Today’s News 6th November 2023

• The Great Reset, Part 2: A Camp With No Outside
  The Great Reset, Part 2: A Camp With No Outside

  Authored by Simon Elmer via Off-Guardian.org,

  ‘Today, it is not the city but rather the camp that is the fundamental biopolitical paradigm of the West.’

  – Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, 1995

  In Part 1 of this article, I identified the apparatuses of biopower by which our freedoms and our democracies are threatened in the West today, and which I described as the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’.

  As I devote a chapter of my new book, The Great Reset, to each of the last three of these apparatuses of biopower – the UN’s Agenda 2030, the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty and Central Bank Digital Currency – I’m only going to discuss the first of them here, although it comes up throughout my book, because a system of Digital Identity is the gateway to the digital camp in which the other three will imprison us.

  They all rely on it being in place for their own enforcement, and in this respect it is the most important and the one that has to be most resisted and defeated. Some form of Digital Identity has been talked about for some time, and although everyone appears to know what it is, there doesn’t seem to be much opposition to its implementation in the UK, which I’d suggest indicates that in reality we don’t understand it at all.

  

  THE GATEWAY OF DIGITAL IDENTITY

  During the lockdown of the UK, Digital Identity was discussed in relation to the China Health Pass, which is now fully operative and linked to the Chinese system of Social Credit, and which like a traffic light has three signals of access to different aspects of the public realm and services: green for freedom of access; amber for limited access or only on condition of further proofs or acts of compliance (like taking a PCR test); and red for prohibition on everything from receiving a bank loan, accessing your bank account, using public transport, passing between zones of a city to being permitted to leave your home itself. In Europe, a lot of the member states of the European Union universally or partially imposed — for instance, on members of certain industries, like health, education, police and other public services — the use of the EU Digital COVID Certificate, which was collectively known as the ‘Green Pass’. The technology for this was subsequently taken up by the World Health Organization, which in June 2023, in tandem with the European Commission, announced the WHO’s Global Digital Health Certification Network, which it invited all member states — which includes the UK — to adopt and participate in developing.

  In the UK itself, we had the NHS COVID Pass, which was never enforced as a requirement of employment except for care workers, but which private businesses were permitted and encouraged to enforce as a condition of employment, access to their premises and use of their services. In April 2022, as coronavirus-justified regulations were lifted in the UK, the Department for Health and Social Care awarded the £18 million contract to develop the NHS COVID Pass to the Danish IT firm, Netcompany Ltd. The specification for the project stated:

  The government may introduce a mandatory COVID Pass to access high-risk venues if the data suggests further measures are necessary to protect the NHS. In preparation for this eventuality, we have built the changes to support two levels of domestic passes. The functionality will be toggled off until required. This enables a quick response if/when the Government invokes mandate. If a citizen is fully vaccinated, medically exempt or has been in a clinical trial, they will be eligible for an ‘all venues’ (mandatory) pass. If a citizen only has natural immunity or negative test results, they will only be eligible for a ‘limited venues’ (voluntary) pass.

  In anticipation of this mandate and the functionality of Digital Identity being ‘toggled on’, in the first three months of 2023 the UK Government conducted a consultation on draft legislation for what it called — presumably in an attempt to distance it from the widely opposed ‘vaccine passport’ — ‘identity verification’.

  The consultation closed on 1 March, 2023; but the legal framework for a system of Digital Identity was first put in place by the Digital Economy Act 2017, which removed the legal barriers to data sharing in the UK. It was initially anticipated that the Statutory Instrument implementing a system of Digital Identity in the UK would be made in July 2023, but we are still waiting for the Government mandate.

  What will this system do?

  At present, the UK Government is promoting Digital Identity in terms of ease of access, greater convenience and increased safety. So, under the Online Safety Act 2023, Digital Identity will be a requirement of access to the internet, not in order to censor what we can see, read and write but to protect children from pornography and grooming gangs.

  Under the Elections Act 2022, it will be a requirement of voting, not in order to further discourage public participation in the electoral process but to stop illegal voting. It will be a requirement of receiving Universal Credit or, in the future, Universal Basic Income, not in order to force the immiserated and unemployed into obligatory retraining and work but to stop fraudulent benefit claims. It will be a requirement of gaining access to public transport, medical care, education and employment, not in order to control us whenever the World Health Organization declares a new pandemic but to protect the population from future health crises. It will be a requirement of travel and movement between nation states and within the UK, not in order to enforce the restrictions on our freedoms imposed by Agenda 2030 but to stop illegal immigration into the UK and save the planet from ‘global boiling’. It will be a requirement of opening a bank account, not to force us into opening a Digital Pound account but to stop financial crime.

  And just as it is in China, the system of Social Credit that relies on Digital Identity for its enforcement will not be restricted to individuals, but will apply to both privately-owned companies and publicly-funded institutions. US asset managers like BlackRock, for example, have made it clear that adherence to the behaviours written into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Environmental, Social and corporate Governance criteria by which they are enforced are now a condition of employment, bank loans, investment and other aspects of business formerly determined by the employment and trading laws of a sovereign state; and the monitoring and enforcement of compliance with these new norms will be increased exponentially with the development and expansion of systems of Digital Identity across the globe.

  This enforcement of the biopolitical requirements of citizenship outside of the juridical frameworks of nation states or international law is consistent with the way the NHS COVID Pass was employed in the UK during the two years of lockdown. The decision to require this pass was made by the UK Government, but it wasn’t mandated through legislation, even in the daily coronavirus-justified regulations being made into law. Rather, the responsibility for the enforcement of the COVID Pass was passed onto the private sector. Ultimately, although we have been promised a Statutory Instrument making its requirement into law, I believe the UK’s system of Digital Identity will be handed over to the UK’s businesses, in both the public and private sectors, where it will be enforced as a condition of employment and custom by both employers and those who trade with and make loans to their businesses.

  As I will discuss in far greater depth in this book, once the requirements of citizenship are taken out of a juridical framework and become, as Foucault wrote, ‘distributions around the norm’, the more difficult those norms are to challenge. This is the goal of biopower.

  The first question any public consultation on Digital Identity should be asking the British public is not — as it did — whether and to what extent it meets this or that objective required by the Digital Economy Act 2017, but rather whether the British public wishes for such a system. The Government has no mandate for its imposition in its election manifesto, and its failure to inform the British public about the system of surveillance and control of which Digital Identity is the key constitutes a dereliction of the duty of any elected executive body to receive informed consent before interfering with the rights and freedoms of those it has been elected to govern. The Government’s sham consultation, to which I responded, provided none of the contexts necessary for the public to make such informed consent. Worse, it assumed the imposition of a system of Digital Identity as a fait accompli. Indeed, by couching its consultation in terms of undisclosed ‘benefits’ to the public and undefined and ideological terms like ‘well-being’, the consultation deliberately concealed the real import, reach and purpose of Digital Identity.

  Contrary to what the Government has told us, a system of ‘identity verification’ does not benefit individuals of households or improve public services. We saw this with the UK Health Security Agency’s proposals for the NHS COVID Pass that were nearly introduced in the UK on the justification of tracking and limiting the movements of UK citizens under lockdown. What is more accurately called a system of Digital Identity only benefits those who wish to use such a system to monitor, regulate, correct and, when necessary, to punish those who do not comply with whatever new codes of behaviour, including our speech, the Government and the unelected international technocracies formulating those codes impose upon us.

  The ‘Green Pass’ introduced across Europe demonstrated that these will be imposed through prohibitions on our movements, sanctions on our consumptions, extra-legal fixed penalty notices and the removal of our human rights and civil liberties, all of which the Governments of the West have demonstrated they are willing to enforce with extraordinary and in many countries unprecedented levels of police brutality.

  Once it is imposed, however, the intervention of the police and the juridical framework within which they loosely act will become less and less necessary, as we move into the biopolitics of stakeholder capitalism. As the UK Government well knows, Digital Identity is not being implemented in isolation from, but in conjunction with, other technologies and programmes for the surveillance and control of the UK population, including the Bank of England’s Digital Pound, 15-Minute Cities, the London Mayor’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, the requirements of Agenda 2030 and the enforceable obligations of the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. Currently being implemented as mere upgrades to the infrastructure of the UK state, these will fundamentally — and, as I have said, perhaps irreversibly — change the ability of the British people to scrutinise, influence or hold our rulers to account. And yet, few members of the British public are even aware of these programmes, let alone how they will be used. We certainly haven’t voted for them. Nor, as the Government’s sham consultation on ‘identity verification’ demonstrates, will we be asked to do so. Digital Identity is the gateway to this collective system of surveillance and control that truly deserves the description ‘totalitarian’.

  So little has been divulged about how it will function that it is difficult to say what it will contain; but as part of system of Social Credit, Digital Identity will certainly hold our credit history. It will almost undoubtedly hold our online browsing history. And as the World Health Organization’s Global Digital Health Certification Network indicates, it will definitely hold our biometric data. It will equally certainly hold a record of our social compliance, and what we can learn from China is that social compliance will not only be with the regulations of biosecurity set by a juridical framework but also with the new norms of behaviour we have already so readily accepted and normalised since March 2020. These now include censorship of speech and opinions contrary to those espoused by our Government; increased conditions imposed on our previously inalienable rights and freedoms; and adherence to the dictates of technocracies over whose membership and decisions we have no influence. It will be used to monitor, limit and control our movement through and out of not just our countries but also the 15-Minute Cities currently being imposed on the justification of reducing everything from air pollution to global warming. To this spurious end, it will record and restrict our consumption of energy, heat, food and water.

  In practice, it will monitor and record our behaviour, opinions and compliance with the new orthodoxies of woke ideology. And in doing so, it will condition our access to everything from the internet, banking and employment to healthcare, welfare and education. One day, if the Bank of England has its way, it will be the condition of accessing the only kind of currency still in existence, over which it will have complete control.

  A CAMP WITH NO OUTSIDE

  Why, then, is the British public showing so little interest in, presenting so little opposition to, and demonstrating such passive acceptance of our enclosure in the biosecurity camp to which Digital Identity is the gateway? It’s in order to try and answer this question that, in addition to writing about these new apparatuses of biopower, the second part of my book looks at what are not, properly speaking, technologies of biopower but, rather, the ideologies indoctrinating us for its implementation as the dominant paradigm of governance in the West.

  The first of these, of course, is the US proxy war in the Ukraine, which although started in February 2014 with the overthrow of the democratically elected Government, in the minds of most Westerners began in February 2022, as we were emerging from two years of lockdown restrictions. The transition, therefore, from the so-called ‘war on COVID’ to the war on Russia was an almost seamless one, and those obedient to the terms of the former have proven the loudest advocates of the lies of the latter, most obviously about when and why it began.

  In certain respects this is a new form of warfare, insofar as the US asset managers that have been driving US foreign policy for some time now are not using the lives of young US soldiers to enforce their interests, as they have in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, but are now using the lives of the citizens of foreign countries — in this instance hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian victims — to force the public assets, natural resources and even the economy of the Ukraine into their hands. It’s a matter of indifference to them that, in doing so, they have reduced parts of the country to ruins, its people to poverty and its institutions to political impotence, except insofar as the carnage justifies them calling on even more US taxpayers’ money to ‘rebuild’ what they have demolished.

  Ukraine is a bloody example and warning to the world of what can be done to a formerly sovereign state when the bodies and lives of its people are subject to a war whose goal is biopolitical control over an entire people. Indeed, Ukraine is the testing ground for the digital transformation of the infrastructure of an entire state, including online education and health services, Central Bank Digital Currency, so-called e-governance, including a civil service replaced by smartphone apps, COVID certification on the same, and a judiciary and military run by artificial intelligence. As an image of its dystopian future drawn direct from Hollywood cinema — Ukraine’s 32-year-old Deputy Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has dubbed it ‘Judge Dredd’ — the country has already piloted an AI system that produces pre-trial and pre-sentencing reports that assess the risk of a suspect offending.

  It’s to the same end, although employing different means, that the orthodoxies of transgenderism have attained their now unquestionable status as part of the official ideology of stakeholder capitalism in the West in a period of time barely longer than it took to impose the equally official orthodoxies of the war in the Ukraine. Few appear to have considered why, in the middle of the vast upheavals we have undergone since March 2020, governments, corporations and public institutions otherwise struggling to save humankind from any number of manufactured ‘crises’ should suddenly devote so much time and effort and money to writing the orthodoxies of ‘trans’ into our laws, implementing them in our policies, promoting them in our media, indoctrinating them through our institutions of education and normalising them in our culture industries.

  It is my belief, for which a chapter of this book provides the argument and evidence, that the orthodoxies of trans are not incidental to the revolution in Western capitalism we are undergoing but, rather, instrumental to the new biopolitical paradigm of citizenship to which we will be expected to adhere — and compelled to obey by the technologies of biopower — in the Global Biosecurity State under construction.

  Over the last few years I’ve written many times about the ideology of woke, which has now taken its place as the official ideology of stakeholder capitalism, having infiltrated the Cabinets of Western governments along with Klaus Schwab’s Young Global Leaders, and with just as much brazenness and indeed pride.

  In my penultimate chapter, I look at how the discourse of White racism developed by woke is being used not only to silence opposition to the regulations, programmes and technologies of the Great Reset of the UK, but also to force through the changes in attitudes, beliefs and behaviours they require for our acceptance and compliance with such blatant attacks on our freedoms.

  As with the apparatuses of biopower, therefore, my aim in the second part of my book is to show how the orthodoxies of woke — which now include dehumanisation of the Russian people and the Lysenkoism of transgenderism — are instrumental to the incorporation of the judicial institution, through which the limits of citizenship have until now been made in law, into a biopolitical paradigm, in which the requirements of citizenship in the Global Biosecurity State are normalised by technologies of power, as Foucault wrote, ‘centred on life’.

  Finally, the body of my book is topped and tailed by two short texts. The first introduces the book with the argument that one of the conclusions we can draw from the last three-and-a-half years is that the already questionable division of our parliamentary politics into Left and Right no longer has any descriptive or practical purchase on the paradigm of governance by which we are now ruled, and should be abandoned by anyone serious about forming opposition to it. The second text, in the absence of the comforting dreams with which the UK Left has rocked itself to sleep over the past forty years of neoliberalism, concludes my book by proposing one of the ways in which we can resist — initially at least — the construction of the digital camp being built not only around and between but also within us by the technologies of biopower.

  In the UK, as across most of the Western World, we lived through an extreme two-year period of lockdown in which almost all our human rights and civil liberties were removed by wave after wave of legislation on the justification of combatting a respiratory virus which anyone who troubled to look at the statistics and the criteria by which they were produced knew had the infection fatality rate of seasonal influenza. Even that’s not quite accurate since, unlike influenza, coronavirus has no effect on the young, who despite being masked for two years, deprived of their education and injected with experimental gene therapies, are as statistically immune to COVID-19 as they are statistically vulnerable to the myocarditis, pericarditis and other damages to their health and immune systems caused by the messenger RNA sequencing the UK state injected into their arms as a vaccine.

  Now, however, the West has entered into a more generalised crisis carousel whose names change, week by week, from global boiling to Russian aggression to the cost-of-living to the resurrection of the threat of Islamic terrorism and, as I write, another made-to-order viral strain. But whatever their ostensible cause, the ultimate goal of the technologies of biopower whose imposition these crises justify is to make permanent what were the temporary restrictions on our rights and freedoms under lockdown.

  Indeed, the best way to understand these crises is to ask how these new agendas, these new treaties, these new programmes and these new technologies make the State of Emergency under which we lived for two years permanent. Unfortunately, very few people are asking that question, of themselves or others. Under lockdown, thousands of people were forced into quarantine camps, most famously in China; but the digital camp into which we’re being corralled now, and which is enclosing and dividing us even as we return to bickering about Brexit and immigration, is co-extensive with the space of the state itself.

  How is it being built? As I’ve said, Digital Identity is the gateway to this camp, over which is written not Arbeit Macht Frei — for there is no escape from a space without an outside — but rather ‘Freedom is Slavery’. And if we imagine this camp and try to visualise its structure, the Internet of Things, which includes the digital panopticon of quick response codes, facial recognition technology and now ULEZ cameras, and the Internet of Bodies to which it connects us, which as I argue in my conclusion includes smartphones, is the camp’s system of surveillance.

  15-Minute Cities, which despite being proposed by the World Economic Forum — a corporate think-tank with no legislative authority over the populations of nation states — are being imposed on UK citizens by our local councils and metropolitan authorities, are the barracks into which the different areas of the camp are divided. Despite their vociferous denials to the contrary, as soon as a municipal authority or legislative body decides when, how, where, how often and in what its citizens can move about in their own country, you are on the road to fascism. 15-Minute Cities are the beginning of the transformation of the space of the state itself into a permanent spatialisation of the State of Emergency, which is why they are both justified as a means to ‘save the planet’ and denied as a ‘conspiracy theory’.

  And in case we’re naïve enough — which the UK public has demonstrated itself to be beyond the dreams of even the most cynical globalist — to believe that the limits on our freedom of movement will only apply to cars, and are therefore a good thing, Transport for London has already proposed what it calls, with the ubiquity of one of the most powerful information technology companies in the world, ‘smart transport’. Employing not just facial recognition cameras but the AI technology within them, the purpose of smart transport is not merely to monitor our actions but also to learn from our behaviour, turning public transport into a vast training camp for the digital guards of our future.

  Finally, Central Bank Digital Currency, in this spatial visualisation of a digital structure, is the perimeter fence of the camp, which it renders impossible to escape; for once this fence is constructed there will no longer be a space outside its extent and reach, or at least, no space inhabitable by a human society larger than a small commune, and most likely nowhere in the West.

  Although the Internet of Bodies is ready and waiting to insert its system of monitoring inside us, with the proto-cyborgs for the future already implanting computer chips under their skin and ingesting them into their bodies, these technologies of biopower are, for the present, being implemented through the nation’s smartphones. This includes, of course, a system of Digital Identity; but, initially at least, Central Bank Digital Currency wallets will also go through a smartphone software application.

  In anticipation of which, in March of this year the Government launched its Emergency Alert System, which was then tested the following month on the 82 million smartphones in the UK. It has not been made public how many of their owners responded; but what the UK public needs to understand, and soon, is that when the technologies of biopower constituting the digital camp are in place, this alert will not be used to inform us of whatever crisis the Government has invented to terrorise us with next, but rather to instruct us in the operational status of mechanisms of compliance it will be impossible to disobey except at the cost of our liberty.

  I say it again, once the legal framework for citizenship is incorporated into a biopolitical paradigm of governance administered by a continuum of regulatory apparatuses, then legislative, legal and political means of contestation will no longer exist except as spectacles of a democracy long since dismantled. In reality, Western democracy, for some time now, has only existed in the fantasies of an endlessly deceived electorate. But it’s a measure of how far we have come since March 2020, how far we have declined as a citizenry worthy of the name, and how ready we are for the totalitarianism of biopower, that there was no protest and little outrage in response to this trial of our abject obedience. On the contrary, the same mouths and faces were wheeled out by the media to repeat the mantra of the unfailing obedient: ‘Well, if it saves lives . . .’ This is the essence of biopower to which the politics of the West is being reset by stakeholder capitalism. And, somehow, the people of the West have to stop it, if we don’t want to live in a camp with no outside.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 23:50

• South Korean Stocks Soar After Country Inexplicably Bans Short Selling Until June 2024
  South Korean Stocks Soar After Country Inexplicably Bans Short Selling Until June 2024

  Coming soon to a “developed” capital market near you.

  On Sunday, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission shocked markets when it announced it would prohibit stock short-selling until June 2024 to allow regulators to “actively” improve rules and systems, a move analysts said was “unusual” and “unwarranted” when no (obvious) financial crisis or external shock that would lead to a sell-off exists. The news sent Korean stocks surging in early Monday trade.

  In a rehash of various short selling bans implemented in the US during periods of market turmoil, the commission announced that trading with borrowed shares will be banned for equities on the Kospi 200 Index and Kosdaq 150 Index from Monday until the end of June.

  “Amidst market turmoil, we’ve discovered massive illegal naked short-selling by global investment banks and circumstances of additional illegal activities,” Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Joo-hyun told a briefing. “It’s a grave situation where illegal short-selling undermines fair price formation and hurts market confidence.”

  Lee Bokhyun, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service watchdog, told reporters about 10 global banks will face investigations which account for most short-selling transactions in South Korea.

  Translation: stocks are lower than where we want them to be, and so we will blame the short sellers, a familiar refrain. The only problem is what happens when stocks now crash for real, and this time the country won’t be able to blame shorts.

  During the ban, South Korea will seek a “fundamental improvement” to level the playing field for retail investors in the coming months, including seeking ways to narrow the different short-selling requirements and conditions between institutions and individual investors, Kim said.  Authorities will also seek stronger punishments on illegal short-selling activities. They will continue to look into short-selling transactions of global banks with the introduction of a special investigation team on Monday.

  South Korea started allowing short-selling of stocks on the two indexes in May 2021 while keeping a pandemic-era ban in place for more than 2,000 equities. Reimposing the full ban on the widely used trading practice could hinder the nation’s efforts to seek an upgrade in a key global index, according to Smartkarma Holdings Pte. analyst Brian Freitas.

  “The short-sell ban will further jeopardize Korea’s chances of moving from Emerging Market to Developed Market,” Freitas said. “Expect bubbles to form in pockets of the market that are favored by retail investors as short selling no longer acts as a brake on absurd valuations.”

  Hilariously, short selling accounts for a tiny portion of the nation’s $1.7 trillion stock market — about 0.6% of the Kospi’s market value and 1.6% of the Kosdaq’s, according to exchange data. And yet, according to regulators, it is the evil short sellers who are responsible for the market not complying with central planning mandates.

  According to Bloomberg, the regulator’s announcement comes ahead of general legislative elections to select National Assembly members in April. Some ruling party lawmakers have urged the government to temporarily end stock short-selling in response to demands by retail investors who have staged protests against the practice.

  The investors say short-selling leads to unfair advantages for foreign and institutional investors.

  South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his party have campaigned on reforms, including changes to the pension
  system and the prevention of market monopolies. Yoon’s popularity has edged up in recent months to a high of 34% on Friday, after dipping last year.

  The regulator’s ban coincides with a nascent recovery in the main South Korean equity benchmark index. The Kospi has climbed in November after suffering its worst monthly drop in October amid foreign sell-offs. The index is still down more than 10% from its August peak. The small-cap Kosdaq Index also bounced back from the lowest level since January, but is down 17% from its July peak.

  Following news of the ban, the Kospi surged 4%, extending its recent gains.

  

  The response from analysts and traders was one of puzzled confusion, with consensus that the move to ban short-selling is “unusual” and “unwarranted” when no financial crisis or external shock that would lead to a sell-off exists (suggesting that it would be warranted to ban short-selling when there is a crisis, which is why markets remain a complete farce 15 years after Lehman). Here are some thoughts from Wongmo Kang of Exome Asset Management.

  The ban’s impact could be “more limited” compared to such policy in the past as South Korea has been allowing short selling on companies listed in Kospi 200 Index and Kosdaq 150 Index

  • As South Korea is heavily influenced by retail investors, individual investors might exhibit increased confidence and willingness to engage in the stock market after the measure; that could lead to perception that downside risks are relatively restricted when short selling is prohibited, which may not necessarily be true
  • Funds that employ long-short strategies may need to adjust their long position in accordance with limitations on short position; that may potentially lead to sell out in their long positions
  • There is a possibility that international investors may lose trust and opportunity in the Korean market
  • This policy reversal in short selling is unwarranted now as South Korea is increasingly viewed with excitement and as being diverse as its popular music and electric vehicles. Given this view, short selling should be encouraged as a means of building an efficient market
  • Although financial system improvements to prevent illegal and inefficient activities are necessary, there seems to be a need for efforts to evaluate true values through short selling, especially in markets like South Korea where there are significant surges in “theme” stocks without any clear reasons and company fundamentals

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 22:40

• The 7th Circuit Holds That AR-15s Aren't Protected By The Second Amendment
  The 7th Circuit Holds That AR-15s Aren’t Protected By The Second Amendment

  Authored by Andrea Widburg via American Thinker,

  Illinois desperately wants to ensure that, within the state’s borders, only criminals have guns.

  When it comes to law-abiding citizens, the state will do anything to disarm them.

  That includes passing a law that pretty much bans “assault weapons” (a non-existent category that really covers AR-15s, America’s most popular gun) and large-capacity magazines (which really do exist). A federal district court issued an injunction against that part of the law, but a three-judge panel reversed the injunction on grounds that are so asinine and juvenile that they could come only from judges.

  The three-judge panel in Barnett v. Raoul (Case No. 23-13530 consisted of a Reagan appointee, a Clinton appointee, and a Trump appointee. Only the latter supported the trial court. The other two judges came up with some astounding logic. I’ve summarized the judges’ logic, along with my commentary (in bolded text).

  1. The Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms irrespective of active involvement in a formal militia, said that the Second Amendment is not a completely unlimited right. This is true. Heller said that.
  2. The Heller decision said that the arms meant to be protected under the Second Amendment were those that were not dedicated solely to military use but were of the type that ordinary citizens would ordinarily have. To that end, the court held that “the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes….” America’s law-abiding citizens own around 20 million AR-15s, which they use for law-abiding purposes.
  3. In the military, there is a weapon known as the M16.
  4. M16s, because they are military weapons, can be calibrated to function as fully automatic weapons (they keep firing as long as you keep your finger on the trigger) or fired in three-round burst modes per single trigger pull. AR-15s are semi-automatic weapons. This means that you don’t have to manually place a new bullet into the chamber after every shot. Instead, after you fire a shot, a new round is automatically chambered. Every shot requires the user to pull the trigger.
  5. Bump stocks can turn the AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon.
  6. Both M16s and AR-15s use the same ammo and “deliver the same kinetic energy.”
  7. Therefore, the court held that the AR-15 is essentially an M16, making it a weapon of war that can be denied to ordinary civilians.

  A few things need to be said here:

  First, all civilian weapons can be used in war.

  By this logic, because all civilian weapons can be used in war, all civilian weapons are weapons of war and, therefore, are not protected under the Second Amendment. This is insanely stupid logic.

  Second, the ammo used for AR-15s and M16s isn’t very powerful.

  That’s why the AR-15 is not a good hunting weapon for medium to large game—it’s cruel to the animals because it may injure them without killing them. The reason the military opted for 5.56 ammo is because it meant that soldiers wouldn’t be so weighed down by their ammo. In other words, civilians aren’t using military ammo; the military is using civilian ammo.

  Third, the court is saying that the possibility that a weapon can be augmented to become more powerful (i.e., military-esque) removes it from the reach of the Second Amendment.

  Again, that’s insane.

  Of the 20 million AR-15s in use in America, it’s impossible to imagine how small the percentage is of people who use bump stocks. Most Americans don’t want automatic weapons. They chew up ammo, which means that their time-utility is limited, and the average citizen would have to be weighed down with hundreds of bullets.

  

  Image: A civilian’s long guns.

  I’m unsurprised that a Clinton judge would be behind this risible “logic.”

  I’m saddened that a Reagan judge would be, and I can’t even guess his motives.

  However, given my very deep disrespect for judges, I’m ready to be very unimpressed by both judges’ intelligence.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 21:30

• Israel, Palestine, & The "Weaponized Morality" Of The Media
  Israel, Palestine, & The “Weaponized Morality” Of The Media

  In his inimitable style, comedian JP Sears dares to touch the third rail of ‘whose side to be on’ – Israel vs Palestine in his latest clip.

  

  The satirical conversation between two individuals cynically discuss being pro-war and anti-peace, highlighting a grim acceptance of conflict as inevitable.

  “I think we’re on the brink of World War III. I’m very happy for the military-industrial complex.”

  The discussion is framed to suggest that their enthusiasm for war is not genuine, but rather a product of media influence, which is depicted as “weaponized morality.”

  “I’ve effectively been manipulated by weaponized morality via the media.”

  The two ‘Sears’ imply – in their ironic manner – that the media’s portrayal of events has the power to manipulate public sentiment, skewing perceptions of the conflict to support a war agenda.

  “The media is just telling us what’s going on, it just so happens that hearing what they tell us has swayed us all to want an incredibly deadly thing.”

  Throughout the conversation, there’s a mocking acknowledgment of the reciprocal nature of the aggression and the underlying causes of the conflict. The speakers sarcastically agree on the necessity of retribution against Hamas for attacks on Israeli civilians, while simultaneously noting the disproportionate response that leads to Palestinian civilian casualties; highlighting the polarized views around the world, including extreme positions that echo historical prejudices and the actions of the Israeli government that some deem unjust.

  “There’s just no justice in peace.”

  The dialogue also references the role of US foreign policy and its financial involvement in the region, hinting at the possibility of a hidden agenda behind the support of both sides, where governments might be conspiring to instigate conflict to serve undisclosed goals (and leveraging media narratives to rally public support).

  “The US is funding both sides of the war, giving $6 billion to Iran to give to Hamas, and we’re sending billions to Israel to aid in their military effort.”

  JP encapsulates this ‘conspiracy’ by noting Netanyahu’s recent presentation at the UN (showing a map of the MidEast with no Palestine on it) and the insinuation that the Israeli government’s previous funding of Hamas could be part of a calculated plan to justify military actions against Palestine.

  “War was the goal all along meant to accomplish a further goal that’s not being honestly shared by certain governments.”

  Enjoy JP’s satirical take on the debacle…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 20:55

• Trump Campaign Fights For Place On Michigan Ballot
  Trump Campaign Fights For Place On Michigan Ballot

  Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times,

  Attorneys for President Donald Trump have filed suit in the Michigan Court of Claims in a preemptive effort to preserve his place on the state’s 2024 ballot.

  

  The proactive move is designed to counter at least two pending lawsuits that are attempting to have President Trump disqualified under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for being an alleged “insurrectionist” in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 rally-turned-riot at the Capitol Building in Washington.

  Because the factual allegations of both anti-Trump suits overlap with one another, this article will focus on LaBrandt et al. v. Benson, filed on Sept. 29, 2023.

  The plaintiffs are four registered voters from Michigan.

  They are represented by Michigan attorney Mark Brewer and five Massachusetts lawyers from the group Free Speech for People (FSP).

  According to its website, FSP is a national “non-profit, non-partisan” political advocacy organization.

  The defendant in the suit is Michigan’s Democrat Sect. of State Jocelyn Benson.

  FSP has also filed a nearly identical lawsuit in Minnesota.

  

  Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson speaks in Detroit, Michigan, on Aug. 18, 2020. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

  A separate high-profile case against President Trump is currently being tried in Colorado.

  Court Order Could Disqualify Donald Trump

  In the Michigan complaint, the plaintiffs asked the court to declare President Trump ineligible to hold public office ever again.

  They also asked the court to permanently enjoin Ms. Benson from including President Trump as a candidate in the upcoming Feb. 27 Michigan Republican presidential primary and the Nov. 5, 2024, general election.

  Michigan law requires the secretary of state to compile and issue a list of the presidential candidates generally recognized by the national news media and place them on their party’s primary ballot by Nov. 10.

  Political Cover?

  The plaintiffs assert in their complaint that legal action is necessary because, on Sept. 13, 2023, Ms. Benson published an op-ed in the Washington Post claiming that she lacks the legal authority to investigate and determine whether a presidential candidate should be ineligible to run for office because of a Fourteenth Amendment violation.

  “She has declared that she will place Trump’s name on the Michigan 2024 presidential primary ballot unless a court prevents her from doing so,” reads the complaint.

  Political observers see Ms. Benson, a former law school dean, as a strong candidate to succeed Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer when both are term-limited out of their present positions in 2026.

  Serious Allegations

  The pleadings allege that President Trump concocted a “scheme to overthrow the government” and “to retain power even if he lost.”

  They also allege, “Trump engaged in insurrection or rebellion and is thus disqualified from public office,” pursuant to Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

  The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 for the purpose of keeping ex-Confederates from holding office in the reconstructed Union.

  The complaint also alleged that President Trump “attempted to enlist government officials to illegally overturn the election.”

  Not Since Rutherford B. Hayes

  In the hotly contested presidential election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, the race could not be decided by the Electoral College because the disputes over the electors from four states could not be resolved. Congress created a special Electoral Commission that ultimately sorted things out in favor of Mr. Hayes in March 1877.

  This precedent was the basis for the Trump strategy of January 6, 2020.

  The 1877 procedure was banned in a bill passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in Dec. 2022.

  “On January 4, 2021, Trump and his then-attorney John Eastman met with then-Vice-President Mike Pence and his attorney Greg Jacob to discuss Eastman’s legal theory that Pence might either reject votes on January 6 during the certification process or suspend the proceedings so that states could reexamine the results,” alleges the complaint.

  Article Two, Section One of the U.S. Constitution requires the vice-president, in his capacity as President of the Senate, to preside over the counting of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress.

  Plaintiffs’ pleadings quote a portion of President Trump’s explanation of the procedure from the speech he delivered at the scene of the Save America Rally held on Jan. 6, 2021, in the Ellipse, a large park south of the White House.

  Referring to Mr. Pence, President Trump is alleged to have said, “All he has to do is refer the illegally-submitted electoral votes back to the states that were given false, fraudulent information where they want to recertify.”

  Earlier in the program, Mr. Eastman is alleged to have told the crowd, “All that we are demanding of Pence is, this afternoon at 1 o’clock, he let the legislators of the states look into this so we get to the bottom of it.”

  Incendiary Rhetoric?

  The complaint makes much of what it calls President Trump’s incitement of the crowd to violence. This is important, say the plaintiffs, because, though President Trump committed no overt acts of insurrection, his remarks tie him to the criminal conduct of some of his supporters at the Capitol Building.

  The complaint cites a couple of quotes from President Trump’s Ellipse speech as examples of his inflammatory talk.

  President Trump is alleged to have said: “We want to go back, and we want to get this right because we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there, and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.

  “And we’re going to have to fight much harder.

  “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

  Similar Remarks

  Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Michigan’s Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer repeatedly said in public statements, “I will fight like hell” to preserve the right to obtain an abortion.

  To date, no legal action has been taken against Ms. Whitmer for her choice of words.

  Ten Thousand National Guardsmen

  The complaint does not mention that, days before the Ellipse rally, President Trump asked then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to concur with his request to deploy 10,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol—something they declined to do.

  However, the complaint does list several instances on Jan. 6, in which President Trump appealed to the large and boisterous crowd to remain peaceful.

  March ‘Peacefully and Patriotically’

  In his Ellipse speech, President Trump is quoted in the complaint as allegedly saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol Building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

  Among several other appeals for peace and calm by President Trump cited in the complaint are the following:

  At 2:38 p.m., Trump posted on X: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

  Later, at 4:17 p.m., the complaint states that President Trump released a video on Twitter directed to the protestors in which he allegedly said: “I know your pain. I know your hurt…I know how you feel, but go home, and go in peace.”

  The Trump Team Sues Benson

  Representing President Trump in his lawsuit against Ms. Benson is constitutional lawyer David Kallman and his partner Stephen Kallman of the Kallman Legal Group of Lansing, Michigan, as well as Mark Meuser of the Dhillon Law Group.

  In a complaint filed on Oct. 30, 2023, President Trump’s legal team asserted that “President Trump did not engage in an insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

  His attorneys argue that neither the secretary of state, other state officials, nor the state courts have the legal authority to decide whether a candidate for president is ineligible to appear on the ballot. They contend that the Constitution commits to Congress the responsibility of determining matters of presidential candidates’ qualifications and that the amendment is not self-enforcing but requires an operative act of Congress to carry it out.

  None of President Trump’s constitutionally protected free speech concerning the Jan. 6 protest meets the “stringent requirements for ‘incitement’ both because the content itself is not sufficiently explicit and because it does not evince a specific intent to engage in unlawful activity,” reads his complaint.

  President Trump’s lawyers asked the court to declare that, as “a matter of federal constitutional law” and according to Michigan statute, Ms. Benson lacks the authority to determine whether a presidential candidate may be disqualified.

  A Preemptive Blow

  They also asked the court to enjoin Ms. Benson from refusing to place President Trump on the ballot based on allegations relating to Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

  As early as Aug. 18, 2023, Trump attorney David Warrington of the Dhillon Law Group sought confirmation from Ms. Benson that, pursuant to Michigan law, she would include President Trump’s name on the Secretary of State’s list and be placed on the ballot.

  According to the Trump complaint, Ms. Benson did not respond.

  The Michigan Office of the Secretary of State does not comment on pending litigation.

  All three cases are scheduled for hearings on Nov. 9 at the Michigan Court of Appeals courtroom in Grand Rapids.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 20:20

• Florida "Booty Patrol" Driver Busted, Cops Mocked
  Florida “Booty Patrol” Driver Busted, Cops Mocked

  Sheriffs in central Florida are being mocked online after an 18-year-old man accused of “impersonating law enforcement” was ticketed for plastering “Booty Patrol” on his truck, which he styled to look similar to a Border Patrol vehicle.

  

  The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office warned the public about the Florida Teen, Gabriel Luviano, who they slapped with a $113 citation for adding red and blue rights to his Chevy Silverado, which also features a green diagonal stripe and a logo which reads “National Booty Behavior Protection” in addition to “BOOTY PATROL.”

  

  Luviano told NBC 2: he choose “Booty Patrol” because “it’s the closest you could get to Border Patrol and still have the B in it,” adding that it was never his intention to impersonate federal agents.

  “It was just to have a little fun, you know?” he said, adding that “It was never my intent to pull over people or nothing.”

  Luviano told the outlet that local cops – aside from the guy who pulled him over, love the truck.

  “I have videos of cops coming up to me and they just want a picture,” he said.

  Facebook Warning

  “We want to emphasize that DCSO located the vehicle on Sunday, and our initial post aimed to raise awareness about this incident, ensuring that the public can avoid being duped by such individuals,” deputies posted on Facebook. “We extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who called in with information about the suspicious vehicle, as your continued support is crucial in helping us maintain a safe and secure community for our residents.”

  According to the NY Post, the comments section was full of hilarious replies.

  “Is this serious? If anyone thinks this is a real officer they have a problem. I have seen this drive around all the time and I always get such a chuckle out of it,” said one Floridian. “Leave the man alone.”

  ““It’s a little sad to see this happening to the car community,” wrote another person. “This is just merely a show truck. Always has been. Never seen him have his blue lights on and seen him all over Desoto, Manatee, and Sarasota county.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 19:45

• Netanyahu's 'Political Days Are Numbered': White House
  Netanyahu’s ‘Political Days Are Numbered’: White House

  Via The Cradle,

  Joe Biden and top White House aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “political days are numbered,” and are gauging potential successors as the popularity of the Israeli prime minister continues to plummet following last month’s successful Hamas attack on Israel, Politico reported on 2 November. 

  

  The topic of Netanyahu’s anticipated fall from power has come up in recent White House meetings including following Biden’s most recent trip to Israel in which he met with Netanyahu following the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October, according to two senior administration officials.

  Biden has even suggested to Netanyahu that he should think about lessons he would share with his eventual successor, the two administration officials added.

  Separately, a current US official and a former US official both confirmed that the Biden administration believes Netanyahu will not remain in office for long. The current official believes Netanyahu’s term as prime minister may last a just matter of months due to the Israeli public’s anger resulting from the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October and the intelligence failures that appeared to have occurred to allow it.

  Some 1,400 Israelis died during the Hamas attack, including soldiers and civilians. Some were killed by Hamas fighters, while others were killed in the crossfire as Israel used overwhelming force to eliminate Hamas fighters who had taken many Israelis captive.

  Hamas managed to take over 200 Israelis captive back to Gaza, and the Israeli public and even the captives themselves have been harshly critical of Netanyahu and his right-wing settler government, which have prioritized targeting Hamas and killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the captives’ safe return.

  Further, many Israelis believe the government deliberately allowed the Hamas attack to happen, citing the slow response of the army and police as Hamas fighters penetrated deep into Israeli territory and targeted both military bases and settlements in the Gaza envelope.

  Netanyahu has promised to investigate the intelligence failings, but refuses to do so until the war is over, which may take months or even years.

  “There’s going to have to be a reckoning within Israeli society about what happened,” said the official who, like others, was granted anonymity to detail private conversations.

  “Ultimately, the buck stops on the prime minister’s desk.”

  Biden’s trip to Tel Aviv last month was one largely of support, but the current US official said that Netanyahu’s tenuous hold on power is always “in the background” during internal Biden administration talks about West Asia. And Biden aides already are engaging an array of other Israeli politicians, both in the government and the opposition, in the war effort.

  According to the two senior administration officials as well as the current and former US official, “those talks have also provided a way to gauge the thinking of various Israelis who might take the helm of the country,” Politico wrote. 

  This suggests the US may be looking to choose Netanyahu’s successor, as they did in Ukraine following the 2014 coup against then President Viktor Yanukovych.

  US officials have taken note of Netanyahu’s falling approval ratings and predict that any forthcoming Israeli or US assessments about the intelligence failure will likely be even more damning for the prime minister.

  Biden administration officials have offered public declarations of solidarity with the Israeli government, despite condemnations from human rights groups that Israel has targeted Palestinian civilians “on a mass scale.” But they are nevertheless concerned with who Netanyahu’s successor may be, and what the “day after” will look like in Gaza if Hamas is defeated. 

  The Israeli government has prepared plans to ethnically cleanse and annex Gaza, forcing the strip’s 2.3 million residents to flee to Egypt as refugees, never to return. The White House included funding for relocating Gazans to Egypt’s Sinai in its recent supplemental funding request to Congress, suggesting approval of such an effort. 

  At the same time, White House officials have also floated the possibility of installing the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, in power in Gaza, or possibility of sending a multinational force, though not necessarily one with US troops, to control the territory.

  Netanyahu and Biden were at odds even before the war. Netanyahu was a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, and did not appear pleased that Biden defeated him in the 2020 election. Biden has also distanced himself from Netanyahu following the prime minister’s effort to overhaul Israel’s judiciary upon regaining power in elections last December. Netanyahu has also been critical of US efforts to negotiate with Iran and the Biden White House’s lax efforts to enforce sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. This is presumably due to the influence of China, Iran’s biggest purchaser of oil, on Biden through business dealings with his son Hunter. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 19:10

• Appeals Court Freezes Trump Gag Order Issued By Out-Of-Control Woke Judge
  Appeals Court Freezes Trump Gag Order Issued By Out-Of-Control Woke Judge

  A federal appeals court late Friday slapped down a gag order issued against former President Donald Trump, after his legal team filed an emergency motion Thursday to lift it while his appeal plays out before the court regarding the Biden DOJ’s charges of conspiracy for challenging the results of the 2020 election.

  

  According to a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the gag order from District Judge Tanya Chutkan is “administratively stayed pending further order of the court.”

  The gag order prohibited Trump from making any public statements that might “target” the prosecution and defense legal teams, court staff, supporting personnel, and any “reasonably foreseeable” potential witnesses in the case. Trump had originally asked Chutkan to halt the gag order – which she briefly did, before later reimposing it after the prosecution handed her (Chutkan)

  “The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion.”

  The move by the appeals court is the latest in the gag order saga, which was triggered by a request by special counsel Jack Smith and imposed when Judge Chutkan issued the order on Oct. 17.

  President Trump has been outspoken in the past about Mr. Smith, who is leading the election interference case against him, and others.

  The former president has pleaded not guilty in the case. –Epoch Times

  Chutkan, a US District Court judge in the District of Columbia, previously worked at a law firm that represented Fusion GPS, the company that helped orchestrate the Russia collusion hoax targeting former President Donald Trump. During her stint with Boies Schiller Flexner, the Democrat-friendly law firm also reportedly represented Clinton Cabal foot soldier Huma Abedin, the former wife of disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner.

  

  If it’s any indication of how radical-left Judge Chutkan is, two of the appeals court judges are Obama appointees, and one is a Biden appointee.

  In August, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a resolution to censure Chutkan “for showing open bias and partisanship in her official duties on the bench.”

  “Judge Tanya Chutkan’s extreme sentencing of January 6th defendants, while openly supporting the violent Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, showcases a complete disregard for her duty of impartiality and the rule of law,” Mr. Gaetz said.

  

  Mr. Gaetz’s resolution points to a few other cases of “open partisanship,” including the fact that the Obama-appointed district judge had donated thousands of dollars to his presidential campaign, and that during another Jan. 6-related sentencing she “lamented” that President Trump “remains free to this day.“

  More via The Epoch Times:

  ‘Heckler’s Veto’

  President Trump’s attorneys have argued that their client had made public statements about the Washington election case “for months” but that the Justice Department has so far “submitted no evidence of any actual or imminent threat to the administration of justice.”

  “The prosecution’s claim that his core political speech suddenly poses a threat to the administration of justice is baseless. The prosecutors and potential witnesses addressed by President Trump’s speech are high-level government officials and public figures, many of whom routinely attack President Trump in their own public statements, media interviews, and books,” they wrote in court filings.

  They argued that the gag order reflected bias and animosity against President Trump and was meritless.

  “The prosecution’s request for a Gag Order bristles with hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint and his relentless criticism of the government—including of the prosecution itself,” his attorneys wrote in the filing.

  “The Gag Order embodies this unconstitutional hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint. It should be immediately stayed,” they said.

  “No court in American history has imposed a gag order on a criminal defendant who is actively campaigning for public office—let alone the leading candidate for President of the United States,” his attorneys continued. “Given the Gag Order’s extraordinary nature, one would expect an extraordinary justification for it. Yet none exists.”

  As Jonathan Turley wrote two weeks ago regarding Chutkan’s order;

  As has long been the case, many are turning a blind eye to the implications of this order. They cannot see beyond the name at the top of the caption page. But this order would allow any judge to effectively strip a political candidate of the ability to contest the merits and motivations involved in his own prosecution, including challenging the veracity of prosecutors or witnesses.

  In some of these cases, there is ample reason for such criticism. While I have long said that the Mar-a-Lago prosecution by Smith is well-supported in both law and facts, other prosecutions currently ongoing are clearly politically motivated. The most obvious is the prosecution brought by Alvin Bragg in New York — a case that contorts existing law in an attempt to bag a political figure unpopular in his jurisdiction.

  While the Chutkan gag order does not extend to the other cases, they constitute a daisy-chain of trials that will have Trump running between courts before the election. There is much to criticize in Smith’s second indictment, which will be tried before a judge who previously denounced Trump in a district where 95 percent of the voters opposed Trump.

  After Chutkan ordered a trial just before Super Tuesday, she is now gagging only one candidate — the very candidate who is campaigning against the weaponization of the criminal justice system. You do not have to like or support Trump to recognize the serious problem inherent in such a gag order.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 18:35

• Tverberg: Today's Energy Bottleneck May Bring Down Major Governments
  Tverberg: Today’s Energy Bottleneck May Bring Down Major Governments

  Authored by Gail Tverberg via OurFiniteWorld.com,

  Recently, I explained the key role played by diesel and jet fuel. In this post, I try to explain the energy bottleneck the world is facing because of an inadequate supply of these types of fuels, and the effects such a bottleneck may have. The world’s self-organizing economy tends to squeeze out what may be considered non-essential parts when bottlenecks are hit. Strangely, it appears to me that some central governments may be squeezed out. Countries that are rich enough to have big pension programs for their citizens seem to be especially vulnerable to having their governments collapse.

  

  Figure 1. World supply of diesel and jet fuel per person, based on Middle Distillate data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, produced by the Energy Institute. Notes added by Gail Tverberg.

  This squeezing out of non-essential parts of the economy can happen by war, but it can also happen because of financial problems brought about by “not sufficient actual goods and services to go around.” An underlying problem is that governments can print money, but they cannot print the actual resources needed to produce finished goods and services. I think that in the current situation, a squeezing out for financial reasons, or because legislators can’t agree, is at least as likely as another world war.

  For example, the US had trouble electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives because legislators disagreed about funding plans. I can imagine a long shutdown occurring because of this impasse. Perhaps not this time around, but sometime in the next few years, such a disagreement may lead to a permanent shutdown of the US central government, leaving the individual states on their own. Programs of the US central government, such as Social Security and Medicare, would likely disappear. It would be up to the individual states to sponsor whatever replacement programs they are able to afford.

  [1] An overview of the problem

  In my view, we are in the midst of a great “squeezing out.” The economy, and in fact the entire universe, is a physics-based system that constantly evolves. Every part of the economy requires energy of the right types. Humans and animals eat food. Today’s economy requires many forms of fossil fuels, plus human labor. This evolution is in the direction of ever-greater complexity and ever-greater efficiency.

  Right now, there is a bottleneck in energy supply caused by too much population relative to the amount of oil of the type used to make diesel and jet fuel (Figure 1). My concern is that many governments and businesses will collapse in response to what I call the Second Squeezing Out. In 1991, the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed, following a long downward slide starting about 1982.

  All parts of economies, including government organizations and businesses, constantly evolve. They grow for a while, but when limits are hit, they are likely to shrink and may collapse. The current energy bottleneck is sufficiently dire that some observers worry about another world war taking place. Such a war could change national boundaries and reduce import capabilities of parts of the world. This would be a type of squeezing out of major parts of the world economy. In fact, shortages of coal seem to have set the stage for both World War I and World War II.

  Each squeezing out is different. When there are physically not enough goods and services to go around, some inefficient parts of the economy must be squeezed out. Payments to pensioners seem to me to be particularly inefficient because pensioners are not themselves creating finished goods and services.

  World leaders would like us to believe that they are in charge of what happens in the world economy. But what these leaders can accomplish is limited by the actual resources that can be extracted and the finished goods and services that can be produced with these resources. When there are not enough goods and services to go around, unplanned changes to the economy tend to take place. These changes work in the direction of allowing parts of the system to go forward, without being burdened by the less efficient portions.

  [2] The importance of diesel and jet fuel

  Diesel and jet fuel are important to today’s industrial economy because they fuel nearly all long-distance transportation of goods, whether by ship, train, large truck, or airplane. Diesel also powers most of today’s modern agricultural equipment. Without the use of modern agricultural equipment, overall food production would decline drastically.

  Without diesel, there would also be many other problems besides reduced food production. Diesel is used to power many of the specialized vehicles used in road maintenance. Without the ability to use these vehicles, it would become difficult to keep roads repaired.

  Without diesel and jet fuel, there would also be an electricity problem because transmission lines are maintained using a combination of land-based vehicles powered by diesel and helicopters powered by jet fuel. Without electricity transmission, homes and offices without their own solar panels and batteries wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on. Gasoline pumps require electricity to operate, so they wouldn’t operate either. Without diesel and electricity, the list of problems is endless.

  [3] Green energy is itself a dead end, but subsidizing green energy can temporarily hide other problems.

  Green energy sounds appealing, but it is terribly limited in what it can do. Green energy cannot operate agricultural machinery. It cannot make new wind turbines or solar panels. Green energy cannot exist without fossil fuels. It is simply an add-on to the current system.

  The reason why we hear so much about green energy is because making people believe that a green revolution is possible provides many temporary benefits. For example:

  • The extra debt needed to subsidize green energy indirectly increases GDP. (GDP calculations ignore whether added debt was used to produce the added goods and services counted as GDP.)

  • Manufacturers can pretend that their products (such as vehicles) will operate as they do today for years and years.

  • The educational system is given many more areas to provide courses in.

  • Citizens are given the hope that the economy will grow endlessly.

  • Young people are given hope for the future.

  • Politicians look like they are doing something for voters.

  Unfortunately, by the time that the debt comes due to pay for subsidized green energy, it will be apparent that the return on this technology is far too low. The overall system will tend to collapse. Green energy is only a temporary Band-Aid to hide a very disturbing problem. Its impact is tiny and short-lived. And it cannot prevent climate change.

  [4] Energy bottlenecks are a frequent problem.

  Energy bottlenecks are a frequent problem partly because the human population has tended to increase ever since early humans learned to control fire. At the same time, resources, such as arable land, fresh water supply, and minerals of all kinds, are in limited supply. Extraction becomes increasingly difficult over time (requiring more inputs to produce the same output) because the easiest-to-produce resources tend to be exploited first. Extracting more fossil fuels to meet the energy needs of a growing economy may look like it would be easy, but, in practice, it is not.

  As a result of energy bottlenecks, civilizations often collapse. Sometimes war with another group is involved. In such a case, the population of the losing civilization falls.

  [5] The standard supply and demand model of economics makes it look like prices will rise in response to fossil fuel shortages. The discussion in Section [4] shows that energy supply bottlenecks often occur. When they do occur, the response is very different.

  

  Figure 2. From Wikipedia: The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.

  The model of many economists is far too simple. Based on the model shown on Figure 2, it is easy to get the idea that a shortage of oil will lead to a rise in prices. As a result, more oil will be produced, and the problem will be solved. Or perhaps efficiency changes, or substitution for a different type of fuel, will fix the problem.

  When bottlenecks appear, the real situation is quite different. For example, increases in oil prices tend to cause food prices to rise, and thus increase inflation. Politicians know that citizens don’t like inflation and therefore will not vote for them. As a result, politicians tend to hold down prices. The resulting prices tend to fall too low for producers, and they start producing less, rather than more.

  Energy products of the right kinds are essential for making every part of GDP. If there is not enough of the right kinds of energy products to go around, what I call some kind of “squeezing out” is likely to take place. Early on, there may be changes that reduce energy consumption, such as cutbacks in international trade. More businesses may fail. Eventually, some parts of the world economy may disappear, such as the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. Or war may take place.

  [6] When there is not enough energy of the right kinds to go around, spreading what little is available “thinner” doesn’t work.

  As an example, if people need to eat 2,000 kilocalories per day, and if the food supply that is available would only supply 500 kilocalories per day (on average), giving everyone the same quantity would lead to everyone starving. Similarly, if a communist government gives every worker the same wage, lateness and “slacking off” become huge problems. Experience in many places has shown that equal pay for all, regardless of native abilities, responsibilities, or effort, simply doesn’t work. Somehow, diligent work and greater responsibility needs to be rewarded.

  When an energy bottleneck occurs (leading to too little finished goods and services in total being produced), what I call a “squeezing out” takes place. Such a squeezing out may be initiated in many ways, including a war, angry citizens overturning a government, financial problems, or a shift in climate. The winners in a squeezing out end up ahead; the losers see collapsing institutions of many kinds, including failing businesses and disappearing government organizations.

  [7] Most people do not understand the interconnected nature of the world economy, and the way the whole system tends to evolve.

  The Universe is made up of many temporary structures, each of which needs to “dissipate” energy to stay away from a cold, dead state. We are all aware that plants and animals behave in this manner, but businesses of all kinds and government organizations also require energy of the right kinds to grow. They get much of their energy from financial payments that act as temporary placeholders for goods and services that will be made in the future using various types of energy, including human labor.

  Strangely enough, because of the physics of the situation, business and government organizations are also temporary in nature, and in some sense, they also evolve. In physics terms, all these structures are dissipative structures. Physicist Francois Roddier writes about this broader kind of evolution in his book, The Thermodynamics of Evolution. In fact, economies themselves are dissipative structures. I have written about the economy as a self-organizing system powered by energy many times, including here, here, and here. All these self-organizing structures eventually come to an end.

  History is full of records of economies that have collapsed. The book Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin and Serjey Nefedov analyzes eight of these failed economies. Populations tend to grow after a new resource is found or is acquired through war. Once population growth hits what Turchin calls carrying capacity, these economies hit a period of stagflation. This period lasted 50 to 60 years in the sample of eight economies analyzed. Stagflation was followed by a major contraction, typically with failing or overturned governments and declining overall population.

  [8] Logic and some calculations suggest that the world economy is likely to be reaching a major downturn, about now.

  One way of estimating when a major contraction (or squeezing out) would occur would be to look at oil supply. We know that US oil production hit a peak and started to decline in 1970, changing the dynamics of the world economy. This started a period of stagflation for many of the wealthier economies of the world. Adding 50 to 60 years to 1970 suggests that a major downturn would take place in the 2020 to 2030 timeframe. Since it was the wealthier economies that first entered stagflation, it would not be surprising if these economies tend to collapse first.

  There have been several studies computing estimates of when the extraction of fossil fuels would become unaffordable. Back in 1957, Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover of the US Navy gave a speech in which he talked about the connection of the level of fossil fuel supply to the standard of living of an economy, and to the ability of its military to defend the country. With respect to the timing of limits to affordable supply, he said, “. . .total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account.”

  Confusion arises because some people would like to believe that fossil fuel prices can rise to extraordinarily high levels, and this will somehow permit more fossil fuels to be extracted. However, as I discussed in Section [5], the problem is really a two-sided one. Politicians want to hold fossil fuel prices down to prevent inflation, while oil producers (such as those in OPEC+) choose to reduce production if prices are not sufficiently high to meet their needs.

  An easily missed point is that tax revenue from the sale of oil is often a large share of the total tax revenue of oil exporting countries. Because of this issue, in order for prices of oil to be adequate for oil exporters, they must include a wide margin for payment of taxes. These taxes are used to support the rest of the economy. For example, in Saudi Arabia, taxes provide support for huge building programs that provide jobs for citizens, but are of questionable long term value. These projects keep citizens happy, at least temporarily. Without adequate subsidy from tax revenue, citizens would want to overturn governments–a form of collapse.

  [9] Energy problems are easily hidden because “scientific models” are considered to be important in forecasting the future. These models tend to be misleading because they leave out important elements regarding how the economy really works.

  The easiest models to make are the ones that seem to say, “the future will be very similar to the recent past.” These models miss turning points. They assume that growth will continue even though resource extraction can be expected to become more difficult. Some examples of overly simple models include the following:

  • Money is a store of value. (Not if the economy has stopped functioning properly because insufficient energy resources are available.)

  • Forecasts of Social Security payments recipients will be able to receive in the future are overstated. (It takes energy of the right kinds to produce the goods and services that the elderly require. If the economy is not producing enough goods and services because of energy extraction limits, the share that pensioners can receive will need to fall so that workers can be paid adequately. Inflation-adjusted benefits to the elderly must be much lower or disappear completely.)

  • Climate models give high estimates. (These models miss the real-world difficulty of extracting fossil fuels. They also assume the economy can grow indefinitely, greatly overstating future CO2.)

  • Future energy supply based on “Reserve to Production” ratios give high estimates. (Reserve amounts are often puffed-up numbers to make an oil exporting country look wealthy.)

  • Energy Return on Energy Invested models greatly overestimate the value of intermittent wind and solar energy. (It is easy to assume that all types of energy are equivalent, but intermittent wind and solar cannot replace diesel and jet fuel.)

  [10] Added complexity is not a solution to our energy problems.

  Many people believe that if we can just be smarter, we can solve our energy problem. We can add more fuel-efficient engines, more advanced education, and more international trade, for example. Unfortunately, many things go wrong, leading to an upward energy complexity spiral. Difficulties include:

  • The complexity changes with the best payback tend to be discovered and implemented very early.

  • Added complexity may lead to higher energy consumption if cost savings result. For example, more vehicles may be sold if reduced fuel consumption makes their operation more affordable to a wider number of users.

  • Wage disparity results because the wages paid to highly educated employees and those in managerial positions leave little funding available to pay less-skilled workers.

  • Less-skilled workers indirectly compete with similarly skilled workers in low-wage countries, further holding their wages down.

  It is clear that we are now moving past the limits of complexity. For example, international trade as a percentage of GDP has been falling for the world, the US, and China.

  

  Figure 3. Trade as a percentage of GDP based on World Bank data for the World, the United States, and China.

  Countries are now actively trying to bring supply lines back closer to home. Trips for goods across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans are being reduced, saving diesel and jet fuel.

  [11] Repayment of debt with interest acts like a Ponzi Scheme if there is inadequate growth in the energy supply.

  Most people today do not realize the extent to which the entire financial system is dependent on growing inexpensive-to-produce energy supply of the right kinds. It takes physical resources of the right kinds to produce goods and services. Resources such as fresh water, copper, lithium, and fossil fuels require more and more energy consumption to produce the same amount of supply because the easiest-to-extract resources are extracted first.

  When the economy is far from limits, adding more debt (or other types of promises, such as shares of stock) does seem to increase “demand” for finished goods and services, and this, in turn, tends to increase the production of fossil fuels and other commodities. Thus, for a while, increased debt does indeed increase energy supply.

  But when we start reaching extraction limits, instead of producing more fossil fuels and other commodities, higher debt tends to produce inflation. (In other words, more money plus practically the same amount of finished goods and services tends to lead to inflation.) This is the issue central banks are up against today. Central banks raise interest rates in response to the higher level of inflation, partly to compensate lenders for the inflation that is taking place, and partly to make their own economies more competitive in the world economy. The combination of higher interest rates and higher inflation is problematic in many ways:

  (a) Ordinary citizens find that they must cut back on discretionary goods and services to balance their budgets. This tends to push economies in the direction of recession and debt defaults. Some citizens find they need to apply for government assistance programs for the first time.

  (b) Businesses find it more difficult to operate profitably with higher interest rates and inflation. Businesses increasingly expand in programs supported by government subsidies, such as those for electric cars and batteries, as it becomes increasingly difficult to make a profit without a subsidy. In the US, defaults seem especially likely on commercial real estate loans.

  (c) Governments become especially squeezed. Many of them find that their own tax revenue is falling at precisely the time when citizens need their programs most. Governments also find that with higher interest rates, interest costs on their own debt rises. Subsidized programs increasingly seem to be needed to keep the economy operating. The number of retirees also grows year after year. Government debt levels spiral upward, as shown for the US on Figure 6.

  With all these issues, the world becomes increasingly prone to war. Political parties, and even groups within political parties, find it increasingly difficult to agree on solutions to problems. The stage seems to be set for an array of worrisome outcomes, including major debt defaults, failing governments, and even widespread war.

  [12] The world economy was able to grow rapidly in the 1950 to 1980 period because of a rapid rise in energy consumption. Now, there is an energy bottleneck. The recent increases in interest rates seem likely to burst debt bubbles. They may even squeeze out some major economies with pension programs for their citizens.

  

  Figure 4. Measures of average interest rates of 3-month US Treasury Bills and 10-year Treasury Securities, in a chart produced by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.

  On Figure 4, the significant increases in interest rates up until 1981 corresponded to a huge increase in world energy consumption in the 1950 to 1980 period (Figure 5).

  

  Figure 5. World per capita energy consumption, with the 1950-1980 period of rapid growth highlighted. World Energy Consumption by source, based on Vaclav Smil’s estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with data from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy for 1965 and subsequent years. Population estimates used to produce per capita amounts are based on estimates by Angus Maddison for dates prior to 1950. They are based on UN estimates for more recent years. Chart prepared by Gail Tverberg in 2018.

  The rapid rise in fossil fuel consumption in Figure 5 was the reason why the economy was able to grow as rapidly as it did in the 1950 to 1980 period. Raising interest rates acted like brakes on the economy and lowered oil prices. The Soviet Union was the economy most harmed by these low oil prices. It also had a communist form of government that did not work well, compared to capitalism. Ultimately, the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

  Now, the rise in interest rates during 2022 and 2023 on Figure 4 correspond to a very different situation. Extraction of fossil fuels, and in particular the heavy oil used to produce diesel and jet fuel, is no longer growing rapidly. Instead, what has been growing is debt, especially government debt. Figure 6 shows US government debt through April 2023. US government debt spurted upward in 2020 and is still rising rapidly.

  

  Figure 6. US Public Debt, based on a chart prepared by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

  The business closures in 2020 and interruptions in travel reduced oil prices and provided a good excuse for more government debt. All this debt added buying power, but it didn’t actually produce very many goods and services. Instead, it added a debt bubble. Similarly, investing in close-to-useless green energy temporarily added GDP, but it mostly added a huge debt bubble. Raising interest rates is likely to burst these debt bubbles.

  The US and other rich countries have also put in place pension plans for the elderly. These are not treated as debt, but they depend upon resources of all kinds being available to feed, clothe, and provide shelter to a growing army of retirees. If there is not enough diesel to allow as many goods and services to be produced as are produced today, there is likely to be a huge problem if payouts to pensioners aren’t significantly reduced. Other citizens will be unhappy if retirees get a disproportionately large share of the reduced supply of goods and services. Some will say, “Why work if retirees on pensions get more than those of us who are still working?”

  Thus, the world seems to be increasingly in a situation where more squeezing out will take place. Major governments, especially those with pension plans for their citizens, seem especially vulnerable. No one understood that there had been a temporary rapid rise in energy consumption per capita in the 1950 to 1980 period (Figure 5) that led to a temporary spurt in interest rates on bonds. This temporary rise in interest rates made pension programs look far more feasible than they really are for the longterm.

  [13] How does the problem resolve itself?

  It seems to me that the problem of debt bubbles and of unaffordably generous pension plans is very widespread. Analysts of all kinds have missed the hidden brakes on economies caused by inadequate energy resources of the right kinds, relative to rising populations. Collapse of at least some central governments seems possible. Perhaps some of these collapses can be postponed by rollbacks in government-sponsored programs, particularly those for the elderly and for those who are not working.

  But even aside from the pension problem, there is a problem with many debts not being repayable in an economy that is forced to slow, as described in Section [11]. Many other promises become iffy as well. For instance, derivatives may not be able to pay as planned.

  If there are problems with inadequate supply of essential materials, they are likely to spill over to asset values. For example, a farm that cannot purchase fuel for its agricultural equipment is, in some sense, not worth very much, since workers with simple tools like shovels cannot produce very much food. Likewise, a factory with permanently broken supply lines is not worth much.

  I wish I could provide a happy-ever-after ending. The closest I can come to such an ending is to say that it appears to me that there is a literal Higher Power that is somehow providing an enormous amount of energy in a way that allows the Universe to continually expand. This literal Higher Power is, in some way, influencing the world today, through the self-organizing nature of the economy. The book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, by Ward and Brownlee, explains that life could not have happened on the Earth, as quickly as it did, by chance alone. Perhaps things will turn out differently than we expect.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 18:00

• Blinken Tells Abbas He Asked Israel To Use 'Smaller Bombs' On Gaza
  Blinken Tells Abbas He Asked Israel To Use ‘Smaller Bombs’ On Gaza

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on another multi-day tour of the Middle East, where this time Arab leaders have finally acquiesced to meet with him as the Gaza crisis continues, at a moment the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say that Gaza City is surrounded.

  On Sunday Blinken visited Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to meet with President Mahmoud Abbas of the internationally backed Palestinian Authority (PA). Blinken reportedly told Abbas that the US is pressing Israel to “minimize civilian harm”. He had some interesting ideas on how to do that.

  

  Blinken had previously again met with Netanyahu Friday where according to fresh reports he pressed the Israeli prime minister to use “smaller bombs”. 

  “U.S. officials told the Israelis that they could reduce civilian casualties if they improved how they targeted Hamas leaders, gathered more intelligence on Hamas command and control networks before launching strikes, used smaller bombs to collapse the tunnel network and employed their ground forces to separate civilian population centers from where the militants are concentrated,” The New York Times reported.

  Blinken of course stressed Israel’s “right to defend itself” but still pressed for a humanitarian “pause”. In Ramallah, he vowed to Abbas that the US will step up humanitarian aid efforts to the besieged Gaza Strip.

  According to the latest grim figures, some 1.5 million Gazans have now been internally displaced: 

  The UN agency OCHA has said that of them, 710,275 are sheltering in 149 UNRWA facilities, 122,000 people are in hospitals, churches, and public buildings, 109,755 people are in 89 non-UNRWA schools, and the remainder are residing with host families.

  Palestinian Authority leaders have charged that Israel is conducting “ethnic cleansing” – also by encouraging Palestinians to leave the entire northern half of the Strip while under bombardment.

  Abbas has yet to publicly condemn Hamas’ Oct.7 terror attack, with the NY Times saying if he did so it would create severe backlash among his own population, also at a moment of increased sporadic fighting in the West Bank:

  Still, he has not publicly condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, largely out of fear of inflaming sentiment among Palestinians, with whom he is deeply unpopular. He has called more generally for a cease-fire and protections for Palestinian civilians, including in the West Bank.

  Mr. Abbas echoed those messages on Sunday in his meetings with Mr. Blinken, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency. It said Mr. Abbas had called for “an immediate halt” to the war in Gaza and an end to the attacks in the West Bank, which he described as “no less horrific.”

  The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rebuffed calls from his counterparts in Egypt and Jordan for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, saying that a halt would allow Hamas to repeat its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. https://t.co/7tds2ilvgU pic.twitter.com/3YYsQtC2IZ

  — The New York Times (@nytimes) November 4, 2023

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  Interestingly, Abbas told Blinken that the Palestinian Authority could assume power in a post-conflict Gaza. This comes after Blinken earlier said the US remains open to the possibility of an international peacekeeping force to assume control in Gaza. Abbas stipulated the following:

  But Abbas said the Palestinian Authority would only assume power in Gaza as part of a “comprehensive political solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the Palestinians’ official WAFA news agency. Abbas condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as a “genocidal war” and urged Blinken “to immediately stop them from committing such crimes,” the agency reported.

  Over the weekend the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza surpassed 9,500 killed – with some half of these being women and children. Some 240 Israeli and foreign hostages are still being held in the Gaza strip, though there are reports some may have been killed. Possibly dozens of IDF troops have been killed and wounded amid the ground operation, but Israel has been slow to publish these figures.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 17:45

• Democrats Rattled After NYT Poll Shows Trump Beating Biden In Majority Of Swing States
  Democrats Rattled After NYT Poll Shows Trump Beating Biden In Majority Of Swing States

  Democrats are in panic mode after a NY Times poll released on Sunday shows Trump wiping the floor with President Biden in 5 out of 6 battleground swing states that Biden carried in 2020. In short, if the 2024 election were held today, according to the Times, Trump would absolutely clobber Biden.

  

  According to the poll from NYT and Sienna College, Biden would lose to Trump by margins ranging from three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, while Biden only leads Trump by 2% in the 6th state, Wisconsin.

  

  As Axios sums up:

  • Biden led Trump in Wisconsin but is down 4 points in Pennsylvania, 5 in Arizona, 6 in Georgia, 5 in Michigan, and 10 in Nevada.
  • 71 percent said Biden was “too old,” including 54 percent of Biden’s supporters.
  • Only 39 percent of those voters felt the same about Trump, who would be the oldest president ever inaugurated and has shared no details about his health.
  • Swing state voters said they trust Trump over Biden on the economy by a 22-point margin, 59 to 37 percent.
  • Trump and Biden are effectively tied among voters under 30 — a large shift from 2020.

  “Trump and Biden are effectively tied among voters under 30 — a large shift from 2020.” https://t.co/dOS3NAsXY6 pic.twitter.com/WY9joZW2DX

  — Jevaughn (@Jevaughn_Brown) November 5, 2023

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  What’s more, Biden is also polling weaker than alternative Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris. According to the poll, Trump leads Biden by 5 points and Harris by 3, while a generic, unnamed Democrat would fare even better with an 8-point lead over Trump (13% better than Biden).

  According to Democratic strategist David Axelrod, it’s ‘very late to change horses’ in terms of Biden’s 2024 run, and this poll will “send tremors of doubt thru the party.’

  “The stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” Axelrod continued.

  The @POTUS is justly proud of his accomplishments. Trump is a dangerous, unhinged demagogue whose brazen disdain for the rules, norms, laws and institutions or democracy should be disqualifying. But the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore.

  — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023

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  Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?

  — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023

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  Former Obama senior advisor and Pod Save America host Dan Pfeiffer wrote a blog post on how Democrats should react to the “very bad NYT Poll,” and said that he didn’t want to sugarcoat it: “While some of Trump’s gains among Black, Hispanic, and young voters may be hard to believe, numbers like these are broadly consistent with the trendlines in recent polls. This poll shows that not only can Trump win, he might now be a slight favorite to do so. Even if we don’t take the results literally, we should take them very, very seriously.“

  In short, Democrats have to win back demographics they’ve lost since 2020:

  Instead of doom-scrolling and tweeting through our panic, we should see this poll as a roadmap on how to reconstitute the anti-MAGA majority. We have to persuade the voters we have lost since 2020. Here’s one place to start. -Message Box News

  Team Biden downplayed the poll, with re-election campaign spox Kevin Munoz telling Axios that “predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later.”

  “We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll,” he continued.

  Maybe that’s why mercenary neocon Bill Kristol just told ol’ Joe to pack it in?

  It’s time.

  President Biden has served our country well. I’m confident he’ll do so for the next year.

  But it’s time for an act of personal sacrifice and public spirit.

  It’s time to pass the torch to the next generation.

  It’s time for Biden to announce he won’t run in 2024.

  — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) November 5, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 17:25

• Police Find No Evidence That Israel Supporter Attack UNC Muslim Student With Knife
  Police Find No Evidence That Israel Supporter Attack UNC Muslim Student With Knife

  Authored by Micaiah Bilger via TheCollegeFix.com,

  Police are investigating an online claim alleging an individual wearing an Israeli flag attacked a Muslim student Tuesday near the University North Carolina, Chapel Hill — but so far say there is no evidence the attack took place.

  The UNC Muslim Students Association claimed on its Instagram page Thursday that a Muslim student was attacked with a knife by “an individual wearing an Israeli flag” on the evening of Oct. 31 on Franklin Street.

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  A post shared by UNC MSA (@uncmsa)

  //www.instagram.com/embed.js

  A UNC Chapel Hill police spokesperson told the News & Observer the only evidence they have of the alleged attack is a social media post, and no one reported the incident to their department.

  “Was a student attacked on Franklin Street? Neither Chapel Hill Police nor UNC-Chapel Hill can confirm this attack happened as described,” the newspaper reported Nov. 1

  “According to the UNC police blotter, no incidents of assault or harassment were reported around 6 p.m. Tuesday evening,” the Observer reported in a fact-check piece.

  “Additionally, Chapel Hill police said no one has reported this crime. The department currently does not have any evidence of the attack happening, outside of the social media post, according to police spokesperson Alex Carrasquillo,” the newspaper reported.

  The alleged attacked happened on Halloween night on Franklin Street, a very popular and heavily traversed road next to campus.

  The News & Observer reported that its request to the association for more information has not been answered.

  The reports of the alleged attack appear to have come from Instagram posts by the UNC Muslim Students Association.

  In an Oct. 31 Instagram story, the association wrote: “Attention: There are pro-Israeli people on Franklin attacking Muslim students. Please stay away from the area, especially if you’re hijabi, and be careful,” according to the News & Observer.

  In a Nov. 1 statement, the Chapel Hill Police Department said it was aware of “a social media post describing an assault of a community member who is Muslim” and was working to contact the victim and investigate.

  The Muslim Students Association stated the student is not available for media interviews.

  “We thank law enforcement for investigating this incident and we encourage any interested reporters to contact them for additional information,” it wrote on Instagram.

  However, the allegations have raised questions.

  The activism group Stop Antisemitism posted on X:

  “If this is true, it’s awful. Where can we find more details – a police report? media not reporting on it?”

  The College Fix could not find any alerts about an assault or similar incident on Alert Carolina, an emergency alert system for UNC students, their families and local residents.

  A message, which appears to have been sent by the Muslim student group to its members earlier this week, stated that “police were present on the scene and are aware of the situation,” according to an X post by Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

  The hate doesn’t stop. A Muslim student in NC was attacked with a knife by an individual with an Israel flag.

  Our students are under attack in the US. The Biden Administration needs to do more to protect Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim students on campus. pic.twitter.com/4LETOXNQ3R

  — Abed A. Ayoub (@aayoub) November 1, 2023

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  A spokesperson for the department confirmed to The Daily Tar Heel, the UNC Chapel Hill student newspaper, that police did speak “to someone who anonymously identified as a victim and, while respecting their anonymity, we are still working to determine what happened.”

  Police also told the student newspaper, as of Wednesday afternoon, no one had filed an official incident report, but they continue to investigate. Police asked anyone with information to call 911 or contact the Chapel Hill Police Department.

  “The circumstances that were described in the post must not be tolerated in our community,” Chapel Hill Police Chief Celisa Lehew said in a statement.

  “It is important that anyone who has information reach out to us as soon as possible. We recognize the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community and will continue to work carefully to ensure an environment where everyone feels safe and respected.”

  Since Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 civilians, there has been a wave of attacks targeting Jewish students and Israel supporters at U.S. higher education institutions.

  On Oct. 12 at UNC Chapel Hill, an Israeli professor was pushed during a pro-Palestinian protest, WRAL News reported.

  Last week, a pro-Palestine protest turned violent at Tulane University and three students were assaulted, The College Fix reported. And at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, a Jewish student’s door was set on fire.

  Meanwhile, students who were arrested at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst during a pro-Palestinian sit-in last week were arraigned on trespassing charges.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 16:50

• US Rolls Out 50th Weapons Package For Ukraine
  US Rolls Out 50th Weapons Package For Ukraine

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

  The US rolled out its 50th weapons package for Ukraine. The arms shipment will include air defenses, artillery rounds, and anti-armor weapons. The Pentagon will purchase $300 million in arms on behalf of Kiev, depleting all the funds in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).

  On Friday, The Department of Defense announced a new $425 million in military aid package for Ukraine. $125 million in weapons will be sent directly from American stockpiles through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). The funds used to transfer the arms came from a Pentagon accounting error that gave the White House access to an additional $6 billion in PDA funds.

  

  The weapons to be shipped to Ukraine include:

  • Additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS)
  • Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
  • 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds
  • Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles
  • Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems
  • More than 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades
  • Demolitions munitions for obstacle clearing
  • M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions
  • 12 trucks to transport heavy equipment
  • Cold weather gear
  • Spare parts, maintenance, and other field equipment

  The Pentagon will additionally purchase $300 million in “laser-guided munitions to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems” for Ukraine. The weapons will be bought with USAI funds. The Department of Defense reports that its USAI funding has now been depleted. Arms purchased through this program will take months or years to reach Ukraine.

  For months, the White House has pressed Congress to pass a multi-billion aid package for Ukraine. In October, the Biden administration rolled out a $105 billion bill that includes $61 billion in assistance for Kiev. The White House hopes the aid will maintain the Ukrainian military and the Zelensky administration through 2024 election.

  However, the situation in Ukraine is becoming increasingly bleak. The top Ukrainian defense official told the Economist outlets that the war has reached a stalemate. Additionally, an aide to Zelensky said corruption was rampant, and Ukrainian officials were stealing “like there is no tomorrow.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 15:40

• Kamala Harris' Stepdaughter Helps Raise $8M For Gaza While Mom's Admin Pushing Billions For Israel
  Kamala Harris’ Stepdaughter Helps Raise $8M For Gaza While Mom’s Admin Pushing Billions For Israel

  Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, has begun publicly raising money for Gaza – promoting a fundraiser on her personal Instagram account “supporting urgent relief for Gaza’s children” which is now absent from her profile.

  

  The promotion asks her 315,000 Instagram followers to support the Palestinian cause, without mentioning that her stepmother’s administration wants to send billions to Israel as part of a $100 billion package.

  

  The fundraiser, which has netted more than $7.8 million so far, is being operated by the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, a nonprofit based in Kent, Ohio, which raked in more than $21 million in 2021, according to ProPublica.

  It’s unclear how much, if anything, Ella Emhoff has personally donated to the cause. –NY Post

  “It’s of tremendous concern and I find it abhorrent,” Rep. Jeff VanDrew (R-NJ), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee told the outlet. “To be honest with you, I am kind of stunned by it. It’s disturbing to the maximum degree.”

  VanDrew said it was almost certain that Hamas would be able to siphon any humanitarian cash that went to Gaza.

  

  Despite her father being Jewish, Ella’s rep told The Forward in 2021 that “Ella is not Jewish.”

  “It’s not something she grew up with. Ella truly has no qualms with the faith, but she does not want to speak on behalf of Judaism, as she does not celebrate herself.”

  Emhoff — whose biological mom is film producer Kerstin Emhoff — has styled herself as a model and making boobs-out appearances at New York Fashion Week.

  She is close with her stepmother, who congratulated her in an X posting after Emhoff’s graduation from Parsons in 2021.

  “Keep dreaming with ambition and there is nothing you cannot achieve,” Harris wrote. -NY Post

  We wonder if Ella was perhaps protesting outside the White House on Saturday? Maybe she wore this:

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 15:05

• What A Fire!
  What A Fire!

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  Last week we wrote the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” remake. It was meant to be a quick (and hopefully mildly entertaining) way to highlight just how many things are affecting markets and the global economy (geopolitically, internationally, and domestically). The list of issues facing us is long, and certainly helped create the “wall of worry” that Wall Street managed to climb this week.

  

  The Geopolitical Front

  While there were many headlines this week, nothing much has changed from our previous view that the risk of escalation remains real, and that we’ll have difficulty forming a domestic policy that keeps everyone happy.

  We tackled the Middle East in this week’s webinar. The replay runs just under an hour but it’s a fantastic way to keep up to date on the many moving parts in the region along with some global issues. Beyond the military aspects, we explore supply chain issues, energy policy, and even the roles of various international organizations. Rachel Washburn, who was embedded with special forces in Afghanistan as an Army Intelligence officer, moderated the conversation and did a great job of including many questions that the audience was peppering her with from the get-go. Generals (Ret.) Deptula and Robeson brought a wealth of relevant information, perspective, and thoughts on where this could go. General Deptula, a retired Air Force general, was able to provide some deep insight into the air campaign, while General Robeson’s Marine Corps career was extremely relevant to the discussion around the fighting on the ground. I highly recommend watching the replay.

  As a backdrop, prior to the webinar and last weekend’s Billy Joel tribute, you can find:

  • Multiple SITREPS on the events in the region. Each SITREP is a reaction to events as they occur in real time. They are driven by the expertise of Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group, and are a key tool in our efforts to keep clients informed of what the events mean and what the reactions and consequences are likely to be.
  • On the more “macro” front, there is not much of a change following our two prior pieces:
    • A Difficult Week outlined several scenarios and risks for the global economy. It also included our initial podcast on the war.
    • Increasing the Risk Assessment. Basically, where we still are.

  We will continue to do our best to provide insights that hopefully help you navigate this on many levels, as it is a complex, treacherous, and highly emotional situation that is constantly evolving (or devolving, as the case may be).

  The Market Dumpster Fire

  Ok, we had the exact opposite of a dumpster fire in markets last week, unless you were short or owned puts. Stock indices were up around 6% for the week! If we want to nitpick, the Russell 2000 was up almost 8%!

  Credit spreads tightened, though the CDX indices heavily outperformed the actual bond market (the CDX indices tend to correlate much more to equities than actual bonds). The rally in high yield bonds was impressive, but very much in line with what would be expected given the rally in bond yields and equities.

  But the market that’s “truly on fire” (or at least the market that sparked the flames) was the Treasury market.

  On October 23rd, the 10-year breached 5%. It almost did it again on the 26th, and it briefly traded below 4.5% on Friday! A move between 40 bps and 50 bps in just over a week is extreme by any standard and drove markets. WIRP (and the probability of Fed actions) has almost completely ruled out a hike and we now have an almost 30% chance of a cut at the March meeting! What a difference a week makes!

  While the move is quite large, it is completely understandable:

  • The Fed’s refunding was not as bad as feared (or priced in) especially at the long end. In D.C. Has Done The Fed’s Job, we expressed several reasons why the fear about supply, while likely correct longer-term, was overdone.
  • We suspected that Powell would try to sound hawkish, but include many caveats (especially surrounding the moves in the yield curve and real yields). He couldn’t be as hawkish as many were positioned for (The Game is Slipping Away).
  • Our assessment of the Fed meeting (The Fed & Treasury Behind Us) was bullish with the caveats that the Middle East could disrupt the “everything rally” (it hasn’t yet) and that the economic data could be bad enough to bring recession chatter back to the headlines (not yet).
  • The Jobs Report Was Universally Weak. One thing that I learned quickly was that when you send out a report titled “weak report” and you only glance at the replies, your first reaction is to think that the comments were calling my report weak . In any case, this report was weak enough to keep the “everything rally” going.

  But all that is history, where are we going?

  Bottom Line

  The “easy” part of the Treasury rally is over. We could bounce around, but I am looking for more weakness on the data side to push us below 4.3% on the 10-year. After the recent rally, we might drift higher in yields first and see some shorts get put on, but I think that we’ll see 4.3% before 4.75%.

  The Treasury market moves will be mainly expressed 5 years and out as the Fed will be in no rush to cut rates. This implies that a bet on more negative curves is the direction to lean towards.

  On credit spreads, I like credit spreads a lot here, especially for high quality IG.

  • Cash credit spreads have some room to move tighter, given the move in CDX spreads and other risk assets.
  • The calendar should start to slow as we head towards Thanksgiving.
  • With all the noise still coming out of D.C., I keep thinking that investors should be overweight high-quality corporates as opposed to government securities. These corporates have good governance, global businesses, and every intention to pay back every dollar that they owe, when they owe it. I am still toying with the idea of what the “new safe asset” is, and it isn’t super important today, but it is a “hypothetical” question worth exploring and high-quality corporates keep coming to mind.

  Stocks will likely follow earnings, yields, and may try to rally some more as we’re about to be bombarded with “seasonal” effects (or at least the reporting will focus on seasonal effects). I like stocks until we get to 4.3% on the 10-year, and then would be extremely nervous as we won’t get there without greater recession concerns!

  We should expect some consolidation, but I continue to favor more of the “everything” rally.

  Hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, though the cost of it getting dark so early doesn’t seem to be worth the price.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 14:30

• Gateway Project Rail Tunnel Between NY And NJ Breaks Ground After Decades Of Red Tape
  Gateway Project Rail Tunnel Between NY And NJ Breaks Ground After Decades Of Red Tape

  A $16.1 billion rail tunnel in between New York and New Jersey is finally set to break ground after more than 10 years of delays. And we’re sure we’ll be happy to report that its up and operating in probably another 100 years.  

  But we digress. “A new rail tunnel linking New York and New Jersey is officially starting construction,” Bloomberg reported last week. The project is called the “Gateway Project”. 

  US Secretary of Transportation Mayor Pete was joined at a ceremony in Hudson Yards by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. He remarked: “This is a day that I know that this city, this region, this country has been looking for and waiting for for a very long time.” 

  Uh, no, Pete. That will be the day when the tunnel is actually up and running and people don’t need to wait 2 hours and pay $75 to get through the Lincoln Tunnel. 

  But we digress again. The Bloomberg report notes that The Gateway Project should be a crucial solution for alleviating traffic bottlenecks beneath the Hudson River—a pivotal juncture on the Northeast Corridor that spans from Boston to Washington.

  

  It is the nation’s most frequented passenger rail line, catering to over 750,000 passengers daily. The current tunnel, under Amtrak’s ownership and also serving New Jersey Transit, has stood for over a hundred years and faces mounting reliability concerns.

  The first construction phase will lay underground casings linking the new tunnel to New York’s Pennsylvania Station. However, commuters won’t see benefits until the tunnel, with its two tracks, is operational by 2035. And we’ll take the “over” on that date. 

  This year, the Gateway tunnel secured a $6.9 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration, with an additional $3.8 billion announced on Friday. This brings Washington’s total contribution to over $11 billion, covering around 70% of the project’s cost, according to Schumer. New York and New Jersey will shoulder the remaining expenses.

  The push for a tunnel alleviating rail congestion between New York and New Jersey began in the 1990s but faced political hindrances and delays. A prior tunnel initiative, already funded, was halted by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2010. The Gateway proposal surfaced in 2011 but faced challenges during the Trump era, according to Bloomberg. 

  Biden’s infrastructure legislation allocated $8 billion over five years to the Capital Investment Grant program, which prioritized Gateway. Additionally, Biden’s team earmarked $292 million from this law earlier this year for a pivotal early stage of the project.

  Think of how many tunnels we could have built – and how quickly we could have them finished – with the $100 billion we just shipped to Ukraine?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 13:55

• FDA Responds After Being Urged To Recall Pfizer's Vaccine Over DNA Fragments
  FDA Responds After Being Urged To Recall Pfizer’s Vaccine Over DNA Fragments

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

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is refusing to recall the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, promoting the view that the inclusion of a previously-undisclosed DNA sequence that leaves behind fragments is not of concern.

  

  The FDA is not required to take the COVID-19 vaccine, or other COVID-19 shots, off the market, an agency spokeswoman told The Epoch Times via email.

  “With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to the sequence of, or amount of, residual DNA have been identified. With regard to the FDA-approved mRNA vaccines, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that they are safe and effective,” the spokeswoman added.

  The FDA did not provide any evidence to back up its position.

  The email came in response to 10 questions about the inclusion of the Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA sequence in the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

  The Epoch Times has submitted a Freedom of Information Act query to try to unlock when the FDA learned about the sequence, and from whom. The FDA denied expedited processing for the request, claiming there is not a “compelling need” to quickly provide the information.

  Several foreign agencies, including Health Canada, have confirmed outside scientists’ assessment that the vaccine contains the DNA sequence. They’ve also said BioNTech did not highlight the inclusion in regulatory filings.

  The FDA would not answer a number of questions about the sequence, including when the agency learned about its inclusion and whether it learned about it from Pfizer or BioNTech .

  BioNTech and Pfizer have not responded to inquiries.

  The inclusion was first identified by Kevin McKernan, a former researcher and team leader for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Human Genome Project.

  “Nothing will be identified if they continue to choose not to look,” Mr. McKernan told The Epoch Times via email.

  

  A number of scientists have said the inclusion raises major concerns, such as having potential for oncogenesis—or a process that leads to cancer—including Dr. Robert Malone, a vaccine expert whose work has been cited by Pfizer.

  The inclusion means the Pfizer-BioNTech shot is “adulterated” and should be recalled, Dr. Malone told The Epoch Times.

  Federal law states that the FDA can test drugs suspected of being adulterated. If the drugs fail to meet certain standards, and a health hazard is found, the FDA is directed to advise the manufacturer to issue a recall.

  If the manufacturer then fails to issue a recall, “seizure should be considered,” the law states.

  “The general policy is that if there’s adulteration and reasonable risk of toxicity, there must be immediate action,” Dr. Malone told The Epoch Times. “This is a core mandate to the FDA from Congress to prevent adulteration of drugs, medical devices, and food. And then the next question is, is that adulteration? Is it associated with a reasonable risk of toxicity in humans? And my opinion is, absolutely.”

  Dr. Malone, after reviewing the FDA’s response, said that regulators have not done their job.

  “The normal process worldwide has been that that risk must be rigorously assessed proactively. But they haven’t done it, and their rationale for not doing it is the reason why they were so adamant that this is not a gene therapy technology,” Dr. Malone said.

  Moderna has said that its vaccine meets the FDA’s gene therapy definition, but regulators have defined the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna products as vaccines, avoiding questions about oncogenesis.

  Why Was SV40 Included?

  SV40 sequences have been used by biotechnology companies in drug products.

  “Specific sequences for the non-infectious parts of SV40 are commonly present in plasmids used for manufacturing of biological active substances,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) told The Epoch Times via email.

  The purpose is primarily to “drive very aggressive expression of a gene,” Mr. McKernan told The Epoch Times.

  EMA alleged that Pfizer considered the sequence “a non-functional part of the plasmid.”

  “If commonly used, then why are they included if they serve no function?” Dr. Malone wondered in a Substack post.

  But the result is residual DNA left behind, according to testing. That could have negative effects, some scientists say.

  David Wiseman, a former Johnson & Johnson scientist who conducted some of the testing, said that he’s concerned the residual DNA pieces “could actually get into your genome.”

  If it does that, “it can disrupt gene regulation and potentially lead to the oncogenesis,” Mr. McKernan said.

  Phillip Buckhaults, professor of cancer genomics and director of the Cancer Genetics Lab at the University of South Carolina, said earlier this year that he tested vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and detected DNA.

  “I’m kind of alarmed about the possible consequences of this both in terms of human health and biology, but you should be alarmed about the regulatory process that allowed it to get there,” he told the South Carolina Senate.

  Mr. Buckhaults said the DNA “could be causing some of the rare but serious side effects like death from cardiac arrest.”

  He has encouraged regulators to test the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

  “This is probably not a problem, but it is surprising and therefore causing concern,” Mr. Buckhaults wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, tagging the FDA. “You should address with rigorous safety review ASAP.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 13:20

• New Forecast Reveals Strong El Niño May Boost Wintery Activity Across Mid-Atlantic
  New Forecast Reveals Strong El Niño May Boost Wintery Activity Across Mid-Atlantic

  A newly published forecast map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals that the El Niño weather pattern might bring increased snowfall to regions such as the Sierra, the southwestern mountains, the Plains, and the Mid-Atlantic states. This forecast aligns with the typical southward shift of the jet stream during an El Niño event, which usually carries more moisture and precipitation along the southern tier of the US. 

  The map below shows snowfall totals for past moderate-to-strong El Niños. Notice how wetter-than-average conditions are shown across the southern Plains, Southeast, Gulf Coast and Mid-Alantic. While drier-than-average conditions are expected across parts of the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and interior Northeast. 

  

  “An enhanced southern jet stream and associated moisture often present during strong El Nino events supports high odds for above-average precipitation for the Gulf Coast, lower Mississippi Valley, and Southeast states this winter,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the Climate Prediction Center, wrote in a report. 

  

  Although actual snowfall depends on many factors, the latest forecast indicates that El Niño, the first in four years, might be a change for residences in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. These areas have experienced several years of La Niña conditions, which have resulted in winters with minimal snowfall. 

  Here’s what the weather community on X is saying about this upcoming winter:

  For those of you following, I have been saying this is a migrating Modoki el nino ( my own phrase) where core of warmest water migrates from enso 1.2 to enso 3.4. Those are the stormy cold el nino winters in US. Canadian SST all in pic.twitter.com/NmG4QmSbJv

  — The American Storm (@BigJoeBastardi) November 3, 2023

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

  CANSIPS model depicting a migrating Modoki El Niño where core of the warmest water migrates from ENSO region 1+2 to 3.4. 1986-1987, 2002-2003 (stormy & cold winters) good analog years for winter 2024. #OnWx #WxTwitter #Winter #ENSO #ShareYourWeather pic.twitter.com/wC5SMiArCC

  — Ajuk Snir 🇨🇦🇷🇸 ☔🌡️☀️🌪️❄️ (@KWBlizzard2008) November 3, 2023

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

  I think you’re onto something here. The Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) is currently only a 0.6(weak atmospheric response to El Nino), but If we assume it increases to around 1.0 in the November update, these analogues will fit very nicely.

  — Mark Margavage (@MeteoMark) November 1, 2023

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

  Recall some of our earlier forecasts for this winter (read: here & here & here). 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 12:10

• Congress Sneaks In Stealth $34,000 Pay Raise; Gaetz, AOC Among More Than 200 Lawmakers To Benefit
  Congress Sneaks In Stealth $34,000 Pay Raise; Gaetz, AOC Among More Than 200 Lawmakers To Benefit

  As House Democrats were set to hand power over to the Republicans following their midterm loss, they slipped in a provision into the House’s internal rules under the guise of aiding their less affluent members; a $34,000 allowance to ostensibly help with living expenses in Washington D.C.

  

  A deep dive into the records by the Washington Free Beacon reveals that over 200 lawmakers, including the vociferous Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have dipped into this taxpayer-funded pot, a sumptuous feast on the nation’s dime.

  Ocasio-Cortez, who has previously lamented the costliness of D.C. living on a Congressperson’s salary, now enjoys taxpayer support for accommodations in a luxury building replete with amenities that seem more Silicon Valley than Capitol Hill.

  Bipartisan handout

  So far, 113 Democrats and 104 Republicans, including millionaire members like Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), have partaken in the program, drawing $1.4 million from taxpayers during the first half of 2023 alone.

  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a critic of past budgetary excesses (whose wife says she’s got a ‘chef husband’), claimed the largest share of the fund.

  Perks of having a chef husband 🦚 pic.twitter.com/Il9NU0wFDN

  — Ginger Gaetz (@LuckeyGinger) October 17, 2023

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

  When pressed about the apparent contradiction, Gaetz justified his actions to the Washington Free Beacon, emphasizing his adherence to the law and his thrifty shopping habits: “I’ve complied with the law, and my cooking is often with discount BOGO products. I try to do the best in the kitchen from the BOGO life,” Gaetz said. He also highlighted his record of fiscal responsibility: “During my time in Congress, I’ve returned over $860,000 to taxpayers from the Members’ Representational Allowance (MRA).”

  In January the NY Times shed light on the secretive subsidy, reporting that the Democrats’ move to authorize it through an internal rule change effectively provided representatives with a pay raise sans political fallout. Former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AK) criticized the lack of transparency, stating, “You can have a good public policy debate on whether congressmen should be paid more… but it really ought to be done in public,” lamenting the secretive process.

  Amidst these revelations, Zoe Bluffstone, spokeswoman for the Congressional Progressive Staff Association, directed attention to the plight of congressional staffers, telling the Times that the focus should be on “increasing pay for staffers,” many of whom struggle financially.

  The subsidy itself is derived from members’ office budgets and allows for lodging expenses up to $258 per day and meal expenses up to $79 per day. The rules stipulate that members can be reimbursed for hotels or rentals linked to their official duties, though not for mortgage payments, and they do not need to submit receipts—only a certification of incurring the eligible expenses.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/05/2023 – 11:35

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