Today’s News 5th October 2023

• Luongo: Ukraine Was Always The UK's War First
  Luongo: Ukraine Was Always The UK’s War First

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

  – Verbal Kent, the Usual Suspects

  

  For more than a year we’ve been regaled with headline after headline about how the War in Ukraine is a US war. It’s easy to think that, certainly. We’re the ones who started the process here, at least on the face of it.

  Victoria Nuland and her cookies on The Maidan. John McCain and his money and support of Right Sector. Seymour Hersh’s expose on the Nordstream 2 bombing. The seemingly endless billions of materiel from Congress. Even this weekend’s continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown hinged on Ukraine.

  The US has the political, economic, and military prowess and rightly should be first considered to be driving this bus towards war. And there are no shortage of commentators in the space helping that narrative along. And none of what I’m implying or about to say absolves these people from their actions which have led us to the current state.

  Hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of what should have been a fully avoidable war had someone been in charge on the West’s side that wanted peace.

  But the West didn’t want peace.

  It froze the conflict in 2014 with the Minsk Agreements because Vladimir Putin believed German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honorable. He traded liberating the Donbass fully for building Nordstream 2 hoping that the pipeline would finally tie Germany and Russia together in a that bond couldn’t be broken.

  This was Putin’s greatest mistake. And he’s still paying for it to this day.

  In 2014 Ukraine was in no shape after the rout at Gorlovka to oppose a Russian-backed Donetsk and Lugansk forces to secure both Oblasts which included the important city of Mariupol. The land bridge to Crimea could have been secured then and the entire buildup to this version of today’s conflict avoided.

  It would have changed the gameboard coming into 2022.

  But Russia always knew that it wasn’t only the US pushing this conflict. That push was coming from the entirety of Europe and the US. One could argue that Putin understood there was never going to be peace without conflict, that the great war to end 300+ years of Russia fighting colonial Europe wasn’t going to end with the building of a pipeline.

  But, to his credit, he had to try.

  The problem, of course, is exactly this. Russian/European or, more explicitly, Russian/British animosity goes back centuries. Russia’s relationship with Europe is far more complex and violent than that of its relationship with the US.

  Russia’s initial invasion created a real problem for the West, particularly the UK, and in that initial land grab, we almost forget that there was an opportunity for a settlement in May of 2022, until British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Ankara and blew up peace talks being brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

  It has been the British military and intelligence agencies acting as the grease between the Ukrainians and the Americans to ensure that the conflict continued. As my friend Alex Krainer always says, “All roads lead to London.” And George Soros’ arguments about the clash of two civilizations, Open vs. Closed Societies, go back much farther than his raid on the Bank of England:

  In his address to the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos in May 2022 George Soros explained that we are witnessing a clash between two models of governance. This was only slightly misleading: models don’t wage war on one another; it is the stakeholders in these models that are fighting. Soros characterized the two opposing sides as “open societies,” vs. “closed societies,” where open societies are liberal democracies that respect human rights, and closed societies are autocracies.

  But Soros’s “open” societies are in fact oligarchies concealed behind faux democratic facades. To believe Soros, we’d have to accept that the trillionaire oligarchs in charge of open societies are die-hard defenders of democracy and human rights, willing to shed blood and treasure in their defense.

  The term Neoconservative rightly describes a particular type of person who holds foreign policy ideals which are indistinguishable with that of British foreign policy going back over 200 years. They exist within the Soros framework of creating global governance by oligarchs at the helm of an open system that they argue benefits all of humanity.

  This is a lie. What it really does is pull back the curtain on what the real goal is, total global domination through control over the value of money which fuels endless wars to subjugate the unruly and recalcitrant.

  These ideas were codified by Halford Mackinder early in the 20th century, which I’ve written about and discussed ad nauseum.

  Because of the dominance of Mackinder’s ideas and the policies erected to support it, the world has been subjected to endless conflict over his conception of the “World Island,” which is basically Eurasia.

  And that’s why there can be no losing for the West in Ukraine. To the Mackinderists at the top of the power structures in London, Washington D.C. and Brussels, losing Ukraine means losing the entire world, because they have this very-outdated view of world geography.

  Mackinder-ism in today’s world is a tautology, reducing to: We have to control the Heartland because we can’t lose the Heartland.

  Because of the dominance of Mackinder’s ideas and the policies erected to support it, the world has been subjected to endless conflict over his conception of the “World Island,” which is basically Eurasia.

  US foreign policy is shaped by these ideas, but the roots of it becoming so go back to Woodrow Wilson, if not further. Richard Poe has done amazing work illuminating the history on this that many would rather forget about. From creating communism, to their influence to stoke the US Civil War, to even creating “George Soros” himself.

  You can listen to our 2.5 hour conversation on these topics in the podcast Richard and I did over the summer if you need a refresher course.

  The Willfully Blind Hand

  Denying the hand of the British Foreign Office, City of London, and the influence over US foreign and domestic policy is like denying that such a thing as history even exists. It’s easy to see once you look for it.

  The question you should be asking yourself is who is driving the bus today, the US, the UK, or both?

  It’s easy to believe the UK has no influence here. But if that’s the case why did they work so hard to neuter Donald Trump’s presidency at every turn (Christopher Steele, Joseph Mifsud)? Why did RussiaGate wind up with Trump being impeached twice, once for Joe Biden’s crimes in Ukraine?

  When you trace the political lineage of people like Former CIA Director Gina Haspel, Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, and Fiona Hill, all of whom threw their boss under the bus for Nancy Pelosi’s inane witch hunt of Trump, you come a British cropper every time.

  Trump’s only win as president was keeping us out of a direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine and Syria. But he was maneuvered by all of these people and Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, et.al. into doing the very things to ensure when he left office all the groundwork for the present conflict would proceed exactly as it has.

  No deal with North Korea, severing diplomatic relations with Russia, empowering Polish and Baltic Russophobia, doing Israel’s bidding at every turn, every day in the Trump White House on foreign policy was “Opposite Day.” Whatever Barack Obama did on behalf of Europe and Davos he undid, playing right into the British goals of putting the US on track under Joe Biden to end up where we are today.

  It doesn’t matter if he did this to support ‘our greatest ally’ to fight for a proper Brexit from the near comical evil represented by the European Union. Like Putin’s soft spot for Germany, Trump’s soft spot for the Union Jack made him susceptible to both flattery, a personal weakness of his, and incredibly biased ‘intelligence’ he got from his advisers.

  Maybe a second Trump term will have him battle-hardened to see things more clearly, but I’m not holding out hope.

  The Need for War

  This need for Ukraine to ‘win the war’ is a uniquely Neoconservative talking point. It comes from the need to break the dominance of the US economy over global markets. For those who can only think in terms of the US being the “Evil Empire” of today I want to ask you a simple question,

  Why would the US embroil themselves in a fight against Russia and/or China and all the tail risks that come with those wars when they could maintain their current dominance through working with both countries, keep the dollar the universal trade settlement currency and fix its problems?

  In other words, folks, where’s the bono for the US in the Cui Bono analysis?

  Because I don’t see any upside here. What I see are nothing but risks and bad returns on investment.

  The US doesn’t need Russia’s oil and gas. We do not need the other natural resources like aluminum, timber, coal, iron, copper, etc. We make enough food to export to the world.

  So, what’s the deal?

  And don’t give me that tired, Malthusian, finite planet bullshit loved by so many, frankly, leftist ignoramuses. We are nowhere near the event horizon of the finite planet model. Just because you believe in it doesn’t make it true.

  What is true is that US leadership is clearly operating outside the mandate of what’s good for America. And if you don’t ask simple questions like the ones above then how can you ever begin to think outside of the simple explanation put in front of you?

  We see the US today as an empire in decline. But this empire was built on a particular model, the British model. And if you do the basic trace through history you can make a very compelling argument (not the only argument, mind you), that the US empire is simply the remnant of the British Empire outsourced to its former colonies.

  That implies if we, as Americans, come to grips with this, make sense of it, then we can reframe our criticisms of US domestic and foreign policy as something other than incompetence mixed with a generous dollop of hubris. We can ask the hard question that maybe, just maybe, this is an operation to destroy the US from within for the purpose of transferring its power back ‘across the pond’ to either the UK, Europe or China.

  Then all you really have to do is look at who’s really pulling the strings, who’s getting screwed and who’s opportunistically piling on during the chaos for their own benefit.

  Why Now? Why US?

  But when it comes to Ukraine, this has always been the UK’s war. This is why there has been such turmoil at the top of the British government, why at every turn they have been there making sure this thing escalates at a consistent pace and their partners in Congress, the State Dept., the CIA, the DoD and the K-Street think tanks are all in on the insane moralizing about America’s duty to Ukraine.

  This is:

  Why they are sending UK troops to Ukraine.

  Why the Royal Navy is moving into the Black Sea.

  Why they gave Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles to shoot at Crimea.

  Why Biden approved sending cluster munitions to kill Russian civilians.

  Why they helped Ukraine blow up the Kerch Strait bridge twice.

  Why the Poles were set up to be the trip wire for a NATO Article 5 invocation.

  Why Zelenskyy is allowed to run around the world begmanding for money.

  Why Neocons on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill want an open-ended flood of money there.

  Why all discussions of peace talks get shut down before they are allowed to be considered.

  Why Putin invokes the “Anglo-Saxons” when discussing the war.

  Why Medvedev implies London as the decision center needing a cleansing.

  There is more than a distant whiff of desperation the air now over Ukraine coming from the usual suspects.

  Kevin McCarthy’s last minute deal to get Ukraine back door funding could cost him his speakership this week. Good.

  The American people don’t want this war. They don’t want to fund it or fight it. Putin is being maneuvered into a decision that either destroys him politically in 2024 or pushes him into becoming literally Putler.

  It’s 1938 all over again folks and the historical record isn’t as cut and dried as we were all taught in school.

  This isn’t an existential crisis for the US, but it is for the old colonial powers of Europe, especially the UK.

  It’s beyond time we face that honestly.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you want to face the face

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 10/05/2023 – 02:00

• This Is Not Freedom, America: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State
  This Is Not Freedom, America: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State

  Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

  – Frédéric Bastiat, French economist

  Pay no heed to the circus politics coming out of Washington DC. It’s just more of the same grandstanding by tone-deaf politicians oblivious to the plight of the citizenry.

  Don’t allow yourselves to be distracted by the competing news headlines cataloging the antics of the ruling classes. While they are full of sound and fury, they are utterly lacking in substance.

  Tune out the blaring noise of meaningless babble. It is intended to drown out the very real menace of a government which is consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population.

  

  Focus instead on the steady march of the police state at both the national, state and local levels, and the essential freedoms that are being trampled underfoot in its single-minded pursuit of power.

  While the overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us—warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling—you rarely hear anything about them from the politicians, the corporations or the news media.

  So what’s behind the blackout of real news?

  Surely, if properly disclosed and consistently reported on, the sheer volume of the government’s activities, which undermine the Constitution and dance close to the edge of outright illegality, would give rise to a sea change in how business is conducted in our seats of power.

  Yet when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this.

  As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.

  When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.

  These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the name of the national good—against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our freedoms—by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

  Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.

  Not only are Americans forced to spend more on taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, education and clothing combined, but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.

  Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.

  On the roads: Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and speeding and red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit sharing by imposing a vehicle miles-traveled tax, which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.

  In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to “boost profits” at taxpayer expense. All the while, prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has one of the largest prison populations in the world.

  In the schools: The public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are school truancy laws, which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for “unauthorized” absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.

  In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million per hour. Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.  Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford. War spending is bankrupting America.

  In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover, government-funded military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.

  In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture: Under the guise of fighting the war on drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions of dollars’ worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then—and here’s the kicker—whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police have actually being trained in seminars on how to seize the “goodies” that are on police departments’ wish lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to “pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.”

  By the security industrial complex: We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of “precrime,” this government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. This far-reaching surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for an omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government—the Surveillance State—that came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn’t even touch on the government’s bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying and tracking the American people from birth to death.

  By a government addicted to power: It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

  This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And, as always, it’s we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.

  This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.

  Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives. Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few.

  Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and cell phone tracking technology.

  With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.

  All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those are your tax dollars at work.

  It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to speak their truth to their elected officials.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is not freedom, America.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:40

• Best (And Worst) Cities For Retirement In The U.S.
  Best (And Worst) Cities For Retirement In The U.S.

  According to projections from the U.S. Census Bureau, by the year 2030, all individuals belonging to the baby boomer generation—estimated to be roughly 73 million in the United States—will have reached the age of 65. As retirement comes into sharper focus for many in this group, thoughts are increasingly turning to the most suitable locations for enjoying their twilight years.

  With that in mind a new study from Consumer Affairs looked into the best (and worst) cities for retirement in the United States. The study looked at the following from each location:

  • Cost of living index

  • Percentage of people 65 and over

  • Total crime (violent and property crimes) per 100,000 people

  • Rent burden (percentage of households spending 30% or more of household income on rent)

  • Preventive services (percentage of people 65 and older up to date on core set of clinical preventive services)

  • Access to healthy foods (percentage of people living more than half a mile from the nearest grocery store

  • Access to parks (percentage of population living within a 10-minute walk of a green space)

  • Physical inactivity score (percentage of population with no leisure-time physical activity in the past month)

  • Walkability (Walk Score)

  • Community well-being score (Sharecare index)

  • Temperature (Whether average temperature from February 2022 to January 2023 was between 65 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit)

  Jennifer Tripken, associate director for the Center of Healthy Aging at the National Council on Aging, stated: ”Where you live plays a critical role in not only how long you live, but in your quality of life. Communities that are age-friendly are ones that promote health and are designed to meet the needs of diverse populations, including having inclusive and equitable policies, practices and services.”

  Lincoln, the seat of government in Nebraska, not only serves as the state’s capital but also ranked highest on the list for ideal retirement cities. Despite being the state’s second-largest city by population, it’s the higher proportion of residents over 65 that could make it especially attractive to retirees. Another key factor in its favor is the cost of living index, which suggests that your money will go further here when it comes to everyday expenses.

  Additional merits of Lincoln encompass its relatively low crime rate and more affordable rental prices. Though its average temperature for the year 2022 stood at around 53 degrees Fahrenheit—somewhat cooler than other cities in the survey—its rich offering of parks and high community well-being index propelled it to the top of the list.

  While Lincoln stands out, it’s not the lone contender for retirement according to the metrics. Omaha also made the cut, securing the 25th position in the study.

  The report’s runner-up in is St. Louis, largely due to its affordable cost of living and high marks in overall well-being. As Missouri’s most populated city, it boasts a sizable community of residents aged 65 and above. 

  

  The city also shines in its accessibility to healthier food options and its walkability. Additionally, a high proportion of its senior citizens have benefited from clinical preventive services. While St. Louis does record higher crime and physical inactivity rates compared to other top contenders, it compensates with an abundant offering of parks that are easily accessible.

  It’s worth noting, however, that St. Louis is somewhat of an anomaly in Missouri when it comes to retirement-friendly cities. Other cities in the state such as Joplin, ranked 91st, Springfield, coming in at 99th, and Kansas City, landing at 100th, all scored significantly lower on the list.

  Situated in Illinois and hosting the University of Illinois, Champaign is not merely a hub for students but also ranks as a prime location for retirees. The city provides a variety of attractions, ranging from sports events to a vibrant arts community, catering to diverse tastes among the retired populace.

  Champaign earns commendation for its low levels of crime and high rate of seniors who have availed themselves of preventive healthcare services. The city also scores well in terms of walkability.

  In the context of Illinois, Champaign is not alone in its appeal for the older generation. Bloomington also receives positive reviews, securing the 16th position on the retirement-friendly list, followed closely by Decatur at 26th place.

  Among the worst cities for retirement were Lake Havasu City, Arizona, which despite boasting the highest population of individuals aged 65 and over along with a low crime rate, finds itself at the very bottom. Primary reasons include poor access to nutritious food options, a less-than-stellar community well-being index, and a steep cost of living. Following closely are Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Olympia, Washington, both of which scored poorly in terms of park accessibility and walkable neighborhoods. If these factors hold importance for your retirement planning, you might want to explore other options, the report notes.

  You can view the full list of best and worst cities to retire in, as well as a list of demographics on each city, at the full study here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:20

• Retired General Milley's Legacy Is Brinkmanship With Russia & China
  Retired General Milley’s Legacy Is Brinkmanship With Russia & China

  Authored by Connor Freeman via AntiWar.com,

  Gen. Mark Milley retired on Friday as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and handed over command to Air Force chief Gen. Charles Q. Brown. In 2019, Milley took up the post after being nominated by President Donald Trump. He oversaw massive escalations in the buildup for war with China, the Ukraine proxy war, and the current brinkmanship with Moscow during his four-year tenure.

  Milley’s years as top general saw Washington and the Pentagon pour weapons into Kyiv and begin transforming Ukraine into a de facto NATO state, well before Russia launched its invasion in 2022. This process saw multiple joint military exercises held by US and Ukrainian forces as well as between the North Atlantic alliance and Ukrainian troops.

  

  Throughout 2021, the US and Ukrainian militaries along with NATO participated in a series of war drills, many of which took place near Russia’s borders and in the Black Sea, the size of which rivaled any military exercises during the post-Cold War era. In November 2021, the US was flying bombers only about a dozen miles off Russia’s borders and simulating nuclear first strikes.

  These were some of the policies being implemented by Milley and his colleagues – including Gen. Brown – in Eastern Europe in the months before Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. After helping to provoke the invasion, US military leadership seized upon the opportunity to back Kyiv in a bloody proxy war with the aim of “weakening” Russia and crippling its military. As a result of this policy, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now warns humanity has never been closer to outright nuclear war.

  Despite the catastrophic risks, the policy has failed. As EUROCOM chief General Christopher Cavoli explained to Congress earlier this year, Russia’s navy and air force have taken negligible losses and its ground forces are “bigger today” than when the war began. The Pentagon is depleting its own weapons stocks to support Kyiv’s failing war effort, while Russia’s capacity to produce armor and ammo has outstripped the entire NATO alliance.

  Ukraine has lost 20% of its country, the Kremlin gained more territory than Kyiv this year, and Ukrainian forces are estimated to have suffered tens of thousands of casualties during recent months.

  Although Milley was calling for negotiations last fall, perhaps sensing that Kyiv had reached its peak in terms of battlefield successes, he was overruled by the likes of the ultra-hawkish Secretary of State Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

  Milley did not threaten to resign in protest of a policy he reportedly made a “strong push” against, a policy he not only believed was wrongheaded, but that carries with it the ultimate risk of direct war between the United States and Russia.

  Instead, when Kyiv launched its long-awaited and disastrous counteroffensive in June, Milley told CNN “the Ukrainians are very well prepared.” Before the doomed campaign began, Western military officials knew Ukraine’s troops were woefully ill-equipped and undertrained.

  In May, a neo-Nazi militia tied with Ukrainian military intelligence launched a raid using NATO vehicles and weapons targeting civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region. In the aftermath, Milley bluntly explained “we have asked the Ukrainians not to use U.S.-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia… Why is that? Because we don’t want – this is a Ukrainian war. It is not a war between the United States and Russia. It’s not a war between NATO and Russia.”

  Although, the White House is now preparing to send Ukraine ballistic missiles – with a range of nearly 200 miles – that can be used for attacks against Crimea and the Russian mainland. “In terms of their targeting decisions, it’s their decision, not ours,” Blinken said last month when asked if the US would green light Kyiv’s desires to hit targets deep inside Russia.

  Again, Milley made no public protest after the administration declared the US will facilitate and support attacks on Russia which he previously stated could trigger World War III.

  In recent months, the US has resorted to pouring cluster bombs and Abrams tanks armed with toxic depleted-uranium ammunition into what is now the most heavily mined country on the planet, demonstrating a lack of concern for the lives of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.

  But this is in keeping with Milley’s pronouncement last year that “what’s at stake here is much greater than Ukraine.”

  Under Milley’s leadership, the US military drastically ramped up Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” encircling China for a future war. In 2020, Trump’s war cabinet vastly expanded the US military footprint in Beijing’s near abroad by sending more warships and spy planes, conducting aerial surveillance flights, to the region and especially the South China Sea.

  During the end of the Trump administration, Milley called his Chinese counterpart and assured him there was no imminent plan to launch an assault against China. US intelligence indicated Beijing believed the US was planning an attack “based on tensions over [Washington’s dual aircraft carrier] military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China,” the Washington Post reported.

  Milley later explained, “My task at that time was to de-escalate.” As with the Russia policies, however, since then Milley never put his post on the line to voice opposition to Washington’s trajectory in the Asia-Pacific, which appears to be leading to war between the United States and China. Instead, he led the charge in his position as the nation’s top military officer.

  Last year, US spy planes flew 1,000 sorties in the South China Sea, in some instances, just over a dozen miles from the baseline of China’s mainland territorial waters. US aircraft carrier strike groups and amphibious alert groups made eight deployments to the region as well, with extended durations. The US also sent nuclear-powered attack submarines to the South China Sea 12 times.

  Currently, Washington and its partners are “setting the theater” for an upcoming direct war with China. The US is securing additional bases near Taiwan and China and increasing U.S. military access in the Pacific island nations. The US has even committed billions in unprecedented military aid to Taipei, making war more likely.

  Meanwhile, in Syria Milley championed Washington’s indefinite and illegal occupation over large swathes of the eastern parts of the war-torn country. The US controls a third of Syria including most of the nation’s oil and wheat resources as an ancillary to its economic war against Damascus. Roughly 900 US troops and an undisclosed number of contractors are embedded with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

  Mark Milley calls President Trump a wannabe dictator. pic.twitter.com/c247EZrdlJ

  — Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) October 3, 2023

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  Ethnic tensions and violent clashes between Washington’s Kurdish proxy and the local Arab tribesmen may soon make the occupation untenable. As CENTCOM chief Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla has conceded, the American troops’ unwanted presence is also becoming more dangerous as there have been numerous close calls with Russian forces and aircraft as well as dozens of attacks by ostensibly Iranian-backed groups.

  Nevertheless, Milley has not advocated for a withdrawal or even a reduction in troop levels, instead as he leaves his post another base is being built in the northern province of Raqqa.

  Earlier this year, Milley told Congress US forces would begin “harshly” targeting members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria, which could lead to a hot war with Iran. “We need to be targeting [the IRGC Quds Force], and targeting them very harshly over time, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing,” Milley declared.

  After Trump kicked off 2020 with the brutal and illegal drone strike assassination at the Baghdad International Airport of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the Iraqi parliament demanded all US forces leave the country. The American troops were never removed, making Milley’s lofty rhetoric about what’s at stake with the rise of China and the Ukraine war dubious.

  Washington’s wars in the post-9/11 era have killed 4.5 million people overseas and cost Americans trillions of dollars. Despite these realities, in August, Milley boasted “I can’t imagine that the United States would ever walk away from the Middle East. I think we’ll remain committed for many, many years and decades to come.”

  In 2021, during the end of Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan – after the failed 20-year war and occupation which left about a quarter of a million people dead – a US drone strike on a home in Kabul slaughtered ten civilians, including seven children.

  US officials claimed the strike targeted an ISIS-K suspect who was planning a terrorist attack. Instead, Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker employed by a California-based NGO, along with nine members of his family were killed in the August 29 strike.

  Almost immediately, evidence mounted that noncombatants had been murdered. But the administration and the military chose to promote it as a success as long as possible. Milley was emphatic, “the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.”

  Months later, Lt. Gen. Sami Said, the Air Force Inspector General, led a review which found the killings were not the result of any “misconduct or negligence” and there was no need to hold anyone involved accountable. At the time, Milley’s successor, Gen. Brown, was Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

  Milley’s legacy is the completely broken foreign policy that has defined the new American century. The Wolfowitz doctrine will continue sputtering out as the multipolar world realities supplant unipolar moment fantasies. Washington can be expected to chaotically lash out at the so-called “revisionist powers,” Russia and China, until America is bankrupt or nuclear weapons are launched.

  Milley never tried to save his countrymen or his military from this destruction, he could always be counted on to do what was best for his own selfish interests.

  He will be celebrated by the corporate press every time he excoriates Trump as a “wannabe dictator” and talks up his oath to the Constitution, even if each war Milley was involved with was undeclared, unconstitutional, and illegal.

  Next, he may find himself a comfortable seat on the board of Raytheon or Lockheed Martin. He may even make a presidential run. Regardless, history will be ruthless in its appraisal of the man who co-bylined an imperial agenda destined to culminate in a Third World War, condemning humanity to misery, poverty, death, and despair.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:00

• 84% Of CEOs Expect A Recession In 2024 (& 0% Of Fed Staff)
  84% Of CEOs Expect A Recession In 2024 (& 0% Of Fed Staff)

  For much of the last year, recession fears have been building against a sharp rise in interest rates and market uncertainty.

  Only recently has there been a shift in sentiment. Given the resilience of the U.S. economy, a growing amount of investors are seeing an increasing likelihood of a soft landing – where the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation without triggering a recession. However, many still remain cautious.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Nuefeld shows U.S. economic forecasts across Wall Street, Main Street, and C-Suite for 2024.

  

  U.S. Economic Forecast: Is a Recession Coming?

  Here’s what key players are projecting for the economy:

  

  Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Wolters Kluwer, The Conference Board, Goldman Sachs Investment Research, Bank of America. Data based on surveys and projections conducted August-September.

  *Based on a New York Fed model estimating recession probabilities using 10-year minus 3-month Treasury yield spreads, based on data from 1959-2009.

  **Conference Board Q3 CEO survey probability of a recession over the next 12-18 months.

  In July, the Federal Reserve staff announced that they were no longer forecasting a recession in 2024, marking a sharp departure from earlier projections.

  While the Fed staff continue to share a brighter outlook, the yield curve spread between 10-year and 3-month Treasury rates suggests there is a 61% change of a recession in the 12 months ahead. Historically, the yield curve has been a reliable predictor of recessions, based on a New York Fed model which uses data from 1959-2009.

  Meanwhile, a survey of economists by Wolters Kluwer shows that they’re split, with 48% calling for a recession over the next 12 months.

  Across Main Street, consumers share a more cautious sentiment, with over 69% saying that a recession is likely in the next year, based on a Conference Board survey.

  Yet corners of America’s C-suite have grown more positive. Goldman Sachs recently dropped its recession forecast to a 15% likelihood while Bank of America gives it a 35-40% odds. On the other hand, 84% of CEOs are preparing for a recession in the next 12-18 months, a drop from 92% seen in the second quarter of 2023.

  Bull Case vs. Bear Case Signals

  Among the key factors investors are closely watching center around the impact of higher interest rates on the economy.

  For the bull case, higher rates appear as though they haven’t significantly impacted consumer spending yet, although spending has slowed on non-essential items. Retail sales continue to be solid, and earnings across Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s, and other major retailers show resilience. Where the main changes are occurring are with consumers purchasing more affordable options.

  However, consumers are relying increasingly on borrowing for spending.

  For the bear case scenario, household debt has hit record highs of $17 trillion in March, rising 19% year-over-year. Higher rates have led these borrowing costs to jump, likely affecting household budgets. Meanwhile, corporate defaults have accelerated in 2023, and are projected to keep rising.

  Overall, there are mixed signals across the wider economy. Quantifying the full effects of higher interest rates on consumers and businesses remains an open question.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:40

• Contempt For Press Freedoms: US Officials Bar Tucker Carlson From Interviewing Putin
  Contempt For Press Freedoms: US Officials Bar Tucker Carlson From Interviewing Putin

  Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via AntiWar.com,

  Tucker Carlson reports that the U.S. government prevented him from interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Carlson told the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche that he had sought to arrange an interview with Putin, but U.S. officials blocked him.

  “I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. government prevented me from doing so. Think about [the implications],” Carlson told the newspaper on September 24.  Worse, according to Carlson, no one in the U.S. news media supported his right as a journalist to report on the Russian leader’s views regarding the Ukraine conflict.

  

  Such obstructionism reflects a growing contempt on the part of officials in the United States and other supposedly liberal democratic countries for freedom of the press.  It is merely the latest episode in a lengthening parade of restrictions, ranging from petty to truly alarming.  The highest priority targets are critics who dare condemn or even dispute the accounts that Western leaders put forth regarding key foreign policy objectives

  European Union governments have been even more brazen than Washington in their efforts to impede critics.  Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU banned the two most prominent Russian outlets, RT and Sputnik.  The official rationale was that those organizations were Kremlin controlled and were disseminating “disinformation” regarding the war in Ukraine.  EU officials even ordered the removal of RT and Sputnik material from search engines.

  More than 300 million inhabitants of EU countries were thus deprived from accessing Russia’s views about the war or its causes.  Conversely, EU authorities did not impose the slightest restrictions on the tsunami of propaganda coming out of Kyiv regarding the war.  Such gross imbalance has been a transparent effort to rig public opinion on a major international issue.

  U.S. officials have been somewhat more subtle in their efforts to squelch dissenting views, especially on Russia, but they have been bad enough. The FBI, the CIA, and other agencies have engaged in a two-front assault on freedom of the press.  One method is to emulate the EU and take direct action against alternative news outlets and other dissenters.  The other strategy, which has become increasingly pervasive over the past decade is to pressure or collude with social media platforms to harass, marginalize, or eliminate sources that Washington dislikes.  Such censorship by proxy is both insidious and dangerous.

  The FBI took a major step toward implementing the first approach in October 2017.  FBI leaders created a new Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. The FBI subsequently considered any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to U.S. national security.  Targets for suppression were not confined to publications and outlets that were indisputably under the control of one of those hostile powers.

  However, censorship by proxy has become by far the U.S. national security state’s preferred method.  The U.S. national security apparatus has even actively assisted Volodymr Zelensky’s Ukrainian regime to undermine the constitutional rights of Americans.  CNN noted a worrisome revelations in a July 2023 report from the House Judiciary Committee.  “The committee says SBU [Ukraine’s top security agency] sent the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly ‘spread Russian disinformation,’ and that the FBI then ‘routinely relayed these lists to the relevant social media platforms, which distributed the information internally to their employees in charge of content moderation and enforcement.’”

  In other words, the FBI served as a willing conduit and facilitator for Kyiv’s overseas censorship efforts.  Moreover, U.S. officials did not make even a minimal effort to vet Kyiv’s allegations before pressuring social media companies to shut down the accounts of targeted organizations and individuals.

  Revelations from the so-called Twitter files, confirm the extent of such ideological collusion between federal agencies and social media companies.  Among other unhealthy aspects was that the FBI had paid Twitter $3.4 million.  In a so-called fact-check, USA Today conceded that “the FBI flagged Twitter accounts the agency believed violated Twitter’s terms of service. Second, another document shows the FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million for Twitter’s processing of information requests the FBI made through the Stored Communications Act.”  However, “fact-checker” Molly Stelino concluded that the FBI was not using Twitter for censorship purposes, insisting that “the $3.4 million is unrelated to the FBI flagging accounts.”  Such an argument deserves an award for gullibility.

  The extent of the government’s collusion campaign was even more apparent because Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive in charge of content moderation and members of his staff met weekly with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  It is a safe bet that those meetings were not to discuss the weather.  Such meetings also cast even more doubt on the allegedly benign nature of the FBI’s $3.4 million payment to Twitter for processing “information requests.”  Yet even Roth apparently balked at some of the FBI’s more far-reaching demands.  Roth contended that the list of alleged Russian disinformation offenders even included “‘a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. [Grayzone’s] Aaron Mate),’ and said that Twitter would focus on rule violations and inauthentic behavior (i.e., bots).”

  One interaction between the FBI and Facebook was as alarming as the collusion with Twitter. The FBI worked to discredit the New York Post’s blockbuster story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later reported that FBI officials had approached him with a warning that Russia was conducting a concerted disinformation campaign during the 2020 U.S. election cycle, just as the Kremlin did in 2016.  It was hard to miss the government’s implication that the laptop probably was part of the latest disinformation effort, and that Facebook should take down posts or algorithmically throttle accounts contending that revelations contained in the files were genuine. Yet there was no evidence at the time or subsequently that the laptop involved Russian disinformation.  The allegation further poisoned relations with Russia, though, as well as stifled debate on a crucial issue.

  In an early September 2023 ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Biden administration’s meetings with social media companies had violated the First Amendment.   That is an encouraging development in the battle against censorship by proxy, but it is unlikely that agencies in the national security apparatus will abandon their efforts to curb dissent, especially on controversial issues related to Washington’s role in the world.  Freedom of the press clearly is under siege even in supposedly liberal, democratic countries.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:20

• Pentagon 'Alleviates' Ukraine Arms Shortage By Sending Seized Iranian Weapons
  Pentagon ‘Alleviates’ Ukraine Arms Shortage By Sending Seized Iranian Weapons

  Is this Biden’s attempt at a solution to the problem of blocked Ukraine aid for the time being? CNN is reporting that the US administration is set to transfer weapons it seized from Iran to Kiev…

  “The US will transfer thousands of seized Iranian weapons and rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, in a move that could help to alleviate some of the critical shortages facing the Ukrainian military as it awaits more money and equipment from the US and its allies, US officials said.”

  

  US CENTCOM revealed Wednesday that the process has already started, with over one million seized rounds of Iranian ammunition having been given to Ukraine forces thus far.

  “The government obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” the Pentagon statement explained.

  Previously, the Justice Department announced over the summer the seizure of “over 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, approximately 194 rocket launchers, over 70 anti-tank guided missiles, and over 700,000 rounds of ammunition.” These had been obtained by the US Navy from foreign vessels caught “trafficking” in Gulf regional waters.

  Some European allies, such as the French, have also announced their own Iranian weapons seizures of late. The majority of these were believed bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are the Shia allies of Iran currently fighting the Saudis and Emirates. 

  CENTCOM has tallied that among the US and its partner forces, a total of 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition have been captured. Tehran has held this and oil seizures up as examples of Washington “piracy”. 

  The Pentagon only days ago announced that it is running out of weapons for Ukraine, having just “months” left in approved supplies, at a sensitive moment that support from among the Western allies in general is waning.

  

  Last Friday, US defense officials had informed Congress that it has “exhausted nearly all available security assistance funding for Ukraine” – including air defense weaponry and ammunition, leaving Ukraine more vulnerable as the Russian onslaught continues.

  * * *

  In the below brief analysis, the hawkish think tank The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is hailing this Biden policy as one which “turns the tables” on both Tehran and Moscow…

  The U.S. transfer of Iranian arms to Ukraine turns the tables on both Tehran and Moscow, which have doubled down on their defense partnership following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Tehran provides drones to Moscow and helps the Russians localize their production. In March 2023, Iran agreed to purchase 24 advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters from Russia, significantly upgrading the capabilities of the Islamic Republic’s air force. In 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, Russia and Iran conducted joint naval drills in the Gulf of Oman. Russia and Iran are also sharing intelligence and cooperating in a joint effort to push U.S. military forces out of the region.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:00

• "Too Freaking Late" – Mayorkas Finally Admits "Acute & Immediate Need" To Build Border Wall In Texas
  “Too Freaking Late” – Mayorkas Finally Admits “Acute & Immediate Need” To Build Border Wall In Texas

  This is awkward…

  

  In a stunning reversal of everything that was said over the last 7 years by the left, and just months after the Biden administration was caught selling portions of Trump’s border wall on a government surplus website, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is citing an “acute and immediate need” to waive dozens of federal laws in order to build a border wall in south Texas as the illegal immigration crisis grows utterly out of control.

  “The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas,” reads a notice posted to the U.S. Federal Registry that Fox News obtained.

  In light of the surge in illegal immigration, Mayorkas found that there exists an “acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas.”

  No, this is not Babylon Bee.

  As Ben Whedon reports at JustTheNews.com, The former president’s campaign team took Mayorkas’s decision as a vindication, telling Fox News that:”

  “President Trump is always right. That’s why he built close to 500 miles of powerful new wall on the border and it would have been finished by now. Instead, Crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.”

  In total, Mayorkas plans to waive a total of 26 federal laws to expedite construction.

  It’s going to fun to see the Democrats and their MSM lackeys squirm out of this one…

  How times have changed

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2023

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  Does the Biden administration want to remind Latinos that they are not welcome?

  

  Is the Biden administration building a monument to White Supremacy….

  

  Is the Biden administration’s wall “xenophobic and racist”?

  

  There are a million more examples…

  These 3 words seem to sum things up perfectly “Too Freaking Late!”

  “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas.” Mayorkas

  NOW he says this?!

  TOO FREAKING LATE!! pic.twitter.com/Z9TUU211X1

  — Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) October 5, 2023

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  …and cue the “we never said it was racist” or “it was racist because Trump wanted it” narrative spin incoming…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:40

• El Chapo's Sons Allegedly Ban Fentanyl Production In Northern Mexico
  El Chapo’s Sons Allegedly Ban Fentanyl Production In Northern Mexico

  Large roadside banners have appeared on bridges in northern Mexico that state the Sinaloa Cartel has banned fentanyl production and sales. The banner was signed with the words “Los Chapitos,” the sons of ex-Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. This comes as US authorities are increasing pressure on Mexico to take action against drug cartels flooding the US with fentanyl, which has sparked the worst drug crisis this country has ever seen. 

  According to X user “Michelle Rivera,” the banner reads: “In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transportation or any type of business that involves the substance known as fentanyl is strictly prohibited, including the sale of chemicals for its production.”

  Rivera said, “Narcomantas allegedly signed by the criminal group “Los Chapitos” were placed in various points throughout the State.” 

  She added: “They also assure that they have never been related to the fentanyl business “Depend on the consequences” they warn.” 

  “En #Sinaloa queda prohibida la venta o tráfico de #Fentanilo” dicen “los chapitos”

  Narcomantas presuntamente firmadas por el grupo delictivo “Los Chapitos” fueron colocadas en diversos puntos de todo el Estado.

  En ellas informan que “En Sinaloa, queda estrictamente prohibido… pic.twitter.com/YbYyxDP8JS

  — Michelle Rivera (@michelleriveraa) October 2, 2023

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  It’s unclear if the Sinaloa Cartel, which Guzman’s sons now run after their father was extradited to the US in 2017, fastened the banners to bridges and overpasses. 

  The Telegraph noted, “The banners appeared at a time when US authorities are ramping up pressure on Mexico to take action against crime groups involved in fentanyl production” amid yet another year drug overdoses in the US are expected to reach another record. 

  

  Leo Silva, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked in Mexico, said the Los Chapitos are trying to shift blame for the fentanyl production that floods the US. She said, “Coupled with the extradition of one of the brothers, it’s a ploy to take the heat off of them,” adding, “I don’t see them stopping production.” 

  It remains to be seen if Los Chapitos will enact such a ban across Sinaloa. But why would they if they’re driven by profits and the gift of the Biden administration to keep the southern border wide open?  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:20

• CDC Journal And Five Others Rejected Key Paper On COVID Vaccines, Heart Inflammation
  CDC Journal And Five Others Rejected Key Paper On COVID Vaccines, Heart Inflammation

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Six medical journals rejected a key paper on COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation, a condition the vaccines cause, according to documents reviewed by The Epoch Times.

  

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), was one of them.

  CDC officials falsely told the paper’s authors that the paper did not add anything to a previously published CDC report, which estimated more COVID-19 hospitalizations would be prevented than cases of heart inflammation, or myocarditis, caused.

  “I ran this by the MMWR lead editorial staff members; they felt that while the report was interesting, they did not feel that there was anything that was not already relayed,” Dr. Jacqueline Gindler, one of the officials, said in an Aug. 10, 2021, email.

  The CDC a month earlier in a non-peer-reviewed paper estimated that among males aged 12 to 17, one million second Pfizer doses would cause up to 69 myocarditis cases but prevent some 5,700 COVID-19 cases and 215 COVID-19 hospitalizations.

  The new paper clarified the risk-benefit calculus by separating children without serious underlying conditions such as obesity from children with one or more of the problems. It broke down the age group into two parts, 12- to 15 and 16- to 17. And it subtracted incidental hospitalizations, or hospitalizations where people test positive for COVID-19 but are actually being treated for other conditions.

  The researchers estimated, using similar methods as the CDC, that one million doses would cause more cardiac adverse events in healthy boys than COVID-19 hospitalizations prevented. Among boys aged 12 to 15 without comorbidities, they calculated up to 6.1 times more adverse events among the vaccinated.

  Both the CDC and the new paper utilized reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC co-manages.

  Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, one of the paper’s co-authors, said that the CDC’s position that the paper did not add anything “was laughable.”

  “What we added was stratification for non high-risk vs high-risk children, which was new,” Dr. Hoeg told The Epoch Times in an email. “We also reported a higher rate in 12-17 year olds than CDC had been reporting in males after dose two. Finally we removed incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations, when estimating potential vaccine benefits, which CDC had not been doing up to that point.”

  Benjamin Hayes, a CDC spokesman who answered a query sent to Dr. Gindler, told The Epoch Times in an email that MMWR had to be “highly selective” due to receiving many submissions during the pandemic.

  The paper from Dr. Hoeg’s group “included some additional analyses,” Mr. Hayes said, but “did not provide information that would have caused the conclusions from the previous report to be refined or modified.”

  Other Rejections

  Five other journals also rejected the paper, which was crafted after the CDC finally acknowledged vaccines likely cause myocarditis.

  The New England Journal of Medicine dismissed the paper after having peers review it. One reviewer falsely said that with pre-pandemic myocarditis, adolescents were not known to experience lingering cardiac problems. In fact, deaths and a serious condition called dilated cardiomyopathy have been documented in such patients. Another reviewer said that a major concern was the social consequences of publishing the paper. A third falsely said most post-vaccination cases do not require hospitalization, asserting that offering a risk-benefit analysis based on hospitalization was inappropriate.

  “Your paper was evaluated by four external reviewers and a statistical consultant and was discussed among the editors,” John Jarcho, the journal’s deputy editor, informed the paper’s authors. “Although it is interesting, I am sorry to say it was not accepted for publication. This was an editorial decision and reflects an assessment of the merits of your manuscript as compared with the many others we receive.”

  The statistical reviewer did convey helpful feedback that resulted in adjustments to the paper, authors said.

  Dr. Elizabeth Loder, a British Medical Journal, later rejected the paper, offering a similar rationale as the CDC.

  “In comparison with the many other papers we have to consider, this one is a lower priority for us. I’ve reviewed the paper along with another senior editor, and we do not have confidence in the comparison you make in the paper,” Dr. Loder said. “The raised risk of myocarditis has been noted before based on this database and the novelty is in the comparison.  That calculation will depend on the prevalence of COVID at the time and it was low in May/June 2021.”

  A spokesperson for the journal told The Epoch Times in an email: “We are unable to comment in detail about a specific paper, as this is a confidential matter. However, we can say that in general, papers are considered on matters of methodology, potential importance, interest to our broad readership, and on what they add to the established literature. Every paper is thoroughly assessed to ensure that any claims made are supported by robust methods and definitive conclusions before a decision is made.”

  Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, editor-in-chief of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, told the authors that he shared their paper with several editors and experts.

  “Many of us appreciated you tackling this critical topic, and lending your analytical skills as well as important voices to this debate. However, at the end of the day our concerns were really around the substantial uncertainty of calculating incident estimates using VAERS,” he wrote.

  Two American Medical Association journals also turned down the paper. One said it was better for a pediatric journal.

  The paper was first submitted to journals in July 2021.

  Preprint

  The authors were surprised by all the rejections.

  “It was really the first time in my life that I was getting this sense the journals were afraid of taking a chance on publishing something,” Dr. Hoeg said. “This was particularly frustrating, not because of my own academic career, but because the consequences of them choosing not to publish our findings were adolescents and their families would not be fully informed about the risks of myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine.”

  Dr. John Mandrola, a cardiac electrophysiologist based in Kentucky and another co-author, said it was unusual but not unheard of to be rejected by so many journals.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:00

• America's Poorest Only Own 6% Of Assets
  America’s Poorest Only Own 6% Of Assets

  The poorest 50 percent of Americans owned just 5.9 percent of the country’s total assets in Q2 of 2023, according to data from the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

  As Statista’s Ann Fleck shows in the following chart, the share of wealth as total assets remained at a low 5.9 percent through the first two quarters of this year, having seen a downtick from 6 percent at the end of 2022.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Since 1989, the peak share of assets held by this group was in Q2 and Q3 of 1995, when it reached just 8.7 percent.

  By contrast, data shows that the top 0.1 percent (99.9th to 100th wealth percentiles) of the U.S. held 11.4 percent of total assets in Q2 of 2023 – almost double that of the lowest 50 percent.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:40

• Newsom Neutered – Repeals California's Orwellian 'COVID Misinformation' Law
  Newsom Neutered – Repeals California’s Orwellian ‘COVID Misinformation’ Law

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

  California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation to repeal a portion of the state’s COVID-19 “misinformation” and “disinformation” law intended to punish doctors who refused to comply with the government’s narrative on masks, vaccines, and treatments during the pandemic.

  

  On Sept. 30, the governor signed Senate Bill 815 repealing provisions in the law—under Assembly Bill 2098—that “expressly designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19 as unprofessional conduct,” according to an analysis by the bill’s author, Assemblyman Richard Roth (D-Riverside).

  A year ago when Mr. Newsom signed AB 2098, introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) and co-authored by then-Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) into law, he warned of a “chilling effect” other potential laws could have on the freedom of physicians and surgeons to effectively talk to their patients about the risks and benefits of treatments for COVID-19 but said he was “confident” the bill was “narrowly tailored” to apply only to egregious instances in which a doctor was acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the “required standard of care.”

  Just days later, the law, which vaguely defined “misinformation and disinformation” as “unprofessional conduct,” was challenged in court. The law defined disinformation as “misinformation that the licensee deliberately disseminated with malicious intent or an intent to mislead” and misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”

  Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a former professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California–Irvine’s School of Medicine and director of the medical ethics program, was fired on Dec. 16, 2021, for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, claiming he had natural immunity after contracting the illness and recovering from it.

  He and four other doctors—Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi—sued Mr. Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and several administrators at the Medical Board of California.

  “We were being discriminated against because we had a form of immunity that was equally good, in fact superior … compared to vaccine immunity,” Dr. Kheriaty told The Epoch Times.

  “People with vaccine immunity were allowed on campus, and I was not.”

  Judge William Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing AB 2098, ruling that the statute’s “unclear phrasing and structure” could have a “chilling effect.”

  Dr. Kheriaty said he’s glad SB 815 has negated the “misinformation” and “disinformation” provisions of AB 2098.

  “This is a good victory, but we can’t rest on our laurels,” he said.

  “We’ve got to be very vigilant because people who want to take control over medicine and intervene in the doctor-patient relationship are going to keep trying to find other angles.”

  Dr. Kheriaty suspects the governor and state legislators realized when the preliminary injunction was granted that the court would most likely rule against AB 2098 and ultimately declare it unconstitutional.

  “So, rather than getting slapped down by the court in ways that would have probably made the newspapers, they decided to quietly shuffle the law off the stage as a kind of embarrassment and hope that no one really noticed,” he said.

  Attorneys for the five doctors have filed a motion for a summary judgment from the court.

  “We would like to see the government lawyers have to argue in court in our favor … because the law has been struck down,” Dr. Kheriaty said.

  “We would like to hear them publicly say that in court.”

  Dr. Kheriaty said the case shows that because “scientific consensus” during the pandemic evolved quickly, doctors were punished for simply being ahead of the curve and expressing or endorsing ideas the rest of the medical community had not yet caught up with because they weren’t paying as close attention to the available research.

  While AB 2098 attempted “to fixate a particular scientific consensus,” the court found scientific consensus to be an ill-defined legal concept, he said.

  “The fact that this law was struck down is obviously meaningful to me … but it’s also concerning that this law was passed in the first place,” he said.

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has since indicated that it should not discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated because vaccines don’t stop infection and transmission.

  Natural immunity is “robust, durable, and long-lasting,” Dr. Kheriaty said. “So, I guess I lost my job for being nine months ahead of the curve.”

  Mixing Politics With Science

  In his book, “The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State,” Dr. Kheriaty examines the “age-old problem” of mixing politics with science.

  The book, he said, is about the biomedical security state melding an increasingly militarized public health apparatus with the use of digital technologies of surveillance and control, such as vaccine passports, and backing those two elements with police powers of the state and the declared state of emergency which allowed governors and the president to accrue additional extra-constitutional powers and “wield tremendous authority” effectively “micromanaging the lives of citizens.”

  “Especially today, when science has a certain authority or prestige, political power wants to commandeer and weaponize science to achieve its aims, and that’s what you saw during the pandemic,” he said. “It’s what I call scientism.”

  Scientism, he explained, tries to monopolize science and claim that it is the only valid form of knowledge and then appoints its preferred “so-called experts” to speak in the name of science.

  “That has nothing to do with science. That’s a power move. In fact, it’s a totalitarian move because that’s what totalitarian regimes do: They monopolize what counts as knowledge and rationality, and they exclude anyone who doesn’t endorse their ideology,” Dr. Kheriaty said.

  “That was done with science during the pandemic. Science was weaponized.”

  Scientism is “totally antithetical to science,” which relies on open-ended inquiry, hypothesis, conjecture and debate, evidence, reputation and the willingness to change one’s mind, he said. “And so, trying to fix a particular ‘consensus’ as unassailable completely contradicts the whole ethos of scientific investigation. Science advances precisely by challenging conventional thinking or consensus or what we take to be common sense.”

  Prior to the lawsuit, Dr. Kheriaty challenged the University of California system’s vaccine policies in an opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal “just to try to get a conversation going,” he said.

  But the UC Irvine authorities weren’t interested in discussion or debate and fired him for allegedly refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate after they twice declined a medical exemption signed by his physician and accused him of unprofessional conduct.

  “I was a threat,” he said. “So, it was easier just to shut down the debate.”

  The state then used him as an example to send a message to other doctors who dared to step out of line, he suggested.

  “You don’t have to fire too many people before it has a real chilling effect on everyone else,” he said.

  “Obviously, other people could look at what happened to me, and it was very clear: ‘OK, this is one issue that you just don’t touch. You don’t open your mouth and speak your mind unless it’s to endorse the position that the university wants to take.’”

  Dr. Kheriaty now runs a private practice in Orange County. He is also a scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Judeo-Christian based group in Washington, D.C., the chief of medical ethics at The Unity Project, a non-profit medical freedom and parental rights group, and the Brownstone Institute has supported his work in public health.

  “So, I’m very happy,” he said. “I’ve landed on my feet. I don’t really have a desire to go back to the university.”

  Dr. Kheriaty is also a plaintiff in the Missouri v. Biden case, alleging the federal government violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor disfavored speech.

  ‘Legislative Power Grab’

  Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the technology used in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2 that AB 2098 would not likely have survived a legal challenge and is “an embarrassment for Newsom” and his presidential ambitions.

  Dr. Malone called AB 2098 a “legislative power grab” from the state medical board to the legislature and criticized state lawmakers for interfering in the practice of medicine.

  To have COVID-specific legislation on regulating medical standards is “bizarre” in the first place because there is already “perfectly adequate” legislation regulating medical standards, he said.

  He said Mr. Low’s Sept. 12 statement that the “update” will still hold doctors accountable suggests the new law is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he said.

  “Fortunately, with this update, the Medical Board of California will continue to maintain the authority to hold medical licensees accountable for deviating from the standard of care and misinforming their patients about COVID-19 treatments,” Mr. Low said in the statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

  A doctor with an adverse finding or even a pending investigation against their medical license cannot transfer their licenses to another state, so physicians in this situation are forced to decide whether to leave the state before it has an opportunity to impose an action against their license or run the risk of losing it, “which would make it impossible for them to leave the state,” said Dr. Malone.

  “Independent thinkers—the very people that you most want to have medicine—are being run out by the state legislative policies,” he said. “It means that people with no qualifications to practice medicine are mandating how medicine must be practiced directly.

  Dr. Malone, the chief medical officer at The Unity Project, is known for expressing concerns about the possibility of immune imprinting. He claimed vaccines provide poor protection over time, with some indications the shielding turns negative.

  The “politicization of medicine,” during the pandemic years was “bad medicine,” he said, noting that recent reports about myocarditis are “stunning.”

  For more than a year-and-a-half, news reports have documented that the CDC “has been withholding critical information from the medical community relating to COVID-19 vaccines and their safety, Dr. Malone said.

  Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, told the Epoch Times there was no need for SB 815 or AB 2098.

  “The writing is on the wall,” she said. “There’s a temporary injunction right now against AB 2098, and I think the authors of this terrible legislation knew that they had to do something to modify this because it’s so horrendous.”

  Ms. Sextro said a doctor who owns an urgent care clinic with seven practitioners in California told her on Oct. 2 the clinic would be shuttered because of legislation like AB 2098 and SB 815.

  “They’ve made the decision to close the clinic,” she said.

  “I think that bills like AB 2098 are actually designed to penalize the sole proprietor doctors—the single-practice doctors who are not associated with … big box medical groups,” she said.

  Other Legal Challenges

  AB 2098 has since met other legal challenges, including complaints from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the American Civil Liberties Union and two California doctors, Dr. Mark McDonald and Dr. Jeff Barke.

  Shubb’s ruling runs contrary to Judge Fred W. Slaughter’s earlier decision to deny a preliminary injunction in the case involving Dr. Barke and Dr. McDonald, who sued the medical board, Mr. Newsom, and AG Bonta in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last year. The lawsuit, which is still pending, asked the court to declare AB 2098 unconstitutional and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement.

  Dr. Simone Gold, a Beverly Hills physician who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, called AB 2098 an “unconstitutional, Orwellian gag-order,” that attempts to mandate a new and undefined standard known as ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ and illegally suppress dissenting professional medical opinions.

  Eric Hintz, legislative director for Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Corona) told The Epoch Times several Republicans voted against SB 815 because they knew the Democratic majority would pass it to remove the “misinformation” and “disinformation” provisions in AB 2098 and because Republicans wanted to voice opposition to fee increases for medical licenses in the state.

  The bill increases medical license fees for all physicians by $288, from $863 to $1,151.

  “So, I think that’s the reason why a lot of Republicans decided to vote against it,” Mr. Hintz said.

  The bill would also extend the regulatory powers of the medical board by two more years from a Jan. 1, 2026, sunset clause to Jan. 1, 2028.

  “That would be another reason why someone might oppose the bill,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:20

• Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts 'Climate Deniers' & Warns "Breaking Point" Coming
  Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts ‘Climate Deniers’ & Warns “Breaking Point” Coming

  Pope Francis has made the ‘climate crisis’ a big focus of his papacy, and on Wednesday he has for only the second time issued a major ecology-focused encyclical, which is being called his strongest statement yet on the issue.

  In the 7,000 word new encyclical called Laudate Deum (“Praise God”) which is certain to make climate activists like Greta Thunberg happy, he lambasted “irresponsible” Western lifestyles and big industries which are bringing to world to a “breaking point”. He went after Americans in particular. 

  

  “Our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” he wrote. “Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at least for several hundred years, such as the increase in the global temperature of the oceans, their acidification and the decrease of oxygen.”

  CNN and other US mainstream publications are now lauding his blistering attack on “deniers”: 

  “Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident. No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest,” Francis wrote.

  Ignoring the accelerating climate change process, he continued, will only advance “the probability of extreme phenomena that are increasingly frequent and intense.”

  He went after the United States and its citizens in particular, while appearing to give China somewhat of a pass:

  “If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he wrote. 

  Francis at one point seemed to tailor his argument for the ‘common man’ while lamenting what he called “Resistance and confusion” in a subheading to the document…

  “In recent years, some have chosen to deride these facts. They bring up allegedly solid scientific data, like the fact that the planet has always had, and will have, periods of cooling and warming,” he said. “They forget to mention another relevant datum: that what we are presently experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia – in order to verify it.”

  And he claimed all of this can be easily perceived: “The rise in the sea level and the melting of glaciers can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her lifetime, and probably in a few years many populations will have to move their homes because of these facts.”

  Currently, an old video of circus performers at the Vatican has resurfaced and is circulating…

  Pope.. goes circus pic.twitter.com/k0l7lbVcZW

  — Russian Market (@runews) October 4, 2023

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

  We noted earlier this week that conservative Catholics have been increasingly frustrated by Pope Francis’ ultra-ambiguous statements which have left the door open for novel practices and departures from longtime doctrine, such as “blessings of gay unions”. At the same time his attacks and rebukes of ‘climate deniers’ now on display (a political hot topic issue which is outside the scope of religion in the traditional sense) are crystal clear in meaning and intent. Some traditional Catholics are warning that his agenda is to ‘revolutionize’ the Vatican in a decidedly leftward direction. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:00

• Shellenberger: Why This One Simple Chart Will End Wokeism
  Shellenberger: Why This One Simple Chart Will End Wokeism

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger and Peter Boghossian via Public Substack,

  Over the last few years, Woke progressives have behaved in increasingly odd ways. Black Lives Matter activists in Washington, D.C., screamed at and hovered over a woman sitting peacefully in a restaurant, demanding that she raise her fist in a salute. Climate activists threw soup at a Van Gogh painting, dumped milk on the floor of a grocery store, and cemented their hands to an airport runway. And transgender activists claimed, falsely, that there was a “genocide” against trans people, even though there’s no evidence that trans-identified people are being killed at higher rates than non-trans people.

  Some of these behaviors can be explained by the fact that Wokeism is a religion. Two years ago, the two of us published a chart, “Woke Religion: A Taxonomy,” and an accompanying essay, which described how race, climate, trans, and other Woke activists had created their own versions of original sin, taboos, and myths. We turned the taxonomy into a poster and sold hundreds of copies. Both of us still get emails from people saying that the chart helped them to understand why so many previously secular people appear to be in the grip of a deeply superstitious religion.

  But over the last year, the two of us felt that something was missing. Wokeism is a religion, but its religious nature didn’t necessarily describe the madness that seemed to grip its most devoted adherents. Many people believe crazy things but don’t behave so narcissistically or psychopathically, without regards for other people, in the way that Woke activists do. And so we decided to create a new taxonomy, one focused on Woke psychopathology.

  “Woke Psychopathology: A Taxonomy” is inspired by the traits that characterize what the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-V) calls “Cluster B personality disorders.” There are four of these personality disorders: narcissistic, anti-social (previously psychopathy), histrionic, and borderline. The traits, which run horizontally across the top of the Taxonomy, are Attention-Seeking, Grandiosity, Emotional Dysregulation, Excess of Empathy, Victimhood Ideology, Impaired Reality Testing, Lack of Empathy, and Splitting. Together, the traits form an easy-to-remember acronym: AGE-EVILS.

  Along the horizontal axis are the three major categories of Wokeism: Race, Climate, and Trans. Inside each of the 24 boxes formed by the 3×8 grid are descriptions and examples of these traits.

  The result is striking.

  Attention-Seeking explains not only throwing soup on paintings but also Jussie Smollett’s hoaxed lynching and Dylan Mulvaney’s antics.

  Lack of Empathy (for those designated “oppressors”) explains not only BLM activists demanding fist salutes but also disregard for working-class commuters by climate activists and violence by trans activists against women.

  And Impaired Reality Testing explains not only the false claims of trans genocide but also the claim that racism is worse than ever and that climate change is making disasters worse.

  The result is a crib sheet that we believe will be devastating to Woke ideology. The late Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski, who lived under Nazism and Communism, argues in Political Ponerology that it’s not enough to condemn totalitarianism. We must also seek to explain it. And by explaining it, he meant to diagnose it psychologically. As such, in producing this Taxonomy, we are diagnosing Woke movements and the behaviors of their adherents, if not the individuals themselves, as psychopathological.

  We recognize that these claims, and the Taxonomy, will be controversial. But we think such controversy is necessary if we are to put an end to, or at least significantly reduce, the narcissistic, psychopathic, and histrionic behaviors that have come to define progressive politics.

  Without further ado, here’s Woke Psychopathology: A Taxonomy!

  

  Public subscribers can click on the image above to see an enlarged version of the Taxonomy…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:45

• Coal Production Surges By 83% At India's Largest Power Firm
  Coal Production Surges By 83% At India’s Largest Power Firm

  Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

  India’s state power giant NTPC Ltd reported on Tuesday an 83% jump in coal production from the mines it operates in the first half of the 2023/24 fiscal year as India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its electricity demand.   

  

  Coal still generates around 70% of the country’s electricity. NTPC, with a current installed power generation capacity from all sources of more than 73 gigawatts (GW), is the largest integrated power company. 

  In the first half of the fiscal year 2023/2024, between April and September, NTPC also saw coal dispatch for the period soar by 94%, Indian media report, citing the company’s first-half and Q2 figures. 

  NTPC also boosted its coal production by 66% in the second quarter of its fiscal year, compared to the period between July and September in 2022.

  In September 2023 alone, the company’s coal production surged by 80% and coal dispatch jumped by 106% year-on-year. 

  During the whole previous fiscal year between April 2022 and March 2023, NTPC’s coal production soared by 65%, Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director, told the annual general meeting in August 2023. 

  India had anticipated that its power generation from coal would increase in the current year as authorities plan to have coal-fired units maximize electricity production from imported coal to meet rising demand.

  Early this year, India’s government expected coal-fired power plants to use 8% more coal in the financial year between March 2023 and March 2024, as demand is set to continue rising thanks to growing economic activity and unpredictable weather.

  Last year NTPC said it could increase its coal-generation capacity as it prioritizes energy security after the power outages in the spring of 2022.

  The coal phase-out in India is “going to take 2-3 decades, if not more,” NTPC’s chairman Gurdeep Singh said at the time.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:40

• Arizona Cancels Saudi Land Deal After "Unchecked Amounts Of Groundwater" Siphoned For Alfalfa
  Arizona Cancels Saudi Land Deal After “Unchecked Amounts Of Groundwater” Siphoned For Alfalfa

  Arizona is finally cracking down on foreign companies drinking their milkshake, after Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) canceled a deal which would give a subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company free groundwater.

  

  To review; Over the past several years we’ve noted that as the American southwest has suffered under severe drought conditions (last winter notwithstanding), foreign-owned farms have been siphoning water from underground aquifers to grow water-thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately end up overseas in order to feed cattle and other foreign livestock. Saudi Arabian companies swooped in following a 2018 ban on the growing of alfalfa due to the strain on the water supply.

  One such company, Fondomonte, grows alfalfa in Arizona for export to the Middle East. While there is no firm data on exactly how much water the company uses, a State Land Department report revealed that Fondomonte is estimated to be using as much as 18,000 acre-feet (22 million cubic metres) each year – enough water to supply 54,000 single-family homes.

  In April, Fondomonte agreed to rescind two new drilling applications after Attorney General Kris Mayes highlighted ‘inconsistencies’ in the company’s applications.

  

  According to La Paz County supervisor Holly Irwin (speaking to CNN earlier this year), Middle East agriculture companies “have depleted their [water], that’s why they are here,” adding “That’s what angers people the most. We should be taking care of our own, and we just allow them to come in, purchase property and continue to punch holes in the ground.”

  In fact, 80% of Arizona has no laws governing how much water can be drained by corporate megafarms, nor is there any way to track it.

  In September, Arizona state lawmaker Ruben Gallego (D) put forth a bill to stop the practice, called the Domestic Water Protection Act of 2023. The law would impose a 300% tax on the sale of water-intensive crops grown by foreign companies in the state.

  “The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before,” said longtime resident of Wenden, Arizona, Gary Saiter, who said a UAE-based company, Al Dahra, had been tapping into an underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years.

  [R]ural communities in La Paz County know the water is disappearing beneath their feet.

  Shallow, residential wells in the county started drying up in 2015, local officials say, and deeper municipal well levels have steadily declined. In Salome, local water utility owner Bill Farr told CNN his well – which supplies water to more than 200 customers, including the local schools – is “nearing the end of its useful life.” -CNN

  According to Saiter, water in the town well has been plummeting – with the depth-to-water level dropping from around 100 feet below the surface in the 1950s to around 540 feet in 2022 – far beyond what an average residential well can reach.

  

  Hobbs cancels lease

  On Monday, the governor’s office announced that an investigation in La Paz county found that Fondomite has been in violation of its lease since 2016.

  “It’s unacceptable that Fondomonte has continued to pump unchecked amounts of groundwater out of our state while in clear default on their lease,” said Hobbs.

  According to Mayes, the AG, “This decision to protect Arizona’s precious groundwater resources and uphold the integrity of our state land trust is a good step in the right direction for the future of Arizona,” adding “However, we must take additional steps to urgently protect Arizona’s water resources – especially in rural Arizona.”

  Hobbs now says she won’t renew Fondomonte’s three other leases in the state which expire next year, saying that the contracts were “not in the best interest of the Trust’s beneficiaries due to excessive amounts of water being pumped from the land—free of charge.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:20

• Harder Than Gold, Faster Than Fiat
  Harder Than Gold, Faster Than Fiat

  Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

  French Emperor Napoleon III would use a unique set of aluminum cutlery only for his most honored dinner guests.

  Normal guests had to contend with gold utensils.

  In the middle of the 19th century, aluminum was more scarce and desirable than even gold.

  As a result, aluminum bullion bars found a place among the national treasures of France, and aluminum jewelry became a symbol of the French aristocracy.

  Aluminum, known by its atomic number 13 on the periodic table, is a ubiquitous element, yet it mainly exists intertwined in complex chemical compounds and not in its metallic state.

  The complex procedure of transforming aluminum compounds into pure aluminum metal was costly, making aluminum harder to produce than gold. The aluminum price at the time reflected that.

  In 1852, aluminum hovered around $37 per ounce, significantly more expensive than gold at $20.67 per ounce.

  But aluminum’s fate was about to take a dramatic turn towards the end of the 19th century.

  A monumental discovery in 1886 made it possible to produce pure aluminum on an enormous scale at a fraction of the previous cost.

  Before this groundbreaking finding, global aluminum production was a mere handful of ounces per month.

  After the discovery, America’s leading aluminum company manufactured 800 ounces daily. Within two decades, this company, which would later become Alcoa, made over 1.4 million ounces of aluminum daily.

  The price of aluminum plummeted from a staggering $550 per pound in 1852 to a mere $12 in 1880. By the dawn of the 20th century, a pound of aluminum cost approximately 20 cents.

  In less than a decade and a half, aluminum transitioned from the planet’s most expensive metal to one of the cheapest.

  Nowadays, aluminum is no longer a precious metal fit for royal feasts or a country’s national treasure. It has become an everyday item used in soda cans and cooking foil.

  Aluminum’s dramatic transformation from a highly prized metal to an inexpensive household material illustrates “hardness”—the most important characteristic of a good money.

  Hardness does not mean something that is necessarily tangible or physically hard, like metal. Instead, it means “hard to produce.” By contrast, “easy money” is easy to produce.

  The best way to think of hardness is “resistance to debasement,” which helps make it a good store of value—an essential function of money.

  Would you want to put your savings into something somebody else can create without effort or cost?

  Of course, you wouldn’t.

  It would be like storing your life savings in Chuck E. Cheese arcade tokens, airline frequent flyer miles, aluminum, or government fiat currencies.

  What is desirable in a good money is something that someone else cannot make easily.

  The Stock-to-Flow (S2F) Ratio

  The stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio measures an asset’s hardness.

  S2F Ratio = Stock / Flow

  The “stock” part refers to the amount of something available, like current stockpiles. It’s the supply already mined. It’s available right away.

  The “flow” part refers to the new supply added from production and other sources each year.

  A high S2F ratio means that annual supply growth is small relative to the existing supply, which indicates a hard asset resistant to debasement.

  A low S2F ratio indicates the opposite. A low S2F ratio means new annual production can easily influence the overall supply—and prices. That’s not desirable for something to function as a store of value.

  In the chart below, we can see the hardness of various physical commodities.

  

  No other physical commodity comes close to gold’s hardness or resistance to debasement.

  Monetary commodities such as gold and silver have higher S2F ratios. On the other hand, industrial commodities have low S2F ratios, typically around 1x.

  With an S2F ratio of 60x, it would take about 60 years of the current production rate to equal the existing gold supply.

  Another way to think of it is to look at the inverse of the SF ratio, which is the annual production rate relative to existing stockpiles. So, for example, gold’s yearly production is about a trivial 1.7% of its existing stockpiles.

  Two things can explain gold’s uniquely high S2F ratio.

  First, gold is indestructible.

  Gold doesn’t decay or corrode. That means that most gold people produced even thousands of years ago is still around today and contributing to current stockpiles.

  Second, gold has a history of thousands of years of production, unlike other metals.

  These two factors make gold’s existing stockpiles so large relative to new production. That means nobody can arbitrarily increase the gold supply, which helps make it a neutral store of value. It’s what gives gold unique and unmatched monetary properties among other metals.

  It’s important to clarify that hardness is not the same as scarcity. They are related concepts but not the same thing.

  For example, platinum and palladium are scarcer than gold but not hard assets. Current production is high relative to existing stockpiles.

  Unlike gold, stockpiles of platinum and palladium have not built up over thousands of years. It’s the primary reason why new supply can easily rock the market.

  Because of their low S2F ratios, platinum (0.4x) and palladium (1.1x) are even less suitable as money than silver. Their low S2F ratios indicate they are primarily industrial metals, corresponding to how people use them today. Almost nobody uses platinum and palladium as money.

  Here’s the main point.

  Hardness is the most important characteristic of a good money. All other monetary characteristics are meaningless if the money is easy for someone to produce.

  That’s why the history of money is the history of the hardest asset winning and why gold has always reigned supreme.

  But now gold has a serious competitor…

  Bitcoin’s S2F ratio today is about 57x, slightly below gold’s.

  According to its fixed protocol, we know precisely how Bitcoin’s supply will grow in the future.

  A key feature is that the new supply gets cut in half every four years, which causes Bitcoin’s hardness to double every four years.

  The process where Bitcoin’s new supply is cut in half every four years is known as the “halving”—or what I like to call “quantitative hardening.”

  Here’s another way to think of it.

  In 2023, the gold market must absorb roughly 117 million troy ounces of new supply.

  In 2024 we can expect that the gold market must absorb slightly more, say 119 million troy ounces of new supply.

  In subsequent years we can expect the amount of new supply the gold market must absorb to increase gradually.

  Bitcoin has the opposite dynamic. The amount of new supply the market must absorb is constantly shrinking.

  In 2023, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly 328,500 Bitcoin of new supply.

  After the halving in May 2024, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly an additional 164,250 Bitcoin of new supply each year until the halving in 2028.

  After the halving in 2028, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly an additional 82,128 Bitcoin of new supply each year until the halving in 2032.

  This process of new supply decreases will continue until the year 2140, when the last Bitcoin will be created. That’s when the total Bitcoin supply will reach 21 million. Today it’s about 19.5 million, meaning the vast majority—about 93%—of the total Bitcoin supply has already been created.

  That means only 1.5 million more Bitcoin will be created over the next 117 years at a decreasing rate.

  In other words, Bitcoin’s supply will only grow about 7% in the next 117 years. By reference, the US money supply has increased by around 35% since March 2020.

  Historically, halvings and their massive supply shocks have catalyzed eye-popping Bitcoin bull markets where Bitcoin has skyrocketed 10x (or more).

  The next time Bitcoin’s supply growth will be cut in half will be in May 2024—less than eight months from now.

  But this coming halving will be very different…

  That’s because Bitcoin’s hardness, as measured by the S2F ratio, will be twice that of gold’s when that happens.

  

  That’s how Bitcoin will soon become the hardest money the world has ever known—in less than eight months. And it will keep getting harder as its S2F ratio approaches infinity.

  For thousands of years, gold has always been mankind’s hardest money. That is all set to change in a matter of months, and most people have no idea.

  I think now is the time to get positioned for this unique moment in monetary history.

  Absolute Scarcity

  Bitcoin has another unique scarcity attribute. It isn’t just scarce. It is absolutely scarce.

  For example, imagine the price of copper going 5x or 10x.

  You can be sure that would spur increased production, eventually expanding the copper supply. Of course, the same is true of any other commodity.

  That’s why there is a famous saying in mining: “the cure for high prices is high prices.”

  The dynamic of higher prices incentivizing more production and ultimately more supply, bringing prices down, exists with every physical commodity. However, gold is the most resistant to this process.

  That supply response is why most commodity prices tend to revert around the cost of production over time.

  This dynamic is even more profound with money.

  When an asset obtains monetary properties, the natural reaction is for people to make more of it—a lot more of it.

  This known as the easy money trap.

  However, Bitcoin totally defies it because its supply is perfectly inflexible. It’s the only commodity where higher prices cannot induce more supply.

  In other words, Bitcoin is the first—and only—monetary asset with a supply entirely unaffected by increased demand.

  That is an astonishing and game-changing characteristic.

  Here’s the bottom line. Gold and other commodities are scarce, but only Bitcoin is absolutely scarce.

  That means the only way Bitcoin can respond to an increase in demand is for the price to go up. Unlike every other commodity, increasing the supply in response to increased demand is not an option.

  The market cap for Bitcoin today is around $528 billion.

  The market cap for all the mined gold in the world, which took thousands of years to accumulate, is about $12.3 trillion.

  That means Bitcoin has a market cap roughly equal to 4.2% of gold’s, even though it is about to surpass—double—gold’s hardness.

  Assuming gold stays flat and Bitcoin goes up about 23x, it would have a market cap roughly equal to gold. At that point, a single Bitcoin would be worth over $620,000.

  I think that’s a real possibility in the years ahead, though it could happen much sooner as the fiat currency scam continues to collapse at an accelerating rate.

  If that sounds outrageous, consider this…

  Ten years ago, the Bitcoin price was around $100. Today, it’s roughly 271x that.

  Bitcoin has made numerous breathtaking moves to the upside in the past. I think it can do it again, especially as corporations, institutional investors, and even nation states start buying Bitcoin for the first time and as Bitcoin surpasses gold and becomes the hardest money mankind has ever known. Of course, it’s important to remember that past performance does not indicate future results for any investment.

  That’s why I’ve just released an urgent PDF report revealing three crucial Bitcoin techniques to ensure you avoid the most common—sometimes fatal—mistakes. Check it out as soon as possible because it could soon be too late to take action. Click here to get it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:00

• FBI Creates 'MAGA' Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election
  FBI Creates ‘MAGA’ Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election

  The Biden FBI has ‘quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers’ ahead of the 2024 election, according to prolific (and well connected) anti-war journalist and political commentator, William Arkin, who has previously reported on the FBI’s efforts to “Fight MAGA Terrorism.”

  

  In a Wednesday Newsweek article, Arkin reveals that the vast majority of FBI investigations into “anti-government” activities are of Trump supporters.

  “The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” a current FBI official told Arkin, who added that the agency’s stated intent is stopping a repeat of January 6th type incidents (which was riddled with feds), while balancing the Constitutional right of Americans to protest the government “Especially at a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully,” the official continued.

  Newsweek spoke to over a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism in a three-month investigation to understand the current domestic-security landscape and to evaluate what President Joe Biden‘s administration is doing about what it calls domestic terrorism. Most requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, were reluctant to stray into partisan politics or feared the repercussions of speaking frankly.

  Newsweek has also reviewed secret FBI and Department of Homeland Security data that track incidents, threats, investigations and cases to try to build a better picture. While experts agree that the current partisan environment is charged and uniquely dangerous (with the threat not only of violence but, in the most extreme scenarios, possibly civil war), many also question whether “terrorism” is the most effective way to describe the problem, or that the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups constitute the most fruitful way to craft domestic solutions.

  We would note that an FBI whistleblower in March claimed that the agency pressured him to inflate domestic terrorism figures against conservatives, and that the agency created a specific threat tag for pro-lifers “THREATSCOTUS2022” following the leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion (and not a threat tag for the violent leftists who threatened SCOTUS justices?).

  The FBI told Newsweek in a statement that: “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence. Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities,” adding “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations.”

  According to the FBI’s data leaked to Arkin, the number of domestic extremism cases has dropped since Jan 6, but that “Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”

  So – while the threat that the FBI has encouraged agents to inflate may have fallen, they’re on the lookout!

  The agency has even created a new subcategory of threats, “AGAAVE-Other,” to denote those who are a threat but don’t fit into its anarchist, militia or Sovereign Citizen categories.

  Introduced without any announcement, and reported here for the first time, the new classification is officially defined as “domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined, such as individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party.” -Newsweek

  Trump or MAGA aren’t directly menti0oned in the official description of AGAAVE-Other, however “government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters.“

  “What other name could we use?” said one FBI officer, who added: “Obviously if Democratic Party supporters resort to violence, it [AGAAVE-Other] would apply to them as well. It doesn’t matter that there is a low likelihood of that. So yes, in practical terms, it refers to MAGA, though the carefully constructed language is wholly nonpartisan.”

  Sure anonymous FBI guy… there’s a ‘low likelihood’ that Democrats (the party which the FBI’s top brass belong to) aren’t causing political violence. Did someone get into Hunter’s crack stash?

  

  Thick smoke in the air from cars peeling out at the Portland anti trump protest. #electionday #election2016 pic.twitter.com/mxOIIR7UBb

  — Michael (@michaelbivins44) November 9, 2016

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

  Protesters set fires and break windows into the early morning in #Oakland. #HesNotMyPresident and #StillWithHer trending in #SanFrancisco. pic.twitter.com/fdVaQChP5z

  — Natasha Zouves (@natashanzouves) November 9, 2016

  Summer of 2020 peaceful protest Minnesota, Oregon, DC. pic.twitter.com/dgJ5FVn8Ik

  — Maddie Adams (@MaddieAdams75) October 4, 2023

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

  More:

  3 cops, pepper spray used in arrest of Sen. Tim Kaine’s son near Trump rally at Capitol

   “100% Antifa” Portland Shooting Suspect Brought Loaded Gun To July Riot

   “We Know Where You Sleep At Night”: Antifa Mob Whose Founder Loves Assassination Targets Tucker Carlson At Home

  As The Federalist perfectly notes;

  Despite widespread, leftist-led and encouraged riots during the 2020 summer of rage, FBI data says that spikes in domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism investigations in 2020 and 2021 “show clearly that the main targets of the investigations and cases open were of Trump supporters,” not the people who wreaked billions of dollars of damage on American cities.

  Similarly, “assessments,” a shadowy tool used by the FBI to spy on Americans who have political or ideological associations deemed unfavorable by the agency, “more than doubled from 2019 to 2021.”

  A drastic rise in politicized probes of Trump voters follows an avalanche of rhetoric touted by President Joe Biden, his White House, Democrats in Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and other officials who have named the “domestic extremism” often pinned on Republican voters as the nation’s biggest threat.

  The increase also serves as a continuation of the Biden regime’s persecution of its number one political opponent and his popular brand of wrongthink ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

  Totally ‘not weaponized.’ 

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 18:40

• Big Tech's Armageddon
  Big Tech’s Armageddon

  Authored by Betsy McCaughey via The Epoch Times,

  Never before in U.S. history have Americans been less free to see and say what they want. The blame goes mostly to the social media giants such as Facebook, YouTube, and Google that censor political views they don’t like.

  

  But the tech giants’ day of reckoning is near. Justice Clarence Thomas is taking them on.

  Phone companies such as AT&T or Sprint can’t shut down your account because of your political views. American Airlines can’t refuse to sell you a ticket because you’ve questioned climate change or COVID lockdowns. The law forbids it.

  That same ban against political discrimination should apply to social media platforms. Justice Thomas has argued against Big Tech censorship since at least 2021, saying these companies should have to serve all customers, just like phone companies, utilities, and public accommodations.

  On Sept. 29, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will rule on state laws enacted by Florida and Texas that prohibit tech giants from canceling users based on their political views. Expect Justice Thomas to lead a majority of the justices to conclude that internet censorship is inconsistent with democracy and must be stopped.

  A high court ruling against censorship will deal a powerful blow against Big Tech tyranny. Not a day too soon. Hallelujah.

  Right now, social media platforms freely censor, taking down posts and deplatforming users whose views they don’t like—even a former president of the United States—and burying information so it’s impossible to find with a Google search.

  Big Tech censorship impacts far more people than when colleges silence dissent or even when workplaces and schools indoctrinate.

  Texas’s anti-censorship law is designed to protect the public against this loss of freedom. The law still allows the removal of items that are pornographic, threaten violence, or promote the sexual exploitation of children—what’s truly harmful.

  To defend Texas’s law, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, specifically cited Justice Thomas’s argument.

  The law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, deciding that corporations don’t have a “right to muzzle speech.”

  But a similar Florida law was struck down by the 11th Circuit, arguing that Big Tech platforms have a First Amendment right to pick and choose views like a newspaper does.

  Now, the Supreme Court is poised to resolve those conflicting outcomes. The court will decide who is protected by the First Amendment—the tech companies that claim they’re like newspapers, or the millions of social media users.

  The smart money is on Justice Thomas persuading a majority of the justices that democracy requires an uncensored internet.

  In a 2021 concurring opinion, Justice Thomas suggested a role for Congress to provide a legislative fix, including changing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But Congress is unlikely to act, as long as Democrats control either house.

  Most Democrats in Congress are rooting for more censorship. They’ve become the anti-free speech party. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told tech executives during a 2020 Senate hearing that he wants them to censor “climate denialism.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) urged them to do more “content modification” and eliminate “disinformation” in future elections.

  When Mr. Blumenthal says “content modification,” it’s a euphemism for silencing the opposition—in short, rigging elections.

  “Disinformation.” Don’t be fooled by that word. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained that the way to test the truth of any statement is to see if it survives in the marketplace of ideas. Truth will prevail.

  Lousy ideas, falsehoods, and loser politicians such as President Joe Biden need censorship to survive.

  At the Supreme Court, Biden’s Department of Justice is siding with Big Tech against the public’s right to free expression.

  That’s no surprise. President Biden likely owes his 2020 election to Big Tech’s rush to squash the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reporting.

  Since taking office, Joe Biden has erected a vast censorship operation, with the White House, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other government agencies colluding with Big Tech to limit what you can see and say. Bravo that Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter, refuses.

  The next move belongs to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments and rule early in 2024.

  Count on Justice Thomas’s anti-censorship views to prevail. Americans will be freer as a result.

  Thank you, Justice Thomas.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/04/2023 – 18:20

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