Feb 03

Today’s News 3rd February 2024

  • Equity Is Justice, Redefined
    Equity Is Justice, Redefined

    Authored by Richard Porter via RealClear Wire,

    Diversity and inclusion are not what’s wrong with DEI. 

    “Diversity” and “Inclusion” are apple-pie American concepts that echo our national motto: out of many, one; from diversity, inclusion, and unity.

    What DEI proponents have cleverly done, though, is sandwich between two “good” words a third word with ancient roots that they have vested with a new, radical meaning and evil implications. That word is “Equity.” 

    Equity arose in Anglo-American legal history as a procedure by which an injured party could petition the king to right a wrong that the rule of law did not address.

    For example, under law, damages were the sole remedy for a person who suffered a tort or breach of contract, but the law did not provide an adequate remedy for an ongoing, or not-yet-completed, wrongful action. In these events, the British king (or his chancellor) could step in and command the wrongdoing to stop.

    In the U.S., the mechanics of “equity” were folded into the rule of law more generally. Courts administer equity and law the same way: on a case-by-case base with legal reasoning applied to the facts in light of how prior cases with similar facts were resolved. 

    So, in our traditional usage, equity is encompassed within the rule of law. In our system of government of, by, and for the people, in which all people are created equal, there is no king above the law who is permitted to take actions outside the law. 

    Still, the ancient idea of the king “doing justice” through equity made “equity” a synonym for “justice” in common usage. 

    But the E in DEI is not a call for “justice” in the ordinary sense of remedying an individual wrong based on particular facts. Instead, it is a call for “social justice” based on a theory: the idea that whites, Jews, and Asians are oppressors and everyone else is oppressed. To the DEI self-styled “anti-racist,” every aspect of society and every institution is tainted by “white supremacy,” and the color-blind ideal of traditional American liberalism is not sufficient to remedy racism that’s built into institutional DNA.

    So, in DEI speak, equity is a call for revolution; it’s a call to overturn all government, economic, and social institutions and the rule of law itself because all institutions are, by their nature, unjust to oppressed groups – or so they say. 

    Equity turns the American ideal of equality and equal justice under the law upside down. Under DEI, individuals should benefit (and others suffer) based on skin pigment, gender, or ethnicity, not because of what they have done, and without any finding of a particularized injury or wrongdoing, all because of events long past involving people long dead.

    DEI establishes a modern caste system, in which rights and benefits are assigned by a group in order to achieve “social justice;” we may have been created equal, but some are more equal than others, according to the “equity” ideologue.

    The oppressor/oppressed framework for assessing “social justice” also drives DEI’s “intersectionality” logic: disparate groups who suffered discrimination in the past (excluding the Irish, Poles, Jews, and other disfavored whites) have a common interest in “social justice.” Intersectionality theory is why DEI ideologues hold the improbable idea that the U.S. civil rights struggle is linked to Middle Eastern conflicts.

    Indeed, the response of DEI ideologues to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack reveals much about the E between the D and the I: Palestinians are oppressed and Israelis are oppressors, so Hamas’ attack is equity, not an atrocity. 

    This immediate, weirdly enthusiastic embrace of Hamas’ evil-doing and the ongoing campus and other protests in support of Hamas raise the obvious question: If slaughter is justified in Israel, then what is acceptable in the name of equity in America, where DEI proponents believe “white supremacy” is an intractable systemic problem requiring the “deconstruction” of everything? 

    Americans of good faith reject racism and should, therefore, toss DEI’s unjust concept of “equity” on the ash heap of history while renewing our commitment to D&I in the pursuit of equal opportunity and equal justice for all.  

    Could this be why Joe Biden, who embraced “equity” instead of equality and equal opportunity from the outset of his administration, switched back to “equality” while speaking in Charleston recently, sidling away from the inhumanity of this ideology? Or was that merely a slip of the tongue by an old man harkening back to our earlier age? 

    We shall see. But, based on what we have already seen, it’s clear that the E between the D&I spells an end to equal opportunity and equal justice for all, an end that would be inhumane, brutal, and evil.

    Richard Porter is the National Committeeman from Illinois on the Republican National Committee.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 23:40

  • Atmospheric Pounding: Southern California Prepares For Another "Life-Threatening" Storm
    Atmospheric Pounding: Southern California Prepares For Another “Life-Threatening” Storm

    Another powerful atmospheric river-fueled storm is set to produce life-threatening flooding across Southern California late Saturday into early Sunday and extending into next week. 

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    Marc Chenard, a senior branch forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center, told Bloomberg that the Los Angeles metro area could receive 5 to 6 inches of rain, while Santa Barbara could record upwards of 8 inches. This comes after an atmospheric river-fueled storm dumped rain from San Francisco to Southern California this week. 

    “Chances are increasing that a lengthy period of heavy rain will develop late Saturday night and continue through most of Sunday and Monday,” the National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned in an update this morning, adding, “This storm could generating unprecedented amounts of rain across a widespread area!”

    “It does look like it will be a significant event and it will be a longer duration than this past one,” Chenard said. 

    He warned: “The fact that it is later in the year, on top of what has been a wet period, surely makes everything worse.”

    This weekend’s atmospheric river could dump more than a month’s worth of rain across much of Southern California in just several days. 

    Does California now have too much water? 

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    NWS forecasters also warned of the “potential for damaging, life-threatening flooding,” urging people to prepare. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 23:20

  • The Sprawling Radio Network That China's Firewall Can't Stop
    The Sprawling Radio Network That China’s Firewall Can’t Stop

    Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Locked inside the crowded Chinese prison, blind lawyer Chen Guancheng hid his most treasured possession from the guards – inside a single serve milk box.

    A pocket-size shortwave radio.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Chien-Min Chung/AP Photo, Courtesy of Allen Zeng, Minghui, Getty Images)

    For three years, Mr. Chen looked forward to the hours after curfew. With a blanket wrapped over his head and the radio’s metal antenna parallel to his body, he lay still as the vibrating device under his ear brought to life a world outside the prison’s walls. Petitioners, protesters, human rights abuses, a grassroots movement to cut ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—in that tiny murmuring voice, he saw them all. He was free.

    Over the decade since Mr. Chen escaped to the United States, the pool of Western broadcasters for information-hungry Chinese like him has shrunk considerably.

    Radio powerhouses—BBC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America—have either cut back on their China service or moved programs online. Meanwhile, the “Great Firewall,” the regime’s censorship apparatus aimed at isolating China digitally, seems only to grow taller by the day.

    Bucking the trend is a largely volunteer-run radio network called Sound of Hope, whose 10 p.m. and midnight segments kept Mr. Chen informed about current affairs in China during his years in prison.

    The company now boasts one of the largest shortwave broadcasting networks around China, with about 120 stations beaming signals to China 24/7.

    Allen Zeng, Sound of Hope’s co-founder and CEO, sees shortwave as the answer to the regime’s information blackout.

    Allen Zeng, co-founder and CEO of Sound of Hope. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times)

    “They can turn off the internet, carry out the killing, wash clean the blood, and turn it back on,” he told The Epoch Times, pointing to Iran’s pattern of blocking the internet during nationwide protests.

    With shortwave radio, though, “they have nowhere to turn it off,” Mr. Zeng said.

    “It’s like the rain falling down from the sky—they have no way to block the sky.”

    A Voice to Trust

    An unlikely journey began in 2004 for Mr. Zeng, then a Silicon Valley engineer.

    Inside China, a massive nationwide campaign had been underway, targeting virtually one in 13 Chinese who live by truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, the three tenets of the faith group Falun Gong.

    Arbitrary jailing, slave labor, the abuse of psychiatric drugs, and sexual abuse—the stories trickling out of China were sickening enough that Mr. Zeng and a team of like-minded Chinese expats felt they could no longer stand by.

    Police detain a Falun Gong practitioner as a crowd gathers around in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2000.

    “We had to do something about it. We needed to stop the killing,” he said.

    The first thing that came to mind was the shortwave radio that had been a household item in China since the Cold War era, one that in 1989, Mr. Zeng and other college students had turned to for information when authorities rolled their tanks over democracy-loving demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

    “Because nothing else could be trusted,” he said.

    With little budget and know-how, the team started small: leasing one hour of airtime from Taiwanese national broadcaster Radio Taiwan International.

    Around that time, “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” an Epoch Times editorial series that unpacked the nature of the Chinese regime, had just been published, and Sound of Hope took it to audio.

    It was such a hit in Beijing that shortwave radios were out of stock for months.

    The response, and occasional words of encouragement from listeners who managed to bypass China’s internet censorship, kept Mr. Zeng’s team going. Dissidents chipped in and programs diversified. Soon, they were Radio Taiwan International’s biggest contractor.

    Gauging the size of the network’s audience is difficult given the opacity of data from China.

    But Sound of Hope became so influential that it caught Beijing’s attention. The Chinese regime began to pressure the radio network’s Taiwanese partner.

    Eventually, the Taiwanese broadcaster backed out. Sound of Hope was back to square one.

    ‘Walking in the Dark’

    Giving up wasn’t in Mr. Zeng’s vocabulary.

    As the partnership with Taiwan unraveled, the engineers raced to develop their own solutions. They drew inspiration from fishing vessels’ radio waves to build their own transmitter.

    The result was a mini-tower based in Taiwan with upward-facing antennas that spread out like wings. They nicknamed it “Seagull.”

    The team set its sights low. The first “seagull” had a power level of 100 watts—a thousandth of the smallest radio service they had leased from the Taiwanese broadcaster.

    “It was the only thing we could afford,” Mr. Zeng said.

    “Seagull” No. 1 was short-lived, and so were many of its successors whose signals the Chinese authorities quickly jammed. But to the team, it was a major discovery: At 100 watts, they still had a chance to be heard.

    Sound of Hope station near China in 2014. (Courtesy of Allen Zeng)

    They kept producing and tweaking their equipment with each new creation.

    “It was just like walking in the dark—we didn’t know whether there would be an end to this tunnel,” Mr. Zeng said.

    Finally, on the 16th try, they saw a breakthrough. The signal broke through and held steady.

    Mr. Zeng figured that they had, for the moment, consumed all the jamming power from China.

    “We outgunned them pretty much,” he said. “They cannot move as fast as we did.”

    Expansion

    Technical challenges aside, getting the stations to work was no easy feat.

    The wilderness, their best location for an uninterrupted signal, is also a haven for creepy crawlies, from scorpions to snakes. Hsieh Shih-mu, a volunteer, stepped on a snake once and sighted many more while building some of the earliest “seagulls” in Taiwan’s southern tip. Often, after wobbling back home on a motorcycle on the pitch-black mountain road, he was covered in mosquito bites.

    Narrow and muddy, the path became doubly treacherous after rain. One time, another volunteer nearly fell off the hill—and would have, if not for the roadside tree branches that caught his motorcycle. They had to call a tow truck to haul the man back up.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 23:00

  • Who Are The Israeli Settlers Sanctioned By The US Government?
    Who Are The Israeli Settlers Sanctioned By The US Government?

    Via Middle East Eye

    While pressure has continued to mount on US President Joe Biden to take action in response to Israel’s war on Gaza, he has instead set his sights on the occupied West Bank. Activity by Israeli settlers has dramatically increased since the beginning of the Gaza war on October 7 and a number of governments have begun imposing penalties and bans on those suspected of violent or illegal activity.

    On Thursday, the US government said it had imposed financial sanctions on four Israeli settlers for violence against Palestinians to “promote accountability for certain harmful activities that threaten the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank”. 

    A picture of sanctioned Israeli settler David Chai Chasdai in 2017 (social media)

    “The situation in the West Bank – in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction – has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability,” Biden said in an executive order.

    With more sanctions expected in the future, Middle East Eye takes a look at the four Israeli settlers targeted by the US…

    David Chai Chasdai

    A 29-year-old settler most notorious for instigating the deadly riots in the Palestinian town of Huwwara in February last year, David Chai Chasdai was arrested in Israel over his involvement in what an Israeli army commander branded “a pogrom committed by outlaws”.

    The Huwwara rampage led to the death of 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash and the wounding of 98 other Palestinians, alongside the widespread destruction of property and burning of cars and homes.

    Chasdai, who had long been monitored by the security services, was held for three months in administrative detention, a move rarely used against Israelis.

    Though the riots were condemned by both Israeli politicians and the international community, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir criticised Chasdai’s detention as “undemocratic” and described him and his fellow settlers as “heroic”.

    According to Haaretz, he was previously arrested for threatening a police officer, making dangerous substances in 2015 and 2017, and was convicted for assaulting a Palestinian taxi driver with teargas.

    Einan Tanjil

    Einan Tanjil, 21, was, according to the US State Department, involved in assaulting Palestinian farmers and left-wing Israeli activists with stones and clubs, resulting in “injuries that required medical treatment”.

    In 2021, Tanjil was indicted for attacking 19-year-old Israeli activist Neta Ben-Porat with a club, beating her on the head and legs while she was trying to help Palestinians harvest olives near the West Bank town of Surif. The indictment also said he had possession of a knife and teargas.

    Shalom Zicherman

    In June, 32-year-old Shalom Zicherman found prominence when video footage of him assaulting Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank was circulated online.

    Zicherman, who is from the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Yair, is seen blocking them on the street and attempting to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists inside.

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    According to the State Department, Zicherman “cornered at least two of the activists and injured both”. He was indicted in 2022 over the attacks and his trial is still ongoing.

    Israeli activist Itai Feitelson, who originally posted footage of the attack, said it was the only case he knew personally in which a settler had been prosecuted for violence, but said that “in the end, Shalom is mostly the scapegoat”.

    Yinon Levi

    The State Department described 31-year old Yinon Levi as having led a group of settlers who “engaged in actions creating an atmosphere of fear in the West Bank”. 

    It said Levi had regularly led groups of settlers from the illegal Meitarim Farm outpost to assault Palestinian and Bedouin civilians, as well as threatening them with additional violence if they did not leave their homes, burning their fields, and destroying their property.

    According to NPR, Levi’s response to the sanctions was to suggest it was “strange they’re dealing with this nonsense now”, adding that he had never visited the US or had property there.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 22:40

  • 74 House Reps Demand Speaker Johnson Oppose "Archaic Gun Control" Law
    74 House Reps Demand Speaker Johnson Oppose “Archaic Gun Control” Law

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    A group of 74 Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson demanding that he oppose the reauthorization of the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act. 

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    For those unaware, the Undetectable Firearms Act was enacted in 1988 and bans the manufacture, sale, or import of any firearm that a metal detector cannot detect. 

    No firearms that met the criteria to be banned under the law existed at the time of passage.

    Additionally, because of a sunset provision in the law, it must be reauthorized every five or ten years. The last reauthorization was in 2013. 

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    The letter sent to Speaker Johnson states that “The Biden Administration has already demonstrated its ability to weaponize the Undetectable Firearms Act into a widespread plastic gun ban.” 

    That’s true. We’ve already seen what harm the Biden administration can do with existing law.

    Recently, a one-word change to the definition of “firearms dealer” was enough for the Biden ATF to put forth a rule that, in their own words, moved “the United States as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.”

    Gun Owners of America has been fighting the Undetectable Firearms Act since it was enacted in 1988.

    Since then, there have been many pro-gun members of Congress who were silent as the UFA was authorized and reauthorized by voice votes and unanimous consent.

    When it was last reauthorized in 2013, Congressman Thomas Massie was the only voice shouting “nay,” but he didn’t even have a mere fifth of a quorum there to back him—which is required to demand a recorded vote.

    This time, 73 Members of Congress have Rep. Massie’s back with this letter. The historic amount of opposition to the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 represented by this letter of opposition truly cannot be understated.

    Gun Owners of America stands with our allies in Congress in opposition to the reauthorization of the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act. 

    *   *   *

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 22:20

  • Food Inflation Is Not Yet Dead
    Food Inflation Is Not Yet Dead

    Food inflation may not be dead. 

    Cocoa prices climbed to a 46-year high this week in New York as concerns about dry conditions across West Africa could reduce yields for the Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans, ahead of the mid-crop in April. 

    In the US, a rapidly shrinking cattle herd, now at the lowest levels in seven decades, has pushed the supermarket price of beef to a record of $5.21 per pound. Rising food prices are the central bank’s worst enemy. 

    To end the week, breakfast lovers will be disappointed to learn robusta bean prices in Vietnam, the world’s largest producer of the bean, are absolutely out of control. 

    Local robusta prices in Vietnam hit a record on Thursday, topping nearly 80,000 per kilogram. 

    “That’s threatening to push prices in London up further, even after the benchmark capped its own all-time high this week at $3,336 a ton,” Bloomberg said, adding the surge in prices was primarily due to farmers “hoarding” the bean. 

    To recap this week, cocoa bean, beef, and robusta bean prices have been marching higher. 

    More bad news for Biden. Even though overall food inflation has receded, voters have long memories. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 22:00

  • World Watch-List Sheds Light On Global Christian Persecution
    World Watch-List Sheds Light On Global Christian Persecution

    Authored by Callista L. Gingrich via RealClear Wire,

    Open Doors International, a nonprofit organization which supports persecuted Christians in more than 70 countries, recently released its annual 2024 World Watch List.

    The list highlights and ranks countries in which Christians face the most severe persecution and discrimination. Each year, the report brings vital attention to brave Christians around the world who suffer because of their faith.

    Tragically, the 2024 report revealed that persecution against Christians is worsening. The previous year’s World Watch List found that more than 360 million Christians faced severe persecution and discrimination for their faith. Today, this figure has increased to more than 365 million people with “dangerously violent” instances of persecution taking place in World Watch List countries.

    Further, the 2024 report recorded a significant increase in the number of attacks on churches and Christian properties last year. According to Open Doors, “More than 14,700 churches or Christian properties such as schools and hospitals were targeted in 2023. It marked a seven-fold increase compared with attacks recorded the previous year.”

    Additionally, in 2023 the total number of Christians who were forced to leave their homes for various reasons – including political instability, war, and extremism – more than doubled from the previous year. Nearly 300,000 Christians had to flee their homes and approximately 3 percent of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most dangerous countries were displaced.

    According to the report, North Korea is “the most dangerous place in the world for Christians.” If a person’s Christian faith is discovered, he or she is killed on the spot or shipped to a labor camp where the chances of survival are slim. Kim Jong-un sees Christianity as a threat to the dictatorship and carries out an effective death sentence on believers.

    In China, General Secretary Xi Jinping similarly sees Christianity as a threat to the Party’s power. Last year, at least 10,000 churches (mostly underground house churches) were closed in China while other state-sanctioned churches were required to display signs that read, “Love the Communist Party; Love the country; Love the religion.”

    In Asia as a whole, two-in-five Christians are persecuted for their faith. Christians in India face violent attacks from Hindu extremists and are punished for violating anti-conversion laws in some states.

    Rishi, a church leader in India, told Open Doors, “Though I was attacked twice, still I can feel God’s protection in my life. I was attacked, yet was not crushed. I will continue to trust my God.”

    In Africa, one-in-five Christians are persecuted. Somalia was ranked No. 2 for countries in which Christians face the most extreme persecution on the 2024 World Watch List. In Somalia, most Christians are Muslim converts and are consequently targeted by Islamic extremists, namely the terrorist group al-Shabaab which has expressed its objective to eliminate Christians from the country.

    Nigeria, according to Open Doors, “remains the deadliest place to follow Jesus.” In 2023, there were nearly 5,000 Christians who were killed for their faith, with 82 percent of the slayings occurring in Nigeria. Ranked No. 6 on the 2024 World Watch List, according to Open Doors, “More Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than in all the other countries of the world combined.”

    For millions of Christians around the world, the cost of worshipping freely is high. Some even pay the price with their lives.

    The Open Doors 2024 World Watch List brings crucial attention to Christian persecution and discrimination – and is a vital tool for those who wish to help Christians around the world.

    For more commentary from Callista Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 21:40

  • Scientific Alarmism Drives DoD Climate Policy
    Scientific Alarmism Drives DoD Climate Policy

    Authored by Scott Sturman and Doug Goodman via The Epoch Times,

    Executive Order 14057 justifies the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions as necessary to counteract the existential threat of climate change. The program’s comprehensive and prohibitively expensive initiative proposes to transform the operational military by achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, purportedly on firmly established “science-based” targets that are validated by computer models and consensus within the scientific community.

    The plan’s ambitious yet unrealistic goals, which are presented as an alarmist ultimatum, ignore the foundational principles of physics and battle-proven lessons of military history.

    The Plan establishes emission objectives by determining “alignment with the scale of reductions required to limit global warming below 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.” These emission reduction targets come directly from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Net-Zero Paris Climate Accord. The IPCC is not a science based organization that conducts its own research but rather a governmental policy organization whose members are countries, not scientists, and whose representatives are bureaucrats who develop and promote international climate policy. The IPCC sponsors and filters climate science research generated from outside organizations to support its primary charter of establishing the man made causes and influences on climate change.

    The narrative that the earth’s climate balances precariously on the brink of catastrophe and merits the distinction of a national security priority is constantly presented to the public in familiar, apocalyptic terms. President Biden warns that global warming is the greatest threat to national security. DOD Secretary Austin alerts the public of existential climate threats, including an ice-free Arctic Ocean, although as of January 2023 the Arctic sea ice pack is at its highest since 2003. The DOD and high ranking officials from the navy, army, and air force proclaim that it is incumbent upon the armed services to implement net zero without delay to avert a worldwide catastrophe. Despite the incessant fearmongering, no one appears to pause and consider that the DOD produces only 1 percent of the United State’s CO2 emissions, which in turn is responsible for 13 percent of the world’s total. Even if the DOD achieves net zero, eliminating 0.13 percent of the world’s CO2 output would not detectably reduce global temperatures.

    The McKinsey Report details the enormous costs and disruption to society to attain net zero and concedes there is only an even chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, and it is far from certain whether the world will be able to keep the temperature increase to that level. The transition will require a fundamental change to the world’s economy, costing an estimated $6 trillion per year for the next 30 years. This translates to $11,000 per year for every American until 2050 for a result that cannot be ensured. Most of the sacrifice will come from the Third World, where 1/3-1/2 of GDP will be required to achieve net zero, but at a further cost of killing millions and plunging more millions into extreme poverty and starvation. Bjorn Lomborg warns that a zero fossil fuel solution is expensive, leads to misery and an impoverishment of the planet, and will fail to mitigate temperature elevation appreciably.

    The hasty evolution to net zero comes at a prohibitive price, and its adherents concoct doomsday scenarios that demand and ennoble mass sacrifice. Depicting a world in complete environmental collapse due to the effects of fossil fuels promotes a theme intended to instill panic. The DOD embellishes adverse weather-related and environmental events but fails to place them in context or provide contrary interpretations. The extent and history of glacial retreat, sea level rise, desertification, forest fires, heat waves, death due to heat as opposed to cold, hurricanes, and tornados are exaggerated and depicted in emotional terms to legitimize drastic action. These contentions have been examined extensively, using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) and the IPCC’s own data, and refute the hypothesis that there is a climate crisis based on these criteria. The number and intensity of severe climate events have diminished, and for those that occur, poor countries lack the resources to deal with natural disasters, while wealthier societies are able to better mitigate structural damage and human injury.

    Computer modeling, a useful tool for conceptualization, forms the heart of climate science. The technique, however, is unable to prove hypotheses and has been wildly inaccurate since its inception. Climate science is a complex subject of interacting variables acting over time cycles that differ by order of magnitudes from the depths of the oceans to the upper stratosphere that are in turn affected by orbital mechanics and solar perturbations. The authenticity of ground-based temperature readings, the raison d’être of climate activists, raises alarm about the IPCC’s most fundamental assessments, since the underestimation of the heat island effect may distort the temperature anomaly data by up to 40 percent.

    The major problem with computer models is the resolution and averaging required to make the models computable. The atmosphere is divided into volumes with horizontal grid lengths of tens of kilometers within which parameters like temperature, pressure, and density are averaged to represent the entire volume. Atmospheric processes like cloud physics and turbulence occur at scales well below the resolution of these cells, which compels modelers to estimate the values and effects of these processes. These guesses invariably favor global warming and the deleterious effects of CO2.

    Since data collection points rarely align with the grid points required by the numerical models, discrepancies of hundred of kilometers exist, which modelers homogenize to allow the data to fit the grid. This leads to false adjustments and manipulations of the real data. Computational models are inherently unstable and diverge from physical reality. At distances below the grid scale, perturbations multiply and a butterfly effect ensues. Modelers are forced constantly to realign or reset the initial conditions, which mask the deviations and give the illusion that the models accurately predict observed conditions.

    DOD officials defend net-zero defense prioritization by claiming that scientific consensus and sham peer reviewed studies validate this contention. Peer review has degenerated into a process that favors a regression to the mean, and has become a form of consensus. The original 97 percent consensus claim from Cook in 2013 that humans are the major cause of global warming that will result in catastrophic climate events has been widely discredited. Investigators point out that the number is closer to 1.6 percent, but the original, inaccurate claim of near-universal consensus, advanced by Barack Obama and John Kerry, remains a favored technique of politicians to inject ideology into science.

    John Clauser won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work with particle entanglement and serves as an example that the most distinguished and competent scientists are not immune from rebuke for challenging the climate change narrative. Dr. Clauser stated publicly that there is no climate emergency and the dangerous corruption of science threatens the world economy and welfare of billions of people. Mainstream media outlets allied to climate science activism predictably marginalized the distinguished physicist with ad hominem attacks and inferred that only bona fide climate scientists like Dr. Michael Mann, the originator of the widely debunked hockey stick shaped temperature acceleration profile, are qualified to speak on the subject.

    The DOD plan to reduce greenhouse emissions makes no mention of the stabilizing benefits of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations in terms of food production or the weak correlation between temperature and CO2 levels over the last 570 millions years. There has been a 20 percent increase in the world’s biomass over the past 40 years, and CO2 is responsible for 70 percent of this benefit. Some of the world’s most unstable regions have achieved an element of food security, as exuberant plant life has reversed desertification and conferred a degree of economic stability—a benefit for developing more accurate military contingencies.

    A nation’s military priorities must optimize its access to natural resources, develop war plans that allow for flexibility and maximum projection of power, and to conclude that one’s enemies will not be concerned with carbon footprints when it comes to surviving and winning a major military conflict. No commander purposely informs potential enemies that the armed forces will be restricted for decades to specific, unproven technologies and untested operational strategies that are established solely to comply with climate change dogma. Future and present adversaries are under no such constraints and will devote resources predicated on the best opportunity for success. Virtue signaling climate scientists and their dutiful DOD disciples, whose premises are based on computer modeling, enact policies that weaken the military and serve as classic examples of those who hijack science to advance political agendas.

    From RealClearWire

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 21:20

  • China Poised To Take Further Control Of Iraq's Key Southern Oil Assets
    China Poised To Take Further Control Of Iraq’s Key Southern Oil Assets

    Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

    • China is over the halfway mark in completing its strategically vital oil project in the critical Iraqi energy hub of Nasiriyah.

    • This facility will act as a storage hub and supply conduit for 3.0-3.5 million barrels of crude oil.

    • Even before the huge strategic importance of the new Nasiriyah facility, China will benefit from its massively enhanced presence there in the matter of increasing its oil supplies from southern Iraq, with the DhiQar Province being home to several huge fields

    China is over the halfway mark in completing its strategically vital oil project in the critical Iraqi energy hub of Nasiriyah, at the heart of the some of the country’s biggest oil and gas fields and close to its main export terminal of Al Fao in Basra. According to the Iraq Ministry of Planning, the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company (CPPEC) is now over 55 percent complete on the construction of the country’s biggest crude oil storage facility, located in Nasiryah city in DhiQar province.

    This facility will act as a storage hub and supply conduit for 3.0-3.5 million barrels of crude oil that will then either go to export out of Basra Port or will be transported through pipelines to refineries and power plants in central and northern Iraq. It will also act as a logistical command centre for all of China’s extensive oil and gas projects in Iraq and for the build-out of multiple non-oil projects connected to the all-encompassing ‘Iraq-China Framework Agreement’, as analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. 

    Even before the huge strategic importance of the new Nasiriyah facility, China will benefit from its massively enhanced presence there in the matter of increasing its oil supplies from southern Iraq, with the DhiQar Province being home to several huge fields. The Gharraf field is one, holding around 1.3 billion barrels of oil reserves and currently producing around 130,000 barrels per day (bpd), with plans to increase this to 230,000 bpd within the next two years. Lead operator Petronas of Malaysia said last May that it wants to sell its stake in the field. However, China already effectively controls what goes on at the site through major ‘contract-only’ awards secured by its companies.

    The winning of multiple contract-only awards by Chinese firms at major oil and gas sites in Iraq was for a long time the preferred way for the country to covertly gain control over a site without provoking the ire of the U.S., while it still retained a strategic interest in Iraq, as also analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. In Gharraf’s case, the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC) was awarded a US$308 million engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contract a while ago. Additionally, July 13 saw China’s Zhongman Petroleum and Natural Group sign a separate engineering and construction project for Gharraf. Back in 2015, Zhongman was also awarded a US$526.6 million drilling deal for Iraq’s supergiant West Qurna 2 oilfield. Further emboldened by the effective withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq at the end of its combat mission in December 2021, the beginning of this year saw PetroChina take over the lead developer role at the neighbouring supergiant West Qurna 1 oilfield from the U.S.’s ExxonMobil. This was followed just a week later by the awarding of a major build-own-operate-transfer contract to a subsidiary of PetroChina to develop the Nahr bin Umar onshore gas field.

    At the other end of the development scale in DhiQar Province is the supergiant Nasiriyah oilfield, discovered by the Iraq National Oil Company in 1975, with an estimated 4.36 billion barrels of reserves in place. Coming on stream in 2009 and listed on Iraq’s 2009-2010 fast-track plan, which aimed to raise its output to about 50,000 bpd, the first half of 2009 saw ENI, Nippon Oil, Chevron, and Repsol submitting bids to develop the field on an Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contract basis, with a consortium comprised of Nippon Oil, Inpex, and JGC Corporation looking set to win the contract before negotiations broke down again. The departure in 2014 of the divisive figure of Shia Islamist Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister, and his replacement by the seemingly more inclusive, although also Shia, Haider al-Abadi led to optimism in Iraq that the Nasiriyah project could move ahead again, but these hopes were also dashed.

    China has long seen Nasiriyah as an important part of its overall plans for Iraq, which are essentially to turn it into a client state, as it has done with Iran, to create one giant oil and gas station for it in the Middle East, which it can also use for geopolitical pressure purposes against the U.S. In Iran’s case, China has been successful so far into effecting this transformation from it as sovereign state into a Middle Eastern equivalent of Hong Kong (a Special Administrative Region of China) through the all-encompassing ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’ , as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. China is using the same sort of arrangement for Iraq, as evidenced in the equally all-encompassing ‘Iraq-China Framework Agreement’ of 2021. This in turn, was an extension in scale and scope of the ‘Oil for Reconstruction and Investment’ agreement signed by Baghdad and Beijing in September 2019, which allowed Chinese firms to invest in infrastructure projects in Iraq in exchange for oil.

    Following this, Iraq approved nearly IQD1 trillion (US$700 million) for infrastructure projects in the city of Al-Zubair in the southern Iraq oil hub of Basra. The Al-Zubair announcement came around the same time as the awarding by Baghdad of another major contract to another Chinese company to build a civilian airport to replace the military base in Nasiriyah – the capital of DhiQar Province. This airport project, China announced, would include the construction of multiple cargo buildings and roads linking the airport to the city’s town centre and separately to other key oil areas in southern Iraq, which it now controls. In the later discussions involved in the 2021 ‘Iraq-China Framework Agreement’, it was decided unanimously by both sides that the airport could be expanded later to be a dual-use civilian and military airport. The military component would be usable by China without first having to consult with whatever Iraqi government was in power at the time, a senior source who works closely with Iraq’s Oil Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com at the time.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 21:00

  • East Palestine, Ohio Water Still Contaminated As Biden Prepares Victory Lap 
    East Palestine, Ohio Water Still Contaminated As Biden Prepares Victory Lap 

    President Biden’s planned trip to East Palestine, Ohio, is pure politics as the election cycle begins. The White House plans to do a victory lap on its response to the train derailment that nuked the small town with toxic chemicals one year ago. Yet, a new report reveals the federal government’s response has been sub-par, with cancer-causing chemicals still found in surrounding rivers and streams. 

    One year after the Norfolk Southern train derailment, NewsNation found toxic chemicals in rivers and streams around East Palestine. This comes even as the Environment Protection Agency has given residents the all-clear to return. 

    As residents return, some are developing “rashes, chronic nose bleeds, respiratory infections and many other side effects,” according to NewsNation. 

    “I undressed to get into the shower, and I had a rash all over the side of my face on both sides and all over my chest,” East Palestine resident Kaitlyn said.

    Jessica Conard, another resident, said, “We are still experiencing some acute health care impacts” after the train derailment one year ago. 

    “Ultimately, what we need to understand is that there are still unmet needs here in terms of medical, and the health of this community needs to come first,” Conard said. 

    Dr. Arthur Chang, the chief medical officer in the CDC’s environmental health division, confirmed to the media outlet a chemical exposure blanketed the town and persisting symptoms from residents are proof:

     “We may not know how to get rid of the vinyl chloride from the body, but we know how to treat those cancers.” 

    Meanwhile, shortly after the incident, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine asked the Biden administration to issue a disaster declaration after 116,000 gallons of the carcinogen vinyl chloride exploded after the train derailment. The White House has since ignored this request while residents continue to suffer health problems. 

    NewsNation pointed out, “Despite calls for concern, the CDC is not testing the health of East Palestine residents or collecting samples.” 

    We have questions:

    • Why is that?

    • Why is the federal government ignoring the suffering in East Palestine?

    However, separate from the federal government, Erin Haynes, a professor at the University of Kentucky, has been tracking the health of 400 residents. 

    Haynes said, “Three out of four of the participants reported having at least one new health symptom,” adding, “Eighty percent of the respondents reported an upper respiratory health symptom.”

    “The main question is if these symptoms remain. And half of the residents, even in our follow-ups, are saying that their symptoms remain,” she said.

    Shockingly, NewsNation said, “Haynes is the only person tracking the short and long-term health effects in the community.” 

    “Unfortunately, I have not seen an organized public health response from our federal agencies,” Haynes continued, noting, “The public health response was severely lacking.”

    More from NewsNation:

    Americans have witnessed the Biden administration’s neglect of East Palestine, prioritizing endless foreign wars and a border invasion while their own citizens suffered in what could be one of the worst chemical disasters in years. 

    Someone needs to tell the clueless Biden team their victory lap is not only premature but a disgrace to the residents who are suffering. Clearly, Ukraine was more important than East Palestine.

    Recall days after the derailment…

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 20:40

  • War Delirium
    War Delirium

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    “This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.”

    – Jeffrey (“the Dude”) Lebowski

    Pity the poor president.

    “Joe Biden” must decide now whether to go to war with Iran or Texas.

    Which will it be? Or might it be both?

    That Governor Abbott turns out to be the Putin of the purple sage!

    How does he dare interfere with the orderly flow of new voters — fine people! — across that filthy little river of his?

    Does he not understand that we need at least a couple million more live bodies allocated around the swing states to ensure a free and fair election?

    What does Hunter (“the smartest person I know”) make of Dad’s quandary, I wonder. With enough eau-de-coca on-board, Hunter must think in Biblical terms. . . great flowing Jacobean passages of elevated language: in my father’s house are many mansions: Verily, verily, I say unto you, somewhere there is a room I left that little baggie in. . . but where. . . ? The works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Dad.

    Well, forget Hunter. Everybody else has, thank goodness, at least for now. Let’s face it: having a rage-filled addict in the family is tiresome. Anyway, Merrick Garland has got him covered with “an on-going investigation.” (Questions? Sorry, can’t answer any.)

    “Joe Biden,” in his on-going delirium-of-age wanders from room to room in the empty mansion that is his mind. How did I get in this room? he wonders. And how do I get out of it? Can somebody please point the way? Alas, his position is the loneliest in the world. There is no one to point the way out. There is only this ceaseless wandering from room to room in this vast emptiness. Where is the room with Texas in it? The room where Iran sleeps? The room where Ukraine lies a’gasp with a sucking chest wound? Watch out, he’ll start shouting soon. Calling Dr. Jill: Code Blue. . . !

    The world may be a disaster these days, but the White House is a bigger disaster.

    Can you name the White House chief of staff? Betcha can’t. Know why? He never, ever comes out and speaks to that mob in the press room. He might have to answer some difficult questions, such as: if the president’s brain is switched off more than half the time, who decides what to do with that ‘nuclear football’ they carry around with him. Is it. . . you? By the way, the chief of staff’s name is Jeff Zients. Ever heard him? Of course not. He has a page on “X”. The most recent thing he posted was July, 25, 2023. Good thing not much has happened since then.

    The question then: should “Joe Biden” just go ahead and nuke Texas? “JB” is thinking: What good is the place with that Putin wannabe running it? Buncha cattle and those ridiculous hats! The official head-gear of white supremacy! Probably millions of them down there, clutching their beloved guns! I’ve got news for you. Wanna play hardball? We’ve got F-16s. Try shooting one of those Vipers down with your 30-ought-6 when it’s coming in low over Plano on after-burners at eleven hundred miles an hour, bristling with Sidewinder missiles. Anyway, for a nice strip steak, go to Kansas City. Fuggedabowt Texas. Kaboom! Not a joke!

    As for Iran. . . another $6-billion could keep them quiet for a while. Turns out that mullahs really like money. Do you know how many virgins you can buy for $6-billion here on Planet Earth? Why blow yourself up for them? Especially since you don’t know for a hundred percent sure that there is a place called heaven, or that it’s mainly a seraglio? By the way, why does our country (that’d be the USA) have all these little military outposts scattered around the desert wastelands of Jordan, Syria, and other lands of the Middle East? Did the one called Tower Two that got blown up a few days ago have a target painted on it? Might as well have. You think the “other side” doesn’t have satellite imagery of the terrain? Kind of looks like we’re asking for trouble. And, also by the way, how come two of the three US soldiers killed there were girls? Is that how we do war these days? With a girlie army? Who actually thinks that’s going to work?

    Apparently, “Joe Biden.” Be advised: there is chatter coming out of this mysterious White House about bringing back the military draft. Remember what that is, Boomers? Remember Country Joe and the Fish singing: “Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box.” That was back in the Vietnam days. Fifty-thousand-plus KIA. Only now we’ll be drafting girls (and probably some boys who want to be girls). I guess we’ll figure out now how gung-ho Gen Z really is.

    You didn’t ask, but things are not going so well in our remote-control war in Ukraine against Russia (Putinland). Our Zelensky team (we own it) got completely rope-a-doped, punched itself out, its knees are buckling. Victoria Nuland, the renowned State Department girlie war-hawk, says she’s confident that Congress will pass the new $61 billion aid package for the Z-team, according to Radio Free Europe, the blob’s official propaganda outlet. The blob wants you to think that Putin wants to turn all of Europe into Putinland. I’m sure. Tori Nuland probably thinks we can save Ukraine with the fabulous girlie army and some snazzy new drones from McDonnell Douglas. Hey, it’s war, war, war. Bomb them all — Iran, Russia, Texas — and let God sort them out.

    Speaking of blob propaganda outlets, here’s a doozy from blob tentacle The New York Times  this Friday morning to boost your morale. Blob suck-up, Stephen Colbert, the late-night TV genius-level jester last seen dancing in a chorus line costumed as Covid-19 vaccination syringes, informs us that “Joe Biden” is catnip to the ladies because his aviator Ray-bans remind them of Robert Stack in The High and the Mighty.

    Stephen Colbert imitated President Biden talking with women: “They love that thing where I’m the last one standing between them and the Supreme Court putting a GoPro in their uterus.” Credit: CBS

    Silly me, I thought they loved the president for his mind.  You know, “Joe Biden” is running for re-election. No, really. Not a joke.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 20:20

  • Israeli Defense Minister: Two-Thirds Of Hamas Have Been Taken Out
    Israeli Defense Minister: Two-Thirds Of Hamas Have Been Taken Out

    Now on the brink of reaching 120 days of war (which will happen this weekend), Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has claimed in fresh comments that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have destroyed about two-thirds of Hamas’ fighting force. 

    He said in the remarks that the military has effectively neutralized 20,000 of the estimated pre-conflict total of around 30,000 fighters. He essentially declared the defeat of Hamas in their southern stronghold of Khan Younis, saying that in addition to the 10,000 killed there’s been another some 10,000 wounded. Currently, there is no way of verifying this and Hamas does not publish on its own casualty rates.

    Source: Israel Ministry of Defense

    “Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade boasted that it would stand against the IDF,” Gallant said, but then declared instead the group has been “dismantled.”

    “I am telling you here, we are completing the mission in Khan Younis and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate everyone there who is a terrorist who is trying to harm us,” Gallant told a gathering of Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

    He additionally assessed that IDF gains in Khan Younis are “very impressive” and said the end result has been that Hamas doesn’t “have ammunition, they don’t have the ability to treat the wounded.” The defense chief added: “They have 10,000 dead terrorists and another 10,000 wounded who are not functioning. It’s a blow that is eroding their ability [to fight], but you have to reach all the places.”

    According to figures cited in the Jerusalem Post, “If true, along with the close to 2,500 Hamas terrorists who have been arrested, the percentage of Hamas forces out of commission would now be up to between 56-75%, up from 48-64% around 10 days ago, presuming Hamas’ forces pre-war were between 30,000-40,000.”

    Gallant concluded his remarks by saying the military will target Rafah next for a ground operation, which is the southern most city in the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt.

    The IDF’s current death toll since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza is 224; however, many even Israeli sources believe the real death toll could be significantly higher, given Hamas’ demonstrated effectiveness at carrying out devastating ambushes in small teams, often from the tunnel system.

    Palestinians say that with hundreds of thousands of refugees crowded into Rafah, and with nowhere to go, they may have no choice other than to climb the border fence and pour into Egypt. 

    “Israeli forces shelled the outskirts of the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip on Friday, where the displaced, penned against the border fence in their hundreds of thousands, said they feared a new assault with nowhere left to flee,” Reuters writes.

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    “More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now homeless and crammed into Rafah,” the report documents. “Tens of thousands more have arrived in recent days, carrying belongings in their arms and pulling children on carts, since Israeli forces launched one of the biggest assaults of the war last week to capture adjacent Khan Younis, the main southern city.”

    Despite the mounting humanitarian crisis, and a reported death toll which has surpassed 27,000 – mostly civilians according to Palestinian sources, there has been no change in Biden administration policy regarding to support to Israel. This has resulted in fierce backlash among Progressive Democrats especially, and is an issue expected to erode his base going into the November election.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 20:00

  • Jan. 6 Defendant Sentenced To 24 Months' Probation With 30 Days Home Detention
    Jan. 6 Defendant Sentenced To 24 Months’ Probation With 30 Days Home Detention

    Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A Jan. 6 protester who spent 18 seconds inside the Capitol building during the protests has been sentenced to 24 months of probation with 30 days of home detention.

    Image from Capitol Building CCTV footage on January 6, 2021, showing Angelo Pacheco standing in the doorway on the Upper West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol Building (July 14, 2023 Statement of Facts).

    Angelo Pacheco, a 24-year-old man from Kansas City, will also have to pay $500 restitution for damages done to the Capitol building that day, which the federal government says totaled more than $2.73 million, according to an April 8, 2022, court filing.

    Mr. Pacheco’s sentencing was held before Judge Randolph D. Moss on Jan. 31 via video conference in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

    He faced a maximum sentence of six months in jail, a $5,000 fine, and five years of probation.

    According to the Jan. 6, 2021, criminal complaint, Mr. Pacheco was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol Building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol Building.

    As stated in the July 14, 2023 Statement of Facts, “The FBI received a tip from a confidential human source (CHS)” that Mr. Pacheco “was on the U.S. Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021.”

    While the informant did not know Mr. Pacheco, the CHS “identified him by comparing images on his Facebook and Instagram pages with open-source photos from January 6, 2021.”

    Based on this information, the special agent investigating the case conducted database checks for “Angelo J. Pacheco,” later identifying him as a resident of Kansas City, Missouri. The special agent then compared Mr. Pacheco’s driver’s license photo to the one provided by the unidentified informant and confirmed it was the same individual.

    Additional photos showed Mr. Pacheco standing on the scaffolding outside of the Capitol building.

    Photo of Angelo Pacheco, provided to the FBI by a confidential informant, showing him standing on the grounds of the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 (July 14, 2023 Statement of Facts).

    A review of Capitol Building CCV footage from Jan. 6, 2022, showed him standing at the doorway of the upper west terrace of the Capitol building, entering briefly, “approximately six seconds,” before turning around and exiting through the same door.

    During an initial interview at his home on Sept. 29, 2022, Mr. Pacheco admitted being at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, but told investigators he didn’t remember going inside. During a second interview at Mr. Pacheco’s attorney’s office on March 17, 2023, investigators showed him six images taken from the CCTV footage showing him entering the Capitol for about six seconds. It was then that he admitted going inside briefly.

    Based on this evidence, the special agent in charge of the investigation submitted “that there is probable cause to believe that PACHECO violated 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1) and (2), which makes it a crime to (1) knowingly enter or remain in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do; and (2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions; or attempt or conspire to do so.”

    The special agent further submitted that “there is also probable cause to believe that PACHECO violated 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D) and (G), which makes it a crime to willfully and knowingly (D) utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either House of Congress; and (G) parade, demonstrate, or picket in any of the Capitol Buildings.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 19:40

  • Democrat Governor Sounds Like Republicans: Close The Southern Border Mr. President
    Democrat Governor Sounds Like Republicans: Close The Southern Border Mr. President

    Democrats are beginning to sound like Republicans about the need to restore common sense southern border security, recognizing that the large-scale migrant invasion their party (plus taxpayer-funded NGOs) allowed could jeopardize President Biden’s re-election prospects in November. 

    On Friday morning, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, joined Bloomberg TV, admitting Democrats were “a little slow” in responding to the border crisis. 

    A little slow? Let’s try horrendously slow; as a recent opinion piece in The Hill from Merill Matthews, a scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, said, “another 10 million have entered during Biden’s presidency.” 

    Back to Lamont’s interview: 

    “We gotta be a lot stricter on the border,” he said, adding, “Maybe Democrats were a little slow to get up to speed on this. Some of us from this part of the region, we weren’t hit as hard by this early on. I think we all know where we gotta be on this.”  

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    With illegals overwhelming Border Patrol on the southern border and sanctuary cities across the Lower 48, as well as, just this week, beating up cops in New York City, the president’s polling data has greatly suffered as Americans are furious with Democrat’s intentional border failures. 

    Meanwhile, the border dispute with Biden and Texas has led to 26 Republican attorneys general demanding the White House “enforce the laws that secure the southern border.”

    Democrats are recognizing the tide is going out, and they must quickly pivot from open borders to closed borders to stay afloat come November. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 19:20

  • Alberta To Restrict Medical Transition For Children
    Alberta To Restrict Medical Transition For Children

    Authored by Chandra Philip via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Alberta is banning gender-altering surgery for children and won’t allow puberty blockers for those under 16, Premier Danielle Smith said as part of newly announced policies.

    Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce in Edmonton on July 20, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Jason Franson)

    Ms. Smith also said parental consent will be required if a child wants to change pronouns at school, and that women-only sporting divisions will be off-limits to transgender athletes.

    “For minors aged 17 and under, top and bottom gender reassignment surgeries will not be permitted,” Ms. Smith said in a video posted on X on Jan. 31.

    She also said that those 15 years of age and under will not be allowed to take puberty blockers or hormone therapies as part of receiving gender reassignment therapy.

    The move makes Alberta the only province to place such restrictions on gender transition medical procedures for children. A number of U.S. states have already implemented a ban for children.

    The premier began by saying that it’s important to “support and reach out with kindness and inclusion to those who identify as transgender,” and that “children aged 17 and under who identify as transgender” should feel loved and supported.

    Ms. Smith noted that children and teenagers are constantly faced with biological, social, and emotional changes, and that parents and teachers have a duty to preserve for children the “most impactful decisions affecting their lives” for when they are adults.

    “It is my view that list of adult choices includes deciding whether or not to alter one’s biological sex,” she said.

    “Making permanent and irreversible decisions regarding one’s biological sex while still a youth can severely limit that child’s choices in the future. Prematurely encouraging or enabling children to alter their very biology or natural growth, no matter how well-intentioned and sincere, poses a risk to that child’s future.”

    For adults, the premier said her government is working to attract one or more medical professionals specializing in transgender surgery to the province.

    “We will also be building a private registry of medical professionals who specialize in this field to better support the lifelong health care needs of transgender Albertans including access to needed hormones and surgery,” she said.

    Transgender Sport Policy

    As well, the province is planning to regulate competitive sports with regard to transgender athletes.

    “Our government also needs to deal with the emerging issue of the unfair disadvantages that young women and girls are experiencing when competing with biologically stronger transgender female athletes in sporting competitions,” Ms. Smith said in the video.

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    “I strongly believe that those who were born male but have transitioned to or identify as female are owed the opportunity to meaningfully participate in sport. However, there are obvious biological realities that give transgender female athletes a massive competitive advantage over women and girls.”

    Ms. Smith said her government will work with sporting organizations to “ensure that women and girls have the choice to compete in a women’s only division in athletic competitions and are not forced to compete against biologically stronger transgender female athletes.”

    The government will also work with sporting organizations to allow transgender athletes to compete by expanding co-ed or other gender-neutral divisions for competitions, she said.

    Pronoun Usage at School

    Ms. Smith also said that children 15 years of age and under will need parental consent if they express a desire to change pronouns or names at school.

    Students aged 16 or 17 don’t need parental consent, but parents must be informed of their child’s decision.

    “Nearly all parents, even those who may disagree with the decision of their children, will love and care for their children no matter what choices they make,” Ms. Smith said.

    “However, in the handful of rare situations where one or both of the parents reject or become abusive to a child who identifies as transgender, we have child protection laws that will be strictly enforced.”

    The province will be piloting a counselling program to help families facing these issues as well.

    It will also tighten teaching on gender identity and sexual matters in schools to require parental notification if formal instruction on such topics is planned by a teacher.

    “All third-party resource materials or presentations related to gender identity, sexual orientation, or human sexuality in our K-12 school system will need to be pre-approved by the Ministry of Education,” the premier said.

    The move comes months after New Brunswick and Saskatchewan both put in place legislation requiring parental consent if children change their pronouns at schools.

    During the United Conservative Party annual general meeting last November, party members voted to adopt a number of policy resolutions that asked for upholding parental rights and not having sexually explicit content in schools.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 19:00

  • Bezos Files To Sell About $8.6 Billion In Amazon Stock Before January 2025
    Bezos Files To Sell About $8.6 Billion In Amazon Stock Before January 2025

    Though the market is raging higher to end the week, following excellent earnings reports from the likes of Amazon and Meta, there’s at least one person that isn’t going to be a buyer: Jeff Bezos.

    The Amazon founder disclosed on Friday that he plans to sell up to 50 million shares over the next 12 months, according to Bloomberg. The haul will put him close to being the richest person in the world, the report says. 

    The stock’s surge following its earnings on Thursday already is catapulting Bezos’ wealth higher. It’s up almost $13 billion on Friday, bringing him within $5.7 billion of the top spot held by Elon Musk, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos has not held the position of the wealthiest individual according to this index since 2021, the report added. 

    Bloomberg notes that the distance in net worth between Bezos and Musk is closing as Amazon and Tesla exhibit divergent trajectories. Amazon’s stock has surged amidst a tech rally that propelled US stock indices to record levels, while Tesla has faced challenges from regulatory investigations, price cuts, falling margins and increasing competition. 

    The 60 year old Bezos will offload 50 million Amazon shares by January 31, 2025, per a recent regulatory filing. These shares would amount to approximately $8.6 billion at current market prices.

    Amazon’s latest 10-K detailed the impending share sales by Bezos and other directors and high-ranking officers.

    Should Bezos execute this sale, it would be his initial divestment of Amazon shares since 2021. Notably, he acquired a single share in May, marking his first purchase since 2002, though the reason remains undisclosed.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 18:40

  • More Than 500 Arrested In California Human Trafficking Operation
    More Than 500 Arrested In California Human Trafficking Operation

    Authored by Marc Olsen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A statewide human trafficking crackdown this month netted more than 500 arrests and rescued dozens of people, including juveniles, authorities said Jan. 31 during a news conference in downtown Los Angeles.

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna speaks during a news conference at City Hall in Los Angeles on Aug. 17, 2023. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    The 539 suspects included 40 alleged sex traffickers and 271 alleged “sex buyers,” officials said. Among the rescued were 54 adults and 11 minors, including a 14-year-old girl.

    “This week-long operation demonstrates that if you engage in human trafficking activities, harm our children, and destroy lives, there will be absolute consequences, and there is no refuge for predators in the state of California,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said during the press conference in front of City Hall.

    The operation was conducted from Jan. 21 to Jan. 27.

    It was unclear how many suspects were from Los Angeles, but Mr. Luna described one undercover sting along Holt Avenue in Pomona, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, that nabbed 12 men on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes.

    Mr. Luna also told of a San Diego County incident in which a man approached a teenage girl at an El Cajon mall, urged her to become a model, and gave her a business card.

    When she called, she learned the work involved “date sex” at hotels. She told her mother, who called authorities, and the man was arrested.

    Mr. Luna said the operation—known as Reclaim and Rebuild—is conducted every January. This year, it included 95 federal, state, and local agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and LA County Sheriff’s Department.

    Joining Mr. Luna at the news conference was LA County District Attorney George Gascón.

    Mr. Gascón told local television station KABC that prosecuting sex traffickers and sex buyers is difficult because victims sometimes are afraid to testify.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 18:20

  • Nikki No! Haley Busted Trying To Pass Off Unsent Email As 'Kind Words'
    Nikki No! Haley Busted Trying To Pass Off Unsent Email As ‘Kind Words’

    Establishment darling Nikki Haley dun goofed, after she was caught trying to pass off a clearly unsent email as ‘kind words’ she claimed was from a supporter.

    As the Post Millennial first reported, Haley’s official account posted two messages – one from a “Mary A,” which reads “I want to encourage Nikki Haley to keep pressing on!!! We need a competent and committed leader to stay the course in the bid for the presidency.”

    The second ‘message,’ however, was a screenshot of an unsent email, which states “PLEASE DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR FIGHT!!! In a world that’s become crazy with strife, we need a level headed conservative leader to navigate us through the insanity.”

    See for yourself (before her idiot social media team deletes it):

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsHaley was appropriately mocked…

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

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 18:00

  • Biden Administration Wants To Force Foster Parents To Sign LGBTQ Pledge
    Biden Administration Wants To Force Foster Parents To Sign LGBTQ Pledge

    Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Republican lawmakers and Christian organizations are reacting with outrage to a newly proposed policy by the  Biden administration that would force foster parents to sign a contract agreeing to promote gender ideology in their homes.

    Some U.S. foster children are issued trash bags for their belongings when taken into state custody. (Hope in a Suitcase)

    “The Safe & Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements” calls for states to ensure that LGBTQ children are placed in environments  “free from hostility or discrimination.”

    It also requires potential foster parents to undergo training to develop “knowledge and skills to support the needs of LGBTQ children.”

    The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) cites what it calls a “recent confidential survey” showing that 32 percent of foster children between the ages of 12 and 21 identify as having a diverse sexual orientation or gender identity.

    The NPRM also cites a 2019 study by a group of psychology professors that found that LGBTQ+ youth are almost 2.5 times as likely as heterosexual youth to experience foster care placement.

    The Biden administration also cites multiple recent surveys by The Trevor Project showing that foster children identifying as LGBTQ+ are 50 percent less likely to be suicidal, use drugs, or have mental health issues if they are allowed to talk openly about their sexual identity with caregivers.

    Organizations like The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention accuse the Biden administration of “cherry picking” evidence to create a “false assumption” that affirming a child’s LGBTQ sexuality is the only way to provide a safe foster home.

    “Contrary to such assertions by HHS, a foster family should not have to agree with every political, spiritual, and other belief of a child to be deemed “safe and proper,” the group wrote in a statement.

    “A foster parent’s biblical belief regarding sexuality and gender identity does not detract from their ability to warmly welcome a vulnerable child into their home. Inevitably, there will be many beliefs on which the child and family disagree.”

    The group predicts that if the mandate is implemented, it will cause a substantial reduction in the already deficient number of foster homes in the U.S.

    Sam Whiting, a staff attorney at the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), told The Epoch Times that the mandate potentially puts foster parents who also have biological children in danger of being labeled abusive and could even lead to the state attempting to take custody of their children.

    “If you have a foster family that doesn’t believe in teaching gender-affirming ideology to their own kid, the next step could be to refer them to CPS,” said Mr. Whiting.

    Earlier this month, six Republican senators sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra expressing what they called “profound concerns” over the proposed policy.

    “All children in foster care, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, deserve a safe and proper placement,” the senators wrote.

    “However, this proposal goes beyond statutory requirements to force states to adopt extreme gender ideology in their placement decisions.”

    Targeting ‘Faith-Based Child Welfare Providers’

    The U.S. senators who sent the letter to Mr. Becerra are Roger Marshall (R-Kan.),  Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.),  Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Michael Lee (R-Utah), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.).

    They accused the Biden administration of using the LGBTQ+ foster care policy as part of a “campaign to undermine faith-based child welfare providers” under the guise of “advancing equity.”

    This will “alienate, if not exclude” many families of faith that were considering fostering—a prediction that has already proven true in some states, the lawmakers warned.

    According to a study by the Becket Fund For Religious Liberty, when the city of Boston stopped partnering with faith-based organizations to provide foster care for children, the number who aged out of the system rather than be placed in a home increased by a staggering 50 percent.

    The study also showed that Christian homes are three times more likely to foster a child and two times more likely to adopt a foster child than non-Christian homes.

    Attorneys general from 19 states also submitted letters of opposition to the policy. They called the proposal unconstitutional and potentially illegal, citing the Supreme Court landmark case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In that ruling, the Court determined that the government cannot prohibit a religious organization from excluding same-sex couples from becoming foster parents.

    “The Biden Administration is proposing a rule that is unconstitutional, without authority from Congress, and which almost certainly will drive parents of faith out of the foster care system,” Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers wrote.

    Opposition has come from child protection agencies including the Texas Department of Family Protective Services and the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. Both agencies said the rule would be a “further disincentive” to foster care providers.

    The Biden administration did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times about the criticism.

    Some states are already rejecting potential foster parents over their religious beliefs against LGBTQ ideology.

    Adoptive Parents Being Rejected

    Catholic World Report in August reported on an Oregon widowed mother of five who was prohibited from adopting two siblings from foster care because she did not support teaching alternative sexual orientation to children.

    In Massachusetts, a Catholic couple has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Children and Families (DCF)  for rejecting their application after they passed a home study and underwent extensive training.

    According to their lawsuit,  Mike and Kitty Burke were rejected because of answers they gave about gender dysphoria and a child’s sexual orientation. Mike, an Iraq War veteran, and Kitty, a special ed assistant, were denied even though they were willing to take hard-to-place children with special needs.

    “After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents,” the couple said in a statement.

    “We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home.”

    A DCF spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

    According to a 2022 DCF report, more than 10,000 children in Massachusetts are under the care of the DCF.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 02/02/2024 – 17:40

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