- Weimar America: Are We Headed For A 1930s Nightmare?
Weimar America: Are We Headed For A 1930s Nightmare?
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
Something eerie, something creepy, is happening in the world—and now in America as well.
The dark mood is brought on by elite universities, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion industry, and massive immigration from illiberal nations and anti-Enlightenment societies.
At Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, hundreds of students rioted on news that a single teacher in her private social media account had expressed support for Israel.
Waving Palestinian flags, and screaming violent threats, the student mob rioted, destroyed school property, sought the teacher out and tried to crash into her classroom—before she was saved from violence by other teachers and an eventual police arrival.
The subtext was that the overwhelmingly minority students (whose school is ranked academically near the bottom among New York City schools) were acculturated to the racist reality that as the “oppressed” they were exempt from any punishment for hunting down their own teacher. As a Jewish (and thus white) “oppressive” supporter of Israel, she was reduced to, in the words an enthusiastic commenter on a Tik Tok video of the riot, a “cracker ass bitch.” And so the student pack tracked her down as if they were hunting an animal. The old Nazi youth gangs tried to kill Jews because they were not considered “white;” our new Nazis hunt them down because they allege that they are. The common denominator between the 1930s and 2023 is an unhinged hatred of Jews.
Hundreds of such incidents are now occurring on a daily basis—as the country is leaving its Weimar phase and heading at warp speed into normalizing Jew-hatred and worse. Instructors singled out Jewish students in classes at UC Davis and Stanford. Pro-Hamas students ripped down posters, swarmed public buildings, and disrupted traffic.
A pro-Israeli demonstrator in Los Angeles was hit on the head and killed by a pro-Palestinian university professor.
Jewish students were trapped in a Cooper Union university library surrounded by pro-Hamas demonstrators. At MIT, Jewish students were warned to keep away from particular areas of the campus deemed dangerous for them.
What would happen to a university president who warned black or Latino students to keep clear of areas where she could not guarantee their safety from other students?
A bankrupt media deserves much of the blame. They daily broadcast Hamas’s suspect casualty figures, as if that terrorist organization has ever been capable of speaking the truth.
The Western news regurgitated “500 dead at a Gaza hospital,” due to a supposedly deliberate Israel bombing. In fact, the hospital parking lot was hit by an errant Islamic Jihad missile intended to kill civilians in Israel.
No matter—few reporters apologized for spreading Hamas-fed misinformation, despite the previous Hamas lies that they never harmed civilians, that tunnels were not beneath hospital grounds, that they did not murder 1,200 Israelis; or their lies that Hamas gunmen do not rape, when they engaged in mass rape on October 7.
The media normalizes Hamas’s atrocities by treating it as if it were an ordinary government, not a murderous terrorist clique that decapitates civilians, takes children as hostages, and mutilates those it slaughters. That the terrorist organization has kidnapped at least ten American citizens and killed perhaps another 31 is lost on the “journalists,” many of them Americans who could care less about the fate of their fellow citizens.
The media fixates on the Israeli response to mass murder, but rarely the mass murder of 1,200 Israeli civilians that prompted the current war. During ceasefires do Israeli terrorists drive into Gaza cities, and shoot and kill innocent civilians—and then brag, as did Hamas recently, that such murdering will only increase?
Sometimes the anti-Semitic hatred reaches Orwellian levels of absurdity. A British reporter asked an Israeli official whether his country valued life less than Hamas did because it had agreed to Hamas’s demand to release three convicted terrorists in exchange for one Israeli captive. The media fawned over a released disfigured Gazan terrorist – without mentioning that her injuries came from a car bomb she exploded in hopes of killing Jews.
The media is further emboldened by the Biden administration. When asked about the outbreak of anti-Semitism across the U.S. – nearly 60 percent of hate crimes are committed against Jews, who make up 2.5 percent of the population – Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed them with the false claim that the White House “had not seen any credible threats” to Jews. And then she claimed that the real danger to American residents was Islamophobia and threats to Arab-Americans. Hate crime and interracial crime statistics do not support Jean-Pierre’s assertions, which prompts the question of why she made them in the first place.
Note that almost all the violence in demonstrations over the current war comes from the pro-Hamas side that shouts “river to the sea” genocidal threats, swarms the Capitol rotunda and the White House wall, disrupts traffic, occupies bridges at peak traffic, defaces private and public property, shouts down speakers on campus, harasses passers-by, and often battles the police. One wonders whether, should the U.S. military be forced to try to rescue American captives, the demonstrators would cheer for the American troops or Hamas hostage-takers.
Abroad, the world has gone even crazier.
The United Nations has appointed Iran—a theocratic, terrorist-supporting government that kills dissidents and takes hostages—as the chair nation of the UN Human Rights Council Social Forum. What a cruel joke.
But what would one expect from the UN when its secretary-general, António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, a former Portuguese socialist politician, condemns the Israeli response to October 7, but rarely, if ever, the Hamas mass killing of civilians that prompted it. Right after the mass killing Guterres opined, “The attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.” According to the secretary-general’s logic, I suppose, Pearl Harbor, the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not happen in a vacuum either.
When told that an Irish citizen hostage was freed by Hamas, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar declared that the “lost” child was finally “found.” In other words, he wished to hide the obvious fact that a terrorist organization had kidnapped an Irish citizen child, held her hostage for 50 days, and released her only when Israel gave up convicted terrorists to obtain her release.
Our domestic political leadership is not helping the situation.
Just days after October 7, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with the foreign minister of the now often hostile Turkish government, were calling for a cease-fire to prevent an Israeli response.
When the Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israeli cities went off course and damaged a Gaza hospital (leading to the fake story that Israel bombed the hospital), President Biden joked, “You got to learn to shoot straight.” Did Biden mean that, had the terrorists only launched a successful terrorist rocket into Jewish neighborhoods, there would have been no ensuing controversies?
Biden later apologized for doubting fatality figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas—a terrorist organization that has lied about the hospital “bombing,” denied it had tunnels under hospitals, denied that it had engaged in mass rape in Israel, and has supplied no proof of its civilian casualty numbers. Has Hamas released figures of how many of its terrorists were killed, and does it separate those numbers from lost “civilians?” And so are there really vast new cemeteries in Gaza to handle the 15,000 graves for those who, Hamas asserts, were killed?
What explains the collective madness?
For the last 40 years, while Western leftists have naively supported Palestinian terrorists, their governments have appeased terrorist-supporting Middle Eastern governments for very practical reasons. The old subtext to such mollification was that 500-million irate Arab Muslims, and a Middle East with 40 percent of the world’s oil reserves, in realist terms, simply argued against the interests of 10 million Israelis.
But now there are two new, venomous elements in the matrix.
One is that the racist DEI industry assumes that all intersectional nonwhite communities are victims of white privilege and supremacy. Therefore, as permanently oppressed, they are declared incapable of being racist themselves. And so they can harass with impunity the supposed victimizers—in this case American Jews, who are declared culpable whites.
So the oppressed, according to the DEI bible, cannot be anti-Semitic, though many certainly are. And they apparently cannot be held accountable for their hatred or frequent violence.
Secondly, in the last two decades there has been an epidemic of immigration into Western nations from the Middle East. In often-divided democracies like ours, politicians seek to appease as many pressure groups as possible, whether citizen voters or merely resident demonstrators, to acquire and maintain power.
Such pro-Hamas demonstrators, rah-rahing from a free, prosperous, and secure West, expect no rebuke for their obvious hypocrisy in cheering on an autocratic, dictatorial Hamas that has wrecked the economy of Gaza, shoots dissidents, and allows no free expression. And Middle Eastern guests and immigrants are never reminded that their very demonstrations are predicated on not being physically present in their homelands, where they might be shot for what they say and do freely in the West.
We are on a trajectory similar to that of 1930s Germany.
Every time a student is cornered, harassed, or threatened; a high school mob tries to swarm and harm a teacher; a government spokesperson dismisses such hatred; or American soldiers are targeted by Iranian-fed terrorist organizations; the madness, racism, and anti-Semitism will increase—until it reaches a saturation point of abject violence in our streets.
Once a society mainstreams the values of thuggish brownshirts, and ignores their “from the river to the sea” eliminationist chants and screams of “beat the f—king Jew,” then the next emboldened step is foreordained.
True, most Americans were appalled by October 7 and accept that every nation has the right to defend itself from terrorist killers. Most Americans deplore vicious demonstrators and their calls for violence on behalf of the Hamas death cult. And most Americans want their President to demand the release of American hostages and to deter Iranian-backed terrorists who attack U.S. military personnel in the region.
But unless the public demands that their universities enforce on campus the Bill of Rights and the right to move freely in safety, that police enforce laws against mob violence on America’s streets and in our schools, and that the United States stops greenlighting mass immigration from anti-Western nations and extending student visas to residents of anti-American, terrorist-supporting, and autocratic Middle East regimes, then in suicidal fashion we are headed for a 1930s nightmare.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 23:40 - CCP Deploys Cover-Up For Mysterious Pneumonia Outbreak In Children
CCP Deploys Cover-Up For Mysterious Pneumonia Outbreak In Children
Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The sense of helplessness that has gripped the Chinese people on and off since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago is again returning as the country grapples with an unidentified pneumonia outbreak that is sickening children and overwhelming hospitals.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty images) In strollers, or carried by their parents, sick children have been filling hospital waiting rooms, hallways, and spilling outside the main gates. They wait for hours hoping for their number to be called on the loudspeaker before the day is over.
Waiting up to 12 hours is not uncommon—if one can get in line at all. After staying past midnight in a hospital hallway teeming with people, a Beijing resident shared a photo while holding a ticket number in the 1800s—the placement in the day’s queue—reminding would-be visitors to bring a stool with them, because “there’s nowhere to sit if you need to get an IV drip.”
From north to south, the spike in children’s respiratory hospitalizations is shutting classrooms and pushing health authorities to issue a flurry of announcements telling teachers and students who feel unwell to stay home.
“Everyone in the class is coughing—you can’t even hear what the teacher is saying,” a man surnamed Chen told The Epoch Times, recounting what he heard from his school-aged daughter from Beijing.
Just like three years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears dismissive of the disease’s risk, telling a concerned World Health Organization that there are no “unusual or new pathogens” or clinical symptoms.
The regime partially attributed the uptick to a mid-October upgrade in a respiratory surveillance mechanism, and asserted that the existing Chinese hospital capacities have been sufficient to handle the situation.
Patients wait to see the doctors at a fever clinic of Dongguan People’s Hospital in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China, on Dec. 20, 2022. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images) Beijing’s explanation, which the international health agency as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have quoted verbatim, has convinced few in China or abroad.
The acting director of WHO’s department of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a Nov. 29 press briefing that the organization is “following up with the situation in China” and assessing “the health care capacities around the world” in dealing with these types of new infections.
Sean Lin, microbiologist and former lab director at the viral diseases branch of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, expressed frustration over the WHO’s reliance on China’s regime for information.
“How can you trust the Chinese government data?” he told The Epoch Times.
Many lawmakers in Washington, especially Republicans, see the same thing happening in China now.
“We have no ability to trust the Chinese,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), told The Epoch Times’ sister outlet NTD on Nov. 30, a day after signing a letter demanding that the CDC investigate the outbreak in China.
“They’re not forthcoming, they don’t want to lose face, and as a result, people die.”
Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a practicing surgeon, similarly believes “China’s going to do everything possible so that they don’t look like they’re the genesis of another pandemic.”
“I don’t trust anything the Chinese say—not a word,” he told NTD. “You get burned once, you don’t get burned again.”
A medical staff member gestures inside an isolation ward at a Red Cross hospital in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei Province on March 10, 2020. Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on March 10 that Wuhan has turned the tide against the deadly coronavirus outbreak. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) A Fast Spreading Pathogen
Around this time last year, the regime abruptly abandoned its draconian zero-COVID restrictions after forcing the Chinese population to live for years in an on-again, off-again lockdown with food and other basic needs hanging in the balance.
In the first 20 days of December 2022, an estimated hundreds of millions contracted the virus. The influx of infections and deaths overloaded hospitals and crematoriums.
Children have been particularly hard hit during the current pneumonia outbreak. Major Chinese pediatric hospitals across China have reported receiving up to 10,000 patients each day in recent weeks.
The Tianjin Children’s Hospital hit a daily record of 13,171 patients recently. The hospital’s director, Liu Wei, penned a letter pleading for understanding from the public, emphasizing that the medical workers are also parents, some with their own sick children.
Other health workers from the northeastern megacity confirmed the same pattern is repeating throughout Tianjin if not elsewhere. Going to the doctor at a hospital, for many Chinese, means waiting in the wee hours of the morning in front of their computer screen to secure a placement number, which is limited daily.
“Even when our children get sick, we also have trouble getting a number. We also have to keep refreshing the screen to see if a number becomes available,” one Beichen Hospital staff member told The Epoch Times. Further north, in Jilin Province, a staff member from the Second Hospital of Jilin University said the hospital was booked for the next seven days.
Hearses are seen waiting to enter a crematorium in Beijing on Dec. 22, 2022. The Chinese regime suddenly decided to lift years of lockdowns, quarantines, and mass testing. (STF/AFP via Getty Images) In some hospitals, the waiting rooms were so packed that children and their families had to line up outside the hospital gate. Tents, camping beds, foldable chairs, and blankets were all put into use, while those needing intravenous treatment brought hangers and lifting hooks to self-administer an IV during the wait.
Feeling the pressure, authorities in the northern Chinese city of Sanhe have dispatched workers in hazmat suits to sanitize campuses. A man from Beijing, Mr. Liu, told The Epoch Times that the hospital he was staying in had put out a mask mandate and limited family visits to a two-hour window each evening.
People in the thick of it speak uneasily of how fast, and persistent, the disease has been taking hold.
On Chinese social media site Weibo, an elementary school teacher from southern China’s Hunan Province shared how the entire class fell sick overnight and stayed home. The teacher also called in sick after a night of head-splitting high fever, hand tremors, ringing in ears, and a dry cough that brought sharp lung pain.
A Beijing mother of two, whose entire family recently suffered from the disease, referred to a local school in which half of the students became afflicted despite all the precautionary measures.
People wait to see a doctor at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, the nation’s largest hospital by bed count, in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, on Jan. 30, 2023. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images) “There’s not much you can do,” she told The Epoch Times. “Mask up and cover yourself as much as you like, you get infected all the same.”
It’s also hard to completely shake it, she added. Days after the coughing and sneezing ceased, a student believed to have recovered became feverish again.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 23:00 - Hamas Rocket Struck Base Linked To Israel's (Not So Secret) Nuclear Missile Program
Hamas Rocket Struck Base Linked To Israel’s (Not So Secret) Nuclear Missile Program
It’s such an open secret and so much of a ‘given’ assumption that it can just be casually written straight into the New York Times headline at this point…
Nuclear missile program you say? (What nuclear program—nothing to see here… or the country’s worst kept secret.) Militant Rocket Hit Base Linked to Israeli Nuclear Missile Program…
“A rocket most likely fired by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel struck an Israeli military base where, experts say, many of the country’s nuclear-capable missiles are based, according to a visual analysis of the attack’s aftermath by The New York Times.”
The report details the highly dangerous episode, noting that while no missiles or warheads were directly hit, a large fire was sparked and nearly spread to storage facilities that contained “sensitive weaponry” at the Sdot Micha military base in central Israel.
One weapons expert was cited as saying there may be up to 25 to 50 nuclear-capable Jericho missiles at the base where the fire raged. However, the nuclear warheads themselves are likely stored at a separate base, according to the analyst. But clearly the base in central Israel was directly targeted by Hamas, or also possibly Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – which worked in concert.
The Times concludes that what happened on Oct.7 was even scarier in terms of the potential for a bigger catastrophic event than previously believed:
“But the targeting of one of the most sensitive military locations in Israel shows that the scope of the Oct. 7 attacks may have been even greater than previously known — and that rockets can penetrate the airspace around Israel’s closely guarded strategic weapons.”
Illustrative image via Times of Israel/Flickr This strongly suggests that on Oct.7 there was an ultra-risky moment that Israel’s strategic nuclear arsenal came under direct fire (again, the arsenal that’s not supposed to exist).
The dangerous near-miss seems akin to the highly volatile and long-running standoff between Russian and Ukraine forces at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
But in the case of Hamas, it’s a ragtag low-tech group of Islamists that apparently came very close to devastating a highly sensitive facility.
Below: the visual investigation compiled by the Times showing a large scorched area in the aftermath of the missile strike…
Hamas Nearly Hit Israeli Nukes, NYT reports.
▪️A rocket most likely fired by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel struck an Israeli military base where, experts say, many of the country’s nuclear-capable missiles are based, according to a visual analysis of the… pic.twitter.com/oRjeQFKIqD
— EHA News (@eha_news) December 4, 2023
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The fresh Monday report noted, “The Times first identified the fire caused by the attack on Sdot Micha using public NASA satellite imagery for detecting wildfires. There has not been a fire — from any cause — of similar magnitude at the base since at least 2004.”
Now, about two months out from the devastating Hamas terror raids of Oct.7, more and more shocking details from that day have been revealed which increasingly confirms the significant planning and sophistication of the multi-pronged attack. More and more pressure and public outrage has been directed at the Netanyahu government and military establishment for the unprecedented intelligence failures.
This has also included that revelation that “Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show,” as a separate NYT report detailed. “But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 22:40 - Treasuries Face Acid Test As Traders Look Past Powell's Pushback
Treasuries Face Acid Test As Traders Look Past Powell’s Pushback
By Ven Ram, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
Front-end Treasuries have rallied big in the past month, but labor market data will pose a key test for traders this week.
Yes, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell did reiterate on Friday that the central bank is prepared to tighten policy further, but was just jawboning against the recent loosening of financial conditions rather than a statement of real intent given the clear disinflationary momentum we have seen of late.
The two-year Treasury yield, which was hovering around 5% before softer-than-inflation readings for October, has since shed some 40 basis points. While the decline has made the maturity look rather rich on the curve, some optimism is justified by comments from Governor Christopher Waller who became the first Fed official to explicitly open the door to rate cuts.
As I see it, the two-year maturity has a subjective 60% probability of entrenching its richness, even if the security may only consolidate its gains between now and the year-end. A crucial first test will come as soon as this week, with ADP employment numbers due on Wednesday and non-farm payrolls data for November on Friday. Curiously, the median forecasts on both expect an improvement from prior numbers, but yet another print that shows employers expanded their payrolls for an umpteenth successive time in this cycle isn’t likely to tell the Fed anything that it doesn’t already know about the resilience of the labor market.
Instead, look at the jobless rate, where the number is forecast to stay unchanged at 3.9%. A reading lower than that will puncture the current rally in rates, for that would pretty much rule out any enthusiasm for the sooner-rather-than-later rate cuts that traders have firmly positioned themselves for. The Fed reckons that a print higher than 4% will be required to bring the labor market back into balance. An acceleration in hourly earnings will also sully the bullish mood in the Treasury markets.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 22:20 - All Four "Pillars Of Civilization" Are Under Attack By An "Anti-Human Death-Cult"; Shellenberger, Carlson Unload On Global Elites
All Four “Pillars Of Civilization” Are Under Attack By An “Anti-Human Death-Cult”; Shellenberger, Carlson Unload On Global Elites
As world leaders gathered over the weekend for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, they faced an uncomfortable reality check from the conference president Sultan Al Jaber, who stated, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” warning that their fossil-fuel policies would “take the world back into caves.”
Nevertheless, no lesser mind than Vice President Kamala Harris pledged another $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund at the summit, seeking to help developing countries adapt to the “climate crisis” as well as decreasing fossil fuel production, according to CNN.
The cult-like worship of (and escalation of) these policies is what led to tonight’s discussion between Tucker Carlson and Michael Shellenberger, author of the must-read “Apocalypse Never”, highlighting the increasingly obvious disconnect between global elites and the general public – most specifically in the context of environmental policies.
“We know that the pillars of civilization are cheap energy, meritocracy, Law and Order, and free speech and all four of those pillars are currently under attack,” warns Shellenberger in his typically erudite and fact-based manner.
The hypocrisy is simply Orwellian.
As Shellenberger recently wrote on his Public substack, flying on private jets to a climate conference to announce plans to make energy even more expensive for working people is bread-and-circuses, except there’s no bread, and the circus consists of rich people celebrating their wealth, morality, and superiority.
Carlson begins by pointing out that the drastic climate change policies are “fundamentally nonsense,” asking Shellenberger just how long this “posturing” of environmentalism can go on:
“We’re watching people push an Orthodoxy at increasing volume with increasing hysteria and with increasingly severe penalties for disagreeing…what is that?”
Shellenberger replies:
“Global Elites used to pretend to care about people but they’re not even pretending anymore…”
Adding that that cheap energy was “currently under attack,” explaining how it directly affects “modern civilization”:
“you start with cheap energy, but you can’t maintain modern civilization without cheap energy.”
He argues that “environmentalism used to have a kind of utopian positive side – that’s all gone.”
Sadly, but clearly, the two highlight the fact that financial interests are behind the push for renewable energy sources, claiming that oligarchs and political figures are promoting expensive and inefficient energy sources to control energy markets.
This is particularly clear from the detrimental influence of the ESG movement on the oil and gas industry.
Simply put, the current environmentalist movement has become nihilistic and anti-human.
“So,” the journalist continues, “the attack on cheap energy is truly an attack on modern civilization and it should frighten us and we should be aware to, and alive to it.“
Shellenberger concludes with perhaps the most poignant thought of the whole discussion:
“What gives me hope is that I think it’s finally becoming obvious to people that it’s a scam…
…and that the people that are pushing this really hate civilization, or at least they hate civilization for others.
They want it only for themselves and that they’re in the grip of a really dogmatic cult philosophy.
I mean, I think it’s fair to call it a death cult at this point, when you’re stifling energy supplies that are necessary to keep people alive…
I don’t know what else to call it other than an anti-human death cult.”
Carlson replies:
“that’s right. It’s not environmentalism. It’s the snarling face of tyranny.”
Watch the full interview below:
Ep. 44 Another half-demented 80-year-old yelling about things he doesn’t understand. These are our leaders. They don’t care about our future because they don’t have one of their own. pic.twitter.com/iylpXALJjZ
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 4, 2023
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 22:00 - FDA Shuts Down Enquiries About DNA Contamination In COVID Vaccines
FDA Shuts Down Enquiries About DNA Contamination In COVID Vaccines
Authored by Maryanne Demasi via The Brownstone Institute,
The recent findings of DNA fragments in the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines has led many to question why the FDA, which is responsible for monitoring the quality and safety of the vaccines, has failed to sound the alarm.
For years, the FDA has known about the risk posed by residual DNA in vaccines. Its own guidance to industry states:
“Residual DNA might be a risk to your final product because of oncogenic and/or infectivity potential. There are several potential mechanisms by which residual DNA could be oncogenic, including the integration and expression of encoded oncogenes or insertional mutagenesis following DNA integration.”
Put simply, the FDA acknowledges the possibility that fragments of DNA left over by the manufacturing process can be incorporated into a patient’s own DNA, to potentially cause cancer.
FDA and WHO guidelines consider the amount of residual DNA in a single dose of traditional vaccine should not exceed 10 ng (one billionth of a gram).
But this limit – used for traditional vaccines – is unlikely to be relevant to the mRNA vaccines whose lipid nanoparticles can penetrate inside cells to deliver the mRNA efficiently.
A recent preprint paper by Speicher et al analysed batches of the monovalent and bivalent mRNA vaccines in Canada.
The authors found “the presence of billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose in these vaccines. Using fluorometry all vaccines exceed the guidelines for residual DNA set by FDA and WHO of 10 ng/dose.”
Speicher et al also reported finding fragments of DNA larger than 200 base pairs (a measure of the length of the DNA) which also exceeds FDA guidelines.
Notably, the authors commented that for the Pfizer product, the higher the level of DNA fragments found in the vaccine, the higher the rate of serious adverse events.
Some experts say the risk of genome integration in humans is very low, but a recent publication in Nature found that around 7 percent of cells are integrated when mixed with a transfection solution containing linear pieces of DNA.
Is the FDA Concerned?
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to insist that any residual DNA contamination in the Covid vaccines is not a problem and that it “stands behind its findings of quality, safety, and efficacy for the mRNA vaccines.”
“While concerns have been raised previously as theoretical issues, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the minute amounts of residual DNA do not cause cancer, or changes to a person’s genetic code,” added the FDA.
The FDA would not provide the “available scientific evidence” to support its claim, but it’s worth noting that the vaccines’ own product labels show that genotoxicity and carcinogenicity tests were not carried out prior to their use.
David Wiseman, a research bioscientist involved in medical product development and co-author on the study by Speicher et al said the FDA’s claim that there is no evidence of a cancer link is becoming “untenable.”
“The CDC’s own analysis on the vaccine’s safety signal in VAERS shows there could be a signal for some cancers,” said Wiseman pointing to a report he co-authored and sent to the National Academies.
In the table (highlighted in yellow), a safety signal is considered to be significant, and worthy of further investigation, if the value in the column marked PRR exceeds 2 and the value in the Chi-Square column exceeds 4.
The FDA would not confirm if it found levels of DNA that exceeded acceptable levels, nor if it was investigating further.
Instead, after months of enquiries, the FDA sent boilerplate responses to me (and other media) saying, “With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to residual DNA have been identified.”
In response to a list of questions about its testing and oversight, the FDA said it “does not have any additional information to provide at this time.”
Poor Manufacturing Oversight
We now know that Pfizer’s vaccine used in the clinical trials (PROCESS 1) was manufactured differently to the vaccine that was injected into the wider population (PROCESS 2).
This switch from PROCESS 1 to PROCESS 2 is what introduced the plasmid DNA impurities (see red circles), which could change the safety profile of the vaccine.
I asked the FDA if it had any human data on the comparison of the two processes.
The agency pointed me to the FDA’s EUA review memo dated 20 Nov 2020 which suggested that the testing was “ongoing.”
The three-year old document stated that “A more comprehensive comparability assessment encompassing additional lots from multiple DP manufacturing nodes is ongoing and the results will be provided to the EUA upon completion of the study.”
When I asked the FDA for access to the “ongoing” results, I was instructed to obtain the information from Pfizer, but the drug company did not respond to my enquiries.
A Freedom of Information request by Nick Hunt of the Daily Sceptic may explain why.
Pfizer promised the regulator that it would compare the safety and immunogenicity of the two processes in participants and report back by February 2021, but it seems those studies were never done.
The FOI stated:
…in October 2020 an exploratory objective was added in the C4591001 study to describe safety and immunogenicity of vaccines produced by manufacturing “Process 1” or “Process 2” in participants 16 to 55 years of age. This exploratory objective was removed and documented in protocol amendment 20 in September 2022 due to the extensive usage of vaccines manufactured via “Process 2”. Thus, this process comparison was not conducted as part of the formal documentation within the protocol amendment.[emphasis added]
Wiseman said, “Given the magnitude of the process change, from my experience in medical product development, these sorts of biological comparability studies would certainly have been expected to be undertaken by Pfizer.”
He added, “the fact that Pfizer was given a free pass indicates a significant lapse in regulatory oversight.”
Kevin McKernan, the genomics expert who made the discovery of DNA fragments in the vaccines earlier this year, says there’s “no incentive” now for Pfizer to carry out this comparative testing.
“It’s speculation on my part, but I suspect they might’ve seen increased adverse events with the commercial batch and buried the data knowing the train had left the station at that point,” said McKernan.
“There was no political will to stop vaccinating, and Pfizer probably knew the regulators would let them get away with not testing the commercial batches for the population,” he added.
* * *
Republished from the author’s Substack
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 21:40 - "Particularly Risky" – BIS Reveals 'Buy Now, Pay Later' Use Is Soaring Among Working Poor Youngsters
“Particularly Risky” – BIS Reveals ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Use Is Soaring Among Working Poor Youngsters
A new report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) shows that buy now, pay later (BNPL) adoption among young adults, particularly those with low education, is soaring. This trend is becoming increasingly prevalent in countries experiencing high inflation and where households tend to have higher debt levels.
BNPL allows consumers to spend money they don’t have over a number of interest-free installments, which are generally unreported to credit bureaus. The overuse and poor understanding of BNPL terms can be disastrous for consumers and lead to overindebtedness.
A surge in BNPL use was seen during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. According to Adobe Analytics, BNPL use on Cyber Monday hit a record high, up 43% from a year ago.
While the White House celebrated record holiday sales, a closer look at the data revealed a concerning trend: an increasing number of consumers are resorting to BNPL services for big-ticket items and essential goods, such as groceries. The reliance on BNPL indicates debts could be stacking up on consumers, which could strain service debts immensely.
BIS provided a simple breakdown of how BNPL services differ from credit cards.
The volume of global BNPL transactions and daily active users of BNPL services continues to skyrocket.
BNPL is the most popular in Australia, then across the West and China:
The popularity of BNPL varies widely around the globe (Graph 6). The countries with the highest adoption rates are Australia and Sweden. Other countries with significant BNPL uptake are China, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
BIS finds the average BNPL user is under 35, has a low income, and lacks education:
Younger and tech-savvy individuals, including “Millennials” and “Generation Z,” often do not possess credit cards (PYMTS (2023)) and are generally less financially literate than older generations (Lusardi and Mitchell (2023)). Consistent with this, a survey of US BNPL services reveals that they are more often used by individuals with low-income levels and less educational attainment.
“There is evidence from the United States that BNPL users are particularly risky,” BIS said.
BNPL-fueled record holiday sales are nothing to cheer about as it only shows working poor consumers are adding even more leverage and insurmountable debts as Bidenomics fails.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 21:20 - Trump Can't Go On Trial If He's Elected In 2024, Lawyer Says
Trump Can’t Go On Trial If He’s Elected In 2024, Lawyer Says
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in the Georgia election case that the charges should be thrown out because it’s a violation of his “free speech” and also noted that if he wins the 2024 presidential election, the Fulton County trial cannot go through.
Former President Donald Trump prepares to testify during his trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Nov. 6, 2023. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images) During a roughly six-hour hearing in Fulton County on Dec. 1, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee asked Mr. Sadow what would happen if President Trump wins the 2024 election and if the trial hasn’t occurred yet.
“Under the Supremacy Clause and its duty to the president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term of office,” the former president’s attorney said in response, according to a live stream posted on the judge’s YouTube page.
It means that the former president wins the 2024 election and Judge McAfee agreed that he shouldn’t be tried until he leaves office, which would delay the trial date to at least January 20, 2029.
Responding to the claims, Fulton County prosecutor Nathan Wade said Ms. Willis “has no interest in interfering or getting involved in this presidential election” and said she is trying “to move this case forward.” He added, “Our obvious goal is, and has been, to stick to our August trial date.”
The judge did not issue any rulings from the bench during the Dec. 1 hearing. He also has not scheduled a new trial date for the case.
In a recent court filing, Ms. Willis’ office said prosecutors expect the proceedings to run until early 2025, which would run in tandem with the ending months of the 2024 presidential campaign. National polls show that President Trump is overwhelmingly the Republican favorite for president, including in key primary states.
The former president’s lawyers said the former president would prefer not to be on trial in August 2024, noting his status as the leading Republican presidential candidate. State prosecutors previously have said they are seeking a trial date around that time, which would come about three months before the presidential election next November.
“It’s very possible at that time, that my client will be running for election for president of the United States for the Republican Party,” Mr. Sadow told the judge, saying “the preference would be that he not be on trial during the time that he is campaigning,” according to reporters in the court.
“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is, in some form or fashion, in a courtroom defending himself?” he asked. “That would be the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”
But Mr. Wade disagreed with his assertion, telling the court: “This trial does not constitute election interference. This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County.“
“I don’t think it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign,” Mr. Wade added.
Also in the hearing, his attorneys argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment also effectively criminalizes the right to engage in political activity under the the First Amendment.
Mr. Sadow told a judge that “you take the facts as alleged in the indictment … as applied constitutionally with the First Amendment, you’ll find that it violates free speech, freedom of petitioning, all the expressions that the First Amendment is designed to protect, and therefore the indictment needs to be dismissed.”
Over the summer, Ms. Willis’ office charged President Trump and 18 others, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, with conspiracy to allegedly overturn the 2020 election results. Several co-defendants—including attorneys Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis—have pleaded guilty in return for a plea deal with prosecutors.
The remaining 15 defendants in the case, including President Trump, have pleaded not guilty. The former president, who faces charges in three other jurisdictions, has said it’s part of a wide-ranging campaign to denigrate his political chances.
Steve Sadow, attorney for former President Donald Trump(R), speaks during a hearing in the 2020 Georgia election interference case at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on Dec. 1, 2023. (John David Mercer/Pool via Getty Images) Ms. Willis had also asked the judge to set a final plea date of June 21, writing that prosecutors would consider plea deals up until that date and intend to recommend the maximum penalties at any sentencing hearings after that. Judge McAfee said Dec. 1 he wasn’t sure that was necessary, that the district attorney could independently set a date after which she wouldn’t consider plea deals.
Attorney Buddy Parker, who represents lawyer and co-defendant John Eastman, told the judge his client is concerned about the possibility of a trial date being set in 2025, saying that would mean it was more than a year that his case would be pending.
“There are a number of defendants, as noted, who are not running for the presidency of the United States,” Mr. Parker said, adding that his client would like to be tried separately from President Trump because of the complications involved and would even be in favor of going to trial before August.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 21:00 - Former US Ambassador Charged With Spying For Cuba For Over 40 Years
Former US Ambassador Charged With Spying For Cuba For Over 40 Years
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped a bombshell and almost unbelievable revelation, on Monday saying it has broken up a major Cuban spy operation that went on for decades at the highest levels of government.
Former US ambassador to Bolivia Manuel Rocha has been arrested at his Miami home for secretly acting as a spy for Cuba “for more than 40 years” in a development which may be without precedent. The case is being called the “highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent.”
Bolivian President Hugo Banzer (L) with Manuel Rocha in 2000, via Sky News 73-year old Rocha spent his career rising through the ranks of the State Dept and foreign service, having began as a desk officer for Honduras all the way back in November 1981, after attending Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown University.
“For decades, Rocha allegedly worked as a covert agent for Cuba and abused his position of trust in the U.S. government to advance the interests of a foreign power,” a DOJ press release stated.
The US government said he secretly represented Cuban interests while in high ranking diplomatic positions, thus he had the ability to manipulate American foreign policy toward that end.
He was finally caught after such a long career serving dual purposes when he bragged to an undercover FBI agent that he had done “decades” of work on behalf of Cuba. The DOJ detailed this as follows in the wake of his being taken into custody last Friday:
The complaint alleges that, in a series of meetings during 2022 and 2023, with an undercover agent from the FBI posing as a covert Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence representative, Rocha made repeated statements admitting his “decades” of work for Cuba, spanning “40 years.”
When the undercover told Rocha he was “a covert representative here in Miami” whose mission was “to contact you, introduce myself as your new contact, and establish a new communication plan,” Rocha answered “Yes,” and proceeded to engage in a lengthy conversation during which he described and celebrated his activity as a Cuban intelligence agent.
The DOJ has sought to make clear these activities went far beyond some mere lobbying relationship, given that in the secretly recorded conversation with Rocha, the retired ambassador referenced the US as “the enemy”:
Throughout the meetings, Rocha behaved as a Cuban agent, consistently referring to the United States as “the enemy,” and using the term “we” to describe himself and Cuba. Rocha additionally praised Fidel Castro as the “Comandante,” and referred to his contacts in Cuban intelligence as his “Compañeros” (comrades) and to the Cuban intelligence services as the “Dirección.” Rocha described his work as a Cuban agent as “a grand slam.”
The case details also make clear that US authorities believe he was acting as an agent of Cuba from the very beginning of his service in the US State Dept in the early 1980s. If this is what Cuban intelligence could successfully do, what about Washington’s much bigger and powerful rivals?
A Cuban spy, Victor Rocha, was just caught after 40 years in the US Government.
He was an employee of the US State Department, served as a US Ambassador and even got on the National Security Council.
If Cuba has spies at this level for 40 years… imagine China, Russia and Iran. pic.twitter.com/E00expXAZl
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) December 4, 2023
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Rocha reached his high ranking diplomatic positions by the late 1980s, which included the following successive roles through the 1990s and early 2000s:
- First Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico;
- Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic;
- Department of State employee, as the Director of Inter-American Affairs on the U.S. National Security Council, with special responsibility for, among other things, Cuba;
- Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba;
- Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and
- November 1999 until in or around August 2002: Ambassador to Bolivia at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia.
It has not been revealed the precise ways or moments in which he benefitted Cuba or potentially influenced US policy. Interestingly, he was posted in Cuba at various times in which Washington did not have official relations with the Castro government, which has also long been under crippling sanctions.
One key question that will naturally arise: given the length and span of his being a Cuban spy at top echelons of the State Department, are there more foreign moles? It seems this is the likely scenario, especially given this period reaching back into the 1980s marked the tail end of the Cold War.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 20:40 - Experts Predict Mind-Controlled Devices May Be Common By 2040s
Experts Predict Mind-Controlled Devices May Be Common By 2040s
Authored by Isabella Rayner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Experts predict that by 2040, people will control smart devices with their thoughts due to advancements in ‘smartbrain’ technology.
(Life science/Shutterstock) A smartbrain, or Brain-Machine Interface (BMI), is a wearable or implanted device that directly links the human brain to smart devices like phones, computers, and robotic limbs.
It would allow people to navigate the internet, send texts, and adjust thermostats by merely thinking, blurring boundaries between humans and machines.
University of New South Wales (UNSW) biomedical engineering expert Mohit Shivdasani said scientists are “very close” to mind-controlled devices becoming an everyday reality rather than a science-fiction concept.
“We’re not far off from seeing someone walking around with a brain-machine interface outside of a lab,” he said.
“We have computers all around us. They are in our pockets and travelling everywhere we go, but to think of integrating that directly with the brain to use the technology … it’s pretty amazing.”
He said disabled people would particularly benefit from mind-controlled devices after a successful test on two paralysed people.
“One particular [paralysed] person was able to control a robotic arm just by thinking about it, while another person was able to move a cursor on a computer screen and read his email,” he said.
He explained that the technology worked by unblocking signals from the brain to the limbs.
“There are situations where the brain can send signals, but those signals can’t get to limbs for the person to be able to then walk for themselves. So what a brain-machine interface would do is read those thoughts and convert those thoughts to an action,” he said.
Further, he is improving smart brain bionic eyes for blind people and devices for chronic pain and inflammatory bowel disease.
He believes using smartbrains widely can significantly help people with different issues affecting their quality of life.
“I’ve had a lot of chats with blind patients. When you ask them what they want from a bionic eye, they’ll say: ‘I want to see my family,'” he explained.
“I remember one conversation with a lady, and she said: ‘I would love to be able to see the Target sign again, because when I go into the shopping centre, I want to be able to find Target really easily.”
“As an engineer, I would never have thought about that, but that could be so important.”
Future of Connected Health
UNSW PhD candidate Claire Bridges weighed in on some other benefits.
She mentioned that smartbrains help the future of connected health, like telehealth.
“With COVID, we saw a big expansion in the need for and provision of telehealth, which has been incredibly beneficial. To further expand that and improve our ability to provide health care to people who might not be able to see a clinician or undergo a test in person, we can use wearable devices,” she explained.
She said smartbrain watches, or implanted blood glucose monitors and sensors, would change how doctors communicate with patients.
“Devices like these can collect huge amounts of data as they continuously monitor the person wearing them. AI could be a big help with this, analysing these big data sets to identify relevant health information and sending it to a patient’s treating clinician,” she added.
She said doctors could then intervene in near-real time when people are unwell.
“Whether it’s inflammatory markers in the blood or hormone secretion or neurotransmitter issues, we could catch things earlier and get that early diagnosis so that we can have more effective preventative health,” she explained.
“On average, Australians spend about 11 years of their life in poor health, but with the advances we’re seeing in our biomedical technology, both in terms of physical, actual hands-on implanted treatment or drug delivery or other developing technology, we have a lot of opportunity to improve things.”
Expert Warns of Risks
However, biomedical researcher Christina Maher likened smartbrains to someone “speaking” for people, causing invasive ethical problems.
“For example, a brain-computer interface (BCI) may generate the output “I’m good” when the user intended it to be “I’m great”. These are similar, but they aren’t the same. It’s easy enough for a non-disabled person to physically correct the mistake—but for people who can only communicate through BCIs, there’s a risk of being misinterpreted,” she said.
Further, she said people can’t choose which brain signals to share with the smartbrain.
“Brain data are arguably our most private data because of what can be inferred regarding our identity and mental state,” she said.
“Yet private BCI companies may not need to inform users about what data are used to train algorithms.”
She said ethical challenges raise questions about what is best for people and society.
“For instance, should individuals in the military be equipped with neuroenhancing devices so they can better serve their country and protect themselves on the front lines, or would that compromise their individual identity and privacy? And which legislation should capture neurorights: data protection law, health law, consumer law, or criminal law?”
Nevertheless, she said smartbrains are unlikely to launch people into a dystopian world, in part due to computer limits.
“After all, there’s a leap between a BCI sending a short text and interpreting one’s entire stream of consciousness … making this leap largely comes down to how well we can train algorithms, which requires more data and computing power,” she explained.
Neuroscientist Andrew Jackson added society has nothing to fear yet.
“When it segues into talk of enhancement—the idea that we might be able to, for instance, write new memories into our brain or upload our memories onto a hard drive or into the cloud—we know a lot less about how those brain systems work,” he told ABC News.
He explained the human body is still a lot more capable than machinery.
At the moment, he said, the benefits of using a brain-machine interface are “still nothing like the sophistication of a normally functioning nervous system.”
“I think we have to be realistic,” he said.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 20:20 - "Our Munich": Israel Plans To Hunt Down Hamas Operatives Living Abroad
“Our Munich”: Israel Plans To Hunt Down Hamas Operatives Living Abroad
Israel has signaled it is prepared to take the war on Hamas far beyond the confines of Gaza and the West Bank. Fresh words by the country’s defense minister have invoked “our Munich” in relation to planned efforts to hunt down notable Hamas operatives abroad.
“The cabinet has set us a goal, in street talk, to eliminate Hamas. This is our Munich. We will do this everywhere, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar,” said Ronen Bar, who is the head of Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet.
Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet security services, via Flash90. He emphasized, “It will take a few years but we will be there to do it.” Israel has long been known to conduct aggressive and high risk assassination campaigns abroad, especially in Iran of late.
The words have outraged Turkey in particular, given it was named in Bar’s comments. On Monday Turkish Intelligence warned of “serious consequences” if Israeli agents try to seek Hamas members abroad, or especially on Turkish soil.
The most famous targeted assassination covert op was in response to the 1972 killings of 11 Israeli Olympic team members. Terrorists belonging to the Palestinian Black September had launched an unprecedented attack on the Munich games. Some eight members of the radical group had breached the Olympic compound and entered the two apartments used by the Israeli team, after which they began executing athletes amid a hostage standoff.
From there began a process on the part of Israeli intelligence to hunt down the Munich killers over a period of several years and spanning different countries. Israeli intelligence had dubbed the covert operation – details of which only became known decades later – as the “Wrath of God”.
According to a recounting of how the risky Munich response came together…
The clandestine programme was spearheaded by then Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, prime minister Golda Meir and her counterterrorism adviser Aharon Yariv, said historian Michael Bar-Zohar.
Initially, “after Munich, Golda Meir didn’t know what to do”, Bar-Zohar said. The two security chiefs, both with “the air of university professors”, met Meir, the Israeli historian said. “They were timid, well-dressed, and said one thing: ‘Now we must destroy Black September’.”
The trio, aware it would be nigh impossible to hunt down all members of Black September, instead devised a strategy of “smashing the head of the serpent” by killing the group’s leadership, said Bar-Zohar.
“Golda really hesitated,” he said. “Should she authorize assassinations throughout Europe and the Middle East?
“She said ‘yes’.”
Over the next few months, the heads of Black September and their allies from the Palestine Liberation Organization began to die in mysterious circumstances in Rome, Paris and Cyprus.
But Oct.7 was clearly many times worse that the Munich Olympic massacre, with some 1,200 Israelis – most of them civilians – killed. Around 240 hostages were taken, and currently 137 are still captive in Gaza, among them small children, after last week’s truce and prisoner swap deal collapsed.
Much of Hamas’ political leadership lives abroad, making decisions for the militant group from afar – and often from within the safety of Muslim countries. One famous operation in the recent past was known as the “Dubai job”. A high-ranking and founding Hamas member had been killed at his hotel by a group of Mossad assassins dressed as if they were playing tennis.
But the operation was somewhat of a fiasco given how widely the CCTV footage was publicized in the aftermath. Author Ronen Bergman has detailed this and other clandestine killings in his book Rise and Kill First: the Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations. Many targeted killings have also taken place against Iran, where Iranian nuclear scientists have especially been in the crosshairs of late.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 20:00 - US Water Systems Targeted By Iran-Linked Cyberattacks In Multiple States
US Water Systems Targeted By Iran-Linked Cyberattacks In Multiple States
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Multiple federal agencies are warning that Iran-linked hackers have been targeting U.S. water systems and other industries that use programmable-logic controllers (PLC) made by Israeli firm Unitronics, as the Israel–Hamas war simmers in the background.
This photo provided by the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa shows the screen of a Unitronics device that was hacked in Aliquippa, Pa., on Nov. 25, 2023. (Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa via AP) Hackers affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have engaged in “malicious cyber activity” targeting PLC operational technology devices used in the U.S. water and wastewater systems sector, and in other industries including energy, food, and beverage manufacturing, since at least Nov. 22, the agencies said in a Dec. 1 alert.
The agencies that issued the warning include the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the National Security Agency (NSA), with the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) joining in the advisory.
This IRGC-linked cyberattack group (known variously as CyberAv3ngers, CyberAveng3rs, or Cyber Avengers) has been compromising default credentials in Unitronics devices since at least Nov. 22, the agencies said.
After hacking the PLC devices in multiple states, CyberAv3ngers left the following defacement message: “You have been hacked, down with Israel. Every equipment ‘made in Israel’ is CyberAv3ngers legal target.”
The cyber group has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against critical infrastructure in Israel starting in 2020; it has recently turned its attention to targets in the United States, a key ally of Israel as it battles the Hamas terror group in response to the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel.
One high-profile attack by CyberAv3ngers targeted a water authority near Pittsburgh on Nov. 25, prompting congressional lawmakers to demand an investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and triggering the latest multi-agency warning that other water and sewage-treatment utilities, and other industries, may be vulnerable.
The PLC devices regulate processes including pressure, temperature, and fluid flow, according to Unitronics.
Pennsylvania Water Utility Attacked
A cyberattack by the Iran-linked group on Nov. 25 targeted the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, forcing the utility to switch to manual operations; officials said water quality wasn’t compromised.
“The affected municipality’s water authority immediately took the system offline and switched to manual operations—there is no known risk to the municipality’s drinking water or water supply,” the CISA said in a Nov. 28 notice.
While water quality wasn’t affected this time, the agency said that such cyberattacks do have the potential to threaten the ability of water and wastewater systems to provide clean drinking water to residents and to effectively manage wastewater.
The hackers accomplished their attack by exploiting cybersecurity weaknesses, including poor password security and exposure to the internet, according to the CISA. The agency urged water and wastewater facilities to take preventive measures including changing passwords and disconnecting the PLCs from the open internet.
Several Pittsburgh-based cybersecurity firms said that utility companies are more vulnerable to cyberattacks targeting operational technology because many of these systems are dated and monitored infrequently.
“Take a Fortune 500, or any type of large manufacturer or utility—instead of breaking in through their firewalls and trying to get to their data, [hackers have] the ability to try to go in and interfere with their systems,” David Kane, CEO of Pittsburgh-based Ethical Intruder, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“I think you’re gonna see a big rise in that because there’s just so few protections on it,” he said, adding that an attack on the operational technology side is “very alarming.”
In its latest warning, the CISA and the other agencies shared a number of indicators of compromise (IOC), as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) associated with the Iran-linked cyber group’s operations.
Lawmakers Demand Probe
The cyberattack prompted several congressional lawmakers from Pennsylvania to demand that the Department of Justice (DOJ) launch an investigation into how the foreign hacking group managed to breach a U.S.-based water facility.
“Any attack on our critical infrastructure is unacceptable,” U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) said in a post on X. “It poses a threat not only to Western PA, but also the nation.”
Mr. Deluzio, along with U.S. Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Nov. 28, saying that Americans need to be confident that their drinking water and other basic infrastructure is safe.
“If a hack like this can happen here in western Pennsylvania, it can happen anywhere else in the United States,” the lawmakers wrote.
The attack came less than a month after a federal appeals court decision prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to rescind a rule that would have obliged U.S. public water systems to include cybersecurity testing in their regular federally mandated audits.
The rollback was triggered by a federal appeals court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa, and joined by a water utility trade group.
Unitronics didn’t respond by press time to queries as to whether other facilities with its equipment may have been hacked or could be vulnerable.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 19:40 - Powerful Storm Could Cover Millions In US East With Snow
Powerful Storm Could Cover Millions In US East With Snow
Meteorologists are monitoring weather models that show a powerful storm might unleash thunderstorms, torrential rains, and snow across two dozen states in the central and eastern US this weekend.
AccuWeather meteorologists say a storm in the central Rockies will move into the southern and central Plains, developing a new area of low pressure on Friday. At the same time, cold air from the Rockies and northern Plains will collide, and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico will spark powerful thunderstorms.
Folks in eastern Texas into Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and western Tennessee should be on watch for dangerous thunderstorms on Saturday.
Focusing on what readers are most interested in: There’s a significant possibility of heavy snowfall across the Midwest to the interior Northeast.
“This storm will interact with cold air on the northwest side of the storm,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Joe Bauer said.
Bauer noted, “If the cold air can move in quickly enough, we could be looking at a zone of impactful snow from the Midwest and up through the Great Lakes Saturday into Sunday.”
It’s still too early to determine the storm’s track and where the heaviest snow falls. However, AccuWeather meteorologists said to keep an eye on “places such as Chicago and Detroit.”
In a separate report, Ryan Maue, a meteorologist and former NOAA chief scientist, wrote in a post on X, “Next major winter storm dialed for Sun/Mon with narrow band of heavy snowfall … but uncertainly about where it lines up e.g. St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit? Who knows.”
Next major winter storm dialed for Sun/Mon with narrow band of heavy snowfall … but uncertainly about where it lines up e.g. St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit? Who knows.
This will be a huge windmaker for East Coast, too.
ECMWF 12Z (HRES) @weathermodels_ pic.twitter.com/IBmE5jqCSD
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) December 4, 2023
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As for the East Coast cities, like Washington, DC, New York City, and Boston, meteorologists are convinced that temperatures will stay above freezing and any precipitation will be in the form of rain.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 19:20 - Silver Looks Like A Real Bargain Right Now
Silver Looks Like A Real Bargain Right Now
At the current price, silver is a real bargain.
Gold went on a run late last week, setting an all-time record high last Friday and breaking the $2,100 level for a brief time in overseas trading Sunday night. Silver also rallied but continues to lag behind gold.
In fact, silver looks significantly underpriced based on both its historical relationship with gold and the supply/demand dynamics.
The silver-gold ratio is currently over 81-1. That means it takes more than 81 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. To put the current ratio into perspective, in the modern era, the silver-gold ratio has averaged between 40:1 and 60:1.
Historically, the ratio has always returned to that mean. And when it does, it does it with a vengeance. The ratio fell to 30-1 in 2011 and below 20-1 in 1979.
When the spread gets this wide, silver doesn’t just outperform gold, it goes on a massive run in a short time. Since January 2000, this has happened four times. As this chart shows, the snapback is swift and strong.
Here’s some historical perspective.
Geologists estimate that there are approximately 19 ounces of silver for every ounce of gold in the earth’s crust, with a ratio of approximately 11.2 ounces of silver to each ounce of gold that has ever been mined. Interestingly, the silver-gold ratio in ancient Egypt was 1:1.
In 1792, the gold/silver price ratio was fixed by law in the United States at 15:1. France mandated a ratio of 15.5:1 in 1803. Faced with the challenges of a bi-metallic monetary system with fixed exchange rates and the aftermath of a worldwide financial crisis, the US Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1873. Following the lead of other Western nations, including England, Portugal, Canada, and Germany, this act formally demonetized silver and established a gold standard for the United States.
With silver playing a smaller role as a monetary metal, the silver-gold ratio gradually spread.
Since the world went to a total fiat money system, there seems to be some correlation between the silver-gold ratio and central bank money creation. During periods of central bank money-printing, the gap tends to shrink. For instance, it plummeted in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as the Fed engaged in extreme monetary policy.
In a recent podcast, Peter Schiff noted that while gold set a record, silver is far below its record of just under $50 an ounce.
I think silver is a particularly good buy right here because gold is at a record high and silver would have to double to hit its record high. That tells me that silver is very cheap.”
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
The price of silver also fails to reflect the current supply and demand dynamics.
According to a recent forecast by Oxford Economics, silver demand for industrial applications, jewelry production, and silverware fabrication is expected to nearly double over the next 10 years.
The use of silver in solar energy and electric vehicles will drive industrial offtake. According to a research paper by scientists at the University of New South Wales, solar manufacturers will likely require over 20% of the current annual silver supply by 2027, and by 2050, solar panel production will use approximately 85–98% of the current global silver reserves.
Silver demand set records in every category in 2022. Meanwhile, supply was flat with mine output dropping by 0.6% to 822.4 million ounces.
Record global silver demand and a lack of supply upside contributed to last year’s 237.7 million ounce market deficit. It was the second consecutive annual deficit in a row. The Silver Institute called it “possibly the most significant deficit on record.” It also noted that “the combined shortfalls of the previous two years comfortably offset the cumulative surpluses of the last 11 years.”
The price of silver does not reflect future demand or the growing supply deficit.
It’s important to keep in mind that while silver is an industrial metal, more fundamentally, it is money. Despite being more volatile in the short term, silver tends to track with gold over time. Historically, it has outperformed gold in a gold bull market.
At some point, investors will have to reckon with the shrinking supply of silver coupled with rising demand, along with the Fed’s inability to bring inflation back to its 2% target. When that happens, the price of silver will likely take off. If it does, $25 silver will look like a real bargain.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 19:00 - The Absolute State Of Joe Biden: Even Chris Cuomo 'Open' To Trump In 2024
The Absolute State Of Joe Biden: Even Chris Cuomo ‘Open’ To Trump In 2024
If one needs an indicator of just how terrible things are going for the Biden administration, former CNN host and Democrat darling, Chris Cuomo, says he’d be “open” to voting for Donald Trump over Biden.
In a recent podcast, Cuomo was asked about whether the United States would “survive” another term with President Trump, to which Cuomo replied: “We survived a Trump administration. Would we survive another? Yes.”
“And for people who are now going to attack me and say, what are you talking about? Trump is like this crazy man. Well, look, you know, as Patrick says, the data is the data. Nobody was trying to kill us when Trump was president in a way that they’re not now,” he told Patrick Bet-David, Adam Sosnik, Tom Ellsworth and Vincent Oshana.
“So you’re open to a Trump vote?” asked one of the hosts.
“I am always open. And I’ll tell you this. People say … ‘you’ve never voted for a Republican in your life.’ Wrong.”
“The first vote I ever cast was for a Republican,” Cuomo continued.
Watch the podcast discussion below:
Cuomo, currently a host for NewsNation, was suspended indefinitely by CNN in 2021 over allegations that he helped cover up his brother’s sexual harassment allegations. Cuomo is suing the network for $125 million, claiming that his ouster was “unlawful.”
“It should be obvious by now that Chris Cuomo did not lie to CNN about helping his brother,” said Cuomo’s lawyer earlier this month. “In fact, as the limited information released from Warner Media’s investigation makes clear, CNN’s highest-level executives not only knew about Chris’ involvement in helping his brother but also actively assisted the governor, both through Chris and directly themselves.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 18:40 - Cuban President In Iran For First Time In Two Decades, Resisting 'Arrogant' US Sanctions
Cuban President In Iran For First Time In Two Decades, Resisting ‘Arrogant’ US Sanctions
Iran and Cuba signed seven cooperation documents and Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) on Monday during a landmark visit to the Islamic Republic by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
The fields in which the two nations will expand cooperation include science and technology, health, agriculture, energy and mining, communication, and medicine. Diaz Canel arrived in Tehran on Sunday marking the first official visit by a Cuban leader to Iran since Fidel Castro’s visit in 2001.
Image: Iranian Presidency/EFE “We seek to strengthen the historical relations between the two countries, which have been built on mutual respect for 40 years; my visit aims to confirm our friendship with Iran, and in this context comes the signing of 6 cooperation agreements,” the Cuban president said during a joint news conference with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
For his part, Raisi stressed that both Iran and Cuba are resisting the “arrogant system” led by the US and warned the west of their “miscalculation” in sanctioning both nations.
“The US and arrogant system think that sanctions can force countries to surrender, but this calculation is incorrect,” the Iranian president emphasized.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Cuba earlier this year, calling the Caribbean nation “a friend, brother, and strategic ally.”
Despite crushing economic sanctions from the west, over the past several years the Islamic Republic has significantly bolstered ties with nations in Latin America.
The Iranian foreign minister visited Nicaragua earlier this year to discuss improving bilateral ties. During his visit, the top Iranian diplomat also met with Nicaraguan army commanders to discuss ways to “end” US hegemony in the region.
The Cuban president’s official military welcoming ceremony:
Cuban President @DiazCanelB, who arrived in Tehran earlier this morning, was officially received and welcomed by President Raeisi at the Sa’dabad Historical-Cultural Complex in Tehran. pic.twitter.com/Hb5h8bC6lk
— Press TV (@PressTV) December 4, 2023
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In June, Bolivian Defense Ministers Edmundo Novillo and Iran’s Mohamad Reza Ashtiani inked an MoU on defense and security affairs. Iran had also previously agreed to help Bolivia combat drug trafficking along its borders.
Tehran has also proved essential in helping Venezuela overcome US sanctions, allowing the South American nation to rebuild its battered oil refineries and providing oil dilutants and technical help to boost oil trade with countries like Russia and China.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 18:20 - Muslim Americans In Key Swing States Declare They'll Ditch Biden In 2024 Over Gaza Policy
Muslim Americans In Key Swing States Declare They’ll Ditch Biden In 2024 Over Gaza Policy
Democrats in Michigan have put the White House on notice, warning that his policies on Gaza have turned the Arab American community against him to the point of possibly being able sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
What’s more is that Biden’s supporters are quicky turning on him in some key swing states. “Increasingly, they have amplified their warnings, telling Biden’s team that frustrations among Arab Americans and Muslims could hurt him in the presidential race next year,” Politico has highlighted. “While those voters make up a small portion of the electorate, they can be a key bloc in tightly contested battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Exit polls show a clear majority of Muslims voted for Biden in 2020.”
Saturday Arab American rally attendees, via AP. Dearborn, Michigan in particular has a huge Arab American community, with many of these being Muslims as well as Palestinian Christians. The broader Detroit area is home to many Palestinian-Americans. They have become outraged over Biden’s refusal to impose conditions on military aid given to Israel, as the civilian death toll soars.
Minneapolis-based activist Jaylani Hussein has said, “Families and children are being wiped out with our tax dollars,” and emphasized “What we are witnessing today is the tragedy upon tragedy.”
This growing anger is leading to greater political organizing, as the AP has pointed out in describing, “Leaders from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania gathered behind a lectern that read Abandon Biden, ceasefire now in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.”
The aforementioned Hussein said the following words to the weekend conference to resounding applause:
“We are not powerless as American Muslims. We are powerful. We don’t only have the money, but we have the actual votes. And we will use that vote to save this nation from itself.”
“The anger in our community is beyond belief. One of the things that made us even more angry is the fact that most of us actually voted for President Biden,” he highlighted to the AP. “I even had one incident where a religious leader asked me, ‘How do I get my 2020 ballot so I can destroy it?’“
Saturday “Abandon Biden” conference, via AP. According to more from the AP:
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were critical components of the “blue wall” of states that Biden returned to the Democratic column, helping him win the White House in 2020. About 3.45 million Americans identify as Muslim, or 1.1% of the country’s population, and the demographic tends to lean Democratic, according to Pew Research Center.
But leaders said Saturday that the community’s support for Biden has vanished as more Palestinian men, women and children are killed in Gaza.
Activists at the conference were further quoted as saying their rejection of Biden doesn’t necessarily translate into support for Republican front-runner Donald Trump, but they intend to make Biden pay as long as he persists on his current Israel policy track.
On Sunday National Security Council spokesman John Kirby made appearances on the major Sunday shows, and tried to explain that the US received ‘assurances’ from Israel that its military is not targeting Palestinian civilians. These repeat attempts to address growing international and domestic pressure will likely be seen as weak and ‘too little, too late’ among Muslim Americans.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 18:00 - Is This Gold Breakout For Real? De-Dollarization May Be The Key Factor…
Is This Gold Breakout For Real? De-Dollarization May Be The Key Factor…
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via DollarCollapse.com,
Historically, fresh all-time-highs portend drawdowns for gold… Why this time may be different.
Gold finally did what many of us have been waiting on for a long time, and notched up a new all-time-high while closing strong into the weekend.
It’s been over three years in the making, and had some gut wrenching pullbacks in the interim.
The problem with gold over the course of The Fiat Era – is that with notable exceptions, new all-time-highs were usually an intermediate top signal that portended an imminent, significant pullback, followed by lengthy sideways grinds that could drag out for years.
To be sure, since The Nixon Shock in 1971, when dollar convertibility into gold was suspended temporarily – gold has for the most part been solidly “up and to the right”, as the Bitcoiners like to say.
Via Macrotrends.net
But that’s over a multi-decade timeframe. The intermediate cyclical and counter-cyclical moves, especially the bearish ones, could last longer than a typical trader’s career. Or least his patience…
Congrats to all the goldbugs celebrating new all time highs… pic.twitter.com/KNE8ccDwwe
— Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist (@StuntPope) December 2, 2023
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After the 1980 all-time-high, it took 28 years for gold to put in another one, in nominal terms. In inflation adjusted terms, gold still hasn’t surpassed the 1980 top:
Via Macrotrends.net – Inflation adjusted
When it finally did put in another ATH as the world was heading into the Global Financial Crisis, the expectations were that it would soar. After all, it seemed as if the financial system was literally imploding, and that was supposed to be the entire point of gold.
But that isn’t what happened, gold came off hard, along with everything else – turns out that in a liquidity crisis, the “best” assets get sold off too…
After a 25% decline from the 2008 high to the GFC lows, gold reversed hard and took off, about six months sooner than the rest of the stock market did – and finally went on a bull run of successive higher highs through until the 2011 high a bit shy of that fabled $2000 mark ($1,825) – before a vicious five year decline took it down over 40%. It was brutal.
Since then, the brief high during COVID (still shy of the $2K handle) and the failed retest of that high in 2022 were both followed by double-digit pull backs.
During the fiat currency era, while the nominal price of gold has generally been steadily increasing, there have only been three periods when it was in a solid bull run of putting up successively higher highs:
1971 – 1975 and 1976 – 1980, which many regard as one bull market, then 2009 – 2011.
The 2008 and 2020 all-time-highs marked “tops” that took three years to regain and surpass.
So, the obvious question is, which is it now?
The 4-Dimensional Base Case for Gold (a.k.a “Why this time may be different”)
As you can probably tell, I’m not really a chartist or much for technical analysis. While many look at these prior cycles for gold and try to derive meaning from the patterns using Elliot Waves and Fibonacci retracements, whatever, I just look at what actually happens and try to understand the fundamental investment logic of why people allocate to gold. General people, normies – not goldbugs.
If the normies think that either the currency, or the financial system itself, could go down the crapper, they’ll buy gold.
If they think the crisis is over and everything will be fine, they’ll sell it.
The 1980 gold bull ended because Paul Volcker “saved the USD” by hiking interest rates to 20%.
The 2011 bull run ended because QE and ZIRP “saved the financial system”.
Since the advent of the Fiat Era, the bull thesis for gold has been driven by “3-D’s”:
Debasement, Deficits, Debt…
This is nothing new, we don’t need to rehash it here. They’ve all been out of control, and accelerating, for decades. Far beyond what anybody paying attention could have thought was possible.
So far, the Three D’s haven’t been able to do it, but lately, another “D”… The Fourth “D” has been added to the mix:
…and De-Dollarization
Talking about the end of USD hegemony used make you look nutty. It was a weirdo talking point exclusive to preppers and doomers.
Then a few things happened, all within a very short time frame:
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COVID hit – and suddenly the doomers and preppers didn’t look so weird anymore. Even though the pandemic turned out to be less deadly than the experts thought, the policy response of lockdowns and stimulus still blew the first three D’s out to even more absurd proportions.
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The weaponization of the financial system toward foreign adversaries – Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, changed the calculus of holding USD foreign reserves (notwithstanding whether these governments had it coming or not).
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Exorbitant Privilege becoming more conspicuous and overt: It was long known that the US enjoyed a peculiar advantage in the global financial system – able to conjure value ex-nihilo and use it to import resources and boost domestic living standards – but combined with the other catalysts, it suddenly appeared to be more asymmetric than previously.
Now, “de-dollarization” isn’t some unthinkable scenario, it’s a thing. The BRICs are already planning an alternative system and we’re seeing more transactions that were previously settled exclusively in USD, being settled in alternative currencies – including gold.
Something else that is different this time is that Central Banks are buying up gold in record quantities, China’s PBOC reportedly scarfed up ____ tonnes this year , over 12% of annual production. This is believed to be in anticipation of even more oil purchases from GCC countries in Chinese Yuan, not USD.
As I finish this article out on Monday morning, gold is off a bit from the Asian opening last night, where it spiked over $50/oz out of the gate, only to give it all back. Peter Schiff is freaking out, because Bitcoin is outperforming gold, even as the former put up that new all-time-high.
Wake me up when gold cracks the inflation adjusted high from 1980.
— Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist (@StuntPope) December 4, 2023
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But these short term gyrations from one trading session to the next are meaningless. I find it almost cringey that a figure like Schiff would be fixating on it.
Bitcoin and gold are being impelled by the same motivation to protect purchasing power and defend against the coming era of capital controls – they each bring different types of optionality to the portfolio (which is why I find the “gold vs Bitcoin” argument beyond tedious).
However, when it comes to gold, especially – 5,000 years as a monetary metal as we like to remind people – we have to look at the longer waves. Gold’s moves play out over months and years, what between trading sessions is noise.
In my mind the key level to watch whether this gold move is real, is when it surpasses the 1980 high in inflation adjusted terms: which is around $2,590/oz
Once gold cracks $2,600/oz in USD terms, we’ll know for sure we’re into one mother of a long-wave super-cycle for the yellow metal.
(Which also means, btw, that the time to allocate a portion of your portfolio to gold is before it breaks out to successive all time highs, not after. You can put some of your retirement savings into a gold ira, pick up some physical, and we’re finishing up report on the best options for vaulted gold – join the mailing list to get that when it drops).
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 17:40 -
- Sam Altman's 'Engagement' In Other Startups Possibly Led To Initial Firing By OpenAI Board
Sam Altman’s ‘Engagement’ In Other Startups Possibly Led To Initial Firing By OpenAI Board
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s wheeling and dealing in other tech startups could have been one of the major factors pressuring the ChatGPT-maker’s board of directors to fire Altman last month. After his firing, OpenAI’s staff threatened to quit, forcing the board of directors to reinstate the founder days later.
Wired published a report about Altman’s ventures, including a startup named “Rain AI.” He personally invested upwards of a million in the company, which develops neuromorphic processing units, or NPUs. These chips are designed to replicate the human brain. In 2019, OpenAI entered into a nonbinding agreement with Rain to purchase $51 million in NPUs once they became available.
“OpenAI’s letter of intent with Rain shows how Altman’s web of personal investments can entangle with his duties as OpenAI CEO,” Wired wrote in the report.
The report pointed out Altman’s prior role at startup incubator Y Combinator helped him as a top Silicon Valley dealmaker, “investing in dozens of startups and acting as a broker between entrepreneurs and the world’s biggest companies. But the distraction and intermingling of his myriad pursuits played some role in his recent firing by OpenAI’s board for uncandid communications, according to people involved in the situation but not authorized to discuss it.”
According to a blog post about closed-door meetings with developers, Altman recently explained the need for advanced chips and more robust supply chains to further AI progress.
Meanwhile, at Rain, co-founder and former CEO Gordon Wilson posted last week that he has “stepped down from my position as CEO of Rain AI” after leading the startup for six years.
“I will also continue to share my own thoughts on AI and semiconductors, as these industries are central to the greatest transformations we are witnessing (and will continue to witness) across the world in this century,” Wilson wrote.
Bloomberg also noted that the US government forced Saudi Aramco’s investment vehicle Prosperity7 to sell its $25 million stake in the startup over national security concerns.
Other rumors show that the board might have fired Altman over working on a new chip venture to rival NVDA. Another rumor was that Altman did not inform the board about a breakthrough in artificial general intelligence.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/04/2023 – 17:20
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