Nov 06

Today’s News 6th November 2024

  • Watch Live: Republicans Take Senate As Trump Leads Across All Swing States
    Watch Live: Republicans Take Senate As Trump Leads Across All Swing States

    Here we go…

    Results from the 2024 election have begun pouring in from around the country. Of course we won’t have a final count from several counties, until, well they’re ‘done’ so to speak…

    Coverage:

    Color:

    What we’ve got so far:

    Presidential: Trump Leads

    Harris:

    • *HARRIS WINS VERMONT: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS MASSACHUSETTS: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: NETWORKS

    • *HARRIS WINS RHODE ISLAND: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS CONNECTICUT: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS MARYLAND: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS MAINE’S FIRST DISTRICT: FOX

    • *HARRIS WINS NEW JERSEY: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS DELAWARE: NBC

    • *HARRIS WINS ILLINOIS: AP

    • *DECISION DESK HQ PROJECTS HARRIS WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE

    • *HARRIS WINS NEW YORK: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS COLORADO: FOX

    • *HARRIS WINS WASHINGTON STATE: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS CALIFORNIA: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS OREGON: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS VIRGINIA: AP

    • *HARRIS WINS NEBRASKA’S 2ND DISTRICT: FOX

    Trump:

    • *TRUMP WINS KENTUCKY: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS INDIANA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS WEST VIRGINIA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS MISSISSIPPI: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS ALABAMA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS OKLAHOMA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS FLORIDA: NETWORKS

    • *TRUMP WINS SOUTH CAROLINA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS TENNESSEE: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS ARKANSAS: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS NEBRASKA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS NORTH DAKOTA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS SOUTH DAKOTA: CNN

    • *TRUMP WINS TEXAS: NETWORKS

    • *TRUMP WINS WYOMING: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS LOUISIANA: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS KANSAS: FOX

    • *TRUMP WINS OHIO: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS UTAH: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS MONTANA: AP

    • *DECISION DESK HQ PROJECTS TRUMP WINS IOWA

    • *DECISION DESK HQ PROJECTS TRUMP WINS GEORGIA

    • *TRUMP WINS IDAHO: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS KEY MAINE DISTRICT FOR 1 ELECTORAL VOTE: FOX

    • *TRUMP WINS NORTH CAROLINA, KEY BATTLEGROUND STATE: AP

    • *TRUMP WINS BATTLEGROUND STATE OF GEORGIA: NETWORKS

    States called:

    The shift to Trump from 2020 is very broad…

    The market is shifting significantly pro-Trump:

    The Dollar, Bitcoin (record high), and 10Y Yields are spiking…

    Prediction markets shifting strongly pro-Trump:

    Swing States:

    Georgia and North Carolina have been called for Trump:

    Trump leads across all swing states…

    Trump just took the lead in PA…

    Senate: Republicans Take Control

    Republicans flip Ohio and West Virginia to take control of the Senate:

    House:  Republicans Lead

    What to watch for:

    It’s all about the swing states – most notably Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are virtually tied according to polls – so who actually knows.

    1/ Pennsylvania is key for Harris to win.

    2/ The best early indications for the presidential race might come from North Carolina and Georgia (key for Trump to win).

    3/ Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are likely to be the most important results to the presidential outcome but will take longer.

    4/ Arizona and Nevada are likely to take the longest of the swing states.

    The earliest results in most states will likely be dominated by early votes and mail-in ballots, with some states reporting these separately at the start of election night reporting, while others will report with partial election-day results, according to Goldman.

    • For Harris, most obvious path is to win Michigan (15), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10), netting the bare majority 270 electoral votes.

    • For Trump, the most obvious path is to win the Sunbelt states of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), and North Carolina (16) and one of the Rust Belt states (any would be worth enough to reach 270).

    In 2020 and 2022, early voting resulted in a shift to Democrats, however this year may be different – and might even slightly lean Republican, as early voting trends appear much more even based on party than in the past.

    In larger counties, reporting is expected to take days vs. smaller counties.

    Here’s Goldman Sachs’ expectations of how the night goes:

    7pm ET  
    •    28 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Indiana, Kentucky and South Carolina
    •    16 electoral votes lean toward Harris: Virginia and Vermont
    •    16 toss-up votes: Georgia (16). In 2020, the AP first reported Georgia results at 7:20 p.m. ET
     
    7.30pm ET
    •    21 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Ohio and West Virginia
    •    16 toss-up votes: North Carolina (16). In 2020, the AP first reported results at 7:42 p.m. ET  
     
    8.00pm ET
    •    74 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District
    •    78 electoral votes lean toward Harris: Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, DC
    •    19 toss-up votes: Pennsylvania (19). In 2020, the AP first reported results at 8:09 p.m. ET
     
    8.30pm ET
    •    Polls close in Arkansas, which has 6 electoral votes and is likely to support Trump. Polls will now be closed in half the states.
     
    9.00pm ET
    •    73 electoral votes lean toward Trump, including Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Texas and Louisiana
    •    54 electoral votes lean toward Harris, including New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, New York and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District
    •    36 toss-up votes: Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan (11, 10, 15, respectively)
    In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan results at 8:08 p.m. ET (note Michigan runs two time zones; most of the state close at 8pmET, with rest at 9pm ET)
    In 2020, the AP first reported Wisconsin results at 9:07 p.m. ET  
    In 2020, the AP first reported Arizona results at 10:02 p.m. ET
     
    10.00pm ET
    •    10 electoral votes lean toward Trump, including Utah and Montana
    •    6 toss-up votes: Nevada (6)
    In 2020, the AP first reported Nevada results at 11:41 p.m. ET
     
    11.00pm ET
    •    4 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Idaho
    •    74 electoral votes lean toward Harris, including California, Oregon and Washington
     
    Midnight to 1am ET
    •    3 electoral votes lean toward Trump in Alaska
    •    4 electoral votes lean toward Harris votes in Hawaii

    Here’s when previous presidential election results were called:

    According to prediction markets, a Republican sweep is the most likely outcome, followed by a divided Democrat win.

    In the House, the generic ballot shows a much tighter race than we had a few weeks ago – an is in line with the notion that the party that wins the White House usually carries the House as well.

    Earliest indications will come from Florida (13th District), Virginia (2nd and 7th Districts) and North Carolina (1st District), where according to Goldman, trends could become clear by 9-10pm ET. It may take until 11pm – midnight ET before further House races come into focus.

    In the Senate, Republicans continue to maintain an advantage in both polling and prediction markets implying that two Democratic seats will likely flip, and a third (Ohio) has a slight chance of flipping to the Republicans, giving them either 51 or 52 seats.

    That Ohio senate tossup should be decided tonight – as the state typically reports fairly quickly. The first vote counts should roll in around 8pm ET, and around half of the vote reported before 9:30pm, according to Goldman. If R’s win the seat, it would take the possibility of a Democratic sweep off the table.

    Montana Senate results will likely take longer, as polls close around 10pm ET, and the state usually takes longer to count, reporting only 1/4 of its vote by midnight, and 1/2 by 2am ET.

    Stay tuned for updates…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 23:55

  • Antifa Returns On Election Night, Causing Chaos In Downtown Seattle
    Antifa Returns On Election Night, Causing Chaos In Downtown Seattle

    The potential return of former President Trump to the White House appears to have sparked rage among far-left activists on Tuesday night. With Trump currently leading the electoral count at 214 votes to Harris’s 179, reports are surfacing from Seattle that show Antifa activists have mobilized. 

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    Ahead of the elections, National Guard troops were activated in Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Guardsmen in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Washington, D.C., are on standby.

    Earlier this week…

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    *Developing…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 23:45

  • Sachs: The BRICS Summit Should Mark The End Of Neocon Delusions
    Sachs: The BRICS Summit Should Mark The End Of Neocon Delusions

    Authored by Jeffrey Sachs via Scheerpost.com,

    The recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia should mark the end of the Neocon delusions encapsulated in the subtitle of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Global Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Since the 1990s, the goal of American foreign policy has been “primacy,” aka global hegemony. The U.S. methods of choice have been wars, regime change operations, and unilateral coercive measures (economic sanctions). Kazan brought together 35 countries with more than half the world population that reject the U.S. bullying and that are not cowed by U.S. claims of hegemony.

    In the Kazan Declaration, the countries underscored “the emergence of new centres of power, policy decision-making and economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and balanced multipolar world order.”

    They emphasized “the need to adapt the current architecture of international relations to better reflect the contemporary realities,” while declaring their “commitment to multilateralism and upholding the international law, including the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) as its indispensable cornerstone.” They took particular aim at the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, holding that “Such measures undermine the UN Charter, the multilateral trading system, the sustainable development and environmental agreements.”

    Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice.

    The neocon quest for global hegemony has deep historical roots in America’s belief in its exceptionalism. In 1630, John Winthrop invoked the Gospels in describing the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “City on the Hill,” declaring grandiosely that “The eyes of all people are upon us.” In the 19th century, America was guided by Manifest Destiny, to conquer North America by displacing or exterminating the native peoples. In the course of World War II, Americans embraced the idea of the “American Century,” that after the war the U.S. would lead the world.

    The U.S. delusions of grandeur were supercharged with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. With America’s Cold War nemesis gone, the ascendant American neoconservatives conceived of a new world order in which the U.S. was the sole superpower and the policeman of the world. Their foreign policy instruments of choice were wars and regime-change operations to overthrow governments they disliked.

    Following 9/11, the neocons planned to overthrow seven governments in the Islamic world, starting with Iraq, and then moving on to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. According to Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO, the neocons expected the U.S. to prevail in these wars in 5 years. Yet now, more than 20 years on, the neocon-instigated wars continue while the U.S. has achieved absolutely none of its hegemonic objectives.

    The neocons reasoned back in the 1990s that no country or group of countries would ever dare to stand up to U.S. power. Brzezinski, for example, argued in The Grand Chessboard that Russia would have no choice but to submit to the U.S.-led expansion of NATO and the geopolitical dictates of the U.S. and Europe, since there was no realistic prospect of Russia successfully forming an anti-hegemonic coalition with China, Iran and others. As Brzezinski put it:

    “Russia’s only real geostrategic option—the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself—is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO.”

    (emphasis added, Kindle edition, p. 118)

    Brzezinski was decisively wrong, and his misjudgment helped to lead to the disaster of the war in Ukraine. Russia did not simply succumb to the U.S. plan to expand NATO to Ukraine, as Brzezinski assumed it would. Russia said a firm no, and was prepared to wage war to stop the U.S. plans. As a result of the neocon miscalculations vis-à-vis Ukraine, Russia is now prevailing on the battlefield, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dead.

    Nor—and this is the plain message from Kazan—did U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressures isolate Russian in the least. In response to pervasive U.S. bullying, an anti-hegemonic counterweight has emerged. Simply put, the majority of the world does not want or accept U.S. hegemony, and is prepared to face it down rather than submit to its dictates. Nor does the U.S. anymore possess the economic, financial, or military power to enforce its will, if it ever did.

    The countries that assembled in Kazan represent a clear majority of the world’s population. The nine BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as the original five, plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates), in addition to the delegations of 27 aspiring members, constitute 57 percent of the world’s population and 47 percent of the world’s output (measured at purchasing-power adjusted prices). The U.S., by contrast, constitutes 4.1 percent of the world population and 15 percent of world output. Add in the U.S. allies, and the population share of the U.S.-led alliance is around 15 percent of the global population.

    The BRICS will gain in relative economic weight, technological prowess, and military strength in the years ahead. The combined GDP of the BRICS countries is growing at around 5 percent per annum, while the combined GDP of the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific is growing at around 2 percent per annum.

    Even with their growing clout, however, the BRICS can’t replace the U.S. as a new global hegemon. They simply lack the military, financial, and technological power to defeat the U.S. or even to threaten its vital interests. The BRICS are in practice calling for a new and realistic multipolarity, not an alternative hegemony in which they are in charge.

    American strategists should heed the ultimately positive message coming from Kazan. Not only has the neocon quest for global hegemony failed, it has been a costly disaster for the US and the world, leading to bloody and pointless wars, economic shocks, mass displacements of populations, and rising threats of nuclear confrontation. A more inclusive and equitable multipolar world order offers a promising path out of the current morass, one that can benefit the U.S. and its allies as well as the nations that met in Kazan.

    The rise of the BRICS is therefore not merely a rebuke to the U.S., but also a potential opening for a far more peaceful and secure world order. The multipolar world order envisioned by the BRICS can be a boon for all countries, including the United States. Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice. The moment has arrived for a renewed diplomacy to end the conflicts raging around the world.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 23:20

  • Rare Bees Nuke Mark Zuckerberg's Plan For Atomic-Powered AI Data Center
    Rare Bees Nuke Mark Zuckerberg’s Plan For Atomic-Powered AI Data Center

    At an all-hands meeting last week, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told Meta workers that plans to build an AI data center powered by nuclear energy were scrapped after rare bees were discovered on the proposed site.

    Meta’s proposed AI data center project with an existing nuclear power plant operator fell apart over environmental and regulatory challenges, according to a Financial Times report, citing two people familiar with the meeting.

    The people gave no details about which nuclear power plant Meta planned to build an AI data center in an adjacent lot. They noted that Meta continues to search for locations to tap into carbon-free energy. 

    Here’s more from the report…

    Zuckerberg told staffers at the all-hands that, had the deal gone ahead, Meta would have been the first Big Tech group to wield nuclear-powered AI, and would have had the largest nuclear plant available to power data centres, two people said.

    One person familiar with the matter said that Zuckerberg has been frustrated with the lack of nuclear options in the US, while China has been embracing nuclear power. China appears to be building nuclear reactors at a fast clip, whereas only a handful of reactors have been brought online over the past two decades in the US.

    Incredible power demand growth from AI data centers has sparked a nuclear power revival in the US (but no fast enough when compared with China): 

    While we may not always see eye to eye with Zuckerberg, we share his concerns about China outpacing the US in nuclear power development. It’s alarming that Western lawmakers, wearing climate crisis blinders, have pushed de-growth global warming and climate policies that only stifle industrial output and fuel inflation, while providing China a clear runway to eclipse the West’s economy due to its total disregard for such policies.

    It’s safe to say that when the Communist Party in China builds coal power plants, concerns about bees are likely the last thing on their minds. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 22:50

  • Homes In SoCal's Planned 'City Of Kindness' To Start In The Very Friendly $400,000s
    Homes In SoCal’s Planned ‘City Of Kindness’ To Start In The Very Friendly $400,000s

    Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Imagine living in a city built on kindness, where residents are encouraged to respect one another and not judge their neighbors.

    John Ohanian, general manager of DMB Development, hopes to build just that—a “City of Kindness” called Silverwood in San Bernardino County.

    The Silverwood community center will be one of many places residents can mingle. DMB Development

    “It’s really important to us,” Ohanian told The Epoch Times. “The idea is to create some expectations of how we’re all going to live together.”

    The nearly 15-square-mile development is in Hesperia, California, on State Route 138 near the Cajon Pass in the San Bernardino Mountains, about 75 miles east of Los Angeles.

    The project will offer homes built around active outdoor lifestyles and priced from the mid-$400,000s up to the $700,000s. The community will also have five elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school, according to plans.

    “We’re trying to create a special place for folks to live that embraces an outdoor lifestyle and is community oriented,” Ohanian said.

    With home prices far below those closer to the coast, Ohanian said the housing will be more attainable for Californians who can’t afford Los Angeles and Orange County.

    “We’re trying very hard to articulate a lifestyle that is family oriented, allowing young families to be able to stay in California and afford to live here,” Ohanian said.

    Living in Silverwood will also include paying $158 a month in homeowner association fees, but that will include connections to full-gig speed internet, which is 10 times faster than older cable connections, according to the developer.

    Ohanian was inspired to build a community of kindness after hearing about former Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait’s “Kindness Initiative,” developed after he took office in 2010. The city officially made “kindness” its motto in 2017.

    Silverwood might be just the kind of city the former mayor was hoping to inspire.

    Developers plan to offer nearly 15,700 homes in eight villages within the Silverwood development in San Bernardino County. DMB Development

    “Kindness is very simple. It’s doing something for someone else with no expectation in return,” he explained in 2017 on City Talk. “Imagine an entire city where people are just a little kinder. Where they know it’s who we are. When that happens, literally everything gets better.”

    Tait did not return a request for comment about Silverwood on Friday.

    In this spirit, though, Silverwood’s homeowner association would offer residents who buy one of their nearly 15,700 homes a chance to sign a pledge promising to be kind.

    “We’re trying to make it feel like people have a voice, and have an opportunity to also be respected, not judged, and treated kindly,” Ohanian said. “It sets an expectation and we hope everybody who becomes a homeowner signs a pledge.”

    Kindness won’t be enforced, but Ohanian said he hoped peer pressure and conscience would drive residents to enforce the idea themselves.

    The project has been in the works since 2012, when the developer purchased the land out of a bankruptcy. The southern edge of the property was a working cattle ranch and will remain open space.

    The lower cost of the land is part of what will allow the developer to offer more affordable houses. The homes will range from 1,400 square feet for a one-story condo close to the town’s center, up to 4,000-square-foot executive homes at the higher end.

    Home prices in the Silverwood development in San Bernardino County will range from the mid-$400,000s to the $700,000s. DMB Development

    “Silverwood will create the opportunity for thousands of families to live in a gorgeous natural setting with endless opportunities for outdoor recreation, all within a reasonable commute to San Bernardino, Riverside, Ontario, and other existing employment hubs,” according to the project’s website.

    Each house will also come with solar panels, which are now required by California law. 

    The development will also build a wastewater treatment facility that will allow the association to use recycled water for all parks and schools. Half of the houses will also be built to offer homeowners the ability to use recycled water for irrigation and landscaping, according to the developer.

    The project is planned to include eight villages, each with its own theme and anchored by a green space. One might be built around pickleball courts, while another might have a swimming complex, according to the developer.

    “Each village will have their own neighborhood identity and each of them will have their own character,” Ohanian said.

    The community will also have its own medical services, grocery stores, and other services, he added.

    People will be able to gather at the pools, recreational facilities, bandstands, and other areas, according to the developer. Nearly half of the land in the development has been set aside for natural open space, conservation easement, parks, and the Serrano Preserve.

    The project is expected to include 59 miles of off-street trails, 107 miles of paths and paseos, and 387 acres of parks. Every house will be within a five-minute walk of a park, according to plans.

    Silverwood Lake is on the southern boundary of the property, and Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear are about an hour away.

    A room with a view at Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa. Silverwood will be about an hour from Lake Arrowhead. Benjamin Myers/TNS

    Model homes at the development should be open in the spring of next year, Ohanian said. He expects to have people living in the community between April and June.

    Home builders include Lennar, Richmond American Homes, Watt Capital Developers, and Woodside Homes.

    The developer expects to take up to 20 years to completely build out the community.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 22:20

  • Game Of Chess: US Prepares Next Move With More B-52s, Warships To Middle East 
    Game Of Chess: US Prepares Next Move With More B-52s, Warships To Middle East 

    It’s been a week since Israeli fighter jets pounded high-value Iranian military sites and assets with missiles and bombs. Iran has since delayed a retaliatory strike on Israel as the US presidential election is just days away, and now the US appears to be bolstering defense capabilities in the Middle East as regional war risks remain elevated. 

    Pentagon officials confirmed to Fox News on Friday that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered several B-52 Stratofortress bomber aircraft, refueling aircraft, and Navy destroyers to the Middle East. 

    In a statement to Reuters, Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said additional military assets will begin arriving in the region in the coming months. 

    “Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” Ryder said. 

    The strategic positioning—think of it as a game of chess—of additional US military assets in the region in the very near term may only suggest broadening war risks after the US election cycle ends. In other words, the Pentagon may finally get serious about Iranian-backed Houthis, other Iranian proxies, and even Tehran, which have sparked chaos in critical maritime chokepoints.

    Ryder said Austin’s latest order shows the “US capability to deploy worldwide on short notice to meet evolving national security threats.” 

    One week ago, the US signaled defense guarantees to the Saudis – in the event Tehran or its proxies attempt to weaponize crude oil by targeting the Kingdom’s Abqaiq refinery (the largest crude oil stabilization plant in the world) with drone swarms or hypersonic missiles. 

    Austin revealed last month that B-2 stealth bombers targeted underground Houthi weapons storage facilities – indeed, a message to Tehran.

    “This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” Austin said at the time, adding, “The employment of US Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrates US global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”

    On Saturday morning, Iran’s supreme leader threatened Israel and the US with “a crushing response” … 

    Meanwhile, the geopolitical risk premium in Brent crude oil has all but evaporated. 

    But will that all change after the US presidential election?

    Here are the latest geopolitical bets that can be taken on Polymarkets: 

    Reuters noted that the additional US bombers and warships being shifted to the region came as the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group prepared to exit the region. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 21:50

  • See The Human Brain Like Never Before
    See The Human Brain Like Never Before

    Authored by Makai Allbert via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A decade ago, a small and unassuming brain sample arrived at Dr. Jeff Lichtman’s lab at Harvard University. Measuring less than a grain of rice, the 1 cubic millimeter of tissue contained 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses, each one a vital part of the brain’s intricate communication network.

    Neurons from the anterior temporal lobe, color-coded by size and type, reveal the six distinct layers of the cortex.

    Now, after a decade of collaboration with Google scientists, a monumental dataset—with 1,400 terabytes—has turned into the most detailed map of the human brain ever created.

    “A terabyte is, for most people, gigantic, yet a fragment of a human brain—just a minscule, teeny-weeny little bit of human brain—is still thousands of terabytes,” Lichtman said in a National Institutes of Health report.

    The detailed 3-D reconstruction reveals beautiful structures in the brain. Neurons forming dozens of connections, mirror-image neural pairs, and networks far more complex than expected, are just some of the groundbreaking discoveries.

    “I remember this moment, going into the map and looking at one individual synapse from this woman’s brain, and then zooming out into these other millions of pixels,” said Viren Jain, a senior scientist at Google in Nature Magazine. “It felt sort of spiritual.”

    The map, now part of an open-access dataset online, opens the door to new understandings of human cognition, psychiatric disorders, and the architecture of our minds.

    “There is the saying that ‘A map of synaptic connections is necessary but insufficient to understand the brain.’ In its current form it is still missing a lot of important information, but it is a step in the right direction,” Daniel Berger, a scientist in the Lichtman lab, told The Epoch Times.

    All images below are by Google Research and Lichtman Lab (Harvard University). Renderings by D. Berger (Harvard University)

    Excitatory neurons, color-coded by size, with red being the largest and blue the smallest. Cell cores range from 15 to 30 micrometers.

    A single white neuron receives signals from more than 5,000 blue axons, with green synapses marking the points where the signals transfer.

    Neurons with long dendrites and dendrite spine. In very rare cases, a single axon (blue) made repeated synaptic connections (yellow) with a target neuron (green).

    One unexpected discovery in the study was the presence of “axon whorls”—tangled loops of blue axons—which typically transmit signals away from nerve cells. These structures were rare in the sample and sometimes appeared to be resting on yellow cells. Their purpose remains unclear.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 21:20

  • Israeli Airstrikes Pummel Syria For A Second Day In A Row
    Israeli Airstrikes Pummel Syria For A Second Day In A Row

    The last two days have witnessed more Israeli airstrikes carried out on Syria, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday issuing rare direct confirmation that it targeted Hezbollah weapons depots in the al-Qusayr area in western Syria, close to the border with Lebanon.

    “The IDF says Hezbollah’s armament unit is responsible for storing weapons in Lebanon, and it recently expanded its activities to Syria, storing weapons in al-Qusayr,” Israeli media reports.

    Illustrative prior attack on Damascus, Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

    And the NY Times writes of the expanding and more frequent nature of the raids, “The Israeli military on Tuesday said its Air Force had struck targets in Syria for the second day in a row, attacks it said were aimed at cutting off the flow of weapons and intelligence between Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese group, and its sponsor, Iran.”

    The day prior, on Monday, Syrian state media confirmed Israeli airstrikes south of Damascus. The attack again targeted an area known to attract many Shia religious pilgrims.

    SANA indicated that it involved Israeli warplanes hitting “a number of civilian sites south of Damascus, resulting in material losses.” There are regional reports that at least two were left dead and five injured in the Monday attack on the Syrian capital’s suburbs.

    This could in part be Israel’s signaling Washington that whichever administration takes the White House, efforts to break up the ‘resistance axis’ of Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah will continue.

    On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear in remarks that regardless of whether a cease-fire deal could be reached related to Lebanon, Israel’s military would remain committed to “cutting Hezbollah’s oxygen line from Iran via Syria.”

    We reported previously that just last week Israeli government minister and war cabinet member Gideon Saar threatened Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, warning that he will be “in danger” if his country continues to act as a “conduit” for Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

    Saar – who rejoined Benjamin Netanyahu’s government late last month – said during a conference that Tel Aviv “missed an opportunity” to “collapse” Assad’s government, which was “saved” by Iran and Hezbollah. 

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    Syria must not be permitted “under any circumstances to be a conduit for weapons supply from Iran to Hezbollah,” the minister went on to say, adding that “Israel must make clear to Assad that if he chooses to harm Israeli security in this manner, he places his regime in danger.”

    Israel “will not agree to Hezbollah’s renewed buildup of power through Syria, and will not agree to the opening of a front against it from Syrian territory,” he said. “Removing Assad from the Iranian axis will have far-reaching consequences for Israel’s security.” Thus even if somehow ceasefire is reached in Lebanon, these regular Israeli attacks on Syria will likely continue.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 20:50

  • 77 Days Of Transition: New Law Aims To Streamline Presidential Power Transfer Process
    77 Days Of Transition: New Law Aims To Streamline Presidential Power Transfer Process

    Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

    The 2024 presidential election will see the first application of a 2022 amendment to the laws governing the transfer of power between administrations.

    There are 77 days between the Nov. 5 election and the Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration of the next president, during which time the president-elect will ready his or her administration to take over from President Joe Biden.

    The handoffs between an outgoing administration and a government-in-waiting have been largely drama-free for decades, and they have been governed by the rules enumerated in the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

    The Electoral Count Reform Act will take effect this year, ensuring that five days after the election, the team of the winning candidate (or both candidates if the winner is not yet identified), will begin readying for the White House.

    Unless another authority is designated by state law, the act appoints governors as the principal officials responsible for filing certificates of state presidential electors. By providing expedited court review of matters pertaining to electors, it guarantees that Congress can establish a final slate of electors.

    The vice president’s involvement in the electoral vote count is defined by the new act as purely ceremonial, and he or she is not given any power to affect the count in any way. It also reduces the possibility of challenges by raising the threshold for congressional objections to one-fifth of each house. Previously, a single member of both chambers was needed to enter an objection to an elector or slate of electors.

    Additionally, the General Services Administration (GSA) is now required to provide money to both candidates in the event that a candidate does not withdraw their candidacy within five days following the election. This change affects the presidential transition process. The GSA will cut off financing to the unsuccessful campaign once the results are finalized.

    The initial responsibility of the successful candidate is to acquire knowledge of the current agency missions, policies, and ongoing projects, as well as to commence the process of filling political positions in the executive branch, ranging from Cabinet secretaries to press assistants.

    The new team is provided guidance by career leaders and appointees from the outgoing administration to assist in the launch of its government. They also provide briefings on significant issues and facilitate inquiries. An orderly transition has long been dependent on the flow of resources.

    Delays occurred following the 2020 presidential election as President Donald Trump questioned the validity of the election results as they were being reported. Because Trump was contesting the results in court, there was a delay in the start of the transition from Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, to Nov. 23.

    Emily Murphy, then head of the GSA, reviewed the transition law from 1963 and concluded that she lacked the legal authority to determine a winner and commence funding and collaboration with the transition to a Biden administration.

    Weeks after the election, Murphy sent a Letter of Ascertainment to Biden and commenced the transition process after Trump’s efforts to contest the results had collapsed across key states.

    According to the GSA’s guidelines on the new rules, the amendment eliminates lengthy delays and states “an affirmative ‘ascertainment’ by GSA is no longer a prerequisite for obtaining transition support services.”

    However, the new law also effectively mandates federal support and cooperation for both candidates to initiate a transition. It is stated that such support should persist until “significant legal challenges” that could affect electoral outcomes have been “substantially resolved” or until electors from each state convene in December to formally select an Electoral College winner.

    Under this mandate, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris may find themselves forming rival administrations for weeks.

    The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement amendment to the Presidential Transition Act was passed in December 2022.

    During a committee hearing on the Electoral Count Act on Aug. 3 that year, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said, “We were all there on Jan. 6 … We have a duty [and] responsibility to make sure it never happens again.” Manchin was referring to the events on Jan. 6, 2021, when protesters breached the U.S. Capitol while Congress was counting electoral votes.

    Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in her testimony: “In four out of the past six presidential elections, the Electoral Count Act’s process for counting electoral votes has been abused with frivolous objections being raised by members of both parties. But it took the violent breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 to really shine a spotlight on how urgent the need for reform was.”

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) opposed the bill, stating in a press release: “This bill is a bad bill. … It’s bad policy and it’s bad for democracy. There are serious constitutional questions in the bill. The text of the Constitution, Article Two says, ‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.’ This bill is Congress trying to intrude on the authority of the state legislatures to do that.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 20:20

  • Space Force Will Test Launch ICBM Minuteman III Shortly After Election 
    Space Force Will Test Launch ICBM Minuteman III Shortly After Election 

    While everyone is hyper-focused on the US presidential election, America is testing its nuclear deterrent capabilities. With war raging in Eastern Europe and the risk of broadening conflict between Iran and Israel in the Middle East, the US Space Force will launch an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base later this evening.

    “These launches are scheduled years in advance on a quarterly basis, and there is often one in early November. The election had nothing to do with its scheduling,” an Air Force Global Strike Command Public Affairs representative told the local newspaper Lompoc Record, located in the town of Lompoc, California, down the street from Vandenberg. 

    Vandenberg’s Test Range will launch the LGM-30G Minuteman ICBM shortly after 2300 local time, with a launch window open through Wednesday. 

    The re-entry vehicle with a dummy warhead will travel across the Pacific Ocean and, 22 minutes later, plunge into the ocean near the Marshall Islands. 

    Here’s from from Lompoc Record about the launch:

    In accordance with standard procedures, the United States has transmitted a prelaunch notification pursuant to the Hague Code of Conduct, notifying the Russian government in advance, as outlined in existing bi-lateral agreements, officials reported.

    Test re-entry vehicles related to such missions travel approximately 4,200 miles southwest of California to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

    Data collected from the missions are used by the wider ICBM community, consisting of the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and US Strategic Command.

    Anti-war group CodePink noted, “This Tuesday, while everyone’s attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.” 

    The ICBM test comes one week after Russia test-fired missiles that simulated a “massive” nuclear response to an enemy’s first strike. And Iran has threatened Israel with severe retaliation amid further risks of broadening conflict.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 19:50

  • California Takes Controversial Approach To Fentanyl Crisis
    California Takes Controversial Approach To Fentanyl Crisis

    Authored by Beige Luciano-Adams via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    By now the statistics are familiar: Fentanyl is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate—around 73,000 annually.

    Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik

    For those aged 18 to 45, it is the leading cause of death.

    And it’s everywhere—tainting counterfeit pills, poisoning children and adults, addicts and first-time users, overwhelming any potential response. As a deluge of pills and powder flows across the southern border, authorities regularly seize enough fentanyl to kill everyone on earth, several times over.

    Into this carnage, a windfall.

    Nationwide, more than $50 billion is expected to flow from legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors over the next two decades—with California in line to receive about $4 billion, divvied up among the state and local governments.

    This money will now largely go to abating illicit fentanyl—the third wave in an opioid crisis that began with prescription pain medication in the 1990s.

    In the first two years, California state programs have primarily used their share for “harm reduction” efforts—including opioid overdose reversal medication, needle exchange, and public education campaigns aimed at destigmatizing drug use.

    Nationally, experts and progressive advocates are keeping a close eye on settlement spending, in an effort to avoid mistakes of Big Tobacco settlements and ensure funds go to actual abatement, rather than plugging municipal budgets.

    But some wonder if another obvious lesson from the fight against Big Tobacco—in which stigmatization, graphic warnings about the dangers of cigarettes, and enforcement led to a radical decrease in smoking—is missing from the state’s approach to the fentanyl crisis.

    California’s Department of Public Health recently gave a San Francisco-based advertising agency $40 million in opioid settlement funds to produce a youth awareness campaign that aims to “meet people where they are” by reducing stigma around using fentanyl and other drugs and encouraging the use of naloxone.

    According to state records, the department has also paid that same advertising company nearly $900 million to produce campaigns that expressly stigmatize tobacco use and encourage abstinence from it.

    “In general, there is a strange contradiction between [California] Public Health trying hard to stigmatize tobacco smoking while destigmatizing fentanyl use,” Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, told The Epoch Times.

    By now, Humphreys said, the lessons from Big Tobacco are clear.

    “Disapproving of smoking has been a life-saving thing. And we should not be afraid to say to people that using fentanyl is incredibly dangerous and you shouldn’t do it.”

    An anti-smoking poster issued by the California Department of Health Services adorns the back of a Los Angeles Metropolitan bus. Hector Mata/AFP via Getty Images

    Harm Reduction Movement

    Harm reduction is a social justice movement that seeks to reduce drug harms without judging, punishing, or even interfering in drug use. It is an explicit pendulum swing away from the War on Drugs of past decades, which state leaders continue to criticize as a “failed” approach.

    Many who are critical of the harm reduction movement in California, where it is orthodoxy—baked into the law—support harm reduction measures like naloxone distribution, medication-assisted treatment, and needle exchange.

    Where people tend to disagree is whether hard drugs should be decriminalized and destigmatized, whether those using and selling them should be penalized when they break the law—and especially, whether treatment can be coerced or, as many harm reduction advocates insist, can only happen when and if the person who uses drugs decides they are ready.

    Humphreys supports harm reduction measures as part of a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach to the addiction crisis, and champions naloxone. As chair of the Stanford-Lancet Commission, he helped develop a national model for opioid response that recommends overdose rescue medications as “broadly the most lifesaving action policymakers can take.”

    But he recognizes the limitations and has criticized the trend, prominent in blue cities, toward de-stigmatization of hard drugs.

    “No one stops using drugs because of Narcan,” Humphreys said, citing recent research showing those successfully treated with naloxone—the overdose reversal medicine sold under the brand Narcan—have a 13-fold increase in mortality compared to the general population.

    “Twelve percent of people are likely to be dead from their addiction within 12 months of getting the Narcan,” he said.

    Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, poses for a photo in Stanford, Calif., on Aug. 29, 2016. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo

    Further complicating the equation is the fact that non-opioids such as the “zombie drug” xylazine—which does not respond to naloxone—is showing up in nearly 30 percent of all fentanyl powder seizures, and there is no long term research indicating how effective naloxone is after repeated use, or the impact of increasingly higher doses needed to reverse synthetic opioid overdoses.

    Meanwhile, naloxone has a shorter half-life than many powerful synthetic opioids—including nitazenes, an “emerging threat” in the U.S. drug supply—meaning people can re-overdose after revival.

    California’s current fentanyl awareness campaigns elide the ugly realities of using fentanyl—or meth, which in Los Angeles County last year killed nearly as many people—in favor of a message that works “in alliance with people who use drugs for safer and managed drug use.”

    There are no photos of children who died from a single dose, no acknowledgement of the people suffering what amounts to a living death on the streets, no testimony from people who have recovered from their addiction.

    “I don’t see one ad in here that says anything about treatment,” noted Gina McDonald, co-founder of Mothers against Drug Addiction and Deaths (MADAAD), a San Francisco-based nonprofit critical of California’s permissive approach to fentanyl.

    “I eradicated my risk of overdose by stopping doing drugs—it’s the only foolproof way to prevent overdose. You would think that would be in at least one ad,” said McDonald, a former addict.

    According to 2024 statistics published by Mental Health America, a national nonprofit, nearly 83 percent of Californians with a substance use disorder, around five million people, did not receive needed treatment.

    Narcan nasal spray sits in a vending machine by the DuPage County Health Department at the Kurzawa Community Center in Wheaton, Ill., on Sept. 1, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images

    Nationally, only Illinois has a higher rate of untreated substance use disorder than California.

    McDonald co-founded MADAAD with other mothers who have lost children to the streets—mothers with children currently addicted to fentanyl in places like the Tenderloin and Skid Row.

    Their children are the intended targets of the state’s advertising campaigns—and the presumed beneficiaries of funds from a prescription opioid crisis that seeded subsequent heroin and fentanyl epidemics.

    McDonald, like most everyone, wants to see Narcan everywhere—in every school and workplace and store—and knows what the shame of addiction feels like.

    “I’m not saying we need to stigmatize drug users,” she said.

    “But how many times are people going to be Narcan-ed and go back to die another day? It’s usually what happens,” she said. “I don’t know too many people who’ve been Narcan-ed on the street and went into treatment after being resurrected. … Narcan isn’t dealing with any root cause of why people are using drugs.”

    Representatives from influential policy organizations that advocate harm reduction and opiate decriminalization—including the National Harm Reduction Coalition and OpioidSettlementTracker.com—did not respond to inquiries.

    Gina McDonald holds a poster of herself and her daughter at a protest in front of the Tenderloin Linkage Center in San Francisco on Feb. 5, 2022. Cynthia Cai/The Epoch Times

    An Empathetic Conversation

    Robert Marbut, the former executive director of the U.S. Interagency on Homelessness and producer of the forthcoming documentary, “Fentanyl: Death Incorporated,” says the government is under reacting to an existential and continually evolving threat.

    “We absolutely have to get into drug education and prevention at a level that we did with cigarettes,” he told The Epoch Times, pointing to the nearly 75-percent reduction in smoking since 1965, when nearly half of Americans smoked; now around 12 percent do.

    “[Those campaigns] said cigarette smoking is not cool—it’s dirty, it’s ugly, it’s awful. If you go look at the PSAs, they didn’t go into a sort of kinder, gentler thing. It was hard. It was direct—it was: ‘This is nasty. It’s horrible.’ And governments backed it up with real fines,” Marbut said.

    Generally, harm reduction advocates say a softer, empathetic approach is needed to avoid the stigmatization and punitive tones of the War on Drugs. They argue shaming or scaring people who use drugs will prevent them from seeking help.

    Representatives of Duncan Channon, the ad agency behind California’s “Facts Fight Fentanyl” campaign, say they avoided the “fear and tragedy” of traditional PSAs in favor of an “approachable and empowering” way to talk about the fentanyl crisis and get people comfortable using naloxone.

    “The last thing we are going to do is wag a finger at anybody or follow the failed tactics of ‘Just Say No,’ which has never really worked,” Duncan Channon’s CEO Andy Berkenfield told AdAge last year.

    “The state strongly believes—and we are very much in line with them—that our job is to engage in empathetic conversation and ultimately reduce harm,” he told the industry publication.

    Fentanyl de-stigmatization campaigns are common across the United States, and California’s opioid-settlement-funded “Unshame CA” campaign reports “measurable changes” in moving the needle on public perception of substance use disorder as a medical condition and naloxone as an everyday resource.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 19:20

  • Censorship & The Criminalization Of Election Integrity
    Censorship & The Criminalization Of Election Integrity

    Via The Brownstone Institute,

    Throughout this election cycle, we have witnessed an incessant assault on our First Amendment.

    The regime sent dissidents to prison, destroyed opposition news sites, colluded to control the free flow of information, bankrupted its critics, and boasted that it would criminalize “misinformation.”

    The election threatens the death knell for free expression in the United States as Kamala Harris and her lead attorney, Marc Elias, vow to punish anyone who questions their pursuit of power. 

    No political actor has been more influential in overturning election integrity efforts than Marc Elias. Recently, he led the crusade to overturn the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, which banned the use of “drop boxes” in the state. 

    In deciding whether to hear the case, Republican Justice Rebecca Bradley called the Elias-led litigation a “shameless effort to readjust the balance of political power in Wisconsin.” Elias was successful, and dropboxes are now taking votes in Wisconsin, a state that may be the tipping point in the election.

    In 2020, President Biden won Wisconsin by just 20,000 votes. The rejection rate for absentee ballots plummeted from 1.4% to 0.2% as 1.9 million of the state’s 3.3 million voters cast absentee ballots. 

    Similarly, Elias led lawsuits to defend dropboxes in Pennsylvania. In 2020, President Biden received 75% of the 2.5 million mail-in ballots and won the state by under 100,000 votes. 

    But temporary political victories are insufficient for Elias. Along with Project 65, Elias has called for the disbarment of attorneys who challenge him in court. “I don’t think any lawyer should have a bar license for the privilege of destroying our country’s democratic traditions,” Elias insists, though “democratic traditions” apparently means months of absentee voting without signature verification or photo identification. He demanded an “accountability structure” for those who challenge the Democrats’ mandated standards for a “free and fair election.” 

    Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, evidently share this intolerance for dissent. Walz has insisted that the First Amendment does not protect “misinformation or hate speech…especially around our democracy.” The Biden-Harris administration has fiercely championed censorship and the regulation of social media content.

    Now, they threaten to jail anyone who criticizes their pursuit of power. Their judges – likely to be in the mold of Ketanji Brown Jackson – will not let the First Amendment “hamstring” their efforts to reshape the American government. And perhaps most tellingly, they’ll censor the critiques that are most obviously true. 

    “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

    –Jimmy Carter, 2005

    We have long known the threat that absentee ballots pose to our elections. Following the controversy of the 2000 Presidential election, the United States formed a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform. President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, chaired the group.

    After almost five years of research, the group published its final report – “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.” It offered a series of recommendations to reduce voter fraud, including enacting voter-ID laws and limiting absentee voting. The commission was unequivocal: “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” Yet, Elias and Harris would gladly disbar any attorney who uttered such a sentence in court. 

    The report continued: “Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.”

    Recent history supports this thesis. Just last week, a Chinese national illegally voted in Michigan. He was only caught because he brought it to the attention of authorities, who later revealed that his vote (though admittedly invalid) will still count. 

    The 1997 Miami mayoral election resulted in 36 arrests for absentee ballot fraud. A judge voided the results and ordered the city to hold a new election due to “a pattern of fraudulent, intentional, and criminal conduct.” The results were reversed in the subsequent election.

    Following Dallas’s 2017 City Council race, authorities sequestered 700 mail-in ballots signed “Jose Rodriguez.” Elderly voters alleged that party activists had forged their signatures on their mail-in ballots. Miguel Hernandez later pled guilty to the crime of forging their signatures after collecting unfilled ballots and using them to support his candidate of choice.

    The following year, it appeared that Republican Mark Harris defeated Democrat Dan McCready in a North Carolina Congressional race. Election officials noticed irregularities in the mail-in votes and refused to certify the election, citing evidence and “claims of…concerted fraudulent activities.” The state ordered a special election the following year.

    In 2018, the Democratic National Commission challenged an Arizona law that set safeguards around absentee voting, including limiting who could handle mail-in ballots. US District Judge Douglas L. Rayes, an Obama appointee, upheld the law.

    “Indeed, mail-in ballots by their very nature are less secure than ballots cast in person at polling locations,” he wrote.

    He found that “the prevention of voter fraud and preservation of public confidence in election integrity” were important state interests and cited the Carter-Baker Commission’s finding that “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

    In May 2020, New Jersey held municipal elections and required all voting take place via mail due to Covid. The State’s third largest city, Paterson, held its election for City Council. Election officials rejected 19% of the ballots from Paterson, a city with over 150,000 residents. While Paterson’s election was particularly troublesome, mail-in ballots were problematic across the state. Thirty other New Jersey municipalities held vote-by-mail elections that day, and the average disqualification rate was 9.6%.

    New Jersey brought voting fraud charges against City Councilman Michael Jackson, Councilman-Elect Alex Mendez, and two other men for their “criminal conduct involving mail-in ballots during the election.” All four were charged with illegally collecting, procuring, and submitting mail-in ballots.

    A state judge later ordered a new vote, finding that the May election “was not the fair, free and full expression of the intent of the voters. It was rife with mail in vote procedural violations constituting nonfeasance and malfeasance.”

    In Wisconsin, the April 2020 primary election offered further evidence of the challenges and corruption surrounding mail-in voting. Following the primary, a postal center outside Milwaukee discovered three tubs of absentee ballots that never reached their intended recipients. Fox Point, a village outside Milwaukee, has a population of under 7,000 people. 

    Beginning in March, Fox Point received between 20 and 50 undelivered absentee ballots per day. In the weeks leading up to the election, the village manager said that increased to between 100 and 150 ballots per day. On Election Day, the town received a plastic mail bin with 175 unmailed ballots. “We’re not sure why this happened,” said the village manager. “Nobody seems to be able to tell me why.”

    Democrats admitted the system threatened election integrity. “This has all the makings of a Florida 2000 if we have a close race,” said Gordon Hintz, the Democratic minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo went further. “It’s a harder system to administer, and obviously it’s a harder system to police writ large,” he said. Cuomo continued, “People showing up, people actually showing ID, is still the easiest system to assure total integrity.”

    The Wisconsin primary also featured special elections for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A liberal judge upset the incumbent conservative justice, and partisans embraced their overhaul of the electoral system. The New York Times reported: “Wisconsin Democrats are working to export their template for success – intense digital outreach and a well-coordinated vote-by-mail operation – to other states in the hope that it will improve the party’s chances in local and statewide elections and in the quest to unseat President Trump in November.” 

    Scores of other reports of election fraud came forward as the Democratic Party used the pretext of Covid to reshape American elections. Despite the corruption, lost ballots, and admitted threats to electoral integrity, the process had been a success in political terms; their candidate had won. The ends had justified the means. Citizens lost faith in their election process, and political leaders readily admitted that their concerns were justified; but the professional politicos and their mouthpiece, the New York Times, characterized the disaster as a “template for success.”

    The stakes of the election could not be more stark. We either remain free to criticize those who reign over us, or we surrender this nation to a cabal of censorious thugs who will remain insatiable in their pursuit of ever-more power. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 18:25

  • Elon Musk's 1950s-Style Drive-In Supercharger Installs Giant 45-Foot LED TV Screen
    Elon Musk’s 1950s-Style Drive-In Supercharger Installs Giant 45-Foot LED TV Screen

    Tesla’s 1950s-inspired drive-in Supercharging station, currently under construction at 7001 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, recently installed a giant 45-foot LED television in the parking lot. 

    The West Hollywood Supercharger station is the next generation of Tesla charging stations, featuring a restaurant, drive-in movie theater, and dozens of charging bays. Tesla seems eager to spice up the currently dull charging experience by blending the 1950/60s Americana style with cutting-edge new technology. 

    Teslarati’s Zachary Visconti first reported on the new construction development: 

    Tesla has been hard at work on its Southern California diner, Supercharger, and drive-in movie theater location over the past year or so, and a recent update shows that the site has finally gotten its first full movie screen.

    …

    The screens, one of which still needs the final LED display, will run from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., while the diner and charging stations will be open 24 hours a day, according 247Tesla. The screens will also reportedly be visible from both the diner building and the Supercharging stations.

    Here’s the full video:

    From EVs to catching giant rockets with ‘chopsticks’ …

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

    … to space age vehicles …

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

    And robots. 

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

    Musk appears to have a deep love for ‘Americana’ and wants to inspire the next generation to look toward the stars to spark a new wave of innovation and power the nation forward. It all begins with freedom and healthy youngsters.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 18:00

  • After The Ball Is Over…
    After The Ball Is Over…

    Authored by Thomas Neuburger via “God’s Spies’ Substack,

    What does the country look like, four years down the road, after a Trump or Harris victory?

    Many people have made election predictions (some in abundance), but few have looked at the post-electoral state.

    What happens if Harris wins? What does a Trump II world look like?

    I offer below what Ryan Grim sees post-November. I think in the main he’s right. His virtue is that he avoids conventional thinking and looks at what’s real.

    The whole piece went out to his Drop Site News subscribers and is also available there. But I’d like to offer it here; I know our readers are thoughtful and decidedly unconstrained by conventional ways. No one wants to fall prey to “what everyone knows to be true” without close examination.

    Grim’s analysis, with his permission, is printed in full below. Some comments first.

    A Pyrrhic victory

    Grim holds that if Harris wins, it will work like a loss. First, she’d likely rule without House and/or Senate support.

    Without the Senate, Harris will have a hard time confirming a dog catcher, let along [sic] a judge or a cabinet nominee. With the Senate but without the House, she won’t be able to get any of her agenda through. Worse, the debt ceiling will be hit in January, before she’s even inaugurated. 

    Would Democrats, especially decidedly unpopulist ones, be willing to take advantage of the advantages that populism-by-executive order confers? They haven’t yet. Grim is doubtful they will — to do so, Harris would have to find “populist Jesus” — and I would agree. Democrats are self-defined as the party of status quo Jesus. “Nothing will fundamentally change,” we’re regularly told, a contrast to the change their electoral opponents would bring.

    For that plan to work, people have to like what they see. Playing it safe in a land this dissatisfied won’t produce lasting wins.

    Grim also thinks a Harris win now tees up a Republican win in 2028.

    A status quo powerless Democrat with no personal base of support (“support for Kamala is more accurately described as opposition to Trump and support for Democratic policies generally”), ruling a party reduced to “an upper-middle-class center,” is not a winning combination, especially if it follows a term where little gets done.

    What kind of dictatorship?

    After a Trump win, many predict a dictatorship. Grim disagrees:

    Even with two new justices, the Supreme Court is not willing to turn power over to him. Trump is their tool to wield power, and they will be content to see him retire from the field. Trump also lacks the support of the military leadership. Without the court or the military, he has no path to hold on to power illegally.

    “Without the court or the military” — sounds pretty third-world to me. That’s how Egypt is ruled. Just wanted to point that out.

    The Realignment

    This will take much more thought, but the start point is here:

    [T]he class realignment already underway … leaves a coalition of the working class and the super rich in the Republican party. That’s an extremely dangerous coalition, and while it will be hampered by Trump’s defeat, it would be structurally strengthened longterm by a Harris victory[.]

    What it looks like when all the ripe apples have dropped is anyone’s guess. Grim thinks its possible that Republicans, if Democrats keep shedding their base, could “lock in generational power” in 2028.

    We’ll see if that’s true: it’s a “dangerous coalition” indeed. What happens with working class Sanders populists — yes, there are many; Sanders might have wiped the floor with 2016 Trump — is clearly up in the air. Rich material for a novelist.

    The NatSec state

    Here Grim is silent, but we don’t have to be. At this point, no president can oppose the cemented-in apparatus, our heroes who “maintain security.” (Trump on Joe Rogan talked about how he was convinced not to release the JFK files as he first intended. Listen between the lines and you hear, “Sir, you don’t want to do that.”)

    To the extent there’s real rebellion in the U.S., there will be real repression, more than what’s already here. What elites do abroad, they will do at home, given a sufficiently media-marginalized target. (The military calls this “preparing the battlefield.”)

    There are only two end points historically for this kind of collision — a state in chaos (think ‘60s and ‘70s rebellion) or a locked-down, Stasi society, surveilled and policed. Ask yourself, how would today’s guardians of security handle the 1960s? Gloves on or gloves off?

    Now for Grim’s analysis. If you want just his bottom line, skip down to “What It Means”. Enjoy.

    *  *  *

    Ryan Grim’s election predictions

    What will realistically happen if Harris or Trump wins

    Just like Jeff Bezos, I would never tell you who to vote for. You don’t need that from me anyway. What I can do though is offer a few thoughts on what might happen if either candidate is elected, which I haven’t seen anybody try to do with any seriousness.

    According to Elon Musk, if Kamala Harris wins, there’ll never be another election, and according to lots of Democrats, if Trump wins, he’ll turn into a dictator. Both are wrong. The truth is more complicated but not necessarily less frightening. In tonight’s newsletter, I’ll game out what that might look like…

    If Kamala wins:

    Congress goes

    If Harris wins, the chance she also takes Congress relies on a number of miraculous upsets. Joe Manchin is leaving the Senate, and his Senate seat is leaving the Democratic caucus for the rest of all of our lives. That takes Dems from 51 down to 50 seats. Jon Tester won extremely narrow races in Montana in 2006, 2012, and 2018, and he’s about as good a rural politician as you’re going to find, but Montana’s rightward drift might be too much for him to overcome. Polls have him down. If they’re right, he’s toast, and that brings Democrats down to 49 seats. 

    To get back to 50 – which would let Tim Walz break ties – they’d need to hold on to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin (all doable, even likely) but also win in either Florida or Texas – or Nebraska. 

    If you’ve been following our coverage of the Nebraska Senate race, you know independent populist Dan Osborn has a genuine shot at upsetting the incumbent Republican. Internal polls I’ve heard about from both sides, however, suggest Trump’s ads tagging him as a “Democrat in disguise” may have done enough damage to blunt his momentum. If he wins though, I’m confident he’d caucus with Democrats, and that would make a majority. But he’s still a longshot.

    Colin Allred, the former NFL linebacker and member of Congress, has a credible chance of beating Ted Cruz. The question will be whether pollsters missed an influx of Democratic donors to the Lone Star state. If they did and the polls are slightly off, he could win. But he’s also a longshot.

    Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell could theoretically pull off an upset in Florida, but man is that hard to see. So Democrats would need one of those four longshots—Montana, Nebraska, Texas, or Florida—to come through.

    And then they’d have to win the House, too. 

    Without the Senate, Harris will have a hard time confirming a dog catcher, let along a judge or a cabinet nominee. With the Senate but without the House, she won’t be able to get any of her agenda through. Worse, the debt ceiling will be hit in January, before she’s even inaugurated. 

    Bankruptcy?

    With control of Congress, Republicans will play economic-armageddon brinksmanship, take a chunk out of the global economy, get our credit-ratings downgraded, and probably extract a chunk of fiscal flesh in exchange for simply agreeing to pay the bills that are due. The other possibility, that we actually go over the cliff and get a mini or major financial crisis can’t be ruled out. 

    Antitrust

    Harris will then be left to govern strictly from the executive branch. She’d probably have to keep Lina Khan, whether she wants her as chair of the FTC or not, since Republicans wouldn’t confirm a replacement anyway. Her victory would be meaningful for climate action, as she’d continue to disperse and execute the clean energy policy and subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, while Trump would smother it (or send it all to Elon Musk?).

    Taxes

    Trump’s tax cuts also expire during Harris’s first two years in office, meaning she’ll negotiate their extension. There, she has the advantage, because if she does nothing, the old tax policy snaps back into place. Her ability to do anything at all her first two years would be limited to this tax realm and, potentially, immigration. She’s likely to sign a tough border and immigration bill into law. 

    It’s hard to see how she emerges from this two years with anything higher than an approval rating in the low-30s. Given she has no organic base of support—support for Kamala is more accurately described as opposition to Trump and support for Democratic policies generally—it’s impossible to say how low her floor is. We might find out. 

    Ukraine

    Russia is making major advances in Ukraine and the U.S. public is no longer interested in the war. Harris will probably have to end it with some sort of ceasefire/non-deal that leaves Ukraine in a wildly worse off position than they’d have been in if they’d made a deal in early 2022—a deal the U.S. scuttled at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Or she could prove she’s a tough commander-in-chief—leader of the “most lethal military” ever, as she puts it—by escalating the conflict and striking deeper inside Russia, risking nuclear war. Let’s hope it’s not that. The same dynamic could be at play with China, with much of her party leadership egging on confrontation.

    The Mideast

    I interviewed Israeli journalist Amir Tibon recently, who said that Netanyahu made a bet sometime around December that Trump would be elected president and therefore he was willing to take whatever minor grief he suffered from Biden for ignoring all the U.S. entreaties to protect civilians, allow in humanitarian aid, and negotiate in good faith toward a ceasefire. There was little grief. But, said Tibon, if Harris wins, Netanyahu will be exposed politically, and he predicted his government would collapse “within months.” A Harris win would signal to Netanyahu’s coalition partners that two of their big dreams will be at least put on hold for four years. Those two major ambitions, Tibon said, are reform of the Israeli courts in order to subsume them to the judiciary, and the Israeli settlement of Gaza. With those ambitions stymied, Netanyahu’s coalition becomes untenable.

    Foiling Netanyahu’s bet on Trump is the most persuasive case I’ve heard for a vote for Harris. The problem, though, is what comes next. Tibon is confident a candidate from a coalition that does not includes the ultra-orthodox or settler movements would triumph and that any new government that replaced Netanyahu would be similarly supportive of the various Israeli war efforts, but more willing to cut a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. But I checked Tibon’s theory with people in Israel to the right of Tibon, and they agreed that the Netanyahu government would indeed fall and new elections would be called—but that Netanyahu would win those new elections. 

    Abortion Rights

    Harris wouldn’t be able to get anything through Congress, but having Democrats control the Justice Department and Health and Human Services would put some of the brakes on right-wing states pushing ahead with increasingly aggressive abortion restrictions, including laws that make it a crime to “traffick” a minor across state lines to get an abortion. Such laws are plainly unconstitutional, but Trump’s DoJ would do nothing to stop them, whereas a Harris administration would.

    Midterms

    Every president faces brutal headwinds in their first midterm, and Republican gains are the most likely result of the 2026 midterms. The only pickup opportunities in the Senate would be in Maine and North Carolina, and both would be unwinnable in a Republican reaction year. The good news for Dems is they don’t have to defend many seats – Georgia and Michigan – but they’d still fall that much further behind in the House. 

    2028

    Republicans would be the heavy favorites in 2028. Democrats seem to hate primaries, so maybe Harris doesn’t face one even if she’s in the low 30s, with Democratic rivals holding their fire for 2032. The most likely outcome, then, of a Harris victory in 2024 is a Republican sweep in 2029, giving them a trifecta and the opportunity to lock in Supreme Court control for several generations. That court could issue abortion-related rulings that would make Dobbs look downright liberal.

    If Trump wins:

    Let’s take seriously what Trump will actually do, versus what his opponents claim he’ll do. Some of the more lurid warnings, I think, are wildly overblown. But not all of them. It’s extremely likely he will assign significant resources toward a roundup of immigrants, and will do so in a flamboyant fashion, deploying the military if he can get away with it. If he’s extra lucky, there’ll be mass resignations of military brass as a result, allowing him to elevate loyalists. 

    Stephen Miller, a deeply dangerous and strategic man, will have immense power. Trans rights will be in the crosshairs and so will abortion rights. 

    I’m less worried about his promise to add a 20 percent tariff to everything. He continues to speak highly of Robert Lighthizer as his top trade adviser, and Lighthizer is very good at what he does. Lighthizer was Trump’s United States Trade Representative and lefty trade hands and unions were generally supportive of his approach, even as they had some disagreements. If Lighthizer guides trade policy, it won’t be reckless. 

    Trump’s tax cuts from his first term will also come up for renewal, and I’d expect he’ll successfully extend and deepen them, particularly for the rich and corporations. 

    He will fire an enormous number of federal employees. Whether he can hire enough to replace them is a different question, but at minimum he’ll be able to break a lot of federal agencies. 

    He’ll go after the American university system with a vengeance. Look at what Chris Rufo has managed to do in Florida under Ron DeSantis for a flavor of what Trump could do nationally. 

    He will rescind or simply not deploy much of the climate spending included in the Inflation Reduction Act. He hates eclectic vehicles, though his alliance with Elon Musk may protect some of that. 

    Supreme Court

    Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas will retire, allowing Trump to appoint at least two more justices. 

    Trump, however, will not have the capacity to become a dictator. Even with two new justices, the Supreme Court is not willing to turn power over to him. Trump is their tool to wield power, and they will be content to see him retire from the field. Trump also lacks the support of the military leadership. Without the court or the military, he has no path to hold on to power illegally. 

    Voters will reject his displays of extremism at the polls in the 2026 midterms, likely delivering the House and Senate both to Democrats. They’ll impeach him immediately, just as Republicans will impeach Harris, but neither effort will have enough support in the Senate to go anywhere. In 2028, Republican voters will choose between J.D. Vance and opponents like Ted Cruz (unless he loses his Senate race, of course). 

    The economy will probably take a cyclical downturn toward the end of Trump’s term, and he’ll be deeply unpopular. Democrats would be favored to win in 2028 and likely hold Congress, too. 

    Mideast

    It’s impossible to predict what Trump will do here. On the one hand, he calls himself “the candidate of peace”—on the other, he has said Biden’s biggest problem has been that he’s been too tough on Netanyahu and he should let him take the gloves off. Trump has been mad at Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his win, but he knows Bibi has been rooting for him and doing what he can to help him win, and in Trump’s world alone, that means a lot to him. You know Trump as well as I do, I’ll let you guess on this one.

    Ukraine

    The conventional wisdom is that Putin will strike a deal to end the war if Trump wins, on favorable terms to Russia, given how much ground they’ve gained. On Ukraine, the CW is probably right.

    China

    Trump will do way more jawboning of China than Harris would, but he seems to have no appetite for a war. Let’s hope that prevails.

    What It Means

    So far, we’ve talked about the near-term future relying on historical precedent. That only gets us so far. We also have to look at the coalitional trends underway and ask how a victory by each candidate influences each. If Harris wins, Democrats will be rewarded for having skipped the nominating process and overseeing a genocide in Gaza. They will have done so while embracing the Cheneys and other neocons expelled from the MAGA coalition. They will now have to be understood as a faction of the Democratic coalition. With Democrats already becoming increasingly militaristic, that only pushes the party further toward a confrontational imperial foreign policy. 

    Harris also ran detectably to Biden’s right when it came to labor, antitrust, and the economy. Winning on that message could convince Democrats that their dalliance with economic populism was unnecessary, which would speed up the class realignment already underway, with more working class voters of all races and genders feeling unrepresented by Democrats, who come to fully stand in for coastal elites. With Democrats representing an upper-middle-class center, that leaves a coalition of the working class and the super rich in the Republican party. That’s an extremely dangerous coalition, and while it will be hampered by Trump’s defeat, it would be structurally strengthened longterm by a Harris victory – unless Harris somehow finds populist Jesus like Biden did. There is still a strong faction of populist-progressives in the Democratic coalition, and Harris’s victory would not be the final word. But a Democrat who comes after Harris could be facing nearly insurmountable odds if Republicans are able to lock in generational power in 2028. 

    The short version is that there’s reason to be optimistic that Harris may win. There’s reason to be scared if she does. Or doesn’t. Hope that helps.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 17:40

  • WTI Holds Gains Despite Bigger Than Expected Crude Build
    WTI Holds Gains Despite Bigger Than Expected Crude Build

    Oil prices closed higher for a fifth straight day as traders were sensitive to geopolitical headlines (from Israel) and the domestic election situation.

    The tension in the oil market is “palpable” as headlines around the U.S. election, turmoil in the Middle East, economic woes in China and a potential hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico “swirl,” Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader and managing director at CIBC Private Wealth US, told MarketWatch.

    “The reality of very short-term volatility has traders cutting risk and taking the shoot first, ask questions later approach the moment trades stop working.”

    Additionally, a tropical storm threatens production from the Gulf of Mexico.

    API

    • Crude +3.13mm (0.00mm exp)

    • Cushing +1.72mm

    • Gasoline -928k (-900k exp)

    • Distillates -852k (-300k exp)

    US crude inventories continued their noisy run of the last few weeks with a bigger than expected crude build. Products saw inventory draws and stocks at the Cushing hub rose by the most since May…

    Source: Bloomberg

    WTI dipped very modestly on the API-reported crude draw, but is holding above $72 for now…

    Oil prices maintained an upward trend Tuesday as “risk taking remains limited with many headlines expected in the next few days, coming from the Federal Reserve’s Policy meeting, China’s congressional meeting that will determine governmental stimulus, and the U.S. election,” Alex Hodes, director of energy market strategy at StoneX, wrote in Tuesday’s energy newsletter.

    Finally, pump prices remain very low relative to crude and wholesale gasoline prices…

    …with the election now behind us, how long before prices snap up higher?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 17:20

  • With JD Vance And Elon Musk, Suddenly Ideas Are Back In This Campaign
    With JD Vance And Elon Musk, Suddenly Ideas Are Back In This Campaign

    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute,

    This presidential campaign season may be one of those turning points in history for reasons good and bad. Anyone watching the one debate between the Republican and Democratic Party candidates would not have come away with the view that this was a great battle of competing principles and visions for the future. It was a campaign of name-calling and bullets, where one candidate avoided discussing ideas at all costs – and even avoided the media at all costs. Where the other candidate dodged two attempted assassinations while throwing red meat rhetoric to an understandably angry population.

    It was a campaign where, more than ever, the mainstream media completely abandoned any idea of being a neutral source of information and instead jumped into the ring on the side of one candidate. In the one debate between presidential candidates, the mainstream media went so far as to “fact check” one candidate while giving the other a “pass.” The “fact check” turned out to be misinformation – something the mainstream media excels in – but they have long figured out that by the time the actual facts are in, people have already absorbed the falsehood.

    According to the conservative Media Research Center, mainstream media coverage of the Trump campaign was 85 percent negative while its coverage of the Harris campaign was 78 percent positive. If accurate, it explains why the public holds the media in such contempt.

    What felt missing in the campaign was a discussion of the real issues we are facing.

    The destruction caused by interventionism in our economy, in our lives, and in the rest of the world.

    There was no talk about the Federal Reserve and how it hurts the middle class, helps the wealthy, and greases the war machine.

    Then, at the tail end, things got interesting.

    Republican candidate for Vice President, JD Vance, mentioned last week that he had come to the view that the Federal Reserve was not the benevolent force for good that its supporters claim.

    He didn’t say it in those exact words, but that was his point.

    Then Trump surrogate campaigner Elon Musk made an announcement that no-doubt terrified the DC swamp: were he to get the government efficiency job Trump suggested, he’d start with a bang, cutting two trillion dollars from the Federal budget!

    We even had a little fun with it.

    After I posted some encouragement on Musk’s Twitter/X, he responded that he would be happy to have me join him looking for places to cut!

    While the last thing I am looking for is another job, I am encouraged by the outpouring of support and happy to help any effort to correct the wrong path we have been going down – a path toward total bankruptcy.

    Perhaps the most encouraging development this election cycle is the well-earned decline in the influence of the corrupt mainstream media.

    When Elon posted a funny meme of the two of us cutting government on his Twitter/X platform, it garnered some 50 million views! Compare that to the steady decline of mainstream media viewership.

    An alternative way of reporting and analyzing the events of our time is emerging on the ruins of the legacy media and it’s driving them insane.

    Good.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 17:00

  • MSM's Matrix Cracked This Election Cycle As Americans Woke Up In Droves
    MSM’s Matrix Cracked This Election Cycle As Americans Woke Up In Droves

    The censorship and manipulation of political information by Big Tech companies led by “woke” white-collar activists, corporate media, fact-checkers funded by far-left billionaires, a web of leftist-controlled non-profits, and the censorship blob in Washington, DC – all working in unison to combat free speech and control public narratives is at its worst: election interference. 

    One of the best examples is Facebook and Twitter’s suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election… 

    The censorship blob has been at it again, waging an all-out blitzkrieg against the American people. Democrats have been obsessed with uploading far-left propaganda into the minds of not just children but adults, telling them how to vote, think, and, in some cases, what gender they should be.

    Anyone challenging the Deep State-approved narratives, like Biden’s mental acuity, was labeled as “misinformation” and “disinformation” in this election cycle, despite Democrats pushing the president aside for Harris-Walz. 

    Data from media bias rating company AllSides shows how Google tweaked search results on voters, with a majority of the search results leaning hardcore to the left this election cycle. 

    Where’s the outrage? 

    AllSides analyzed the search engines Microsoft Bing, Yahoo!, and Google and found that Google displayed the most far-left-leaning news stories in search results for voters. 

    Search engine bias on Google was obvious for “election news,” with 80% of the content leaning towards leftist organizations while only 5% leaning towards right-leaning organizations.

    Even searching for “Trump News,” Google pushed out content that leaned mostly toward leftist organizations:

    Google Search displayed 64% outlets rated Lean Left, 4% rated Left, 16% rated Center, 11% rated Lean Right, and just 9% rated Right.

    The 2024 Google Search bias analysis examined 545 articles over a two-week period in August. It looked at the featured articles based on 10 search terms: Election News, Abortion News, Economy News, Harris News, Climate Change News, Trump News, Crime News, Voter Fraud News, Immigration News, Gun Control News. The results were similar to what AllSides found in separate analyses of Google News (Lean Left).

    For nearly every subject searched on Google, the big tech firm directed left-leaning sources to populate for users.

    “Out of the 545 articles analyzed, outlets that were featured the most in Google Search results for selected search terms were The New York Times (Lean Left), Fox News (Right), CNN (Lean Left), The Guardian (Lean Left), ABC News (Lean Left), NBC News (Lean Left), Washington Post (Lean Left), Politico (Lean Left), Associated Press (Lean Left), and NPR (Lean Left). All of the top 10 featured outlets were rated Lean Left, except for Fox News,” AllSides said. 

    Separately, the non-profit Media Research Center showed that election coverage this cycle was the worst in history for a Republican candidate, with only 15% positive stories, while the Democratic candidate received 78% positive stories. This means Democrats had a huge vantage point on spewing misinformation and disinformation on legacy media outlets, such as ABC, CBS, and NBC. 

    Meanwhile, polling data has been distorted statistically three weeks before the election, usually towards Democrats. 

    But for the first time in any election cycle, the Democratic machine’s matrix glitched and Deep State-approved narratives were instantly shattered by Elon Musk’s X and citizen journalist who waged a ‘meme-war’ against the censorship blob.

    The biggest takeaway from this election cycle is that an increasing number of Americans have broken free from the MSM’s matrix. 

    Jeff Bezos penned an op-ed in his Washington Post paper, in which he explained last week the reason why he did not endorse Harris-Walz: 

    “Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.”

    In other words, Musk glitched the Deep State’s matrix over the American people. The Overton Window shifted back towards the center after being artificially held to the far left for years.

    Also, the Davos elites are livid with Musk and the US Constitution. They said the quiet part out loud during this election cycle. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 16:40

  • Post-Election Truths: The Things That Won't Change (No Matter Who Wins)
    Post-Election Truths: The Things That Won’t Change (No Matter Who Wins)

    Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “If voting could ever really change anything, it’d be illegal.”

    – Thorne, Land of the Blind (2006)

    After months of handwringing and mud-slinging and fear-mongering, the votes have finally been cast and the outcome has been decided: the Deep State has won.

    Despite the billions spent to create the illusion of choice culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, when it comes to most of the big issues that keep us in bondage to authoritarian overlords, not much will change.

    Despite all of the work that has been done to persuade us to buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the “right” political savior, the day after a new president is sworn in, it will be business as usual for the unelected bureaucracy that actually runs the government.

    War will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue. Police shootings will continue. SWAT team raids will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.

    These problems have persisted – and in many cases flourished – under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

    The outcome of this year’s election changes none of that.

    Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by the 2024 presidential election, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with representing the taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

    • The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.

    • The government’s war on the American people will continue unabated.  “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled. Consequently, you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent. The oppression and injustice—be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on—will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

    • The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. The corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

    • The government’s manipulation of national crises in order to expand its powers will continue unabated. “We the people” have been subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. Whatever the so-called threat to the nation, the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state. Indeed, the government’s answer to every problem continues to be more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty.

    • Endless wars that enrich the military industrial complex will continue unabated. America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million an hour (that adds up to $920 billion annually). Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 40% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 9 biggest spending nations combined.

    • Government corruption will continue unabated.  The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.” Americans instinctively understand this. When asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern. In fact, almost three-quarters of Americans surveyed believe the government is corrupt. Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.

    • Government tyranny under the reign of an Imperial President will continue unabated. The Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers. In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government. The powers amassed by each past president and inherited by each successive president—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.

    The grim reality we must come to terms with is the fact that the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this state of affairs has become the status quo, no matter which party is in power.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 16:20

  • Election Day Exuberance Sparks 'Buy All The Things' Theme
    Election Day Exuberance Sparks ‘Buy All The Things’ Theme

    Stocks up, Bonds (prices) up, Gold up, Bitcoin up, Crude up… VIX & Dollar down… as ISM Services soars on Election Day.

    All the majors were green on the day with a squeeze in Small Caps leading the way…

    Traders should not be surprised – we haven’t had a down-day on election day for the S&P 500 since 2000:

    11/3/2020 +1.78% ELECTION DAY
    11/4/2020 +2.20%

    11/8/2016 +0.37% ELECTION DAY
    11/9/2016 +1.11%

    11/6/2012 +0.79% ELECTION DAY
    11/7/2012 -2.37%

    11/4/2008 +4.08% ELECTION DAY
    11/5/2008 -5.27%

    11/2/2004 +0.01% ELECTION DAY
    11/3/2004 +1.12%

    11/7/2000 -0.02% ELECTION DAY
    11/8/2000 -1.58%

    11/5/1996 +1.05% ELECTION DAY
    11/6/1996 +1.46%

    11/3/1992 -0.67% ELECTION DAY
    11/4/1992 -0.67%

    The Trump Trade saw another very small profit-taking day today as PolyMarket odds increased…

    Source: Bloomberg

    NVDA overtook AAPL once again to become the world’s largest market cap company…

    Source: Bloomberg

    VIX was slammed lower as the inverted curve starts to unwind into ‘less uncertainty’ (don’t forget FOMC Thursday)…

    But the vol term structure has a long way to fall from its extreme inversion as we await Thursday…

    Source: Bloomberg

    “Most Shorted” stocks were a one-way street of squeeze today…

    Source: Bloomberg

    BUT there was one stock that was wild today: DJT

    Treasury yields were all over the place, hurt early on by knock-on effects from a terrible auction in Gilts, then strong ISM Services pushed yields higher still only to see a strong 10Y auction slam yields back lower (and when DJT started to crack, so did bond yields)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Only the 2Y yield remains higher post-payrolls…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin, bond yields, and DJT all dumped at the same time (around 1430ET)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar dived once again, back to three-week lows…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Despite the intraday volatility elsewhere, gold continued to tread water around $2740…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin was a bit chaotic today, ripping back above $70,000 only to get slammed lower as DJT and bond yields slipped…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Crude traded wild today. Strong open was hit by Israeli HLs (Gallant fired), but then the machines realized that Gallant was the less war-hawky one…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, with the election almost over, traders wil turn to Thursday’s shenanigans with The Fed…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Today saw rate cut expectations slump again (50-50 chance of 1 or 2 cuts in 2024 and 50-50 chance of 2 or 3 cuts more in 2025).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/05/2024 – 16:00

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