Today’s News 3rd April 2024

• Every NATO Country Already Has Troops In Ukraine, Estonia Says
  Every NATO Country Already Has Troops In Ukraine, Estonia Says

  Estonia has long been no friend of Russia, and a leading anti-Moscow hawkish voice within the Baltics, and that’s why a fresh interview by Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur in European media is raising eyebrows as he issued some very revealing statements.

  The defense chief said in the interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that all NATO countries already have NATO personnel stationed in Ukraine, but that they aren’t directly engaged in hostilities as they are there in advisory roles. He was responding to recent provocative statements by France’s Macron.

  “The reality is that every NATO member country already has military personnel in Ukraine, such as military attaches or people who travel to Ukraine from time to time,” the Estonian defense chief said. “What [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron said mainly related to personnel training,” he added, according to a translation in Russian media.

  

  Starting in late February Macron had told a gathering of top defense officials in Paris that Western boots on the ground in Ukraine should be an option as “we cannot exclude anything” in the pursuit of preventing Russia from winning the war.

  Still, in the interview Pevkur emphasized that currently there’s no serious talk of NATO troops directly participating in fighting and that “this has already been ruled out.”

  However, he did preview a very dangerous potential plan which would certainly lead to escalation: “Western defense officials are currently planning to set up training camps in Ukraine in a bid to avoid issues with border crossings and to speed up the preparation process,” Pevkur said to the Vienna-based publication.

  Already, Moscow has accused France of having significant numbers of its Foreign Legion present on the front lines. Russia has said it has attacked their positions in places like Kharkiv.

  Some European leaders have revealed information in the recent past which shows Defense Minister Pevkur’s words to be accurate.

  For example in February British Prime Minister Sunak’s office said that the UK is not planning a “large-scale deployment of troops” in Ukraine… “Other than a small number of personnel who are in the country supporting the Ukrainian armed forces, we have no plans for a large-scale deployment.”

  Dangerously, this shows that little by little, inch by inch, nuclear armed superpowers are at this rate continuously moving toward direct conflict in Ukraine. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/03/2024 – 02:45

• Escobar: The Sahel's 'Axis Of Resistance'
  Escobar: The Sahel’s ‘Axis Of Resistance’

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  The African Sahel is revolting against western neocolonialism – ejecting foreign troops and bases, devising alternative currencies, and challenging the old multinationals. Multipolarity, after all, cannot flower without resistance paving its path…

  

  The emergence of Axes of Resistance in various geographies is an inextricable byproduct of the long and winding process leading us toward a multipolar world. These two things – resistance to the Hegemon and the emergence of multipolarity – are absolutely complementary. 

  The Axis of Resistance in West Asia – across Arab and Muslim states – now finds as its soul sister the Axis of Resistance spanning the Sahel in Africa, west to east, from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea. 

  Unlike Niger, where the change in power against neocolonialism was associated with a military coup, in Senegal, the power change comes straight from the polls. 

  Senegal plunged itself into a new era with the landslide victory of Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44, in nationwide elections on 24 March. A former tax inspector who had just spent a fortnight stint in jail, Faye emerged with the profile of an underdog pan-African leader to turn the ‘most stable democracy in Africa,’ under French puppet incumbent Macky Sall, upside down. 

  The incoming Senegalese president now joins Ibrahim Traore, 36, in Burkina Faso, Aby Ahmed, 46, in Ethiopia, Andry Rajoelina, 48, in Madagascar, as well as future superstar Julius Malema, 44, in South Africa as part of the new, young pan-African generation focused on sovereignty. In his election manifesto, Faye pledged to reclaim Senegal’s sovereignty no less than eighteen times.  

  Geoeconomics is key to these shifts. As Senegal becomes a substantial oil and gas producer, Faye will aim to renegotiate mining and energy contracts, including the largest ones with British Petroleum (BP) and UK gold mine operator, Endeavor Mining. 

  Crucially, he plans to ditch the exploitative CFA franc – the French-controlled currency system used in 14 African states – even setting up a new currency as part of reshaping relations with neocolonial power France, Senegal’s top trading partner. Faye, echoing Comrade Xi Jinping, wants a “win-win” partnership. 

  

  African Sahel states

  Enter the Alliance of the Sahel States

  Faye has not yet been clear on whether he intends to kick the French military out of Senegal. Were that to happen, the blow to Paris would be unprecedented, as embattled Petit Roi Emmanuel Macron and the French establishment consider Senegal the key player when it comes to blockading landlocked Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, which have already left Paris in the (Sahel) dust.  

  The three latter states, which have just formed an Alliance of the Sahel States (Alliance des Etats du Sahel, AES, in the original French), are not only a major Paris nightmare after serial humiliations but also a big American headache – epitomized in the spectacular breakdown of military cooperation between Washington and Nigerien capital Niamey. 

  The culprit, according to the US Deep State, is, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

  Obviously, no one in the US Beltway has been paying due attention to the Russia–Africa diplomatic flurry since last year, involving all key players from the Sahel to the new African BRICS members Egypt and Ethiopia.

  In sharp contrast to its prior regard of Niger as a staunch ally in the Sahel, Washington is now forced to present a calendar date to get its troops out of Niger – after a military cooperation deal was annulled. The Pentagon cannot be involved in military training in Nigerien territory anymore.

  There are two key bases – in Agadez and Niamey – which the Pentagon spent over $150 million to build. Niamey was finished only in 2019 and is managed by the US military’s African Command, AFRICOM.

  Operational objectives are, predictably, shrouded in mystery. The Niamey base is essentially an intel center, processing data collected by MQ-9 Reaper drones. The US Air Force also uses the Dirkou Aerodrome as a base for operations in the Sahel.

  Now things get really exciting, because the presence of a de facto CIA drone base in Dirkou, manned by a handful of operatives, is not even acknowledged. This dark base allows intel collection everywhere in Central Africa, from west to north. Call it another classic example of former CIA director Mike Pompeo’s “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal.”

  There are roughly 1,000 US troops in Niger who may soon face ejection. The Americans are trying everything to stem the bleeding. Only this month, US Undersecretary of State for Africa Molly Phee visited Niger twice. Losing bases in Niger will translate into Washington following Paris in losing control of the Sahel – as Niger gets closer to Russia and Iran. 

  These bases are not essential to exercise surveillance over the Bab al-Mandeb; it’s all about the Sahel, with drones operating on their limit and violating every sovereign air space in sight. 

  Incidentally, a hefty delegation from Niamey visited Moscow in January. Then, last week, Putin discussed security cooperation in phone calls with Mali’s interim President, Assimi Goita, and Niger’s military junta President Abdourahmane Tchiani before talking to the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Nguesso. 

  Ivory Coast: The Empire turn-around

  Pro-west puppet regimes are dwindling fast all across the African continent. The Alliance of the Sahel States – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – may be the vanguard of an African Axis of Resistance, but there’s more, in the form of South Africa, Ethiopia, and Egypt as full BRICS members – not to mention serious candidates for the next wave of BRICS+, such as Algeria and Nigeria.  

  Russia, diplomatically, and China, commercially, plus the full weight of the Russia–China strategic partnership, are clearly focused on the long game – counting on Africa as a whole as a key multipolar player. Additional evidence was provided once again during the multipolar conference last month in Moscow, where charismatic pan-African leader Kemi Seba from Benin was one of the superstars. 

  Pan-Eurasian diplomatic circles even allow themselves to joke about the recent hissy fits by Le Petit Roi in Paris. The utter humiliation of France in the Sahel is likely one of the drivers of Macron’s chest-thumping threats to send French troops to Ukraine – who would be turned into steak tartare by the Russians in record time – and his eagerness to support Armenia’s current Russophobic stunts.

  Historically, the fact remains, that Africans considered the former USSR much more pliable and even supportive when it came to siphoning natural resources; that goodwill has now also been transferred to China. 

  As a regional integration platform, the Alliance of the Sahel States has everything it takes to become a game-changer. Senegal under Faye may eventually join, but Guinea already offers the geographical capacity to provide the alliance with credible maritime access. That will lead to the progressive extinction of the western-controlled, Nigeria-based ECOWAS. 

  Yet, never dismiss the Hegemon’s mighty tentacles. The Pentagon master plan does not entail abandoning Africa to a multipolar Russia–China–Iran sphere of influence. Yet no one across the Sahel’s Axis of Resistance buys the US ‘terror threat’ card anymore. There was virtually zero terror in Africa until 2011, when NATO turned Libya into a wasteland, then put boots on the ground and erected military bases across the continent.

  So far, the Alliance of the Sahel States is winning the sovereignty-first information war, hands-down. But there’s no question the Empire will strike back. After all, the whole game is tied to the Beltway’s supreme paranoia of Russia taking over the Sahel and Central Africa. 

  Enter the Ivory Coast, now that Senegal may be about to start flirting with the Alliance of the Sahel States. 

  Ivory Coast is more strategic to Washington than, for instance, Chad because Ivorian territory is very close to the Sahel alliance. Still, Chad has already recalibrated its foreign policy, which is no longer Western-controlled and comes with a new emphasis on getting closer to Moscow. 

  What lies ahead for Empire? Perhaps US ‘anti-terror’ drones shared with Paris at the French base in the Ivory Coast to keep the Sahel alliance in check. Call it the humiliated Gallic rooster embracing the Hegemon in West Africa without receiving even the crumbs of a stale croissant.  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 04/03/2024 – 02:00

• Leaked Files From Transgender Association 'Shocking' And 'Horrific' Admission, Critics Say
  Leaked Files From Transgender Association ‘Shocking’ And ‘Horrific’ Admission, Critics Say

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A leaked video and documents exposing the inner workings of the organization responsible for setting the so-called “standards of care” for gender transition treatments and surgeries on children is a “shocking” and “horrific” admission, critics say.

  

  The leaked files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health—better known as WPATH—reveal “widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults,” according to a 241-page report disclosing emails, documents, and an 82-minute video.

  Environmental Progress, a nonprofit organization led by founder and president Michael Shellenberger that obtained the files, released them to the public in an exposé on March 4.

  “The WPATH Files show that what is called ‘gender medicine’ is neither science nor medicine,” Mr. Shellenberger said in a statement. “The experiments are not randomized, double-blind, or controlled. It’s not medicine since the first rule is to do no harm. And that requires informed consent.”

  The files are “a shocking admission” by WPATH doctors and other medical practitioners privately acknowledging they’re not getting proper informed consent from parents and children before proceeding with gender transition treatments and surgeries, prominent civil rights attorney Harmeet Dhillon told The Epoch Times.

  Ms. Dhillon, the founder and CEO of the Center for American Liberty, which is representing several women who’ve allegedly suffered harm and irreversible damage as a result of WPATH’s recommendations of transgender surgery for gender dysphoric children and young adults, called the exposé “an important act of journalism.”

  “These leaked files show that behind closed doors, WPATH members are admitting to the fact that they’re not getting informed consent for hormonal and surgical interventions from young patients, which is the very premise of our litigation for young women who’ve been mutilated by these doctors when they were children,” she said.

  The Center for American Liberty has taken on three pro-bono cases representing detransitioners Chole Cole, Layla Jane, and Luka Hein, who are suing Kaiser Permanente and doctors who performed double mastectomies on these young women.

  The Report

  WPATH advocates for children to have access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to alter their body according to their gender identity, according to the report. This suggests that children should be able to understand the full ramifications of these drugs and procedures, and that their parents can provide informed consent.

  “But while WPATH publicly supports minors and their families consenting to these hormonal and surgical treatments based on a nebulous inner sense of self, privately, some members admit that consent is not possible,” states the report. “Behind closed doors, WPATH-affiliated healthcare professionals confess that their practices are based on improvisation, that children cannot comprehend them, and that the consent process is not ethical.”

  

  In video footage of an internal WPATH panel, Dianne Berg, a child psychologist, said experts wouldn’t expect children and youth to fully understand the effects of transgender procedures, because it is “out of their developmental range to understand the extent to which some of these medical interventions are impacting them,” according to the report.

  “What really disturbs me is when the parents can’t tell me what they need to know about a medical intervention that apparently they signed off for,” said Ms. Berg. She suggested encouraging patients to ask questions and offering a “real informed consent process” rather than what was happening, which is “not what we need to be doing ethically.”

  Jamison Green, an activist and former WPATH president, told the panel that sometimes patients avoid learning important information about procedures out of fear, saying, “People also are afraid many times about surgery, and so they can read other people’s descriptions about surgery, and they’ll miss details, or they’ll miss the most important piece of information for them simply because they’re afraid to read it.”

  Dr. Daniel Metzger, a Canadian endocrinologist, said gender doctors are “often explaining these sorts of things to people who haven’t even had biology in high school yet,” adding that even adults have limited knowledge of many of these medical interventions.

  WPATH guidance states that doctors must inform patients about “the potential loss of fertility and available options to preserve fertility.”

  But Dr. Metzger told the panel that “it’s always a good theory that you talk about fertility preservation with a 14-year-old, but I know I’m talking to a blank wall. … Most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of a brain space to really talk about [fertility preservation] in a serious way.”

  Less than week after Environmental Progress released the WPATH Files publicly, Britain’s National Health Service stopped the use of puberty blockers on children. NHS England said, “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of [puberty suppressing hormones] to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”

  Meanwhile, other European countries, such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, and France are also growing increasingly skeptical of what supporters call the “gender-affirmation model.”

  ‘They’re Doing It Anyway’

  Informed consent is a well-known pre-requisite for ethical medical treatments and procedures, and yet “the so-called transgender medical community” in the U.S. continues to prescribe this “gender-affirming care” for children, Ms. Dhillon said.

  “They’re doing it anyway,” she said. “The WPATH medical practitioners are fully aware that the gender-affirming care they’re pushing is based on shaky and inadequate medical research, but they continue to push it, ignoring the growing body of scientific evidence that is distancing mainstream medicine from these procedures.”

  The leaked video also reveals that what WPATH is stating publicly is the opposite of what its members they’re saying privately, Ms. Dhillon said.

  “They know what they’re doing is wrong and that’s what they say to each other behind closed doors. They’re not getting proper informed consent. It’s not working,” she said. “We’re enabling, through WPATH’s quack medicine ideology, 9-year-olds to decide that they’re able to change their gender.”

  “Gender-affirming” doctors and politicians in California, for example, continue to push puberty blockers as a safe, effective and reversible treatments and the only way to prevent suicide among gender dysphoric youth, but the facts say otherwise, Ms. Dhillon said.

  The Center for American Liberty litigation has shed the light on the fact that puberty blockers are “absolutely permanently damaging,” she said.

  

  “Every day detransitioners come out and announce that they’ve been told by their doctors [they] can’t have children,” she said. “All of our clients who have this so-called ‘treatment’ have permanently altered voices. They can’t reverse that even though they stopped taking the hormones.”

  A California law even enables 12-year-old children “to run away from home and seek refuge in LGBTQ homes to emancipate themselves” to pursue medical interventions such as the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone replacement therapy, and surgery without parental consent, she said.

  “This is all being justified and underwritten by these pseudo-medical standards even when doctors privately and openly admit they don’t know all the long-term effects of “their radical procedures” or how to deal with them, she said.

  The exposé reveals a WPATH member confirming fertility and sexual pleasure could be destroyed for young patients receiving gender-affirming care, Ms. Dhillon said.

  In any other field of medicine, doctors cutting off body parts “and then saying they don’t really know what the long-term effects of that are” would be considered “completely outrageous,” but in “this sexual experimentation field,” the same standards of care don’t seem to apply, she said.

  Every doctor who knowingly lied to patients should sued for medical malpractice and exposed to put an end to these practices, she said.

  WPATH Statement

  WPATH President Dr. Marci Bowers, issued the following statement on March 5:

  “WPATH is and has always been a science- and evidence-based organization whose recommendations are widely endorsed by major medical organizations around the world. We are the professionals who best know the medical needs of trans and gender diverse individuals—and stand opposed to individuals who misrepresent and de-legitimize the diverse identities and complex needs of this population through scare tactics. The world is not flat. Gender, like genitalia, is represented by diversity. The small percentage of the population that is trans or gender diverse deserves healthcare and will never be a threat to the global gender binary.”

  Blaine Vella, executive director for WPATH stated in a memo to association members on March 5:

  “This is and will continue to be our response to any media outreach. If any of you receive inquiries from the media, we request that you do not respond, send the request to us … and our media partners will respond with the statement above.”

  WPATH did not respond to an Epoch Times request for comment about the allegations.

  A year ago, WPATH and its U.S affiliate USPATH, doubled down on gender-affirming care for minors, saying they “vehemently oppose” legislation outlawing access to gender-affirming health care to “transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people.”

  ‘A Giant Experiment’

  Erin Friday, an attorney and co-leader of Our Duty, an international group that opposes gender ideology, especially for children and young adults, told the Epoch Times the WPATH Files are an admission that gender transition procedures are “a giant experiment.”

  Ms. Friday referred to the case of a 16-year-old girl from the report who developed large tumors on her liver after taking testosterone and other medications, and an oncologist and surgeon both indicated the hormones were the likely reason for the cancer, according to the report. Many other known or potential complications and other related medical conditions were also discussed in the document, along with evidence of a lack of research.

  “[T]here have never been any properly controlled trials in the wider field of gender medicine, which also consistently lacks long-term data,” states the report.

  “Gender-affirming” doctors don’t question a patient’s comorbidities, especially in matters of mental health, even though WPATH’s recommendations state that the goal of “gender-affirming care” is to partner with transgender and gender diverse people “to holistically address their social, mental and medical health needs and well-being while respectfully affirming their gender identity,” said Ms. Friday.

  “They push aside any patient mental health issue, regardless of whether its severe schizophrenia or a dissociative disorder,” she said. “They know that these people … have severe mental health issues and they transition them anyway.”

  

  Ms. Friday, whose daughter formerly identified as transgender but has since accepted her female form, anticipates the WPATH Files will lead to congressional hearings.

  The WPATH Files reveal much more than an organization that has overstepped its bounds, she said.

  “They have admitted to medical malpractice. They have admitted to lying,” she claimed.

  Hospital boards and medical societies, Ms. Friday said, would be “well-advised” to use the leaked WPATH Files as “an off-ramp,” to move away from such harmful practices.

  Dr. Shannae Anderson, a licensed psychologist in California and Virginia who fled California nearly two years ago after her license was threatened, told The Epoch Times the WPATH Files have exposed the “horrific” agenda behind gender-affirming treatments.

  In most states, the WPATH “standards of care” are the only treatment allowed, which means puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, social transitioning, and ultimately top and bottom surgeries, Dr. Anderson said.

  “It is illegal in most states to actually offer another treatment avenue, which is crazy,” she said.

  Another “absolutely horrifying” aspect of the leaked files is WPATH’s admission “they’re conducting these radical life-altering procedures on individuals with severe mental health disorders,” she stressed.

  Dr. Anderson, now the director of psychology and co-director of ethics and advocacy for the American Association of Christian Counselors, which bills itself as the world’s largest faith-based mental health organization, said gender-affirming care policies have hamstrung therapists from being able to talk freely with patients about gender dysphoria and trampled free speech.

  But, like other critics, she expects the WPATH Files exposé will lead to congressional hearings and more litigation to restore free speech so therapists can do their jobs.

  “Psychotherapy is speech. That’s what we do. We talk,” she said. “And so when there is this ban against talking and exploring someone’s gender dysphoria, we’re not even allowed to ask questions about it or explore it.”

  WPATH doctors admitting they know children cannot give informed consent is “a huge deal,” she said.

  Dr. Anderson, a native of Thousand Oaks, Calif., confronted the board at a Conejo Valley Unified School District meeting in June, 2022, alleging that 8-year-olds were being exposed at school to sexual issues including abstract concepts like transgender ideology, which she said was beyond their level of comprehension.

  “That is actually one of the reasons why I had my license threatened in California. I spoke before a school board about how teaching children about transgender ideology is inappropriate and dangerous because they can’t begin to comprehend all that goes into a transgender identity and transformation,” she said. “And, what the WPATH files expose is that I was right, essentially, that when they undergo these gender treatments, they cannot give informed consent.”

  WPATH members acknowledged not only that children can’t grasp the scope of what’s going to happen to them with these treatments, but neither can parents, and that they’re not disclosing all the risks and dangers associated with them “because they don’t know what they are,” she said.

  There isn’t enough research to determine the long-term effects of such treatments and procedures, and the research that does exist shows that a “watch and wait” treatment is best, because the vast majority of gender dysphoric minors outgrow the condition and accept their natural bodies, she said.

  

  Worst Medical Scandal in History?

  In a recent interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson, a well-known Canadian psychologist and author, Mr. Shellenberger said he was unfamiliar with WPATH at first.

  “I thought maybe people were exaggerating what was happening,” he said.

  Then, “a source or sources” gave him about 170 pages of the internal files from the discussion boards of WPATH, along with the video of WPATH leaders and members talking about some of the problems they were encountering.

  “These files put to rest any doubts anybody should have that what is happening is one of the greatest medical mistreatment scandals in human history,” he said. “It might be the worst. It’s certainly up there with lobotomies. It’s up there with the Tuskegee experiments.”

  Mr. Peterson responded, “It’s way worse than both of those.”

  The WPATH Files show “without a shadow of a doubt” that the people who are are performing these “mistreatments” are not getting informed consent, Mr. Shellenberger said.

  “And then they just sort of throw up their hands and they say, we don’t really know how to solve this problem. At no point in the video, does anybody say, ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,’” he said. “There’s a basic horror to it, but then at the intellectual level, you can’t help but be slightly fascinated by these people. What is wrong with them that they’re so in the grip of an ideology that they’re doing these mistreatments and never questioning … that perhaps they shouldn’t be doing them at all.”

  Mr. Peterson referenced Dr. Ken Zucker, a psychologist whose studies showed 88 percent of 2- to 12-year-olds in two separate studies of boys and girls clinically referred as experiencing gender dysphoria—who were not socially transitioned—later reported as adolescents and young adults they no longer suffered from the condition and were comfortable with their natal genders.

  “Leave them the hell alone till they’re 18,” Mr. Peterson said. “The man who established that was Ken Zucker. He ran the best journal that dealt with childhood gender dysphoria for years up in Toronto. That was his recommendation for treatment, and the bloody radicals ran him out of business 10 years ago.”

  Now doctors are doing the opposite and are recommending the “most extreme” treatments and surgical intervention possible and telling people “that if they don’t listen, their children are going to die, that they’re going to commit suicide, which is a complete bloody lie. There was never a bit of evidence for that, not even bad evidence. It was just a lie,” he said.

  Then, they offer “this absolutely cataclysmic treatment with unimaginably dire consequences to people who don’t even understand and can’t understand what they’re agreeing to” and tell them “that’s how they’ll find their true self,” he said. “So that’s where we’re at. It’s so sickening.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 23:40

• China Is The World Leader In Battery Recycling
  China Is The World Leader In Battery Recycling

  As many countries around the world scramble towards a green transition, a new era of electric cars is being ushered in and with it comes the need for batteries.

  While these batteries – also needed for home, industrial and grid energy storage – are being newly manufactured, Statista’s Anna Fleck reports that the market for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries is growing too, especially since it “conserves the critical minerals and other valuable materials that are used in batteries and is a more sustainable approach than disposal”, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency writes.

  Data from ACS Energy Lett cited in an article by Maria Virginia Olano on Canary Media shows how China was the leading country for this type of battery recycling in 2021, with 188,000 tons of existing and planned lithium-ion battery recycling capacity per year. It was followed by Germany and the United States, albeit with both countries lagging some way behind.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Since 2021, there have been even more plans for the expansion of lithium-ion battery recycling plants. According to researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, while the majority of lithium-ion battery recycling capacity is located in East Asia, Europe is also building capacity and could increase its recycling capacities to an estimated 400,000 tons per year by 2025.

  The extent to which policy exists on battery recycling varies greatly by country and region. For example, the European Council has now agreed to set the target for lithium recovery from waste batteries to 50 percent by 2027 and 80 percent in 2031 and has said that there will be a new rule on mandatory minimum levels of recycled content for industrial, SLI batteries and EV batteries. Olano of Canary Media argues that it’s the comparative lack of policy supporting the growth of lithium-ion battery recycling in the U.S. in past years that has held the country back in this regard, falling behind markets in Asia and Europe.

  One Bloomberg analysis says, however, that the recycling industry has “boomed too soon” in the U.S., as there are too many recycling plants and not enough discarded batteries to recycle, and “there won’t be for more than a decade”.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 23:20

• Compassionately Communicating Life: Kristi Noem
  Compassionately Communicating Life: Kristi Noem

  Commentary by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem via RealClear Wire,

  In 2022, the pro-life movement experienced a massive victory: For the first time in 50 years, the Supreme Court returned decision-making about abortion back to the states – to the people.

  

  Immediately after, the left and their allies in the media eagerly continued their half-century-long disinformation campaign to confuse the American people about what the ruling actually meant. Democrats lied to the American people that abortion had now been banned entirely, that mothers receiving abortions would be prosecuted, or that back-alley abortions would suddenly become the norm.

  None of that is true.

  And in this election cycle, Democrats will once again purposefully deceive the American people on this issue. We cannot allow these blatant lies to spread and must talk about life issues with truth, compassion, and hope.

  Every pregnancy involves two lives: a mom and an unborn baby. As South Dakota’s largest healthcare provider testified to our state legislature this past February, “We recognize that each time a mother walks through our doors, we’ve been entrusted with the health of two patients: the mother and the child.”

  In my state, we showed moms we are here to help them – that they are never alone. We expanded Paid Family Leave access for state employees; provided pregnancy counseling, resources, and tips on parenting; pointed moms and families towards available financial assistance; and even offered help on adopting a child or giving a child up for adoption. We created Bright Start to match first-time moms to available nursing services during pregnancy and up until their child’s second birthday.

  There’s more to do, but South Dakota stepped up and protected mothers and their babies with significant policy prescriptions designed to address many concerns. I’m a pro-life governor, and I’m proud of what we’ve done in my state. But what we support in South Dakota may not have support in South Carolina. That’s what the Supreme Court decision actually did – turn those issues back to the people in each state so they can decide.  

  I realize many in my own party don’t want to talk about this issue. However, the national conversation about abortion will only increase as we approach the November elections. Republicans should not and cannot be afraid to defend our position to protect mothers and their babies, expose lies from the left, and go on offense to expose the radical left’s extreme position on abortion.

  The radical left claims “abortion access is being restricted,” but more abortions took place in 2023 after the Supreme Court decision than in the years prior. The left says pro-life laws will lead to higher maternal mortality, but maternal mortality actually dropped by 60% in South Dakota in the first full year after the Court’s ruling. We have to expose that every Democrat in the U.S. Senate voted to allow abortion at any time, for any reason, right up until the moment of birth, and they demanded that you pay for it. Polling by Rasmussen shows a vast majority, 86% of the American people, reject the Democratic Party’s position.

  A majority of the people clearly agree with us on this issue and many others facing America.

  It’s bad enough that Democrats can’t define what a “woman” is – they also continue to belittle us by portraying women as single-issue voters who only care about abortion. The fact is only 16% of women in Michigan – a key swing state in the upcoming election – are single-issue abortion voters. While abortion will undoubtedly be an issue in the 2024 elections, polls show women care more about how illegal immigration is making them less safe in their communities, how persistent high gas and food prices cause them to struggle to take care of their families, and how America’s decline on the world stage will shape their kids’ future.

  Simply put, the America First Conservative policies are proven to be successful – and represent the best hope for a healthy, happy, and prosperous life for Americans who are born and unborn. This is the fight, and if we’re going to win hearts and minds, we can’t be afraid to enter the ring.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 23:00

• The Increasing Prevalence Of Autism
  The Increasing Prevalence Of Autism

  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the prevalence of autism among U.S. children has risen significantly in recent years.

  As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, while 6.7 in 1,000 children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in 2000, that number had risen to 27.6 in 1,000 children by 2020.

  This means that currently 1 in 36 children in the U.S. get diagnosed with ASD, up from 1 in 150 children 20 years ago.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The reasons for this increase in prevalence are not fully understood and likely complex.

  Some possible factors that have been proposed include better awareness and screening for autism, changes in diagnostic criteria and environmental or genetic factors.

  …ask RFK Jr what he thinks!

  RFK Jr. on Joe Rogan’s podcast discussing aluminum in vaccines, other toxins, etc. and the link to autism.#Kennedy, #JRE, #1999 pic.twitter.com/L0XJzR5UYl

  — OK To Question (@OkToQuestion) June 19, 2023

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

  Regardless of the reasons, this rise in the number of children with autism highlights the importance of early identification and intervention to help children with ASD reach their full potential.

  In recent years, major progress has been made in increasing awareness and acceptance of autism. Thanks to that progress, many people are now aware that autism spectrum disorders are a very diverse group of conditions, that go far beyond the often-stereotypical depictions of autism in film and television. According to the World Health Organization, autism spectrum disorders are “characterized by some degree of difficulty with social interaction and communication. Other characteristics are atypical patterns of activities and behaviours, such as difficulty with transition from one activity to another, a focus on details and unusual reactions to sensations.”

  This year’s World Autism Awareness Day, celebrated today, April 2, gives autistic people from all around the world the chance to share their perspective on how different societies are dealing with autism spectrum disorder. “Moving from Surviving to Thriving: Autistic individuals share regional perspectives” is the motto of this year’s observance, organized by the United Nations Department of Global Communications in collaboration with the Institute of Neurodiversity (ION), an organization established and run by neurodivergent people for neurodivergent people and allies.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 22:40

• White House Does Not Mention 'Transgender Day Of Visibility' on Spanish-Language Accounts
  White House Does Not Mention ‘Transgender Day Of Visibility’ on Spanish-Language Accounts

  Authored by Eric Lendrum via American Greatness,

  In yet another display of selective pandering and political hypocrisy, the Biden Administration notably did not make any mention of “Transgender Day of Visibility” on its Spanish-language social media accounts, instead only referring to it on the normal English-language accounts.

  As reported by the Daily Caller, the “Transgender Day of Visibility” was announced by the Biden White House to be on the same day as Easter Sunday, March 31st, a move that sparked widespread backlash and ridicule. While the White House’s X and Facebook accounts posted about it on Sunday, the Spanish-language versions, “La Casa Blanca,” made no such mentions of the new holiday.

  However, both the English- and Spanish-language accounts did make posts commemorating Easter itself.

  When White House spokesman Andrew Bates was asked about the discrepancy, he dodged the question completely and instead tried to turn it back around on conservative media.

  

  “That’s the case with most tweets from the English language account,” said Bates.

  “We’re grateful that FOX agrees with President Biden about recognizing Transgender Day of Visibility, having previously tweeted, ‘Trans Day of Visibility is dedicated to celebrating transgender people. To all the transgender men, women and non-binary folx, we see you and stand with you.’”

  “As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American,” Bates said in a later statement.

  “Sadly, it’s unsurprising politicians are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful and dishonest rhetoric. President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”

  The “Transgender Day of Visibility” is one of over 50 pro-LGBTQ commemorative days now recognized by the Biden Administration and multiple far-left groups.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 22:20

• Squatters' Rights By State
  Squatters’ Rights By State

  The debate about squatters’ rights in the United States has been heating up to the point where it elicited a response from the Biden Administration this week.

  In a statement it said that it was “critical that local governments take action” and that issues over squatters’ rights were watched by the administration but considered a local issue.

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, a string of high-profile squatting cases – with many centering on New York City – have made headlines recently. In February, news broke about a New York couple who had purchased a home in the suburb of Queens for long-term use of their disabled son, but was failing to evict a tenant who was a caretaker for the recently deceased former owner and had been expected to move out. However, as he had occupied the house for more than 30 days with alleged permission from the former owner, he couldn’t be easily evicted under New York City Law. In another NYC case, squatters are suspected to have killed a 52-year-old woman in March who entered her deceased mother’s apartment after having traveled from abroad to hand it over to new tenants.

  In the state as a whole, this law is not on the books. 

  Like in many states, however, New York’s squatters or adverse possession laws kick in after 10 years and allow a squatter to stake claim to a property after this time period, as seen in data published by the American Apartment Owners Association. 

  Cases of squatters earning rights in this context are rare, but not unheard of.

  In 2008, Oakland man Steven DeCaprio moved into an abandoned house in the city, fixed it up and successfully sued not only for occupancy, but for ownership in a process called adverse possession. In California, five years of continuous occupation are enough to stake a claim like DeCaprio’s but the process is arduous and includes being up to date on tax payments for the property, something that local authorities might not accept.

  Not taking into account the additional legal difficulties some claims under squatters rights face, California’s required occupancy period is one of the shortest in the country together with Montana’s.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Periods of seven years are on the books in Arkansas, Florida, Utah and Tennessee, even though the Florida statute will change as of July 1.

  Washington’s required period is pushed back to seven years as well if property taxes are paid and otherwise it is 10 years, like in several other states including Texas, Oregon, Arizona and South Carolina.

  New Jersey and Louisiana employ the longest periods at 30 years.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 22:00

• Michigan Congressman Under Fire For Suggesting 'Hiroshima & Nagasaki' Solution For Gaza
  Michigan Congressman Under Fire For Suggesting ‘Hiroshima & Nagasaki’ Solution For Gaza

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) has come under fire for saying Gaza should be handled like “Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” suggesting that he was calling for a nuclear bomb to be dropped on the Strip, which could kill millions of Palestinians.

  Walberg made the comments at a town hall last week when asked about the US funding the construction of a port in Gaza, supposedly to bring in more aid. “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said. “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.”

  

  The genocidal comments became public when they surfaced in a video on social media. In response to the controversy, Walberg claimed he was using a “metaphor” by naming the only two cities in the world that have ever been hit with a nuclear bomb.

  “I used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible, without putting American troops in harm’s way,” he claimed. “As a child who grew up in the Cold War era, the last thing I’d advocate for would be the use of nuclear weapons,” he sought to explain. 

  “My reasoning was the exact opposite of what is being reported: the quicker these wars end, the fewer innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire.”

  Israeli officials have frequently pointed to the US and Allied bombings of Germany and Japan during World War II to justify the mass killing of civilians in Gaza. Military historians say the destruction in Gaza is on par with the destruction of German cities, which are some of the most heavily bombed places in history.

  Walberg came under heavy criticism from fellow Michigan politicians for his reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including former Rep. Justin Amash, a Palestinian-American who lost family members to Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza.

  Amash said Walberg’s comments “evince an utter indifference to human suffering. The people of Gaza are our fellow human beings—many of them children trapped in horrific circumstances beyond their individual control.

  A video has widely circulated of Walberg’s original comments:

  Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg, pastor and “good” Christian, talks about his solution for #Gaza: Give it the Hiroshima treatment. “Get it over quick.”

  A sitting US Rep in a secret town hall feels comfortable musing positively about genocide. Listen. Share.#DemCastMI #DemCast pic.twitter.com/6BQGfWMVjZ

  — JMS 🫱🏻✋🏻 #DemCastMI (@WhitchMI) March 30, 2024

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  “For him to suggest that hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians should be obliterated, including my own relatives sheltering at an Orthodox Christian church, is reprehensible and indefensible,” Amash continued.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 21:40

• White Gold: Mapping US Lithium Mines
  White Gold: Mapping US Lithium Mines

  The U.S. doubled imports of lithium-ion batteries for the third consecutive year in 2022, and with EV demand growing yearly, U.S. lithium mines must ramp up production or rely on other nations for their supply of refined lithium.

  To determine if the domestic U.S. lithium opportunity can meet demand, Visual Capitalist partnered with EnergyX to determine how much lithium sits within U.S. borders. 

  

  U.S. Lithium Projects

  The most crucial measure of a lithium mine’s potential is the quantity that can be extracted from the source.

  For each lithium resource, the potential volume of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) was calculated with a ratio of one metric ton of lithium producing 5.32 metric tons of LCE. Cumulatively, existing U.S. lithium projects contain 94.8 million metric tons of LCE.

  

   

  U.S. Lithium Opportunities, By State

   

  U.S. lithium projects mainly exist in western states, with comparatively minor opportunities in central or eastern states.

  

  Currently, the U.S. is sitting on a wealth of lithium that it is underutilizing. For context, in 2022, the U.S. only produced about 5,000 metric tons of LCE and imported a projected 19,000 metric tons of LCE, showing that the demand for the mineral is healthy.  

  The Next Gold Rush?

  U.S. lithium companies have the opportunity to become global leaders in lithium production and accelerate the transition to sustainable energy sources. This is particularly important as the demand for lithium is increasing every year.

  EnergyX is on a mission to meet U.S. lithium demands using groundbreaking technology that can extract 300% more lithium from a source than traditional methods.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 21:20

• Multiple Buildings Collapse After Taiwan Hit By Strongest Quake In 25 Years, Tsunami Warning Issued
  Multiple Buildings Collapse After Taiwan Hit By Strongest Quake In 25 Years, Tsunami Warning Issued

  A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 – the strongest earthquake in 25 years to hit the island- followed by a smaller quake with a magnitude of 6.5 struck off Taiwan’s eastern coast Wednesday, according to the US Geological Survey, prompting tsunami warnings in southern Japan.

  The first quake, with a magnitude of 7.4, struck at 7:58pm ET (7:58am local time) and had an epicenter located about 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of the city of Hualien and shook buildings in the capital Taipei.

  

  It’s the biggest seismic event by magnitude since 1999, when the so-called 921 quake hit the island and killed more than 2,000 people, Taiwan weather authorities said during a press conference. There have been several aftershocks clustered on the island’s east coast.

  The second quake, with a magnitude of 6.5, hit 13 minutes later at 8:11pm ET, and was lcoated at almost the exact same spot as the first one: its epicenter was about 11 kilometers northeast of Hualien City.

  

  Hualien announced plans to shut down offices and schools Wednesday in the wake of the event. The island’s power provider, meanwhile, said nuclear power plant operations remain normal and power distribution in Taiwan had stabilized.

  People on the Chinese social platform Weibo said they felt the quake all across China, including in Shanghai and Guangdong.

  Tsunami waves reaching 1-to-3 meters were possible along some coasts of China and Taiwan, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. A tsunami warning was also issued for southwestern Japan’s Okinawa prefecture after the region was rocked by the quake.

  A tsunami warning — meaning waves of up to 3 meters are possible — was issued for Okinawa on Wednesday morning after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan, according to the Meteorological Agency. https://t.co/6AtF6Kjr2l

  — The Japan Times (@japantimes) April 3, 2024

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  Local residents were urged to evacuate from an expected tsunami of as high as 3 meters, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

  Clips posted on X showed local damage and landslides in the aftermath of the strong quake.

  WATCH: Strong earthquake causes landslide in eastern Taiwan pic.twitter.com/SQZFyd7zgj

  — BNO News (@BNONews) April 3, 2024

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  Others reported that multiple buildings had collapsed in Taiwan in the aftermath of the quake.

  JUST IN: Video shows damaged structures in Hualien, Taiwan, after powerful earthquake strikes region. https://t.co/NycGavyP0H pic.twitter.com/E2DDbnFj1q

  — ABC News (@ABC) April 3, 2024

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  🔥📷 BREAKING NEWS: Taiwan after a massive 7.5 magnitude earthquake. All the footage in one! pic.twitter.com/0PnHTCQ7zf

  — Ai HexBuilder ➁➁/➀➀ (@AiHexBuilder) April 3, 2024

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

  A 7.4 magnitude earth quake just hit Taiwan

  pic.twitter.com/ExEPFwDxkj

  — Dexerto (@Dexerto) April 3, 2024

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

  Turning to markets, the USDTWD is trading at 32.055/075, near Tuesday’s levels. Local equities are down 0.53%. New Taipei City, a satellite city outside of Taipei, has declared closure of schools and offices. Local equities and FX market remains will continue to operate.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 21:00

• The Weaponization Of The Secret Service Has Put Bobby Kennedy's Life At Risk
  The Weaponization Of The Secret Service Has Put Bobby Kennedy’s Life At Risk

  Authored by Blake Fleetwood via ScheerPost.com,

  Fifty years ago last summer, I met Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

  We were in a small group climbing on skis to a spectacular 14,000-foot pass in the snow-covered Chilean Andes. The light, fluffy, bottomless power is about eight feet deep on top of another eight feet of packed winter snow.

  We suddenly hear bullets ricocheting off a rock five feet away. The shots sound like someone quickly snapping his fingers. We look down the mountain; five Chilean Alpine troopers are spraying machine gun fire from their hips across a broad swath of the sloop.

  Bobby, about 15 feet in front of me, falls into the snow. I think he has been shot, and we are all goners. The shots keep cracking as the rest of us dive for cover into the deep snow. After 20 minutes of hunkering, we peer down the mountain to the stormtroopers. Bobby, the youngest of the group at 19, takes the lead as he stands waving a white handkerchief on top of a ski pole. 

  The troopers stop firing and motion for us to come down. Bobby goes up to the leader and starts talking to him. The gunman explains that there is going to be a change in the government, and they want to make sure that no one gets away. After inspecting our gear, they tell us to go on our way. 

  The army troopers, under the command of  General Augusto Pinochet, were supported with weapons and bullets supplied by the CIA. The army, with Henry Kissinger’s help and millions of U.S. dollars, was in the throes of staging a coup that, in a few weeks, would murder the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, as well as more than 5,000 other innocent civilians. 

  This incident helped form Kennedy’s antipathy toward forever wars and other U.S. Empire-building adventures.

  We have remained foxhole friends ever since. The same courage Bobby Kennedy showed on top of that mountain pass 50 years ago when facing machine gun-toting thugs he is showing today in his long-shot 2024 presidential campaign.

  

  This is why I am so fearful about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being shot at again. 

  The Kennedy campaign made its fifth formal request for Secret Service protection in March, citing a 67-page report of repeated death threats, nutjob letters, two heavily armed intruders to a campaign event, an invader in Kennedy’s Cape Cod house, and another man who invaded Kennedy’s home twice in one day when Kennedy and his wife, Cheryl Hines, were at home. 

  President Biden’s decision to deny Secret Service protection to Kennedy seems to be based on political considerations and weaponizes the Secret Service by making it necessary for Kennedy to raise and spend millions of dollars each month for security. 

  Kennedy appears to fit neatly into the law governing Secret Service protection for presidential candidates. 

  Biden could be helped by forcing Kennedy to continue to pay huge sums for private protection to protect himself, his family, and his supporters. Security costs the campaign 30 cents out of each dollar raised. 

  Biden’s motive is not based on historical precedent, the threats and dangers Kennedy faces,  existing laws, or the slightest compassion for a political family that has suffered so grievously.

  If the worst happens, Joe Biden will be accountable. Historically, a president can order Secret Service protection for a candidate on his own, as could the Homeland Security secretary, currently Alejandro Mayorkas, after consultation with the Congressional Advisory Committee — the leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives. For a comparison, lesser-known Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain was provided protection a year before the 2012 election by then-head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.

  The law states that the president and the secretary of Homeland Security have “broad discretion” in granting protection, and they have repeatedly done so, politics aside. 

  Secret Service records recently revealed the agency’s conclusions that Kennedy is at “elevated risk for adverse attention,” and after reviewing credible armed threats against Kennedy, the agency assembled a group of eight teams ready to step in quickly after they get the go-ahead. But they never got it.

  The threat to Kennedy is particularly acute because of his controversial politics and his family history—his father, RFK, Sr., a U.S. senator and presidential candidate, and his uncle, John F., a U.S. president, were both assassinated. RFK Jr. has provoked and challenged some of the most powerful forces in our country, especially concerning the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and endless foreign wars that so enrich defense contractors.

  The perils to Kennedy arise not only because of his name but also because of the mainstream media’s relentless demonization of him. 

  Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, the lead actress in the popular TV series Curb Your Enthusiasm, accused Biden of “playing politics” with her and RFK Jr.’s safety.

  “Yesterday, an intruder climbed the fence at my home and was arrested,” Kennedy tweeted a few months ago. “After being released from police custody later in the day, he immediately returned to my home and was arrested again.”

  In September, a heavily armed man impersonating a U.S. marshal and the CIA, with loaded concealed firearms and an accomplice, was arrested after infiltrating a private event. 

  No wonder Hines is scared and worried. The Kennedy name is a lightning rod, a bright target for disturbed and demented individuals.  

  Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation, filed a Freedom of Information request and lawsuit to determine why Kennedy’s multiple requests for Secret Service protection were not answered. Finally, they obtained a trove of previously hidden emails. 

  “These documents confirm the bureaucratic and political runaround the Biden administration went through to ultimately deny Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the requested Secret Service protection,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “The Biden administration’s refusal to provide Secret Service protection to Mr. Kennedy is dangerous and vindictive.”

  According to the reports, higher-ups ordered the Secret Service not to talk to Kennedy’s private security.

  Seventy percent of voters do not want Biden or Trump. According to a January 9, 2024, Gallup poll, Kennedy’s favorability rating of 52% is higher than Biden’s (41%) and Trump’s (42%). According to an earlier Gallup poll, 63% of U.S. adults think that the major parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.” This is a 7% increase from a year ago.

  Biden’s choice to deny Kennedy protection reflects insecurity, fearing Kennedy’s popularity and radical, transformative message have the potential to endanger his reelection. He might also worry that Secret Service protection will elevate Kennedy’s stature and give him a certain presidential aura as a credible contender among the media and voters. 

  For 55 years, every presidential administration has granted early protection to major candidates who requested it. The Biden administration is the sole outlier.

  If another Kennedy is killed while campaigning for president, it will be a long-lasting, traumatic stain on the American psyche that will scar the soul of our democracy for decades to come. Unfortunately, we live in violent, polarized times. The United States has surpassed 400 mass shootings in 2023, a record-breaking year in gun violence.

  The perils to any Kennedy running for office are self-evident. An assassination attempt would dredge up memories of 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr. were shot and killed, and George Wallace was gunned down and paralyzed, taking him out of the presidential race.

  The puzzling thing is that Biden has spent decades transfixed by the Kennedy mystique, tracing his interest in politics to John F. Kennedy. He was a long-time friend of JFK’s brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and has a bust of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy exhibited prominently in the Oval Office. Biden employs four members of the Kennedy family as ambassadors and special assistants. In fact, he admired RFK Sr. so much that he lifted some lines from one of his speeches without attribution in 1988. Perhaps Biden imagines himself as the Irish Catholic reincarnation of the Kennedys. Is it now possible that Biden resents Robert Kennedy Jr. for taking away that long-held dream? 

  President Biden, normally a compassionate man, knows that the Kennedy family has paid an unendurable, heartbreaking price for decades of enlightened public service. What  would Biden ever say to Ethel Kennedy, Bobby’s mother, if he were assassinated? Her husband and her brother-in-law were brutally murdered while serving their country. Two of her sons are already dead, perhaps from lingering trauma suffered from coping from their father’s so public assassination.

  What would Biden say to Cheryl Hines? What can he say to Kennedy’s six children and to any bystanders who might get shot and killed as collateral damage? In Ecuador recently, a presidential candidate was assassinated, and nine bystanders were injured. 

  The Biden administration has used various pretexts to justify its denial of protection for RFK Jr. The Advisory Committee that green lights  who gets Secret Service protection noted in its last rejection that federal protection should only be granted one year before the election. But now, seven months before the election, nothing has changed.

  Serious presidential candidates have routinely received early government protection. Senator Ted Kennedy received government protection in September 1979, 414 days before the November 1980 election. He was running against sitting president Jimmy Carter, who hated Ted Kennedy and deeply resented his attacks on him. But to his credit, considering the tragic Kennedy history, Carter knew it was his obligation and duty to protect Ted Kennedy and not weaponize the Secret Service. 

  Other examples of early Secret Service protection:

  • Sen. Barack Obama received protection 18 months, 551 days, before election day 2012, at the request of Sen. Dick Durbin.

  • Donald Trump and Ben Carson got protection in November 2015, a year before the election.

  • Herman Cain got protection almost a year before the 2012 election.

  • Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards each received protection in February 2004, nine months before the election.

  • Bob Dole was offered protection in March 1996, eight months before the election.

  • Pat Buchanan got protection in February 1996, nine months, 250 days, before the election.

  • Bill Clinton received protection in February 1992 after the New Hampshire primary, eight months before the general election.

  • Pat Robertson got it in December 1987, about 11 months before the election, before any of the 1988 primaries.

  • Jesse Jackson got protection in November, a year before the 1988 election.

  • Walter Mondale got protection nine months before the 1984 election.

  • Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney all received protection in February and March 2012, about 10 months before Election Day

  • Sen. Walter Mondale got protection in January 1984, 10 months before the election.

  • Ronald Reagan got protection in January 1980, 10 months before the election.

  To repeat: It is less than seven months before the Presidential election in November, and Kennedy still has not gotten the protection he and his family need and deserve. Nikki Haley, asked for Secret Service protection early this month because of increasing threats to her and her family. The Secret Service agreed to her request, even though she is no longer in the race.

  Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is outraged at the treatment that RFK Jr. has gotten, asking, “How do you address the fact that previous major presidential candidates, such as Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carlson, Barack Obama, and Senator Ted Kennedy, received Secret Service protection well over 120 days before the general election?” He also said, “I ask you to act swiftly to provide this major presidential candidate the protection that his exceptional circumstances so clearly warrant.”

  Biden’s indefensible inhumane decision must be reversed before it is too late. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 21:00

• Bring Back Gold!
  Bring Back Gold!

  Authored by Llewellyn Rockwell via LewRockwell.com,

  In these days of rampant inflation, it’s imperative that we return to the gold standard – and the real thing too.

  By this I mean the classical gold standard, not the so-called “gold exchange” standard, and with no fractional reserve banking, just as the great Murray Rothbard wanted. In what follows, I’ll discuss some of the economic issues below, but it’s important to realize that it’s a moral issue as well.

  

  I spoke about the difference between the classical gold standard and the fake gold standard. This might seem a technical issue, but it’s one of vital importance. Joe Salerno, the leading contemporary Austrian School authority on monetary economics and Academic Vice President of the Mises Institute, explains:

  “The historical embodiment of monetary freedom is the gold standard. The era of its greatest flourishing was not coincidentally the 19th century, the century in which classical liberal ideology reigned, a century of unprecedented material progress and peaceful relations between nations. Unfortunately, the monetary freedom represented by the gold standard, along with many other freedoms of the classical liberal era, was brought to a calamitous end by World War I.

  Also, and not so coincidentally, this was the “War to Make the World Safe for Mass Democracy,” a political system which we have all learned by now is the great enemy of freedom in all its social and economic manifestations.

  Now, it is true that the gold standard did not disappear overnight, but limped along in weakened form into the early 1930s. But this was not the pre-1914 classical gold standard, in which the actions of private citizens operating on free markets ultimately controlled the supply and value of money and governments had very little influence.

  Under this monetary system, if people in one nation demanded more money to carry out more transactions or because they were more uncertain of the future, they would export more goods and financial assets to the rest of the world, while importing less. As a result, additional gold would flow in through a surplus in the balance of payments increasing the nation’s money supply.

  Sometimes, private banks tried to inflate the money supply by issuing additional bank notes and deposits, called “fiduciary media,” promising to pay gold but unbacked by gold reserves. They lent these notes and deposits to either businesses or the government. However, as soon as the borrowers spent these additional fractional-reserve notes and deposits, domestic incomes and prices would begin to rise.

  As a result, foreigners would reduce their purchases of the nation’s exports, and domestic residents would increase their spending on the relatively cheap foreign imports. Gold would flow out of the coffers of the nation’s banks to finance the resulting trade deficit, as the excess paper notes and checks were returned to their issuers for redemption in gold.

  To check this outflow of gold reserves, which made their depositors very nervous, the banks would contract the supply of fiduciary media bringing about a monetary deflation and an ensuing depression.

  Temporarily chastened by the experience, banks would refrain from again expanding credit for a while. If the Treasury tried to issue convertible notes only partially backed by gold, as it occasionally did, it too would face these consequences and be forced to restrain its note issue within narrow bounds.

  Thus, governments and commercial banks under the gold standard did not have much influence over the money supply in the long run. The only sizable inflations that occurred during the 19th century did so during wartime when almost all belligerent nations would “go off the gold standard.” They did so in order to conceal the staggering costs of war from their citizens by printing money rather than raising taxes to pay for it.

  For example, Great Britain experienced a substantial inflation at the beginning of the 19th century during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when it had suspended the convertibility of the British pound into gold. Likewise, the United States and the Confederate States of America both suffered a devastating hyperinflation during the War for Southern Independence, because both sides issued inconvertible Treasury notes to finance budget deficits. It is because politicians and their privileged banks were unable to tamper with and inflate a gold money that prices in the United States and in Great Britain at the close of the 19th century were roughly the same as they were at the beginning of the century.

  Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I, all belligerent nations departed from the gold standard. Needless to say by the war’s end the paper fiat currencies of all these nations were in the throes of inflations of varying degrees of severity, with the German hyperinflation that culminated in 1923 being the worst. To put their currencies back in order and to restore the public’s confidence in them, one country after another reinstituted the gold standard during the 1920s.

  Unfortunately, the new gold standard of the 1920s was fundamentally different from the classical gold standard. For one thing, under this latter version, gold coin was not used in daily transactions. In Great Britain, for example, the Bank of England would only redeem pounds in large and expensive bars of gold bullion. But gold bullion was mainly useful for financing international trade transactions.

  Other countries such as Germany and the smaller countries of Central and Eastern Europe used gold-convertible foreign currencies such as the US dollar or the pound sterling as reserves for their own domestic currencies. This was called the gold-exchange standard.

  While the US dollar was technically redeemable in honest-to-goodness gold coin, banks no longer held reserves in gold coin but in Federal Reserve notes. All gold reserves were centralized, by law, in the hands of the Fed and banks were encouraged to use Fed notes to cash checks and pay for checking and savings deposit withdrawals. This meant that very little gold coin circulated among the public in the 1920s, and residents of all nations came increasingly to view the paper IOUs of their central banks as the ultimate embodiment of the dollar, franc, pound, etc.

  This state of affairs gave governments and their central banks much greater leeway for manipulating their national money supplies. The Bank of England, for example, could expand the amount of paper claims to gold pounds through the banking system without fearing a run on its gold reserves for two reasons.

  Foreign countries on the gold exchange standard would be willing to pile up the paper pounds that flowed out of Great Britain through its balance of payments deficit and not demand immediate conversion into gold. In fact by issuing their own currency to tourists and exporters in exchange for the increasing quantities of inflated paper pounds, foreign central banks were in effect inflating their own money supplies in lock-step with the Bank of England. This drove up prices in their own countries to the inflated level attained by British prices and put an end to the British deficits.

  In effect, this system enabled countries such as Great Britain and the United States to export monetary inflation abroad and to run “a deficit without tears” — that is, a balance-of-payments deficit that does not involve a loss of gold.

  But even if gold reserves were to drain out of the vaults of the Bank of England or the Fed to foreign nations, British and US citizens would be disinclined, either by law or by custom, to put further pressure on their respective central banks to stop inflating by threatening bank runs to rid themselves of their depreciating notes and retrieve their rightful property left with the banks for safekeeping.

  Unfortunately, contemporary economists and economic historians do not grasp the fundamental difference between the hard-money classical gold standard of the 19th century and the inflationary phony gold standard of the 1920s.” See here.

  Many people think that even if 100% reserve banking is desirable as an ideal, it would never work in practice. How could banks stay in business if they couldn’t lend their checking deposits? Doesn’t the supply of money need to expand as the economy grows? Murray Rothbard demolishes these objections with characteristic force:

  “Certain standard objections have been raised against 100 percent banking and against 100 percent gold currency in particular. One generally accepted argument against any form of 100 percent banking I find particularly and strikingly curious: that under 100 percent reserves, banks would not be able to continue profitably in business. I see no reason why banks should not be able to charge their customers for their services, as do all other useful businesses. This argument points to the supposedly enormous benefits of banking; if these benefits were really so powerful, then surely the consumers would be willing to pay a service charge for them, just as they pay for traveler’s checks now. If they were not willing to pay the costs of the banking business as they pay the costs of all other industries useful to them, then that would demonstrate the advantages of banking to have been highly overrated. At any rate, there is no reason why banking should not take its chance in the free market with every other industry.

  The major objection against 100 percent gold is that this would allegedly leave the economy with an inadequate money supply. Some economists advocate a secular increase of the supply of money in accordance with some criterion: population growth, growth of volume of trade, and the like; others wish the money supply to be adjusted to provide a stable and fixed price level. In both cases, of course, the adjusting and manipulating could only be done by government. These economists have not fully absorbed the great monetary lesson of classical economics: that the supply of money essentially does not matter. Money performs its function by being a medium of exchange; any change in its supply, therefore, will simply adjust itself in the purchasing power of the money unit, that is, in the amount of other goods that money will be able to buy. An increase in the supply of money means merely that more units of money are doing the social work of exchange and therefore that the purchasing power of each unit will decline. Because of this adjustment, money, in contrast to all other useful commodities employed in production or consumption, does not confer a social benefit when its supply increases. The only reason that increased gold mining is useful, in fact, is that the large supply of gold will satisfy more of the non–monetary uses of the gold commodity.

  There is therefore never any need for a larger supply of money (aside from the non-monetary uses of gold or silver). An increased supply of money can only benefit one set of people at the expense of another set, and, as we have seen, that is precisely what happens when government or the banks inflate the money supply. And that is precisely what my proposed reform is designed to eliminate. There can, incidentally, never be an actual monetary “shortage,” since the very fact that the market has established and continues to use gold or silver as a monetary commodity shows that enough of it exists to be useful as a medium of exchange.

  The number of people, the volume of trade, and all other alleged criteria are therefore merely arbitrary and irrelevant with respect to the supply of money. And as for the ideal of the stable price level, apart from the grave flaws of deciding on a proper index, there are two points that are generally overlooked. In the first place, the very ideal of a stable price level is open to challenge. Hoarding, as we have indicated, is always attacked; and yet it is the freely expressed and desired action on the market. People often wish to increase the real value of their cash balances, or to raise the purchasing power of each dollar. There are many reasons why they might wish to do so. Why should they not have this right, as they have other rights on the free market? And yet only by their “hoarding” taking effect through lower prices can they bring about this result. Only by demanding more cash balances and thus lowering prices can the dollars assume a higher real value. I see no reason why government manipulators should be able to deprive the consuming public of this right.

  Second, if people really had an overwhelming desire for a stable price level, they would negotiate all their contracts in some agreed-upon price index. The fact that such a voluntary “tabular standard” has rarely been adopted is an apt enough commentary on those stable-price-level enthusiasts who would impose their ambitions by government coercion.

  Money, it is often said, should function as a yardstick, and therefore its value should be stabilized and fixed. Not its value, however, but its weight should be eternally fixed, as are all other weights. Its value, like all other values, should be left to the judgment, estimation and ultimate decision of every individual consumer.” See here.

  If we want a true gold standard, can we get back to it? Of course we can. The inflationary monetary policy we have today is the key to the financial elites control over us. Without it brain-dead Biden and his gang of neocon controllers couldn’t function. We must prevail, and we can prevail. As I said in 2002,

  “The power to create money is the most ominous power ever bestowed on any human being. This power is rightly criminalized when it is exercised by private individuals, and even today, everyone knows why counterfeiting is wrong and knavish. Far fewer are aware of the role of the federal government, the Fed, and the fiat dollar in making possible the largest counterfeiting operation in human history, which is called the world dollar standard. Fewer still understand the connection between this officially sanctioned criminality and the business cycle, the rise and collapse of the stock market, and the continued erosion of the value of the dollar.

  In fact, I would venture to guess that a sizeable percentage of even educated adults would be astounded to discover that the Federal Reserve does more than manage the nation’s money accounts, that, in fact, its main activity consists in actually creating money that distorts production and creates inflation and the business cycle. In fact, I would go further to suggest that many educated adults believe that gold continues to serve as the ultimate backing of our monetary system, and would be astonished to discover that our money is backed by nothing but more of itself.

  We have our work cut out for us, to be sure, mainly at the educational level. We must continue to state the obvious at every opportunity, that the fiat system is exactly what it is, a system of paper money backed by nothing of real value. We must continue to point out that because of this, our economic system is not depression proof, but rather highly vulnerable to complete meltdown. We must continue to draw attention to the only long-term solution: a complete separation of money and state based on the commodity that the market has always chosen as money, namely, gold.

  This takes us back to our original question: is the gold standard history? Is it so preposterously unrealistic to advocate it that we might as well move to on other things? It won’t surprise you that my answer is no. If there is one thing that a long-term view of politics teaches, it is that only the long-term really matters.

  There will come a time when the current money and banking system, living off credit created by a fiat money system, will be stretched beyond the limit. When it happens, attitudes will turn on a dime. No advocate of the gold standard looks forward to the crisis nor to the human suffering that will come with it. We do, however, look forward to the reassertion of economic law in the field of money and banking. When it becomes incredibly obvious that something drastic must replace the current system, new attention will be paid to the voices that have long cast aspersions on the current system and called for a restoration of sound money.

  Must a crisis lead to monetary reforms that we will like? Not necessarily, and, for that matter, a crisis is not a necessary precursor to radical reform. As Mises himself used to emphasize, political history has no predetermined course. Everything depends on the ideas that people hold about fundamental issues of human freedom and the place of government. Under the right conditions, I have no doubt that a gold standard can be completely restored, no matter how unfavorable the current environment appears towards its restoration.

  What is essential for us today is to continue the research, the writing, the advocacy for sound money, for a dollar that is as good as gold, for a monetary system that is separate from the state. It is a beautiful vision indeed, one in which the people and not the government and its connected interest groups maintain control of their money and its safe keeping.

  What has been true for hundreds of years remains true today. The clearest path to the restoration of economic health is the free market undergirded by a sound monetary system. The clearest path toward economic destruction is for us to stop working toward what is right and true.” See here.

  Let’s do everything we can to end the Fed and restore the real gold standard!

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 20:20

• Chinese Illegal Immigrant Arrested After Sneaking Onto Marine Corps Base, Refusing To Leave
  Chinese Illegal Immigrant Arrested After Sneaking Onto Marine Corps Base, Refusing To Leave

  A Chinese national illegally in the United States was arrested last week after sneaking onto a Marine Corps base in California and refusing to leave, according to an official from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

  

  In a March 29 post on X, Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino confirmed that agents were called out to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California after the Chinese national entered the facility without authorization.

  “Subject was confirmed to be in the country illegally,” Bovino wrote, noting that the purpose of the incursion was still under investigation.

  That said, the Epoch Times has learned on background from CBP sources that the Chiense national tried to enter the base without authorization, and he was later transported to a nearby CBP station for further processing.

  Twentynine Palms is the largest Marine Corps base in the country.

  The breach comes amid numerous instances of Chinese nationals infiltrating US military bases over a span of several years.

  For instance, two Chinese nationals were arrested for illegally entering and taking photos at a U.S. Navy base in Florida in 2020, and a recent report by The Wall Street Journal estimates that there have been more than 100 similar incidents over the past few years.

  The head of the Border Patrol union recently warned about a sharp rise in the number of military-aged Chinese men crossing the U.S.–Mexico border illegally, which dovetails with CBP data. –Epoch Times

  According to the report, there’s been an ‘exceptionally high’ increase in the number of Chinese nationals – ‘particularly military-aged men,’ who have illegally crossed the US-Mexico border.

  Starting in February 2023, the number of single Chinese adults encountered by CBP began to rise. In February of this year, CBP agents encountered 5,455 single Chinese adults who had entered illegally – over twice the number of any other February on record.

  You can access this data by using the CBP portal. Screenshot of the parameters I set are below. This is for Border Patrol only (illegal crossings), and does NOT include data from CBP ports of entry. pic.twitter.com/v2PPfFdrEM

  — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 2, 2024

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

  According to the Associated Press, Chinese people were the fourth most common nationality crossing the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama en route to the United States, after Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, and Haitians.

  Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” wrote in a recent op-ed in The Epoch Times that of the Chinese migrants making the dangerous trek north from points in Central and South America, “almost all are desperate, seeking a better life for themselves and their children.”

  “Some, however, are coming to commit acts of sabotage,” he said.

  Mr. Chang explained that many Chinese nationals fly to Ecuador, which allows them to enter visa-free. Then, they travel to the southern edge of the Darién Gap, a 66-mile stretch of jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, typically crossing on foot. Once they get to the north side, they continue their journey to the United States, often by bus, according to the China expert.

  “Some migrants are almost certainly members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA),” Mr. Chang wrote. -Epoch Times

   What’s more, “These military-linked migrants, despite their affiliations, have been released into America.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 20:00

• Another Outlandish Overreach By The CDC
  Another Outlandish Overreach By The CDC

  Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Easter weekend was lovely in every way.

  And yet I could not stop thinking about the strange manner in which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has had such an outsized role in the ruination of American rights and liberties. This agency is supposed to be tracking infectious disease and finding ways out. This mandate became the leverage to allow them to impose nationwide mask mandates, a rental moratorium, a shutdown of the cruise industry, and otherwise send the whole country into fits of hysterics for two years and more.

  

  So it occurred to make an inquiry into how the CDC handles questions of election processes. This is rather important in a democracy. This is how we select our leaders and the central way in which we can claim that the people have some influence over the regime that rules us. It is because of elections that we can claim to be better than ancient despotisms or medieval feudalism. We rule ourselves through the vote. That’s the whole idea.

  As it turns out, the CDC had quite a large role in guiding election processes. Not that you can find the evidence on their website now. Nope, it’s all been scrubbed. However, if you look at the Wayback Machine, you can find an interesting little point. The CDC strongly recommended mail-in, absentee, and early voting as a means of disease control.

  The theory was that people gathering in a polling place would be a super-spreader event. What science did they cite to demonstrate this? None at all. So far as I know, and I’ve looked far and wide, there is not a single study anywhere that purports to show some relationship between disease spread and in-person voting. The CDC just made that up… for whatever reason.

  The day was March 12, 2020. This was the same day that President Trump went on national television in the evening to announce that there would be no more travel from the United States to Europe, the UK, and, later, Australia and New Zealand. He further said that all Americans living abroad needed to come home right away or be stuck.

  That was a pretty shocking announcement. Nothing like this had ever happened in American history, not even this broadly in wartime. It seemed to come out of nowhere, our rights to travel suddenly deleted.

  It seems that President Trump was following the advice of his scientific advisors who later turned out to be snake oil salesmen. Indeed, he seemed extremely uncomfortable making this announcement, almost like he knew that it was weird and probably unwarranted. Strange night.

  As it turns out, earlier that day, the CDC decided that the whole country really ought to be voting by mail. They went into the website and edited the page that very day and produced the following checklist.

  

  You can see for yourself at the Archive link. So far, the CDC has not proven itself powerful enough to scrub also its bread crumbs from the archive source, not yet in any case. The time might come. If they succeed, their role in creating the biggest voting scandal in a hundred years might never have been known by future generations.

  There is simply no way that the CDC could not have known about the uncertainties and vagaries created by absentee ballots. They are banned by half the countries in the world for that reason. Those that do allow them govern them very strictly. You have to request a ballot. They are sent to your home. You have to provide extensive identity verification. You have to have a darn good excuse. It’s only for hardship cases and never the norm.

  It was the CDC that decided to throw all that in the trash. Who even cares about the whole history of democracy, because, after all, there is a virus floating around! It’s amazing that this happened. But just as amazing is the idea of throwing out property rights, which they also did. But there it is.

  To be sure, they could not actually force this result. But they sure could grant some scientific heft behind the idea. It also helped that only 10 days later, the U.S. Congress voted $2 trillion in payments to the states, a portion of which was to implement CDC recommendations. Most states were happy to do so, again, with full knowledge that this strategy would yield results that were sketchy at best.

  As it turns out, of course, it was the mail-in ballots that might have made the difference in the election, or seemed to in any case. Everything got so much mixed up that it’s hard to say. And it’s not like people did not have warning signs of trouble. The primary season of that spring and summer yielded a slew of controversies about what was and was not true. There were more than enough controversies swirling about by the time of the general election.

  The crucial point here is that the CDC massively overstepped the bounds of its mandate by intervening in the processes by which Americans select its leaders, strongly pushing a method that was a known source of fraud. Nor has the CDC ever been held to account for this, not to my knowledge in any case.

  They were sued over the rent moratorium and the evil nationwide mask mandate. They lost both cases. But there has been no litigation against the CDC for disrupting the whole system by which we regulate elections. One might suppose that if an executive agency were to do something like this, they would have needed some permission from somebody. Surely such a gigantic change would and should require more than a low-level employee with logins to change a website text.

  Speaking of which, who actually did this and why? Aren’t these interesting questions? Why is no one asking them? Where are the investigations? Where is the outrage?

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 19:40

• Attempted Suicide Rates More Than Double After Gender-Reassignment Surgery: Study
  Attempted Suicide Rates More Than Double After Gender-Reassignment Surgery: Study

  Rates of attempted suicide who identified as transgender more than doubled after receiving a vaginoplasty (surgically turning one’s dick into a vagina), according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Journal of Urology.

  

  The study looked at rates of psychiatric emergencies both before and after gender-altering surgery among 869 males who went under the knife, and 357 females who underwent phalloplasty (turning one’s vagina into a dick) in California between 2012 and 2018.

  While researchers found that rates of ‘psychiatric emergencies’ were high both before and after gender-altering surgery, suicide attempts were markedly higher among those who received vaginoplasties, the Epoch Times reports.

  “In fact, our observed rate of suicide attempts in the phalloplasty group is actually similar to the general population, while the vaginoplasty group’s rate is more than double that of the general population,” wrote the author of the study.

  Among the 869 patients who underwent vaginoplasty, 38 patients attempted suicide—with nine attempts before surgery, 25 after surgery, and four attempts before and after surgery. Researchers found a 1.5 percent overall risk of suicide before vaginoplasty and a 3.3 percent risk of suicide after the procedure. Almost 3 percent of those who attempted suicide after undergoing vaginoplasty did not present with a risk of suicide prior to surgery.

  Among the 357 biologically female patients who underwent phalloplasty, there were six suicide attempts with a 0.8 percent risk of suicide before and after surgery. -Epoch Times

  Aside from suicide attempts, the study found that the proportion of those who experienced an emergency room and inpatient psychiatric encounter was similar between the two groups – with 22.2% of vaginoplasty and 20.7% of phalloplasty groups experiencing at least one psychiatric encounter.

  According to the study, 33.9% of biological males undergoing vaginopasty would experience a post-surgery psychiatric encounter vs. 26.5% for biological women who underwent phalloplasty, if an episode had occurred before surgery.

  That’s a lot.

  As the Epoch Times notes further:

  Suicide Rate 19-Fold Higher

  In an interview with The Epoch Times, Dr. Alfonso Oliva, a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, said research into the psychiatric outcomes and long-term follow-up of those who have sex-reassignment surgery is lacking, but an important paper is worth mentioning. In a 2011 paper published in PLOS ONE, researchers found that people who underwent sex reassignment surgery had substantially higher rates of overall mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity compared with the general population.

  “It’s hard to refute this paper because it’s a longitudinal study,” Dr. Oliva said. “In Sweden, everyone is in a database, and through diagnosis codes, they’re able to follow what happens to every citizen in terms of their medical history. They waited more than 10 years after people had surgery and found that death by suicide had an adjusted hazard ratio of 19.1.”

  You can “quibble” about emergency room encounters, but this study shows that for patients who had transgender surgery, their suicide rate after 10 years was 19-fold higher than the general population, Dr. Oliva said. Additionally, the study excluded people with psychiatric illnesses, so these are individuals thought to have no psychiatric illness outside of dysphoria. 

  Surgical Procedures

  A phalloplasty is a multistep process undertaken by a biological female who wants to transition to a male, where a penis is created using tissues from the genitals and forearm or thigh. The external genitals, such as the labia or outer labia, are used to create a scrotum, and testicular implants are inserted months later along with an implant that will cause erections.

  Vaginoplasty is the most commonly performed gender-reassignment surgery for those with gender dysphoria, with more than 3,000 procedures performed annually. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, vaginoplasty is a surgical procedure that involves removing the penis, testicles, and scrotum to create a vulva and functional vagina. Surgeons typically create a vaginal canal using the skin surrounding the existing penis and scrotum or by using a skin graft from the abdomen or thigh.

  A penial inversion is the most commonly performed procedure where the skin is removed from the penis and inverted to form a pouch that is inserted into the vaginal cavity created between the urethra and the rectum. Surgeons then partially remove, shorten, and reposition the urethra and create a labia majora, labia minora, and clitoris.

  Another surgical method involves using a robotic system that enables surgeons to reach into the body through a small incision in the belly button to create a vaginal canal. The type of vaginoplasty performed varies among patients. For example, younger patients who have never experienced puberty may have insufficient penile skin to do a standard penile inversion.

  “When you take a child who’s about to undergo puberty—and they suggest giving puberty blockers to stop puberty at age 10 to 11 1/2—and when you do that for little boys, they aren’t able to get tissue from the penis and scrotum, so creating a vagina is very difficult,” Dr. Oliva told The Epoch Times. “You have to use tissue from other areas of the body, such as the peritoneum or the colon. Some researchers in Brazil are actually looking into using tilapia fish,” he added.

  After a vaginoplasty is performed, the recovery process is extensive and vaginal dilation must be performed at varying intervals throughout the patient’s life.

  Vaginoplasty Associated With Serious Risks

  In addition to an increased risk of suicide, vaginoplasty is associated with numerous physical complications, including wound separation, vaginal stenosis, hematoma, rectovaginal fistulas, granulation tissue, bleeding, infection, skin or clitoral necrosis, suture line dehiscence (when the surgical incision opens), urinary retention or vaginal prolapse.

  According to a 2021 paper in the International Brazilian Journal of Urology, a rectovaginal fistula is the “most devastating complication” of a vaginoplasty that can occur “despite careful technique” and without obvious injury to the rectum.

  A rectovaginal fistula is an abnormal connection between the rectum and vagina that can cause fecal incontinence, hygiene issues, vaginal or anal irritation, and potentially life-threatening abscesses and fistula recurrence.

  A 2021 review in Andrology found that rates of complications following penile inversion vaginoplasty ranged from 20 to 70 percent, with most of the complications occurring during the first four months following the procedure.

  In a 2018 Clinical Anatomy review and meta-analysis, researchers reviewed 125 articles to assess neovaginal complications following surgery. After selecting 13 studies that included 1,684 patients, they found a complication rate of 32 percent, with a reoperation rate of 22 percent for non-esthetic reasons.

  “For cosmetic surgery, if the complication rate was more than 2 percent to 3 percent, you wouldn’t have any patients,” Dr. Oliva told The Epoch Times. “These are very high percentage rates that we just accept.”

  Dr. Oliva said complications with these surgical procedures are very high and he thinks this is why suicide rates are so high.

  “People think this is going to solve the problem and it doesn’t,” he said.

  A June 2018 paper on postoperative outcomes of 117 patients who underwent vaginoplasty published in the Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons found that 26 percent of patients experienced granulation tissue, 20 percent had intravaginal scarring, and 20 percent experienced prolonged pain.

  In a 2017 paper published in The Journal of Urology, researchers followed patients who underwent penile inversion vaginoplasty. Of 330 patients, 95 (29 percent), presented with postoperative complications. Three of those patients developed a rectoneovaginal fistula, and 30 patients required a second operation.

  Story continues below advertisement

  In a 2016 study published in Urology, researchers retrospectively reviewed clinical records of 69 patients who underwent vaginoplasty from January 2005 to January 2015. Although complications during surgery were not reported, 22 percent of patients experienced major postoperative complications.

  “We’ve been transitioning adults in the United States since 2007, but where’s the data from gender identity clinics? Why is nothing published in the United States about long-term function? Why do we have nothing published on sexual function? We should be able to follow that and should be studying it and we’re not,” Dr. Oliva told The Epoch Times. 

  *  *  *

  “Trans people are strong and brave, also if you use a pronoun they don’t like they might kill themselves and it will be your fault” https://t.co/gWbDhoqY9u

  — Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) March 31, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 19:20

• Biden Administration Acknowledges "Challenge" With New Truck Emissions Rule
  Biden Administration Acknowledges “Challenge” With New Truck Emissions Rule

  By John Gallagher of FreightWaves,

  The Biden administration acknowledged that its aggressive push to decarbonize trucking will be costly — but that the federal government will be here to help.

  “The overarching challenge is aligning the market-driven desire from fleets to adopt zero-emission freight vehicles with the resources required to make it successful, and right now, they cost more,” said Gabe Klein, executive director of the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation.

  

  Speaking to NPR before the release on Friday of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new phase-three truck emissions rule, Klein said that “cost parity” has yet to be reached that would make electric trucks as affordable. A new Class 8 diesel truck costs roughly $180,000 compared with up to $400,000 for a battery-electric truck, according to estimates.

  “That’s why the federal government is providing subsidies, to bring it down closer to cost parity,” he said. “I will also say the charging infrastructure is of course a limiting factor. So we need to make sure everybody has access, not just the big fleets and companies.”

  EPA’s “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3” final rule, which applies to model years 2027 through 2032, avoids 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions — equivalent to the emissions from more than 13 million tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline, according to the agency. EPA also estimated $13 billion in annualized public health benefits.

  “In finalizing these emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles like trucks and buses, EPA is significantly cutting pollution from the hardest working vehicles on the road,” commented EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “Building on our recently finalized rule for light- and medium-duty vehicles, EPA’s strong and durable vehicle standards respond to the urgency of the climate crisis by making deep cuts in emissions from the transportation sector.”

  Timelines loosened

  According to the rule’s preamble, the new standards for heavy-duty trucks include less stringent standards for all vehicle categories in model years (MY) 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 than had been originally proposed last year.

  In addition, while emissions standards for sleeper cabs in the final rule begin in MY2030 as proposed, they are less stringent for that year and for MY2031. However, they are equivalent in stringency to what EPA had proposed for MY2032, the preamble notes.

  While placating environmental groups, much of the trucking firmly opposes the rule despite adjustments made to the final rule.

  “The post-2030 targets remain entirely unachievable given the current state of zero-emission technology, the lack of charging infrastructure and restrictions on the power grid,” commented American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear.

  He stressed that while the final rule includes lower zero-emission vehicle rates for the initial model years, rates in the later years will drive battery-electric and hydrogen investment and limit other potential zero-emission options.

  “While we are disappointed with today’s rule, we will continue to work with EPA to address its shortcomings and advance emission-reduction targets and timelines that are both realistic and durable,” Spear said.

  Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer called the new rules “unworkable” requirements.

  “This administration appears more focused on placating extreme environmental activists who have never been inside a truck than the small business truckers who ensure that Americans have food in their grocery stores and clothes on their backs,” Spencer said.

  Daimler throws in support

  But not all companies involved in heavy-duty trucking opposed the rule, particularly companies that have been investing heavily in zero-emission technologies, like vehicle manufacturer Daimler Truck North America (DTNA). The company had lobbied EPA for less aggressive timelines when the rule was proposed.

  “We thank the agency for addressing industry concern about the challenges of the early years of the rule and we remain committed to upholding the spirit of this regulation,” commented DTNA vice president Sean Waters.

  “Ultimately, the successful transition of the commercial vehicle industry is dependent on the availability of reliable zero-emission charging and refueling infrastructure and the ability to conduct business at a reasonable cost of ownership,” he added.

  Charging availability and cost was questioned by much of the trucking industry, which commissioned a recent study estimating the cost to install charging infrastructure at $1 trillion.

  Incentives needed

  The Biden administration’s Klein pushed back on cost concerns, however, pointing to incentives provided at the federal level.

  “We’ve already invested $253 million through the Department of Transportation — that’s charging and fueling infrastructure grants — just recently,” he said.

  “But there’s also a great deal of private sector funding. And really the goal here is to supplement the private sector, not to supplant their funding.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 19:00

• Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Bill Targeting mRNA Vaccines In Food
  Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Bill Targeting mRNA Vaccines In Food

  Following concerns over research to embed vaccines in produce, the Tennessee Senate has passed a bill which would require any food containing vaccines or vaccine materials to be labeled as pharmaceutical drugs.

  

  The bill, HB 1894, was passed by the Senate in a 23-6 vote on March 28 after the state House passed it 73-22 on March 4. It awaits the governor’s signature.

  The bill comes in response to a University of California-Riverside research project looking into whether mRNA which targets pathogens could be implanted into edible plants, which would then be consumed. The research was funded by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

  “You would have to get a prescription for that to make sure that we know how much of the lettuce you have to eat based off of your body type so we don’t under-vaccinate you, which leads to the possibility of the efficacy of the drug being compromised, or we overdose you based off how much lettuce is [eaten],” said Republican state Rep. Scott Cepicky during a House committee meeting in February, WKRN-TV reports.

  Cepicky said that the bill, which local media described as a move targeting “vaccine lettuce,” would classify foods modified to act as vaccines, as pharmaceuticals.

  “So if you want to consume them you would go to your doctor and get a prescription,” he said.

  In a 2021 press release, UC Riverside associate professor of Botany and Plant Sciences, Juan Pablo, said “We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens,” adding “Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”

  According to Pablo, “Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person.“

  Another researcher, Nicole Steinmetz, said in the same release that they planned to use nanoparticles or “plant viruses, for gene delivery to plants.”

  When asked by WKRN-TV about the status of the research, a UC Riverside spokesperson said that the project is not yet complete.

  “Research into the process of having plant chloroplasts express vaccine chemistry is ongoing. There are no definitive results to report,” said Jules Berinstein after the Tennessee bill was passed.

  Democrat Senators oppose

  During the debate on the Tennessee Senate Floor, some lawmakers questioned the need for the bill.

  “Does the sponsor know of any instances of there being food offered in the state of Tennessee that contains vaccines in some kind of a retail or public forum?” asked state Sen. Heidi Campbell.

  Rep. Cepicky hit back, highlighting in February that a Kentucky company has already been “infecting growing tobacco plants with a genetically modified coronavirus” to see if it can produce antibodies for a potential vaccine, adding that the company “can already do this right now.”

  Massie sounds the alarm

  In 2023, US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) raised concerns over the use of federal money to create “transgenic edible vaccines,” which would transform edible plants such as spinach and lettuce into mRNA vaccine delivery vehicles.

  Rep. Massie: “I Think It’s Dangerous to Play God with Our Food” 9/27/2023
  There’s a push to create edible vaccines—food products like tomatoes, lettuce, or milk that are genetically modified to have the effects of a vaccination when someone consumes them.
  Rep. Thomas Massie… pic.twitter.com/saA0JxZQfB

  — Camus (@newstart_2024) March 6, 2024

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

  In September 2023 during a debate over an appropriations bill, Massie highlighted an incident in which an edible vaccine was introduced into a corn crop used to feed pigs in order to mitigate diarrhea. The corn crop, however, became commingled with a soybean crop – contaminating 500,000 bushels that had to be recalled.

  “Do we want humans eating vaccines that were grown in corn meant to stop pigs from getting diarrhea? I don’t think we want that to happen. Yet that almost happened, and it could happen,” said Massie. “There is another case where the pollen cross-contaminated another crop of corn, and 155 acres of corn had to be burned. What are the cases where we’re not discovering this? I think it’s dangerous to play God with our food.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 18:40

• Can America's Middle Class Still Afford Homeownership In 2024
  Can America’s Middle Class Still Afford Homeownership In 2024

  Submitted by Sam Bourgi of CreditNews

  The middle class today isn’t what it was even as recently as just a few years ago. After the highest inflation breakout in nearly 50 years, many middle-class families have been priced out of the standard of living that most Americans took for granted not that long ago.

  

  The raging effects of inflation aren’t limited to consumer goods and services but to asset prices as well. In recent years, a growing chorus of politicians and pundits appeared to conclude that homeownership—one of the pillars of the American Dream—is no longer within reach for regular Americans.

  To put that theory to the test, Creditnews Research studied the relationship between income distribution and housing costs across the 100 most populous metropolitan areas in the United States.

  What we discovered reveals the story of two Americas: one where middle-class families can still qualify for an average home and one where they’ve been priced out entirely.

  The good news is there are still pockets of affordability across the country. The bad news is that affordable metros are declining rapidly.

  Key findings

  • In 2024, the middle class can afford an average home in just 52 of the top 100 metro areas in the United States—a decline from 91 in 2019;

  • Those in the lower-middle class are priced out of 93 of the top 100 metro areas, up from just 33 in 2019;

  • The most affordable metros for middle-class families are mainly located in the Midwest, Rust Belt, and parts of Texas. The most affordable metros in 2024 are Youngstown, OH; Toledo, OH; McAllen, TX; Scranton, PA; and Wichita, KS;

  • The most unaffordable metros for the middle class are mainly concentrated in California and the Tri-State Area—they are San Jose, CA; San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA; San Diego, CA; and Honolulu, HI;

  • The top five metros that, since Covid, have seen the largest increase in housing costs are all in California; they include San Jose, CA; San Diego, CA; Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA; and Oxnard, CA.

  • Metros that are affordable for middle-class families are in rapid decline. 39 of the 100 most populous metros became unaffordable since Covid alone.

  Housing affordability by income tier

  There’s no single definition of the middle class, but one of the most go-to benchmarks is Pew Research’s household income percentile ranges for economic classes, which go as follows:

  • Lower-middle class: 20th – 40th percentile

  • Middle class: 40th – 60th percentile

  • Upper-middle class: 60th – 80th percentile

  Based on these percentile ranges, America’s “middle class” households fall into three main income tiers:

  • Lower-middle class: $30,001—$58,020

  • Middle class: $58,021—$94,000

  • Upper-middle class: $94,001—$153,000

  Affordability is another variable that carries many assumptions and could be approached in multiple ways.

  For this particular study, Creditnews Research assessed affordability by calculating the minimum annual income households need to qualify for a mortgage on a typical home in each metro. A home is considered affordable if the monthly mortgage and housing payment doesn’t exceed 28% of a household’s gross income.

  Although a middle-class income is essential to broadening one’s access to home financing, it’s not enough to close the gap in the country’s largest markets.

  Based on the above criteria, middle-class households can afford an average home in just 52 out of the 100 top metros in 2024.

  

  These 52 metros represent a diverse cross-section of America but are mainly located in the Midwest, Rust Belt, Appalachia, and parts of Texas.

  For the lower-middle class, there are only seven affordable housing metros in the top 100—while the upper-middle class can afford homeownership in 87 of the top 100 metros.

  As one might expect, the qualifying income and monthly housing costs vary dramatically by city.

  

  In the most affordable cities across the Midwest and Rust Belt, a household income of below $70,000 is more than enough to qualify for a home. But that’s nowhere near enough along the Pacific Coast, Northeast, the Tri-State Area, and even parts of Florida.

  In total, 41 out of the 100 metros in the study require a gross annual income of at least $100,000 to qualify for an average home. Most of these areas are accessible to the upper-middle class. But not all. Thirteen metros require a household income of more than $155,000.

  The average monthly housing cost across the 100 metros amounts to $2,180, but again, there’s a huge variance between the lower and upper end of the range.

  In the most affordable city, homebuyers can expect to pay a mere $942 a month for their mortgage and related costs. On the flip side, the most expensive metro could set you back an eye-popping $9,931.

  Two Americas

  Today’s housing market is really a tale of two Americas.

  

  The Midwest and parts of the South continue to offer affordable options even for middle class households, whereas the ultra-desirable coastal cities are out of reach even for affluent buyers.

  The root cause of this divide is rather straightforward: in large coastal cities, the supply of housing hasn’t kept up with demand as more people flock to those places for work or lifestyle.

  In recent years, Americans have been stymied by the largest housing supply shortage in history—a well-documented contributor to record home prices.

  That’s on top of a generational spike in mortgage rates, which has priced many average Americans out of the threshold.

  Overall, middle-class households have 52 metros in the top 100 to choose from if they are looking for a home priced within their means. The question is whether they’re prepared to move or put down roots in those regions.

  Many Americans bemoan the idea of living in the Midwest or smaller southern cities and would prefer the bright lights of San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, or Boston.

  Unfortunately, these metros are the last places middle-class Americans should be going to buy a home. In fact, the same is even becoming true for the upper-middle class.

  As Creditnews Research found, a total of 11 metros have become unaffordable even for upper middle-class households since Covid. Six of those metros are located on the Pacific Coast and three on the East Coast.

  The most affordable metro areas

  With few exceptions, the majority of middle-class households (including lower-middle-class families) can decidedly qualify for a home in America’s 10 most affordable metro areas.

  Apart from El Paso, Syracuse, and Little Rock—which became out of reach for the lower-middle class—the following metros have held their own on affordability over the past half-decade.

  One state that makes several appearances on our most affordable list is Ohio.

  This is due in part to the state’s generous homeowner subsidies in the form of grants and tax credits, coupled with ongoing investments in home construction and affordable housing.

  Another catalyst has been the low down payment threshold throughout the Buckeye State, which, at $35,250, is outdone only by Iowa and Mississippi.

  Gary Painter, Ph.D, real estate professor at Carl H. Lindner College of Business, stated: “Given the relatively robust economy, a young household’s ability to afford a down payment in Cincinnati and other Ohio cities is quite high relative to regions of similar size across the United States.”

  The following cities represent the 10 most affordable metros in America, starting on the low end.

  

  1. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA: Youngstown shows up first in our rankings, with a monthly payment below $1,000 ($942) in 2024. To qualify for a typical home, buyers need an income of just over $40,000—well within the range of lower-middle-class and middle-class households. Youngstown’s population has fallen in recent decades but appears to have stabilized; the drop hasn’t been as drastic as peer cities Flint, Michigan, and Gary, Indiana. Housing prices are rising, but poverty in this city surpasses that of the state of Ohio.
  2. Toledo, OH: Ohio reappears in our rankings with the Toledo metro claiming the No. 2 spot. With an average monthly payment of $1,130, Toledo’s qualifying income for an average home jumps 20% from Youngstown to roughly $48,500. Average monthly housing costs in this metro soared 78% from pre-Covid (2019) levels of $635 to $1,130 in 2024. Even so, all segments of the middle class should be able to afford a house in this area. Catalysts driving Toledo’s real estate market include reasonable prices and a wide range of job opportunities across manufacturing, healthcare, education, and the public sector.
  3. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX: Rounding out the three most affordable metros is McAllen, where residents must earn just below $50,000 in income to qualify for an average home without stressing their budgets. Qualifying income has roughly doubled since 2019 when it was below $25,000. So has the average monthly payment, hitting $1,156 in that stretch. McAllen’s close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico makes it a less expensive alternative for families who prefer to live by the water. McAllen has come a long way from its beginnings as a private ranch in the late 1800s to a standout economy in the Rio Grande Valley. In a speech given in McAllen in 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott touted the state’s massive property tax cuts, which have helped to propel economic development in the region.
  4. Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, PA: Scranton takes the fourth spot in our rankings, representing Pennsylvania’s debut on our list. Households must earn a qualifying income of just over $52,000 to afford an average home in this metro and keep costs at 28% of earnings. Monthly housing expenses in 2024 hover at $1,215, a massive 80% jump versus 2019 when they were below $700. But the entire middle class should still be able to afford a house in this metro. Scranton’s housing market has become more competitive of late, with home prices climbing 4% in Q1 2023. Scranton’s population currently hovers at approximately 376,000 but is projected to reach nearly 400,000 by 2031 despite rising property taxes. Scranton is considered among the top metros in the country for economic development in its comp set and has gained a reputation as one of the best places in the U.S. to retire, owing in part to housing options.
  5. Wichita, KS: Kansas enters the most affordable housing fray thanks to Wichita, which claims the No. 5 spot. Given Wichita’s qualifying income of $55,243, middle-class households can afford this metro without breaking the bank with monthly payments of roughly $1,300 in 2024. But it’s a far cry from 2019’s qualifying income of below $23,000 and monthly housing costs of only $532. Wichita hasn’t been able to escape the real estate market headwinds of late, which has weighed on deal activity, but economic activity in the state has been growing hand over fist. In Q3 2023, Kansas’s GDP grew by nearly 10%, fueled by a booming farming community.
  6. Pittsburgh, PA: The northeast revisits our rankings with Pittsburgh in the No. 6 spot. Pittsburgh’s qualifying income of $55,457 for an average home places it in the same ballpark as the Wichita metro. With a monthly payment of slightly below $1,300, the entire middle class should be able to afford a home in this area. But that doesn’t mean affordability hasn’t deteriorated over the years. Monthly housing costs have soared 66% since 2019 when they were below $800. With approximately 303,000 residents, Pittsburgh’s population is about half of where it was in the 1950s, the collapse of which is aligned with the decline of the country’s steel industry. Home sales in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, sank 25% between 2021 and 2023 to an all-time low amid the high interest rate and low inventory environments.
  7. Akron, OH: Demonstrating its prominence among the most affordable cities, Ohio is back with Akron—the Rubber Capital of the World—snagging the No. 7 spot. Households must earn a qualifying income of $56,743 to afford an average home in this metro, a 44% jump compared with 2019 levels. But with an average monthly payment of just over $1,300, the middle class wouldn’t feel cash strapped owning a home in this area. Akron’s housing demand remained strong even throughout the latest industry downturn, buoyed by an emerging tech hub that makes the city an attractive destination for jobs.
  8. El Paso, TX: El Paso lassoed the No. 8 spot in our rankings, strengthening the Southwest’s grip among the most affordable metros. As the first metro in our rankings to exclude the lower-middle class, El Paso’s affordability has been slipping away since Covid. The city’s qualifying income and monthly housing costs have roughly doubled to $58,114 and $1,356, respectively, since the pandemic, making it increasingly difficult to afford. El Paso’s per capita income has been on the rise, a trend that is expected to persist into 2025, with a housing market that’s been fueled of late by out-of-state buyers hunting a bargain of late.
  9. Syracuse, NY: As the first metro to represent New York, Syracuse claims the No. 9 spot in our rankings. Syracuse joins El Paso as the second metro where the lower-middle class was priced out since Covid, with the qualifying income soaring from $30,228 to $58,157 in that period. Similarly, the average monthly payment has nearly doubled from about $700 to $1,357 since 2019. But Syracuse’s days among the most affordable metros are probably limited as the housing market continues to draw comparisons to Manhattan and San Francisco. The city has become a hotbed for tech startups and jobs, including the rise of Micron Technology’s semiconductor plant in nearby Clay, NY that’s projected to create 50,000 jobs.
  10. Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR: Rounding out the top 10 most affordable metros is Little Rock, where once again the middle class is getting squeezed. Residents must earn a qualifying income of $58,286 to comfortably afford a home in this area, a whopping 41% increase compared with 2019. Monthly costs have jumped a steeper 69% to $1,360. Even with that sharp rise, Little Rock is affordable enough to make it into the top 10. While affordability has been waning in this metro, the economy is buzzing with job growth as of Q4 2023 exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

  The least affordable metro areas

  America’s least affordable metro areas won’t come as too much of a shock, with luxurious Pacific Coast metros dominating the rankings.

  Half of the metros in this category are located in the state of California. Not to be outdone, Hawaii also makes an appearance, along with a trio of metros on the Eastern seaboard.

  America’s middle class is priced completely out of each of these metro areas, including the upper end of the income range at $153,000.

  

  1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA: San Jose takes first place with a qualifying income of $425,614 just to afford an average home. With an average home price of $1.5 million, the San Jose metro could see some relief from dwindling land on which to build. Surrounded by Silicon Valley, this metro area has been hit by a slow return to offices at tech companies like Zoom, PayPal, and X Corp, threatening to trigger a wave of out-migration and create what’s known as a “donut city” where residents and businesses relocate to the suburbs.
  2. San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA: It comes as no surprise that the tech capital of California is the country’s second least affordable metro for the middle class. With an average home price of $1.1 million, average monthly payments are just over $7,200, up from $4,679 five years ago. As part of California’s Bay Area, San Francisco has a reputation as one of the country’s most expensive real estate markets. Billions of dollars in investment continue to pour into this high-tech region, making it unlikely that housing prices will retreat anytime soon.
  3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA: Continuing with the California trend, Los Angeles rounds up to the top three least affordable metros. LA is the first city on our list to become unaffordable to the upper-middle class since Covid, with a $112,329 increase in qualifying income to $256,286. LA’s average home price hovers at $935,800, resulting in monthly housing costs of nearly $6,000. LA’s financial district is transforming into high-end apartments due to waning demand for offices.
  4. San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA: With an average home price of $924,365, San Diego is out of reach for every segment of the middle class, including the upper-middle class. Monthly payments for an average home are more than $5,900. Market dynamics don’t appear to be improving. San Diego led the nearly two-dozen cities tracked in the latest Case Shiller rankings, owing to an 11.2% increase in housing prices in the 12-month period ending in January 2024. Despite having a vibrant economy and a pristine climate, the vast majority of families couldn’t make it here.
  5. Urban Honolulu, HI: Honolulu rounds out the top five, joining the list of cities that have become too pricey for the upper-middle class. With an average home price of approximately $860,000, very few households outside of the wealthy can afford property here. A one-two punch of a tourism slowdown and recent wildfires have contributed to slower economic growth in Hawaii. But that hasn’t kept real estate values from rising amid strong demand for Honolulu’s beaches, rainforests, and spectacular views.
  6. Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA: Located in California’s Ventura County, Oxnard takes the No. 6 spot in our rankings. With an average home price of nearly $850,000, monthly payments have soared 77% since 2019 to $5,425. Ventura County has strict land-use rules, pressuring inventory and resulting in a shrinking population, including Oxnard’s middle class, a trend that’s forecast to persist in the coming years.
  7. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA: Representing Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle claims the No. 7 spot in our rankings. This metro’s qualifying income has more than doubled over the past decade and is no longer affordable to the upper-middle class. For everyone else in the middle class, Seattle is simply too rich for household budgets. With an average home price of $719,217, monthly payments are almost $4,600. New residents have been flocking to Seattle—the location of e-commerce giant Amazon’s corporate headquarters—for employment opportunities and income growth.
  8. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH: The Northeastern city of Boston ranks eighth on our list. Boston’s qualifying income of $181,971 reflects an increase of nearly $80,000 since the pandemic, reserving this metro for high-income households. With an average property price of $664,491, monthly housing costs are now about $4,246, up 77% since 2019. The Boston metro, which extends to Massachusetts cities Cambridge and Newton, plus the neighboring state of New Hampshire, boasts one of the highest in-migration rates among Gen Zers in the country.
  9. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA: The New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania metros make the cut as the least affordable areas. With a qualifying income of $173,786, New York became out of reach for even the upper-middle class after the pandemic. With an average home price of $634,651, monthly housing costs have climbed 65% higher since 2019 to $4,055. New York Mayor Eric Adams has made affordable housing a priority in the city, increasing financing for new construction and the preservation of affordable homes by 80% in 2023 year-over-year.
  10. Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT: Rounding out our top 10 least affordable metros is Bridgeport, CT. This metro, which also extends to Stamford and Norwalk, has a qualifying income of $163,371. With an average home price of almost $600,000, monthly housing costs hover at $3,812. Connecticut has been on the receiving end of an in-migration trend, adding 81,000 residents in 2022. With Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont implementing the biggest income tax deduction that the state has ever seen and lifting a tax credit for low-income workers, the trend is unlikely to reverse anytime soon.

  Housing affordability: Pre-Covid vs. 2024

  The fact that housing became more expensive after Covid is hardly breaking news. The question is, by how much?

  Our analysis shows that average Americans have to earn almost twice as much today compared to pre-Covid to qualify for an average home.

  Thanks to the doubling of qualifying income thresholds, 39 out of 100 of America’s most populous metros dropped out of middle-class affordability.

  Taking into account lower-middle-class families, that figure balloons to a staggering 60 metro areas.

  

  Perhaps predictably, the metropolitan areas witnessing the sharpest increases in income thresholds and housing expenses since Covid eerily match the 10 most unaffordable metros in 2024.

  1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA: In addition to being the most unaffordable metro in the country for the middle class, San Jose real estate has seen the largest increase since pre-Covid times. Home prices are up a whopping 73% versus 2019 levels. Average monthly payments in this metro are unnervingly close to $10,000 compared with pre-Covid levels of $5,716.
  2. San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA: Not only does San Diego make the top four least affordable metro areas, but it’s also seen one of the biggest spikes since the pandemic. San Diego has experienced a 95% increase in qualifying income since 2019 to $253,157.
  3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA: While Los Angeles was never really affordable for the middle class, since Covid, housing affordability has gone off the deep end. Between 2019 and 2024, housing costs in LA have soared by $112,329. Over that period, average monthly payments have increased by a staggering 78%.
  4. San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA: San Francisco joins the other major California metros with a massive spike in qualifying income standards since Covid, rising $109,492 since 2019 to $310,000 in 2024. But although residents here command a high income, even the upper-middle class doesn’t make enough to afford the average home.
  5. Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA: Oxnard is one of several California metros that have become out of reach for even the upper-middle class after Covid. Since the pandemic, qualifying income in this metro has soared almost $101,200, making it unaffordable even for those earning above $150,000.
  6. Urban Honolulu, HI: This Hawaii metro experienced a 64% jump in qualifying income since 2019 to $235,543. Over the past half-decade, Honolulu real estate has priced out even the upper-middle class with monthly payments nearing $5,500.
  7. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA: Since the pandemic, this metro’s qualifying income has increased by $88,253 to $196,971, pricing America’s entire middle class out of the Seattle market.
  8. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH: Known for its red-hot housing market, this New England city has become unaffordable for the middle-class homebuyer. In fact, even the upper-middle class has been priced out since Covid. Since the pandemic, Boston’s qualifying income has increased by $88,253 to $196,971.
  9. Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT: Bridgeport doesn’t have the name recognition as other major metros on the list, but its affordability crisis has worsened since Covid. The qualifying income for an average home has increased by more than $77,400 since 2019. Monthly housing costs are up a massive 90% from pre-Covid levels.
  10. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA: Due to large population growth and close proximity to LA, Riverside’s housing market has soared over the past half-decade. Since 2019, buyers need to earn $75,114 more to qualify for an average home in this metro.

  Can homeownership become more attainable?

  This study serves as yet another piece of evidence that America’s middle class isn’t what it once was—certainly from a homeownership point of view.

  In previous generations, being able to own a home was almost taken for granted. Not anymore. And considering the steep drop in affordability since Covid alone, housing is unlikely to become more attainable anytime soon.

  The good news is that the housing affordability crisis hasn’t gone unnoticed.

  The issue is top of mind at the White House, with the Biden administration proposing tax credits and other home buying initiatives to make it easier for the middle class to enter the market.

  Some builders are also set to convert empty office space into residential units—a promising, albeit limited, plan to improve housing access.

  In the meantime, a growing number of metro areas are becoming out of reach for middle-class homeowners—thanks to elevated mortgage rates, sky-high house prices, and scarce inventory.

  When, or if, housing could become more attainable is yet to be seen.

  DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 18:20

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