- Mapped: Where Does Our Food Come From?
Mapped: Where Does Our Food Come From?
Did you know that over two-thirds of national crops originated from somewhere else?
Humans have been selecting and growing crops for specific traits since the origins of agriculture some 10,000 years ago, shaping where and what crops are grown today.
However, as Visual Capialist’s Tessa di Grandi details below, now our food system is completely global and many of the world’s top producers of staple crops are in countries far from their historical origin. For example, Brazil is now the largest soybean producer in the world, though the crop is originally from East Asia.
The below infographic by Brazil Potash shows the historical origins of crops before they were domesticated across the globe and the main producers of our staple crops today.
Producers Of Staple Crops Today
Staple crops are those that are the most routinely grown and consumed. These can vary between countries depending on availability.
In 2020, sugarcane, maize, wheat, and rice made up around 50% of global crop production.
But when the production and distribution of staple crops are threatened, the consequences can be felt globally. Let’s take a look at the countries that were the top three producers of some of our staple crops in 2020.
As you can see from the data above, Brazil is the world’s largest producer of sugarcane and one of the top three producers of maize.
The Future of Food Security
Global food security depends on staple crops and the countries that produce them. As the global population increases, so does the need to grow more crops.
The FAO estimates that by 2050 the world will need to increase its food output by around 70% in order to feed an ever-growing population.
Early food security solutions were transplanting crops from other regions to supplement diets. Now crop yields must increase as the next evolution in strengthening our food security. Fertilizers are a vital step in this process and are an essential ingredient in the future of global food security. They provide vital nutrients that increase crop production and strengthen nutrition security.
Brazil Potash extracts vital potash ore from the earth for it to return to the earth as fertilizer, fortifying food and helping to maintain continuous growth in the agricultural sector.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 23:00 - Not Even N95 Masks Work To Stop Covid
Not Even N95 Masks Work To Stop Covid
Authored by Ian Miller via the Brownstone Institute,
“The Experts™” have repeatedly tried to deflect from the failure of their policies with misdirection.
The reason lockdowns didn’t work in the United States or the United Kingdom is because they weren’t strict enough, according to many in the expert community.
Of course, their excuses have been conveniently ignored as China’s repressive zero COVID lockdowns have continued, with horrific consequences.
Now that mass protests have broken out in the country that “The Experts™” revered for their COVID handling, there’s a massive effort to disregard their own previous advocacy.
This is perhaps best exemplified by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who clearly used authoritarian measures to suppress the protests in his own country, while now supporting Chinese demonstrations.
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 30, 2022
The bewildering lack of awareness of their own hypocrisy seems to be a feature of COVID-obsessed politicians and public health authorities.
Another similar, oft-repeated assertion is that the failure of universal masking can be explained by the type of masks being used by the public.
Even though the CDC and Dr. Fauci explicitly claimed that wearing anything to cover your face would be effective at preventing transmission, many have now quietly dismissed that messaging.
Fauci specifically said that “cloth coverings work,” not just surgical or N95s. Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams famously suggested that rolling up a t-shirt in front of your face would be effective protection.
Yet public health departments and the media are now highlighting the importance of “high quality,” “well-fitted” masks.
Their desperation to justify masking has led to remarkably poor studies being released to support their anti-science messaging.
There is new research that has been released showing that masks are ineffective, regardless of type.
And it’s not just new research, it’s high quality research.
Finally, Another RCT on Mask Wearing
The Annals of Internal Medicine just published a randomized controlled trial comparing the ability of medical masks to prevent COVID infection to fit-tested N95s.
Importantly, this trial was conducted on healthcare workers who would be most likely to use masks appropriately.
To determine whether medical masks are noninferior to N95 respirators to prevent COVID-19 in health care workers providing routine care.
That trial design was also important as it was meant to determine whether or not N95 respirators were superior to “regular” surgical masks.
They examined 29 different health care facilities on multiple continents, from North America to Asia and Africa.
The percentage of healthcare workers testing positive for COVID in each group was tracked to determine how effective or ineffective higher-quality masking was in preventing infection.
Unsurprisingly, the results confirmed that there is essentially zero difference between surgical or N95 respirators when it comes to tests results.
In the intention-to-treat analysis, RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 occurred in 52 of 497 (10.46%) participants in the medical mask group versus 47 of 507 (9.27%) in the N95 respirator group (hazard ratio [HR], 1.14 [95% CI, 0.77 to 1.69]). An unplanned subgroup analysis by country found that in the medical mask group versus the N95 respirator group RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 occurred in 8 of 131 (6.11%) versus 3 of 135 (2.22%) in Canada (HR, 2.83 [CI, 0.75 to 10.72]), 6 of 17 (35.29%) versus 4 of 17 (23.53%) in Israel (HR, 1.54 [CI, 0.43 to 5.49]), 3 of 92 (3.26%) versus 2 of 94 (2.13%) in Pakistan (HR, 1.50 [CI, 0.25 to 8.98]), and 35 of 257 (13.62%) versus 38 of 261 (14.56%) in Egypt (HR, 0.95 [CI, 0.60 to 1.50]). There were 47 (10.8%) adverse events related to the intervention reported in the medical mask group and 59 (13.6%) in the N95 respirator group.
52 of 497 participants who wore medical masks got COVID-19, and 47 of 507 in the N95 group got COVID-19.
No matter how “high quality” your mask is, it’s entirely irrelevant.
The researchers also took pains to ensure that the control and treatment groups shared as many similarities as possible.
They excluded workers who could not pass a fit test, had laboratory-confirmed COVID, or “had received 1 or more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine with greater than 50% efficacy for the circulating strain.”
Yet none of that mattered; there was no difference in outcomes between the medical and N95 level masks.
The N95s in use were even specifically fit tested and approved respirators, far from the KN95s commonly used by the general public.
“Health care workers randomly assigned to the N95 respirator group were instructed to use a fit-tested National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health–approved N95 respirator when providing routine care to patients with COVID-19 or suspected COVID-19.”
It didn’t matter.
Even more importantly, these disappointing results were from facilities with universal masking policies in place.
Everyone, in each health care facility, “for all activities,” was required to wear masks.
The intervention included universal masking, which was the policy implemented at each site. This refers to the use of a mask when in the health care facility for all activities, whether patient related or not, including in workrooms, meetings, and treating persons that were not suspected or known to be positive for COVID-19.
It still didn’t work.
They even tracked potential exposure points, whether at home, in the community or in hospital exposures.
There was no difference.
What’s even more impressive about the futility of masking is that outside of Egypt, the observed results occurred before the more contagious Omicron variant emerged.
There were substantial differences in results between countries, which indicates the impact of N95s might have been further muted had it covered the Omicron period.
Canada, which was observed pre-Omicron, showed the biggest “benefit” to N95s, while post-Omicron Egypt was nearly identical.
It’s possible that the mild difference in Canada could have been erased entirely if subjected to the Omicron era.
On top of being functionally useless, N95s were substantially more likely to result in adverse effects.
According to the results page, there were significantly more reported issues in the respirator group:
“There were 47 (10.8%) adverse events related to the intervention reported in the medical mask group and 59 (13.6%) in the N95 respirator group.”
This becomes even more noteworthy since compliance with respirator masking was lower.
“Adherence with the assigned medical mask or N95 respirator was self-reported as “always” in 91.2% in the medical mask group versus 80.7% in the N95 respirator group and as “always” or “sometimes” in 97.7% in the medical mask group versus 94.4% in the N95 respirator group.”
While still extremely high, health care workers “always” wore N95s 80.7% of the time instead of 91.2% for medical masks.
This is one of the many issues the “experts” now pushing for (now disproven) “higher-quality” masking should address.
Health care professionals who are trained to use N95s can’t always use them yet experience higher rates of adverse effects.
Imagine how much worse compliance would be among the general public, especially if 13% are suffering significant side effects.
Results Show Expert Incompetence
This is yet another randomized controlled trial to show that masks do not work.
It also confirms the DANMASK study conducted earlier in the pandemic, which proved there was no benefit from masking in COVID prevention.
Even the Bangladeshi study, comparing villages, showed there was no benefit to masking at a population level. They used statistical misdirection and purposeful p-hacking to try and generate a positive result, and still could only get to a ~10% reduction for those over 50.
No matter the quality, no matter the compliance, masks are entirely ineffective at preventing transmission or infection.
The participants in this examination lived and worked in environments where universal masking was a requirement.
It didn’t matter.
This also examined health care workers, who, in theory, would be using and disposing of medical or N95 level masks properly.
There was no difference.
Now imagine how much worse the results would look for mask fanatics if it examined the Fauci-approved cloth coverings.
If “The Experts™” actually cared about following “the science,” or “the evidence,” this would once again be the nail in the coffin for masking.
More like the 40th nail in the coffin.
We have observational evidence through population-level comparisons that masks do not prevent the spread of COVID.
We also now have multiple randomized controlled trials confirming that masks do not prevent the spread of COVID.
And we have extremely well done comparisons of neighboring jurisdictions confirming it.
All the mask fanatics have is politically motivated wishful thinking, desperate advocacy from disproven CDC “studies,” and a commitment to avoiding reality.
Fauci and his health authority allies have lied to the public repeatedly about masking. The obsession with credentialism and appeals to authority within the media has resulted in tremendous, unjustified harm.
You’d hope that results like these would finally end their ridiculous posturing, but it’s abundantly clear they’re too dug in to ever relent.
But thankfully those paying attention now have even more ammunition in the fight for the inarguable scientific reality that masks do not work.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 22:30 - "Damning": The Twitter Files And The FBI
“Damning”: The Twitter Files And The FBI
Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,
In the event you missed last night’s thread of The Twitter Files, here it is:
1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022
To give a short explainer, the talented Matt Taibbi posted internal Twitter documents around the 2020 presidential election which demonstrated how political operations – such as the Biden presidential campaign and the DNC – petitioned the company to remove “offending” tweets. Twitter complied. The Trump White House would make similar requests, but as Taibbi observe, “this system wasn’t balanced.” Instead, it was based on contacts. And as you can imagine, Twitter’s staff, especially at the highest levels, was far left and supported the Democrats.
What of the other Twitter Files? Elon has promised more transparency and Taibbi posted on his Substack that “there may be a few more big surprises coming.” Catch Taibbi and Walter Kirn, both of whom we’re big fans, explaining the Twitter Files on Episode 15 of “America This Week.”
But there’s a bigger story slowly emerging: the FBI’s involvement in political censorship.
As Miranda Devine observed today, there is much more to be divulged. Specifically, the FBI’s meddling in the 2020 election and the FBI’s pressure of social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, to essentially censor the Hunter Biden story. It’s the story of FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan, who recently testified he was part of that effort:
During the deposition, Chan said that he, along with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency officials, had weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election, according to a source in the Missouri attorney general’s office.
These FBI warnings had to do with the potential Russian “hack and dump” or “hack and leak” of sensitive materials. And they may have contributed to Twitter’s assessment that the Hunter Biden materials may have been hacked, justifying Twitter’s censorship of the story.
FBI Director Christopher Wray actually took pride in these efforts, admitting to the agency’s involvement with social media companies “to make sure that their platforms are not used by foreign adversaries to spread disinformation and propaganda.” The censorship was directed from the top.
The Response
Not that any of this matters to much of the left. The clichés started once the story was posted. Twitter’s former former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, complained that the leaks were essentially “violence” and put the censors in danger.
The media’s response to the Twitter File story was equally predictable and boring. It was a non-story, it was public relations for the world’s richest man. They misrepresented the leak, ignored the merits, downplayed the significance of the Hunter Biden story by focusing on scandalous photos and not corruption and influence peddling and tax evasion and violations of federal law, and criticized Taibbi for posting the story on Twitter. Undertones of jealousy and resentment. As if we expected anything else. If their attacks are anything, they’re unoriginal. By this time we know what they’re gonna say before they say it.
Thankfully, we were able to see the documents for themselves. They’re damning, demonstrating the danger of the political control of social media. The DNC and Biden Team knew they had friends at Twitter who would do their bidding during the election. And Twitter lied to the FEC about that influence.
But that’s just at the surface. There’s something worse underneath it all, hidden from public: governmental influence and coercion over social media platforms, and the lies of the FBI to keep politically damaging – and true – material away from Americans.
It’s the massive “censorship enterprise” by the Federal Government. It’s the one-sided influence operation on American soil. (The CIA would be proud.) It was there in 2016, and it continued through the 2020 election to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of the COVID-19 vaccines. And it’s slowly coming into view.
Subscribers to The Reactionary can read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 22:00 - The Trumpification Of Elon Musk
The Trumpification Of Elon Musk
Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Politics,
The relentless attacks on Elon Musk since he purchased Twitter should be familiar to most Americans. It’s exactly what Democrats and their media and corporate allies did to demonize Donald Trump.
The McCarthyite formula is simple: Claim you are defending high-minded principles (Democracy! The rule of law! Civil discourse!) to justify efforts to delegitimize someone you’ve identified as a political opponent.
Democrats denied Trump’s presidency from day one; Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden themselves declared for years that he had stolen the 2016 election. In the name of election integrity, Democrats turned a bogus conspiracy theory cooked up by Clinton’s campaign about Russian collusion into years of official investigations that undermined and tainted Trump. When Special Counsel Robert Mueller proved that a lie, Democrats immediately seized on a few innocuous sentences in a Trump phone call with a foreign leader to launch just the third presidential impeachment in U.S. history.
Those events are well-known, but ponder them for a moment. This was a soft coup, a nonviolent version of Jan. 6 that was far more dangerous than the Capitol riot. The effort to remove a lawfully elected president was planned and orchestrated by officials at the highest level of government and the media. While Jan. 6 was a one-off eruption of crazed anger, the false attacks on Trump edged our political discourse toward Orwellian Newspeak by presenting lies and smears as ringing defenses of sacred constitutional values.
The ongoing attacks against Musk are following the same playbook. The man once hailed by liberals as a genius for developing electric vehicles is now Public Enemy No. 1 because he says Twitter should allow more free speech. Ponder that as well: Musk’s enemies are casting him as a threat to the country because of his commitment to one of America’s most cherished freedoms.
Progressives have abandoned their longstanding anti-corporate stance to argue that an unelected, unaccountable company must aggressively censor the vox populi. We saw the same dizzying turnabout in Russiagate, where the left abandoned its historic defense of Russia to cast dealings with that nation as un-American (making Joe McCarthy their new “Uncle Joe”).
Yes, Musk has restored Donald Trump’s Twitter account which the company’s previous leaders had disabled when he was president. But there is zilch, zero, nada evidence at this point that Twitter has become a toxic cesspool of hate. Nevertheless, that is the bogus claim being advanced by thought leaders including Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia University’s journalism school.
Ponder the argument here that a corporation should have the power to remove the president of the United States from communicating through one of the nation’s prime networks. The same people who cheered that decision also thought it was appropriate for Twitter to help swing the 2020 election by prohibiting users from sharing blockbuster reports about Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings, recorded on his laptop.
If one needs any more proof that principle has no part in the attacks on Musk, consider that while Apple has joined many other major companies in pulling its advertising from Twitter, it issued an update only for its Chinese users limiting a function commonly used by protestors as discontent was percolating against that country’s extreme COVID restrictions.
The attacks on Musk shed light on a darker mystery of American life: Why did the left attack Trump so savagely? Yes, Trump is a coarse, combative man who has the same relationship with truth as a used-car salesman. But that hardly makes him an outlier in our coarse, combative culture where, the left has long argued, truth and almost everything else we used to define as reality are just social constructs.
At bottom, they saw Trump – and now Musk – as a threat to their power and privilege. For all their talk of democracy and the will of the people, the left has always embraced a top-down approach in which a benighted few control society. Trump was the first president without political or military experience. He was not just an outsider; he also promised to expose the hypocrisy and self-dealing of the ruling class, both Democrats and Republicans (hence the rise of “Never Trump” Republicans).
The fact that this man with no political experience accomplished so much – including helping the economy hum, brokering a peace deal in the Middle East, calling out China’s ruthlessness, and creating conditions for the development of a COVID vaccine in record time – exposed the failures of our best and brightest. He wasn’t a threat to the nation, but to their authority.
The left sees Musk as a similar threat. For decades they have largely controlled the flow of information in prestige publications and network news divisions. The rise of social media gave them new mechanisms for defining national narratives, and for silencing those who disagreed with them through cancel culture and outright censorship. They see Musk’s promise to restore free speech on Twitter as a threat to this power. Whoopi Goldberg stated this baldly when she counseled liberals to walk away from Twitter until they figure out how to “get the control you need” of the platform.
Hence the effort to Trumpify Musk.
Ponder for a moment the ubiquity and ferocity of attacks on this one man and the outrageous effort to cast calls for censorship as ringing defenses of liberty. Consider too that this, like the treatment accorded Trump, has not just been normalized, but valorized.
When authorities lose the power to convince, they coerce. That is what is going on now as they tell us to shut up and submit. Please tweet that out.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 21:30 - San Francisco Is The Canary In The Coal Mine For Where Wokeism Is Headed
San Francisco Is The Canary In The Coal Mine For Where Wokeism Is Headed
Authored by Alan Dershowitz, op-ed via The Daily Caller,
The City of San Francisco is constitutionally prohibited from disqualifying job applicants on the basis of race. That is precisely what occurred to John Arntz who has held the job of San Francisco’s director of the Department of Elections for two decades.
He has been repeatedly praised for his excellent performance at this increasingly important job – important because of so many election challenges and doubts. Just two years ago, the election commission commended him for his “incredible leadership.”
But now they are essentially firing him because he is apparently of the wrong race to satisfy their “racial equity plan”.
This is what he was told:
“Our decision wasn’t about your performance, but after twenty years we wanted to take action on the City’s racial equity plan and give people an opportunity to compete for a leadership position.”
The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, disagreed:
“John Arntz has served San Francisco with integrity, professionalism and has stayed completely independent. He’s remained impartial and has avoided getting caught up in the web of City politics, which is what we are seeing now as a result of this unnecessary vote.”
“Over the last year John successfully ran four elections while navigating a pandemic that thwarted San Francisco into crisis response – all without a single issue. Rather than working on key issues to recover and rebuilt our City, this is a good example of unfair politicization of a key part of our government that is working well for the voters of this city.”
All of the 12 managers in his department asked that his contract be renewed. But in today’s woke world of identity politics, race trumps meritocracy. “Racial equity” plans are apparently more important than electoral integrity.
It well maybe that Arntz’s “equity” replacement will be as good as or better than him. There are, after all, highly qualified people of all races and backgrounds. But that is not the point. His contract would clearly have been renewed — he would not have been fired — if he were of an “acceptable” race.
But he is not, because he does not meet the criteria for the city’s “racial equity plan.”
To cover their legal rear ends (“CYA”) the panel has said that Arntz can “reapply” and be considered among the pool of candidates who do meet the criteria of racial equity, even though he does not! This “CYA” tactic does not even pass the giggle test.
It certainly does not pass the constitutional test, even the one that currently allows universities to place the thumb of racial diversity on the scale of admissions. That test is likely to be changed — perhaps disallowed — even in the context of private universities such as Harvard.
There is one important benefit to the San Francisco decision — at least as compared to university admissions decisions. The San Francisco panel did not try to disguise the racial criteria they are employing, whereas most universities go to great length to deny that race alone is often a dispositive factor in ranking applicants.
This will make it easier for the courts to hold San Francisco’s Arntz decision as a clear violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
But even if this particularly outrageous decision is struck down as unconstitutional, many cities and other governmental units will continue to use race as a basis for hiring and firing employees. They will simply be less transparent about it than San Francisco was.
In the bad old days, race was often used to discriminate against black applicants. Today race is often used to discriminate in favor of black applicants. I guess that is some sort of progress. But real progress will be achieved only if and when race is no longer a factor that trumps meritocracy.
Only then will Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of how his children and ours should be judged become a reality.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 20:30 - Snowden Receives Russian Passport After Taking Citizenship Pledge
Snowden Receives Russian Passport After Taking Citizenship Pledge
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who exposed the U.S. government’s unconstitutional mass surveillance programs, received a Russian passport on Thursday after taking the country’s citizenship oath.
“Edward received a Russian passport yesterday and took the oath in accordance with the law,” his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said, according to Russian media. “He is, of course, happy, thanking the Russian Federation for the fact that he received citizenship.”
That citizenship comes with an enormously valuable feature: “Under the Constitution of Russia, he can no longer be extradited to a foreign state,” said Kucherena.
Snowden faces prosecution on espionage charges for giving journalists an enormous volume of classified documents about NSA surveillance programs.
In 2013, Snowden famously traveled from Hawaii, where he worked for the NSA, to Hong Kong, where he arranged to meet journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.
To obtain a Russian passport, one must pledge to:
“…observe the constitution and legislation of the Russian Federation, the rights and freedoms of its citizens; perform the duties of a citizen of the Russian Federation for the benefit of the state and society; defend the freedom and independence of the Russian Federation; be loyal to Russia, respect its culture, history and traditions.”
Snowden’s citizenship and accompanying oath are prompting reiterations of the false claim that he “fled to Russia” after leaving Hong Kong. The truth, however, is that the Obama administration trapped Snowden in Russia.
Snowden was merely using Moscow as a flight connection as he tried to make it to Ecuador and seek political asylum. Upon arriving in Russia, he learned Obama had revoked his passport. After spending 40 days at Sheremetyevo airport — and applied to 27 countries for asylum — he was granted asylum by Russian President Putin.
I’m in Russia because the White House intentionally canceled my passport to trap me here. They *downed the President of Bolivia’s diplomatic aircraft* to prevent me from leaving, and continue to interfere with my freedom of movement to this day.
In case that was unclear. https://t.co/hOb2Azc41G
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) December 2, 2022
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Despite all the contrary facts that have been in plain view for nine years, a chorus of deep state useful idiots unleashed a new round of social media smears against the NSA whistleblower. “Edward Snowden, Russian asset and now citizen,” tweeted Washington Post columnist and Bulwark culture editor Sonny Bunch.
Meanwhile, headlines at many outlets emphasized that Snowden “swore allegiance to Russia,” implying he’d abandoned his American citizenship.
Shame on @WaPo for not checking w/ @Snowden’s lawyers in the US. This misleading headline makes it sound like he renounced his US citizenship and swore fealty to Russia. He & his wife remain Americans. https://t.co/ZSrILewDlO
— unR̶A̶D̶A̶C̶K̶ted (@JesselynRadack) December 2, 2022
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Snowden’s wife, Lindsay Mills, is also seeking Russian citizenship. The couple lives in Moscow with their two sons, who were born in Russia.
Pleas for then-President Donald Trump to pardon Snowden — along with Julian Assange– fell on deaf ears.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 20:00 - Senate Republicans Demand McConnell Only Accept Short-Term Spending Bill
Senate Republicans Demand McConnell Only Accept Short-Term Spending Bill
Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Senate Republicans have vowed to oppose any spending bill that would go on beyond the 117th Congress.
(Left) Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) in Washington on March 30, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images); (Right) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in Washington on Sept. 6, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) After a long effort to pass an omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2023, Democrats were forced to accept a short-term continuing resolution (CR) instead.
CRs, while they prevent the government from shutting down, make no changes to long-term federal spending. Rather, they simply continue to spend at levels set the prior fiscal year.
Earlier this year, Democrats passed a CR that will fund the government through Dec. 16, at which point the government will shut down if lawmakers have not passed a new spending bill.
One of the Democrats’ many agenda items during the lame-duck session is the passage of a more comprehensive omnibus spending bill. In contrast to a CR, an omnibus bill, if passed, would allow Democrats to set appropriations levels for next year even though they’ll be in the House minority.
Because the 118th Congress will sit for the first time on Jan. 3, 2022, allowing a CR to run out before then could give a lame-duck Democrat majority a last-minute chance to fund its policies through all of fiscal year 2023.
This, a group of Republican senators told Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a Nov. 30 letter, is unacceptable.
The letter was written by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and signed onto by three other Republicans—Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.).
In it, the coalition demanded that McConnell not allow Democrats to succeed in their efforts to set next year’s spending levels.
“On November 8, 2022, the American people made their voices heard at the ballot box,” the letter opened. “Using the
Democratic process, millions of Americans sent a message—they want divided power in Washington to curb the worst excesses of both parties.”The four Republicans said they “stand with the voters.”
They wrote, “We believe it would be both imprudent, and a reflection of poor leadership, for Republicans to ignore the will of the American people and rubber stamp an omnibus spending bill that funds ten more months of [President Joe Biden’s] agenda without any check on his reckless policies that have led to a 40-year high in inflation.”
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation has slowed from its peak of over nine percent in June, but it remains high. In October, the value of the dollar dropped by 7.7 percent, a situation that Republicans have blamed on Democrats’ “out of control spending” (pdf).
Since taking unilateral control of the government, Democrats have rushed through trillions in new spending: first with the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which received no GOP support, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.
The effect of this spending, the Republicans wrote, has been higher costs for American households. They cited a figure provided by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget which estimates that Democrats have authorized $4.8 trillion in new borrowing since Biden took office.
“Since taking office, President Biden has overseen a $4.8 trillion increase in the national deficit, costing the average American household an estimated $753 more a month,” the lawmakers wrote. “It should be up to the new Congress to set spending priorities for the remainder of this fiscal year.”
Concluding the letter the Republicans wrote: “Now is the time for Republicans to get serious about leading America towards a better future.”
They demanded that McConnell not make any deals that would fund the government well into the next fiscal year.
“We must not accept anything other than a short-term Continuing Resolution that funds the federal government until shortly after the 118th Congress is sworn in,” they wrote, demanding that “[no] additional spending, [and] no additional policy priorities should be included.”
Anything more urgent, they added, should be handled as an individual bill rather than as part of an omnibus spending bill.
‘A Lame Duck Spending Blowout’: Roy
This demand, the passage of a short-term “clean” CR with no changes to current spending, has been growing among Republicans.
In the House, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) circulated a letter making similar demands.
In the letter, Roy wrote: “Federal dollars are fueling rampant inflation and funding the Biden administration’s radical agenda. This includes empowering authoritarian bureaucrats at agencies like the IRS and FBI, implementing open-border policies that are threatening our communities, imposing COVID-19 mandates that shut down schools and are forcing our military servicemembers out of their jobs, and advancing self-destructive energy policies.
“As the September 30th federal funding deadline approaches, Republicans must do what is necessary to ensure that not one additional penny will go toward this administration’s radical, inflationary agenda,” he continued. “Any legislation that sets the stage for a ‘lame duck’ fight on government funding gives Democrats one final opportunity to pass that agenda.
“Therefore, we, the undersigned, pledge to the American people to reject any continuing resolution that expires prior to the first day of the 118th Congress, or any appropriations package put forward in the remaining months of this Democrat-led Congress.”
On Dec. 1, Roy re-upped these demands in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner. He described Democrats’ ongoing efforts to pass an omnibus bill as “a lame-duck spending blowout.”
“When is $5 trillion still not enough?” Roy quipped. “Answer: When you’re a progressive about to lose your grip on total power.”
Later, he wrote: “Taxpayers … deserve better than another rushed backroom deal as lawmakers sprint home for Christmas. Democrats ran all of government for two years but focused on their special spending causes rather than pass individual bills to finance the government. Now with three weeks left in a lame duck, they want to jam the GOP again.”
Roy said that Republicans should not be cowed by Democrats threatening to shut down the government to pass a spending bill.
“The GOP campaigned on a return to regular fiscal order, and why not start now?” Roy wrote. “Democrats can threaten a government shutdown, but they’d own it as the party in control. If Republicans aren’t going to use their power to enforce some fiscal discipline, they might as well stay in the minority.”
What’s Next
Despite opposition to an omnibus bill among both House and Senate Republicans, Democrats could still get what they hope for.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 19:30 - Not Everyone Is Looking Forward To Christmas
Not Everyone Is Looking Forward To Christmas
There are only a few weeks left until Christmas. That means most people are getting together with their family and spending time with their loved ones. But not everyone can look forward to a peaceful Christmas – for some people, the Christmas season is particularly stressful, as a survey conducted as part of the Statista Global Consumer Survey shows.
You will find more infographics at Statista
According to the research, Christmas means pure stress for around 16 percent of the people surveyed in the United States. This even rises to 18 percent of respondents in the UK.
This is seemingly in part because there are too many expectations associated with Christmas; a quarter of respondents from Germany and the United States and 39 percent from the UK confirm this.
Five to nine percent of the survey participants even stated that the family get-together usually ends in arguments.
For them, Christmas is emotionally and psychologically draining rather than energizing, and often requires a great deal of effort to get through.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 19:00 - "Highly Experimental And Unproven": Scientist Tells Judge Transgender Treatments For Minors Fraught With Risk
“Highly Experimental And Unproven”: Scientist Tells Judge Transgender Treatments For Minors Fraught With Risk
Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
When a researcher begins with a conclusion, then looks for data to support that, “it’s a danger to all of science,” Dr. Paul Hruz, a St. Louis physician-scientist told a federal judge.
The Arkansas state flag and U.S. flag fly in front of the State Capitol in Little Rock on Dec. 1, 2022. (Janice Hisle/The Epoch Times) Yet Hruz said he has seen this disturbing pattern recur in recent years, as he examined studies purporting to prove the benefits of hormones and surgeries as treatments for gender-conflicted youths.
“It is erroneous to say that we identified an effective solution that maximizes benefits and minimizes risk,” Hruz testified Dec. 1 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Assailing the poor quality of research about gender-transition medical treatments for minors, and raising concerns about the risk of harm, Hruz said: “There are major, major questions that remain.”
Hruz, a pediatric endocrinologist and researcher, also called the procedures “highly experimental” and “unproven.”
He was the final witness to testify during a trial that is testing the nation’s first law banning hormones and surgeries for “gender-transition” of minors.
Judge Faces Big Decision
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit seeking to throw out the 2021 Arkansas law, alleging it is unconstitutional.
The ACLU of Arkansas has denounced the law as part of a “hateful attack” on LGBT youths seeking “medically necessary care.”
But the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office is defending the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, asserting that the state has a compelling interest to protect vulnerable children from medical interventions that can cause permanent harm, including ongoing health problems and sterility.
No dates have been set for attorneys to file final written briefs—the final pieces of the puzzle for Judge James Moody Jr. to consider before he issues a ruling. His decision could influence the way other states and courts respond to controversies surrounding similar legislation.
Moody will be considering two weeks’ worth of testimony that began with witnesses the ACLU called in mid-October. After a month-long recess, the trial resumed on Nov. 28 with witnesses testifying on behalf of the SAFE Act.
Treatments ‘Disrupt’ Healthy Process
During the last day of testimony on Dec. 1, Dylan Jacobs, deputy solicitor general for the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office, systematically questioned Hruz to share his extensive knowledge about treatment of “gender dysphoria,” or gender-related distress, among adolescents.
Based on his 25 years as a pediatric endocrinologist, along with 10 years of intensely researching gender dysphoria, Hruz said he would never prescribe puberty-blockers or cross-sex hormones without solid scientific studies showing that they do more good than harm.
Endocrinologists are dedicated to “restoring the body to its natural state of health” by correcting hormonal imbalances or deficiencies, he said.
Thus, Hruz objects to using hormones for gender dysphoria, and disrupting a normally functioning, healthy endocrine system.
6,000 Sex-Based Differences
Jacobs pointed out that ACLU witnesses described puberty blockers as a harmless “pause button.” Not so, Hruz said.
Puberty blockers prevent sex-specific changes, including easily observed ones such as breast development in girls and testicle development in boys. But inside the body, many other changes are also occurring during adolescence; the impact of interfering with those changes remains largely unknown, which is troubling, Hruz said.
“It is impossible to turn back time. So, once you’ve blocked puberty… you cannot buy back the time when that physical process has been disrupted,” Hruz said.
He also said credible studies show that, if left alone, many transgender-identifying youths will likely revert to their biological sex. But if put on puberty blockers, 98 percent of the youths will go on to take cross-sex hormones.
Flooding a person’s body with hormones of the opposite sex can cause myriad unknown effects, he said, noting that there are more than 6,000 sex-specific genetic differences between males and females.
In addition, it’s unclear how the combined effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones could affect young people in the long run, Hruz said.
Rapid-Fire Answers
In instance after instance, Hruz enumerated specific problems with studies that claim hormones or surgeries benefited youths with gender dysphoria.
“Despite the claims that are made about the efficacy of the affirmative approach, the evidence is insufficient to make that conclusion,” Hruz said.
With near-encyclopedic detail, Hruz fired off answers so quickly that the court stenographer struggled to keep pace. Moody repeatedly asked him to speak more slowly.
At one point, the judge became so frustrated, he threatened to stop the witness from further testimony unless Jacobs found a way to get Hruz to slow down his statements.
Hruz moderated his pace but continued speaking authoritatively as he testified for more than three hours under Jacobs’ questioning.
Generally, when considering medical treatment options, “The higher the risk, the lower the quality of evidence, the more caution that is used,” Hruz said.
Yet, with gender-affirming care, that principle seems not to apply, he said.
He couldn’t remember seeing any other medical treatments so strongly recommended despite such poor-quality evidence.
Another “unique” feature of this debate: The existence of gender dysphoria hinges on the patient’s self-reported identity and desires, Hruz said. There is no way to “test the accuracy of that condition,” he said.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 18:30 - 1,000 New York Times Employees Threaten To Strike Next Week
1,000 New York Times Employees Threaten To Strike Next Week
More than one thousand New York Times employees could walk off the job late next week if a newsroom union fails to strike a deal with the publisher.
After 20 months of negotiations, enough is enough: Today, more than 1,000 @NYTimesGuild members pledged to walk out if @nytimes does not agree to a complete and fair contract by Dec. 8.
— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 2, 2022
In a series of tweets, NYTimesGuild, the labor union of more than 1,000 NYTimes employees, complained about pensions, health care, and pay while the progressive newspaper is on track for an annual operating profit of $320 million and splurged $150 million on stock buybacks.
If you can believe it, NYTimes still pays their base journalist a measly $65,000 yearly, barely enough to live in NYC.
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A company on track for an annual operating profit of $320 million or more should be paying its employees a minimum of $65,000 a year. The @nytimes thinks this is unreasonable. The @NYTimesGuild does not.
— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 2, 2022
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This walkout pledge was not a decision we made lightly. But the truth is @nytimes is a blank page without @NYTGuild members. It’s time they gave us a contract that reflects our true worth. pic.twitter.com/MTMdockEKK
— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 2, 2022
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The lack of pay increases and failed negotiations by the union to solidify a deal appears to have been the last straw:
“Enough. If there is no contract by Dec. 8, we are walking out,” read the email’s subject line containing the letter that was sent to NYTimes publisher A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien on Friday, according to New York magazine.
The labor union wants negotiations on health care, pension plans, and a pay increase. They threatened to stop working for a full day next Thursday if an agreement wasn’t reached.
“Labor unrest at the Times is always awkward for the top editor, who gets pinioned between the newsroom they run and the business side to which they must answer. The big walkout would be the first real crisis for new executive editor Joe Kahn,” New York Magazine wrote.
NYTimes spokesperson said:
“While we are disappointed that the NewsGuild is threatening to strike, we are prepared to ensure The Times continues to serve our readers without disruption. We remain committed to working with the NYT NewsGuild to reach a contract that we can all be proud of.”
Meanwhile, “the paper,” NYTimes television critic James Poniewozik said, “doesn’t write itself.” A labor action and what could result in content disruption wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing, as it would force readers to search for news elsewhere.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 18:00 - Uvalde Survivors File $27 Billion Lawsuit Against Texas Officials, Officers Over Response To Mass Shooting
Uvalde Survivors File $27 Billion Lawsuit Against Texas Officials, Officers Over Response To Mass Shooting
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, have filed a $27 billion class-action lawsuit against multiple law enforcement officials in the state.
Investigators search for evidence outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25, 2022, after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo) This comes six months after the killings, which were the deadliest U.S. school shooting in almost a decade. Nineteen children and two teachers we killed by the gunman in May.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. It names the city of Uvalde, its police department, the school district, the state Department of Public Safety, and several police and school officials as defendants.
The plaintiffs, which include parents, teachers, and staff members, are alleging that the officials failed to follow protocols for an active shooter, despite having received active shooter training and that they did not neutralize the shooter immediately, leading to further trauma and injuries.
“Law enforcement took seventy-seven minutes to accomplish what they were duty bound to expeditiously perform,” the lawsuit states.
“Not only had CISD-PD undertaken a state-sponsored and mandated active shooter response training, but CISD had additionally promulgated its own required protocols and standards to employ in the event of an active shooter on one of its campuses.
“Despite such preparedness, the CISD police department, along with similarly trained law enforcement agencies including the City of Uvalde’s police department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, San Antonio Police Department’s SWAT unit, Uvalde’s Sheriff’s office, and the United States Department of Homeland Security fundamentally strayed from conducting themselves in conformity with what they knew to be the well-established protocols and standards for responding to an active shooter,” the lawsuit added.
In this photo from surveillance video provided by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District via the Austin American-Statesman, authorities respond to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022. (Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District/Austin American-Statesman via AP) Officers Waited Over an Hour
Nearly 400 law enforcement officials arrived at the school on May 24 but opted to wait over 70 minutes to enter the fourth-grade classroom where gunman Salvador Ramos had locked himself in and take him down.
A 77-page report published in July by the Texas state House of Representatives found that there were multiple “shortcomings and failures” across the board by both law enforcement and UCISD in its response.
Plaintiffs are seeking damages for the survivors of the shooting, including parents whose children were killed and those who witnessed the deadly incident.
According to the lawsuit, plaintiffs “sustained emotional and psychological damages as a result of Defendants’ conduct” on the day of the shooting, while some of the children are suffering from severe anxiety and nightmares.
A string of lawsuits have been filed against the Uvalde school district and law enforcement officers since May.
Sandra Torres holds a photo of her daughter Eliahna at her attorney’s office in San Antonio on Nov. 28, 2022. (Eric Gay/AP Photo) Mother of Victim, 10, Files Lawsuit
Earlier this week, Sandra Torres, the mother of 10-year-old victim Eliahna sued over the response to the shooting.
The lawsuit names the city of Uvalde; the County of Uvalde; the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District; the Uvalde Police Department; Uvalde CISD Police; Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office; Uvalde Constables, and the Texas Department of Public Safety as defendants.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 17:30 - Apple Accelerating Supply Chain Retreat From China After iPhone Factory Chaos
Apple Accelerating Supply Chain Retreat From China After iPhone Factory Chaos
Apple Inc’s massive exposure to Chinese manufacturing has left it with production shortfalls of iPhones due to Beijing’s harsh virus containment policies and unrest at a major factory in central China operated by Foxconn. A new report shows the iPhone maker’s retreat from China is accelerating.
WSJ said Apple is “telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn.”
Apple’s supply chain data indicates China is the iPhone maker’s primary location. Market research firm Counterpoint Research recently noted 85% of the Pro lineup of iPhones is made in Foxconn’s giant city-within-a-city factory in Zhengzhou.
The factory has been hit with Covid-19 restrictions and unrest in recent weeks and months, leading to a production shortfall of 6 million iPhone Pros by the end of the year.
“Apple no longer feels comfortable having so much of its business tied up in one place, according to analysts and people in the Apple supply chain,” WSJ noted.
“In the past, people didn’t pay attention to concentration risks.
“Free trade was the norm and things were very predictable. Now we’ve entered a new world,” Alan Yeung, a former US executive for Foxconn, said.
People familiar with Apple’s supply chain said that not all production would be shifted outside China. However, the remaining production in China will draw on a larger pool of assemblers, not just Foxconn. They said Luxshare Precision Industry Co. and Wingtech Technology Co. are two companies in line to receive more business from Apple.
As for the shift out of China, people involved in the discussions said Apple is telling manufacturing partners to look at other countries.
However, Apple has spent decades interweaving its supply chains within China, and change won’t come overnight.
“Finding all the pieces to build at the scale Apple needs is not easy,” said Kate Whitehead, a former Apple operations manager who now owns her own supply-chain consulting firm.
Ming-chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities who follows the supply chain, said Apple’s longer-term objective is to ship 40% to 45% of iPhones from India. And suppliers said Vietnam could soon be a significant player in manufacturing other Apple products such as AirPods, smartwatches, and laptops.
The bigger trend is the fracturing of the global supply chain. US firms realize China’s zero Covid policy and shutdowns, along with heightened geopolitical risk across the region, are bad for business and recently outlined in the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai’s latest survey of US firms in China found a near doubling of respondents over the past year that are slashing investment.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 17:00 - Midterms No Mandate For Another Biden Run
Midterms No Mandate For Another Biden Run
Authored by A.B. Stoddard via RealClear Wire,
Democrats face an inflection point, though they are trying not to face up to it. Surprising results in the November elections, producing a cloudy picture for both parties, have quieted a push to get President Biden to forgo a second term. But the liabilities of the GOP do not make Biden more popular; nor do they make him younger.
A split decision at the ballot box has Democrats cheering, but they have lost control of the House, and Biden’s job approval ratings are still nothing to crow about. Republicans underperformed because of the Dobbs ruling by the Supreme Court, and because of the extreme candidates backed by Donald Trump, when they should have won big. Democrats were not saved from a red wave because voters liked all the bipartisan bills they passed or that gasoline prices went down here and there. Record high inflation, a crisis at the border, and rising crime remain resonant issues with voters and still pose problems for the Democratic Party.
Yet Democrats seem to have backed down from the urgency of finding a new presidential nominee for their party in 2024. Talk of who could replace Biden – and when and how – had consumed Democrats throughout the summer and fall. They were not only anticipating a bad election, and a pivot point for the party, but whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would relinquish power as well, and support a new general of leadership for House Democrats. She did. And as I wrote in July, Biden should soon tell the country he will leave office in January of 2025.
The purple wave that helped Democrats mitigate their losses seems to have weakened Trump and strengthened Biden – the opposite of what was expected, particularly had Trump’s senate candidates prevailed. Trump announced his third presidential campaign anyway, but his diminished standing with GOP elites – combined with the midterm results – seems to have stiffened Biden’s spine about facing off against Trump once again in 2024.
Another campaign for Biden may even be a sure thing. “Those close to the White House say that, at this point, they expect only a family emergency or a personal health issue would change Biden’s mind about seeking re-election,” NBC reported, adding that Biden plans travel to potential battleground states and that advisors are reaching out to supporters “all in advance of a campaign launch early next year.”
Right on cue Democrats are talking comfortably again, even publicly, about a second Biden campaign. Before the election, Democrats believed Biden could face a primary challenge, but now some potential contenders are swearing off running against him. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have both said they won’t run if Biden does. “I think the president is running for re-election. So I think you’ll see Democrats supporting the president,” Pritzker told the New York Times. Newsom, who most Democrats assumed has been building a campaign-in-waiting, told Politico he assured the president, as well as his wife, that he wasn’t running if Biden ran or if he chose not to.
“He not only beat Trump once, I think he can beat him again,” Newsom said. “I hope he runs, I’ll enthusiastically support him.”
Biden himself is reportedly having conversations with his family, which started over Thanksgiving, about whether to run again. He has said running is his “intention” but has also said he wasn’t certain and would make an announcement early next year.
At 80, Biden is already America’s oldest president. The office has visibly aged him. He and Democrats aren’t talking about him launching a campaign for an election to serve two more years, but to serve another six years. Biden is not even halfway through his term. The worst thing for the party is for Biden to pretend that a visibly fatigued 82-year-old man, even if his stamina was not further degraded whatsoever by the next two years, can promise to lead the free world in the most grueling job on the planet until his 86th birthday. Biden running and having to quit, or serving and having to quit, because of his health is a foreseeable, avoidable problem for Democrats. The risk this poses is not worth the advantages Biden’s incumbency would afford him in a reelection campaign. Moreover, if Biden runs and appears physically weaker late next year it is likely someone could jump in to challenge him. That is a bad scenario for the Democrats, no matter who that is or how it turns out.
Polls show that rank-and-file Democrats don’t want Biden to run for a second term. Overall, strong majorities of Americans across the political spectrum don’t want Biden or Trump to run again.
Plus, there was no blue wave, either. The 2022 elections did not affirm support for Democrats, their policies, or the president. Frustrated voters unhappy with Biden and Democrats retained a near status quo in Washington, angry over abortion and afraid of some freaky Republican candidates they couldn’t trust in office.
In an interview, pollster Stanley Greenberg told the New York Times that his surveys show continued vulnerabilities for Democrats, and he thinks “we need a new voice to address huge challenges but also huge opportunities.”
The sooner the next crop of Democrats capable of leading their party can begin to campaign openly for the 2024 nomination, the better off the party will be. Dragging that process out, and risking an emergency, is not a position a strong leader would leave his party in. Pelosi likes to say that power is not given, it is taken. But last month she gave hers away. If it wasn’t the best thing for her, it was still the best decision for her party. Biden should do the same.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 16:30 - Nigeria's President Says West-Supplied Weapons In Ukraine Are 'Filtering' Into Africa
Nigeria’s President Says West-Supplied Weapons In Ukraine Are ‘Filtering’ Into Africa
The Nigerian government says that foreign-supplied weapons transferred from the West to the Ukrainian government have begun to proliferate in the west African region. The illegal arms have begun to “filter” to the region, Nigeria’s president said.
An urgent warning was recently issued by President Muhammadu Buhari himself. An official statement posted to the website of the Nigerian presidency’s office said that Buhari “urged more vigilance and tightening of security around borders, drawing attention to the increased number of arms, ammunition, and other weapons from the Russia and Ukraine war in the Lake Chad Basin.”
Image via AP It marks the clearest confirmation yet that weapons intended for Ukrainian forces are exiting the country in large numbers, precisely as many observers feared given the billions of dollars worth of arms that have been pumped in over the course of the nine-month war.
President Buhari said, “Regrettably, the situation in the Sahel and the raging war in Ukraine serve as major sources of weapons and fighters that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in the Lake Chad Region. A substantial proportion of the arms and ammunition procured to execute the war in Libya continues to find its way to the Lake Chad Region and other parts of the Sahel.”
He continued, “Weapons being used for the war in Ukraine and Russia are equally beginning to filter to the region.”
“This illegal movement of arms into the region has heightened the proliferation of small arms and light weapons which continues to threaten our collective peace and security in the region. There is, therefore, the urgent need for expedited collaborative actions by our border control agencies and other security services to stop the circulation of all illegal weapons in the region,” Buhari noted.
Critics of the massive US weapons pipeline to Ukraine have long pointed out there’s no accountability or appropriate tracking once those arms enter the country, presenting ripe opportunities for criminals, terrorists, or lucrative black market arms sellers to take advantage.
After #Nigeria‘s President Muhammadu Buhari’s clear warning, will we see more #US weapons making it into the hands of terrorist organizations?#Ukraine https://t.co/hkONcaWatV
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) December 3, 2022
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In October, Finland began warning it too is seeing West-supplied weapons to Ukraine make their way to different countries, and falling into the hands of criminal gangs.
NBI, which is Finland’s federal National Bureau of Investigation, had sounded the alarm at the time, saying in a statement, “We’ve seen signs of these weapons already finding their way to Finland.”
“Weapons shipped [by various countries] to Ukraine have also been found in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands,” NBI Detective Superintendent Christer Ahlgren was quoted in the Finnish media as saying.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 16:00 - Musk Is Right: It's A Battle For Future Of Civilization
Musk Is Right: It’s A Battle For Future Of Civilization
Authored by Daniel Flynn via The American Spectator,
In China, authoritarians flood Twitter with ads for prostitutes and pornography in an effort to prevent users from obtaining information about protests.
Authoritarians in the United States threaten to remove Twitter from more than 1.5 billion devices worldwide.
“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store,” Elon Musk tweeted, “but won’t tell us why.”
The powerful few want to impede the free flow of information to the vulnerable many. Suppression strikes intelligent observers as not a Chinese thing but a fetish of the powerful in whatever nation they reside. It appears cruder and more thuggish in China, and more passive-aggressive and sophisticated in the United States. But whether the state or a monopoly suppresses expression, does the crushing effect of it on a free society really differ?
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke of “monitoring” and “keeping a close eye” on Twitter (big sister is watching!), which, she claims, bears a responsibility to “take action” against “misinformation” and “hate.”
Does not the federal government bear a responsibility to ensure that the United States remains a free society?
Instead of breaking out of the stranglehold Apple and Google have placed upon the information that we consume, the White House publicly nudges tech companies to censor.
Traditionally, the federal government assumed a massive role in ensuring, particularly when it came to communications, that no company controlled too much of the market share. During the 1940s, the feds forced NBC’s Blue Network to separate from the parent company. It eventually became NBC’s competitor ABC. Later, after decades of litigation, the government broke up the Bell System into the seven “Baby Bells” (four of which once again folded into “Ma Bell,” otherwise known as AT&T). This similarly resulted in a competitor to the monopoly in Verizon.
Now people in positions of power cheer on the consolidation of information. Instead of breaking out of the stranglehold Apple and Google have placed upon the information that we consume, the White House publicly nudges tech companies to censor. Privately, we may learn that political actors do much more than nudge.
“The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself,” Musk tweeted Monday.
“The public deserves to know what really happened.”
And, of course, Mark Zuckerberg noted that Facebook’s decision to suppress the true Hunter Biden laptop story came about after the FBI issued a stern warning to them about disseminating “disinformation,” a euphemism that now means information that disturbs progressives.
Americans allow infringements on their freedom of speech because we imagine intolerance to that degree as remaining the domain of people who neither look like us nor sound like us. This speaks further to our small-mindedness.
This can happen here because it does happen here.
Elon Musk plays H.L. Mencken, who chomped the half-dollar of Watch and Ward Society moral crusader Frank Chase, played by Tim Cook, before selling him a copy of the American Mercury featuring a story about a prostitute. Ninety-six years later, we do not object much to prostitutes. Certainly, the Chinese, plastering them on Twitter to muck up searches on Wuhan or Chengdu, do not object to them. People increasingly object to differences of opinion or even facts that displease.
The Boston Common bigots merely arrested Mencken for offending them. The ones in Silicon Valley threaten to erase tens of billions of dollars from Musk’s fortune. More importantly, they seek to shrink the parameters of debate. This changes the very character of the United States, which, as anyone familiar with lawyer Andrew Hamilton’s courtroom speeches in the John Peter Zenger libel trial knows, predates the United States:
The question before the Court and you, Gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of one poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No! It may in its consequence affect every free man that lives under a British government on the main of America. It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. And I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow citizens, but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny, and by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power (in these parts of the world at least) by speaking and writing truth.
Progressives increasingly resemble Bill Cosby, New York’s colonial governor and not the comedian/roofie enthusiast, in finding opposing views intolerable. This meant, under the previous Twitter regime, deplatforming Meghan Murphy, a Canadian socialist-feminist, for tweeting “women aren’t men”; the removal of “learn to code” tweets in mock homage to Joe Biden offering that advice to displaced miners; and the suspension of the New York Post’s account for sharing a true story that Twitter falsely deemed disinformation about the president’s son.
Elon Musk deserves gratitude for transforming Twitter from that woke wasteland into a vibrant Mecca for speech. Instead, Apple allegedly seeks to ruin his enterprise through restraint-of-trade practices. Similarly, Apple’s Chinese benefactors who make their iPhones now scour the devices of pedestrians to see if they contain Twitter and other apps.
The interests of Apple and China, then, coincide on much more than the manufacture of cheap iPhones. Tim Cook and Xi Jinping imagine that they hold the right to dictate what apps you may keep on your phone.
“This is a battle for the future of civilization,” Musk accurately tweets.
“If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”
Specifically, that tyranny lies 13 hours ahead.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 15:30 - Global Warming? Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover At 56-Year High
Global Warming? Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover At 56-Year High
The COP27 climate change conference wrapped up last month. World leaders flew in private jets to Egypt to discuss how fossil fuels were quickly heating the planet to the point of no return, as humanity was doomed if crucial climate change policies weren’t implemented. But while the climate alarmist leaders met in the desert, November’s snowfall across the Northern Hemisphere was running at rates exceeding a half-a-century average.
NOAA and Rutgers University released new data that showed snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere reached the highest level since measurements began in 1967 and are currently above the 56-year mean.
Here’s the Rutgers Global Snow Lab snow coverage map across the Northern Hemisphere.
And another from NOAA with more resolution.
“Extensive snow extent early in the season is an indicator of persistent cold as we head into winter proper,” weather blog Severe Weather Europe said.
Most mainstream media outlets overlooked this data because it is an inconvenient truth for the climate change narrative they’re pushing.
A severe winter for the Northern Hemisphere might complicate power grids for western countries that are hellbent on disrupting energy flows by sanctioning Russia, forcing the world into the worst energy crisis in a generation. Since the US and Europe’s natural gas storage facilities have flipped into withdrawal season, the clock starts as storage levels could quickly wind down if temperatures stay below average, which would continue to boost energy prices.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 15:00 - Judge Orders Arizona’s Cochise County To Certify Election Results
Judge Orders Arizona’s Cochise County To Certify Election Results
Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
An Arizona county’s board of supervisors certified their jurisdiction’s midterm elections results on Thursday at the order of a judge three days after they missed the statutory deadline of Nov. 28.
An election worker gathers tabulated ballots to be boxed inside the Maricopa County Recorders Office in Phoenix. Arizona, on Nov. 10, 2022. (Matt York/AP Photo) Judge Casey McGinley of the Pima County Superior Court instructed Cochise County’s board of supervisors to convene and declare the results official by 5 p.m. MT on Thursday.
McGinley ruled that the failure of two Republican supervisors to certify the results before the state’s legal deadline was illegal.
On Monday, the lone Democrat on the three-person panel, supervisor Anne English, voted against the motion to postpone the results, while Republican supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby voted to postpone.
An election worker carries trays filled with mail-in ballots to open and verify at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 11, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Following the certification on Thursday, state officials in Arizona will now be able to proceed with statewide certification on Monday after the board voted 2–0 to certify the outcomes of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
English and Judd cast the deciding votes to certify, with Republican Tom Crosby abstaining from the court-ordered hearing.
Cochise County’s Board of Supervisors sought to push back certifying the results in order to further review claims that the county’s voting equipment was not properly certified in accordance with the law.
According to election officials, the machinery was properly approved.
Cochise County, which borders Mexico, has always been a bastion of Republican and conservative voters.
Hobbs Sues Cochise Board
After the two Republican members of the board voted to delay certification, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who was declared the victor of the state’s governor contest, sued Cochise County earlier this week.
Cochise County “had a statutory duty to certify the results of the 2022 General Election” by Nov. 28., Hobbs said on Twitter, where she shared screenshots of the lawsuit.
According to Hobb’s lawsuit, failure to certify the results before Dec. 1 will “sow greater confusion and doubt about the integrity of Arizona’s election system” and asked the court to issue an injunction compelling officials to do so.
“The Board’s inaction not only violates the plain language of the statute but also undermines a basic tenet of free and fair elections in this state: ensuring that every Arizonan’s voice is heard,” the lawsuit (pdf) reads.
Arizona Democrat Katie Hobbs, who has been named winner in the state’s gubernatorial race, speaks to attendees at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 15, 2022. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images) Hobb’s lawsuit stated that without the court’s intervention, she would have no choice, as Arizona’s chief elections official in her role as secretary of state, but to complete the statewide canvass by Dec. 8 “without Cochise County’s votes included.”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 14:30 - Major Web Browsers Drop Mysterious Authentication Company After Ties To US Military Contractor Exposed
Major Web Browsers Drop Mysterious Authentication Company After Ties To US Military Contractor Exposed
This week several major web browsers quickly severed ties with a mysterious software company used to certify the security of websites, three weeks after the Washington Post exposed its connections to a US military contractor, the Post reports.
TrustCor Systems provided ‘certificates’ to browsers to Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge, which vouched for the legitimacy of said websites.
“Certificate Authorities have highly trusted roles in the internet ecosystem and it is unacceptable for a CA to be closely tied, through ownership and operation, to a company engaged in the distribution of malware,” said Mozilla’s Kathleen Wilson in an email to browser security experts. “Trustcor’s responses via their Vice President of CA operations further substantiates the factual basis for Mozilla’s concerns.”
According to TrustCor’s Panamanian (!?) registration records, the company has the same slate of officers, agents and officers as Arizona-based Packet Forensics, which has sold communication interception services to the U.S. government for over a decade.
One of those contracts listed the “place of performance” as Fort Meade, Md., the home of the National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command.
The case has put a new spotlight on the obscure systems of trust and checks that allow people to rely on the internet for most purposes. Browsers typically have more than a hundred authorities approved by default, including government-owned ones and small companies, to seamlessly attest that secure websites are what they purport to be. -WaPo
Also of concern, TrustCor’s small staff in Canada lists its place of operation at a UPS Store mail drop, according to company executive Rachel McPherson, who says she told their Canadian staffers to work remotely. She also acknowledged that the company has ‘infrastructure’ in Arizona as well.
McPherson says that ownership in TrustCor was transferred to employees despite the fact that some of the same holding companies had invested in both TrustCor and Packet Forensics.
Various technologists in the email discussion said they found TrustCor to be evasive when it came to basic facts such as legal domicile and ownership – which they said was not appropriate for a company responsible for root certificate authority that verifies a secure ‘https’ website is not an imposter.
The Post report built on the work of two researchers who had first located the company’s corporate records, Joel Reardon of the University of Calgary and Serge Egelman of the University of California at Berkeley. Those two and others also ran experiments on a secure email offering from TrustCor named MsgSafe.io. They found that contrary to MsgSafe’s public claims, emails sent through its system were not end-to-end encrypted and could be read by the company.
McPherson said the various technology experts had not used the right version or had not configured it properly. -WaPo
In a previous case which illustrates the importance of trusting root-level authorities – a security company controlled by the United Arab Emirates, DarkMatter, applied in 2019 to have top-level root authority from their status as an intermediate authority with less independence. The request followed revelations that DarkMatter had hacked dissidents and even some Americans – after which Mozilla denied it root power.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 14:00 - Von Greyerz: In The End The Dollar Goes To Zero & The US Defaults
Von Greyerz: In The End The Dollar Goes To Zero & The US Defaults
Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,
With US and Global debt exploding prior to both assets and debt imploding, let us look at the disastrous consequences for the US and the world.
Debt explosion leading to the currency becoming worthless has happened in history for as long as there has been some form of money whether we talk about 3rd century Rome, 18th century France or 20th century Weimar Republic and many many more.
So here we are again, another monetary era and another guaranteed collapse as von Mises said:
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse
of a boom brought about by credit expansion”This disastrous borrowed prosperity, with ZERO ability to repay the surging debt, will lead to one of the three consequences below:
1. THE US$ GOES TO ZERO
2. A US DEFAULT
3. BOTH OF THE ABOVE
The most likely outcome is number 3 in my view. The dollar will go to ZERO and the US will default. The same will happen to most countries.
I outline the consequences for the world at the end of his article.
Many people say that the US can never default. That is of course absolute nonsense.
If a country prints worthless debt that nobody will buy in a currency that no one wants to hold, the country has definitely defaulted whatever spin they put on it.
In the next few years, not just US but all sovereign debt will only have one buyer which is the country that issues the debt. And every time a sovereign state buys its own debt, it has to issue more worthless debt that nobody will touch with a barge pole.
Printing more money to pay for previous sins has never worked and never will.
And this is how money dies, just like it has throughout history.
The current monetary era started with the foundation of the Fed in 1913 and the acceleration of debt and currency debasement since 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window. With just over 100 years into this era, it is now approaching the end, like they all do.
Global currencies are already down 97-99% since 1971 and we can now expect the final 1-3% decline for all money to become virtually worthless. This is of course nothing new in history since every single currency has always gone to ZERO. We must of course remember that the final 1-3% move means a 100% fall from today. The final collapse is always the quickest so it could easily happen in the next 2-5 years.
DEBT, DEBT AND MORE DEBT
Let’s look at how it has all evolved.
Although US debt has increased virtually every year since 1930, the acceleration started in the late 1960s and 1970s. With gold backing the dollar and therefore most currencies UNTIL 1971, the ability to borrow more money was restricted without depleting the gold reserves.
Since the gold standard prevented Nixon to print money and buy votes to stay in power, he conveniently got rid of those shackles “temporarily” as he declared on August 15, 1971. Politicians don’t change. Powell and Lagarde recently called the increase in inflation “transitory” but in spite of their bogus prediction, inflation has continued to rise.
Since 1971 total US debt has gone up 53X with GDP only up 22X as the graph below shows:
As the widening Gap between Debt and GDP in the graph above shows, it now takes ever more debt to achieve increases in GDP. So without printing worthless money, REAL GDP would show a decline.
So this is what our politicians are doing, buying votes and creating fake growth through printed money. This gives the voter the illusion of increased income and wealth. Sadly he doesn’t grasp that the illusory increase in living standard is all based on debt and devalued money.
Let’s also look at US Federal Debt:
Since Reagan became president in 1981, US federal debt has on average doubled every 8 years. Thus when Trump inherited the $20 trillion debt from Obama in 2017, I forecast that the debt would double by 2025 to $40t. That still looks like a valid projection but with the economic problems I expect, a $50t debt by 2025-6 cannot be excluded.
So presidents know they can buy the love of the people by running chronic deficits and printing money to make up for the difference.
But if we look at the graph above again, it shows that debt has gone up 35X since 1981 but that tax revenue has only increased 8X from $0.6t to $4.9t.
How can any sane person believe that with debt going up 4.5X faster than tax revenue that the debt can ever be repaid.
Even worse, with US interest payments on the debt surging from around 0% to probably 5% by 2025 the interest on the debt will climb to $2 trillion or circa 30% of the annual budget.
So with higher interest rates, higher deficits and rising inflation the scene is set for a high or hyper-inflationary period in the next few years.
FED PIVOT?
So virtually every observer believes that the Fed (and ECB) will not just stop raising interest rates but pivot and lower them again.
In my view this will not happen except for possibly very short term. The 40 year interest rate downtrend finished in 2020 and the world is unlikely to see low or negative rates for many years or decades. High inflation and high rates will continue for years. But as we see in the 40 year chart of the 10 year US treasury below, there will be many corrections in the coming uptrend.
US MONEY SUPPLY GROWING AT 74% ANNUALISED
Between August 1971 and August 2019 US money supply grew at 6.1% p.a.
In August 2019, the hangover from the 2006-9 Great Financial Crisis hit the financial system again resulting in major support actions from the Fed and other central banks.
So the fresh problems emerged before Covid and before Ukraine. But those two new crises obviously exacerbated the systemic problems that had been put on ice for 10 years. This led to massive money printing and M1 in the US no longer increased at 6% annually but at a hyperinflationary 74% p.a. as the graph below shows.
$25 TRILLION GLOBAL LIQUIDITY/DEBT INCREASE AT ZERO COST
Central banks are always wrong and always behind the curve. They kept short term rates at zero or negative for over a decade. From 2009 to 2019 the balance sheets of major central banks increased by $13t. But then from Aug 2019 to 2022 an explosion in central bank debt took place, expanding their balance sheets $23t from $13t to $36t. All the same reasons that I discuss in the paragraph above regarding US money supply are obviously also valid for global debt expansion.
There is nothing like free money! The banks created this money at ZERO cost. They did no work and nor did they produce any goods or services. All they needed to do was to press a button. And with interest rates at zero or negative, many central banks were actually receiving interest from the lenders.
What a beautiful Ponzi scheme. CBs print/borrow money and then they are paid for the pleasure of borrowing this money. Any private swindler launching such a scheme like Ponzi or Madoff would spend the rest of his life in prison but the bankers are praised for “saving” the system.
What virtually no individual understands is that this free money then enters the financial system as having a real intrinsic value. As with all Ponzi schemes, the current financial system will collapse too as the holders of the fake paper money realise that the money is worthless and that the emperor is totally naked.
That will be the final phase of the current monetary system with unlimited money printing as the $2.3 quadrillion debt pyramid collapses which I discussed in this article and also in this interview with Greg Hunter USA Watchdog .
This is what the global financial system looks like:
The estimated $2 quadrillion gross derivatives is today quasi debt but will one day become real debt, as central banks attempt to rescue the financial system. When counterparties fail, the gross will remain gross. So in total the world will face a $2,3 quadrillion debt resting on $2 trillion of central bank gold, a 0.1% coverage.
Within the next five years or so, the triangle is likely to be inverted with central bank gold as the foundation at the bottom. But instead of gold being only 0.1% of global liabilities, it will be as much as maybe 20%. That 200x revaluation of gold will be a combination of the value of global assets and liabilities collapsing and gold rising.
Personally I don’t believe in a lasting formal reset with a new currency system backed by gold. I cannot see the three major gold producers/holders China, Russia and India agreeing with the US on a revaluation. It is also questionable if the US has anywhere near the 8,000 tonnes of gold they are declaring. Also, China and Russia probably have considerably more gold than they are declaring.
Instead, after the fake paper market in gold has collapsed, the price must be based on supply and demand of unencumbered physical gold or Free Gold. But that can only happen after the current financial system based on fake money, debt and derivatives no longer functions.
CONSEQUENCES
But before that, the world must pay for the excesses of the last 50 years. The consequences will be dire as we are facing a major cataclysm or disorderly reset which will involve:
-
DEBT DEFAULTS – SOVEREIGN, CORPORATE & PRIVATE
-
BURSTING OF EPIC BUBBLES IN STOCKS, BONDS & PROPERTY
-
MAJOR GEOPOLITICAL CONFLICTS WITH NO DESIRE FOR PEACE
-
SECULAR FALL OF LIVING STANDARDS DUE TO HIGHER COST OF ENERGY & ENERGY SHORTAGES
-
FOOD SHORTAGES LEADING TO MAJOR FAMINE AND CIVIL UNREST
-
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTABILITY & CORRUPTION
-
NO COUNTRY WILL AFFORD SOCIAL SECURITY OR PENSIONS
-
INFLATION HYPERINFLATION AND LATER DEFLATIONARY IMPLOSION
I sincerely hope that these predictions will not take place. Because if they do, everyone will suffer dramatically for an extended period. No one, rich or poor will avoid these problems.
I am naturally not predicting, like a Cassandra, (my 2017 article with a timely gold projection) that this disorderly reset will absolutely take place. Only future historians will tell us what actually happened.
But what I am saying is that the risk of a major catastrophe has never been higher in history, whenever it actually happens.
Physical gold and silver will not save you but clearly be the best financial insurance you can hold.
Most important is a support system of family and friends. Remember also that in addition to family and friends, some of the best things in life are free like nature, music, books and many hobbies.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/03/2022 – 13:30 -
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