Jun 04

Today’s News 4th June 2022

  • The Top 10 Creepiest & Most Dystopian Things Pushed By The World Economic Forum
    The Top 10 Creepiest & Most Dystopian Things Pushed By The World Economic Forum

    Authored by Vigilant Citizen,

    When one talks about the “global elite”, one usually refers to a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals who operate beyond national borders. Through various organizations, these non-elected individuals gather in semi-secrecy to decide policies they want to see applied on a global level.

    The World Economic Forum (WEF) is smack dab in the middle of it all. Indeed, through its annual Davos meetings, the WEF attempts to legitimize and normalize its influence on the world’s democratic nations by having a panel of world leaders attending and speaking at the event.

    A simple look at the list of attendees at these meetings reveals the organization’s incredible reach and influence. The biggest names in media, politics, business, science, technology, and finance are represented at the WEF.

    According to mass media, the Davos meetings gather people to discuss issues such as “inequality, climate change, and international cooperation”. This simplistic description appears to be custom-made to cause the average citizen to yawn in boredom. But topics at the WEF go much further than “inequality”.

    Throughout the years, people at the WEF have said some highly disturbing things, none of which garnered proper media attention. In fact, when one pieces together the topics championed by the WEF, an overarching theme emerges: The total control of humanity using media, science, and technology while reshaping democracies to form a global government.

    If this sounds like a far-fetched conspiracy theory, keep reading. Here are the 10 most dystopian things that are being pushed by the WEF right now. This list sorted is in no particular order. Because they’re all equally crazy.

    #10 Penetrating Governments

    The least one can say is that Klaus Schwab, the founder and the head of the WEF is not a fan of democracy. In fact, he perceives it as an obstacle to a fully globalized world.

    In the 2010 WEF report titled “Global Redesign”, Schwab postulates that a globalized world is best managed by a “self-selected coalition of multinational corporations, governments (including through the UN system), and select civil society organizations (CSOs)”. This is the exact opposite of a democracy.

    He argued that governments are no longer “the overwhelmingly dominant actors on the world stage” and that “the time has come for a new stakeholder paradigm of international governance”. For this reason, the Transnational Institute (TNI) described the WEF as “a silent global coup d’état” to capture governance.

    In 2017, at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Schwab blatantly admitted what is continually dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” by mass media: The WEF is “penetrating” governments around the world.

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    Schwab said:

    “I have to say, when I mention now names, like Mrs. (Angela) Merkel and even Vladimir Putin, and so on, they all have been Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. But what we are very proud of now is the young generation, like Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau, the President of Argentina and so on.

    We penetrate the cabinets. So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau and I know that half of his cabinet, or even more than half of his cabinet, are actually Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. (…) It’s true in Argentina and it’s true in France, with the President – a Young Global Leader.”

    In this outstanding talk, Schwab blatantly stated that Angela Merkel of Germany, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and Emmanuel Macron of France were “groomed” by the WEF. He even adds that at least half of Canada’s cabinet consists of representatives sold to the WEF’s agenda. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the absolute truth, confirmed by the head of the WEF himself.

    #9 Controlling Minds Using Sound Waves

    In 2018, one of the topics of discussion at the WEF was “Mind Control Using Sound Waves” (read my full article about it here). I did not alter this title for sensationalism, those are exactly the words used by the WEF.

    This is the title of an actual article published on the WEF’s official website. It was deleted for obscure reasons, but it is still viewable in web archives.

    In the article, the technology is touted as a possible treatment for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. However, the article also states that “it can cure you, it can get you addicted, and it can kill you”. It can also be used to completely control a person’s mind, remotely. The article states:

    “I can see the day coming where a scientist will be able to control what a person sees in their mind’s eye, by sending the right waves to the right place in their brain. My guess is that most objections will be similar to those we hear today about subliminal messages in advertisements, only much more vehement.

    This technology is not without its risks of misuse. It could be a revolutionary healthcare technology for the sick, or a perfect controlling tool with which the ruthless control the weak. This time though, the control would be literal.”

    The conclusion of the article: Nobody can stop scientists from developing this technology. To prevent misuse, it should be regulated by organizations such as … the WEF. That’s convenient because some companies developing this technology are part of the WEF. Do you see where this is going?

    #8 Pills That Contain Microchips

    Once again, this title sounds like a far-fetched conspiracy theory cleverly worded for sensationalism. It is not. Here’s a video from the WEF’s 2018 meeting where Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, talks about pills that contain microchips.

    Bourla says:

    “FDA approved the first ‘electronic pill’, if I can call it like that. It is basically a biological chip that is in the tablet and, once you take the tablet, and it disolves into your stomach, it sends a signal that you took the tablet. So imagine the applications of that, the compliance. The insurance companies would know that the medicines that patients should take, they do take them. It is fascinating what happens in this field.”

    Is this field truly fascinating? Or utterly dystopian? As Bourla himself said: Imagine the compliance. This kind of technology could easily open the door to all kinds of nefarious applications. Since then, COVID put Pfizer in a position of power never seen before for a pharmaceutical company.

    Like Pfizer, the WEF is also using COVID to further its agenda.

    #7 Praising Massive Lockdowns

    In 2020 and 2021, cities around the world were subjected to massive and drastic lockdowns, causing job losses, suicides, drug overdoses, isolation, mental health issues, domestic abuse, bankruptcies, and homelessness. During this horrific period, children could not attend school for months and were essentially barred from interacting with other children. A slew of small and medium businesses was destroyed while large corporations strived.

    Despite all of this, the WEF could not hide its love of drastic, life-destroying lockdowns. In fact, it released a video surrealistically called “Lockdowns are quietly improving cities around the world”. Here’s this piece of complete insanity.

    The video states “Lockdowns significantly reduced human activity … leading to Earth’s quietest period in decades,” while showing dystopian images of empty cities and planes stuck on the ground.

    Completely ignoring the immense human suffering caused by these lockdowns, the WEF considered it was all worth it because “carbon emissions were down 7% in 2020”.

    When this thing was first posted, it garnered intense backlash. So the WEF deleted the video above and posted this tweet.

    As you can see, despite deleting the video, the WEF kept praising lockdowns. That’s because the WEF would love to see “covidian” life become permanent.

    #6 “Take a Peek at the Future”

    Judging by comments on YouTube and social media, people absolutely hate videos created by the WEF. But they keep coming. Because they don’t care what you think. They just want to plant their seed of insanity into your mind. In a video titled “How our lives could soon look” (read my full article about it here), the WEF invites viewers to “take a peek at the future”. And it is BLEAK. It is all about making COVID life permanent.

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    The video is filled with masked people, purell dispensers, and QR codes. This is the future they want. Then, there’s this nugget of insanity.

    No. Go away.

    The video proudly says:

    “NASA has invented a system that can ID you from your heartbeat using a laser.”

    As if that wasn’t enough, the video shows children stuck at home and being schooled through screens. The video ends by showing people wearing masks outside, like crazy people.

    NONE. Go away.

    #5 Pushing For a Great Reset

    As stated above, the WEF perceives the pandemic as an “opportunity”. It is not only an opportunity to reshape our personal existence but to restructure the entire world structure according to its principles. The WEF calls it “the Great Reset”. To promote this Reset (that absolutely nobody wants) the WEF released a propaganda video (it really fits the definition of “propaganda”). Here it is in all of its insanity. 

    When I posted an article about this video in 2021, the comments were not yet turned off. And I took a screenshot of the top ones.

    This short video manages to contain an incredible amount of subversive messages. It even ridiculizes “conspiracy theories” while, astoundingly, confirming these theories.

    A screenshot from the video. Are you serious?

    The video also announced the “death of capitalism”.

    Another surreal screenshot from the video.

    While capitalism is based on a self-regulating system of offer and demand, the Great Reset looks to redefine the way businesses are evaluated through new parameters. The main one: Compliance with the elite’s social and political agendas.

    Towards the end, the narrator utters this enigmatic sentence:

    “And that’s all about getting the right people in the right place at the right time”.

    While the video doesn’t quite explain what this sentence actually means in real-life situations, its implications are rather chilling. Instead of allowing successful individuals and businesses to grow organically, the elite’s system would interfere to “get the right people at the right place at the right time”, in accordance with its agenda. In other words, the system would be rigged and compliance with a wider agenda would be mandatory in a new economy.

    The video ends with a call to viewers to get involved. However, of course, you’re not actually invited to the WEF. In fact, they’re actually looking to “recalibrate” your freedom of speech.

    #4 “Recalibrating” freedom of speech

    An easy way to identify world leaders who are groomed by the WEF is through their incessant railing against free speech. They absolutely hate it and they’re constantly calling for the internet to be censored and highly regulated. At the 2022 Davos meeting, Australian “eSafety commissioner” Julie Inman Grant stated that we need a “recalibration of free speech”.

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    Grant said:

    “We are finding ourselves in a place where we have increasing polarization everywhere and everything feels binary when it doesn’t need to be. So I think we’re going to have to think about a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that are playing out online. You know, from freedom of speech to the freedom to be free from online violence.”

    Here, Grant essentially calls for censorship. She even believes that freedom of speech as a human right should be “recalibrated” using “online violence” as an excuse. There is no such thing as “online violence”. They love to equate speech with violence. It is an extremely manipulative way of justifying China-style censorship.

    Free speech is, in fact, binary. Either it exists or it doesn’t. And they clearly don’t want it to exist.

    #3 Tracking Your Clothes

    The WEF wants to control your clothes. And they’ve made a video about it. Did I mention that people absolutely hate WEF videos? Here’s another one that got people’s blood boiling.

    Using the environment as an excuse (as usual), the WEF announced the coming of clothing laced with “digital passports” that can be traced at all times. Backed by Microsoft (of course), these garments will apparently flood the market by 2025.

    According to the WEF, these chips will allow fashion brands to resell their clothes. I have no idea how that would work. The video makes sure NOT to mention that this technology would be a great way of tracking those who ditched their smartphones.

    But ditching your smartphone might become … impossible.

    #2 “Smartphones will be in your body by 2030”

    At the 2022 Davos meeting, Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark claimed that, by 2030, “smartphones will be implanted directly into the body.” This would coincide with the coming of 6G technology, which is expected to be launched by the end of the decade.

    For years, this site has been documenting the elite’s incessant push for transhumanism, which is the merging of humans with machines. They’re looking to accelerate this transition by making things people cannot live without (such as smartphones) available in transhumanist form.

    Are you noticing their creepy eagerness to insert things inside our bodies?

    #1 “You’ll Own Nothing. And You’ll Be Happy.”

    This is probably the most dystopian moment in WEF history. In 2016, Ida Auken, a Member of Parliament in Denmark said:

    “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”.

    The WEF loved that quote so much that it tweeted about it.

    The WEF also created a video (that everybody absolutely hated) titled “8 Predictions for the World in 2030”. Here’s a screenshot.

    The WEF loves to phrase its “predictions” in a non-conditional form, as if they’re an inevitability. But look at this smiling guy. He’s clearly happy. Thank you WEF!

    An article on the WEF’s website explains:

    “I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes,” writes Danish MP Ida Auken. Shopping is a distant memory in the city of 2030, whose inhabitants have cracked clean energy and borrow what they need on demand. It sounds utopian, until she mentions that her every move is tracked and outside the city live swathes of discontents, the ultimate vision of a society split in two.

    In this dystopian future, there are no products you can own. Only “services” that are rented and delivered using drones. This system would make all humans completely dependent on WEF-controlled corporations for every single basic need. There would be absolutely no autonomy, no freedom, and no privacy. And you’ll be happy.

    Honorable Mention: Individual carbon footprint tracker

    At the 2022 Davos meeting, Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans announced the development of an “individual carbon tracker”.

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    Once again, the WEF uses the environment to promote the micro-management of human behavior. Evans says that the tracker can monitor “where they’re traveling, how they’re traveling, what are they’re eating and what are they consuming on the platform”.

    Notice that he used the pronoun “they” and not “we” because there is no way in hell he’s going to use that thing. Me neither.

    In Conclusion

    Upon reviewing this list, two common themes become obvious. The first theme is “penetration”. The WEF wants to penetrate governments using “Global Leaders” (aka Manchurian candidates). It also wants to penetrate our bodies through pills, microchips, and vaccines. It also wants to penetrate our minds using soundwaves, censorship, and propaganda.

    The other theme is “control”. They want to control what we think, where we go, what we say, what we eat, and what we wear.

    Do you know who agrees with the WEF? China. Censorship is widespread, a social credit system controls people’s behaviors and COVID is still used as an excuse for massive lockdowns and total population control. Not to mention the literal concentration camps. Despite all of this, Chinese officials are constantly present at WEF meetings. Why? Because China is basically a laboratory for the WEF’s policies.

    With all of that being said, how can we counteract the WEF’s insanity? How can we vote them out if they were never voted in? A first step would be to elect – at all levels of government – representatives that want nothing to do with the WEF. If our elected officials treated the WEF as the rogue, illegitimate organization that it is, its influence would be greatly reduced.

    Second, we can boycott every company that is part of the WEF. I realize this is easier said than done because many of these companies are virtual monopolies. However, if we stop giving them our money, they’ll stop using our money to poison our lives.

    Then, they’ll own nothing. And we’ll all be happy.

    P.S. If you appreciated this article, please consider supporting The Vigilant Citizen through a VC Membership (which allows you to view the site ad-free + a free copy of the VC e-book) or through Patreon (same perks as a VC Membership). Alternatively, you can make one-time donation here. Thank you for your support!

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 23:40

  • Axon Wants "Taser-Equipped Drones" In Schools To Stop Mass Shootings
    Axon Wants “Taser-Equipped Drones” In Schools To Stop Mass Shootings

    Axon is a company formerly known as Taser and manufactures stun guns and body cameras for police departments. In response to the series of mass shootings, they announced Thursday plans to build a stun-gun-equipped drone and artificial intelligence-powered surveillance systems for schools. 

    “Now is the time to make this technology a reality,” said Axon chief executive and founder Rick Smith, “and to begin a robust public discussion around how to ethically introduce nonlethal drones into schools.”

    Smith said the drones and surveillance system are “part of a long-term plan to stop mass shootings” and claimed it could “remotely deploy non-lethal drones capable of incapacitating an active shooter in less than 60 seconds,” he said, adding:

    “In the aftermath of these events, we get stuck in fruitless debates. We need new and better solutions. For this reason, we have elected to publicly engage communities and stakeholders, and develop a remotely operated, non-lethal drone system that we believe will be a more effective, immediate, humane, and ethical option to protect innocent people.”

    But on the same day of the announcement (Thursday), Axon’s ethics advisory board warned against the technology. 

    “With Axon’s acquiescence, the Ethics Board decided to consider only a limited pilot of a Taser-equipped drone, to be used only by the police … Having done this work, and deliberated at length, a majority of the ethics board last month ultimately voted against Axon moving forward, even on those limited terms.

    “Axon’s decision to announce publicly that it is proceeding with developing Taser-equipped drones and robots to be embedded in schools, and operated by someone other than police, gives us considerable pause.

    “Now, Axon has announced it would not limit the technology to policing agencies, but would make it more widely available. And the surveillance aspect of this proposal is wholly new to us. Reasonable minds can differ on the merits of police-controlled Taser-equipped drones – our own board disagreed internally – but we unanimously are concerned with the process Axon has employed regarding this idea of drones in school classrooms,” the board tweeted. 

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    Taser-equipped drones are the latest example of non-lethal technology that schools could add. There will be a lot of public discussion about these drones. Even if they don’t make it into the classrooms, these drones could be deployed by police departments in the not too distant future. Maybe conservative demonstrators have a new threat in the sky while picketing for freedom: stun-gun drones. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 23:20

  • Will Trump Run?
    Will Trump Run?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson, op-ed via Townhall.com,

    Trumpology

    Former President Donald Trump has signaled he will announce his presidential intentions after the November midterm elections. Yet his record of endorsements is quite mixed. By the sheer numbers of winning primary candidates his stamp of approval is impressive, but in a few of the most important races, not so much.

    The disaster that is the Biden Administration has been a godsend for Trump. Had President Joe Biden simply plagiarized the successful Trump agenda, there would have followed no border disaster, no energy crisis, no hyperinflation, and no disastrous flight from Afghanistan.

    Had Biden followed through on his “unity” rhetoric, he could have lorded over Trump’s successful record as his own, while contrasting his Uncle-Joe ecumenicalism with supposed Trump’s polarization.

    Of course, serious people knew from the start that was utterly impossible. A cognitively challenged Biden was a captive of ideologues. Thus, he was bound to pursue an extremist agenda that could only end as it now has — in disaster and record low polls.

    Still, how ironic that the Biden catastrophe revived a Trump candidacy. Biden likely will cause the Democrats to lose Congress. His pick of a dismal Kamala Harris as vice president has likely ensured, for now, fewer viable Democratic presidential candidates in 2024.

    So, will Trump run?

    Some logic might dictate that Trump not try a second campaign. He would be 79. The recent record of doddering septuagenarian and octogenarian politicians — Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein — has warned Americans that one’s late 70s certainly are not, as the Baby Boomer generation may try to hype, the “new 50s.”

    In addition, Trump’s old and new business ventures would take further and greater hits.

    His family would again be targeted and unfairly maligned.

    An otherwise nihilist progressive and media agenda would reawaken solely to destroy Trump — not his policies against which the Left has offered nothing of substance.

    The Trump MAGA legacy is now largely institutionalized.

    All Republican candidates will run on secure borders, energy independence, deregulation, Jacksonian foreign policy, a populist, middle-class, nationalism, and deterrence against China — albeit with much-needed new emphasis on destructive deficit spending.

    Candidates like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, (R-Ark.,) are all close with or have worked for Trump and would, more or less, carry though the Trump agenda.

    The Trump record itself between 2017 and 2021 would be assessed more positively, especially in comparison to what preceded and followed it, and with Trump in retirement.

    On the other hand, in 2016 the Republican field was also hailed as a dream team. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was acclaimed as the hands-on pro who ran a purple state, battling successfully public-employee unions and left-wing monied special interests.

    We know how that field ended.

    Trump supporters would counter that a wiser Trump would hit the ground running. He would likely not recruit disloyal outliers or Republican Party apparatchiks.

    Much less would he trust the ossified hierarchy of the FBI, CIA, DIA, CDC, NIH, or any of the other alphabetic, deep-state soups.

    The Trump base would add that a non-Trump Trump candidate would never endure, much less brawl against, left-wing madness. They would claim that avoiding cul-de-sac spats while doubling down on the Trump agenda sounds nice — in the fashion that, theoretically, there could be sunshine without the sun.

    In the end, none of the above considerations will likely matter.

    Instead, the outcome of the midterms will tell a lot. A clear but not overwhelming Republican win will likely discourage Trump and empower his critics.

    But a historic blowout will spur Trump. In the end, even if most Republicans would prefer he not run, they will likely vote for him over the hard-left alternative.

    As for the Democratic landscape, it will not be the case that Joe Biden may choose to run. He will not run because the decision will not be his.

    Even if he manages to last another two years in office, Democratic grandees know his cognitive faculties are eroding rapidly. They read polls and know what his non compos mentis optics have done to their party.

    These same interests are just as terrified of Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Those two believe that the Biden disaster was not due to his embrace of hard socialism, but to his insufficient embrace of socialism.

    Given the poverty of alternatives, all sorts of names will arise, from Mike Bloomberg-like billionaires and Michelle Obama to most of those dismal 2020 primary retreads.

    In the end, a Republican nominee can win who convincingly promises a secure border, a pathway to a balanced budget, energy independence, a crackdown on crime, and a strong, nonpolitical military with a commitment to missile defense.

    And the nominee would have to do all that neither with gratuitous insults nor playing by wishy-washy Marquess of Queensberry rules against those whose toxic agendas here and abroad have created the present disaster.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 23:00

  • Israel Uses US Weapons To Blow Up US Humanitarian Projects in Gaza
    Israel Uses US Weapons To Blow Up US Humanitarian Projects in Gaza

    In its May 2021 war with Gaza militants, Israel used American weapons to destroy U.S. humanitarian projects and damage an American-owned Coca-Cola bottling plant, according to a report by The Intercept. 

    Damaged or destroyed facilities included: 

    • Hospitals, water treatment and sanitation facilities funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

    • A dozen factories built with USAID money

    • Dozens of schools operated by the U.S. State Department-backed United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

    More than a hundred UNRWA facilities were struck, causing more than a million dollars in damage. 

    The impact is far more than financial. As The Intercept‘s Daniel Boguslaw elaborates: 

    In Khan Yunis, Rafa, and Beit Lahia, wastewater treatment infrastructure and water reservoirs funded by USAID, which the U.S. government spent millions to construct, were destroyed by aerial attacks that affected more than 300,000 civilians. Ninety-seven percent of the water in Gaza is contaminated, resulting in a widespread public health crisis, rendered even worse by the destruction of U.S.-funded water infrastructure.

    The May 2021 war took a steep toll on Gaza, with more than 240 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,000 wounded. Four thousand rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel killed 12.   

    Israel’s periodic devastation of Gaza is often characterized as “mowing the grass.” Yoav Galant, a former Israeli military commander, embraced the philosophy in a radio interview: “This sort of maintenance needs to be carried out from time to time, perhaps even more often.”

    Though Galant and others would suggest such “mowing” is focused on Palestinian military power, Israel’s routine destruction of hospitals, water treatment facilities and other civilian infrastructure suggests Israel strives to keep Gaza in a state of perpetual economic devastation.

    Palestinians return to a devastated Gaza neighborhood in May 2021 (Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty)

    A Coca-Cola factory also came under 2021 Israeli bombardment. Its owner, U.S. citizen Zahi Khouri, said, “We had thousands of pallets burned, and there was damage to the logistics area. There was damage in the industrial estate, but what was also damaged was the investment of Coca-Cola in a project through Mercy Corps where we built a water purification station for a refugee camp.” 

    In a dark twist, the destruction of U.S.-funded civilian infrastructure is accomplished with American-made and/or -funded weapons. The United States and Israel are currently operating within a memorandum of understanding by which Americans are on the hook for $38 billion in military aid over a 10-year period ending in 2028. 

    That’s just a minimum. Congress is free to throw more money at Israel along the way—such as the $1 billion for Iron Dome missile defense it approved in March by a 420-9 vote in the House.  

    Per The Intercept, there’s more to the “special relationship”: 

    The aid system also provides cash-flow financing, a system resembling layaway, that allows Israel to purchase weapons in the present using money from the future. And it contains an offshore procurement exemption—offered to no other country—that allows Israel to spend U.S. tax dollars on its own weapons industry without disclosing how it spent the money to Congress or the American public. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 22:40

  • China Demands US Halt Trade Talks With Taiwan, Requests Meeting With Pentagon Chief
    China Demands US Halt Trade Talks With Taiwan, Requests Meeting With Pentagon Chief

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    China on Thursday called on the US to stop trade talks with Taiwan after Washington and Taipei announced a new initiative aimed at increasing economic cooperation.

    The US and Taiwan announced the initiative on Wednesday, which marked the formal start of trade negotiations. Taiwan’s trade representative, John Deng, will head to Washington next month for the talks.

    US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, via Reuters

    Deng said the initiative cover 11 areas, including “trade facilitation, regulatory practices, agriculture, anti-corruption, supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, digital trade, labor rights, the environment, standards, state-owned enterprises, and non-market practices and policies.”

    The trade talks are the latest example of the US taking steps to boost informal relations with Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the US should “stop negotiating agreements with implications of sovereignty and of official nature, and refrain from sending any wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”

    Zhao also called on the US to stop selling weapons to Taiwan in response to comments from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

    The Pentagon chief said the US “will make available to Taiwan defense articles and services necessary to enable it to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability commensurate with the Chinese threat.”

    Meanwhile, on Friday China’s military has “formally requested a meeting between Defense Secretary Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe in Singapore next week,” according to a senior US defense official.

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    Since severing diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, the US has sold arms to the island, but the US is looking for other ways to support Taiwan militarily. Earlier this week, Taiwanese President Tsai ing-Wen said that Washington is planning to increase “cooperation” between the US National Guard and the US military.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 22:20

  • Baltimore City Mayor Sues Polymer80 For "Public Health Crisis," Ignores Decades Of Failed Liberal Policies 
    Baltimore City Mayor Sues Polymer80 For “Public Health Crisis,” Ignores Decades Of Failed Liberal Policies 

    Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott announced a lawsuit against the nation’s largest ghost gun manufacturer, Polymer80, alleging the company sparked a “public health crisis.”

    “Ghost guns are a devastating menace to the people of Baltimore. 

    “This lawsuit shines a light on Polymer80 and individuals who routinely create a marketplace for deadly, untraceable weapons. The availability of these weapons – particularly to criminals, juveniles and other people who are prohibited from owning a firearm – presents a growing public health crisis. We must stop Polymer80 and companies like it that profit from destroying our communities,” Scott said in a City Hall press release. 

    The lawsuit outlines how Polymer80 undermines federal and state firearms laws, selling ghost gun kits to people who don’t need a background check. 

    “Directly or indirectly through its network of dealers, Polymer80 has flooded Baltimore with these untraceable, unserialized firearms,” the City Hall press release said. 

    “Polymer80 must be held accountable for its role in creating the ghost gun crisis in Baltimore,” said Steve Kelly, Partner and Co-Chair of Sanford Heisler Sharp’s Criminal/Sexual Violence Practice Group.

    “This lawsuit is the first step in accountability and, hopefully, ending the flow of these deadly firearms in the community,” added Brady Senior Litigation Counsel Philip Bangle.

    The suit alleges negligence and public disturbance claims and violation of the Maryland Consumer Protection Act. The mayor seeks compensation from the company for policing costs. 

    However, Mayor Scott appears to be scapegoating five decades of failed Democratic control of the collapsing city on a company founded in 2013. All of a sudden, Baltimore didn’t become a dangerous warzone; it’s been a raging hellhole for decades and in a state of terminal decline for half a century ever since the “white flight” in the 1960s and ’70s and the deindustrialization that followed.

    A failed liberal experiment over half a century destroyed Baltimore; not a company founded less than a decade ago. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 22:00

  • Americans Will Never Forget The Historic Economic Collapse During Joe Biden's Presidency
    Americans Will Never Forget The Historic Economic Collapse During Joe Biden’s Presidency

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    We have faced a lot of significant challenges in modern American history, but nobody will ever forget the economic horror that is breaking loose during Joe Biden’s time in the White House. 

    For years, we were warned that the policies that our leaders were pursuing would destroy the value of our currency and unleash rampant inflation. 

    Now it has happened. 

    For years, we were warned of a looming global energy crisis that would inevitably hit us. 

    Now it is here. 

    But what we have been through already is just the beginning.  The shortages that we are experiencing now will get worse.  Many of the ridiculously high prices that we are seeing now will seem like bargains by the end of the year.  And right now the U.S. economy appears to be rapidly slowing down at the exact same moment that economies all over the globe are moving in the wrong direction.  The CEO of Goldman Sachs just told us that “there’s going to be tougher economic times ahead”, and he is not exaggerating one bit.

    On Thursday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States reached yet another brand new all-time record high…

    US gas prices have hit a new high of $4.71, just a day after hitting the record as seven states top off at $5 a gallon as inflation soars.

    The national average jumped four cents overnight, leaving drivers in even more despair as gas prices continue to skyrocket emptying their wallets.

    If Americans don’t like paying about five bucks a gallon, how are they going to feel when it takes about 10 bucks to buy a gallon of gas?

    Fortunately, we did just get a bit of good news that should provide some temporary relief…

    OPEC and its oil-producing allies agreed on Thursday to hike output in July and August by a larger-than-expected amount as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wreaks havoc on global energy markets.

    OPEC+ will increase production by 648,000 barrels per day in both July and August, bringing forward the end of the historic output cuts OPEC+ implemented during the throes of the Covid pandemic.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t really going to change the trajectory of where we are heading.

    In fact, one energy expert says that this is essentially just a symbolic gesture…

    Robert McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush, said prices rallied Thursday because the OPEC move was “more symbolic than fundamentally significant.”

    “I wouldn’t call it a drop in the bucket. It’s basically a gesture… an important one symbolically,” he told CNN Business.

    What we really need are long-term solutions, and there aren’t any on the horizon.

    And the truth is that we aren’t just facing an oil crisis.  At this stage, the balance between supply and demand has reached a crisis point for all traditional forms of energy simultaneously…

    “Now we have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis at the same time,” Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency watchdog group, told Der Spiegel in an interview published this week. “This energy crisis is much bigger than the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s. And it will probably last longer.”

    The global economy has largely been able to withstand surging energy prices so far. But prices could continue to rise to unsustainable levels as Europe attempts to wean itself off Russian oil and, potentially, gas. Supply shortages could lead to some difficult choices in Europe, including rationing.

    What do you think the European economy will look like when there is widespread rationing of natural gas six months from now?

    Can anyone out there answer that question?

    We have never faced anything like this before, and one industry insider is referring to this as a “perfect storm”…

    Joe McMonigle, secretary general of the International Energy Forum, said he agrees with this depressing forecast from the IEA.

    “We have a serious problem around the world that I think policymakers are just waking up to. It’s kind of a perfect storm,” McMonigle, whose group serves as a go-between for energy producing and consuming nations, told CNN in a phone interview.

    Isn’t it funny how that term keeps popping up?

    For years, I warned that a “perfect storm” was coming over and over again, and now that term has constantly been in the news throughout this year.

    Another element of the “perfect storm” that we are facing is the rapidly growing global food crisis.

    Here in the United States, the bird flu pandemic that has erupted in 2022 has resulted in 38 million chickens and turkeys being wiped out.

    As a consequence, the price of eggs has been soaring to unprecedented levels…

    The price of eggs increased 10.3% in April. The UDSA predicts an increase between 19.5% and 20.5% year over year in 2022. That could mean $1.00 an egg. Poultry prices will rise as much as 9.5%.

    Did you ever imagine that you would be paying a dollar for a single egg?

    I still remember when you could get an entire carton of eggs for one dollar.

    Chicken meat and turkey meat will be getting more expensive too, and now we are being warned that shortages are coming.

    In fact, the CEO of Hormel Foods is openly telling us that “large supply gaps in the Jennie-O Turkey Store will begin in the third quarter”…

    A top US food processing company warned of an upcoming shortage of its turkey products at supermarkets following one of the worst bird flu outbreaks.

    “Our Jennie-O Turkey Store team is facing an uncertain period ahead,” Hormel Foods Corporation CEO Jim Snee told investors in an earnings call. “Similar to what we experienced in 2015, (avian influenza) is expected to have a meaningful impact on poultry supplies over the coming months.”

    Snee said the “large supply gaps in the Jennie-O Turkey Store will begin in the third quarter.” He said highly pathogenic avian influenza was confirmed in “our supply chain” in March.

    In case you didn’t get the point of what he was saying, “large supply gaps” is a politically correct way of saying “widespread shortages”.

    Speaking of shortages, the baby formula shortage in the United States is now worse than ever…

    But, as Bloomberg reports, out-of-stock rates climbed to 74% nationally for the week ending May 28, according to data on 130,000 stores followed by Datasembly. The increase comes after rates spiked to 70% for the week ending May 21 from 45% the week prior.

    Even more stunningly, ten states now have shortage rates at 90% or greater, with Georgia hardest hit at 94%.

    The Biden administration made a really big deal out of the fact that they were flying in baby formula from Europe, but once again that turned out to mostly be a symbolic gesture.

    As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, an increasing number of Americans will fall into poverty and hunger.  In fact, according to NPR “demand at food banks is way up again”, and many of those food banks are already at a crisis point…

    Fitzgerald, of Feeding America, says providers around the country are dipping into emergency reserves, switching to cheaper products, limiting how often people can visit or how much food they can get, and “stretching their inventory to be able to meet more people’s needs.”

    If our food banks are in such distress now, what will things be like six months or a year from today?

    Because the truth is that food supplies are only going to get tighter.

    The winter wheat harvest in the U.S. is going to come in way, way below original expectations.  In fact, we are being told that the winter wheat harvest in Kansas could be down “by more than 25%”…

    The U.S. winter wheat harvest potential in Kansas has dipped by more than 25% because of severe drought, and farmers in the state may leave thousands of acres of wheat in fields this year instead of paying to harvest the grain hit by the dry winter.

    Looking ahead, a lot less wheat is being planted for the coming growing season because of extremely bizarre weather patterns in some areas.

    For example, the amount of wheat that is currently being planted in North Dakota is expected to be the smallest ever recorded…

    Some farmers in North Dakota are unable to plant as much wheat as they normally would because of heavy rain across the state.

    Government data shows the state is expected to plant wheat over the smallest recorded share of its farmland.

    For much more on why U.S. food production is going to continue to shrink in the months ahead, please see this article.

    The bottom line is that we are facing really severe problems that are not going to go away any time soon.

    And if you are waiting for Joe Biden to come to the rescue, you are going to be waiting for a very long time…

    The president of the United States says he understands that inflation is impacting family budgets. But on Wednesday, he said he’s not “aware” of any “immediate action” that would reduce food and fuel prices.

    “[W]e can’t take immediate action, that I’m aware of yet, to figure out how we bring down the price of gasoline back to three dollars a gallon. And we can’t do that immediately with regard to food prices, either,” Biden said.

    A historic economic nightmare is here, and the guy in the White House is all out of answers.

    So buckle up and try to enjoy the ride.

    The months ahead are going to be quite chaotic, and you probably don’t even want to think about what is coming after that.

    *  *  *

    It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 21:40

  • Pot, Meet Kettle: Putin Has An 'Almost Messianic Belief In Himself', Says Hillary Clinton
    Pot, Meet Kettle: Putin Has An ‘Almost Messianic Belief In Himself’, Says Hillary Clinton

    In as good an example as we’ve ever seen of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an international audience in the UK that Russian President Vladimir Putin has as an “almost messianic belief in himself”.

    He’s bent on “restoring imperial Russia,” she said. Clinton issued the criticism at the Hay festival, a literature and arts event hosted annually in Wales. But despite denouncing Putin as having a “messianic” complex, she didn’t miss yet another opportunity to blame everyone but herself for losing to Donald Trump in 2016. It’s a theme that’s been on repeat for years, and again on Friday she told the audience: 

    “Putin does not like critics, especially women critics. Putin then became very adversarial toward me with few exceptions. As we know, despite efforts to say to the contrary, he worked very hard to get Trump elected through all kinds of means.”

    During better days of their “positive” interaction. AFP via Getty Images

    Her sour grapes narrative has now evolved to not only having lost because of those pesky election interfering Russians, but because Putin doesn’t like women, apparently.

    And yet, she pivoted to recalling a prior “positive” working relationship with the Russian leader, according to The Guardian: 

    Clinton recalled that she “had some positive developments” working closely with Putin between 2009 and 2013 when he was prime minister of Russia, but the relationship soured when she criticized the “blatantly crooked” elections which returned him to the presidency in 2012.

    But after these positive years of “working closely” – Putin supposedly turned to not liking women critics, after which he “became very adversarial” to Clinton – which is what led to her lost presidential bid, in her telling of it.

    Her comments included a brief assessment of the Ukraine conflict, suggesting that Russia had been thwarted in its broader war aims: 

    Clinton said in a clip Hay Festival posted on its Facebook page that one of the issues with regimes like Putin’s is leaders are often told what they want to hear instead of the reality of a situation, leading to Putin’s faulty expectations for the war. 

    “Putin was told that he could get to Kyiv in three days and install a puppet government, and he could basically control Ukraine,” she said. “That’s what he was told, and it turned out to be, thankfully, wrong.”

    She further said she wants to see an international war crimes tribunal convict Putin and top Russian officials for crimes against humanity, but admitted that it’s “always difficult to go after a head of state.”

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

    “When he invaded Ukraine I was sadly not surprised. I was very pleasantly surprised at how effective the government of [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy and Ukraine defended themselves,” she added.

    * * *

    And not missing an opportunity as a member of the global elite to virtue signal her cringeworthy activism, she posted this on Friday:

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    To which she got the appropriate response…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 21:20

  • The Founders & The Twitter Mob
    The Founders & The Twitter Mob

    Authored by Rob Natelson via The Epoch Times,

    Over the past two centuries, our Constitution has done a good job of curbing the menace of mob behavior. Unfortunately, social media has created new challenges by re-empowering political mobs – notably, but not exclusively, the “Twitter Mob.”

    In this essay, I discuss the risks mobs pose to republican political systems. I explain how the American Founders addressed those risks and how modern social media has re-created some of them. At the end, I propose two partial remedies. I encourage readers and policymakers to think of others.

    The Historical Background

    Most early republics—such as the democratic republics of ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, and various Swiss cantons—relied on mass citizen assemblies to elect magistrates and approve laws. In theory, these assemblies were deliberative. In fact, they often degenerated into irrational fury. Later generations referred to them as “mobs,” an abbreviation of the Latin phrase vulgus mobile, meaning “the fickle common people.”

    Mobs proved to be terrible decision makers. A military victory might inflate a citizen assembly into thoughtless arrogance and overreaching. A military defeat might foster a panicked and foolish response.

    A voting mob could make a wild decision in the heat of Monday and regret it in the cool dawn of Tuesday. In 427 BCE, for example, the Athenian assembly voted to slaughter all male citizens of the city of Mytilene and enslave the rest—only to reverse its order the following day. Mobs issued decrees of exile against Aristides and Cicero, and later rescinded those decrees.

    But sometimes a foolish mob action could not be reversed, such as the execution of Socrates by a 500-member “jury” or the Athenian decision (in 416 BCE) to massacre the inhabitants of the island of Melos.

    Mob mischief often was not entirely spontaneous. Some people (today we euphemistically call them “activists”) learned how to raise and direct mobs. They planted rumors and gossip and spread panic and misinformation. They became adept at fostering “momentum” to persuade others to join the cause. They employed bribery as another form of persuasion. They intimidated, exiled, and crushed dissenters.

    Activists might do such things for their own purposes or as agents for ambitious demagogues or wealthy paymasters.

    If such events sound distant, recall the Black Lives Matter/Antifa mobs of less than two years ago: Activists—funded and facilitated by donors, demagogues, legacy media, and social media—stoked mobs that destroyed property, intimidated public officials, stifled dissent, and killed people.

    More on modern mobs below.

    The American Founders Recognized the Risk of Mobs

    The American Founders favored republican government, but they also knew of republics’ turbulent history. In the ninth essay of “The Federalist,” Alexander Hamilton observed:

    “It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.”

    In No. 10 of “The Federalist,” James Madison described the related concept of faction:

    “By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

    Factions often operated through mob-like behavior, promoting, Madison wrote, “[a] rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project.”

    The Founders Addressed How to Curb Mobs

    Unlike Marxists, the Founders recognized that human nature remains relatively constant. Mob activity appeals to many people because humans are gregarious (a word derived from the Latin word for “herd”). Most people like to be part of a group, especially a group with a cause. It makes them feel virtuous and secure. Because many people are unsure of their own critical faculties, they are comforted by the belief that thousands of others feel the same way they do.

    Thus, Madison concluded that “the causes of faction cannot be removed … [so] relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.”

    The Constitution’s framers studied history and political systems carefully to determine what institutions and laws could reduce mob activity, or at least reduce the damage it caused. They adopted a system of “mixed” government—that is, government comprised of democratic, monarchical, and aristocratic elements. They created a representative, bicameral Congress. They adopted fixed terms of office, checks and balances, and specific protections for dissenters and other minorities.

    Because mobs could upset small polities more readily than large ones, the framers favored lodging additional power in a central government.

    Enter Technology

    New technology can either reduce or increase dangers from mob activity. For example, 19th-century developments in telecommunications enabled states to adopt systems of direct democracy (initiative and referendum) without the need for thousands of voters to assemble in one place. On the other hand, 21st-century social media technology has made it easier to raise and manipulate mobs—a situation the authoritarian left has been quick to exploit.

    Of course, the Twitter mob and its counterparts are not made up of people physically together in one place. Moreover, because of the American Founders’ reforms, they can’t control government policy directly. But in other respects, they resemble traditional mobs both in their behavior and the risks they pose:

    • Intra-mob communication is very fast;

    • rumors, half-truths, and disinformation are spread before they can be rebutted;

    • ambitious or ideologically driven activists feed the fury, often facilitated by demagogues and wealthy donors;

    • an illusion of momentum pushes people to join the movement;

    • dissent is crushed—or, in modern parlance, “canceled;” and

    • the causes promoted usually meet Madison’s classification as “improper and wicked;” recent examples include attempts to corrupt the courts and intimidate the police, promotion of race hatred, demands for race-based property redistribution, and (particularly on campuses) suppression of free speech.

    Addressing the Problems

    As the Founders recognized, the human impulse toward mob behavior is not going to disappear. But reforms can limit its influence. Here are two partial responses to the risks posed by social media mobs:

    First: Political decisions have become far more centralized in Washington, D.C. than the Founders envisioned. Modern mobsters take advantage of this. Decentralization is one way to counter them. The more political decisions are made at the state and local level, the less influence nationwide mobs will have.

    Experience tells us that the only way to bring about decentralization is through a constitutional amendment proposed by a convention of the states.

    Repealing or Enforcing Section 230

    We must remove the legal immunities social media enjoy when they quash dissent. Canceling is immoral and, when carried out in conjunction with government officials, unconstitutional. And by fostering an echo chamber of mutually reinforcing views, cancellation provokes mob behavior.

    Illustrating the heavy hand of social media company censorship is the experience of my fellow Epoch Times columnist Roger Simon. As he reported on May 6, he had been recently “canceled by Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all without explanation.”

    Social media companies based their right to cancel on Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act. Section 230 protects social media companies from damages caused by untrue and harmful content, but only if they comply with certain standards of impartiality. Social media companies point out that Section 230 allows them to remove “otherwise objectionable” material without losing their immunity.

    I rebutted their position in a previous essay. As both the text of the law and its legislative history make clear, “otherwise objectionable” doesn’t mean “whatever the company doesn’t like” or “whatever the company disagrees with politically.” Rather, “otherwise objectionable” refers solely to material harmful to children.

    Once Republicans re-take control of the federal government, they should either enforce Section 230 or repeal the protection it gives to social media companies for the damage they cause.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 21:00

  • Lumber Prices Crash 50% As Fed Tightens 
    Lumber Prices Crash 50% As Fed Tightens 

    Lumber prices have been halved since the Federal Reserve embarked on its most aggressive interest rate tightening campaign in decades as the pandemic boom in housing slows.

    Lumber contracts trading on the CME crashed to $653 per thousand board feet, down 51% from a high in late February of $1,336. The decline in wood prices occurred about two weeks before the Fed began hiking interest rates in mid-March. 

    The Fed is expected to continue raising rates this summer. Interest rate probabilities show the Fed could hike by 50bps at three of the next FOMC meetings to suppress consumption and get inflation under control ahead of the midterm elections. However, that’s going to be a challenging task, which may cause a hard landing in the economy.

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s pursuit of finding the neutral rate has already unleashed a rate shock in the housing market, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage shooting up more than 200bps this year, from 320 bps to 557 bps. This has crushed activity for refinancing houses (remodeling) and sent mortgage applications (home construction) plunging, a sign the housing market is cooling. 

    Signs of a slowdown in construction are already materializing: “Buyers don’t have the same mentality of having to go out and buy 10 when they only need five,” Ash Boeckholt, co-founder and chief revenue officer at online wood-products marketplace MaterialsXchange, told WSJ. 

    A monthly survey from John Burns Real Estate Consulting of building-products dealers shows only 12% had tight lumber inventories in April, down 61% from last year. Lumber is a leading indicator and suggests higher prices and soaring interest rates have helped fix shortages that were stoked during the pandemic lockdowns of easy money and robust demand for housing. 

    Lumber is still double the price of the three-decade trend of $359. Matthew Saunders, who leads John Burns Real Estate Consulting, said that prices are expected to stay above pre-pandemic levels despite improving supply chains and falling demand for wood. 

    “We believe that they will trade above long-term averages for the balance of the year. However, in the short term, lumber is down more than 50% from the most recent peak. The market is trying to determine where the new price equilibrium compared to slowing demand and increased supply,” Josh Goodman, vice president of inventory and purchasing at Sherwood Lumber, told GlobeSt.com. 

    Another sign lumber demand is declining is directly from one of the largest wood producers in North America, Canfor Corp, who reduced operating schedules at sawmills in Western Canada. Since March, Canfor has operated sawmills at 80% of production capacity. 

    On the retail side, traders and analysts have noticed slumping demand for lumber at Home Depot and Lowe’s as consumers shift away from home-improvement projects to spending money on vacations. 

    The Fed will frontload interest rate hikes this summer which could pressure lumber prices even lower. Perhaps, if some readers have been waiting to build a deck or fence and didn’t want to pay crazy COVID prices, now could be the time to build (despite paying high labor costs). 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 20:40

  • Russia Hits Hobbled Chip Market, Limiting Export Of Noble Gases
    Russia Hits Hobbled Chip Market, Limiting Export Of Noble Gases

    In the latest salvo in an expanding world trade war, sanctions-battered Russia has announced it will limit the export of noble gases, a key ingredient in the manufacture of semiconductor chips. 

    Through Dec. 31, any export of those gases will require special permission from the Russian government. According to Russia’s trade ministry, Russia accounts for nearly a third of the world’s supply of three such gases—neon, krypton and xenon.  

    “We believe that we will have an opportunity to be heard in this global chain, and this will give us some competitive advantage if it is necessary to build mutually beneficial negotiations with our colleagues,” Russian deputy trade minister Vasily Shpak told Reuters on Thursday.

    The Ukraine war has already taken a toll on the supply of noble gases. Via two companies—Ingas and Cryoin—Ukraine itself supplies half the world’s neon. Both companies shut down in March. Neon is used in lasers during lithography, a part of the chipmaking process where patterns are carved into silicon. 

    The Russian move promises to prolong a worldwide semiconductor supply crisis that’s already wreaking havoc for a wide swath of industries that use the increasingly ubiquitous chips.   

    Speaking on Tuesday—before Russia’s announcement—U.S. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, citing conversations with chipmaker CEOs, warned the shortage was likely to last “deep into 2023, possibly early ’24 before we see any real relief.” 

    Russia’s import of finished semiconductors has been severely pinched by sanctions in the wake of the country’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. According to the Financial Times: 

    Most of the world’s largest chip manufacturers, including Intel, Samsung, TSMC and Qualcomm, have halted business to Russia entirely after the US, UK, and Europe imposed export controls on products using chips made or designed in the US or Europe.

    Taiwan—the top producer of chips in general and 92% of the most advanced ones —has also limited exports to Russia.

    Russia’s Shpak said the limit on Russian noble gas exports would serve as an opportunity to “rearrange those chains that have now been broken and build new ones.” 

    In addition to choking Russia’s access to foreign chips, the U.S. government has attacked Russia’s own chip industry: On March 31, the Treasury announced sanctions against Mikron, Russia’s top producer.

    Despite having chip manufacturers of its own, Russia is heavily dependent on imports to meet its needs. Meanwhile, the general worldwide shortage of the product means that even attempts by Russia to circumvent sanctions via “gray market” supply chains can’t be very fruitful. 

    “We plan to increase our production capacity (of noble gases) in the near future,” said Shpak. However, he tied that aspiration to “successful” trade negotiations with other countries and, implicitly, an easing of sanctions on Russia.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 20:00

  • Biden's Inner Trudeau: On Guns, The President Seems To Be Operating Under The Wrong Constitution
    Biden’s Inner Trudeau: On Guns, The President Seems To Be Operating Under The Wrong Constitution

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in The Hill on the calls for gun bans after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. The massacre has already been used as the basis for calls to end the filibuster, pack the court, limits on gun ownership, and outright bans. One member called for all of the above. The rhetoric is again outstripping the reality of constitutional and practical limits for gun control.

    Last night, President Joe Biden formally called for banning “assault weapons” while repeating the dubious claim that an earlier ban sharply reduced mass shootings.

    Here is the column:

    In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.

    Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster.

    The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.

    Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”

    The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.

    While the White House subsequently tried to walk back his comments, Biden saying there’s “no rational basis” to own 9mms and AR-15s sounds like he’s channeling his inner Canadian.

    There is now a strong majority for gun control reforms. However, politicians are once again ignoring what is constitutionally possible by focusing on what is politically popular with their voting base.

    In the past, politicians in cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., have proven to be the gun lobby’s greatest asset. They have pushed ill-considered legislation and litigation that only served to create precedent against gun control. The same pattern seems to be playing out as leaders like Biden and Harris voice sweeping, unsupportable statements about guns and constitutional protections. For example, despite being repeatedly corrected, President Biden continues to repeat the same false statements about bans on weapons when the Second Amendment was ratified.

    Those false statements can be dismissed as just another “Corn Pop” story, but they refer to the constitutional foundation for gun control. This concern is magnified by other recent claims that would quickly collapse in court. For example, in support of the ban on AR-15s, Harris declared:

    “Do you know what an assault weapon is? It was designed for a specific purpose, to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war, with no place, no place in a civil society.”

    Courts do not interpret the Constitution by soundbites but, rather, by sound historical and textual arguments. Courts likely would press the Biden administration on why it is seeking to ban this model when other higher-caliber weapons are sold. AR-15s can handle a variety of calibers. However, they are no more powerful than other semi-automatic rifles of the same caliber and actually have a lower caliber than some commonly sold weapons which use .30-06, .308 and .300 ammunition; many of these guns fire at the same — or near the same rate — as the AR-15. None of these weapons are classified as actual military “assault weapons,” and most civilians cannot own an automatic weapon.

    President Biden showed the same disconnect as Harris between the factual and the rhetorical basis for some gun-control measures. He condemned “high-caliber weapons” like 9mm handguns and said “a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”

    While gun experts mocked the notion that 9mm rounds blow organs out of bodies, the president’s singling out of these handguns led many to cry foul about using the Uvalde massacre to impose a Canadian-like ban or moratorium. The 9mm round is the most popular handgun caliber in the U.S., with more than half of all handguns produced in 2019 using that round, according to Shooting Industry magazine. If Biden pushed a ban, he would target more than 40 percent of all pistols produced in the U.S.

    In addition to repeating (for the second time in two days) a false claim that certain weapons were banned at the ratification of the Second Amendment, Biden made the claim that an assault weapons ban in the 1990s “significantly cut down mass murders.”

    There is small support for saying that earlier ban on assault weapons had any appreciable impact on mass murders; there is no support for saying it caused a reduction in gun violence overall. Thankfully, mass shootings are statistically rare. Even studies that noted a drop in mass shootings during this earlier period noted that such a cause-and-effect claim is “inconclusive.”

    Moreover, the earlier ban was imposed in 1994 — before the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the right to bear arms is an individual right. Any such ban today would face a far greater court challenge and would require a far more compelling factual foundation to pass constitutional muster.

    While making these dubious claims, President Biden stressed that “I can’t dictate this stuff … I can’t outlaw a weapon.” He added: “I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it. At least, that’s my hope and prayer.”

    There is room for rational reforms, ranging from better funding of mental illness treatment to “red flag” laws. However, a “hope and prayer” is unlikely to succeed if the president continues to inject hype and politics into our national debate over gun control.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 19:40

  • The 2022 Bilderberg Agenda: Disinformation, Deglobalization, & Disruption Of The Global Financial System
    The 2022 Bilderberg Agenda: Disinformation, Deglobalization, & Disruption Of The Global Financial System

    Every year, the world’s richest and most powerful business executives, bankers, media heads, academic thought leaders, and politicians gather behind closed doors and discuss how to shape the world while perpetuating a status quo that has been highly beneficial for a select few. We are talking, of course, about the annual, and always super secretive, Bilderberg meeting.

    The 68th Bilderberg Meeting is already underway in Washington, D.C., which began on Thursday and will continue through Sunday. 

    Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Henry Kissinger, and CIA Director William J. Burns are among the 120 invitees (click here for the full list) this year from 21 countries… though not many Russians.

    Bilderberg prides itself for enforcing the Chatham House Rule,  according to which participants are free to use all the precious information they wish because those who attend these meetings are bound to not disclose the source of any sensitive information or what exactly was said. That helps ensure Bilderberg’s legendary secrecy – the reason for myriad conspiracy theories. But, as Pepe Escobar notes, that does not mean that the odd secret may not be revealed.

    According to the group, this is the lineup of topics to be discussed: 

    1. Geopolitical Realignments

    2. NATO Challenges

    3. China

    4. Indo-Pacific Realignment

    5. Sino-US Tech Competition

    6. Russia

    7. Continuity of Government and the Economy

    8. Disruption of the Global Financial System

    9. Disinformation

    10. Energy Security and Sustainability

    11. Post-Pandemic Health

    12. Fragmentation of Democratic Societies

    13. Trade and Deglobalisation

    14. Ukraine

    As can be seen, the members (two thirds of the participants from Europe and the rest from North America) will be discussing (plotting?) ways to manage the emergence of a bipolar world. Also, the agenda appears to be a direction away from freedom as the group will discuss plans to combat “Disinformation,” or elites silencing their opponents. 

    The lead topic through the weekend will be “Geopolitical Realignments” following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The second is “NATO Challenges” and likely how European members will deter Russian aggression. And the third is China, as Beijing threatens to invade Taiwan. 

    Ultimately, what is decided will never see the light of day, though it will emerge as official policy that helps serve the Bilderberg elite. And if history is any indicator, it will only worsen the current global situation.

    “If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspiracy of some sort, it is conducted in such a way as to give a remarkably good imitation of one,” 

    – C. Gordon Tether, a writer for the Financial Times, once opined in May 1975. 

    And here’s how the Bilderberg Group controls the world. 

    Meanwhile… 

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    Since the group of elites has been meeting regularly for decades, we’re sure the events over the last few years have nothing to do with them.

    Finally, we note Alastair Crooke’s belief that the beginning of the end of the Bilderberg/Soros vision is in sight. 

    The Old Order will cling on, even to the last of its fingernails. The Bilderberg vision is the notion of multi-cultural, international cosmopolitanism that surpasses old-time nationalism; heralding the end of frontiers; and leading toward a US-led, ‘technocratic’, global economic and political governance. 

    Its roots lie with figures such as James Burnham, an anti-Stalin, former Trotskyite, who, writing as early as 1941, advocated for the levers of financial and economic power being placedin the hands of a management class: an élite – which alone would be capable of running the contemporary state – thanks to this élite’s market and financial technical nous. It was, bluntly, a call for an expert, technocratic oligarchy. 

    Burnham renounced his allegiance to Trotsky and Marxism, in all its forms in 1940, but he would take the tactics and strategies for infiltration and subversion, (learned as a member of Leon Trotsky’s inner circle) with him, and would elevate the Trotskyist management of ‘identity politics’ to become the fragmentation ‘device’ primed to explode national culture onto a new stage, in the Western sphere. His 1941 book, “The Managerial Revolution,” caught the attention of Frank Wisner, subsequently, a legendary CIA figure, who saw in the works of Burnham and his colleague a fellow Trotskyite, Sidney Hook, the prospect of mounting an effective alliance of former Trotskyites against Stalinism.

    But, additionally, Wisner perceived its merits as the blueprint for a CIA-led, pseudo-liberal, US-led global order. (‘Pseudo’, because, as Burnham articulated clearly, in The Machiavellians, Defenders of Freedom, his version of freedom meant anything but intellectual freedom or those freedoms defined by America’s Constitution. “What it really meant was conformity and submission”).

    In short, (as Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould have noted), “by 1947, James Burnham’s transformation from Communist radical, to New World Order American conservative was complete. His Struggle for the World, [converted into a memo for the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner of CIA)], had done a ‘French Turn’ on Trotsky’s permanent Communist revolution, and turned it into a permanent battle plan for a global American empire. All that was needed to complete Burnham’s dialectic was a permanent enemy, and that would require a sophisticated psychological campaign to keep the hatred of Russia alive, “for generations”.

    Still, as Charlie Skelton previously wrote, the biggest ethical question faced by the summit is not whether to milk the madness of war for profit. Bombing and rebuilding countries, missiles and debt, that’s all fine: that’s just how neoliberalism works. What’s tougher to justify, within a democratic framework, is the practical process whereby conflicts are being debated, behind closed doors, by top policymakers in concert with billionaire industrialists and private sector profiteers. The prime minister of the Netherlands discussing global flashpoints in luxurious privacy with the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell and the chairman of Goldman Sachs International. It’s horrible optics.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 19:20

  • Peer-Reviewed Studies Confirm Vaccine/Mask Mandates Did Not Stop COVID Spread In Schools & Universities
    Peer-Reviewed Studies Confirm Vaccine/Mask Mandates Did Not Stop COVID Spread In Schools & Universities

    Authored by Enrico Trigoso via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    During the Covid-19 pandemic, school and university administrators have dogmatically, and in many cases forcefully implemented mask and vaccine mandates with the intention to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV2, however, these policies haven’t had much effect, according to recent peer-reviewed studies.

    Students wear face masks as they attend class on the first day of school in Montreal on Aug. 31, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes)

    A research paper published on May 18 underscores the deficiencies of current mask and vaccination mandates, as these policies did not contain the spread of SARS-CoV2 at Cornell University.

    Despite the university having required masks on campus, isolation, and contact tracing within hours of any positive result, the paper recognizes that: “Cornell’s experience shows that traditional public health interventions were not a match for Omicron. While vaccination protected against severe illness, it was not sufficient to prevent rapid spread, even when combined with other public health measures including widespread surveillance testing.”

    Another study found that secondary transmissions were “markedly lower in school compared with household settings, suggesting that household transmission is more important than school transmission in this pandemic.”

    Toward the end of the semester in 2021, the almost completely vaccinated Cornell University shut down its campus due to a surge in COVID cases.

    “Mask mandates have failed to control the spread of infection in schools, as this analysis of schools with and without mask mandates demonstrates. Prior studies have demonstrated that COVID vaccines do not prevent the spread of transmission,” Dr. Sanjay Verma told The Epoch Times, referring to the May 18 study.

    Dr. Verma, a cardiologist practicing in California who has seen a spike in heart problems since mass vaccine implementation, thinks that the mask and vaccine mandates were not the best way to handle COVID.

    “There was little, if any, emphasis on other more effective mitigation efforts: Ventilation-filtration, exercise, weight loss, and personal responsibility would be far more effective.”

    “So these school and university mandates beg the question: what are they hoping to achieve?” he asked rhetorically.

    COVID-19 case trends and key events at Cornell University. (JAMA Network)

    Former Pfizer VP Michael Yeadon, a toxicologist and allergy/respiratory research expert, maintains that since the infection fatality ratio (IFR) of COVID-19 has not been high, the vaccines should not have been mandated, and that the masks were known to be useless in stopping respiratory viruses from previous scientific literature.

    “It was known long before COVID-19 that face masks don’t do anything,” Yeadon said in a statement he sent to The Epoch Times.

    “Many don’t know that blue medical masks aren’t filters. Your inspired and expired air moves in and out between the mask & your face. They are splashguards, that’s all.”

    “This is a good review of the findings with masks in respiratory viruses by a recognized expert in the field. No effect,” Yeadon added. “Neither masks nor lockdowns prevented the spread of the virus. [Here is] a review and summary of 400 papers.”

    “We know from recent research that COVID vaccines increase the risk of myocarditis, especially in males 16–29 years old,” Dr. Verma further noted.

    “The putative and unproven benefits of such school and university policies need to be balanced with the very real risks (no matter how rare they may seem). Also, we must not forget that CDC data reveals zero excess deaths in 0–24 [year olds] in 2020 and 2021 compared to prior years. The overall hospitalization rate and IFR for this age group are very low and do not seem to warrant such mandates, which seem to be ineffective in stopping the spread anyway. Public health officials would better serve the public by emphasizing N95 masks for all high-risk individuals, ventilation-filtration improvements, exercise and weight loss, and isolating when symptomatic.”

    Another study from May 25 found “no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates,” after replicating a “highly cited CDC study showing a negative association between school mask mandates and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases,” with a larger sample of districts and a longer time interval.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 19:00

  • China Will Partner With Russia To Promote 'Real Democracy': Wang
    China Will Partner With Russia To Promote ‘Real Democracy’: Wang

    Yesterday, Chinese minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi said China will collaborate with Russia to advance “real democracy.” 

    “China is willing to work together with Russia and the global community to promote real democracy based on nations’ own conditions,” Wang said in remarks delivered by video link to a China-Russia think tank summit. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, also participated. 

    “China and Russia should continue to join hands with peace-loving countries in the world to safeguard the global order with the UN at its core and based on international laws,” said Wang.

    According to The Independent, in an apparent reference to U.S. foreign policy, “Wang said ‘monopolising’ the definition of democracy and human rights to influence other nations was a tactic ‘doomed to fail’.”

    In thinly-veiled criticism of U.S.-led NATO expansion and economic warfare via sanctions, Wang said global security shouldn’t be pursued by “strengthening military groups” and “fragmenting supply chains.” 

    Consistent with that notion of resistance to the West’s multi-front sanction attacks, last week China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored UN resolution that would have imposed new sanctions on North Korea in response to the country’s 23 intercontinental ballistic missile tests this year.

    The Security Council vote was 15-2. After, China and Russia called instead for renewed dialogue. 

    In his Wednesday remarks, Wang said China and Moscow will “continue to make important contributions” to international relations as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. 

    China has taken an official stance of neutrality regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, while China and Russia are in frequent, high-profile diplomatic contact, Chinese president Xi Jinping reportedly hasn’t spoken to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky since the war began on February 24. 

    Meanwhile, as Russia is battered by sanctions on a variety of its exports, China’s imports from Russia in April surged 57% over the year before. 

    While Russia is under fire from the West over the invasion of Ukraine, China has fostered its own set of international tensions with saber-rattling rhetoric over Taiwan.

    The China-Russia relationship has “withstood the new test of the changing international situation, maintained the correct direction of progress, and shown tenacious development momentum,” Wang said Wednesday. 

    Presidents Xi and Vladimir Putin met in Beijing three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their governments issued a joint statement declaring that “friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.” 

    As Reuters reported at the time, “The agreement marked the most detailed and assertive statement of Russian and Chinese resolve to work together to build a new international order based on their view of human rights and democracy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 18:40

  • New Republican Bill Would Criminalize Supreme Court Leaks
    New Republican Bill Would Criminalize Supreme Court Leaks

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A group of 12 House Republicans introduced a bill in Congress this week that would make knowingly sharing confidential information from the Supreme Court a crime punishable by a fine or as many as five years in prison.

    A double layer of barricades surrounds the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 10, 2022. (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times)

    The legislation comes a month after a leaked draft majority opinion indicated the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, the seminal 1973 precedent that federalized abortion policy, overriding the states and making the procedure lawful throughout the entire United States. The landmark 7-2 decision held that a woman’s right to an abortion was safeguarded by her right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment. Politico published the draft decision written by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on May 2.

    Left-wing critics were outraged that the high court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade, while conservatives were angered that the leak, perpetrated by a person or persons still unknown, appeared calculated to inflame public opinion and persuade the justices to reconsider reversing the 49-year-old abortion precedent. Some have argued the unprecedented leak of the full opinion is a kind of terrorist attack on the judicial branch of the federal government.

    The proposed Leaker Accountability Act is a three-page bill (pdf) whose principal sponsor is House Republican Conference vice chairman Mike Johnson (R-La.). GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is also a sponsor. The bill was introduced May 31.

    “The unauthorized leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health constitutes a grave breach of judicial ethics and a deliberate attack on the independence of the Supreme Court,” Johnson said in a statement.

    “This legislation is now, unfortunately, a necessary step to discourage future such attempts to intimidate justices during their deliberative process and restore independence to the Court so that it can ensure the American people are afforded equal and impartial justice under the law,” Johnson said.

    “The institution of the court has been damaged and we must do what we can to try to repair it.”

    The bill states that any officer or employee of the Supreme Court who is engaged in “knowingly publishing, divulging, disclosing, or making known in any manner or to any extent not authorized by law any confidential information coming to that officer or employee in the course of the employment or official duties of that officer or employee shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years or fined … or both.”

    The measure defines confidential information as including “internal notes on cases heard by the Supreme Court, any communication between a Justice of the Supreme Court and an employee or officer of the Supreme Court or communication between officers and employees of the Supreme Court on a matter pending before the Supreme Court, a draft opinion, a final opinion prior to the date on which such opinion is released to the public, personal information of a Justice of the Supreme Court that is not otherwise legally available to the public, and any other information designated to be confidential by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

    Supreme Court law clerks, who assist the court’s nine justices, have been asked by court investigators to produce personal cellphone records and swear affidavits. Some clerks are reportedly considering retaining outside legal counsel to safeguard their legal rights, according to CNN.

    A legal expert consulted by The Epoch Times said the proposed Leaker Accountability Act seems like a good idea.

    Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said in an interview that federal laws already prevent employees in the government’s executive branch from leaking certain information.

    “Why should that not apply to [Supreme Court] clerks as well?”

    The leak has “shaken the collegiality of the court and trust in the court,” Levey said. This bill “could definitely restore that.”

    “I would definitely think [the bill is] a step in the right direction,” Levey said, adding he hoped it would enjoy bipartisan support.

    “I know that there’s plenty of people on the left who consider the leaker to be a hero,” but they should realize “the next leak could come from a conservative clerk, assuming this one came from a clerk.”

    “Everyone really does have a stake in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. I know the left doesn’t feel that way, but just think about all the Supreme Court rulings that the left cherishes that may not have been adhered to if people didn’t consider the Supreme Court legitimate.”

    “This is not a conservative or liberal bill,” Levey said. “It’s common sense.”

    Levey’s nonprofit describes itself as “devoted to restoring the Founders’ vision of a federal judiciary governed by the rule of law and anchored by the Constitution.”

    It is unclear when the Supreme Court will release its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. At issue is Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, which allows abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation only for medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality. Citing Roe v. Wade, lower courts held that the state statute was unconstitutional.

    Oral arguments in the Dobbs case were heard by the Supreme Court on Dec. 1, 2021.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 18:20

  • Amidst A Supply Chain Crisis, US Is Cracking Down Even Further On "Forced Labor" Products From China
    Amidst A Supply Chain Crisis, US Is Cracking Down Even Further On “Forced Labor” Products From China

    At a time when the global supply chain can least afford it, the U.S. is cracking down on products potentially coming from forced labor camps in China. 

    Starting June 21, a new law is going to ban imported goods that have been partly or wholly made in Xinjiang, unless companies can prove that the products have “no ties to forced labor”, according to a Bloomberg report. 

    The law was passed unanimously by Congress and had “strong support” from unions and activists, the report says. 

    But the U.S. reportedly “isn’t giving business much of a heads-up about how the measure will be enforced” and it goes into effect in just three weeks. As Bloomberg put it, “nobody really knows how big a chunk of America’s $500 billion-plus in annual imports from China could get ensnared”. 

    While the human rights issue certainly is worth fighting for, the move comes at a time when the U.S. – which stocks a sizable portion of its products from China – is already seeing supply chain shortages and barren store shelves. 

    Customs and Border Protection said that the law “will likely exacerbate current supply-chain disruptions.” It means that all imports, not just those from China, “will be subject to delays in processing time,” the agency said. 

    Customs will have to scrutinize an additional 11.5 million shipments a year, more than 10x their previous volume. 

    Xinjiang has a history of being accused of mass detentions and forced labor, mostly concerning Uyghur Muslims in the areas going through “re-education”. 

    While it has also been illegal to import good made with forced labor, sells must now provide “clear and convincing evidence” that goods suspected to have been produced in Xinjiang were not produced with forced labor. 

    Ed Brzytwa, vice president of international trade at the Consumer Technology Association, commented: “For the administration to move on to much more complex, value-added goods and detain those goods at the border, that would cause even more supply-chain snarls.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 18:00

  • Is Bitcoin Immune To Government Regulation?
    Is Bitcoin Immune To Government Regulation?

    Authored by Jesse Colzani via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    Law, markets, architecture and social norms are forces that constrain individuals’ behavior. Can governments take advantage of these to regulate Bitcoin?

    When asked whether the Bitcoin network can be regulated or not, people tend to answer in a binary way.

    • On one side, there are those who say that everything can be regulated.

    • On the other, there are those who believe that Bitcoin has already irreversibly separated money from the state.

    This article is an attempt to better understand what Bitcoin regulation depends on and what are the tools that regulators can reasonably use to limit its adoption.

    For the purpose of this article, regulation is considered as state-mandated legal restrictions. But laws are not the only forces shaping society. In what is often referred to as the “pathetic dot theory,” Professor Lawrence Lessig identifies three other forces that constrain the action of an individual.

    • Markets regulate through the device of price and cost-opportunity.

    • Social norms represent an intricate set of standards of behavior that are widely accepted within a community (like tipping a server in a restaurant).

    • Architecture includes geographical, technological and biological barriers to human behavior (like laws of physics preventing us from levitating or a web app preventing us from accessing an online service).

    Each force can — intentionally or not — influence other ones. Laws can limit deforestation (architecture), social norms can shape markets, and weather (architecture) can affect agricultural production and food prices.

    Forces can have an influence on other forces 

    When a law cannot directly target individuals, lawmakers look to regulate other forces. This happens when the government causes the price of cigarettes to increase (market), when it prohibits the use of specific words on TV to influence citizens’ behavior (social norms) or when it builds concrete barriers to create pedestrian zones (architecture).

    Law can impact markets, architecture and social norms

    But can laws always influence architecture? Can laws make a virus disappear? In today’s world, highly contagious viruses cannot be eradicated due to a combination of biological reasons (architecture), financial constraints (market) and hostility to restrictions (social norms).

    Like a virus, Bitcoin spreads globally (mutating when necessary) and depends on the right market incentives or socio-political momentum. Lawmakers can’t shut down Bitcoin nor can they eradicate a virus, but they can use legal restrictions to mitigate the risk of specific undesired outcomes.

    DIRECT ENFORCEMENT THROUGH USERS

    Law can have a direct impact on individuals

    As long as one has a phone and an internet connection, she will be able to use Bitcoin. The efficacy of direct enforcement therefore depends on the jurisdiction where it takes place. In fact, only a disproportionate restriction of individual freedom might limit Bitcoin adoption in the short term (underground peer-to-peer markets will probably emerge in the long run).

    Also, individuals tend to be more willing to violate laws when their money is at stake. That’s why the past decade is full of instances where software developers, political activists and criminals used more or less sophisticated techniques to escape the government’s scrutiny on their bitcoin.

    ENFORCEMENT THROUGH ARCHITECTURE

    Law can impact architecture

    Although John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace” is still relevant to some people’s lifestyle today, governments generally exercise a certain degree of control over the internet architecture. In fact, the data that flows through devices goes through centralized bottlenecks that make it possible for public authorities to shut down websites, identify anonymous users and control online traffic.

    Bitcoin is different because it’s significantly more decentralized than most web applications we use today. Thanks to a strong network of nodes and mining rigs, changing the blockchain would be a Herculean task for any government.

    At the same time, Bitcoin does rely on the internet infrastructure for nodes to communicate. In theory, this gives lawmakers a regulatory access point over the technical infrastructure. For example, since Bitcoin transactions are not encrypted, internet service providers could use special techniques to recognize them and even decide to not process them. However, even with the most draconian measures in place, experienced users will always have ways to broadcast transactions to the network (including last resort options such as SMS and Morse code).

    Another solution would be to target core developers. This is a bad idea for at least two reasons. First, if threatened, identifiable developers could easily disappear and continue their work anonymously. Second, because the Bitcoin community relies on wide consensus, even the most influential developers wouldn’t be able to push government-imposed changes into the code.

    ENFORCEMENT THROUGH MARKET INCENTIVES

    Law can impact markets

    Governments can offer their citizens compelling market incentives to slow Bitcoin adoption or maintain control over the money flows. For example, the government of El Salvador offered $30 to every citizen who downloaded the Chivo wallet — a custodial solution where the government has full control of the funds.

    The most popular way governments currently attempt to regulate Bitcoin is through exchanges, liquidity providers and other intermediaries. By complying with know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, these new banks are able to offer compelling prices and attract the most inexperienced users. This has important consequences for the fungibility of the bitcoin supply and probably constitutes one of the greatest threats to Bitcoin’s promise of individual self-sovereignty.

    It is not clear if, when and how governments will introduce central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) into their economies, but just like a government could promote the use of its CBDC through economic incentives, it could disincentivize bitcoin payments. For example, fees to access public services or local taxes could be reduced when using a government-issued digital currency while being full-priced or even more expensive if using bitcoin. This is important because while CBDCs will not have an impact on the network per se, they can slow down the adoption of bitcoin. Such an approach is often defined as libertarian paternalism, since individuals can freely choose whether they want to opt in or opt out of a specific system.

    ENFORCEMENT THROUGH SOCIAL NORMS

    Law can impact social norms

    It’s undeniable that a lot of institutional skepticism shaped the public’s perception of Bitcoin in a negative way. In fact, laws can attempt to shape the public perception in a variety of ways. For example, banning Bitcoin-related words on TV or establishing school programs that focus on the risks of using bitcoin.

    Policymakers could even go a step further and promote “bottom-up” campaigns as an attempt to change the Bitcoin code. Although not backed by any public authority, a rather unconventional coalition is attempting such a strategy.

    BITCOIN’S MAIN VULNERABILITY

    Just like we can assume that no government thinks it can completely eliminate a virus from its country, regulators finally understood that the same applies to the Bitcoin network, and their best option is to try limiting the way it spreads. Rather than taking the risk of watching their monetary power slowly erode, governments will likely experiment with different combinations of the tools described above to slow down the hyperbitcoinization process.

    Bitcoin was engineered to be an extremely secure and decentralized system, but one needs to remember that its most important components are humans, which can be unreliable and unpredictable. Governments are not always ahead of the curve on understanding technology, but they do have a successful track record in driving human behavior.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 17:40

  • Navy Recruiters Stalking "Top Gun" Moviegoers
    Navy Recruiters Stalking “Top Gun” Moviegoers

    The Navy is trying to turn your night at the movies into a commitment to risk losing your life, limbs and sanity in service to the sprawling, bankrupting, late-stage American empire—as recruiting tables are popping up in the lobbies of movie theaters showing the blockbuster new hit Top Gun: Maverick. 

    Published reports give no indication of whether theaters are being compensated for their cooperation, or whether they’re giving away the space for free, out of a warped sense of patriotism. The war-flick opportunism comes at a time when the Navy—like other branches—is facing a challenging recruiting environment. 

    As Nicholas Slayton explains at Task & Purpose, recruiters’ presence at theaters is a sequel in itself, reprising a tactic employed at screenings of the 1986 original. Top Gun: Maverick is a smash hit, hauling in $160 million in its four-day opening. That’s Tom Cruise’s best ever, which says a lot.

    As is the case with almost every Hollywood movie that portrays the military, the Pentagon’s exploitation of the movie started way back before production. 

    To gain the military’s cooperation in making a film—which boosts realism and cuts production costs—movie-makers must submit their scripts for approval by the Pentagon’s Entertainment Media Office. Glen Roberts, who runs the office, told The Guardian his mission is to “project and protect the image of our armed forces.”

    Twitter’s @ian_tb03 spotted these two Navy recruiters who’ve strategically positioned themselves by a theater’s bathrooms—er, we mean, “heads”:  

    Via @ian_tb03 on Twitter

    Admittedly, the recruiters may be onto something…

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    If the movie whips you into a patriotic fervor that has you yearning for adventure on the high seas and above it, please note: Your Navy experience may bear little resemblance to what’s depicted in the slick Tom Cruise blockbuster.

    Just ask sailors assigned to the USS George Washington. The Navy has forced hundreds of crew members to live aboard the aircraft carrier while it’s undergoing a major, multi-year overhaul. Life on the ship has been likened to residing in an active construction zone, with sleep severely hampered by jackhammering and waking hours made miserable by noise, smoke and other odors. In April, three of the ship’s sailors killed themselves in just one week. 

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    Then there’s the chance that, after you’ve ceremoniously sworn to “support and defend the Constitution,” you’ll be ordered to violate it by engaging in warfare unauthorized by Congress—such as the Navy’s 2018 strike on Syria, in response to a chemical attack by the Assad government that never happened. 

    Other branches are following in the Navy’s Top Gun: Maverick recruiting wake. While the movie glorifies Navy pilots, that isn’t stopping this Air Force recruiter from horning in on the action: 

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    While Navy life may not be all that’s advertised, at least the Twitterverse is having fun with the recruiting campaign…

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 06/03/2022 – 17:20

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