary, maybe Goldman CEO David Solomon shouldn’t have been so dismissive of his junior employees’ complaints.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 18:40 - Wrong Predictions Don't Deter The Predictors
Wrong Predictions Don’t Deter The Predictors
Authored by Cal Thomas via The Epoch Times,
We have always had them among us: fortune tellers, diviners, readers of palms, tarot cards, tea leaves, stars, horoscopes, discerners of animal entrails, calling on gods of wood and stone, and all sorts of other “seers” who have attempted to convince the gullible that they have the power to predict the future.
To some, climate change proponents are little more than modern-day soothsayers that media continues to legitimize, even when their dire predictions of global catastrophe turn out to be not so dire.
The latest, but assuredly not the last, is President Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry. Kerry, whose scientific credentials are nonexistent, recently predicted we have only “100 days” to save the planet from climate disaster. That “Chicken Little” prediction was made at the U.N. Climate Summit a few days ago, so we had better subtract the days that have followed.
Kerry said on “CBS This Morning” in February that the world has “nine years” to avert a climate catastrophe.
What happened in the last five months to advance his forecast? He doesn’t say and reporters won’t ask him.
In 1967, a Los Angeles Times story reported, “It is already too late for the world to avoid a long period of famine,” this according to Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, author of the controversial book “The Population Bomb.” Ehrlich also said the U.S. population was “too big” and that involuntary birth control might have to be imposed through sterilizing agents put into staple foods and drinking water. Ehrlich added the Roman Catholic Church might have to be pressured into going along to control the population. In 2018, Ehrlich was still at it claiming that climate disruption was “killing people” and that the collapse of civilization is a “near certainty.”
America is not experiencing a famine, is it? And contrary to too large a U.S. population, the 2020 Census Bureau report showed that the U.S. population has slowed in the past 10 years to its lowest rate since the 1930s. To quote from a Stephen Sondheim musical, “I’m still here.”
In 1970, a scientist named James P. Lodge, Jr. predicted “a new ice age” by the 21st century. Here we are 21 years into the 21st century and some experts are saying the opposite. No wonder critics call it junk science.
Apologists often claim their predictions were based on information available at the time. Yet they want to make changes that would affect our lives and lifestyles, perhaps forever. It’s all about control, not individual freedom.
In 1972, two members of the Department of Geological Science at Brown University wrote President Richard Nixon following a “meeting of 42 top American and European investigators.” Their letter said, “The main conclusion of the meeting was that a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experienced by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility, and indeed may be due very soon.”
Nearly 50 years later we are still waiting on the sky to fall.
There’s much more for anyone who takes time to do the research.
Today, because of fear surrounding COVID-19, we have similar apocalyptic statements emanating from politicians and scientists. Are these statements their attempt to obtain more power for themselves and rob us of our individual liberties and the right to make our own choices?
Has much changed since those ludicrous statements were made a half-century ago? Are doomsday predictions being repeated in new ways today by John Kerry and his fellow climate scare travelers?
Will we resist, or blindly follow?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 18:20 - Farms Along California Delta In Jeopardy Amid Fears Senior Water Rights Could Be Curtailed
Farms Along California Delta In Jeopardy Amid Fears Senior Water Rights Could Be Curtailed
The water crisis in California is so severe that State Water Resources Control Board has suggested it may soon approve emergency drought measures preventing landowners with pre-1914 water rights from diversions within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region, according to Western Farm Press.
The board’s decision will be made during an Aug. 3-4 meeting. If the new measure is approved, notices throughout the expansive inland river delta and estuary in Northern California will curtail water diversions to protect dwindling supplies amid a megadrought.
For the last century, the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, or California Delta, has been claimed for agriculture use.
There are about 5,000 users in the Delta area, with exemptions only for human health and safety and non-consumptive uses. Most farmers within the Delta have pre-1914 rights and have been managing to bring their crops to harvest.
Ashley Lorenzo of Great Valley Poultry in Manteca told Farm Press that if water diversions for senior rights holders were halted, it could force many farm operators into financial disaster.
“As it stands right now, everything seems to be okay,” Lorenzo said in late June. “We try to conserve as much as we can.”
In recent weeks, the board has increased restrictions on water usage, issuing stop-diversion notices to 4,300 junior rights holders in the Delta.
Pre-1914 water rights along the California Delta are considered senior. If the new measure is passed next week, rights holders would have seven days to confirm in writing that they have stopped drawing water.
The implications for senior water rights to be curtailed could be damaging to crops produced along the Delta. It’s one of America’s most productive farming regions and is a multi-billion local economy.
The Delta is also considered the nexus of California’s water system. Besides surrounding farmland, the water is also exported to supply 23 million people in Southern California.
The latest US Drought Monitor data from July 22 shows much of California is in an “extreme drought.”
It’s only a matter of time before California and other Western US states prepare for additional water shortage measures. There’s also the possibility the first-ever federally declared water shortage could be issued.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/30/2021 – 18:00
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