Nov 03

Today’s News 3rd November 2024

  • Portents Of Chaos
    Portents Of Chaos

    Authored by Patrick Lawrence via Consortium News,

    At this moment it is hard to locate the limit of what either of the two main political parties in the U.S. will do to avoid losing…

    Uh-oh. The New York Times is picking up its familiar theme now that the Nov. 5 elections are but a few days out front: Those mal-intended foreigners are again “sowing discord and chaos in hopes of discrediting American democracy,” it reported in a piece published Tuesday. 

    The Beelzebubs haunting this political season, when everything would otherwise be orderly and altogether copacetic among Americans, are Russia, China and Iran.

    Why can’t this year’s version of the old, reliable “Axis of Evil” leave us alone with our “democratic process,” the one the rest of the world envies and resents? Troublemakers, with all their “sowing.” You could probably call them “garbage” and get away with it. 

    Uh-oh. We’re already reading of tampered voter-registration forms and forged applications to vote by mail in two districts in Pennsylvania, the populous state where the results in 2020 could not have been blurrier and whose 19 Electoral College votes were decisive in getting Joe Biden into the White House last time around.

    But not to worry. In a delightful reprise of one of the truly memorable phrases to come down to us from the 1960s, an election commissioner in one of the districts where officials uncovered the malfeasance tells us, “The system worked.” 

    I think I understand.  

    I tell you, whenever I read of people in other countries sowing anything, whether it is doubt or chaos or disinformation, and at this point even pumpkin seeds, it always turns out the same. This word “sowing” has been a favorite in the mainstream press since 2016, when we read daily — and of this we were to have no doubt — the Rrrrrussians were “interfering in our elections.”  

    Since then, everytime I read of someone sowing something it sows more doubt in my mind — more than I already harbored — that one can take our electoral system, as we have it in the 21st century, the slightest bit seriously.  

    This is to say nothing of putting one’s name on it behind a little green curtain in a voting booth.

    On the one hand you have the Times, which has diminished itself over the past eight years to little more than the Democrats’ house organ, already preparing to suggest that the malign enemies of American democracy corrupted the elections. Believe me, you will hear this if Kamala Harris loses but not if she wins.  

    On the other hand, you have early but clear cases of attempted vote-rigging and local election officials waving these cases off as nothing at all to fret about. It is interesting to consider why said officials profess so cavalier a view.  

    I have thought for months that the 2024 elections, discord already in plentiful supply, could easily tip over into a degree of civil chaos beyond anything so far recorded in the American story. Just such a day of reckoning now seems to beckon. 

    Neither of the main parties appears prepared to lose. At this moment it is hard to locate the limit of what either party will do to avoid losing. 

    Remnants of Democracy

    All by our lonesome selves, it seems to me, we Americans have made a mess of the remnants of our democracy these past eight years.

    This is not to suggest American politics has ever been other than, let’s say, in the way of a barnyard. In this, neither of the major parties, whose function since the mid–19th century has been to circumscribe acceptable politics and policy, is free of responsibility. 

    But in the matter of responsibility I assign more to the Democrats than to the G.O.P. It was Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump eight Novembers ago that confirmed America’s swift drift into post-democracy.

    The Democrats have never recovered from the disruption in 2016 of their dream that history was about to end and their idea of the liberal ethos would eternally prevail, all alternatives withering away the way Marx and Engels thought the communist state would.

    Anti-Trump protest in Washington, D.C., Nov. 12, 2016. (Ted Eytan/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

    I have long detected that American liberalism has at its core a vein of illiberalism that is essential to its character.

    America is simply not, to put this point another way, a tolerant nation. It does not encourage its people to think: It requires them to conform. Alexis de Tocqueville saw this coming two centuries ago in the two volumes of Democracy in America. 

    We are now, post–Clinton, treated to the spectacle of full-dress liberal authoritarianism, and if you do not like the term there are others. De Tocqueville, prescient man, called it “soft despotism.” I’ve always favored “apple-pie authoritarianism.”

    Institutional Corruptions

    There is a feature of this awful manifestation among NPR–addicted, kale-eating liberals that distinguishes our time as especially discouraging as to the future.

    This is their wanton corruption of some of the institutions without which even a semblance of democratic government is impossible. I am thinking particularly of three that figure in the pre-election picture.

    One is the judiciary — federal, state, county, local. Beginning with the Mueller investigation, the in-plain-sight corruption of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the ridiculous court cases brought against Donald Trump, Attorney–General Merrick Garland’s subversion of the Justice Department to protect President Joe Biden as his son’s influence-mongering schemes came to light — all this in behalf of the Democrats:

    Well, as I learned during my days as a correspondent abroad, when the judicial system goes down, the path to failed-state status opens.  

    Two is the intelligence apparatus and the military. Intel, from the days of James Clapper and John Brennan, has lined up unequivocally behind the Democrats ever since the brash real-estate man from New York foolishly assumed he could “drain the swamp” — his declaration that he would take on the Deep State.

    U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Feb. 18, 2017. (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

    As to the military, the generals thought nothing of declaring eight years ago, at the Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia and in open letters published in the Times, that they would refuse the commander-in-chief’s orders were Trump to win and attempt a new détente with Russia and an end to “the forever wars.” 

    Yes, you’ve got John Kelly, who served in Trump’s cabinet and then as his chief of staff, suddenly calling Trump a fascist — the Democrats’ favorite epithet these past weeks. Doesn’t anyone want to know why Kelly worked closely with a man he considered a fascist? Doesn’t it occur to anyone — it must, surely — that Kelly, a retired Marine general, says these things to serve the party he trusts to keep the wars going and the tax dollars flowing?  

    A paradox here, more apparent than real: John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, James Mattis, Mark Esper, and various others like them did not wear uniforms when they served in the Trump administration, but they never took them off. 

    If this election is about anything — apart from the price of groceries, of course — it is about the national-security state’s place in American politics. In our post–2016 era, intel and the military are perfectly welcome to operate openly, unabashedly, in the American political process — this because the Democratic Party gives them a wide berth to do so. 

    Deep-State Democracy

    Now, do you think the Deep State gives a toot about democratic process? Ask the Italians and the Greeks, the Iranians and the Guatemalans, the Japanese, the South Koreans and the Indonesians, the Chileans and the Venezuelans, and… and damn, ask most of humanity at this point. As others have pointed out since the Russiagate days, what the spooks have long done abroad now visits itself upon the American polity. 

    The obvious follow-on: Should we be concerned as to whether the Democrats and these institutional allies would let this election go to Trump just by the vote count? 

    I am.

    As to the third of the institutions that have corrupted themselves in the Democratic Party cause, may I let mainstream media speak for themselves? Apart from independent publications such as the one you are reading, the intent of American media is no longer to inform the public but to protect the institutions they purport to report upon from the public gaze.   

    Trump’s “a threat to American democracy,” Harris its savior: It’s a bust at this point. The New York Times has made itself a re-enactment of The New York Times. The Washington Post under the ownership of Jeff Bezos and this ghastly new chief executive of his, Will Lewis, cannot manage, and doesn’t seem to attempt, even a re-enactment. 

    I do not seem to be the only one ill-at-ease at the prospect of mayhem to come after midnight Nov. 5. The Post published a survey Wednesday, conducted in the first half of October, indicating that among voters in the states where the election could go either way, 57 percent are nervous that Trump supporters won’t accept defeat and may resort to violence, while a third of those surveyed think Harris supporters will take it to the street, as they used to say, if the candidate of joy and vibes loses.

    Harris campaigning in Glendale, Ariz., on Aug. 9. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

    The numbers skewed even more dramatically when The Post asked Democrats about Trump’s people and Trump’s people about Democrats. In a survey The Associated Press published Thursday, you have 70 percent of those polled saying they are “anxious and frustrated.”

    Join the party. I cannot, myself, take either candidate seriously. I take seriously the thought that a lot of people will not take the result seriously and a mess will ensue. 

    And in this I worry more about Democrats resorting to corrupt conduct than I do the Republicans. Why this, you may ask.

    To begin with, I do not at all like the smell of that Times piece quoted at the top of this column. It reeks too strongly of the scene in 2016, when, on either side of the election, the Democrats and all manner of repellent “progressives” conjured of thin air a frenzy of Russophobia from which American has yet to recover. 

    Steven Lee Myers, previously of the Times’s Moscow bureau, is now some kind of “disinformation” reporter and led the work on the piece in question. And all is as it was for four years after Clinton’s defeat: no shred of independent reporting or sourcing in anything under his byline. Intel people and other unnamed officials feed this guy like a foie gras farmer feeds his geese. 

    This is all you get from our Stevie. And I don’t see anyone trying on this disgraceful stuff in behalf of the Trump campaign. I have suggested my conclusions.

    But Jan. 6, Jan. 6, Jan 6! First of all, what happened on Jan. 6 does not rise to “coup” or “insurrection.” It was a protest, with much to suggest the presence of agents provocateurs. And second, there seems to me there was plenty to protest by that point. 

    Straight off the top, there was the liberal authoritarians’ perfectly legible collusion to suppress the contents of Hunter Biden’s vastly incriminating laptop computer three weeks before the vote, to the point of blanket censorship of the New York Post, the oldest newspaper in America. If this was not open-and-shut election interference someone will have to tell me what constitutes it.

    On less certain ground, I have read of many election officials in many states, Pennsylvania high among them, certifying the 2020 results. But a truly convincing, here-are-the-numbers case for these results in states such as Pennsylvania is hard to come by. You never read of Trump’s claims that the Pennsylvania results were rigged. You read only and always of Trump’s “false claims” or “discredited claims” or “disproven claims” to the point you start thinking of Lady Macbeth and how she doth protest too much, methinks.   

    Trump addressing The Believers religious group, in July in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

    I recall, very imperfectly, seeing research purportedly done by a computer scientist at one of the universities in Philadelphia. Just after the election he or she put out a series of screenshots on social media, time-stamped to the second, that appeared to show the results in a significant number of districts changing all at once and by enough to give Biden a swift come-from-behind victory by a margin of slightly more than 1 percent.  

    Genuine or a put-up job, this research? Credible or not credible? I would not dream of judging it, but this is not my point. My point is that there should be no cause to doubt such results as these and, eight years on, as I read it there still is. 

    Doubt recreates itself, as you may have noticed, like some organism that regenerates. So we come to the Times’ report Tuesday of attempted voter fraud in Lancaster and York counties, two populous areas of, once again, Pennsylvania.

    Campbell Roberston’s piece has just about everything, starting with a headline that has Trump “sowing doubt.” He, Trump, is even “using reports about suspicious voter registrations to cast the election as already flawed.” 

    What a cad. What a scoundrel. What a… fascist tyrant. 

    It seems that some thousands of forged or otherwise fraudulent voter registration forms and requests to vote by mail arrived recently in the offices of the Lancaster and York election authorities.

    So far as one can make out, some official or officials in each county brought these “large batches” of falsified government documents to light. Whereupon other officials in each case smothered this discovery as if suffocating the matter with a pillow. 

    Alice Yoder, an election commissioner in Lancaster, put it best, or anyway most preposterously.

    “The system worked,” saith Ms. Yoder.

    “We caught this.”

    I honestly had to read this quotation several times to believe anyone would say this. 

    I would like to know a few things about this case that we are not told. 

    The batches of forgeries “were submitted by out-of-state canvassing groups,” Robertson reports, groups that remain unidentified.

    One, what are canvassing groups and what do they do in whose behalf?

    Two, what were such groups doing in Lancaster and York counties if they are not from Pennsylvania?

    Three, if they are not from Pennsylvania, what were they doing with Pennsylvania election forms that were purportedly genuine?

    Just two more questions.

    Four, why are the election officials in these two counties not naming the guilty canvassing organizations? This seems to me very troubling. 

    And five, what are the party affiliations or otherwise the voting preferences of officials who will not identify the offending organizations and say things such as “The system worked.”

    There are no grounds to draw any conclusions whatsoever on this point, given we know absolutely nothing about these people, but I went to the trouble of looking up Ms. Yoder’s c.v. 

    There is a bit of the sociologist in all of us, well– or underdeveloped as the case may be. Journalists often make use of their endowments in this line.

    Drawing on mine, I would speculate that Ms. Yoder’s c.v., after a careful peruse, is highly suggestive of a Kamala Harris voter, perhaps even of a liberal authoritarian. 

    Could be dead right, could be dead wrong. I cannot go beyond more or less idle speculation.

    And not more or less idle doubt as Nov. 5 draws close.

    *  *  *

     

    The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News or ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 23:20

  • Israeli Commandos Snatch 'Hezbollah Naval Official' In Daring Beach Raid
    Israeli Commandos Snatch ‘Hezbollah Naval Official’ In Daring Beach Raid

    Regional media reports and government statements have confirmed that Israeli naval forces have captured an alleged senior Hezbollah official in a daring raid launched from the Mediterranean sea on Friday.

    The man described as a high-ranking Hezbollah operative has been identified as Imad Amhaz. Commandos on speed boats reportedly landed on a Lebanese beach and snatched him from a cabin in the early morning hours. 

    “A sizable force, suspected to be Israeli, stealthily touched down on the shores of Batroun in northern Lebanon, roughly 87 miles from the Israeli border, with the intent of snatching a high-ranking terrorist operative from his hideaway in a cabin,” Israel’s YNet news details, adding that the raid involved 25 Israeli elite troops.

    Imad Amhaz, an alleged Hezbollah naval official, via social media

    Lebanese national broadcaster National News agency separately described that an “unidentified military force” carried out a “sea landing” at a beach at Batroun, south of Tripoli.

    The commando group “went with all its weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, kidnapping a Lebanese man… and sailing away into the open sea on a speedboat,” NNA added.

    Lebanese media is only saying that the man that was nabbed was a “student” of a maritime institute in Lebanon. According to more from eyewitnesses of the strange episode:

    He was taken from student housing near the Batroun institute, but was a resident of the Shia-majority town of Qmatiyeh further south, said the acquaintance who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security concerns.

    He was completing courses to become a sea captain, the source told AFP, adding that the man was in his thirties and was well known by the teaching staff at the center.

    But the IDF has called the man a “significant source of knowledge” for Hezbollah’s naval force. It’s expected that Amhaz will be detained and interrogated in a military prison.

    “He was taken to Israel to be questioned by the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 — which specializes in HUMINT, or human intelligence — on Hezbollah’s naval operations,” Times of Israel subsequently reported.

    UN peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon have entered the controversy, amid conflicting reports they may have prevented the Lebanese armed forces from responding to the raid (which UNIFIL firmly denies) on Lebanon’s sovereign territory and its citizens:

    Lebanese journalist Hasan Illaik, who first reported on the raid, cited anonymous Lebanese military officials as saying the operation was apparently carried out in coordination with the German Navy operating within UNIFIL forces, to prevent the Lebanese Navy from interfering.

    Meanwhile, some Lebanese sources say that the kidnapped man is innocent, and not affiliated with Hezbollah, and that the IDF kidnapped a regular Lebanese citizen. Video also captured the raid:

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

    Israel’s military has further said that “The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated.”

    The Associated Press has acknowledged that the occupation of the kidnapped man is murky and uncertain, amid continuing speculation: “Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the incident occurred at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah.” The report added: “The officials said an investigation is looking into the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli force came to rescue him.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 22:45

  • If Trump Wins…
    If Trump Wins…

    Authored by Bret Swanson via The Brownstone Institute,

    Trump enjoys the momentum.

    Four of the most recent major national polls show him up 2 to 3%, while Democratic-friendly outlets like the New York Times and CNN both show a TIE race in their final surveys.

    The 2016 and 2020 elections were razor close even though Clinton (5%) and Biden (8%) had solid polling leads at this point.

    We need to contemplate a Trump win not only in the electoral college but also in the popular vote.

    Here are some thoughts:

    1. JD Vance ascendant, obviously. Big implications for the Republican trajectory. 

    2. Will Trump replace Fed chairman Jay Powell? Or merely jawbone for a change in policy? In a new CNBC interview, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh argues that the Fed has juiced both the stock market and inflation. Would reducing inflation, which Trump has promised, automatically therefore lead to a stock market correction and economic slowdown? Not necessarily. If Trump unleashes productive economic activity and Congress ends the fiscal blowout, the Fed could normalize monetary policy without causing a major economic slump.

    3. Will Trump impose the broad and deep tariffs he proposed? Or will he mostly threaten them as a bargaining tool with China? I’m betting on some of the former but more of the latter. We notice, however, Trump allies are floating a trial balloon to replace income taxes with tariffs. As impractical and improbable as that may be, we’re glad to see the mention of radical tax reform reemerge after too long an absence from the national discussion.

    4. How will he organize the “deportation” of illegal migrants? In the best case, it will be difficult. There will be scuffles and chases. Critics will charge the new Administration as cruel and worse. How much stomach will Republicans have for a messy process? One idea would be to offer a “reverse amnesty” – if you leave peacefully and agree not to return illegally, we will forgive your previous illegal entry(s) and minor violations. This would incentivize self-identification and quiet departure. Plus it would help authorities track those leaving. Would migrant departures truly hit the economy, as critics charge? We doubt large effects. Substantial native populations are still underemployed or absent from the workforce. 

    5. We should expect a major retrenchment of regulatory intrusions across the economy – from energy to crypto. Combined with recent Supreme Court action, such as the Chevron reversal, and assisted by the Elon Musk’s substance and narrative, it could be a regulatory renaissance. Extension of the 2017 tax cuts also becomes far more likely.

    6. Trump has never worried much about debt, deficits, or spending. But he’s tapped Elon Musk as government efficiency czar. It’s an orthogonal approach to spending reform instead of the traditional (and unsuccessful) Paul Ryan playbook. Can this good cop-bad cop duo at the very least return out-of-control outlays to a pre-Covid path? Can they at least cancel purely kleptocratic programs, such as the $370-billion Green Energy slush funds? Might they go even further – leveraging the unpopular spending explosion and resulting inflation to achieve more revolutionary effects on government spending and reach? Or will the powerful and perennial forces of government expansion win yet again, sustaining a one-way ratchet not even Elon can defeat? 

    7. What if the economy turns south? One catalyst might be the gigantic unrealized bond losses on bank balance sheets; another might be commercial real estate collapse. Although reported GDP growth has been okay, the inflation hangover is helping Trump win on the economy. But many believe the post-pandemic economic expansion is merely a sugar-high and has already lasted longer than expected. A downturn early in Trump’s term could complicate many of his plans. 

    8. How will NATO and its transatlantic network respond? Or more generally, what will the neocon and neoliberal hawks, concentrated in DC and the media, but little loved otherwise, do? Does this item from Anne Applebaum — arguing Trump resembles Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin all rolled into one — portend continued all-out war on prudent foreign policy? Or will they adopt a more sophisticated approach? If the neocons move wholesale and formally (back) into the Democratic fold, how long will the coalition of wokes and militarists hold? On the economic front, Europe, already underperforming vis-a-vis the US, will fall even further behind without big changes. Reformers should gain at the expense of the transatlantic WEF-style bureaucrats. 

    9. Can Trump avoid another internal sabotage of his Administration? Before then, if the election results are tight, will the Democrats seek to complicate or even block his inauguration? Can he win approval for his appointees in the Senate? Can he clean house across the vast public agencies? How long will it take to recruit, train, and reinvigorate talented military leadership, which we chased away in recent years? And how will Trump counter – and avoid overreacting to – taunts, riots, unrest, and lawfare, designed to bolster the case he’s an authoritarian? 

    10. Will the Democrats reorient toward the center, a la Bill Clinton? Or will the blinding hatred of Trump fuel yet more radicalism? Orthodox political thinking suggests a moderation. Especially if Trump wins the popular vote, or comes close, pragmatic Democrats will counsel a reformation. James Carville, for example, already complains that his party careened recklessly away from male voters. And Trump’s apparent pickups among Black and Latino voters complicate the Democrats’ longstanding identity-focused strategy. Other incentives might push toward continued belligerence and extreme wokeness, however, and thus an intra-party war. 

    11. Will the half of the country which inexplicably retains any confidence in the legacy media at least begin rethinking its information diet and filters? Or has the infowarp inflicted permanent damage?

    12. Will big business, which shifted hard toward Democrats over the last 15 years, recalibrate toward the GOP? Parts of Silicon Valley over the last year began a reorientation — e.g. Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, and before them, Peter Thiel in 2016. But those are the entrepreneurs. In the receding past, businesses large and small generally lined up against government overreach. Then Big Business and Big Government merged. Now, a chief divide is between politically-enmeshed bureaucratic businesses and entrepreneurial ones. Does the GOP even want many of the big guys back? The GOP’s new alignment with “Little Tech” is an exciting development, especially after being shut out of Silicon Valley for the last two decades. 

    13. Industry winners: traditional energy, nuclear energy, Little Tech. Industry losers: Green Energy, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Food. Individual winners: X (nee Twitter), Elon Musk, RFK, Jr. 

    14. How will the Censorship Industrial Complex react? A Trump win will pose both a symbolic and operational blow to governmental, non-governmental, old media, and new media outlets determined to craft and control facts and narratives. It will complicate their mission, funding, and organizational web. Will they persist in their “mis/disinformation” framing and their badgering of old media and social media companies to moderate content aggressively? Or will they devise a new strategy? A.I. is pretty clearly the next frontier in the information wars. How will those who propagandize and rewire human minds attempt to program and prewire artificial ones?

    15. How will Trump integrate RFK, Jr. and his movement? Will RFK, Jr. achieve real influence, especially on health issues? Big Pharma and Big Public Health will wage a holy war to block reforms in general and accountability for Covid mistakes in particular. 

    16. Trump has promised to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. On one hand, it should be easy. Despite what you hear from DC media and think tanks, Ukraine is losing badly. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and its military is depleted and faltering. Ukraine should want a deal quickly, before it loses yet more people and territory. Russia, meanwhile, always said it wants a deal, even before the war started, focusing on Ukrainian neutrality. Why Ukrainian neutrality should bother the US was always a mystery. And yet even critics of the West’s support for Ukraine, who want an agreement, think it will be difficult to achieve. The Western foreign policy establishment has invested too much credibility and emotion. It will charge “appeasement” and “betrayal” and make any deal difficult for Trump. Russia, meanwhile, has secured so much territory and now has Odessa and Kharkiv in its sights. Putin will not be eager to accept a deal he would have taken in 2021 or before. The far better path for all involved was a pre-war agreement, or the one negotiated but scuttled in April 2022. 

    17. What if A.I. launches a new productivity boom, enabled by an agenda of energy abundance, including a nuclear power revival? The economic tailwinds could remake politics even more than we currently see.

    18. Can Trump, having run and won his last campaign, consolidate gains by reaching out and uniting the portions of the country willing to take an extended hand?

    Republished from the author’s Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 22:10

  • Witness In Diddy Case Claims To Have Sex Tapes With 'Intoxicated' Celebrities And Minors
    Witness In Diddy Case Claims To Have Sex Tapes With ‘Intoxicated’ Celebrities And Minors

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    A witness in the ongoing Sean “Diddy” Combs case says that he has several sex tapes that allegedly feature “intoxicated” and “victimized” celebrities, including two who were underage.

    During an interview with NewsNation, Courtney Burgess, who testified against Combs before a grand jury in Manhattan, claimed that he has in his possession flash drives featuring videos of eight celebrities with Diddy.

    Burgess said the flash drives originally belonged to Kim Porter, an ex-girlfriend of Diddy.

    Explaining his relationship with Diddy, Burgess said “I’ve been knowing him for 35 years. I think we probably entered into the music business at the same time.”

    Burgess said he is willing to turn over eleven flash drives to the court, claiming that the videos on them feature six well known males and two celebrity females.

    Burgess said “I think all, to be honest — all,” those in the tapes seemed “victimized” and “intoxicated.”

    Burgess also claimed that the flash drives include a manuscript from Porter that outlines Combs’ alleged crimes.

    Burgess’s attorney, Ariel Mitchell, was also featured in the interview, and claimed that the federal government sent U.S. Marshals to serve Burgess a subpoena for the flash drives.

    As we have previously highlighted, a former bodyguard of Combs has claimed that the rapper has footage of not only celebrities, but elite politicians and state figures engaging in compromising activities.

    The bodyguard, Gene Deal, says the secret footage was captured at Diddy’s various so called “freak off” parties, which are claimed to have involved victims being forced to engage in sex acts while Combs masturbated and recorded the events.

    “I don’t think it’s only celebrities gonna be shook. He had politicians in there, he had princes in there. He also had a couple of preachers in there,” said Deal, adding that “he had every room bugged.”

    One alleged victim of Combs has filed a lawsuit claiming that the rapper raped her when she was 13 years old while a male and female celebrity pair watched and joined in.

    The suit claims that the male celebrity also raped her while the female and Diddy observed.

    Combs has been denied bail twice on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

    He remains in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.

    * * *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 21:00

  • Leftists Predict Hysterical Dystopian Future Ruled By JD Vance And An Immortal Elon Musk
    Leftists Predict Hysterical Dystopian Future Ruled By JD Vance And An Immortal Elon Musk

    The secret to understanding the average progressive mind is to first realize that everything they do revolves around a deeply ingrained fantasy world in which they are rebels; righteous underdogs fighting against “the system” or “the patriarchy.”  Leftists cannot function within their collectivist ideology without first creating a fascist bogeyman to revolt against.  If they were to ever realize that they are, in fact, the establishment and the authoritarians, their entire world view would collapse.

    This is why you will continue to see content like the election propaganda video below, no matter how ridiculous the premise might be.  Leftist activists create these narratives, not because they are necessarily convincing to most people, but because they need to convince themselves that they are still the good guys. 

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

    JD Vance as dictator for life?  Conservatives banning contraception?  Elon Musk as an immortal techno god who spies on the masses using X and AI?  Global warming destroying the planet and creating a Mad Max future in which the homeless are forced into concentration camps?  The only thing missing is the forced birthing ceremonies from The Handmaid’s Tale.

    The video credits cite a handful of progressive NGOs as references for donations (including Vote.org) but little on who specifically made it.  The relevant issue is the insight this gives into the insanity of left activists.  They cling to so many assumptions they have been proven wrong about time after time (global warming), and they also imagine a world in which conservatives are the elites searching for immortality.  They seem to be projecting the habits and hobbies of the very globalists that fund leftist groups today.  

    One could argue that perhaps this is gaslighting – They’re accusing conservatives of scheming to rule the world when they are the people that actually want control.  That could be, but the conspiracy theories surrounding “Project 2025” suggest a Q-Anon level of delusion going on that feeds directly into bizarre narratives like those in the video.  Leftists have to believe they’re fighting the good fight, even though they’re actually useful idiots for the establishment. 

    This desperate need to take on the role of “freedom fighter” doesn’t mesh very well with reality.  Keep in mind, for nearly two decades progressives have enjoyed expanding political and social power, with nearly every western government, every major NGO, every corporation, every legacy media outlet and every Big Tech platform dominated by woke ideology.  From ESG to DEI to LGBTQ+ and beyond, Americans and much of the west have been endlessly bombarded from every angle by leftist propaganda.  

    Their war on conservative principles and individual freedom nearly came to a crescendo during the covid pandemic when they claimed the power to take away people’s access to the economy if they refused to accept an experimental vaccine and follow the mandates to the letter.  Surveys showed a disturbing number of Democrats supported the outright destruction of constitutional freedoms in the name of forcing people to adhere to medical mandates based entirely on lies.

    Leftists also supported the widespread censorship of conservative voices on everything from the covid vaccine, to the lockdowns, to climate change, to Hunter Biden’s laptop.  This censorship was spearheaded by the Biden Administration acting in violation of the constitution as they worked closely with Big Tech companies to shut down dissent.

    They aren’t fighting “the man”, they are the man.  Ridiculous AI generated political videos like the one above are not going to change that.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 20:25

  • Halloween Is Over, But The Election Litigation Is Getting Really Scary
    Halloween Is Over, But The Election Litigation Is Getting Really Scary

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    “Something wicked this way comes.” Those words from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” capture a certain dread that takes hold of some of us tasked with covering the legal elements of the presidential election. 

    Just as Halloween ended, things in the days leading into Election Day have begun to get…well, spooky. Call it election jitters, but some of us have been here before. 

    More than 200 cases have been filed around the country before the election this year. In the last week, worrisome elements have begun to pop up in various swing states.

    Over the last couple of decades, I have covered presidential elections for three networks (as I will do for Fox News in this election). The lead-up to elections always includes a flurry of lawsuits. As the voting margin shrinks between the parties, the number of lawyers increases.

    Some lawsuits are important efforts to make changes to remove barriers for voters or the counting of early balloting. For example, on Friday an emergency lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union secured an order for election officials in Cobb County, Ga., to overnight mail ballots to roughly 3,000 citizens and to guarantee that they be counted after a snafu by election officials. Other lawsuits are what I call “placeholders,” where campaigns establish areas of concern to be able to reference later in any specific challenges on or after Election Day.

    The Supreme Court has already intervened to stop an effort by the Biden-Harris administration to force Virginia to put people back on the voting rolls who had identified themselves as non-citizens. It is a crime for non-citizens to vote. Although Virginia allows any mistaken information to be corrected (and also allows for challenged voters to file provisional ballots), lower courts ordered Virginia to enable people to vote who had said they were not citizens.

    Critics charge that the case is the continuation of the administration’s unrelenting attacks on voter identification and proof of citizenship laws, even though 84 percent of Americans support such laws. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislators actually made it a crime for any poll worker to ask voters for identification.

    Some of these early challenges are welcomed, in the sense that we still have time to work out problems. Courts are notoriously reluctant to intervene after an election with the limited time before the certification of votes. They often refuse challengers access to vital election board information or bar cases as speculative or litigants as lacking in standing. This fuels the public’s distrust of the integrity of the election.

    Some challenges potentially involve a high number of votes in swing states. For example, in North Carolina, the Republican National Committee is suing the North Carolina State Board of Elections over 225,000 people who may not have been appropriately registered because that state failed to require a driver’s license or partial Social Security number.

    In Arizona, a judge had to order Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to release the names of roughly 218,000 voters who may have been allowed to register without the proof of citizenship required by state law.

    There is also a growing concern over possible systemic voting registration violations in multiple districts in Pennsylvania. Initially, 2,500 forms were marked as suspicious for possible false names, duplicative handwriting or unverifiable or incorrect identifying information. Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams and her team found that about 60 percent of the 2,500 forms were potentially illegitimate. Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso linked the registrations to “Field and Media Corps,” a subsidiary of Fieldcorps, an Arizona-based organization.

    Field and Media Corps appears to have taken down its website, but it previously identified itself as a subsidiary of FieldCorps. It described itself as “connecting campaigns and projects with communities of color across the state. Our clients benefit from our social activism and coalition leadership experience gained through decades of leading campaigns, highlighting social inequalities, and developing BIPOC coalition building.”

    FieldCorps has reportedly been working for the Harris-Walz campaign, the Mark Kelly campaign in Arizona and other Democratic campaigns. Efforts to reach FieldCorps for comment have been unsuccessful.

    The concern is that companies like FieldCorps could be replicating errors across districts and states in the rush to register new voters.

    If these are knowing falsifications, it could constitute a federal crime.

    We also have the same controversies arising in this election about changes to voting laws just before the election. In 2020, many voters were opposed to courts in states like Pennsylvania issuing last-minute changes. Many assumed that these laws had been finally worked out to guarantee the criteria for consideration of mail-in ballots and other forms of voting. 

    However, with less than two weeks to go, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court voted 4-3 to order a significant change in election rules. The Election Code in the state is a model of clarity — it says that a provisional ballot “shall not be counted if the elector’s [mail] ballot is received in a timely manner by a county board of elections.” However, the court ruled that provisional ballots must be counted even if an individual has already sent in a mail ballot rejected for violating a mandatory rule, such as failure to place the ballot in a secrecy envelope or to date or sign the envelope. Late Friday night, the Supreme Court declined to block the counting of the provisional ballots.

    However, on Friday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did hold the line on another major change of the state election laws ordered by a lower court. The court stayed a decision that it is unconstitutional to reject mail ballots without handwritten dates on the return envelopes. The stay means that the law will remain in effect for the election. Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a reassuring concurrence for many of us having to follow these cases: “’This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’  We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.” 

    In what may be the closest election in history, late changes to election laws are inflammatory for an already suspicious electorate. According to the Gallup polling, only 63 percent are “very (34 percent) or somewhat confident (29 percent) that votes in the upcoming midterm elections will be accurately cast and counted.” That is near a record low, and there is a 45 percentage point gap separating Republicans (40 percent) and Democrats (85 percent) in their confidence in election integrity.

    To my astonishment, voting officials are still committing basic errors. In Bucks County, Pa., voters were turned away in their attempt to apply in person for mail-in ballots. Some were told that there were computer or staffing problems. A court then ordered additional days to request ballots, so that matter at least is resolved. Yet such glitches are concerning. This is not rocket science. Rocket science is Elon Musk catching a massive booster rocket on what looked like a giant barbeque fork. Getting the staff and computers in place in a historic election should not be a great challenge.

    Given the emotions and closeness of this election, any such irregularities will only confirm the worst expectations of some voters. They are often neither sinister nor particularly suspicious. With tens of millions voting, there are going to be problems. Election officials can help reduce the suspicions by being more forthcoming in sharing information. In past years, officials have acted reflectively to oppose any disclosures while seeking the dismissal of cases. That largely succeeded legally but proved costly politically. It left many allegations (including ill-supported theories) unresolved in the minds of many citizens. 

    It would be far better for the nation to resolve questions before the elections and strive for greater transparency in post-election challenges. That is why, if something wicked this way comes, we can more easily send it along its way.

    Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 19:50

  • "If Trump Is A Dictator…"
    “If Trump Is A Dictator…”

    Throughout the 2024 election, Democrats have gone into overdrive to paint Trump as a dire threat to democracy – comparing him to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.

    In one week, ‘Trump-Hitler’ stories topped 5,500 according to Bloomberg.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAnd people wonder why trust in the media has plummeted. But let’s entertain the claim that Trump is a dictator…

    X user ‘Insurrection Barbie‘ posts the following 12-point rebuttal, where the Biden-Harris administration did exactly that:

    *  *  *

    If Trump is a dictator, name one time he usurped power from the other branches of government to enact his will in violation of the separation of powers.

    Here are all the times the Harris/Biden administration did exactly that:

    1. The Harris and Biden administration extended the eviction moratorium after COVID by abusing their emergency powers at the expense of private property rights.

    2. This administration issued vaccine mandates for workers because their “patience” had run thin. This was struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.

    3. Our constitution gives the legislative branch the power to pass laws. This administration was not able to cancel student loan debt by getting Congress to vote on a bill to do so. So, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did this by executive of fiat. They did this after the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. Twice.

    4. In violation of our first amendment, they tried to enact a disinformation governing board to censor your free speech. Ultimately the public backlash was so great that they scrapped the project for now.

    5. Through executive fiat and death by regulation they have upended our energy policies making our emergency oil reserves drop to the lowest they have been since 1984. They killed the Keystone pipeline and they defied court rulings and continued to opt out against holding oil drilling sales.

    6. This administration threatened and coerced social media companies to silence the speech of American citizens because it did not agree with the position of the government in violation of the first amendment.

    7. This administration has absolutely zero respect for property rights and have publicly announced that they pledge to protect 30% of land and water by 2030. That is a land grab. Very dictatorial.

    8. This administration has purposefully, ignored our immigration laws and allow 13 million people into the country. They have willfully failed to uphold deportation orders letting them lapse.

    9. In violation of our laws they have failed to secure our border and have allowed 425,000 [known or suspected] criminals into the country.

    10. They have targeted parents for protesting at their children’s school board meetings in violation of their first amendment rights of free speech and have had the FBI place them on a watchlist.

    11. They have targeted pro-life demonstrators and thrown them in prison while letting pro-abortion activists burn down clinics. The executive branch has to faithfully execute the laws without bias, clearly, they have failed to do that.

    12. They were not able to pass any legislation in Congress to force their transgender agenda into the school system so they passed it by executive fiat and the courts struck down much of it at this point.

    *  *  *

    And there you have it…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 19:15

  • First, Second, & Fourth Amendments Endangered By Kamala Harris
    First, Second, & Fourth Amendments Endangered By Kamala Harris

    Authored by John R. Lott Jr. via RealClearPolitics.com,

    Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats claim they are the party of freedom. In Harris’ interview on Club Shay Shay on Monday, she argued that people need to vote for her to preserve the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments, that Trump “wants to terminate the Constitution.”

    Yet, on the First Amendment, Harris previously called for government “oversight or regulation” of social media to stop what she calls misinformation. In 2022, her vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Tim Walz, claimed: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”

    On gun ownership, Harris went so far as claiming: “I am in favor of the Second Amendment, I don’t believe that we should be taking anyone’s guns away.”

    Reassuring, but Harris’ emphatic past support for gun control is consistent and legion. Let’s look at her record. She claimed during her 2020 presidential campaign, “I support a mandatory buyback program.” When pressed about Joe Biden’s claim at the time that she couldn’t ban assault weapons with an executive order, Harris enthusiastically responded, “Hey, Joe, rather than saying ‘No, we can’t,’ let’s say ‘Yes, we can.’”

    But this is nothing new. Harris has strongly advocated for gun control for years. As San Francisco’s District Attorney, she declared, “Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean that we’re not going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible.”

    She even supports warrantless searches, raising concerns she also doesn’t want to be bothered by the Fourth Amendment.

    In a 2008 amicus brief, Harris argued that a complete ban on all handguns is constitutional. She even said there is no individual right to self-defense.

    The Biden-Harris administration has been the most anti-self defense administration to date, shutting down thousands of gun dealers by mid-2022 due to minor paperwork errors. They renewed Obama’s Operation Choke Point to cut off financial resources for gun manufacturers and dealers; the companies that remained had to grapple with increased costs. The Biden-Harris administration has also established a national gun registry.

    If Kamala Harris becomes president, she will push for even more restrictions. The new Office of Gun Violence Prevention is “overseen” by Harris, which coordinates the administration’s gun control initiatives. The office oversaw a recently released U.S. Surgeon General report that fails to mention a single benefit of gun ownership.

    The OGVP was instrumental in implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, introducing complex rules that classify many gun owners as firearms dealers. If you sell a gun to a friend once and discuss selling a second one to anyone, you must first become a licensed dealer. If you sell one gun and keep a record of the transaction, you are also required to first become licensed.

    Many BCSA rules are vague, giving the government discretion to arbitrarily label individuals as dealers.

    Under Harris’ leadership, the OGVP pushed for lawsuits against gun makers and sellers whenever criminals use their guns. She also pushed to ban semi-automatic “assault” weapons, and require background checks on all private gun transfers.

    By early 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had developed a digital database containing nearly a billion firearms transactions.

    U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan and Thomas Massie found that Bank of America provided the FBI with credit card data for firearms purchases without even requiring a warrant or probable cause.

    With a national gun registry in place, officials can now easily identify legal gun owners. Harris’ past threats to confiscate guns become much more likely to succeed.

    Gun control has already taken center stage in Harris’ campaign. Harris made gun control a key topic in her first event in Wisconsin and again at a gathering of the American Federation of Teachers.

    It isn’t just that Democrats want to regulate every part of our lives, but the real threat to the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments to the Bill of Rights are at risk from Harris. Those freedoms are endangered if she wins.

    *  *  *

    John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. He served as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 18:40

  • "There Are NO WATCHERS": RNC Sues Georgia Counties Over "Last Minute" Decision To Accept Weekend Ballots, Block GOP Observers
    “There Are NO WATCHERS”: RNC Sues Georgia Counties Over “Last Minute” Decision To Accept Weekend Ballots, Block GOP Observers

    The Republican National Committee (RNC) is suing several counties in Georgia, citing a simultaneous decision to accept ballots over the weekend – then block Republican poll watchers in defiance of guidance issued by the Secretary of State.

    “Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties decided at the last minute to accept ballots over the weekend — which disregards the law,” wrote RNC Chairman Michael Whatley on X.

    Democrat officials in Georgia are playing fast and loose with election law.

    Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties decided at the last minute to accept ballots over the weekend — which disregards the law. They have also failed to let our poll observers in to watch the process. The Secretary of State has issued guidance to allow Republican poll watchers in but local officials REFUSE.

    Our election integrity operation has filed a lawsuit.

    Georgia voters demand that the state and courts ensure that these reckless counties administer fair, transparent, and secure elections. Anything less undermines public trust. -Michael Whatley

    Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon condemned the decision, writing on X:

    “Emboldened by the failure of our judicial branch to stop their changing election rules days before Election Day, Georgia Democrats and their allies in Fulton County are banning poll watchers from observing their “special” weekend operations to try to bank more Democrat absentee ballots.”

    We all know what is going on — Democrats are panicked by the incredible Republican turnout in early voting and will do anything to try to catch up even if it means doing it under the cover of darkness and stiff arming any independent observation of whatever the hell is going on in their four “special voting locations” open today with no notice or approval by anyone authorized to oversee elections administration.

    Georgia Republicans are calling on our elected officials and elections administrators to stop this madness which is doing incalculable and irreversible damage to confidence in this election.”

    McKoon posted what appears to be an internal, yet unverified (by ZeroHedge) email which reads: “Good Morning Team! FYI – There are NO WATCHERS approved for the ballot drop off! Do not let them in the building. If they want to observe from the parking lot, you can’t stop that but they are not allowed to sit in the building.”

    In response, Georgia state Senator Greg Dolezal said “I am in communication with the Secretary of State’s office and my Senate colleagues about this. The Secretary has sent investigators to all four locations and the outside monitoring teams (which were assigned specifically to observe Fulton for prior issues) are also deploying people to each location.”

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

    Stay tuned for updates…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 18:05

  • Flip The F*cking Table Over And Scream
    Flip The F*cking Table Over And Scream

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    I had an old friend who used to be a bouncer at one of the bars where I worked in Philadelphia many years ago. We got along decently outside of work because we both had the same mutual interests in our twenties: beer, sports, gambling, and women.

    The big differences between us were that he had a much shorter temper than I did, a much tougher time controlling his emotions and a much larger appetite for alcohol. As would happen given those differences, as the years went by, we eventually lost touch, only to bump into each other randomly at the airport one day after we hadn’t seen each other for about ten years.

    I was returning from a trip I had taken for my job, and he was on his way outbound to some tropical destination I can’t remember. After the perfunctory catch-up, I asked him why he was taking what seemed like a random vacation during the middle of the week.

    He told me that days prior, he had been at the local casino in Philadelphia playing poker and had won $30,000 from the bad beat jackpot, so he was celebrating.

    I asked him how it happened and what he did when he found out he’d won.

    He told me: “Chris, that place has taken so much money from me that when I finally won, I flipped the f*cking poker table over in the middle of the room, while all eight people were sitting at it, and screamed at the top of my lungs.”

    Then, he told me, they paid him out and asked him to leave and never come back.

    Anybody else might easily write this story off as someone with a flair for the dramatic, but having seen my friend flip a table once or twice under far less exciting circumstances (or for no reason at all after multiple shots of Jameson), I knew he wasn’t making it up.

    Heading into the weekend, I kept thinking about metaphors to make some type of big statement about how important I think Tuesday’s election is for our nation. No matter how many ways I tried to word it, all I could think about as an analogy to a potential Trump victory was my friend, sitting inside a casino he’s probably lost a zillion dollars in, finally scoring a big win against the house—the machine that always has the odds in its favor—flipping that table, with the chips, drinks and cards on it, and then getting kicked out carrying a massive Publisher’s Clearing House-style novelty check.

    I don’t like that this is how I think of the government, the Democratic party and the media, conjoined as one unbeatable, dystopian chimera with the odds always in its favor—but I can’t help it. What else could you possibly call a ruling party of elites, using one hand to rig their primary process while using the other to write diatribes about the importance of democracy? What else could you call the party that blankets its deeply flawed policy prescriptions under the cloak of the moral high ground? What do you call the party that used to preach freedom of choice, speech and liberty that now takes its cues from giant pharmaceutical corporations and the military industrial complex? How about the party that outright lied in 2020 to the public about the president’s involvement in a Chinese influence-peddling scam days before the last election?

    And then, what can be said about almost all of the major media networks that have enabled, and run cover for, these actions, all while making concerned looking faces like they actually give a shit about the truth and can’t believe how stupid we are?

    ABC News' David Muir And Linsey Davis To Moderate September Presidential Debate

    Just last week, I watched the media arm of the Democratic Party, consisting of all the major news networks with the exception of Fox News, accuse Jewish people at President Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally of being Nazis. This week, I’m watching them tell the public that Trump said Liz Cheney should be executed when he said nothing of the sort.

    Over the last four years, there have been countless instances like these — the “very fine people” hoax, the never-ending live coverage of the Russia collusion hoax, and CNN putting a yellow filter over Joe Rogan’s face and telling the world he was taking horse medicine when they knew he was not. I wrote it days ago: the media has sacrificed what’s left of its credibility at the altar of an un-elected woman who thinks the PCE deflator is something you sit on at a party that makes a farting noise and that “Strategic Petroleum, Reserve” is a brand of top shelf vodka.

    National Review said it pretty well last month:

    The media has gotten so much wrong over the last four years that not only is it bleeding viewers to alternative media, but major networks like CNN have been forced to lay off staff and completely rethink their programming. It’s a phenomenon that we saw continue last week, with Jeff Bezos making a point not to endorse a political candidate at the Washington Post because, in his words “Americans don’t trust the news media”.

    Among the dead weight purged from CNN some years ago was anchor Brian Stelter. This week, probably without even knowing it, he made a very cogent point when he quoted an anonymous TV executive who said:

    “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.”

    Stelter doesn’t know it, but he’s onto something much bigger than he thinks. He’s presenting that statement out of protest because he believes that mainstream media really is the authority for objective truth and the moral high ground.

    Of course, what the last decade has proven to us is that he’s wrong — deadass wrong. He may not know why he’s wrong, but the point he makes still stands: as I wrote days ago, at some point, the bias and outright lying are going to hit such a fever pitch that even independent and center-left viewers and voters are going to take notice.

    People are simply not going to stand for one-sided fact-checking at debates, “60 Minutes” deceptively editing interviews, and political anchors injecting their politics into the “news.” In fact, longtime Washington Post contributor Hugh Hewitt walked off the set of one of his live streams and quit the Washington Post just hours ago because of exactly this: Democrats are not even hiding their bias anymore and completely lack finesse in their attempts to sway public opinion, as I have noted in a previous article.

    For a glance at how left-wing mainstream media is imploding, watch the entirety of this four minute clip.

    Now that we have the miracle of the internet and alternative media, when that moment comes, mainstream media will have officially crossed to the other side of the adoption bell curve and will begin its slow descent into irrelevance. Before that descent can begin, tolerance for the media must hit a zenith where viewer interest peaks, then ever so slightly starts to fade toward alternative media. This election could very well mark that apex officially moving behind us. Here’s how I see it:

    A GOP victory on Tuesday not only flips the media’s figurative table over, it flips over the table of government in favor of empowering people. It flips over the table that is addicted to spending and racking up trillions of dollars in debt every year. It flips over the table that spends those trillions of dollars on other countries while increasing taxation on American citizens. It flips over the table that cleans up San Francisco for when China’s president arrives but can’t do so for American citizens. It flips over the table of every lie you’ve been told about Joe Biden’s mental health when you could clearly sit at home and watch with your own two eyes how poor of a state he was in. It flips over the table of identity politics and looking at everybody by their race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality under the guise of fighting discrimination. And most importantly, a victory for the GOP on Tuesday flips over the table of trying to stifle the most important God-given right of them all: our right to free speech.

    I’m not going to make some sensationalist claim like if the Democrats win, it’s going to be the end of the world. It won’t. That’s why we have three branches of government and, frankly, there are far too many lazy and incompetent people in government to effectively make too many negative changes quick enough for our nation to deteriorate much quicker over the next four years than it already is. But I bet even the Democrats who are going to vote for Kamala Harris know in the back of their mind that the nation isn’t on the right path right now, and that’s the way we will continue under a Harris administration. Only faster.

    🔥 50% OFF FOR LIFE: Using this coupon entitles you to 50% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for as long as you wish: Get 50% off forever

    If the GOP wins this election, I believe it will be far more consequential to the nation. It feels as though a dam is about to break in the United States and the magnetic poles of the two parties are about to shift. Joe Rogan alluded to this while interviewing Trump when he said:

    “The rebels are Republicans now. You want to be punk rock? You want to buck the system? You are conservative now. The liberals are now pro-silencing criticism. They are pro-censorship. They talk about regulating free speech. It’s bananas to watch.”

    There’s no question the left is pulling us further and further left and, at some point, the nation will snap back in the other direction, regardless of whether it is this election cycle or not. But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like we are right on the doorstep of making a statement that’s bigger than politics by reelecting Donald Trump.

    Sure, it’ll be a statement that we want lower taxes, our freedom of speech, less regulation and small government. But most importantly, it would be a rebuke of all of the names that Democrats have called Republicans, all of the blatant lies they’ve told us and then scolded us like children for not believing, and the party and media machine’s assumption it could serve up whatever candidate it wanted, without a primary, and because they have the moral high ground and the media machine backing them, the country will just shut the fuck up and swallow it.

    When my friend lost money consistently at the casino for years and years, he just “shut the fuck up and swallowed it” and kept coming back for more. The games were rigged, but hell—he was in there taking his shot. And when he finally had the chance to take the house, big, not only did he take some of that money back, but he made a statement in doing so. And while I don’t usually condone destructive behavior, deep down, I know how good it felt for him, and I’m glad he did it. Now, I wonder if the nation can do the same.

    Note from QTR: This will be my last post about politics at least until after Election Day. If you haven’t yet, I urge you desperately to get to the polls on Tuesday and make your voice heard. Just like in 2020, this election may come down to single-digit numbers of votes in many places.

    QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

    This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 17:30

  • Buffett Calls The Top: Berkshire Dumps 100 Million Apple Shares As Unprecedented Selling Spree Boosts Cash To Record $325 Billion Dollars
    Buffett Calls The Top: Berkshire Dumps 100 Million Apple Shares As Unprecedented Selling Spree Boosts Cash To Record $325 Billion Dollars

    Back in August, when discussing Buffett’s ongoing liquidation of his Bank of America stake, we said that “Berkshire’s rising cash stockpiles merely reflect the firm’s inability to find deals in today’s overvalued and weak economic environment”, little did we know just how accurate that would be, because just one day later we and the rest of the market were stunned to learn that far from only dumping Bank of America, the 94-year-old Omaha billionaire had been busy quietly liquidating his most iconic holding in an unprecedented selling spree that sent Berkshire’s cash pile soaring by a record $88 billion to an all time high $277 billion at the end of Q2.

    That was just the beginning, however, and this morning we subsequently learned that through the end of Q3, Berkshire’s unprecedented cash build continued, and the world’s largest conglomerate added another $48 billion to its cash – through both “harvesting” (i.e., selling of existing holdings) and cash from operations, taking it to a record $325.2 billion, or nearly a quarter trillion in cash. As shown for context in the chart below, Berkshire has nearly doubled its cash holdings from $168 billion at the start of the year to a staggering $325 billion 9 months later, up 94%!

    The bulk of the new cash came from sales: in the third quarter, Berkshire sold a net $34.6 billion worth of stock, following the record $75.5 billion in Q2 liquidations, the bulk of which we now know came from Buffett’s sale of half his Apple shares. In other words, the third quarter was the 8th consecutive quarter in which Berkshire has been a net seller of stocks.

    And the selling continued: while there was no 13F filed yet to go with the Berkshire’s 10Q, the company provided a snapshot of its top holdings, revealing that as of Sept 30 it held only $69.9 billion in Apple stock, down a quarter from the $84.2 billion as of June 30, down 62% from $135.4 billion as of March 31 and down 70% from the $174.3 billion as of Dec 31, 2023. This translates into just 300 million shares of AAPL held as of Sept 30, less than a third of what Berkshire owned at the end of 2023, and 30% of Buffett’s peak AAPL holdings of 1 billion shares as of 2018. 

    Buffett said in May that Apple would likely remain Berkshire’s top holding, indicating that tax issues had motivated the sale. “I don’t mind at all, under current conditions, building the cash position,” he said at the annual shareholder meeting. It was unclear if BRK shareholders understood that to mean a sale of 70% (and rising) of the AAPL holdings.

    Going down the list, with the exception of Bank of America (where Buffett is the single largest shareholder) which we already knew was also being aggressively sold – and in Q3 Buffett confirmed that he took down his BAC holdings by 23%, from 1033 million shares to 799 million which in turn made the BAC stake his 3rd largest after American Express –  the rest of Berkshire’s top 5 holdings (American Express, Coca Cola and Chevron) was largely untouched in Q3, meaning that Buffett clearly decided that it was time for Apple and Bank of America to go (we have since learned that subsequent to the end of Q2, Buffett also started to dump a large portion of his Bank of America shares where he is the single largest shareholder).

    While Berkshire’s cash balance rose by a record $35 billion – where proceeds from the sale of Apple and Bank of America were the bulk of the new cash – the company also generated substantial cash from its own operations, and in Q3 Berkshire reported operating earnings of $10.09 billion, down from the $11.6 billion in Q2 and down 6% from a year ago, as insurance underwriting earnings slumped. The company also recorded a $1.1 billion foreign-currency-exchange loss during the quarter.

    Berkshire has for years struggled to find ways to deploy its mountain of cash in a sluggish deal environment, lamenting the lack of cheap opportunities. At the firm’s annual shareholder meeting in May, Buffett said he wasn’t in a rush to spend “unless we think we’re doing something that has very little risk and can make us a lot of money.” It now appears that not only was Buffett not in a rush to spend, but taking advantage of the AI bubble, he has been aggressively liquidating his biggest holding.

    Finally, it’s not just AAPL that Buffett believes is overvalued and is aggressively dumping: the billionaire clearly believes the entire market is way expensive, and in the third quarter, Berkshire refused to repurchase any of its own shares, the first time it has done that since the company changed its buyback policy in 2018.

    It’s hardly a surprise why:  as we noted in “Berkshire’s Growing Cash Pile Has A Hidden Message On Stocks” the Buffett Indicator has rarely signaled a more expensive market.

    Bottom line: unlike October 2008, when Buffett led the clarion call to “Buy American“, this time he is selling American at a never before seen pace.

    Are you?

    One thing we know, Buffett is fearful.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 16:55

  • Latest Trump Hoax Drops: No He Wasn't Simulating Oral Sex
    Latest Trump Hoax Drops: No He Wasn’t Simulating Oral Sex

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    Another hoax has dropped today in an attempt to stop Americans voting for Trump. They’re now claiming he simulated performing oral sex on a microphone stand.

    What?

    Of course, it’s complete nonsense again.

    He was again having technical difficulties with the microphone and explained that the stand was useless because it was too low.

    There are two days to go until the election and nothing is working for the desperate Democrats.

    Yesterday they attempted to say Trump called for executing Liz Cheney. It fell flat on its face because anyone can watch the clip in full context.

    The day before they attempted to claim he wanted to force women to adhere to a federal abortion ban when he wasn’t even talking about abortion.

    This idiocy only serves to highlight how the Harris campaign is happy to outright lie and distort reality.

    They’ve built their campaign on out of context 10 second clips of Trump coupled with lies anyone can see through from a mile away.

    The Harris campaign’s Kamala HQ X account also posted several other edited clips of Trump Friday and suggested he was “confused” and “unhinged.”

    Meanwhile, they’re claiming that this unintelligible person reading something off a phone is “fire”:

    And they had yet another person relating something about the state/size of her vagina:

    Lets balance it out with some clips of what actually went on at Trump’s rallies Friday where he related his closing arguments.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 16:20

  • Polymarket's Trump-Bullish Whale Speaks Out: "Absolutely No Political Agenda"
    Polymarket’s Trump-Bullish Whale Speaks Out: “Absolutely No Political Agenda”

    While still guarding his anonymity, the mysterious man who’s bet more than $30 million on a Trump election victory via the Polymarket prediction marketplace has come forward to assert that his wagers aren’t intended to sway the election, but simply to profit from an outcome he’s highly confident in.    

    “My intent is just making money,” said the man who describes himself as a Frenchman and former US resident who was a trader for American banks. In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal via Zoom, he used the pseudonym “Théo,” saying he wanted to remain anonymous out of a desire to conceal the extent of his assets from his children and friends. The Journal said he was “sport[ing] a short, neatly trimmed beard” and spoke English with a small accent. 

    Here’s how the Journal described the precipitation of the interview, and the paper’s process to ensure it wasn’t talking to an imposter: 

    Théo emailed the Journal after the publication of an Oct. 18 article about his wagers. To prove that he was behind the Polymarket wagers, the Journal asked him to place a bet on whether Taylor Swift would announce that she is pregnant in 2024—one of the many small, nonpolitical wagers available on the platform. Minutes later, Polymarket’s website showed that one of the four accounts, Theo4, had placed a small bet on Swift’s pregnancy. 

    With $30 million on the line, the whale says he’s certain pollsters are again failing to fully capture Trump’s support (AP/Alex Brandon)

    In that original Oct. 18 article, the Journal gave some credit to the idea that the concentrated bets may represent some form of intentional narrative-control scheme meant to benefit Trump. Théo emailed the Journal to refute that theory, writing, “I have absolutely no political agenda.” 

    In his subsequent interview, Théo told the Journal he’s a veteran trader with a history of risking tens of millions of dollars when he discovers a high-confidence trade — and said that’s what he sees in the chance to wager on a Trump victory.  

    When news broke of the whale’s huge wagers on Trump, Polymarket engaged outside experts to scrutinize transactions in presidential election betting, an unnamed source told the Journal at the time. Last week, Polymarket said it had contacted the whale and confirmed it was a French citizen with an extensive financial services and trading background. “Based on the investigation, we understand that this individual is taking a directional position based on personal views of the election,” the firm said. 

    Théo said his conviction on a Trump victory rests on pollsters’ failure to capture the full extent of Trump’s support in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, and his belief that the “shy Trump voter effect” still endures in 2024. “I know a lot of Americans who would vote for Trump without telling you that,” he said, while also scoffing at the possibility that pollsters have improved their methodologies this time around.  

    Having been previously accused of trying to shape the election, Théo dished out an accusation of his own, saying leftist major media outlets are setting America up for post-election social unrest by perpetuating a fiction that the race is a close one. Théo thinks Trump is poised to rout Harris, which is why he has more than $30 million on Trump reaching 270 electoral votes, with the potential to receive $80 million if he’s right. He says his $30 million on Trump represents most of his liquid assets.

    Théo also has bets on a Trump popular-vote victory, along with bets on various swing-state wins. He also gave some insights into how he’s been trading:  

    He started quietly in August by betting several million dollars on Trump, using an account with the username Fredi9999. At the time, Trump and Harris had roughly even chances on Polymarket.

    Théo spread out his wagers over multiple days and weeks to avoid causing a price spike. Still, as his bets grew, Théo noticed other traders were backing away from quoting prices when Fredi9999 was buying. That made it harder for Théo to get attractive prices. He created the other three accounts in September and October to obscure his purchasing, Théo said.   

    Single-handedly accounting for 25% of the contracts on a Trump electoral college win and 40% of the bids on a popular vote victory, Théo would have a hard time pulling money off the table without pushing the value of his contracts down. Speaking of which, the electoral college version of a Trump win peaked on Wednesday at 76 cents (with a dollar payoff if Trump wins). However they’ve taken a big dive since — plunging to 57.5 cents as this is written in the wee hours of Saturday morning. You can check the current price here.    

    If you’re itching to buy the dip, note that Americans are officially barred from Polymarket. You can thank your all-powerful, all-knowing, Constitution-violating federal government for protecting you from yourself: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined the platform in 2022 for allegedly providing illegal trading services, prompting Polymarket to bar Americans going forward.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 15:45

  • YouTube Pushes Back Against NY Times' Attempts To Censor Conservatives
    YouTube Pushes Back Against NY Times’ Attempts To Censor Conservatives

    Authored by Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov via Headline USA,

    Despite its reputation as one of the most well-known Big Tech censors, YouTube surprised conservative Americans by pushing back against the New York Times’ claim that some right-wing political commentators were spreading “misinformation” right before the election.

    The Times pressured YouTube to censor or outright deplatform political commentators like Tim Pool, Michael Knowles, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Steve Deace and Rudy Giuliani, but the Big Tech platform refused.

    “The ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial, is an important value — especially in the midst of election season,” she said in a statement to the newspaper.

    After realizing that YouTube won’t censor those people, the Times made the Big Tech platform one of the villains in the story.

    “Within months [after June 2023], the largest video platform became a home for election conspiracy theories, half-truths and lies. They, in turn, became a source of revenue for YouTube, which announced growing quarterly ad sales on Tuesday,” the newspaper wrote.

    The Times also claimed that YouTube has “acted as a megaphone for conspiracy theories.”

    “The commentators used false narratives about [2020 election] as a foundation for elaborate claims that the 2024 presidential contest was also rigged — all while YouTube made money from them,” the newspaper wrote.

    Conservatives on Twitter criticized the Times for its attempts to silence those who oppose the mainstream media narrative.

    “This article is effectively trying to strongarm YouTube into censoring voices that the New York Times disapproves of. Shameful behavior from a newspaper,” @TheRabbitHole84 wrote.

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    Conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong also responded to the recent news.

    “You really don’t hate the New York Times enough,” he wrote.

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    People from the free-speech platforms also used their chance to criticize the Times and promote their companies.

    Notice how the New York Times is targeting @TuckerCarlson [and] @benshapiro on YouTube, even though those same creators are also on Rumble. Reason why? They know Rumble will them to [f***] off,” CEO of Rumble Chris Pavlovski wrote.

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    Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino also responded to the recent article.

    “We are not afraid of Media Matters. We are not afraid of The NY Times. And they shouldn’t be afraid of an informed group of citizens who are dedicated to preserving freedom of speech. Yet THEY seem to be?” she wrote.

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    Conservatives mentioned in the article also responded after discovering that the Times was working on the hit piece.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 15:10

  • "The Guy's A Retard. He's Retarded": The Atlantic Accidentally Makes Trump Look Hilarious Over Biden Nickname
    “The Guy’s A Retard. He’s Retarded”: The Atlantic Accidentally Makes Trump Look Hilarious Over Biden Nickname

    For pearl-clutching, politically correct liberals, casually calling someone ‘retarded’ is a grave sin, as it may offend actual retards (but how would they know?)

    To normal people it’s just what you call a stupid person – which brings us to today’s unintentionally hilarious article from The Atlantic – owned by the woman on the left…

    Donald Trump. Called Joe Biden. A RETARD!

    Just read:

    At the end of June, in the afterglow of a debate performance that would ultimately prompt President Joe Biden to end his campaign for reelection, Donald Trump startled his aides by announcing that he’d come up with a new nickname for his opponent.

    “The guy’s a retard. He’s retarded. I think that’s what I’ll start calling him,” Trump declared aboard his campaign plane, en route to a rally that evening, according to three people who heard him make the remarks: “Retarded Joe Biden.”

    Who exactly is going to read this and not vote for Trump because of it?

    It was even a ‘HARD R!’

    When DRUMPLER fails, go full retard…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 14:35

  • Disputes In South China Sea Could Disrupt Trade Lanes, Lead To War, Experts Say
    Disputes In South China Sea Could Disrupt Trade Lanes, Lead To War, Experts Say

    By Noi Mahoney of FreightWaves

    A Chinese Coast Guard ship was involved in a skirmish with a ship from the Philippine Coast Guard in August 2023.

    Territorial confrontations in the South China Sea pitting several Asian nations against China have entered a perilous phase that could possibly lead to a war involving the U.S., experts say.

    China has claimed virtually all of the South China Sea for decades, but the country’s assertiveness in the region has steadily increased the past several years, resulting in heightened tensions with nations including the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brunei.

    Krista Wiegand, a professor at the University of Tennessee, said the U.S. has no direct claims of sovereignty or unique maritime rights in the South China Sea, but the waterway nevertheless is a place where war could break out between the U.S. and China.

    Wiegand is the director of the Center for National Security and Foreign Affairs at the Howard J. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the university. She is a specialist in territorial and maritime disputes, maritime law, and East Asian security.

    “If the U.S. were to get involved in any kind of war with China, it would most likely be over Taiwan,” Wiegand told FreightWaves in an interview. “But at the same time, there is a possibility of an accident or some kind of crisis happening in the South China Sea. For example, if a U.S. vessel has a collision with a Chinese naval vessel or there’s a missile shot at a U.S. destroyer ship or frigate, that would certainly lead to some kind of crisis that might escalate. Nobody wants a war, obviously, including China, but they definitely want the South China Sea, and there’s a possibility that the war might happen.”

    The 1.3 million-square-mile sea in the Western Pacific Ocean contains some of the busiest trade routes in the world.

    The South China Sea stretches from Singapore and the Strait of Malacca in the southwest to the Strait of Taiwan in the northeast and sits between China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia and Malaysia.

    Researchers at Duke University calculated that total trade through both the South China Sea and the East China Sea — which lies between China, North and South Korea, and Japan, is worth $7.4 trillion per year. 

    About 24% of global maritime trade passed through the South China sea in 2023, according to the United Nations’ 2024 review of maritime transport.

    The South China Sea’s share of global seaborne trade volume per commodity in 2023 included crude oil (45%), propane (42%), cars (26%) and dry bulk (23%).

    Exports from China to both the U.S. and Mexico have shown strong growth the past five years. The trade route for goods from China to North America passes either through the South China or the East China Sea.

    As of Thursday, twenty-foot equivalent units moving from China to the U.S. are about 10% lower year over year compared to 2023, but are more than 40% higher y/y compared to 2022, according to the SONAR Inbound Ocean TEUs Volume Index.

    SONAR’s Inbound Ocean TEUs Volume index (IOTI.CHNUSA shows container movements from China to North America have been rising steadily over the last several years.

    The South China Sea may also hold valuable undiscovered resources, such as oil and natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). 

    In 2023, the U.S. Geological Survey reported the South China Sea may contain up to 9.2 billion barrels of untapped petroleum and other liquids, and up to 216 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to a recent EIA report.

    China’s disputes in the South China Sea include territories that fall within a country’s economic exclusion zones (EEZ), such as the Philippines. An EEZ is a maritime area where a coastal state has the right to explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources, according to the United Nations.

    In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a case opened in 2013 against China. The court of arbitration said China’s claims in the South China Sea had no legal basis.

    Wiegand said the Permanent Court of Arbitration and other international organizations made it clear that China did not have any solid claims to owning all of the South China Sea.

    “There are some historic claims that may have legitimacy, but at the same time, the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which China signed and ratified, along with most other countries in the world, with the exception of the U.S. and a few others, is very clear about the maritime boundaries of countries,” Wiegand said. “China’s claims or maritime features about islands in the waters of countries like Vietnam and the Philippines that fall under their control … those are completely illegitimate.”

    Hasim Turker, an international security expert based in Istanbul, said if the U.S. gets drawn into the South China Sea conflict, it will most likely be through its treaty with the Philippines or to help Taiwan or other nations.

    “The U.S. has substantial strategic interests in the South China Sea, centered around maintaining freedom of navigation and enforcing international maritime norms,” Turker told FreightWaves in an email. “This is not just about economic stakes, but also about reinforcing the rules-based international order. Regular Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) are a clear expression of Washington’s intention to challenge China’s expansive claims. These operations are designed to assert that the waters in question remain open to all nations, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — even though the U.S. itself has not formally ratified the treaty.”

    In August 2023, ships belonging to China and the Philippines accused each other of causing collisions in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

    Philippine authorities said a Chinese Coast Guard ship carried out “dangerous blocking maneuvers” that caused it to collide with a Philippine vessel carrying supplies to troops, according to a statement on CNN.

    In June, China and the Philippines blamed each other for causing a collision in the South China Sea near the contested Second Thomas Shoal, with the Philippines saying its armed forces would resist Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters, according to Reuters.

    U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson condemned China’s “aggressive, dangerous” maneuvers near the Second Thomas Shoal in a post on X in June.

    In September, authorities in China and the Philippines agreed to a temporary deal after the countries had repeated collisions near the shoal. However, the Philippines said the deal might not be permanent.

    About 24% of global maritime trade passed through the South China sea in 2023, including exports of crude oil, propane, cars and dry bulk.

    The U.S. and the Philippines have a long history of cooperation, officially starting in 1951 with the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. The treaty requires both nations to support each other if another party attacks either country.

    “The likelihood of armed conflict in the South China Sea remains significant due to ongoing tensions, frequent confrontations, and increased militarization,” Turker said. “Incidents like the August 2023 underscore the persistent risk of military escalation. These confrontations reflect a broader pattern of assertive behavior by China, involving the deployment of coast guard vessels, maritime militia, and military assets to enforce its claims over disputed waters.”

    Turker, a former commander in the Turkish navy, is the author “European Security and Defense Policy” (2007) and “Towards the New Cold War: Rising China, the U.S., and NATO,” (2019). He was also the academic coordinator and senior researcher at the Bosphorus Center for Asian Studies, an independent think tank based in Ankara, Turkey.

    “Frequent incidents … demonstrate how easily low-intensity confrontations can occur, especially given the dense presence of military, coast guard, and civilian vessels in contested waters, which increases the likelihood of accidental or deliberate escalation,” Turker said. “This risk is compounded by China’s militarization of artificial islands, where airstrips, missile systems, and surveillance infrastructure have been constructed. These moves have prompted other claimants to bolster their defenses, leading to a more volatile environment.”

    Turker said U.S. involvement would significantly escalate the situation in the South China Sea, particularly if military assets are deployed.

    “This would not only raise tensions in the region, but could also lead to direct military confrontation with China — a scenario neither side desires, given the stakes involved. A U.S.-China conflict would have global repercussions, impacting trade, regional alliances, and the geopolitical balance of power. The specter of a broader war looms if such an incident escalates beyond a controlled, localized response, especially if U.S. allies like Japan or Australia are drawn in to support collective security efforts in the Indo-Pacific,” Turker said.

    While a war breaking out in the South China Sea is a strong possibility, each country also has reasons for keeping the peace, he added.

    “Several factors deter the escalation of limited skirmishes into a full-scale war in the South China Sea. The economic costs of a major conflict are substantial, as a war would disrupt critical trade routes, affecting global supply chains and damaging regional economies, including China’s, which heavily depends on maritime commerce,” Turker said. “Regional stability remains a priority for Southeast Asian nations, which, despite their assertive territorial claims, generally favor diplomatic solutions to maintain economic stability and avoid the risks associated with a prolonged conflict. The possibility of a broader confrontation involving major powers, such as the U.S. and its allies, is another significant deterrent. A full-scale war could draw these external actors into the conflict, raising the stakes to a regional or even global level, a scenario that all parties are keen to avoid.”

    Wiegand said while she hopes there is a diplomatic solution to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, it will be difficult to quell China’s rising ambitions.

    “The problem is that the Philippines tried a diplomatic solution through the arbitration case, and China refused to even show up to the courts; they didn’t even send representatives,” Wiegand said. “Vietnam has tried negotiations multiple times, and China just refuses to back down, and they just keep repeating the same claim: These are our territories, these are our waters. There’s only so much you can do diplomatically. For the other countries, they’re kind of stuck until China makes a move. It’s really at a standstill right now, and unfortunately, I think the status quo is just going to be a continuation of China maintaining its claims, maintaining the control of the islands, controlling the waters. It’s really up to the other disputing countries, whether they want to really pressure China any further to try to overturn that status quo. That’s a very difficult thing to do diplomatically.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 14:00

  • "RIP My Best Friend": Outrage Ensues After Beloved Rescue Squirrel Seized By NY, Euthanized
    “RIP My Best Friend”: Outrage Ensues After Beloved Rescue Squirrel Seized By NY, Euthanized

    The internet is ablaze with rage after the state of New York seized a beloved rescue squirrel Peanut from its owner’s home Wednesday and euthanized it.

    The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation staged a five-hour raid on the home of Mark Luongo after an anonymous complaint was lodged against the P’nuts Freedom Farm, where internet sensation Peanut the squirrel was taken into custody before the state euthanized it along with a raccoon ‘in order to test for rabies.’

    “RIP MY BEST FRIEND. Thank you for the best 7 years of my life. Thank you for bringing so much joy to us and the world. I’m sorry I failed you but thank you for everything,” Longo wrote in a post announcing Peanut’s death.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsLongo has asked for financial help for a “legal battle” against the state.

    A Connecticut native, Longo moved to Elmira, NY in 2023 to start the Freedom Farm, a 501.C.3 approved nonprofit.

    “Last year we moved to NY in hopes of starting a NONPROFIT animal rescue in PNUT’s Name. [P’Nuts Freedom Farm] will forever live in PNUT’s memory,” Longo wrote in a post announcing the seizure.

    “With over 350 rescues, we’ve relied heavily on PNUT and his internet family to father donations to help more animals. I don’t even know how will [sic] continue to fundraise for this nonprofit.”

    The organization is made up of veterinarians and caregivers who rescue animals from abusive or dire situations.

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    Needless to say, people are pissed.

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    Others expressed similar outrage. And memes.

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    Editor’s note: a previous version of this article included a comment from President Trump that was confirmed as inauthentic, and there was in fact a warrant. We apologize for the squirrel-related fake news.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 13:25

  • People Aren't Garbage. Partisan Politics Is
    People Aren’t Garbage. Partisan Politics Is

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

    Voting says very little about who we are, but propaganda telling us otherwise reveals a lot about America’s political leaders…

    The cycle was the usual nonsense. At a Donald Trump rally in Manhattan a comic called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Joe Biden emerged from his crypt to croak, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” The Internet exploded. Reporters were dispatched around the country to gauge how much more pissed off everyone was now.

    ABC’s take interviewing Harris supporters in Pennsylvania was, “Voters view one another across partisan divide with increasing animosity.” They quoted humans-in-the-street, who all felt strongly. “I would say that some of them are garbage,” said Samantha Leister, 32, while Shawn Vanderheyden, 44, opined, “I just think they are uneducated, and they believe all the lies.” ABC summed up the cultural divide: “Interviews with voters in battleground states reveal that it’s only growing deeper and more insurmountable.”

    Surely people know it, but this is all a trick. First, campaign writers only talk to people at campaign events, so the pool of quotes is automatically pared to holders of Very Strong Political Opinions. Second, the odd “Who cares?” answer is instinctively culled by campaign writers as commercially/politically unhelpful. Non-voters or even just people who care more about other things than Harris/Trump — UFOs, knitting, the girl in biology class — ruin the suspension of disbelief. You end up reading copy that hugely over-represents that strange subset of people who define themselves by their votes.

    When I was first sent to cover campaigns in 2004, a year in which 40% of eligible voters didn’t bother, I was troubled by the absence of non-voters in coverage. A Rolling Stone editor with whom I rarely worked rolled eyes and said, “We don’t cover them because they’re not part of the fucking story,” which I instantly knew wasn’t true, but I was new and to my shame I didn’t say anything. The numbers of non-voters exposed how inconsequential presidential politics was for most people. It measured the number of people left behind or out, and leaving the non-enthused out of the shot was journalism’s way of covering the holes in the charade.

    Two years later I was embedded with a group of Oklahoma reservists sent to work as MPs in Iraq. Sgt. Stephen Wilkerson was the team commander. He wore a tattoo on his foot with an arrow pointing to his big toe that read, TAG GOES HERE. His nickname was “Stretch-Nuts” because it was said he could balance a Heineken bottle on his ball-skin. On my first day he asked what I do. I cover presidential elections, I said. He made a jerk-off gesture. That was the last mention of politics on the trip.

    In the roughly twenty years since the act of not voting, or even just not really really caring about presidential politics, has been villainized. Now the emotionally healthy person, the one who has a life and isn’t consumed with fears about the Next Hitler, is assumed to harbor secret sympathies, as bad as the worst MAGAT.

    This is different from the old scam.

    Now the person who shrugs and says “Who cares?” is called a liar. Everyone must care the way they do, and if you don’t care in that right way — every waking minute, with chewed nails and a carefully weeded social circle to match the correct vote and attitude set — you’re garbage.

    Many of us have seen in recent years what this hounding has done even to friends or relatives, turning them to Flatland characters, two-dimensional nerve cases scanning everyone for signs of unsuitability.

    Whatever happens next week, I don’t ever want to be that. It’s the people who define us by votes who are garbage, not the other way around.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 12:50

  • Ron Paul "Revolution" Reignites After Elon Musk Asks Libertarian Legend To Join Department Of Gov't Efficiency
    Ron Paul “Revolution” Reignites After Elon Musk Asks Libertarian Legend To Join Department Of Gov’t Efficiency

    With just two days left before the presidential election, Libertarians are waking up Saturday to a bunch of buzz on X about a potential “Ron Paul Revolution” in the White House—only possible if Donald Trump wins next week. 

    On Friday evening, AFpost wrote on X, “Ron Paul says he wants to join Elon Musk to cut government waste in second Trump administration.” 

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    Musk chimed in on X: “It would be great to have Ron Paul as part of the Department of Government Efficiency!”

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    Ron Paul responded: “I’d be happy to talk with you about it, Elon.” 

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    X users instantly went bananas on the prospect that Musk would give Ron Paul a role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, only if Trump wins. 

    For months, Musk and Trump have been discussing DOGE, which the billionaire would serve as “Secretary of Cost-Cutting” – a government agency that doesn’t exist yet… Musk would basically take his skills as a successful manager – in which he slashed 80% of the Twitter workforce a few years ago to make the ‘free speech’ social media platform operate more efficiently.

    In August, Musk said the goal of DOGE was to cut wasteful spending by the federal government and roll back massive regulations that stifle the economy. 

    Musk recently said DOGE could identify “at least $2 trillion in cuts” as part of a formal review of federal agencies. This would also mean tens of thousands of job cuts—if not more—across the federal government. 

    Just imagine if Trump wins, Musk and Ron Paul would wind down unneeded federal agencies like a scene from Argentina’s Javier Milei.

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    You hear that, Libertarian…

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    Deal of a lifetime.

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    And Libertarians, even Trump’s VP JD Vance, is coming around to Ron Paul’s argument on the Federal Reserve.

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    Ron Paul had fun on X in the overnight hours. 

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    Delayed over the years … but now entirely possible. 

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    For decades, Ron Paul has proposed a smaller government by eliminating several wasteful federal agencies, ending foreign wars, eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends, eliminating the estate tax, and—everyone’s favorite—abolishing the Federal Reserve.

    This has become true over the years. 

    The only problem is when federal government spending accounts for 22.7% of the US GDP (in fiscal year 2023), reducing this spending could spark a recession. However, if Trump wins, DOGE could be messaged to the American people as a way to curb sky-high inflation sparked by disastrous ‘Bidenomics.’ 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/02/2024 – 12:15

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