Jan 04

Today’s News 4th January 2023

  • We've Reached Peak Zelensky. Now What?
    We’ve Reached Peak Zelensky. Now What?

    Authored by Robert Freeman via Common Dreams,

    When the president of the poorest, most corrupt nation in Europe is feted with multiple standing ovations by the combined Houses of Congress, and his name invoked in the same breath as Winston Churchill, you know we’ve reached Peak Zelensky.

    It’s a farcical, almost psychotic over-promotion, probably surpassed only by the media’s shameful, hyperbolic railroading of the country into war with Iraq, in 2003. Paraphrasing Gertrude from Hamlet, “Methinks the media doth hype too much.”

    Via NBC News 

    Let’s remember that before ascending to his country’s presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky’s greatest claim to fame was that he could play the piano with his penis. I’m not joking. And he ran on a platform to unite his country for peace, and for making amends with Russia. Again, I’m not joking.

    Now, he’s Europe’s George Washington, FDR, and Douglas MacArthur all rolled into one and before whom the mighty and powerful genuflect. Please. The only place to go from here is down. And, that is surely coming. Soon.

    Consider some inconvenient facts that the fawning media, which is essentially the public relations arm of the weapons industry, doesn’t want you to know.

    The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, recently let slip that the Ukrainian army has lost more than 100,000 troops in the eight months since the beginning of the war. Over the nine-year span of the Vietnam War, the U.S. with a population six times that of Ukraine, lost a total of 58,220 men.

    In other words, on a per day, per capita basis, Ukraine is losing soldiers at a rate 141 TIMES that of U.S. losses in Vietnam. The U.S. lost the public on Vietnam when middle class white boys began coming home in body bags. Does anybody with half a brain believe such losses in Ukraine are sustainable? Does anybody have another plan to avert such slaughter?

    Von der Leyen is among the shrewdest public figures in the world. What she is doing is laying the predicate for Western withdrawal from Ukraine and ending the War. If you look at the facts on the ground, not the boosterish propaganda ladled out by the media, you can understand why.

    In a matter of weeks, Russia, with its hypersonic missiles, destroyed half of Ukraine’s electrical power infrastructure. This, as winter is coming on. It can just as easily take out the other half, effectively bombing Ukraine back into the Stone Age. Is that what anybody wants?

    The startling, indeed, terrifying part of this is that neither Ukraine nor the West have any defense against these hypersonic missiles. They travel so fast, and on variable trajectories, they cannot be shot down, even by the most advanced Western systems. They represent one of the greatest asymmetries in deliverable destructive power in the history of warfare, probably dwarfed only by the U.S.’s possession of atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

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    Again, there is no effective defense against them. The Russians have them. The Ukrainians don’t. Game over. Can you understand why leaders in the West are beginning to wake up?

    On the conventional front, the Ukrainians are having trouble securing even conventional weapons to defend themselves. U.S. arms suppliers are working around the clock to replace their own stocks and the stocks that European countries have given to Ukraine. But the backlog is running into years. A recent headline from The Wall Street Journal stated, “Europe is Rushing Arms to Ukraine but Running Out of Ammo.”

    Finally, the U.S. has committed $112 billion to Ukraine. That includes $45 billion just slipped into the omnibus funding bill against the likelihood that a Republican-controlled House will cut such funding, almost certainly substantially.

    That’s more than $10 billion per month since the war started in February. And that doesn’t even count the subsidies, both material and financial, from the EU which amount to billions of dollars more per month.

    Without such subsidies, Zelensky would not have lasted a month in the war. How many hours do you think he is going to last once that flow dries up? And it surely is.

    The Europeans are coming to realize that their continent is being de-industrialized, literally moved backwards an entire epoch in economic terms, because of their willingness to serve as the doormat for the U.S.’ imperial war against Russia. Not even they, with their supine fealty to U.S. domination, are willing to commit collective economic suicide on behalf of the U.S.

    France’s Macron and Germany’s Scholz are suggesting that accommodations to Russian interests must be devised in order to bring about a peaceful settlement of the war.

    Macron suggested in a television address to his nation that an antagonized Russia is not in the security interests of Europe. “We need to prepare what we are ready to do…to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.”

    Scholz was even more specific. In an article in Foreign Affairs he declared, “We have to go back to the agreements which we had in the last decades and which were the basis for peace and security order in Europe.”

    This is a direct repudiation of the U.S.’s maximalist position before the start of the War, that Russia’s security needs were of no interest to a marauding NATO.

    Even U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is now mooting the idea that territorial concessions must be on the table. In a Wall Street Journal article, Blinken stated that, “Our focus is…to take back territory that’s been seized from [Ukraine] since February 24th.”

    Notice, that this is a significant climb down from the U.S.’ earlier position that all Russian gains since 2014, including Crimea, must be reversed before negotiations could begin. And this is just Blinken’s opening hand. More concessions are sure to follow as Russian gains become greater and their likelihood of being reversed, lesser.

    Put these four things together: staggering, unsustainable losses of soldiers; terrifying, indefensible asymmetries of destructive power; inability to supply oneself with even conventional defensive weapons; and categorically reduced support from your most important backers.

    Does that sound like the formula for winning a war? It is not. It’s the formula for losing the war, which is why von der Leyen, Macron, Scholz, and Blinken are now laying pipe for getting out. The tide is going out under Zelensky. He will soon be remembered as a Trivial Pursuits question, or an answer on Jeopardy: “The only modern head of state known to be able to play the piano with his penis.” Ding. “Contestant #3?” “Who is Volodymyr Zelensky?”

    A peace will soon be declared. Russia will keep the Donbas and Crimea in recognition of the facts on the ground. Both sides will be better off for this. The Donbas is ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and culturally Russian, which is why it voted overwhelmingly for assimilation into Russia. Besides, if Kiev loved them so much, it wouldn’t have murdered 14,000 of them over the past eight years and resumed massive shelling in early February of this year, before the Russian invasion.

    Ukraine will foreswear any future affiliation with NATO. This is Putin’s highest priority and what he asked for–and was denied–in his request to the U.S. and NATO last December, before the invasion was launched. If Russia begins its much-feared winter offensive, as many expect, Ukrainian generals will dispatch Zelensky in a coup rather than send their few remaining soldiers to certain annihilation.

    U.S. grain and pharma conglomerates will buy up Ukrainian farmland—some of the best in the world—for pennies on the dollar. This is the standard MO of U.S. multinational vultures coming in after the kill to pick apart the carcasses. U.S. weapons makers will look for and help provoke the next feeding frenzy, much as they materialized Ukraine barely a year after the humiliating U.S. defeat in Afghanistan derailed their last gravy train.

    Russia and China, driven together by U.S. bullying, will continue to constellate the nations of the Global South into an anti-Western bloc committed to collaborative, mutually profitable, peaceful development. The U.S. and its closest allies will cower behind the walls they’ve constructed of the ever-shrinking share of the global economy that they can manage to hold as their own.

    Ukraine will prove a turning point in the dismantling of U.S. hegemony over global affairs that it has enjoyed—and, let’s be honest, often abused–since 1945. The U.S. public is not psychically prepared for such a come down. But that is the cost of living in the fantasy world that the media lavishes up to keep that self-same public ignorant, fearful, confused, entertained, and distracted.

    Finally, the neo-cons who have led the U.S. into the serial debacles of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine, costing the country tens of trillions of dollars and even greater amounts of destroyed reputational capital, will claim their customary immunity from any accountability for their savage failures and cheerily move on to their next calamity. We need to be on the lookout for their next gambit to pillage the treasury and advance their own private interests above those of the nation. It will surely come.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 23:40

  • These Are The Longest-Lasting Cars (In Miles)
    These Are The Longest-Lasting Cars (In Miles)

    When properly maintained, well-built cars can last an impressive amount of miles.

    Consider this 2006 Honda Civic, which hit one million miles on its original engine and transmission. Amusingly, the car’s odometer maxes out at 999,999 miles.

    While that case may be an extreme outlier, most modern cars are expected to last 200,000 miles before experiencing some significant failure. That’s roughly double the lifespan of cars from the 1960s and 1970s, which typically lasted about 100,000 miles.

    In this infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Ls and Athul Alexander used data from iSeeCars to determine which cars are the most likely to reach⁠— or even surpass⁠—the 200,000 mile benchmark.

    Study Methodology & Data

    To come up with their rankings, iSeeCars analyzed over 2 million used cars between January and October 2022. The rankings are based on the mileage that the top 1% of cars within each model obtained. Models with less than 10 years of production, such as the Tesla Model 3, were excluded.

    The following tables show an expanded list of the longest lasting cars, by model category. Our infographic only includes the top five from each.

    Sedans & Hatchbacks

    The only non-Japanese model in the top 10 is the Chevrolet Impala, which is one of the most commonly found rental cars in the U.S.

     

    Another interesting takeaway is that Lexus is the only luxury brand in this list. This is likely due to the fact that Lexus and Toyota often share drivetrain components.

     

    SUVs

    iSeeCars has a larger top 20 list for the SUV category.

     

    This is a more diverse list, with American and Japanese models seemingly on par. The GM family of SUVs (Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, and Yukon XL) are narrowly edged out by Toyota’s full size options (Sequoia and Land Cruiser).

     

    The Land Cruiser was discontinued in the U.S. for 2021, but it remains a very popular model in Middle Eastern countries like Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE.

    Pickup Trucks

    Once again, Japanese manufacturers hold the top spots. According to Toyota, the Tundra is the only full-size pickup that is currently being built in Texas.

     

    Despite their marginally higher potential lifespans, sales of Japanese trucks come nowhere close to their American counterparts.

     

    Electric Cars

    The last category is EVs, which due to the 10 years of production requirement, only includes the Tesla Model S (133,998 miles) and Nissan LEAF (98,081).

    These figures are much lower than the gasoline cars discussed above, but it’s not exactly a fair comparison. We probably won’t be able to judge the long-term reliability of EVs until they’ve been around for at least another decade.

    In addition to needing more time, another reason is scale—the Model S and LEAF have been sold in relatively limited numbers. The Tesla Model 3, which is the first EV to sell over one million units, will likely become the first reliable benchmark.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 23:20

  • Victor Davis Hanson: The Baleful Cargo Of Woke Diversity Worship
    Victor Davis Hanson: The Baleful Cargo Of Woke Diversity Worship

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

    Just as uniformity can result in both stability and stagnation, so too can diversity sometimes ensure either dynamism or bedlam…

    What do all our notable fabricators – George Santos, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama – have in common? 

    Well, quite like the Ward ChurchilIs or Rachel Dolezals of the world, one way or another, they lied about their identities. Or they sought fraudulent ways of suggesting their ancestries were marginalized. Or they had claims on being victims on the theory their constructed personas brought career advantages. 

    George Santos claimed, apparently in search of a victimized status, that he was an “American Jew” and a “Latino Jew,” and a descendent of Holocaust survivors. 

    Joe Biden lied that he went to “shul” as well as that he grew up in a veritable Puerto Rican household and just happened to attend a black college as well as being an honorary Greek.

    Elizabeth Warren ended up a laughingstock for claiming her high cheekbones were proof of her Native-American ancestry—a lie she rode all the way to being the “first” Native-American professor on the Harvard Law school faculty. 

    Somehow the half-white, prep-schooled Barry Soetoro, who had taken his Indonesian stepfather’s last name, rebooted in the university back to Barack Obama. The latter oddly did not catch his literary agent “misidentifying” him in a book promo as being born in Africa. And only as president, did we learn his “autobiographical” memoir was mostly a concoction.

    This fixation with constructing identities is one of the great pathologies of our woke era.

    When we obsess in neo-Confederate style on race, ethnicity, or religion as the defining element of who we are, and we do this to leverage political advantage, then we set off a chain-reaction of Yugoslavian- or Lebanese-style tribalism. Like nuclear proliferation, once one group goes tribal, then all others will strain to find their own deterrent tribal identity.

    A Society of Lies

    There are warning signs all around us of our fate to come if we do not stop this nihilism: Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council caught on a hot mic of matter-of-fact venting tribalist hatred and mocking of non-Latino tribes—blacks, gays, indigenous people, and whites. Or the Jussie Smollett farce, both the lies he concocted to promote his victimhood, and the lies the Chicago prosecutor office initially promulgated to ensure initial preferential treatment for Smollett based on his race. Read the comments posted below news stories of rampant swarming smash-and-grab, knockout game, or carjacking crimes—and be warned of the venomous and tribalist backlash to venomous tribalism.

    In a world in which there are too many oppressed for the static number of oppressors, then it is perfectly logical that an Elizabeth Warren on the one hand would fabricate an advantageous identity for careerist opportunity, and a Jussie Smollett on the other hand would invent mythical white MAGA demons to ensure he was victimized and deserving of careerist reparations for his suffering.

    Yet the tribal problem is not just an epidemic of false identities and fraudulent victims. Entire areas of social and political reality are now set off and exempt from rational discussion. We are currently witnessing an upsurge in black-male crime, often descending into disproportionate hate crimes perpetrated against Asians and Jews. Yet any discussion of this violence is taboo, lest one is deemed racist or illiberal.

    Questioning the morality of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and to destroy decades of striving for equal female athletics likewise is put off-limits. 

    So are discussions about the epidemic of illegitimacy and the negative effects of fatherless families contributing to problems in some minority communities.

    Even the national challenge of epidemic obesity is racialized, as if worries about unhealthy weight of all Americans derive somehow from mythical white “body shaming.”

    So are inquiries about how the states in tough economic times are to house, feed, care, educate, and instruct 5 million entrants across the southern border, arriving en masse and illegally, all without simple background checks, knowledge of English or a high-school diploma, and in non-diverse fashion. If the first thing an immigrant does is to break U.S. law by illegally crossing the border, and the second thing is illegally residing in the United States, then it is only logical that he concludes further illegal activity will be similarly exempt. Illegal immigration is not a noble endeavor but a crime against its host.

    In sum, woke tribalism inevitably turns us into fabricators and society itself becomes a liar. 

    Against Meritocracy

    The old 1970s cynical canard that racial quotas would not extend to pilot training or neurosurgery is no longer true. Some of the major airlines have announced mandatory non-white acceptance quotas for pilot training, and not predicated on competitive résumés or standardized test scores. Many universities and professional schools are considering adopting pass/fail grading on the theory that affirmative action admissions must become synonymous with guaranteed graduation.

    Yet what is the alternative once one travels this pathway? Suppose the idea of quota-based admissions is declared valid and salutary. In that case, grading must likewise be recalibrated along this long chain of anti-meritocracy to continue ensuring equality of results.

    Licensing boards are next. If one is admitted to universities on diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns rather than demonstrable achievement as quantifiably determined by competitive grades and test scores and other definable exceptional achievements, and one is further graduated on the assurance that grades either will not be issued or will be inflated, then the logical next step is that licensing exam standards in law or medicine must likewise be relaxed so as not to interrupt the ever-lengthening wokeist chain. 

    In other words, soon where one went to medical school, or what one did in medical school, or where one did his residency, or his certification by a medical board of examiners will become rather irrelevant. The point is not to recruit applicants with the most competitive records and to ensure that they all are subject to the same standard of rigorous instruction and assessment to ensure the public can have confidence in the medical profession, but to make sure that profession measures up to some artificial notions about diversity, equity, and inclusion. The relationship between these metrics and health is beside the point.

    We forget that what once separated the Western world from the rest was not race, climate, or natural bounty, but its gradual creation of meritocracies replacing the pre-civilizational rule of the clan, the tribe, or the race. The old inherited and stubborn obstacles remained: aristocratic privilege, class chauvinism, and plutocratic clout that warred with qualifications. They were the ancient impediments to merit whose power in the West slowly was also dethroned. 

    How ironic in their places, the reactionary Western world has simply created new exemptions and privileges, calibrated on premodern criteria such as race and sex that will set off chain tribal reactions as we degenerate into Hobbesian factionalism.

    Anytime perceived merit, or something close to merit, was not the standard, a society either imploded or became impoverished and calcified. The racial, one-drop categories of the Old South or the Third Reich, or the colorized spectrum of the old apartheid South Africa, or the racial chauvinism of the new tribal South Africa, or the commissar system of the Soviet Union, or the religious intolerance of fundamentalist Islam, or the familial gangs and clannish tyranny of prewar Sicily ensured that all were dysfunctional societies, and often much worse than that. Opportunity was instead guaranteed, and excellence defined, by something other than demonstrable talent and achievement. 

    There will be no exceptions granted to the United States from these rules of history. There are many talented black women in the corporate world, private sector, and elsewhere who would have made excellent vice presidents given their race was incidental and an afterthought to their achievement and talent.  

    The Best We’ve Got?

    But Kamala Harris is not among them. She was selected by Biden’s braggadocio not because of any past stellar record as a Bay Area prosecutor, an accomplished senator, an effective orator, or a superb presidential candidate, but because a frightened Joe Biden amid the George Floyd riots announced in advance that he would preselect his running mate exclusively on the basis of race and sex, sort of in the fashion of the white male-dominated world of the past. 

    Ditto Pete Buttigieg, who, in his dismal record as a rather inconsequential small city mayor and failed presidential candidate, had never evidenced aptitude for transportation issues—other than occasionally and ostentatiously riding a bike. He was never expected to seriously address problems like spiraling auto fuel prices, the bottlenecks at our harbors, the wild-west train robbing at the port of Los Angeles, the Southwest Airlines implosion, or our clogged freeways. Instead, he was appointed Transportation Secretary because of the diversity of his sexual orientation and his woke rhetoric that almost immediately surfaced in wildly out-of-pocket lectures about “racist” freeways. 

    Similarly, upon appointment as press secretary, we were immediately told Karine Jean-Pierre was the nation’s first black, gay press secretary rather than being asked to recognize any prior achievement that earned her such a coveted spot. Few said her appointment reflected a successful record as chief of staff for Kamala Harris’ not-one-delegate presidential campaign, or national megaphone for an ossified Moveon.org, or her stellar work as an MSNBC pundit. 

    What will a university like Stanford do when it admits much of its 2026 class largely on the basis of tribal considerations? It does not release who of the admitted opted not to take the now-optional SAT. It seems proud, in fact, that it has rejected in the past 70 percent of those applicants with perfect SAT scores. So why would one believe that Stanford truly deplores its past Jewish exclusionary quotas, when it easily trumps them in the present—and uses the same argument of diversity to excuse prejudice and disqualifying those who, by its own former standards, had earned admission? 

    Diversity is neither a strength nor a weakness. Diversity of thought can be helpful, or become chaotic as orthodoxy. Hitler’s 3.7 million soldiers who charged into Russia were especially diverse, but that fact did not make the invaders less murderous.

    A multi-religious India is certainly diverse, but is not always calm or humane. Yugoslavia was diverse, and so is current-day Lebanon. Was either country a kinder, gentler, or more successful society than decidedly nondiverse Japan or Poland?

    Just as uniformity can result in both stability and stagnation, so too can diversity sometimes ensure either dynamism or bedlam. In all these cases, the emphasis on tribalism is the critical determinative. If a 95 percent Asian or white country defines itself in blood-and-soil terms as did Japan of the 1930s and early 1940s and Germany between 1933 and 1945, then it becomes toxic, unlike a more natural assumption that race is incidental, not essential, even in a racially uniform society.

    The same is true of diversity. Accentuate it; sharpen differences; treat individuals as part of tribal collectives—and a descent into violence and anarchy is assured. But consider tribal differences superficial, and human commonality more important than racial difference, then diversity can be enriching through voluntary contributions to the whole in terms of varieties of food, music, art, fashion, and literature. But again, envision diversity as iron-clad calibrations of identity in which the individual cedes to the collective tribe, then a tribally regressive America will be no different from the world elsewhere and our fate is assured.

    So, we are headed, dangerously so, into an historically ugly, hateful, and volatile place—all the more so because we lie that it is utopian when it is pre-civilizational and reactionary.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 23:00

  • California Bill To Punish Doctors For 'False' Covid-19 Information Goes Into Effect
    California Bill To Punish Doctors For ‘False’ Covid-19 Information Goes Into Effect

    A bill which allows the state of California to punish doctors over ‘false information about Covid-19 vaccinations and treatments’ went into effect on January 1st.

    Under the new law (AB 2098) which took effect Jan.1, the state’s Medical Board would categorize dispensing information – such as the effectiveness of Ivermectin, or the Covid-19 vaccine’s rapidly waning efficacy, as unprofessional conduct.

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    The law was challenged in court by two California doctors, who said that it would restrict their free speech in violation of the first amendment, and that it was “vague” under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

    However on December 28th, Biden Nominee Judge Fred Slaughter refused to halt the law, ruling that the law trumps free speech claims, and that it falls “within the longstanding tradition of regulations on the practice of medical treatments.”

    Another lawsuit, brought by Physicians for Informed Consent, was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of California in early December. The plaintiffs, physician LeTrinh Hoang and Children’s Health Defense, are being represented by Rick Jaffe, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Mary Holland, and argues that the state of California has weaponized the vague phrase “misinformation,” and thereby has illegally targeted physicians who disagree with the government’s public stance on Covid-19.

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    Expert cardiologist and PIC member Sanjay Verma, M.D., has been tracking and cataloging CDC errors in real time. For the case, he has provided what he calls “a detailed declaration exposing the government’s scientific errors and the constitutional dangers of censoring dissent”:

    “To demonstrate these points of vagueness and the general unsuitability of using ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ as a disciplinary criterion, I have prepared a detailed overview of public health response to the pandemic broken down into categories such as Masks and Vaccines (transmission, safety, efficacy of natural immunity). I have also included evidence of what [I testify] would be considered misinformation promulgated by the CDC as well as its withholding of information which led to the then ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ eventually being proven wrong.” –KRON4

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 22:40

  • Niall Ferguson: "Kissinger Is Right To Worry" About Possibility Of World War 3
    Niall Ferguson: “Kissinger Is Right To Worry” About Possibility Of World War 3

    Authored by Niall Ferguson, op-ed via Bloomberg.com,

    2022 was the year in which war made a comeback. But Cold War II could become World War III in 2023… with China as the arsenal of autocracy.

    War is hell on earth – and if you doubt it, visit Ukraine or watch Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Netflix’s gut-wrenching new adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic antiwar novel of 1929.

    Even a small war is hellish for those caught up in it, of course. But a world war is the worst thing we humans have ever done to one another. In a memorable essay published last month, Henry Kissinger reflected on “How to Avoid Another World War.” In 1914, “The nations of Europe, insufficiently familiar with how technology had enhanced their respective military forces, proceeded to inflict unprecedented devastation on one another.” Then, after two years of industrialized slaughter, “the principal combatants in the West (Britain, France and Germany) began to explore prospects for ending the carnage.” Even with US intermediation, the effort failed.

    Kissinger posed an important question: “Does the world today find itself at a comparable turning point [like the opportunity for peace in 1916] in Ukraine as winter imposes a pause on large-scale military operations there?” This time last year, I predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine. The question one year later is whether there is a way to end this war, or whether it is destined to grow into something much larger.

    As Kissinger rightly points out, two nuclear-armed powers are currently contesting the fate of Ukraine. One side, Russia, is directly engaged in conventional warfare. However, the US and its allies are fighting indirectly by providing Ukraine with what Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir Technologies Inc., calls “the power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems.” These are now so potent, he recently told the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, that they “equate to having tactical nuclear weapons against an adversary with only conventional ones.” Take a moment to ponder the implications of that.

    War is back. Could world war also make a comeback? If so, it will affect all of our lives. In the second interwar era (1991-2019), we lost sight of the role of war in the global economy. Because the wars of that time were small (Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq), we forgot that war is history’s favorite driver of inflation, debt defaults — even famines. That is because large-scale war is simultaneously destructive of productive capacity, disruptive of trade, and destabilizing of fiscal and monetary policies.

    But war is as much about the mobilization of real resources as it is about finance and money: Every great power needs to be able to feed its population and power its industry. In times of high interdependence (globalization), a great power needs to retain the option to revert to self-sufficiency in time of war. And self-sufficiency makes things more expensive than relying on free trade and comparative advantage.

    Throughout history, the principal source of power is technological superiority in armaments, including intelligence and communications. A critical question is therefore: What are the key inputs without which a state-of-the-art military is unattainable?

    In 1914, they were coal, iron and the manufacturing capacity to mass-produce artillery and shells, as well as steamships. In 1939, they were oil, steel, aluminum and the manufacturing capacity to mass-produce artillery, ships, submarines, planes and tanks. After 1945 it was all of the above, plus the scientific and technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

    Today, the vital inputs are the capacity to mass-produce high-performance semiconductors, satellites, and the algorithmic warfare systems that depend on them.

    What were the principal lessons of the 20th-century world wars? First, the American combination of technological and financial leadership, plus abundant natural resources, was impossible to beat. Secondly, however, the dominant Anglophone empires were poor at deterrence. The UK failed twice to dissuade Germany and its allies from gambling on world war. This was mainly because Liberal and Conservative governments alike were unwilling to ask voters for peacetime sacrifices, and they failed at statecraft. The result was two very expensive conflicts that cost much more in life and treasure than effective deterrence would have — and left the UK exhausted and unable to sustain its empire.

    The US has been the dominant Anglophone empire since the Suez Crisis of 1956. With the threat of nuclear Armageddon, the US successfully deterred the Soviet Union from advancing its Marxist-Leninist empire in Europe much beyond the rivers Elbe and Danube. But America was relatively unsuccessful at preventing the spread of communism by Soviet-backed organizations and regimes in what was then known as the Third World.

    The US is still bad at deterrence. Last year, it failed to deter President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, mainly because it had low confidence in the Ukrainian defense forces it had trained and the Kyiv government that controlled them. The latest objective of American deterrence is Taiwan, a functionally autonomous democracy that China claims as its own. 

    In October, President Joe Biden’s administration belatedly published its National Security Strategy. Such documents are always the work of a committee, but internal dissonance shouldn’t be this obvious. “The post-Cold War era is definitively over,” the authors declare, “and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.” However, “we do not seek conflict or a new Cold War.” For the major powers have “shared challenges” such as climate change and Covid and other pandemic diseases.

    On the other hand, “Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown.” China, meanwhile, is “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective.”

    So what will the US do to check these rivals? The answer sounds remarkably similar to what it did in Cold War I:

    • “We will assemble the strongest possible coalitions to advance and defend a world that is free, open, prosperous and secure.”

    • “We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia.”

    • “We must ensure strategic competitors cannot exploit foundational American and allied technologies, know-how, or data to undermine American and allied security.”

    In other words: form and maintain alliances and try to prevent the other side from catching up technologically. This is a cold war strategy in all but name.

    US support for Ukraine since the Feb. 24 invasion has undoubtedly succeeded in weakening Putin’s regime. The Russian military has suffered disastrous losses of trained manpower and equipment. The Russian economy may not have contracted by as much as Washington hoped (a mere 3.4% last year, according to the International Monetary Fund), but Russian imports have crashed due to Western export controls. As Russia’s stock of imported component parts and machinery runs down, Russian industry will face deep disruptions, including in the defense and energy sectors.

    Last year, Russia cut off gas exports to Europe that it cannot reroute, as there are no alternative pipelines. Putin thought the gas weapon would allow him to divide the West. So far, it has not worked. Russia also tried choking Black Sea grain exports. But that lever had little strategic value as the biggest losers of the blockade were poor African and Middle Eastern countries.

    The net result of Putin’s war thus far has been to reduce Russia to something like an economic appendage of China, its biggest trading partner. And Western sanctions mean that what Russia exports to China is sold at a discount.

    There are two obvious problems with US strategy, however. The first is that if algorithmic weapons systems are the equivalent of tactical nuclear weapons, Putin may eventually be driven to using the latter, as he clearly lacks the former. The second is that the Biden administration appears to have delegated to Kyiv the timing of any peace negotiations — and the preconditions the Ukrainians demand are manifestly unacceptable in Moscow.

    The war therefore seems destined, like the Korean War in Cold War I, to drag on until a stalemate is reached, Putin dies and an armistice is agreed that draws a new border between Ukraine and Russia. The problem with protracted wars is that the US and European publics tend to get sick of them well before the enemy does.

    China is a much tougher nut to crack than Russia. Whereas a proxy war is driving Russia’s economy and military back into the 1990s, the preferred approach to China is to stunt its technological growth, particularly with respect to — in the words of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan — “computing-related technologies, including microelectronics, quantum information systems and artificial intelligence” and “biotechnologies and biomanufacturing.”

    “On export controls,” Sullivan went on, “we have to revisit the longstanding premise of maintaining ‘relative’ advantages over competitors in certain key technologies.  We previously maintained a ‘sliding scale’ approach that said we need to stay only a couple of generations ahead. That is not the strategic environment we are in today.  Given the foundational nature of certain technologies, such as advanced logic and memory chips, we must maintain as large of a lead as possible.”

    Sanctions on Russia, argued Sullivan, had “demonstrated that technology export controls can be more than just a preventative tool.” They can be “a new strategic asset in the US and allied toolkit.” Meanwhile, the US is going to ramp up its investment in home-produced semiconductors and related hardware.

    The experience of Cold War I confirms that such methods can work. Export controls were part of the reason the Soviet economy could not keep pace with the US in information technology. The question is whether this approach can work against China, which is as much the workshop of the world today as America was in the 20th century, with a far broader and deeper industrial economy than the Soviet Union ever achieved.

    Readers of the science-fiction novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin will recall that the aliens from the planet Trisolaris use intergalactic surveillance to halt technological advance on Earth while their invasion force makes its way through deep space. Can arresting China’s development really be how the US prevails in Cold War II?

    True, recent Commerce Department restrictions — on the transfer of advanced graphics processing units to China, the use of American chips and expertise in Chinese supercomputers, and the export to China of chipmaking technology — pose major problems for Beijing. They essentially cut the People’s Republic off from all high-end semiconductor chips, including those made in Taiwan and Korea, as well as all chip experts who are “US persons,” which includes green-card holders as well as citizens.

    It’s also true that there are no quick fixes for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Most of China’s fabrication capacity is at low-tech nodes (larger in size than 16 nanometers). He cannot conjure up overnight a mainland clone of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.,  which leads the world in the sophistication of its chips. Nor can Xi expect that TSMC would conduct business as usual if China launched a successful invasion of Taiwan. The company’s chip fabs would almost certainly be destroyed in a war. Even if they survived, they could not function without TSMC personnel, who might flee, and equipment from the US, Japan and Europe, which would cease to be available.

    Yet China has other cards it can play. It is dominant in the processing of minerals that are vital to the modern economy, including copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium. In particular, China controls over 70% of rare earth production both in terms of extraction and processing. These are 17 minerals used to make components in devices such as smartphones, electric vehicles, solar panels and semiconductors. An embargo on their export to the US might not be a lethal blow, but it would force the US and its allies to develop other sources in a hurry.

    America’s Achilles heel is often seen as its unsustainable fiscal path. At some point in the coming decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, interest payments on the federal debt are likely to exceed defense spending. Meanwhile, it is not immediately obvious who buys all the additional Treasuries issued each year if the Federal Reserve is engaged in quantitative tightening.

    Might this give China an opportunity to exert financial pressure on the US? In July, it held $970 billion worth of Treasuries, making it the second-largest foreign holder of US debt. As has often been pointed out, if China chose to dump its Treasuries, it would drive up US bond yields and bring down the dollar, though not without causing considerable pain to itself.

    Yet the bigger American vulnerability may be in the realm of resources rather than finance. The US long ago ceased to be a manufacturing economy. It has become a great importer from the rest of the world. As Matthew Suarez, a lieutenant in the US Marine Corps, points out in an insightful essay at American Purpose, that makes the nation heavily reliant on the world’s merchant marine. “Setting aside the movement of oil and bulk commodities,” Suarez writes, “most internationally traded goods travel in one of six million containers transported in approximately 61,000 ships. This flow of goods depends on an equally robust parallel flow of digital information.”

    The growing dominance of China in both these areas should not be underestimated. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative has created infrastructure that reduces Chinese reliance on seaborne trade. Meanwhile, Shanghai Westwell Lab Information Technology Co. is rapidly becoming the leading vendor of the most advanced port-operating systems.

    The war in Ukraine has provided a reminder that the disruption of trade is a vital weapon of war. It has also reminded us that a great power must be in a position to mass-produce modern weaponry, with or without access to imports. Both sides in the war have consumed staggering quantities of shells and missiles as well as armored vehicles and drones. The big question raised by any Chinese-American conflict is how long the US could sustain it.

    As my Hoover Institution colleague Jackie Schneider has pointed out, just “four months of support to Ukraine … depleted much of the stockpile of such weapons, including a third of the US Javelin arsenal and a quarter of US Stingers.” According to the Royal United Services Institute, the artillery ammunition that the US currently produces in a year would have sufficed for only 10 days to two weeks of combat in Ukraine in the early phase of the war.

    A February 2022 Department of Defense report on industrial capacity warned that the US companies producing tactical missiles, fixed-wing aircraft and satellites had reduced their output by more than half.

    As I have pointed out elsewhere, the US today is in some ways in the situation of the British Empire in the 1930s. If it repeats the mistakes successive UK governments made in that decade, a fiscally overstretched America will fail to deter a nascent Axis-like combination of Russia, Iran and China from risking simultaneous conflict in three theaters: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. The difference is that there will be no sympathetic industrial power to serve as the “arsenal of democracy” — a phrase used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a radio broadcast on Dec. 29, 1940. This time it is the autocracies that have the arsenal.

    The Biden administration must be exceedingly careful not to pursue economic warfare against China so aggressively that Beijing finds itself in the position of Japan in 1941, with no better option than to strike early and hope for military success. This would be very dangerous indeed, as China’s position today is much stronger than Japan’s was then.

    Kissinger is right to worry about the perils of a world war. The first and second world wars were each preceded by smaller conflicts: the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1936), the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the Sino-Japanese War (1937).

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine may seem to be going well for the West right now.

    But in a worst-case scenario, it could be a similar harbinger of a much wider war.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 22:20

  • 'Pineapple Express' And Bomb Cyclone To Wallop California
    ‘Pineapple Express’ And Bomb Cyclone To Wallop California

    A moisture conveyor belt of atmospheric rivers has unleashed near-record rainfall across the West Coast. Another, perhaps, more powerful atmospheric river and bomb cyclone are set to target California on Wednesday and Thursday, continuing ten days of heavy rains and snow for higher altitudes. 

    The National Weather Service office in the Bay Area warned about the imminent storm, calling it a “truly … brutal system … that needs to be taken seriously.”

    “To put it simply, this will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a widespread scale that this meteorologist has seen in a long while,” an NWS meteorologist in San Francisco, adding, “the impacts will include widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillside collapsing, trees down (potentially full groves), widespread power outages, immediate disruption to commerce and the worst of all, likely loss of human life.”

    The developing atmospheric river formed near Hawaii and, by Wednesday morning, will spread tropical moisture into California by a low-pressure system. This weather phenomenon is known as the “Pineapple Express.” 

    “Basically, an (atmospheric river) is a river in the sky of water vapor, and when it hits the mountains, (the moisture) is forced up over the mountains. 

     “That upward motion causes clouds and precipitation to form, and the faster the flow of air and water vapor is hitting the mountains, the faster the rain is falling, so you get more and more rain with the stronger ARs hitting the mountains,” Marty Ralph, Director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, told FOX Weather. 

    The heaviest rainbands are forecasted over parts of California Wednesday afternoon and evening into Thursday morning. NWS has already posted flood alerts across the Golden State. 

    Another 2-3 inches could be expected across the San Francisco area. Even the Los Angeles metro area could see 1-3 inches. 

    Over the last ten days, a parade of atmospheric rivers has been dumping near record amounts of rain and snow across California. Again, this weather phenomenon is called the Pineapple Express. 

    High wind watches are in effect from the Bay Area to Sacramento. 

    There is concern a bomb cyclone could form.

    Here’s the latest rain forecast. 

    Even though California is experiencing one of the worst droughts on record, the barrage of atmospheric rivers could alleviate some of the drought stress. 

    The Washington Post explained that unusual weather usually occurs “during La Nina winters like the present, weather systems bombard the Pacific Northwest, including Washington and Oregon.” 

    And while climate alarmists blame every change in the Earth’s weather on man-made greenhouse gases … we must point out that even the  UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, “El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 22:00

  • US Border Crisis Is A National Security Crisis: Former ICE Chief Tom Homan
    US Border Crisis Is A National Security Crisis: Former ICE Chief Tom Homan

    Authored by Adam Michael Molon via The Epoch Times,

    Tom Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has criticized what he described as lax border security policies under the Biden administration, arguing that the surge in illegal immigration “is on purpose.”

    Homan, who served as head of ICE from 2017 to 2018, described the border crisis as one that amounted to public safety, public health, and national security crises.

    “What’s behind the scenes?” Homan told The Epoch Times in an interview.

    “People are going to say, ‘Okay, illegal aliens are crossing the border. They say they’re going to send them to see the judge.’ There’s more to this. What’s the ugly underbelly of this?”

    An October op-ed co-authored by Homan and Mark Morgan, who served as acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from 2019 to 2021 noted, “In just 18 months, Customs and Border Protection has recorded more than 4 million apprehensions— more than the previous four fiscal years combined. The encounters since last October have totaled more than 2.7 million, plus nearly 600,000 known got-aways and likely hundreds of thousands who entered completely undetected.”

    “They’ve arrested 114 known and suspected terrorists who tried to get into the country since Joe Biden’s been in the White House … Border Patrol’s arrested people from 161 countries, [and] some of those countries sponsor terrorism,” Homan told The Epoch Times.

    “Since Joe Biden’s taken office, there’s a recorded over 1 million got-aways based on camera traffic, drone traffic, sensor traffic. Recorded got-aways. So, if they arrest 114, how many of that 1 million came from a country that sponsors terrorism and is coming to do us harm?”

    He added, “Sadly, I think it’s going to take a national security incident to wake them up.”

    Tom Homan, former acting ICE director, at a press conference in Anzalduas Park in Mission, Texas, on March 30. 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    ‘On Purpose’

    Homan believes that the border crisis “is on purpose,” and has been caused by policies formulated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the Biden administration.

    “[Secretary Mayorkas] has the same data I have,” said Homan, who previously served as the head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations during the Obama administration, before being named head of ICE by then-President Donald Trump.

    “When [Mayorkas] was a deputy secretary [at DHS] in 2014, 2015 under Obama, he was deputy secretary under [then-DHS secretary] Jeh Johnson. When we had a thousand entrants a day, Jeh Johnson called us all and said, ‘What the hell’s going on? This is a bad day.’ A thousand.

    “Now they’ve got seven, eight thousand and [Mayorkas is] saying the border’s secure.”

    “How did we stop it in 2014, 2015? We built detention facilities. We held [illegal aliens] long enough to see a judge. 90 percent lost, we put them on an airplane and sent them home, boarding them as well,” Homan added.

    “[Mayorkas] was the deputy secretary back then, he knew what we did. Now he’s the secretary. What is he doing now? He’s not using detention facilities, he’s shutting them down. They’re releasing [illegal aliens]. Many of them are released without even a court date, so they’re not seeing a judge … He’s doing the complete opposite of what worked in 2014, 2015.”

    “This isn’t mismanagement, this isn’t incompetence. This is on purpose,” Homan alleged.

    DHS, ICE, and the White House did not return requests for comment.

    For his part, Mayorkas has maintained that the border is secure and defended the department’s record amid the record illegal border crossings.

    “The immigration system, our laws, have not been reformed for more than 40 years. The problem from administration to administration, regardless of party, is the fact that we are fundamentally working within a broken immigration system, and that is the foundational challenge, with respect to the border,” the secretary said in early December.

    Mayorkas said DHS was working to improve the efficiency of processing illegal aliens.

    “We are devoting tremendous resources to address the border in a way that achieves its security and upholds its values,” Mayorkas said. “We are modernizing our systems at the border to expedite processing, bringing greater efficiency to it. We are intensely focused on this mission set, just as we are intensely focused on the mission sets that we confront as a department from top to bottom.”

    A U.S. Border Patrol agent instructs immigrants who had crossed the Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 19, 2022. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    ‘Political Power’

    A native of West Carthage, New York, Homan served as a police officer in his hometown and became a border patrol agent in 1984 before rising to become head of ICE three decades later.

    “I was the first ICE director who actually came up through the ranks,” said Homan, who is a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and authored the book “Defend the Border and Save Lives: Solving Our Most Important Humanitarian and Security Crisis.” “So when I commanded ICE, I didn’t ask any of the 20,000 men and women who worked for me to do anything that I didn’t do myself as an agent.”

    As head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, Homan received the 2015 Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service, the country’s highest civil service award. In June 2018, the month that he retired from ICE, Homan received the Distinguished Service Medal from then-President Trump, and in January 2021 was awarded the National Security Medal by Trump in the Oval Office “for distinguished achievement in the field of national security through exceptionally meritorious service.”

    Homan pointed to expectations that illegal aliens will one day vote for Democrats as a factor driving accommodative immigration enforcement policies under the Biden administration, saying, “it’s all about future political power.”

    “They truly believe [illegal aliens] are future Democratic voters, number one, and number two, they certainly perceive a future political benefit. Because remember, President Biden also overturned Trump’s census rule,” Homan said.

    “Now illegal aliens will be counted in the census. So look, already five million have crossed the border [during the Biden administration] … many will flock to sanctuary cities that are protected, which are going be counted in that jurisdiction, which will result in more seats for the Dems.”

    On his first day in office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order revoking a 2020 memorandum issued by President Trump that would have excluded illegal aliens from states’ apportionment bases for congressional representation following the 2020 Census.

    Homan said that  “millions of Americans … don’t even realize there’s a crisis on the border,” and pointed to a need for citizens to become better informed and educated on this issue.

    “I’ll say it a thousand times, regardless of what your opinion is on illegal immigration, when you create a crisis this big, you create a public safety crisis, a public health crisis, and a national security crisis,” he said.

    “You can’t turn a blind eye to it.”

    U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas answers a reporter’s question during a news conference with Mexican counterparts at the State Department in Washington on Oct. 13, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    Releasing Illegal Aliens

    Homan criticized the administration’s “alternatives to detention” (ATD) program, colloquially known as “catch and release,” under which the majority of illegal aliens are released into the country while they await their court dates.

    “Not only are they letting [illegal aliens] in, they’re setting them up so they’ll never be removed because they’re not in custody,” Homan said.

    There are currently about 378,000 illegal aliens under the ATD program, according to ICE’s latest statistics. Most of them, about 290,000, are monitored by ICE through an app known as SmartLINK. Nearly 70,000 are not monitored by any technology, while 16,000 are monitored through telephone calls, and nearly 7,000 are monitored by GPS.

    ICE says that ATD “effectively increases court appearance rates, [and] compliance with release conditions.” Mayorkas has characterized such policies as part of an effort by the administration to ensure the more humane processing of illegal aliens.

    A 2022 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office annalyzing the ATD program from 2015 to 2020, found that about a quarter of the illegal aliens placed in the program absconded, or fled the address at which they were staying “and could not be located,” including 33 percent in fiscal year 2020, which stretched across the Trump and Biden administrations.

    Homan said that while large numbers of illegal aliens are being released into the United States, “there’s thousands of beds right now in ICE’s inventory” available for use in the detention of illegal aliens “that are empty, already paid for.”

    According to a 2020 DHS Enforcement Lifecycle Report (pdf), illegal aliens encountered in 2014 to 2019 who were held in DHS custody for the entire time until court proceedings were repatriated 98 percent of the time. Only 0.5 percent received court orders allowing them to stay in the United States. One percent of those continuously detained illegal aliens received removal orders from the court that were not executed by ICE.

    The report noted that in contrast, illegal aliens who were never detained were repatriated 30 percent of the time. Meanwhile, 15 percent received court orders allowing them to stay, while 55 percent of the cases were unresolved at the time of the report’s publication.

    “The detention pattern yielding the greatest share of unresolved cases were encounters initially placed in detention but then released prior to a final enforcement outcome,” the report added.

    “These ‘partially detained’ encounters resulted in repatriations just 3 percent of the time and relief just 12 percent of the time, with 85 percent still unresolved, including 18 percent with unexecuted removal orders.”

    “They know this,” Homan said. “They know most [illegal aliens] will lose their case, because based on the immigration court data, and they know based on the Homeland Security Lifecycle Report, if [illegal aliens are] not detained, they won’t be removed at all … That’s why they’re releasing them.”

    He added, “No one’s talking about this…if the American people knew … I think a lot of people sit at home and say, ‘Well, if [illegal aliens] lose their case they’ll be ordered removed and ICE will be able to remove them.’ No they can’t. Because they won’t find them.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 21:40

  • South Korea Says Talks On Nuclear-Sharing With US Underway
    South Korea Says Talks On Nuclear-Sharing With US Underway

    Suddenly US involvement on the Korean peninsula is about to potentially ratchet into uncharted territory, as South Korea confirmed on Tuesday it is in talks with Washington to provide a nuclear deterrent presence at a moment Pyongyang is threatening its own nuclear arsenal expansion.

    “South Korea confirmed Tuesday that Seoul and Washington are discussing its involvement in U.S. nuclear weapons management in the face of intensifying North Korean nuclear threats, after President Joe Biden denied that the allies were discussing joint nuclear exercises,” The Associated Press reports.

    Despite President Joe Biden answering “no” to a reporter’s question after being asked if joint nuclear exercises are on the horizon with Seoul, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s top adviser for press affairs, Kim Eun-hye, explained that the two countries “are discussing an intel-sharing, a joint planning and subsequent joint execution plans over the management of US nuclear assets in response to North Korea’s nuclear (threats).”

    Korean Central News Agency/Reuters

    President Yoon himself had affirmed something similar in an interview published Monday in a local newspaper. While South Korea has no nuclear weapons of its own, the idea could possibly be for some kind of nuclear sharing arrangement similar to NATO’s inter-alliance sharing agreement. As it stands, the US provides Korea with a “nuclear umbrella” – though this remains too ambiguous for South Korea’s leaders, apparently.

    Here’s how the AP paraphrased President Yoon’s Monday statements:

    In the Chosun Ilbo interview, Yoon said that while the U.S. nuclear weapons belong to the U.S., planning, intel-sharing and exercises involving them must be jointly conducted with South Korea. He said he finds it difficult to assure his people of a security guarantee with the current levels of U.S. security commitment.

    The report indicates that talks on this sensitive topic, given that mere headlines of nuclear-sharing talks could trigger threat escalation out of Pyongyang, could be taking place via unofficial channels.

    All of this comes in response to a New Year directive given by the north’s Kim Jong-Un, ordering his forces to embark on an ‘exponential’ expansion of nuclear forces. 

    Kim recently said: “They are now keen on isolating and stifling (North Korea), unprecedented in human history,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “The prevailing situation calls for making redoubled efforts to overwhelmingly beef up the military muscle.”

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    Kim then at a meeting of top ministers called for “an exponential increase of the country’s nuclear arsenal” – and specifically involving the mass production battlefield tactical nuclear weapons with an eye toward South Korea.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 21:20

  • As China Retreats From COVID Lunacy, Lunacy Returns To The US
    As China Retreats From COVID Lunacy, Lunacy Returns To The US

    Authored by John Tamny via RealClearMarkets.com,

    China allegedly faces dark days ahead. Why, you may ask? Because of freedom from coronavirus mandates.  

    Who fears too much freedom in China? American reporters and corona-experts.

    Supposedly it will lead to death.

    You see, the view stateside among experts like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is that while China employed “extreme measures” before finally letting up, these measures limited hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus.

    Can the experts truly be serious?

    To answer this question it’s useful to return to March of 2020 when locking Americans into their homes was justified for the latter allegedly protecting us from sickness that would overwhelm hospitals, and worse, death. Even libertarians bought into what was absurd, and plainly inimical to our health. The libertarian nailbiters who fell for the crushing of freedom know who they are, while the experts were plain wrong with their insults of the American people.

    Regarding the experts, their thorough insult was in assuming that free people would act irresponsibly and engage in activity that would sicken them and kill them. Shame on them.

    As for way too many libertarians, missed by the situationally freedom loving was the simple, but crucial truth that force is superfluous when a virus billed to be serious threatens. Really, who needs to be forced inside and away from people if the act of being out and about might result in sickness or death? Which is why the more threatening the virus, the more crucial is the freedom libertarians normally fight for. Better yet, free people produce information. By doing as they wish, we find out from the freedom what activities threaten and what don’t. In hiding behind “there’s no libertarian answer to pandemics,” libertarians chose a horrid taking that blinded the population to the virus answer.

    Bringing it all back to China, Emanuel worries about the country’s “Let-It-Rip Covid Reopening.” He starts with the laughable assertion that “China put the world in peril with its coverup and slow response to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 three years ago.” Yes, somehow Chinese leadership in the age of smartphones, internet, sophisticated intelligence services, and even more sophisticated equity markets was going to hide a rapidly spreading virus from the rest of the world. Goodness, the Soviets couldn’t even hide Chernobyl in 1986, but the Chinese had the ability to hide a virus that was spreading faster than the flu? No, not remotely serious.

    Importantly, Emanuel unwittingly happens upon the shallow nature of his argument in total with his acknowledgement of China’s “slow response to the emergence” of the virus. Which is the point, or should be. Perhaps unknowingly, China already employed a “Let-It-Rip Covid” strategy back in 2019 and early 2020. Did people die en masse amid all this freedom? Of course not. To the latter, some will respond that the Chinese covered up mass death, but what politicians might try to hide markets expose. Never forget that the U.S.’s largest, most valuable companies had and have enormous exposure to the Chinese market. As I point out in my 2021 book about the lockdown tragedy, When Politicians Panicked, if the virus had been a major killer (or even hospital-izer) of the Chinese people, this would have quickly revealed itself through a collapse of U.S. equity shares to reflect a shrinking market in China, and a soon-to-be-shrunk market stateside. Instead, and as a very-much-in-the-news virus spread, U.S. equities reached all-time highs.  

    All of which brings us to the present. Emanuel and the lockdown crowd he caucuses with lament that the return of freedom to the Chinese people “could have been done responsibly.” Too much freedom too fast according to Emanuel et al. He writes that rather than gradually giving it back with experts like him fully in charge, “China ended zero Covid in the most dangerous way possible – precipitously.”

    Basically, Emanuel is reviving the insulting arguments used by experts and politicians back in March of 2020 in the U.S. The Chinese people, like the American people before them, cannot be trusted with freedom. Emanuel contends that freedom in China “could overwhelm hospitals and could cause a million deaths.”

    The above could be true, but it’s near certainly not true given the human instinct to avoid sickness and death. Translated for those who need it, free people will protect themselves much more effectively than governments. Someone should inform Dr. Emanuel of this simple truth, along with an even bigger truth about government power and its much more correct correlation with death.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 21:00

  • Strikes Inside Russia Will Go "Deeper & Deeper": Ukraine Intelligence Chief
    Strikes Inside Russia Will Go “Deeper & Deeper”: Ukraine Intelligence Chief

    Coming off of the Sunday attack on a barracks in Makiivka in Russian-controlled Donetsk, which marked what could be the biggest Russian troop loss of the war in a single attack to date, Ukraine is now vowing to strike “deeper and deeper” inside Russian territory.

    The alarming words were issued from the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, during a new interview with Australia’s ABC…

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

    As the clip from the interview published Monday shows, the military intelligence chief was reluctant to directly confirm whether or not Ukraine recently struck a Russian airbase.

    The ABC reporter wanted answers specifically in relation to the series of deadly drone attacks Engels military airfield in the Saratov region. In December, there were reports that the base was hit three times, the most recent instance of which came last week, and killed three Russian military technicians. 

    The Ukrainian government has yet to officially own up to these attacks, which Russia says were launched by Ukraine’s forces. But according to Gen. Budanov’s words republished in the UK Telegraph: 

    Responding to whether Ukraine was responsible for one of these attacks on an airbase, Kyrylo Budanov said he was “very glad” about it, but maintained Kyiv’s stance of official deniability. 

    In an interview with Australia’s ABC, Mr Budanov predicted these attacks will go “deeper and deeper”, along with further attacks on Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

    Last week three Russian troops died in a drone attack on a Russia’s Engels airfield, which houses Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers. 

    Crucially, the Engels base is over 600km inside Russia from the Ukrainian border, suggesting that Ukraine’s UAV capabilities are growing. Russia’s military has meanwhile said it is deploying greater anti-air protections around Russian bases and cities. 

    Via The Drive: Russian airfield near the Ukraine border on fire during the early part of the invasion.

    As for Washington, it has maintained an official stance of not wanting its Ukrainian partners to conduct attacks inside Russian territory, fearing uncontrollable escalation, but there are indicators that behind the scenes US intelligence could be positively encouraging it – or at least turning a blind eye.

    And yet with Sunday’s devastating attack on the Russian barracks in Donetsk, Ukrainian media and officials have boasted that it was done with US-supplied HIMARS missiles. This of course means from the Kremlin’s perspective, Washington’s involvement in the conflict is growing more direct by the day.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 20:40

  • "Take Them To The Slaughterhouse": Trustee Calls For "Culling" DEI Critics
    “Take Them To The Slaughterhouse”: Trustee Calls For “Culling” DEI Critics

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    John Corkins, vice president of the Board of Trustees of the Kern Community College District Board, has a simple solution for those faculty who question diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs: take them to the slaughterhouse. Corkins has since apologized but the Board conspicuously failed to address other glaring problems with his extreme rhetoric.At the meeting, Corkins responded to students and faculty complaining about a racially hostile environment. Faculty opposed to DEI policies were referenced as part of this threat.

    Corkins declared that there are “abusive” faculty that “we have to continue to cull.”

    He added:

    “Got them in my livestock operation and that’s why we put a rope on some of them and take them to the slaughterhouse. That’s a fact of life with human nature and so forth, I don’t know how to say it any clearer.”

    Corkins has since apologized and insisted

    “My intent was to emphasize that the individuals who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting have my full support…several African-American faculty, students and statewide representatives … bravely shared their feelings of fear based on the actions of a small group of faculty members and their feelings of disappointment in the district for allowing these actions to continue.”

    Notably, however, the video of the Dec. 13 meeting does not give details on the specific racial incidents. There is reference to an ongoing investigation. However, there are references to faculty who have opposed DEI measures.

    That would likely include a  group called the Renegade Institute for Liberty with history Professors Matthew Garrett and Erin Miller, who teach at Bakersfield College. The group filed a federal lawsuit against the district after they were allegedly threatened with termination for questioning the use of grant money to fund social justice initiatives at their college. They are both tenured.

    The opposition to DEI measures has led some to object that the group makes them feel unsafe on campus. That reportedly included calls to terminate faculty who oppose DEI to create a safer environment.

    While apologizing for calling for the killing of such faculty, Corkins does not address why faculty should be targeted if they oppose DEI measures. The hearing and the statements made against these faculty members creates a chilling environment for academic freedom. The message is clear that these professors are viewed as a dangerous element on campus.

    The Board has an obligation to address this uncertain line. Corkins apologizes for calling for the killing of critics but not why criticism of DEI itself is a matter for action. There may be conduct that is threatening or violent. There is no indication of any criminal complaint, but there is a need to preserve an open and tolerant environment. However, that also includes tolerance for opposing views on issues like DEI.

    There is no major campaign to remove Corkins. I am less inclined for such removal as I am interested in greater clarity on the rights of free speech and academic freedom.  Everyone makes dumb comments in unguarded moments. I accept that Corkins was carried away by the emotion of the moment. Moreover, Corkins was referencing “abusive” faculty and not necessarily putting all DEI critics in that category. That is precisely what should be clarified.

    However, it would likely be a different story if a board member called for the “culling” of DEI supporters or groups on the left. There remains a double standard in how such controversies are handled in academia.

    The support enjoyed by faculty on the far left is in sharp contrast to the treatment given faculty with moderate, conservative or libertarian views. Anyone who raises such dissenting views is immediately set upon by a mob demanding their investigation or termination. This includes blocking academics from speaking on campuses like a recent Classics professor due to their political views. Conservatives and libertarians understand that they have no cushion or protection in any controversy, even if it involves a single, later deleted tweet. At the University of North Carolina (Wilmington) one such campaign led to a professor killing himself a few days before his final day as a professor.

    I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments on the left, including “detonating white people,” abolish white people, denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. I also defended the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. (Loomis was later made Director of Graduate Studies of History at Rhode Island).

    Even when faculty engage in hateful acts on campus, however, there is a notable difference in how universities respond depending on the viewpoint. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.

    When these controversies arose, faculty rallied behind the free speech rights of the professors. That support was far more muted or absent when conservative faculty have found themselves at the center of controversies. The recent suspension of Ilya Shapiro is a good example. Other faculty have had to go to court to defend their free speech rights. One professor was suspended for being seen at a controversial protest.

    The message from this hearing could be viewed by some as affirming  that criticism of DEI is now viewed a threatening language. For conservative, libertarian, or contrarian faculty, it is not clear if such views will now be tolerated or viewed as grounds for termination (or a barrier to hiring).

    This comes at a time when many faculties have indeed “culled” their ranks of conservatives. A new survey of 65 departments in various states found that 33 do not have a single registered Republican.

     In a recent column, the editors of the legal site Above the Law mocked those of us who objected to the virtual absence of conservative or libertarian faculty members at law schools. Senior editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” based on the fact that liberal views reflect real law as opposed to junk law.  (Patrice regularly calls those with opposing views “racists,” including Chief Justice John Roberts because of his objection to race-based criteria in admissions as racial discrimination). He explained that hiring a conservative academic was akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism (or that the sun orbits the earth) to teach at a university.

    It is that easy. You simply declare that conservative views shared by a majority of the Supreme Court and roughly half of the population are invalid to be taught.

    It is not limited to faculty. Polls now show that 60 percent of students fear sharing their views in class. Various polls have shown the same fear with some showing an even higher percentage of fearful students. There is a growing orthodoxy taking hold on our campuses with growing intolerance for dissenting faculty and students alike.

    There are faculty who have raised concerns over DEI initiatives, land acknowledgment, and other policies. Even with the apology, the Board has allowed the underlying threat to linger. It should state why the opposition of faculty members, including filing in court, could be deemed as threatening or unacceptable viewpoints.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 20:20

  • Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty
    Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty

    Update (1500ET): FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, and is set to face trial in October.

    Appearing on Tuesday in US District Court in New York, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan set a trial date of October 2nd for the disgraced crypto king, after US prosecutors said they expect to submit all of their evidence in the case over the next month, Bloomberg reports.

    While the plea was not unexpected, it buys the 30-year-old more time, legal experts say. Bankman-Fried will get a better idea on the evidence prosecutors have against him and plan his next move. The plea puts the case on track for a lengthy trial, which could last at least four weeks.

    Bankman-Fried emerged from a black SUV into a crowd of photographers and TV crews Tuesday, ahead of a 2 pm hearing scheduled in New York. In December, US prosecutors in Manhattan revealed eight criminal counts against him, including wire fraud and campaign finance violations. -Bloomberg

    Prosecutors have accused the 30-year-old of stealing billions of dollars of customer funds from FTX, and defrauding investors and lenders to Alameda Research, his trading arm. He also allegedly made millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions funded by Alameda.

    SBF has previously said he didn’t ‘intend’ to commit Fraud, but acknowledged making mistakes.

    *  *  *

    FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has asked a judge to conceal the identities of two people who will help secure his bail in addition to his parents’ house in Palo Alto, California, Bloomberg reports.

    Sam Bankman-Fried departs from court in New York, on Dec. 22, 2022. 
    Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg

    “If the two remaining sureties are publicly identified, they will likely be subjected to probing media scrutiny, and potentially targeted for harassment, despite having no substantive connection to the case,” wrote SBF’s lawyers in a letter filed on Tuesday seeking redactions of the names of the two individuals who intend to sign as sureties to his bail.

    “Consequently, the privacy and safety of the sureties are “countervailing factors” that significantly outweigh the presumption of public access to the very limited information at issue,” the letter continues.

    Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bail package – granted in his first appearance on US soil since his arrest in the Bahamas, was secured by his parents’ Palo Alto home, which is worth nowhere near that amount. The judge in the case also required that two people of “considerable means,” at least one of whom cannot be a relative, also sign the bond.

    Bankman-Fried was granted a $250 million bail package in December, one of the largest in US history. The personal recognizance bond approved by the judge was secured by the equity in Bankman-Fried’s parents home in Palo Alto, California, which is almost certainly not worth anywhere near that amount. But outsized bonds are more a means of establishing harsh financial consequences for bail-jumping and are often backed by assets worth only around 10% of the stated amount. -Bloomberg

    The two individuals have not yet signed the bond but intend to do so by the Jan. 5 deadline, according to the letter.

    Bankman-Fried is set to appear in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday to face charges on eight criminal counts ranging from wire fraud to conspiracy to commit money laundering, to conspiracy by misusing customer funds, CNN reports. He is expected to plead not guilty.

    He faces 115 years if convicted on all charges.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 20:08

  • Twitter Files: US State Department Panicked Over ZeroHedge Covid-19 Reporting
    Twitter Files: US State Department Panicked Over ZeroHedge Covid-19 Reporting

    Journalist Matt Taibbi gave the public a double-header on Tuesday – first revealing how Twitter was swarmed by the US intelligence community…

    The drop includes several bombshells about how the US intelligence community, and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), tried to force-feed the Russian influence narrative down Twitter’s throat despite the fact that Twitter just wasn’t seeing it.

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

    And second, a thread on how the intelligence community started going straight to the media with lists of suspect accounts.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsIn the early days of the pandemic, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) was flagging accounts suggesting COVID-19 was a bioweapon, blaming the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or “attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA,” (the latter of which nobody was actually saying… it was speculation over work done at Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina).

    As Taibbi further notes, the State Department also flagged accounts that retweeted ZeroHedge due to “Sinophobia” and a “flurry of disinformation” that allegedly broke out after our suspension on Twitter.

    Which only raises more questions.

    But hey, they had a giant problem on their hands, since even those with double-digit IQs could connect the dots between the Obama administration banning Gain-of-Function research to manipulate bat coronaviruses in order to become more transmissible to humans, then Anthony Fauci offshoring it to Wuhan, China via EcoHealth Alliance, which was carried out by a guy who repeatedly bragged about… manipulating bat coronavirus, and then COVID-19 breaks out in the same exact town.

    What are the odds?

    Did we mention we’re really interested in the Twitter ‘Fauci Files’ that are supposedly dropping later this week?

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    Back to the infiltration of Twitter…

    8.“WE’RE HAPPY TO WORK DIRECTLY WITH YOU ON THIS, INSTEAD OF NBC.” Roth tried in vain to convince outsider researchers like the Clemson lab to check with them before pushing stories about foreign interference to media.

    9.Twitter was also trying to reduce the number of agencies with access to Roth. “If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them a direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,” said policy director Carlos Monje.

    10.When the State Department/GEC – remember this was 2020, during the Trump administration – wanted to publicize a list of 5,500 accounts it claimed would “amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation” about COVID, Twitter analysts were beside themselves.

    Continue reading here.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 20:00

  • Misunderstanding War, Money, And Prosperity
    Misunderstanding War, Money, And Prosperity

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    If the consensus of experts misunderstand money, credit and prosperity, how are we going to advance?

    Describing all the ways experts got it wrong is a thriving cottage industry. Expertise is itself contentious, as conventional expertise legitimized by credentials, prestigious institutional positions, scholarship, prizes, etc. can be wielded to promote the interests of the expert or whomever is funding the expert.

    Another segment of experts are self-proclaimed, essentially substituting an air of confidence in their own projections for actual expertise.

    Yet another segment of experts are lightweights with a misleading veneer of legitimacy to cloak their real identity as paid shills for corporations or other self-interested parties. PhD, anyone? Just put that PhD after your name and then pontificate about subjects completely outside your field.

    Then there’s the data, easily manipulated statistically to prove whatever is profitable to interested parties. Ibogaine improves sex, reverses aging and correlates to rising wealth–amazing! Buried on page 19 of the report: Research funded by the Ibogaine Industry. Nicely played, Ibogaine Industry.

    But if we set aside all the expertise delegitimized by self-interest, we’re left with profound misunderstandings of how the world actually works. Consider the big issues of war, money and prosperity.

    Looking back on 2022, it’s impossible to overlook the consensus of experts that expected Russia’s quantitative superiority in tanks, aircraft and personnel to be decisive in its invasion of Ukraine. Nearly a year later, it’s clear the rapid victory the vast majority of military experts anticipated did not play out. The vast majority got it wrong, and not because Russian forces were defeated as much as Russian forces failed to execute the complex coordinated attack as intended.

    The primary misunderstanding here, as in every war, is that difficult-to-measure qualitative factors matter more than raw numbers on a page. Numbers on a page don’t actually fight wars. War is not decided by addition and subtraction: the force with 1,000 tanks doesn’t defeat the force with 800 tanks just because they have 200 more tanks. There is much more going on in war, including training, unit cohesion, leadership, command and control, integrated intelligence, coordination of forces, tactical and strategic superiority and the will of the domestic populace.

    Touting the decisive impact of a new super-weapon is easy to do but misleading, as one new weapon can’t be decisive until long chains of preconditions are in place: personnel have been trained to use the new weapon, including extensive live-fire exercises; the spare parts and maintenance training to support the new weapons are in place and forward-deployed; targeting is integrated with intelligence data, and so on, in a mind-numbingly complex linkage of critical dependency chains: if one link is missing in any chain, the system fails to be decisive.

    Asymmetric warfare has a nice ring, but asymmetry works both ways. Asymmetric warfare calls to mind scrappy rebels beating the conventionally superior forces, and that is one facet of so-called unconventional warfare. (The Hessian mercenaries hired by the British in the Revolutionary War complained bitterly about the cowardly, ill-trained Americans taking potshots from the treeline instead of forming up tidy lines of battle in open fields.)

    Superior capabilities can offer asymmetric advantages, too. Training, unit cohesion, integrated intelligence, creative use of existing weaponry, ad-hoc improvements in armor and tactics–these become decisive despite the intrinsic imprecision of measuring these advantages.

    As for money, isn’t it possible that the vast majority of experts misunderstand money and credit? For example, a great many commentators claim that returning to a gold standard would solve virtually all the problems plaguing the global financial system without considering why the gold standard was abandoned piecemeal in the 20th century. Every policy and system has trade-offs, and the trade-offs change as conditions change.

    The Real Story of America Abandoning the Gold Standard (August 18, 2022)

    The Changing Relationship between Trade and America’s Gold Reserves (2020)

    As for credit, its history stretches back thousands of years. It has its own trade-offs, and the trade-offs change as conditions change.

    Properity is equally misunderstood. We’re assured by veritable armies of experts that prosperity requires constant economic growth–expansion of money, credit, income, wealth, production and consumption. If consumption falters, we’re doomed to impoverishment.

    This is of course completely wrong. Prosperity arises from the distribution of resources becoming more equal (as opposed to more unequal) and the improvement of productivity, i.e. producing more well-being with fewer inputs (resources, capital and labor).

    If the consensus of experts misunderstand money, credit and prosperity, how are we going to advance? First we have to actually understand the systems we want to change. That’s not as easy as establishing a consensus of experts.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century.  Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

    Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 19:40

  • Florida Keys Hit With "Mass Migrant Crisis" After Boat Landings Surge From Caribbean
    Florida Keys Hit With “Mass Migrant Crisis” After Boat Landings Surge From Caribbean

    Last month, the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from lifting Title 42, a Trump-era public health order that allows the Customs and Border Protection to turn migrants away at the US-Mexico border to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Even with Title 42 in place, the Biden administration has still managed to stoke a massive humanitarian crisis as the flood of migrants continues — and is now spreading to Florida.

    At least 500 migrants believed to be from Cuba, and other Caribbean countries arrived across the Florida Keys over the weekend, in what local officials described as a “mass migration crisis,” according to NYPost. 

    Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay’s office said, “the Sheriff’s Office has been assisting federal law enforcement agents with a spike in Cuban refugee arrivals since Saturday and continuing into Monday morning.” 

    “Refugee arrivals require a lot of resources from the Sheriff’s Office as we help our federal law enforcement partners ensure the migrants are in good health and safe.

    “Residents may see an increased amount of law enforcement and emergency responders throughout the county as we continue to respond to these landings,” Sheriff Rick Ramsay said in a statement posted on Facebook. 

    The sheriff’s office reported more than 160 refugees were on boats that landed in the Middle and Upper Keys. More than 300 migrants landed across Marquesas Keys and at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. They also said the latest wave of migrant landings is “aggravating the mass migration crisis in the Keys,” adding this whole mess is the result of a “federal failure” that has sparked yet another “humanitarian crisis.” 

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    At least one park in the Keys had to close over the weekend because hundreds of migrants arrived on boats. This was the Dry Tortugas National Park, located west of Key West. 

    “The closure, which is expected to last several days, is necessary for the safety of visitors and staff because of the resources and space needed to attend to the migrants,” the park tweeted Monday. “Concession-operated ferry and sea plane services are temporarily suspended.”

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    Democrats and Republicans have both criticized the Biden administration’s inability to get a handle on the record surges in illegal immigrants at the US-Mexico border, and now it appears the chaos is spreading to Florida in the form of migrant waves on boats.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 19:20

  • The Friction Ahead In 2023
    The Friction Ahead In 2023

    Authored by Claudio Grass,

    Division, friction and polarization have been on the rise in the West for at least a decade, but the escalation we saw during the “covid years” was especially worrying. Over the last year, this “worry” has become a truly pressing concern, even a real emergency one might argue, as inflationary pressures and an actual war were added to the mix of political and social tensions.  

    Going into 2023, there are many reasons for responsible investors and for hardworking savers to adopt a cautious, bearish outlook. If anything, it’s hard to tell what to be concerned about the most and what to prepare for first: an escalation to the Ukraine-Russia war? Inflation persisting or even reaching new highs? Fuel and heating costs exploding even further? Growing government overreach and suppression of individual liberties and financial sovereignty? 

    In an effort to answer questions like these, that are keeping countless Americans and Europeans up at night, I turned to Jeff Deist, President of the Mises Institute in Alabama.

    Jeff has been one of the most impressive thinkers and speakers that I have personally encountered, and I’ve always found his clarity of thought particularly enlightening, but also very helpful in this day and age. After all, the ability to plainly and honestly communicate a great idea is just as important as the ability to conceive it – especially when it can be communicated to the public and change some open minds in the process, just like the Mises Institute has been doing for four decades. 

    Claudio Grass (CG): After the extreme trespasses, power abuses and irrational policies and U-turns we saw during the pandemic, many citizens hoped that 2022 would prove to be the year of “normalization”. What we got instead was a war, a fuel and food crisis, and a world more divided than any time before in recent memory. What was, in your estimation, the most worrying development we saw in 2022?

    Jeff Deist (JD): 2022 may be remembered as the year we fully understood how elites and the political class never intend to allow a return to “normal.” The covid flu virus created the excuse for lockdowns, controls, and spying; and as Robert Higgs explained, the “Ratchet Effect” means crisis measures don’t go away when the crisis ends. 

    Covid will be the excuse for attempts to impose a whole new battery of state mandates in areas of health (vaccines, masks, testing), business (closures), money (central bank digital currencies, capital controls), and movement (quarantines, travel restrictions). It’s up to us in the fight to restore normalcy and decency; the politicians will always go in the other direction.

    CG: We both warned for a long time that there would be a very high price to pay for the more-than-a-decade-long monetary and fiscal policies of the Fed and most of its peers. Why do you think it took so long for inflation to make the comeback we’re suffering though today? What triggered it and why now?

    JD: The current price inflation engulfing the US and other western nations results more from fiscal stimulus in 2020 and 2021 than monetary policy. In America alone, national politicians pumped more than $6 trillion into the domestic economy in the form of direct payments—subsidies—to state and local governments, preferred industries (insurance, airlines), businesses (payroll “loans”), and individuals in the form of stimulus checks.

    All this new money was created even as Covid lockdowns dramatically reduced the production of goods and services and disrupted global supply chains. So unlike monetary stimulus, where central banks push interest rates down and buy government bonds from commercial banks, the price inflation we are suffering today is directly tied to fiscal stimulus. It’s a simple matter of more money chasing fewer goods and services. Paying people to stay home and not work was a recipe for disaster.

    CG: After numerous unsuccessful attempts to simply deny its existence, central bankers were forced to acknowledge that inflation is indeed a problem, but still, quite unsurprisingly, nobody seems too keen to take any responsibility for it. Together with politicians, they simply blame Putin for it and pretend that the reckless “print, borrow and spend” approach of the past years had nothing to do with it. Given the relatively low levels of financial literacy among the general public, do you think most voters and taxpayers believe this narrative?

    JD: The question is not only whether average people still believe in the technical competence of central bankers to “manage” the economy, but whether they still believe central bankers even intend to help average people. Increasingly the answer to both appears to be “No!” 

    We are fewer than 15 years removed from the last economic crisis of 2008, so the idea that central banks prevent crises and crashes is hardly supported by the evidence. Of course, the poorest people suffer most from inflation, as a larger portion of their income for basics—food, utilities, transport, and rent. So, I do think average people sense something is deeply wrong with the financial and monetary system, even if they don’t understand the underlying technical issues.  

    CG: Apart from the thousands of human lives the Ukraine war has already claimed or uprooted and the inestimable damage to private and public property, there was another causality: Whatever was left of the legal protections for private property or of the free market in Europe vanished seemingly overnight. We saw gas and nuclear power companies nationalized, unprecedented interventionism in the oil and gas market and redistribution policies, fining energy companies for being profitable to pay for “inflation checks” to the public. Do you see a similar trend in the US?

    JD: The US has been more insulated from the energy shocks cause by sanctions against Russia simply because we have vast amounts of domestic oil and natural gas. But we lack sufficient refining capacity to make full use of our oil, due to environmentalist pressure. We also lack sufficient nuclear capacity for a country of 330 million people.

    So yes, I think events in Ukraine will advance the narrative of the “Green New Deal,” which effectively nationalizes energy policy to promote so-called renewable fuels while banning—or regulating into oblivion—fossil fuels. This is all a pipe dream, of course, as coal, oil, and natural gas still account for more than 80% of our energy use. And we are many decades away from having the grid capacity for widespread use of electric vehicles, even if you ignore the terrible issues of lithium mining and battery disposal. 

    Unless we are prepared to suffer a significant loss of material living standards, politicians in the West better stop fantasizing about green energy and start getting serious about the real market for reliable and cheap fossil fuels. Let’s hope and pray this winter does not result in the freezing deaths of people in Ukraine or Europe due to energy shortage.

    CG: Speaking of the US, what’s your assessment of the fiscal and regulatory policies adopted since Joe Biden took office? Do you think there’s anything his administration could have done to avert the current inflationary spiral or was it always going to be inevitable, after so many years in the making?

    JD: Biden certainly is responsible for the increase spending under his administration, which has enormous inflationary consequences. But most of the mischief in our economy was created by fiscal and monetary policies enacted while he was a cronyist US Senator for many decades. In that sense his Senate record is far worse than his presidential record. He is a buffoon, and easily led, which means he is not capable of challenging the “print, borrow, and spend” approach you mentioned. But I hope people understand Biden is a symptom of a much deeper problem, which is a hopelessly corrupt system with all the wrong incentives.

    CG: Focusing on the sociopolitical situation, at least from an outsider perspective, we’re certainly seeing less outrage and controversy reflected in the international press compared to when Trump was in the Oval Office. Does that mean that the “wounds have healed” and that Americans are actually more united today or is the rift still widening, just more quietly?

    JD: From my perspective the rift has widened. Biden’s narrow victory is viewed by the Left as a mandate to punish and vanquish the Deplorables, especially in rural areas. That’s the nature of politics, which is a form of proto-violence. Markets and civil society are win-win institutions, government and politics are zero-sum. So, unless and until we reduce the importance of political outcomes—unless and until we make life less political—we should expect division to grow.

    CG: Both in US and in Europe, there is well-documented and growing mistrust of the media, social- and legacy organizations alike. My own hope had been, especially after the pandemic, that the obscene amount of bias would cause more and more people to do their own research and to “educate themselves”. Have you noticed such a shift in the US, perhaps reflected in a heightened interest in the educational content and programs that the Mises Institute offers?

    JD: Absolutely. The digital age provides us the ability to seek out and find voices of reason and peace amidst the white noise of mainstream media. I hate to think it takes a real calamity to wake people up, but perhaps this is human nature. The more worried people become about the economy and their future, the more they seek out alternative sources of news and information. The Mises Institute works to be an alternative source for economic news and education.

    CG: Another trend we have in common is the “green agenda”. Even as the present crisis made it abundantly clear that the energy transition in Europe was catastrophically premature, bringing about the “cold, dark winter” that millions of citizens are now facing, there is still extreme pressure for more “green” policies, including a war on farmers at a time of unprecedented food price increases. Is that something you expect to see continue in the months and years to come and if so, what’s the impact you expect to see?

    JD: Food and energy crises certainly are possible. In keeping with the “new normal,” elites will use such crises to increase their own power and force us to suffer for problems they caused. We know, because they tell us plainly, their plans to have us stop using fossil fuels, stop traveling so much, stop eating meat, and stop owning homes. They are quite explicit about this. 

    The fastest and most effective way to achieve this is to make houses, gasoline, and meat so expensive only the very rich can afford them. We already see consolidation of home ownership by private equity firms, for example, to create a nation of renters in the US. We see billionaires like Bill Gates investing in fake meat substitutes. We see recipes in gourmet magazines for dishes featuring bugs! 

    None of this is normal or natural, but must be imposed by incentives, either positive or negative. If we hope to maintain any personal or family sovereignty in the coming decades, we have to recognize and resist this new program of imposed austerity.

    CG: What’s your outlook for the US economy in 2023? What are the main threats that worry you the most and what would be your advice for responsible savers that seek to protect all they’ve worked for from their government’s incompetence or intentional abuses?

    JD: Biden and company will face an increasingly tough economy, but given the Democrat’s tepid success in the midterm elections I suspect the administration will simply double down on fake statements about how well the country is doing. Politics is contra-reality, so by definition Biden cannot accept or admit what’s really going on.

    I predict the US Fed will “pivot” in 2023 on interest rate hikes, meaning they will revert to their usual (true) status of worrying more about equity and bond markets than consumers and inflation.  

    Inflation will remain will us, higher than admitted by government statistics, and will become a permanent feature of the 2020s across the West. Government spending and deficits will continue to grow. As a result, it will be a very trying decade for savers! Gold and silver, commodities, and bitcoin are the obvious suggestions for those looking to protect themselves from devaluation, but for a variety of reasons the US dollar will remain strong against other currencies. And of course, the most important thing is to “harden” yourself against uncertainty by improving your skills and practicing self-education.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 19:00

  • Incoming Israeli Foreign Minister Shocks By Previewing Pro-Russian Policies
    Incoming Israeli Foreign Minister Shocks By Previewing Pro-Russian Policies

    Israel’s new government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling a huge policy shift regarding both the Ukraine war and Israel’s relations with Russia, even suggesting a more openly ‘pro-Moscow’ stance.

    Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen in a Monday speech previewing future policy said in the context of the Ukraine conflict, “On the issue of Russia and Ukraine we will do on thing for sure – speak less in public.” Interestingly it comes after months of rising tensions with Kiev, based on Israel’s repeat refusal to provide the Ukrainians with its Iron Dome anti-air defense systems and other weaponry. However, the prior government was much more vocally supportive of Ukraine, in line with key Western allies like the United States and Britain.

    Image: The Jerusalem Post

    Israel has limited itself to supplying humanitarian and other non-lethal aid, causing President Zelensky to recently lash out. In October Zelensky went so far as to chastise Israeli officials for turning “a blind eye to Russian terror”. 

    Zelensky also said at the time, which came in the context of a virtual address before Israeli journalists: “Is it [Israel] with the democratic world, which is fighting side by side against the existential threat to its existence? Or with those who turn a blind eye to Russian terror, even when the cost of continued terror is the complete destruction of global security?”

    Fast-forward to a new hard-right Israeli government having days ago been sworn-in, and it appears that Zelensky’s fiery denunciation and pressure campaign has backfired. 

    But it seems Zelensky saw it coming, given the following comments at the end of November: 

    Israel’s incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “personal relationship” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin could affect the “historical relations” between Israel and Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky told The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday.

    “Of course, if [Netanyahu] wants to maintain his personal relations with Putin, he can continue doing what he’s doing,” Zelensky said at the summit, held in New York City.

    “But if he wants to maintain the historical relations between Israel and the Ukrainian people, you have to do everything you can to save as many people as possible.”

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    The incoming Israeli FM in the Monday remarks vowed a new “responsible” policy on the war in Ukraine, describing that the foreign ministry “will prepare a detailed presentation to the security cabinet on this issue.” He did say that Israeli humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged country will continue, but clearly this is a sign the door has been shut regarding the prospect of lethal aid in the near future.

    According to Axios Middle East correspondent Barak Ravid, this marks a dramatic shift in Russia-Ukraine policy compared to the last caretaker government which was in place during the initial invasion and throughout the first 10 months of war. Ravid writes: 

    Why it matters: Cohen’s predecessor Yair Lapid led a tough line Russia, condemned it publicly & even said the Russian military committed war crimes. Since the invasion Lapid didn’t speak to Lavrov & after he assumed office as caretaker prime minister he didn’t speak to Putin.

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    Ravid further noted Cohen is expected to hold a phone call with his Russian counterpart: 

    New Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen signaled a policy shift on Ukraine in his 1st speech hinting the new government will take a more pro-Russian line. He said he will speak on Tuesday with Russian FM Lavrov – 1st such call since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    Meanwhile, an awkward standoff could be developing at the UN, given Ukrainian and Israeli officials are seeking to ramp up pressure on each other concerning votes and policy positions before the world body.

    As for Israel wanting to keep up tighter relations with Moscow, one prime factor is that it needs Russia to continue giving a quiet green light to Israeli Air Force strikes inside Syria. Israel says it is acting against Iranian assets inside the country, as well as Hezbollah. Russia has a significant military presence in Syria at the invitation of President Assad, but has not intervened against Israeli aggression in semi-frequently bombing places like Damascus, despite its limited verbal denunciations. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 18:40

  • Matt Gaetz Calls McCarthy A "Squatter" For Prematurely Moving Into Speaker's Office
    Matt Gaetz Calls McCarthy A “Squatter” For Prematurely Moving Into Speaker’s Office

    Update (2228ET): In a hilarious cap to today’s chaos surrounding the GOP House Speaker vote, anti-McCarthy Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida wrote to the Architect of the Capitol to ask how long McCarthy – who prematurely moved in to the Speaker’s office – would be able to occupy the room “before he is considered a squatter.”

    *  *  *

    Update (1836ET): The day ended without the election of a House Speaker, as support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) waned throughout the day.

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), meanwhile, saw his stock rise with each of Tuesday’s three votes.

    As The Epoch Times notes, in the first vote of a tumultuous first day of the 118th Congress, McCarthy, the California Republican who led the party to regain the majority in the November 2022 mid-term election, fell 15 votes short of the 218 he needed to become Speaker of the House.

    McCarthy received 203 votes from Republican colleagues, while 212 Democrats voted for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who will serve as House Minority Leader in 2023. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz), the leader of the anti-McCarthy members, received 10 votes. A handful of Republicans voted for candidates who were not nominated.

    Second Vote

    Incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) cited Saint Paul’s admonition about “finishing the race” as he nominated House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker of the House.

    In his floor speech, Jordan said the House must do three basic things in 2023, including getting the U.S. border with Mexico under control and restoring U.S. military strength, stopping profligate spending by Democrats, and conducting a comprehensive oversight effort of President Joe Biden’s administration.

    “We have to do the Oversight and Investigations that needs to be done. This idea that bureaucrats who never put their name on the ballot but think they run the country, who assaulted our constituents’ First Amendment liberties. they need to be held accountable,” Jordan said.

    “That has to happen, we need to do it. We need to do it in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution, but we need to do it vigorously and aggressively. That is part of our duty as members of this body,” Jordan continued.

    Jordan’s nomination of McCarthy followed the California Republican’s failure to marshall a majority of the 434 Members of the Representatives assembled earlier in the day for the first vote on a new Speaker.

    Jeffries was also nominated a second time. Then Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) nominated Jordan, despite the fact the Ohio Republican made clear he continued to support McCarthy. Then the second ballot roll call was called.

    All of the 19 Republicans who opposed McCarthy in the first ballot shifted their votes to Jordan, including Biggs. While McCarthy gained the same 203 votes he received in the first balloting, which again left him short of the needed majority of 218. All 212 Democrats again voted for Jeffries.

    One of those who voted for Jordan was House Freedom Caucus (HFC) Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who during the second ballot posted on Twitter his determination to fight McCarthy no matter how many ballots are required.

    “I stand firmly committed to changing the status quo no matter how many ballots this takes. If McCarthy had fought nearly as hard to defeat the failed, toxic policies of the Biden Administration as he has for himself, he would be Speaker of the House right now,” Perry wrote.

    Tension is building on the House floor among Republicans. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told Fox News that “If all they want is somebody other than Kevin, let’s be candid. Steve Scalise is supporting Kevin, Jim Jordan is supporting Kevin. As a matter of fact, every member of the leadership team, including every ranking member without becoming a chairman, is supporting Kevin. So we are in a situation in which the 19 have to explain what they want.”

    Democrats were quick to seize on the GOP confusion, with Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) issuing a statement following the first vote observing that “Hunter Thompson was right: ‘When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.’ This is what a Republican majority gets us: chaos.”

    “Democrats are here and ready to do our jobs for the country. Republican disarray is standing in the way.”

    Third Vote

    House Republicans remained deadlocked after voting for the third time Tuesday without giving enough votes to make McCarthy the new Speaker of the House.

    McCarthy lost one vote—Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)—on the third vote of the day for a total of 202 votes. Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York had the highest total with 212, with all of his Democratic colleagues but no Republicans voting for him.

    Incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) drew 20 votes, but his own ballot went to McCarthy for the third time. Jordan received 19 votes on the second ballot.

    The conservative rebels who have held firm against McCarthy and coalesced around Jordan on the third ballot remained steadfastly determined to keep their California colleague from succeeding Democrat Nancy Pelosi, also of California, as the new Speaker.

    In an impassioned speech nominating Jordan on the third ballot, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) put the issue between McCarthy and the dissidents as one of how best to stand up to President Joe Biden and the Senate Democratic majority.

    “How many times have we been down here giving speeches, and there’s not a soul in the chamber? Yet this is what it takes to get 435 People in the chamber and have an actual debate,” Roy told the chamber.

    “The American people are watching, and that’s a good thing. What we’re doing is exercising our rights to vote and have a debate and have a discussion about the future of this country through the decision of choosing a speaker.

    “This is not personal. It’s not. This is about the future of the country. This is about the direction of the country.”

    Republican Infighting

    That vote capped a frenzied two days of back-room bargaining and media posturing by McCarthy and his supporters and a small group of dissident populist conservatives who demanded and got a host of reform concessions, but still voted no on the first ballot.

    The bottom line for the dissidents was they just don’t trust McCarthy to be the agent of change they believe must lead the House in what they are determined to make the last two years of President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House.

    “I came to a broken and dysfunctional Congress to change it. Advancing the long-standing pecking order one notch has no prospect of doing that. Many don’t want to change it,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) posted on Twitter just before the first vote.

    “Kevin McCarthy is not the right candidate to be Speaker. He has perpetuated the Washington status quo that makes this body one of the most unsuccessful and unpopular institutions in the country. This is not about personality or who has ‘earned’ the position, it is about serving the American people. I will not support the status quo,” Bishop continued.

    In the final minutes before the new House assembled for the speaker contest, a clearly exasperated and frustrated McCarthy told reporters: “I have the record for the longest speech ever on the floor. I don’t have a problem getting a record for the most votes for Speaker, too.”

    He was referring to his more than 90-minute December address to the House in opposition to Biden’s $1.8 trillion omnibus spending bill.

    Read the rest here…

    *  *  *

    Update (1455ET): Kevin McCarthy has lost the second tally for Speaker of the House.

    Of note, when this happened in 1923, it went to nine ballots.

    And look who’s gaining steam…

    *  *  *

    Update (1310ET): Not even a quarter of the way through roll call, and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has failed to secure enough votes to become Speaker of the House – which will push the contest into a multiple-ballot vote.

    According to the Washington Post‘s Paul Kane, the last time this happened was 1923.

    What’s next? As Politico reports:

    After McCarthy fails to get 218 votes on the first ballot, the Freedom Caucus antagonists have signaled that they will start backing another yet-unnamed candidate on the second ballot. The Daily Beast reported Monday night that that person is Ohio Rep. JIM JORDAN, the longtime McCarthy critic-turned-ally.

    The Ohio Republican, however, has no shot at being speaker — something that his adoring conservative colleagues know very well. But, per the Daily Beast story, that’s not the point: They’re hoping to peel off more Republicans to back Jordan, aiming to have McCarthy’s vote count decrease from the first ballot to the second.

    It’s an open question how long today will go until someone nominates a viable candidate for the gavel — someone like STEVE SCALISE (R-La.) or PATRICK McHENRY (R-N.C.). And there’s a fear that if one of these member’s names is called too early in the process, the conference will turn on them.

    Buckle up. It’s going to be a long day. 

    *  *  *

    Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) gave a Tuesday morning speech imploring fellow Republicans to elect him as Speaker of the House, as several notable members of the GOP have openly opposed McCarthy.

    According to Axios, McCarthy has given hardliners nearly everything they’ve asked for, however he still hasn’t secured enough votes for the position, meaning that for the first time in 100 years, the House will likely hold multiple ballots for the speaker.

    In his Tuesday speech, McCarthy listed all the concessions he’s made to the right, and pointed out that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) praised elements of his rules package. Gaetz, notably, has spearheaded the anti-McCarthy movement within the chamber.

    “I’ve earned this job,” said McCarthy, after running through everything he’s done to become speaker – to which Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) reportedly shook his head, according to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman.

    “This is bullshit,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) in response to McCarthy’s speech.

    In December, Gaetz said he wouldn’t vote for McCarthy because he’s “just a shill of the establishment.”

    McCarthy also got into an argument with Rep. Perry, who accused McCarthy of having no track record on spending bills.

    McCarthy’s supporters chime in:

    In addition to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), McCarthy has the support of neocon Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who has called McCarthy’s detractors “enemies” and “narcissists.”

    “They are enemies now. They have made it clear that they prefer a Democrat agenda than a Republican,” Crenshaw told CNN‘s Manu Raju.

    “This handful of members is very clearly looking for notoriety over principle. That’s what it is. And anyone who suggests differently is in some kind of make believe fantasy reality. It’s not, it’s not true,” he continued, adding “They lost those debates.”

    “That should have been the end of it because that’s how a team works, right? But if you’re a narcissist, … then you’ll keep going. And you’ll threaten to tear down the team for the benefit of the Democrats just because of your own sense of self importance.”

    Another McCarthy supporter, Mike Rogers (R-AL), said the GOP should bar McCarthy dissenters from getting committee slots – an idea Chip Roy didn’t like. 

    Here’s Roy in December explaining the situation;

    According to Axios, this could become a war of attrition in which “[a] good number of pro-McCarthy House Republicans are hoping some of the holdouts are bluffing and looking for a show — and will ultimately get worn down enough during the process to cave for McCarthy.”

    The likely candidate to replace McCarthy, in the unlikely event he pulls out, is Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who said he won’t run against McCarthy but has been quietly preparing for this scenario.

    It doesn’t look like McCarthy is too worried…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 18:36

  • The Bahamas Lawyers Up As The FTX Case Proceeds In US Court And Disagreements Fester
    The Bahamas Lawyers Up As The FTX Case Proceeds In US Court And Disagreements Fester

    By Derek Andersen of Cointelegraph.com

    The Bahamas will have legal representation in the unfolding FTX case. The Caribbean nation chose Brown Rudnick as counsel “in certain matters of engagement related to the collapse of FTX Digital Markets Ltd.,” alongside Bahamian lawyers and other experts, according to a statement released by the law firm. 

    FTX Digital Markets is headquartered in the Bahamas, and the top management of the company lived in that country. Cases against the members of the management team are now being heard in the United States after former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s extradition from the Bahamas.

    Brown Rudnick has been working for the Bahamas since March 2022 to develop a national policy statement on digital assets. The firm was reengaged by the country after the FTX collapse, and filed a registration statement with the U.S. Department of Justice, as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, late in December, saying:

    “Some of the Registrant’s activities may involve preparation and dissemination of informational materials and otherwise engaging with U.S. government agencies and the U.S. media.”

    Brown Rudnick may also prepare written content for social media on the behalf of the Bahamas, it said.

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

    The Bahamas has been active in the FTX case from its start and differences with U.S. prosecutors began almost immediately. A competing Chapter 15 bankruptcy claim was filed in a U.S. court by the Bahamas the day after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

    The Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) ordered all FTX Digital Markets digital assets transferred to a wallet it controlled after the beginning of the bankruptcy cases, leading to criticism from the new FTXmanagement that burgeoned into accusations that the SCB had asked Bankman-Fried to create a new tokenfor it and that it was attempting to favor the country’s citizens in the claims against the company.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/03/2023 – 18:20

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