Today’s News 7th September 2023

• European Nat Gas Prices Tumble After Chevron Australia LNG Workers Delay Strike
  European Nat Gas Prices Tumble After Chevron Australia LNG Workers Delay Strike

  A Bloomberg report that workers on Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects have delayed strike action until Friday is being viewed as a sign talks are going well, as strikes were meant to begin Thursday. The positive conclusion to last week’s talks between Woodside and unions is another indication the worst-case scenario is unlikely.

  The new deadline for industrial action at the Gorgon and Wheatstone plants is 6 a.m. local time Friday, a Chevron Australia spokesperson told Bloomberg. The unions previously threatened to start partial strikes on Sept. 7 and then escalate to full stoppages that would begin Sept. 14 and last two weeks.

  

  “We will continue to work through the bargaining process as we seek outcomes that are in the interests of both employees and the company,” the company said in the statement. “We will also continue to take steps to maintain safe and reliable operations in the event of disruption at our facilities.”

  “It really is essential to explore all avenues to avoid industrial action,” said Richard Pratt, a consultant for Precision LNG. “Once strikes start, the parties are driven further apart so this is a welcome development.”

  The two Australian LNG plants operated by Chevron made up about 7% of global LNG supply last year (see “Q&A On Australia’s LNG Strike Risks“). The extension of talks follows a compromise that another Australian exporter, Woodside Energy Group Ltd., reached with workers last month to prevent industrial action at its own plant.

  Meanwhile, Bloomberg notes that the impact of any industrial action may be limited at first because demand is muted in Europe and Asia, but a prolonged disruption may have sparked a bidding war between the two regions for alternative cargoes in peak winter season.

  The threat of strikes had roiled global gas markets since early August, when unions first voted for potential labor actions at the three plants. The European gas benchmark surged 40% at one point, highlighting the continent’s heavy dependence on LNG after the curtailment of Russian pipeline gas flows. Imports of LNG in Europe are recovering after a recent dip, helping offset reduced pipeline-gas flows from Norway amid maintenance there. Still, traders remain on high alert for any prolonged blips in supplies.

  In immediate response, Dutch front-month futures, Europe’s gas benchmark, traded 10% lower at €30.90 a megawatt-hour…

  

  … and with EU natural gas storage now above 93%, could fall further in the near-term unless the situation in Australia deteriorates.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 02:45

• To The Last Ukrainian
  To The Last Ukrainian

  Authored by Katya Sedgwick via AmericanMind.org,

  The war is a disaster in every sense…

  

  It was Vladimir Putin who initially noted that the West is willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

  Well, it looks like it’s finally happening – we’ve run out of Ukrainians, or at least we ran out of the ones willing to die for their country. Ukraine is running short of the young, fertile, and productive.

  When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February, 2022, the media lit up with stories of bumbling, murdering Russkies and heroic Ukrainians.

  The legend of the Ghost of Kyiv, the mystery pilot destroying legions of Russian fighter planes—eventually debunked as propaganda—raised expectations of a quick triumph of the underdog.

  Many Ukrainians volunteered in these early days of war. Out of 6.1 million living abroad, some returned to defend their country. Martial law was swiftly imposed, barring able-bodied military age men from crossing the border. In the the rapidly aging post-Soviet nation, military age was defined as 18 to 60.

  In a piece I wrote last year for The American Conservative, I collected draft-dodging stories from the back pages of Ukrainian media. I took care to avoid Russian sources that could be dismissed as propaganda. I also found what was then a very unusual New York Times item that described popular Telegram channels that alert subscribers of real time locations of conscription officers issuing summons on the streets of Ukrainian cities.

  An interesting twist on the real time draft-dodging tools was a March 2023 post on a censored and hyper patriotic Kharkiv Live channel recommending this type of group chat to over a half a million of its subscribers. Vocally expressed nationalistic sentiments, as it turned out, don’t necessarily translate into willingness to take up arms — or even support of mass mobilization.

  A recent survey found that just 6 percent of respondents in Kharkov are planning to enlist if the situation deteriorates. This number is the lowest in the country, but other regions are not far behind. Kiev, for instance, is at 12 percent. Because this is a wartime poll conducted in a country under martial law, I’d take its findings with a grain of salt.

  A few weeks ago, Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged the problem of corruption in the armed forces and fired all regional recruitment chiefs. He intends to replace them with “warriors who have gone through the front or who cannot be in the trenches because they have lost their health, lost their limbs, but have retained their dignity and have no cynicism.” It’s an agreeable sentiment, but I strongly suspect that the returning fighters are quite cynical in many regards, especially when it comes to the way business is conducted in their country. Last week’s resignation of the Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov at the time of widely publicized military corruption scandals should be a clue that the problem is larger than the recruitment chiefs. Zelensky’s official explanation that the country is looking for “new approaches” amounts to an admission of failure.

  Ukraine is now insistent on drafting everyone. Since a large number of draft-eligible men fled abroad — 163,287 live in Germany alone — they need to be extradited. Poland already began the process of deporting Ukrainians back home to fill the trenches. Moreover, the Defense Ministry approved new drafting rules under which men suffering from disabilities ranging from slow progressing nervous system disorders to  hemorrhagic conditions are now eligible to be drafted. Morale and effectiveness of this kind of army is questionable. 

  This late in the war, Ukrainians are unlikely to change their mind about marching into the meat grinder. Ukraine does not publicize its casualties, but multiple videos circulating on social media show sprawling fresh graves under the national banners. The recent official U.S. estimate is 70,000 dead and 150,000 to 200,000 wounded out of 5.5 million military age men—more dead in 18 months than the U.S. lost in the Vietnam War. According to German medical supplier Ottobock, which makes prosthetics, the number of amputees now stands at up to 50,000. With characteristic German understatement Ottobock adds that the real figure is probably higher because it takes time to process cases. Meantime, Ukraine is preparing for 1.5 million disabled.

  The volunteers who answered the call early in the war were likely ideological and educated. Obituaries commemorated the flower of Ukraine—an activist, an actor, an astrophysicist. Men escaping the draft are wealthy and connected, educated, and living in large population centers. The ones dragged into combat now are poor and rural.

  The greatest loss to the country has been the departure of women and children. After the flight of refugees and the annexation of southeastern regions, Ukraine’s population dropped from 42 to about 30 million. Women from Kiev and Kharkov, the largest and most developed Ukrainian cities, are most likely to have left the country. These women are young and middle aged, and have college degrees and children. According to a report in the Italian newspaper Carrier De La Serra, educated refugees were able to find employment abroad and their children study in local languages. Some families crumble. It’s doubtful that those already growing roots will return after the war. More likely they will be joined by their equally well-educated husbands.

  Given Ukraine’s very low pre-war birth rate, the loss of millions of children and women of reproductive age can be catastrophic. So is the damage done to the Ukrainian village and cultural heritage, both Russian and Ukrainian.

  Ukraine’s greatest accomplishment in the war so far is the methodical erasure of every visible reference to Russian culture from its landscape — starting with monuments to the foundational Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and going down the list of literary and cultural figures.

  Ukraine has a storied martial tradition—the Cossack valor is legendary. Many of those drafted went into the meat grinder putting their faith into providence alone. But today’s Ukraine is urban; the nomadic steppe dwellers are gone and so are their large families. Too many only sons perished in the trenches and further losses are hardly acceptable to ordinary people. A positive outcome for Ukraine is hard to imagine even in the unlikely scenario that Russia loses on the battlefield.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 02:00

• The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Extinction Itself
  The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Extinction Itself

  Authored by James George Jatras

  A version of this presentation was given to the Ron Paul Institute’s Scholars Seminar on Sept. 1st in Washington, DC.

  Today it’s hard for anyone under the age of 50 to appreciate how genuine and pervasive was fear of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War between the US- and Soviet-led blocs.

  Books, movies, and TV both reflected and stoked popular anxiety about the possible “end of civilization as we know it.” The heyday for this was in the 1950s and 1960s, with books like The Long Tomorrow(1955) and On the Beach (1957, with a 1959 film adaptation), and films like Fail Safe, Seven Days in May, Dr. Strangelove (all in 1964, while the real-life scare of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was fresh in people’s minds).

  There appeared to be a bit of a lull during the 1970s era of US-Soviet détente under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, perhaps also reflecting elite sympathy for socialism and an expected future convergence between the ideological groupings, which on a basic level shared the same globalist, materialist values. But nuclear terror returned with a vengeance in the 1980s – for example, The Day After (1983) and the animated When the Wind Blows (1986). And who can forget (certainly no male person!) the delightful Nena’s 1983 music video Neunundneunzig Luftballons.

  

  The Left, both in the United States and worldwide, was unanimous that Ronald Reagan, a self-confessed anti-communist, was a reckless cowboy who wanted to blow up the planet. As that great philosopher, Sting, put it in his 1985 song, “The Russians”:

  There is no historical precedent
  To put the words in the mouth of the president?
  There’s no such thing as a winnable war
  It’s a lie we don’t believe anymore
  Mister Reagan says, “We will protect you”
  I don’t subscribe to this point of view
  Believe me when I say to you
  I hope the Russians love their children too

  The irony is that Reagan’s own views were hardly different from the ones the song sought to promote. As he stated jointly with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that very same year, 1985: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a view that prevailed until the USSR imploded just a few years later.

  We live in a very different world now, where the prospect of nuclear annihilation barely registers with anyone.

  Just as big earthquakes are often preceded by foreshocks, major wars are frequently heralded by smaller conflicts. Before World War One: the Franco-German Morocco crises (1906 and 1911), the Italo-Turkish War (1911-12), the two Balkan Wars (1912, 1913). Before World War Two: the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-37) and, the most famous pre-conflagration rumble of them all, the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

  Today, we are looking at a possible regional war in West Africa, centering on American and French demands that “democracy” be restored in Niger. (As one Indian publication put it, “Death follows Victoria Nuland”) Then, of course, there’s China/Taiwan.

  But the obvious Spanish Civil War-rank conflict of the moment is Ukraine.

  I don’t think we need to go into all the details of how we got here, but just in brief:

  • Relentless NATO expansion after 1991;
  • The 2014 US- and EU-backed coup that overthrew Victor Yanukovich, followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and the new Kiev regime’s launch of a war to repress rebellions in the Russian-speaking east and south of the country;
     
  • The 2015 Minsk agreements, which provided for Ukraine’s neutrality and decentralization, and for reintegration of the rebellious areas with protections of their language and culture – agreements that both Ukrainian and European former officials have admitted they never intended to implement, seeing them only as a delaying ruse for building up a force capable of conquering the Donbas;
     
  • A relentless program of Ukraine’s NATO-ization in all but name under Obama, Trump, and Biden; and
     
  • Washington’s peremptory rejection of Moscow’s 2021 ultimata to the United States and NATO to resolve the conflict diplomatically, with the hope that Russia, baited into an incursion into Ukraine, would be bled white in an Afghanistan-style insurgency and by crushing sanctions that would “turn the ruble into rubble,” pancake Russia’s economy, and lead to regime change in Moscow.

  Oops. Russia’s expected ruin didn’t happen. Even the mainstream media cheerleaders of only a fortnight ago now admit that Ukraine is losing, assigning the blame not to the geniuses that thought up this strategy (if it can be called that) but to Ukraine’s being too “casualty averse” – even as that country is turning into one vast graveyard. There’s speculation that some in Washington and other western capitals are seeking an “off-ramp” – if for no other reason than the need to focus on the really big show, a looming war with China. Some suggest that in the end, we’ll just walk away, consigning Ukraine to the Memory Hole along with Afghanistan. All that’s left then is for GOP neocons to whine that the Biden Administration was too stingy with their aid and “lost Ukraine” while they gear up for the main event in the western Pacific.

  Personally, I don’t think that will happen. Nobody cares about Afghanistan but the Afghans, but if Washington walks away from Ukraine it’s effectively conceding that the US, through NATO, no longer is the security hegemon of Europe. That means the effective end of NATO, in fact if not in name; and where NATO goes, its concubine, the European Union, won’t be far behind.

  More to the point, though, the notion that this will soon end with a whimper misses the whole point. None of this is really about Ukraine, which is just an expendable tool to hurt Russia. (Maybe the Poles or Lithuanians or Romanians are eager to volunteer for the job once we’re fresh out of Ukrainians.) Ukraine is just a variable; the constant is Ruthenia delenda est. Russia must be destroyed.

  Gilbert Doctorow, a noted observer of Russian affairs, likens the current situation to that of Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign depicted by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. Today as then, what happens next will be less due to this or that policymaker making this or that bad decision. Rather, “the precondition for war is the near universal acceptance of the logic of the coming war.”

  What is that logic today? It’s simple: the ruling circles in the United States (needless to add, with their sock puppets in western capitals) are utterly, unselfconsciously convinced that they are the living embodiment of all virtue, truth, and progress in what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described as the “replication of the experience of Bolshevism and Trotskyism” – to cite Reagan, morphing ourselves into a new Evil Empire in place of the old one. As neocon kingpins William Kristol and Robert Kagan put it in their 1996 manifesto, the policy of the United States in the coming era must be one of “benevolent global hegemony” intended to last – well, forever. Its moral content is exemplified, on the one hand, by US support for subjugation of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and, on the other, the spectacle of a transgender US serviceperson acting as a PR official for the Ukrainian military declaring that “we’re human,” and the Russians “most definitely aren’t.”

  As I like to say: there’s no Transatlanticism without transgenderism.

  Unsurprisingly, regarding their alleged lack of human-ness, the Russians disagree. But who cares what they think? Our leaders see not only Putin but Russians in general as an obstacle to the radiant future, where every knee will bow before the sacred rainbow flag.

  Sun Tzu says “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” The Russians more or less know themselves. They kind of know us, but not as well as they think they do, with rather a tendency to project normalcy onto fundamentally abnormal people. On the other hand, our rulers – dangerous people whose levels of arrogance and ignorance defies description: monkeys with nuclear hand grenades – know neither themselves nor the Russians.

  On top of that, as Doctorow further observes, the mechanisms that lent some stability and restraint to the US-Soviet standoff are now all but gone, rendering the once-“unthinkable” of the 1950s’ nuke horror films all-too-thinkable today:

  ‘… no one wants war, neither Washington nor Moscow. However, the step-by-step dismantling of the channels of communication, of the symbolic projects for cooperation across a wide array of domains, and now dismantling of all the arms limitation agreements that took decades to negotiate and ratify, plus the incoming new weapons systems that leave both sides with under 10 minutes to decide how to respond to alarms of incoming missiles—all of this prepares the way for the Accident to end all Accidents.  Such false alarms occurred in the Cold War but some slight measure of mutual trust prompted restraint. That is all gone now and if something goes awry, we are all dead ducks.’

  “No one wants war.” A similar thought was expressed by Hermann Göring, when he was on trial at Nuremberg:

  Of course the people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. … But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

  So I guess Doctorow is a bit off the mark in suggesting that “no one wants war.” Clearly, somebody wants war. A lot of very important “somebodies” wanted this war in Ukraine. They wanted war in the Balkans in the 1990s. They wanted war in Afghanistan, Iraq (twice!), Libya, Yemen, Syria, and a dozen places in Africa where we have almost no idea what’s going on.

  “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked…” I can’t help but think of the meme with two blank-face NPCs, one wearing a pink knit hat mindlessly repeating “Russia! Russia! Russia!,” the other with a red MAGA hat chanting “China! China! China!” Between them is the seal of the CIA with the eagle saying, “Yes, yes, my pretties. That’s it. That’s it.”

  Here we are, 60 years after the fact, with the growing recognition by even the most spoon-fed normies that the CIA had something to do with the assassination of Jack Kennedy. In fact, we have here today perhaps the foremost authority on the topic, Mr. Jacob Hornberger. Yet doubting our rulers’ truthiness still is treated as a thought crime. A little while ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was the target of a media hate fest for (in the words of The New Republic) “spout[ing] conspiracy theories about January 6 and 9/11.” Oh no! “Conspiracy theories”! (Or, as they are known when they turn out to be true, “spoiler alerts.”) The heretic Ramaswamy evidently believes – shocking as this sounds – that our government has not been entirely honest about these matters. He must be a dupe for the Russians! Or for the Chinese! – which The New Republic also implies.

  You may have heard some people compare the “lawfare” being directed against Donald Trump, with the evident aim of eliminating the likely opponent next year of the desiccated-husk-of-Hunter-Biden’s-dad (assuming ol’ Joe will be the Democratic nominee, which I don’t), to the behavior of a banana republic. This is a gratuitous insult to the friendly spider-infested nations to our south!

  I recently suggested to a sober observer of public affairs that the strategic goal is keeping Trump off the ballot in one or more must-win states for him, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, to which he responded: “That’s a recipe for civil war.” (I tried to imagine what Republicans taking to the streets would look like. A mob of decrepit Boomers rolling their motorized wheelchairs down to the corner and burning down the post office?) Anyway, taking him out via lawfare seems to be Plan A. If that fails – well, Plan B would get us into Mr. Hornberger’s area of expertise.

  The term “cold” civil war, a war that might possibly turn “hot,” has become a commonplace in American discourse. So has the expression “national divorce.” In 1861 Americans both North and South worshipped the same God, read the same Bible, honored the same Founding Fathers, claimed fidelity to the same Constitution. In today’s America, we can’t even agree on our pronouns or on what a “woman” is, much less on what it means to be an American. We are moral aliens to one another, indeed enemies. What actually holds the former American republic together? “Muh Constitution”? “Muh democracy”?

  Keep in mind, we’re not talking about a mere political crisis that will get solved in an election or two. Not even about political and constitutional collapse, or even a financial and economic calamity – that’s coming too, in part because of the impact of the Ukraine war on the dollar-denominated global system – but a fundamental challenge to the social fabric itself, and not just in the United States.

  A watershed was passed with covid and the measures – the lockdowns, the masks, social distancing and monitoring, the clot shot, censorship of dissent, all combined with a pervasive, inescapable external and internal panopticon: as the troubadour of transhumanism Yuval Harari writes, “we are seeing a change in the nature of surveillance from over the skin surveillance to under the skin surveillance” – supposedly intended to deal with a virus, accomplishing within a few short months what decades of climate hysteria could not, summed up under the moniker “the Great Reset” and its ubiquitous slogan “Build Back Better.”’

  Taken together what we’re experiencing has all the appearance of a controlled demolition of all established human interactions in anticipation of their replacement by something we are assured by our betters will be an improvement. The contours of the “new normal” in the post-American America hurtling in our direction have already become so familiar as to need little elaboration:

  • Infringement of traditional liberties based on “keeping us safe”;
     
  • “Cancel culture”;
     
  • Blurring of the lines between Big Government, Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Data, etc., amounting to corporate state capture; and, not directly based on supposed anti-virus measures but closely tracking with them,
     
  • Joint government and corporate promulgation of socially destructive, historically counterfeit ideologies (“intersectionality,” LGBTQI+++, feminism, multiculturalism, “critical race theory,”), with principal targeting of children subject to sexualization and predation by those expressing what were once quaintly known as abnormal appetites and identities.

  These so-called “values” – which, remember, are effectively the official ideology of the West, which we seek “benevolently” to impose on the rest of the world, by force if necessary – in turn accelerate longstanding trends towards infertility and demographic collapse pointing to thinning the human herd and replacement via post-human society, transhumanism, and bio-engineering. This is not just “political” but a strike at the heart of human existence: the spiritual, moral, and even biological basis for marriage, family formation, and production of the next generation. In a word: depopulation.

  A few years ago, His Royal Highness, the late Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, perhaps half in jest delivered this thigh-slapper: “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.” Some of you may have heard of groups like Extinction Rebellion and BirthStrike: “Are you terrified about the future that lies ahead for contemporary and future youth? Do you want to maximize your positive impact on the Climate Change Crisis? You can protect children while fighting climate change and systematic corruption by refusing to procreate!” Makes perfect sense: preserve a better planet for future generations by eliminating future generations. It reminds me of Otto von Bismarck’s comparing the idea of preventive war to committing suicide out of fear of death. (That’s not as abstract as it might sound. Recently a young woman in Canada seeking help for depression and suicidal ideation was advised by hospital staff that she might be interested in their tried and Trudeau-ed “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)” euthanasia program. Tempted to kill yourself? Let us help you!) 

  But why stop at half measures? The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, VHEMT (pronounced “vehement,” according to their website): “We’re the only species evolved enough to consciously go extinct for the good of all life, or which needs to. Success would be humanity’s crowning achievement. May we live long and die out.”

  Maybe they’re on to something! In his landmark work The Socialist Phenomenon, the late Russian mathematician and student of history Igor Shafarevich took note of what he believed is a collective human death impulse:

  The idea of the death of mankind—not the death of specific people but literally the end of the human race—evokes a response in the human psyche. It arouses and attracts people, albeit with differing intensity in different epochs and in different individuals. The scope of influence of this idea causes us to suppose that every individual is affected by it to a greater or lesser degree and that it is a universal trait of the human psyche.

  This idea is not only manifested in the individual experience of a great number of specific persons, but is also capable of uniting people (in contrast to delirium, for example) i.e., it is a social force. The impulse toward self-destruction may be regarded as an element in the psyche of mankind as a whole. [ … ]

  In the Freudian view (first expressed in the article “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”), the human psyche can be reduced to a manifestation of two main instincts: the life instinct or Eros and the death instinct or Thanatos (or the Nirvana principle). Both are general biological categories, fundamental properties of living things in general. The death instinct is a manifestation of general “inertia” or a tendency of organic life to return to a more elementary state from which it had been aroused by an external disturbing force. [“Dust thou art, unto dust shalt thou return.”] The role of the life instinct is essentially to prevent a living organism from returning to the inorganic state by any path other than that which is immanent in it.

  Marcuse [Shafarevich refers here to Herbert Marcuse, theorist of the Frankfurt School, known for his adaptation of the theory of class conflict in classical Marxism to other social divides, notably in the area of sex, setting the stage for “intersectionality”] introduces a greater social factor into this scheme, asserting that the death instinct expresses itself in the desire to be liberated from tension, as an attempt to rid oneself of the suffering and discontent which are specifically engendered by social factors.

  With the failure of the Ukrainian offensive, Moscow now faces a dilemma. Do they move decisively to impose a military solution that ends the war, or do they continue to show restraint in the hopes that somebody, somewhere – Kiev, Washington, London, Brussels – decides it’s time to sue for peace? Keen not to take a precipitous step that might bring about a direct clash of NATO and Russian forces, so far they’ve opted for the latter – I repeat: so far.

  The West faces its own dilemma. Do our rulers concede defeat, which effectively means the end of the Global American Empire (the GAE)? Or do they drag things out as long as possible, hoping Moscow will fall for another Minsk-type ceasefire, with the Kremlin playing the part of Charlie Brown taking another run at kicking the football, having been promised that this time we’ll keep our word? Or, mistaking Russian restraint for weakness, do they push the envelope by inserting a “coalition of the willing” into western Ukraine, challenging Russian naval forces in the Black Sea, encouraging and equipping the Ukrainians to step up attacks on Moscow and other Russian cities, staging some sort of false flag of the type that has proved so effective in other conflicts? In other words, do we double down? That’s in addition to opening up other asymmetrical theaters in the Balkans, Syria, Iran, the Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere.

  In mistakenly projecting a rational actor mentality onto their opponents, the Russians seem to be acutely aware of the legitimate concern that decisive military action on the ground could panic NATO and trigger an uncontrolled escalation. They seem oblivious to the contrary concern, that, by holding back and waiting for a reasonable dialogue that will never take place, they are in effect encouraging their adversary to stage one reckless provocation after another – in the sustained belief that some deus ex machina can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – resulting in the very uncontrolled escalation that Moscow seeks to avoid.

  Even these speculations assume that the miserable specimens of humanity calling the shots in Western capitals would only risk a direct conflict but would not deliberately choose it. But is that assumption correct? As Doctorow notes, the old Cold War restraints have broken down. Maybe demonstration of a teeny-tiny, low-yield nuke is just the thing to show that non-human Vladof Putler that the GAE is serious!

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Recently on his podcast Judge Andrew Napolitano showed part of a computer simulation of a US-Russia nuclear exchange in which the initial toll on the US population was only (“only”!) about nine percent, while on Russia it was around 62 percent. (Given that Russia has more warheads than we do, I don’t know how they came up with that, but I didn’t conduct the simulation.)  Is it so impossible that somewhere, somebody might look at those data and decide it’s a tolerable tradeoff? (Later on, the simulation has pretty much everyone on earth starving to death from nuclear winter, with agriculture in the northern hemisphere unviable for several years. Now there’s a way to resolve both global warming and supposed overpopulation with one stroke! Hey, VHEMT, have we got a concept for you!)

  Whether or not these dolts manage to kill us all, either by deliberate action or through sheer incompetence, it’s hard to escape the notion that we are approaching the edge of some profound historical moment that will have far-reaching, literally life and death consequences, both domestically and internationally. In the period preceding World War I how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed—and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?

  Which brings us to my parting admonitions to your predecessors in this seminar, which I see no need to change:

  My young friends, the impact any one of us can expect to have in the face of world-historic trends before which the fates of nations and empires fly like leaves in the autumn winds is vanishingly small. Already baked into the cake will be, I believe, hardships for you that we’ve become accustomed to think only happen to “other people” in “other countries” far away, not seen here since the Revolution and the Civil War, or maybe in isolated instances during the Great Depression: financial and economic disruption and, in some places, especially in urban areas, collapse; supply chains, utilities, and other aspects of basic infrastructure ceasing to function (what happens in major cities when food deliveries stop for a week?), even widespread hunger; rising levels of violence, both criminality and civil strife. These will be combined, paradoxically, with the remaining organs of authority, however discredited, desperately cracking down on the enemy within – no, not on murderers, robbers, and rapists, but on “science deniers,” “religious fanatics,” “haters,” “conspiracy theorists,” “insurrectionists,” “gun nuts,” “purveyors of “medical misinformation,” Russian or Chinese “stooges,” and, of course, “racists,” “sexists,” “homophobes,” and so forth. It’s the late Samuel Francis’ “anarcho-tyranny” nightmare come to life with a vengeance.

  Nevertheless, for what it is worth, I put before you three practical tasks for your consideration.

  Firstly, be vigilant against deception, in a day when assuredly evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. Admittedly, this is a tough one, given the ever-present lying that surrounds us and the suppression of dissent. Try to sift truth from falsehood but don’t become obsessed because, in many cases, you won’t be able to be sure anyway. Focus most on what’s proximate to you and on the people most important to you. … Be skeptical – about everyone. … There may be a cost. As Solzhenitsyn said, “He who chooses the lie as his principle inevitably chooses violence as his method.”

  Secondly, as stewards of every worldly charge placed on us by God and by other people—as fathers and mothers, as husbands and wives, as sons and daughters, as neighbors, as students, as workers, as citizens, as patriots—we must prudently care for those to whom we have a duty within the limited power and wisdom allotted to us. Start with yourselves. Be as self-sufficient as possible. Get involved in your community; that leftist slogan is actually a good one: think globally, act locally. Befriend your neighbors. Learn a real skill – electricity, plumbing, carpentry. Farm! Don’t go to law school, for goodness’ sake. Get in shape. Eat and sleep right. Have plenty of the essentials: food, fuel, gold, ammunition. Learn to shoot. Limit computer and phone time. Experience nature. Cultivate healthy personal relationships – real ones, not virtual ones. Marry young, have kids, lots of them – especially women, don’t get seduced by all that “career” nonsense. Nobody on his or her deathbed ever said, “Gosh, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Read old books. Cultivate virtue. Go to church.

  Simply being what used to be considered normal and leading a productive life is becoming the most revolutionary act one can perform. With that in mind, find the strength to be revolutionaries indeed! In the face of the culture of death and extinction, choose to affirm life.

  You’ve seen the meme: Hard times create strong men; Strong men create good times; Good times create weak men; Weak men create hard times. Well, take it from the weakling Boomer generation that brought them to you: the hard times, they is a-coming. But they won’t last forever. If you live through them – and some of you will not – we’ll see what possibilities, as of now literally unimaginable, might then exist. But you will need to be personally fit to take advantage of them. You will also need to be part of some kind of sustainable community of likeminded people.

  Thirdly, for those of you who are believers, particularly Christians, we must pray without ceasing, firm in faith that, through whatever hardships may lie ahead, even the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and the final triumph of Truth is never in doubt.

  Thank you, and good luck. You’re going to need it.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 23:45

• China Launching $40 Billion Investment Fund To Subsidize Its Semiconductor Industry
  China Launching $40 Billion Investment Fund To Subsidize Its Semiconductor Industry

  It looks as though the competition in semiconductors between the U.S. and China is only getting started.

  And hey, when it doubt: nationalize the industry! That seems to be China’s strategy after it was announced this week that Beijing is going to be launching a new, $40 billion investment fund backed by the government, to help boost and subsidize its semiconductor industry. 

  This investment will be the largest of three that have been launched by China’s “Big Fund”, the nickname for the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, according to Yahoo Finance. Its focus is going to be on “investment on equipment used in manufacturing advanced chips”.

  Other “Big Fund” funds were launched in 2014 and 2019, with funding provided by companies like China Development Bank Capital, China National Tobacco Corp. and China Telecom. 

  

  Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong Semiconductor have been beneficiaries of the “Big Fund” in the past, as has flash memory chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies, Yahoo reports. 

  The fundraising process “may take months”, according to the report, and it is unclear when China may launch the fund. 

  China is aiming to be self-reliant when it comes to chipmaking at the same time the U.S. has tried to limit the country from accessing advanced chips. 

  Chinese President Xi Jinping’s domestic push for semiconductors comes after the U.S. government’s CHIPS act was launched, providing $39 billion in manufacturing subsidies specifically targeting high end chip production in the U.S.

  The global semiconductor industry remains weighed down by regulation: as of now China has imposed restrictions on Micron and the U.S. has put into place export controls that have caused some companies difficulty in selling to China.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 23:25

• "It's Just Bizarre That Some People Still Want COVID Measures…"
  “It’s Just Bizarre That Some People Still Want COVID Measures…”

  Commentary by Anthony Furey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Let’s start off with a little pop quiz. Please read this headline from CTV News and tell me the year the story was published: “Ontario will not require masks in schools this fall despite uptick in COVID cases.”

  

  I’d like to think that it is from 2021, and that while people were still relatively concerned about the virus, the government determined that it should be up to parents whether or not their kids wore masks in class.

  Alas, this is not true. Ontario still mandated masks at that time.

  OK, so it must be fall of 2022 then? That sounds about right, because it is true that there were no mask mandates in Ontario schools at that point and the majority of kids chose not to wear them.

  It’s not from then, though. This is a news headline from just the other day—September 2023. Why is this considered news? Why is a media outlet even reporting about COVID and schools right now? Was the government even considering a mask mandate?

  These were all good questions that people asked on social media after the story went live. The last one is probably the most important one, because it would be very worrisome if the government was in fact considering such a mandate.

  “As is the case with every jurisdiction in Canada, masks will not be required in Ontario schools,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in an emailed statement to CTV. He then went on to talk about ventilation measures in the classrooms.

  Lecce did not give a press conference on this issue. The ministry didn’t even send out their own press release. While the story doesn’t spell this out, it seems like the intrepid reporter randomly asked the Education Ministry this question out of the blue for the sole purpose of writing this story. The fact that Lecce’s statement began with a nod to how nowhere else is doing this can probably be interpreted as a bit of an eyeroll at the news outlet for even asking the question in the first place. Good.

  It’s just bizarre that some people still want COVID measures right now, and the sprinkling of news stories currently cropping up seem to just play to that increasingly small and oddball base.

  A recent Toronto Star story discussed how small businesses are nervous about having to potentially face COVID restrictions this coming fall and winter. But the business advocates they quoted were just responding to random hypothetical questions put to them. It’s not like there was any government official or credible medical voice who was saying such things were in the works. It’s an entirely manufactured narrative at this point.

  The unfortunate part is that while most people won’t even notice these stories and just go about their daily lives, there will be a small number of people needlessly alarmed and frightened by them.

  Now I’m aware that my simply writing this column is in some ways playing into the efforts of those voices trying to get the COVID band back together again. They clearly want people talking about it as much as possible, even if it’s in opposition to them, just to get the discussion ramped up again. The best response is really just to totally ignore them and the whole narrative.

  One thing that we still haven’t received, though, is accountability when it comes to those who were so horribly wrong. Last fall, some alleged experts tried to claim that the back-to-school season would be a disaster without restrictions and children would suffer greatly from COVID. That didn’t at all come close to happening. So if you were an expert before you made such grandiose predictions—ones that came with calls to restrict the lives of children—the consensus should be that you are no longer an expert. Instead, too many people were encouraged to say ridiculous things and there was no follow-up to check in on how wrong they were.

  The good news, however, is pretty much everyone has tuned out all of this noise by now.

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 23:05

• EU To Seize On Xi, Putin Absence At G20 To Woo Africa Closer
  EU To Seize On Xi, Putin Absence At G20 To Woo Africa Closer

  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s absence from the upcoming G20 Summit in New Delhi likely has a number of Western heads of state breathing a sigh of relief, given some sensitive agendas could more easily gain consensus in their absence.

  China’s new premier, Li Qiang, is taking Xi’s place, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is representing Russia. EU officials will reportedly move to endorse the African Union’s bid to become a permanent member of Group of 20, while presenting themselves as the more stable path forward when it comes to Africa investment and engagement.

  

  Bloomberg has reported that this will be the goal of a high-level meeting with African leaders on the summit’s sidelines. This comes at a very sensitive moment for Europe given the coup events in Niger.

  More broadly, the past years have witnessed a series of junta governments come to power voicing anti-colonial sentiment, aimed particularly at France. 

  Russia and China have at the same time made deep inroads across the continent, offering investment, infrastructure and security agreements as a favorable alternative to “Western hegemony”. Bloomberg details based on diplomatic sources: 

  Among those due to take part are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. From the African side, participants will include leaders from G-20 member South Africa as well as from Egypt, Nigeria and the Comoros, current chair of the African Union, the people said.

  What’s being billed as a “mini-summit” takes place as competition intensifies for global influence amid a US-China standoff and divisions over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

  If it goes through, this would result in the African Union having the same status as the EU (of “permanent membership”, rather than merely “invited international organization”).

  Bloomberg further says that G20 summit host PM Narendra Modi is behind the plan: 

  Among the goals of their meeting in India on Sept. 9, European leaders want to endorse the African Union’s bid to become a permanent G-20 member, according to the people. Giorgia Meloni of Italy was among those leading on the AU’s G-20 membership at the last G-7 in Japan, while it is also a priority of this week’s summit host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

  Map of African countries that have signed military agreements with Russia pic.twitter.com/CKlAC9zePv

  — The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) August 3, 2023

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

  But lest this be seen simplistically an ‘east vs. west’ issue, Russia in June said it backs the AU becoming a permanent part of the G20. Lavrov specifically said it has the “active backing” of Moscow.

  Of course, this entails contrasting visions for the path of African states, given also President Putin has recently said Russia and Africa are going to “combat neo-colonialism, the practice of applying illegitimate sanctions, and attempts to undermine traditional moral values,” according to Russian media. But at least for this year’s G20, the West will have the upper-hand of engagement given their heads of state, including President Joe Biden, will be there, but not Xi or Putin… a first in a long time.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 22:45

• This Is How Bad Things Have Become In America…
  This Is How Bad Things Have Become In America…

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  Can you imagine what tourists must think when they come to this country? 

  They spend a lot of money to fly all the way over here, and they are hoping to have amazing experiences that they will always remember.  But instead, they quickly realize that the cities that they have come to see are rapidly degenerating.  Today, our major cities are filthy, they are teeming with predators, and violent crime is completely out of control. 

  

  Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  New York City is the financial capital of the world, and millions of tourists still visit each year.  But now the Big Apple has such an enormous rat problem “that rat tourism is fast becoming a boom industry”…

  As the city grapples with a major rat problem – sightings doubled last year, prompting the mayor to advertise for a “somewhat bloodthirsty” head rat-catcher in December – the rodent issue is, according to some, New York’s latest must-experience trend.

  As visitors to New York demand rat action, some of the city’s tour guides have started to add stops at notoriously infested sites, the New York Post reported this week.

  It means that rat tourism is fast becoming a boom industry.

  One study concluded that there are about 3 million rats in New York City today.

  And with each passing day, the population grows even larger.

  The east coast may have rats, but if you want to really have an experience with the crime wave that is sweeping across America the best place to do that is the west coast.

  Some tourists from Malta recently found that out the hard way. 

  When they visited a beach in the San Francisco area, they had all of their possessions stolen from their vehicles within just 10 minutes…

  Numerous groups of tourists visiting a beach in San Francisco had all their belongings stolen from their cars, including their passports, while at the ocean for just minutes.

  On their second day in San Francisco, a group of tourists from Malta contemplated cutting their trip short and returning to Europe after the brazen smash and grab that occurred in broad daylight within a mere 10-minute window.

  Another group from Europe was able to top that.

  They had all of their possessions stolen from their vehicle within just 5 minutes…

  At the same beach, another European family enjoying a day by the ocean fell prey to a car break-in.

  Shocking footage captured by Matty Lopez on Instagram and shared by journalist Arisley T. Pacheco, who documents robbery victims, revealed their car’s trunk vandalized, with shattered glass scattered across the ground.

  The man recording the video questions the tourists, ‘So what happened – you went to the beach for five minutes?’ Their response is disheartening: ‘They took everything we had – passports, cameras, phones, iPads, laptops, luggage – everything.’

  Whether we like it or not, this is our country now.

  Once upon a time, Beverly Hills was world famous for the luxury retailers that lined Wilshire Boulevard.

  But now many of those iconic retailers have shut down permanently due to rising crime…

  A new video documenting the growing number of high-profile stores in Beverly Hills that have closed recently, places renewed emphasis on the crisis facing the retail sector in most major cities.

  The video, posted by an account called cody90210, shows some 11 popular Beverly Hills retail stops now entirely shuttered, including the iconic former Barneys location, Brooks Brothers, All Saints, and the high-end women’s fashion boutique Escada. Both Escada and Barneys filed for bankruptcy in recent years.

  The closed shops, which also include convenience retailers like Rite Aid and Chipotle, and even popular workout class option SoulCycle, have shuttered their doors on Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the area bereft of its former appeal. Their sad decline marks a departure from the area’s lengthy heyday, which even saw band Weezer pen a song with the lyrics ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be.’

  I don’t know why anyone would want to live in southern California at this point.

  Earlier today, I came across a story about a street vendor in south Los Angeles that was viciously assaulted by a group of thugs in broad daylight “in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter”…

  A group of masked males brutally attacked a street vendor in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter and stole all his money in south Los Angeles over the weekend, KTLA-TV reported.

  These criminals have no respect for anyone or anything.

  They just want to take what you have.

  Of course this isn’t just a west coast phenomenon.  In Washington D.C., carjackings are up more than 100 percent so far this year…

  Washington D.C. has witnessed a staggering 670 reported carjackings in 2023 so far, representing 100 percent+ increase in the offense across the U.S. Capitol compared to the same period last year. The city’s Democrat-dominated city council, however, remains on vacation until September 15 and has shown no signs of trying to return early to solve the matter. In 2018, there were 140 carjackings, jumping to 360 by 2020, with total of 485 in 2022. The city has also seen a 113 percent increase in carjackings involving a firearm compared to 2022. A total of 513 incidents involved a gun, representing 77 percent of all D.C. carjackings. Only 157 incidents did not involve a firearm.

  Things are even worse in Baltimore.

  One young mother in the city that recently spoke to FOX45 News is deeply frustrated because she can’t seem to find a way to keep her 14-year-old daughter from stealing cars…

  As another school year begins, a Baltimore mom isn’t scheduling after-school activities for her 14-year-old daughter; instead, she’s scheduling court appearances and trying to figure out what – if anything – will get her daughter to stop stealing cars and follow the rules of her home detention.

  Rae spoke with FOX45 News about her 14-year-old daughter on the condition of not using her last name or showing her face on camera. In return, Rae spoke candidly about her daughter’s behavior, experience with police, and the Department of Juvenile Services.

  Apparently this 14-year-old girl is really good at stealing vehicles, and authorities refuse to keep her locked up because she is not an adult.

  Hopefully she will find a way to turn her life around.

  But the reality of the matter is that there are millions of others just like her.

  Our cities are being overwhelmed by hordes of young people that are totally out of control, and meanwhile police departments are shrinking.

  In fact, some small towns have eliminated their police departments entirely because it has become so difficult to find people that are willing to serve in this environment…

  America is in the midst of a police officer shortage that many in law enforcement blame on the two-fold morale hit of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic and criticism of police that boiled over with the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. From Minnesota to Maine, Ohio to Texas, small towns unable to fill jobs are eliminating their police departments and turning over police work to their county sheriff, a neighboring town or state police.

  What is going to happen if the number of police continues to shrink but the number of criminals continues to rise?

  I think that we all know the answer to that question.

  Great chaos is coming to this country, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

  Our society has been trending the wrong way for a long time, and now we have reached a major tipping point.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 22:25

• "Betrayed Customer Base": Backlash Erupts After Gun Safe Company Gives FBI Customer's Passcode 
  “Betrayed Customer Base”: Backlash Erupts After Gun Safe Company Gives FBI Customer’s Passcode 

  Liberty Safe, one of the leading gun safe manufacturers in the country, provided FBI agents with the combination of a safe belonging to an individual who attended the J6 protest, according to the Washington Examiner. This sparked instant backlash on social media among conservatives, calling for a ‘Bud Light-style’ boycott of the ‘not so safe’ company.

  Days ago, conservative comedians and YouTubers Keith and Kevin Hodge shared a lengthy post on X about a friend whom the Feds raided over “crimes related to January 6th.” They said the FBI could access his Liberty Gun Safe because agents called the manufacturer for the passcode.  

  🚨 Last week, a friend of ours was raided by the feds over J6, his name is Nathan Hughes and he’s from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Nate was raided by the FBI and arrested at gun point. His girlfriend (who just had a miscarriage) was held at gun point and put in handcuffs. The FBI… pic.twitter.com/LOpMQ28eUJ

  — Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) September 5, 2023

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

  Liberty Safe stated on platform X, “Our company’s standard procedure is to share access codes with law enforcement when presented with a legitimate warrant for a property.”

  The statement continued, “After receiving the request, we received proof of the valid warrant, and only then did we provide them with an access code.”

  pic.twitter.com/UD6gxErzHV

  — Liberty Safe (@libertysafeinc) September 6, 2023

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

  Liberty Safe further noted that its policies are regularly updated to comply with the law and remain committed to “preserving our customers’ rights.” 

  … and conservatives were livid with Liberty Safe for complying with the FBI’s order:

  Liberty Safe = Bud light. https://t.co/okeXSRSFNP

  — Catturd ™ (@catturd2) September 6, 2023

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

  Liberty Not So Safe https://t.co/Qs3YV2NMW7

  — Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) September 6, 2023

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

  They finally shut replies off.

  This company is going under.

  Totally betrayed customer base. It’s impossible to earn back that trust. They had a moral duty to protect customers, and instead placated feds through a secret back door. Ugly, ugly stuff. https://t.co/xUtoH2IiaZ

  — Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) September 6, 2023

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

  And one more thing: absent a court order, you weren’t required to give them anything. You voluntarily gave out a combination over a warrant, per your own release, that didn’t apply to you or your property.

  Maybe start marketing your stuff as Bud Light storage. https://t.co/6YN0BDEGZd

  — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 6, 2023

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

  Hmmm. 

  i dont care that liberty safe gave the code to the feds

  i care that they had the codes in the first place

  Liberty safes are completely worthless https://t.co/Rn562z3NYH

  — Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 6, 2023

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

  Customers who own these safes and others should read the fine print of who can gain access to their safes.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 22:05

• Republicans Reject Motions To Dismiss Impeachment Articles Against Texas AG Ken Paxton
  Republicans Reject Motions To Dismiss Impeachment Articles Against Texas AG Ken Paxton

  Authored by Jana J. Pruet via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Texas Senate chamber was turned into a courtroom for the historic impeachment trial of state Attorney General Ken Paxton, which kicked off Tuesday morning at the state Capitol in Austin, Texas.

  

  After the swearing-in of the 30 senators who will decide whether or not to remove Mr. Paxton from office, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick began ticking off the pretrial motions before hearing opening statements.

  Mr. Paxton was impeached on 20 articles in late May by the GOP-led House of Representatives in a vote of 121–23. He is only the third sitting official to be impeached in the state’s nearly 200-year history. The last impeachment case was more than a century ago.

  The articles of impeachment include allegations of abuse of power and bribery, among others. Mr. Paxton and his lawyers have maintained that all of the accusations are false.

  The suspended attorney general is known as one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state of Texas. He has filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the Biden administration since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

  Dozens of Paxton supporters wearing red shirts showed up to witness the proceedings.

  Pretrial Motions

  The first half of the day was spent handling dozens of pretrial motions to dismiss the articles of impeachment, exclude certain evidence, and other matters as filed by Mr. Paxton’s legal team—all were denied.

  A simple majority, 16 of the 30 voting members, was needed to approve each of the motions. The most support Mr. Paxton received was 10 votes of 30 to dismiss one article. Many of the motions only garnered six to eight votes in Mr. Paxton’s favor.

  Mr. Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, watched from her Senate seat as the proceedings against her husband began. She is barred from voting or participating in the trial, according to the rules approved earlier this summer.

  Of the Senate Republicans, only six voted in support of Paxton to dismiss every article. They were Sens. Paul Bettencourt, Donna Campbell, Brandon Creighton, Bob Hall, Lois Kolkhorst, and Tan Parker.

  Five other Republicans voted to dismiss at least one of the motions: Sens. Bryan Hughes, Charles Perry, Charles Schwertner, and Kevin Sparks.

  The remaining Republicans, Sens. Brian Birdwell, Pete Flores, Kelly Hancock, Joan Huffman, Mayes Middleton, Robert Nichols, and Drew Springer, voted against every motion alongside the 12 Senate Democrats.

  In a summary judgment, Mr. Paxton’s attorneys argued that all of the impeachment articles lacked supporting evidence and, therefore, should be dismissed.

  The senators denied the first motion to dismiss all 20 articles in a vote of 24–6.

  In a win for Mr. Paxton, he was granted a request to preclude him from testifying, citing a defendent’s right not to be called as a witness in a criminal trial.

  “The attorney general cannot be compelled to testify,” Mr. Patrick stated, adding that the decision is “consistent with the reasoning and judgment” of the United States Supreme Court.

  Mr. Patrick also laid out the timing for the trial. Each side will be allowed one hour for opening and closing statements and 24 hours for each side to present evidence, questioning, and cross-examination of witnesses. The trial is expected to last about two weeks.

  

  House Impeachment Managers’ Opening Statements

  House Rep. Andrew Murr presented the opening statements for House impeachment managers who say Mr. Paxton should be removed from office despite being re-elected to a third term in November.

  House impeachment managers have accused Mr. Paxton of using his position to protect real estate investor Nate Paul, who they claim had the “keys” to the attorney general’s office.

  They allege Mr. Paul helped Mr. Paxton cover up an extramarital affair and paid for a home renovation in exchange for the attorney general’s legal help.

  “Voters did not know the whole truth.” Mr. Murr said. “Mr. Paxton went to great lengths to hide his misconduct from the public.”

  Mr. Murr spent less than 20 minutes citing impeachable actions that included accusations that Mr. Paxton used burner phones, “ditched” his security detail, and set up secret email addresses to cover up his alleged misconduct.

  He claims the evidence will show Mr. Paxton’s “slow creep of corruption,” adding that the attorney general’s conduct does not have to be proven criminal for him to be removed from office.

  “We don’t have to show some type of quid pro quo to establish that his conduct warrants impeachment,” Mr. Murr said. “Wrongs justifying impeachment don’t have to be crimes. Wrongs justifying the impeachment are broader than that because they have the purpose of protecting the state, not punishing the offender.”

  Opening Statements for Paxton

  High-profile Houston attorney Tony Buzbee called the entire case a “whole lot of nothing” supported by no evidence.

  Mr. Buzbee and defense attorney Dan Cogdell used nearly their full hour pushing back against the accusations they say will be disproven beyond a reasonable doubt.

  They accused the media of fueling the falsehoods against their client and said the gag order issued by Mr. Patrick prevented them from responding to the “manufactured lies” leveled against their client.

  Now, the House wants 30 people to decide whether Mr. Paxton is allowed to serve his office despite the more than 4.2 million who re-elected him less than a year ago. Mr. Buzbee said.

  Mr. Buzbee pointed out the speedy impeachment process that occurred four days after Mr. Paxton called for House Speaker Dade Phelan’s resignation over accusations of drunkenness while presiding on the floor.

  The lawyer also pushed back against accusations that Mr. Paul gave a job to the woman Mr. Paxton allegedly was having an affair with, adding that they would present the woman’s job application, employee contract, and paystubs to disprove the allegations of bribery. He said the woman was hired to do real work and that she is still employed in that position.

  “You’re going to see her face,” Mr. Buzbee said. “You’re going to hear about the work that she did. And you’re also going to hear that she continues to do that work today. She’s doing real work.”

  He said the accusations of burner phones, secret email addresses, and other actions are false.

  Mr. Buzbee said his team will present evidence that the Paxtons paid for the repairs to their home after it sustained water damage. He said the chatter of $20,000 granite countertops is completely untrue, adding that the home still has “ratty” countertops after the couple shopped for new countertops but ultimately decided against them due to costs.

  House impeachment managers also accused the attorney general of hiring Brandon Cammack, a Houston lawyer, to investigate Mr. Paul’s “baseless complaint” that his home and businesses were improperly searched by federal officials. Mr. Buzbee said Mr. Paxton was within his rights to hire the outside lawyer.

  After wrapping up the opening statements, House impeachment managers called their first witness, Jeff Mateer. Mr. Mateer was second-in-command in Mr. Paxton’s office prior to his resignation in 2020, following his meeting with the FBI regarding the relationship between Mr. Paxton and Mr. Paul.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 21:45

• Philly PD Commissioner Danielle Outlaw To Resign Amidst Ongoing Crime Wave
  Philly PD Commissioner Danielle Outlaw To Resign Amidst Ongoing Crime Wave

  In what’ll likely come as a welcome relief to the city of Philadelphia, its police commissioner Danielle Outlaw – who has overseen years of surging crime, property destruction and violent attacks in the Northeast city – has had enough and is stepping down.

  She’s leaving her role in Philadelphia for “a new job with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey”, according to Fox News. 

  After overseeing a massive crime wave in Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney praised her work in the city, focusing not on the merits of her work (of which there are few), but her “reform” of “racism and gender discrimination”, stating: “Commissioner Outlaw has worked relentlessly for three and a half years during an unprecedented era in our city and a number of crisis situations, and she deserves praise for her commitment to bring long-overdue reform to the Department after years of racism and gender discrimination prior to her appointment.” 

  And why not focus on the merits of her work? Fox News broke it down:

  Crime data from the Philadelphia Police Department shows there has been a 21% drop in homicides this year to date compared to the same day in 2021, when the city recorded 562 homicides throughout the year. 

  But prior to Outlaw leading the department, the data shows Philadelphia annually recorded between 246 to 391 homicides each year between 2007 and 2019.

  In 2020, when she took over, there were 499 homicides, followed by 562 in 2021 and 516 in 2022.

  

  Her last day will be September 22, and she will then become Deputy Chief Security Officer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

  Outlaw, formerly the police chief of Portland during a time of “mass political protests”, was appointed to lead Philadelphia’s police at just 43 years old by Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney. “While I am new to Philadelphia, I am not new to the challenges of big-city, 21st century policing,” she said upon her appointment. 

  “I am appointing Danielle Outlaw because I am convinced she has the conviction, courage, and compassion needed to bring long-overdue reform to the Department,” Kenney had said at the time. 

  He continued: “With our support, she will tackle a host of difficult issues, from racism and gender discrimination, to horrid instances of sexual assault on fellow officers. These are issues that too often negatively impact women — especially women of color — within the Department. Commissioner Outlaw will implement reforms with urgency, so that racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination are not tolerated.”

  It doesn’t seem like any public officials are actually interested in their jobs in Philadelphia – perhaps, rather, just collecting their pensions. Recall in 2022 we wrote when Mayor Kenney said he was “looking forward to the time he will no longer lead the city”.

  When being interviewed by Fox 29’s Chris O’Connell, Kenney let it slip that he’s looking forward to no longer being mayor: “Everything we have in the city, over the last seven years, I worry about. I don’t enjoy the Fourth of July, I don’t enjoy the Democratic National Convention, I didn’t enjoy the NFL Draft. I’m waiting for something bad to happen all the time. I’ll be happy when I’m not here – when I’m not mayor and I can enjoy some stuff.” 

  Two peas in a productivity pod…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 21:25

• 3 Reasons There's Something Sinister With The Big Push For Electric Vehicles
  3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With The Big Push For Electric Vehicles

  Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

  25 refrigerators.

  That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs).

  

  Congressman Thomas Massie – an electrical engineer – revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030.

  The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load.

  Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread adoption of electric vehicles anytime soon is a dangerous fantasy based on political science, not sound engineering.

  Nonetheless, governments, the media, academia, large corporations, and celebrities tout an imminent “transition” to EVs as if it’s preordained from above.

  It’s not.

  They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

  Below are three reasons why something sinister is going on with the big push for EVs.

  But first, a necessary clarification.

  You no doubt have heard of the term “fossil fuels” before.

  When the average person hears “fossil fuels,” they think of a dirty technology that belongs in the 1800s. Many believe they are burning dead dinosaurs to power their cars.

  They also think “fossil fuels” will destroy the planet within a decade and run out soon—despite the fact that, after water, oil is the second most abundant liquid on this planet.

  None of these ridiculous notions are true, but many people believe them. Using propaganda terms like “fossil fuels” plays a large role.

  Orwell was correct when he said that corrupting the language can corrupt people’s thoughts.

  I suggest expunging “fossil fuels” from your vocabulary in favor of hydrocarbons—a much better and more precise word.

  A hydrocarbon is a molecule made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms. These molecules are the building blocks of many different substances, including energy sources like coal, oil, and gas. These energy sources have been the backbone of the global economy for decades, providing power for industries, transportation, and homes.

  Now, on to the three reasons EVs are a giant scam at best and possibly something much worse.

  Reason #1: EVs Are Not Green

  The central premise for EVs is they help to save the planet from carbon because they use electricity instead of gas.

  It’s astounding so few think to ask, what generates the electricity that powers EVs?

  Hydrocarbons generate over 60% of the electricity in the US. That means there’s an excellent chance that oil, coal, or gas is behind the electricity charging an EV.

  It’s important to emphasize carbon is an essential element for life on this planet. It’s what humans exhale and what plants need to survive.

  After decades of propaganda, Malthusian hysterics have created a twisted perception in many people’s minds that carbon is a dangerous substance that must be reduced to save the planet.

  Let’s entertain this bogus premise momentarily and assume carbon is bad.

  Even by this logic, EVs do not really reduce carbon emissions; they just rearrange them.

  Further, extracting and processing the exotic materials needed to make EVs requires tremendous power in remote locations, which only hydrocarbons can provide.

  Additionally, EVs require an enormous amount of rare elements and metals—like lithium and cobalt—that companies mine in conditions that couldn’t remotely be considered friendly to the environment.

  Analysts estimate that each EV requires around one kilogram of rare earth elements. Extracting and processing these rare elements produces a massive amount of toxic waste. That’s why it mainly occurs in China, which doesn’t care much about environmental concerns.

  In short, the notion that EVs are green is laughable.

  It’s simply the thin patina of propaganda that governments need as a pretext to justify the astronomical taxpayer subsidies for EVs.

  Reason #2: EVs Can’t Compete Without Government Support

  For many years, governments have heavily subsidized EVs through rebates, sales tax exemptions, loans, grants, tax credits, and other means.

  According to the Wall Street Journal, US taxpayers will subsidize EVs by at least $393 billion in the coming years—more than the GDP of Hong Kong.

  To put that in perspective, if you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 12,677 YEARS to make $393 billion.

  And that’s not even considering the immense subsidies and government support that have occurred in the past.

  Furthermore, governments impose burdensome regulations and taxes on gasoline vehicles to make EVs seem relatively more attractive.

  Even with this enormous government support, EVs can barely compete with gasoline vehicles.

  According to J.D. Power, a consumer research firm, the average EV still costs at least 21% more than the average gasoline vehicle.

  Without government support, it’s not hard to see how the market for EVs would evaporate as they would become unaffordable for the vast majority of people.

  In other words, the EV market is a giant mirage artificially propped up by extensive government intervention.

  It begs the question, why are governments going all out to push an obviously uneconomic scam?

  While they are undoubtedly corrupt thieves and simply stupid, something more nefarious could also be at play.

  Reason #3: EVs Are About Controlling You

  EVs are spying machines.

  They collect an unimaginable amount of data on you, which governments can access easily.

  Analysts estimate that cars generate about 25 gigabytes of data every hour.

  Seeing how governments could integrate EVs into a larger high-tech control grid doesn’t take much imagination. The potential for busybodies—or worse—to abuse such a system is obvious.

  Consider this.

  The last thing any government wants is an incident like what happened with the Canadian truckers rebelling against vaccine mandates.

  Had the Canadian truckers’ vehicles been EVs, the government would have been able to stamp out the resistance much easier.

  Here’s the bottom line.

  The people really in charge do not want the average person to have genuine freedom of movement or access to independent power sources.

  They want to know everything, keep you dependent, and have the ability to control everything, just like how a farmer would with his cattle. They think of you in similar terms.

  That’s why gasoline vehicles have to go and why they are trying to herd us into EVs.

  Conclusion

  To summarize, EVs are not green, cannot compete with gas cars without enormous government support, and are probably a crucial piece of the emerging high-tech control grid.

  The solution is simple: eliminate all government subsidies and support and let EVs compete on their own merits in a totally free market.

  But that’s unlikely to happen.

  Instead, it’s only prudent to expect them to push EVs harder and harder.

  If EVs were simply government-subsidized status symbols for wealthy liberals who want to virtue signal how they think they’re saving the planet, that would be bad enough.

  But chances are, the big push for EVs represents something much worse.

  Along with 15-minute cities, carbon credits, CBDCs, digital IDs, phasing out hydrocarbons and meat, vaccine passports, an ESG social credit system, and the war on farmers, EVs are likely an integral part of the Great Reset—the dystopian future the global elite has envisioned for mankind.

  In reality, the so-called Great Reset is a high-tech form of feudalism.

  Sadly, most of humanity has no idea what is coming.

  Worse, many have become unwitting foot soldiers for this agenda because they have been gaslighted into believing they are saving the planet or acting for the greater good.

  This trend is already in motion… and the coming weeks will be pivotal.

  That’s precisely why I just released an urgent report on where this is all headed and what you can do about it… including three strategies everyone needs today. Click here to download the PDF now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 21:05

• Murder & Drug Chaos Forces Lockdown Of Entire Texas Prison System
  Murder & Drug Chaos Forces Lockdown Of Entire Texas Prison System

  The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) declared a statewide lockdown of all its correctional facilities on Wednesday morning, citing increased contraband-related incidents and drug-related inmate homicides.

  TDCJ said most inmate-on-inmate homicides “are tied back to illegal drugs … and over the last five years, the volume of illegal narcotics entering the system has substantially increased.”

  In response to the drug and murder epidemic in Texas jails, TDCJ is implementing the following strategies to restore order:

  • Systemwide Lockdown: Each facility will limit the movement of inmates and their contact with those outside the prison. Inmates and staff will undergo intensified searches to intercept and confiscate contraband.

  • Digital Mail: TDCJ is completing the rollout of the digital mail program. Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in paper soaked in K2 or methamphetamines coming into our facilities. The digital mail program will halt this contraband being sent through traditional mail. Effective September 6, 2023, all inmate mail should be addressed and sent to the Digital Mail Center. All mail received this week will be delivered to the digital mail processing center. More information about this program can be found here: TDCJ News – TDCJ Digital Mail Rollout.

  • Increased K9 Searches and Other Technology: To assist in contraband detection and outside funding related to contraband, TDCJ will be deploying additional resources. Specialized search teams and narcotic dogs will be deployed to units and staff will be subject to enhanced search procedures.

  • Comprehensive Searches: All persons entering our facilities at all locations will undergo comprehensive searches.

  “Due to the fact staff will be concentrating on these search efforts, visitation will be canceled until further notice. Inmates will still have access to the phone system and tablets,” TDCJ said. 

  #TDCJ is taking swift & immediate action to address a rise in dangerous contraband & drug-related inmate homicides. The agency is implementing an immediate lockdown & comprehensive search of all correctional facilities within TDCJ. For more info, visit: https://t.co/E4ufaah3s2 pic.twitter.com/3YPwo1aRBH

  — TDCJ (@TDCJ) September 6, 2023

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

  Once the drug searches are over, normal operations will resume at correction facilities. No timeframe has been given. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 20:45

• California School To Pay $100,000 Settlement For Keeping 11-Year-Old's Gender Transition Secret
  California School To Pay $100,000 Settlement For Keeping 11-Year-Old’s Gender Transition Secret

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A California school district that was sued over allegations teachers and staff at Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, Calif., coached an 11-year-old girl to socially transition to a male gender identity settled with the girl and her mother for $100,000.

  

  The lawsuit, filed on June 14 last year, named Spreckels Union School District, the principal at the school, and two teachers as defendants.

  Jessica Konen, the child’s mother, came forward after a leaked audio recording revealed the two teachers telling other educators about how they secretly recruited students into the school’s LGBT club at a California Teachers Association weekend conference in Palm Springs in October 2021. The CTA event was billed as the “2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities.” The two teachers were later suspended and no longer work in the district.

  Ms. Konen told The Epoch Times she’s relieved that a settlement has finally been reached.

  “It’s a massive victory across America for myself, for my daughter, and for other parents experiencing similar situations,” she said. “Our voices made a difference.”

  While she is grateful to the Center for American Liberty for taking on the pro-bono case, she said the battle for parental rights has only begun.

  “I just feel social transitioning done in secrecy is the real evil. We need to get rid of it, period. So, the fight must continue,” she said.

  Her daughter, Alicia Konen, who is now 16, echoed her mom’s sentiments, saying she’s ready to put the experience, which she described as “evil” and “horrible,” behind her.

  According to the Center for American Liberty and allegations in the lawsuit, Alicia was recruited to join an “Equality Club,” where she was taught about bisexuality, transgender identities, and other LGBT concepts when she was in the sixth grade.

  Alicia began to use a male name and pronouns and wore a chest binder under boy’s clothes.

  School staff finally called a meeting the last day before winter break during Alicia’s seventh grade year and demanded that Ms. Konen refer to her daughter by a male name and male pronouns, she said.

  “I was definitely intimidated,” she said.

  Ms. Konen recalls feeling awkward and stressed when she was tagging Alicia’s Christmas gifts.

  She wanted to be supportive to her daughter but wasn’t ready to call her by a male name and pronouns, so she wrote “Baby” and “Sweetheart” instead.

  “I was an emotional wreck trying to process everything. I was scared to mess up or to use the wrong pronouns,” she said. “I never used the male pronouns, and I never used the name.”

  Ms. Konen warned parents to “be vigilant,” talk to teachers, and pay attention to what’s happening at local school board meetings.

  

  “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to show your values and your opinions,” she said.

  She also urged parents to get more engaged in their children’s lives.

  “We need to fight for our kids, because if we don’t fight for our kids, they’ll fight for our kids,” she said. “Be close to your child, because somebody wants to get closer.”

  ‘I Wanted to Tell My Mom’

  Alicia’s social gender transition began when she went to see a school counselor because she was feeling depressed, she told The Epoch Times.

  “I was told by the counselor—it was brought up that I was sad because I wasn’t who I was supposed to be, and that’s kind of where it all started,” she said.

  Alicia was “pulled away” from her schoolwork, and the counselor who she said was working with the school to “socially transition kids,” put her on a Gender Support Plan, known as a GSP, which required school staff to use a male name and pronouns when referring to her, and to allow her to use the unisex teachers’ restroom instead of the girl’s facilities.

  “I was advised by the school not to tell my mom, and I was given articles on how to hide a social transition from my mom,” she said. “I was extremely confused, and honestly very scared. I wanted to tell my mom, and continually said I wanted to tell her, but I was encouraged to keep it a secret. … The school said that my mother wouldn’t support me.”

  But, throughout the ordeal which lasted for more than a year, Alicia believed her mom would support her no matter what.

  

  Alicia said she has felt better about herself since she left middle school and entered high school where she is “actually able to focus on my academics.”

  And she is comfortable with her gender.

  “I am 1,000 percent a girl. I am Alicia. That is who I am, and no one can ever change that,” she said. “I feel free finally. I feel like I’m not under control by anybody. I can finally move forward with my life and be happy.”

  The Konens hope their high-profile case will draw attention and encourage other families to challenge state and local school board policies that exclude parents from their children’s lives.

  “I think that throughout the country there will be a lot more coming forward, realizing that they were never alone,” Ms. Konen said. “There are people out there who are hurt.”

  The settlement means they’re both able to talk more freely about their experience and have considered writing a book.

  “It is a complete passion of mine to continue to spread awareness,” she said.

  Alicia said she feels “extremely bad,” for other children who were socially transitioned at school.

  “That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to come out and speak about this case, because I want to be a voice for the people who feel like they don’t have a voice.”

  Ms. Konen said the school staff took advantage of her daughter’s young mind and vulnerable state, which she called “a form of brainwashing,” and didn’t tell her that Alicia was having suicidal thoughts.

  If parents are kept in the dark about their children’s problems, they won’t be able to help support them or get them the therapy they need, she said.

  “It’s extremely dangerous,” Ms. Konen said, “What if something happens that is irreversible? … If a child only has the support of schools, what happens when they go home? What happens when they have those bad days? What happens when they’re confused at home?”

  The best way to prevent youth suicides is for school staff and parents to work together, Ms. Konen said.

  “If everyone’s included, then that is in the best interest of the child—not hiding it,” she said. “The secret stuff has to go.”

  A spokesperson for the Spreckels Union School District was not immediately available for comment.

  

  ‘Hard to Put a Dollar Value on It’

  Eric Sell, a civil rights attorney at the Center for American Liberty who represented the Konens, told The Epoch Times the school district settled the case based on the underlying allegations in the lawsuit but hasn’t admitted any fault or liability.

  “What happened to Alicia, Jessica is hard to quantify. It’s hard to put a dollar value on it,” he said.

  But the $100,000 settlement will serve as a deterrent for other school districts that continue “to propagate these policies and keep parents in the dark,” Mr. Sell said. “As far as we are aware, this is the first time a school district has had to pay a family money for secretly transitioning their kid behind their backs.”

  The Center for American liberty is interested in such cases because it has seen a systematic erosion of parental rights, “particularly by government actors and schools,” he said.

  The problem is “really apparent” in California in public schools where gender ideology is “infecting schools” and “pushing kids towards dangerous decisions and dangerous life paths,” he said.

  Children, who may or may not fully weigh all the consequences of their actions, are making decisions that can potentially lead to medicalization or surgery and irreversible damage to their own bodies, he said.

  “We’re seeing so much of this that … the Center for American Liberty has decided to focus some of its time and resources on combating this specific problem,” Mr. Sell said.

  He said “it’s absurd” that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued Chino Valley Unified School District over its parental notification policy requiring school staff to inform parents within a few days if their child changes his or her gender identity at school.

  “The Supreme Court has consistently held that parents have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” states the Center for American Liberty on its website.

  “This includes the right to have a say in whether their children’s school socially transitions them to a different gender. Parents are denied that right when schools think they know better than parents how to raise their children and intentionally hide information from moms and dads.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 20:25

• Germany To More Than Triple Ammunition Purchases After Stockpile Depleted Through Ukraine 'Gifts'
  Germany To More Than Triple Ammunition Purchases After Stockpile Depleted Through Ukraine ‘Gifts’

  Amid the broader problem of Ukrainian frontlines not advancing against superior Russian artillery and vast mine fields, Europe has been scrambling to boost its military support to Kiev. But now the problem of Europe’s own diminishing defense supplies is being felt more than ever, as many predicted.

  On Wednesday German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said his country plans to drastically ramp up purchases of ammunition in 2024, in an effort to replenish Germany’s own stocks which were depleted by donations to Ukraine.

  “We aim to more than triple our spending on ammunition purchases in 2024,” he said in a speech before parliament, but without revealing further details.

  

  Ukrainian forces have been burning through shells at a much higher rate than Western countries can produce them. While Washington makes a nice show of pledging new billions to the Zelensky government, it only does limited good on the actual battlefield given more artillery and weapons cannot magically appear in only days.

  NATO countries starting months ago sounded the alarm over their own dwindling inventories, also at a moment the risk ever-remains that the Western alliance and Russia could enter a direct shooting war.

  But Germany and its European allies are working on a plan, as Reuters explains:

  Germany is in negotiations with the Netherlands and Denmark on the joint procurement of ammunition, a defence source told Reuters on Wednesday, as Western countries are scrambling to replenish stocks depleted by donations to Ukraine. Germany is in negotiations with the Netherlands and Denmark on the joint procurement of ammunition, a defence source told Reuters on Wednesday, as Western countries are scrambling to replenish stocks depleted by donations to Ukraine.

  “Germany is ready to open its framework contracts (for the procurement of ammunition) to our partners as Defence Minister Boris Pistorius pledged earlier this year,” the source said, without giving details on the kind of ammunition affected.

  Meanwhile, Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, has said in an interview given to Russian media that Ukraine is blowing through an estimated $100 million per day on the conflict.

  “There’s no accountability for the expenditures going on right now in Ukraine, […] but $100 million a day of spending is a lot in the minds of the American people, especially when they’re confronted with inflation. That’s real money to them,” Maloof said.

  Ukraine Money Train: Kyiv Spending $100 Million Per Day on War, Says Ousted Defence Ministerhttps://t.co/geuzseBTiR

  — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 5, 2023

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  He said that now former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov recently publicized the figure. “When he [Reznikov] comes up and starts making comments like that and we’re seeing the disasters that we are in, the question then arises, why are we continuing to fund this thing? We’re not seeing results. The West is not seeing results. Europe is saying the same thing,” Maloof added.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 20:05

• Judge Reinstates Georgia's Ban On Puberty Blockers, Hormone Therapies For Minors
  Judge Reinstates Georgia’s Ban On Puberty Blockers, Hormone Therapies For Minors

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Georgia’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors with gender dysphoria can be reinstated, citing a recent federal appeals court decision that upheld a similar Alabama law.

  

  U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty, an appointee of President Joe Biden, had on Aug. 20 issued a preliminary injunction (pdf) temporarily halting Georgia’s ban, which was scheduled to take effect on July 1.

  She ruled that without an injunction, the plaintiffs, who are a group of parents with anonymous middle-school-aged transgender children, would experience “irreparable harm.” The judge stated that puberty blockers and hormone treatments had “been recommended by their health care providers in light of their individual diagnoses and mental health needs.”

  However, on the same day the injunction was ordered, the 11th Circuit of Appeals ruled that a similar ban in Alabama could proceed. The 11th Circuit hears appeals from Georgia as well.

  After the appeals court ruling, Alabama Attorney General Chris Carr urged Judge Geraghty to vacate her injunction.

  On Tuesday, Judge Geraghty put the injunction on hold pending a final decision in that case, saying it “rests on legal grounds that have been squarely rejected by the panel” in the Alabama case, but that further appeals in that matter were underway.

  Georgia’s ban encompasses two primary provisions: firstly, it bars minors from obtaining hormone replacement therapies and sex reassignment surgeries to address their gender dysphoria from licensed health care facilities. Secondly, it stipulates that medical providers who contravene this law risk losing their licenses.

  However, the initial complaint solely focused on hormone therapy and did not encompass any concerns related to surgery.

  The plaintiffs brought the lawsuit against the state in June. They contend that the ban infringes upon parents’ rights to make medical choices concerning the health and welfare of their children. It further alleges that the ban obstructs parents from obtaining suitable medical care for their children who are grappling with gender dysphoria.

  A spokesperson for Mr. Carr welcomed Judge Geraghty’s Tuesday ruling.

  “We are pleased with the court’s decision and will continue fighting to protect the health and well-being of Georgia’s children,” said Kara Richardson in a statement.

  In March, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, approved a state law that prohibits specific medical procedures and treatments for minors who suffer from gender dysphoria, which refers to the emotional distress experienced by some individuals who don’t feel their biological sex matches their “gender identity.”

  That law notes there’s been a “massive unexplained rise in diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children over the past 10 years, with most of those experiencing this phenomenon being girls.”

  The Georgia law bars minors from undergoing transgender surgeries, although this aspect of the law was not under consideration in the case presided over by Judge Geraghty.

  Approximately six federal courts have issued injunctions against restrictions on what is commonly referred to as “gender-affirming care” for minors. Advocates assert that such care is deemed “medically necessary” as it can significantly reduce the risk of individuals experiencing gender dysphoria resorting to suicide.

  Opponents challenge the idea that transgender procedures definitively reduce suicide rates. A March research review, which focused solely on suicide likelihood, found inconclusive results.

  This uncertainty is due to a lack of control for the time elapsed after transgender procedures. Researchers suggest that individuals may experience an initial improvement in mental health, but over time, this effect could diminish, potentially leading to a return of pre-procedure levels of suicidal ideation.

  “There may be implications for the informed-consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed,” the study authors wrote.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 19:45

• Gucci? A Wig Shop? Unprosecuted Crime, Economic Woes Turn Beverly Hills Into Ghost Town
  Gucci? A Wig Shop? Unprosecuted Crime, Economic Woes Turn Beverly Hills Into Ghost Town

  Residents of the upscale Southern California enclave of Beverly Hills are getting what they voted for, after a spate of looting has turned the liberal utopia into a virtual ghost town amid a souring economic backdrop that’s seen 11 popular shops entirely shuttered – including the iconic Barneys location.

  In review:

  Damn they robbed the Gucci store in Beverly Hills 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Tq3KBwc1Ct

  — Shannonnn sharpes Burner (PARODY Account) (@shannonsharpeee) August 1, 2023

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

  (not the first time)

  Then it was wigs…

  Across town in Glendale, thieves stole around $300,000 worth of merchandise from the Yves Saint Laurent store.

  Now, a viral TikTok video reveals the ghost town Beverly Hills has become.

  @cody90210 Its giving Recesion Core #santamonica #thirdstreetpromenade #thirdstreet #losangeles #recession2023 #recessioncore #bailout ♬ Love – Live From The Village – Keyshia Cole

  Other stores which have closed include Brooks Brothers, All Saints, and high-end women’s fashion store Escada, according to the Daily Mail, which notes that both Escada and Barneys have filed for bankruptcy in recent years.

  

  The closed shops, which also include convenience retailers like Rite Aid and Chipotle, and even popular workout class option SoulCycle, have shuttered their doors on Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the area bereft of its former appeal. Their sad decline marks a departure from the area’s lengthy heyday, which even saw band Weezer pen a song with the lyrics ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be.’

  The reasons for the ample number of closures vary, as many brands see a decrease in demand for in-person retail experiences, while others pivot business strategies following acquisitions by other brands. The downturned economy has also negatively impacted most brands, but especially those marketing luxury products. -Daily Mail

  Meanwhile, retailers in California are deailing with a major crime wave and District Attorneys who refuse to prosecute criminals.

  https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 19:25

• The Pentagon Wants To Affirm Your Gender Transition (But Not If You're Avoiding The Draft)
  The Pentagon Wants To Affirm Your Gender Transition (But Not If You’re Avoiding The Draft)

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  The costumed bureaucrats at the Pentagon we call “generals” have spent much of the last decade enthusiastically assisting three different administrations in “affirming” military employees who “transition” or consider themselves transgender.

  Openly identifying as transgender has been permitted in the US military since 2016 under the Obama administration. The Trump administration did not reverse this policy but took steps to limit the number of employees undergoing sex-change surgeries and other active efforts at “transitioning.”

  Since 2021, however, the Pentagon has returned to the earlier Obama-era policy of paying for surgeries, hormone usage, and related treatments requested by military employees. From 2007 to 2009, more than $3 million has been spent on surgeries, with and additional $12 million spent on related procedures.

  The Pentagon in recent years has fallen all over itself to pander to LGBT interest groups, as can be seen in this military recruitment video titled “Emma,” and in the fact that the Navy promoted as “non-binary” drag queen as the face of one of the Navy’s recruitment drives. 

  Given that the Pentagon has made it clear it is devoted to affirming these life choices among potential recruits, it would be reasonable to assume that the Pentagon rejects the idea that one’s “assigned sex” at birth has any objective meaning at all. After all, truly affirming the transgender ideology requires rejecting the notion that “men are men” or “women are women.” 

  That assumption would be wrong.

  

  When it comes to the military draft – which is presently inactive and called the “selective service program” – the military absolutely insists that “men are men.”

  In other words, the military wants to make sure no man can get out of the forced military service by claiming to be a woman. Thus, the Selective Service System (SSS) makes it quite clear that “the registration requirement on gender assigned at birth and not on gender identity or on gender reassignment.”

  In other words, maintaining the interests of the empire trumps transgenderism. 

  In its FAQ on “who needs to register,” the SSS states:

  Selective Service bases the registration requirement on gender assigned at birth and not on gender identity or on gender reassignment. Individuals who are born male and changed their gender to female are still required to register. Individuals who are born female and changed their gender to male are not required to register.

  The legal authority is based on the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA), which does not address gender identify or transgender persons. In addition, Presidential Proclamation 4771 refers to “males” who were “born” on or after January 1, 1960. Thus, Selective Service interprets the MSSA as applying to gender at birth because Congress did not contemplate transgender persons or a person’s gender identity when it required on “males” to register when the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was passed and amended by the Selective Service Act of 1948 to create the Selective Service System. Until Congress amends the MSSA or passes a separate law addressing transsexuals and gender identity, Selective Service must follow the intent of Congress when it required only males to register—the registration requirement is based on gender at birth.

  In the event of a resumption of the draft, individuals born male who have changed their gender to female can file a claim for an exemption from military service if they receive an order to report for examination or induction.

  There are a couple of ways we can interpret this discrepancy.

  • One way is to note simply that Congress has been unwilling to change the definition of who is eligible to be drafted, regardless of White House policy Thus, even if the administration wants to “affirm” the claimed identities of transgender military employees, it can only do so much in terms of changing selective service policy. 

  • As second way of looking at this is to note that the regime’s toying around with transgender ideology issues comes to an abrupt halt when that ideology might threaten the regime’s prerogatives to force the maximum number of American men into military service. 

  Both interpretations are likely true.

  

  The “needs” of the empire always come before social-policy pandering to select interest groups.

  But it’s also true Congress appears unenthusiastic about explicitly changing SS policy. 

  It’s easy to see, however, how Washington could “fix” this apparent inconsistency in policy. We will likely hear more and more calls for the selective service to include women as well. It’s already moving in that direction. This removes the problem of insisting that everyone who is a male “at birth” register for the draft regardless of stated “identity.” Rather than debate  who is a man, it’s easier to simply force everyone to register for the draft.

  Certainly, we have no reason to expect Congress to go in the opposite direction and make it possible for men to avoid the draft simply by “identifying as a woman.”

  It’s exceedingly unlikely Republican hawks would risk giving such a wide-open loophole to men seeking to avoid being enslaved by the regime for a period of years as conscripts. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 19:05

• "They're Trying To Get Our IP" – Congressman Slams China's SMIC For Violating Chip Sanctions
  “They’re Trying To Get Our IP” – Congressman Slams China’s SMIC For Violating Chip Sanctions

  The Biden administration’s efforts to limit China’s access to high-tech semiconductor chips and advanced machinery for supercomputing and AI have yet to be successful. There is growing frustration in Washington this week after Bloomberg revealed that Huawei Technologies Co. and China’s top chipmaker, built a new smartphone using an advanced 7-nanometer processor. 

  On Tuesday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters he needs “more information” on the “character and composition” of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.’s Kirin 9000s chip powering Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro. Financial Times reported Sullivan was responding to a question during a briefing when a reporter asked whether US controls on exports of advanced semiconductors were being circumvented by Beijing. 

  TechInsights conducted a complete teardown of the Mate 60 Pro for Bloomberg. They found that the “processor is the first to utilize SMIC’s most advanced 7nm technology and suggests the Chinese government is making some headway in attempts to build a domestic chip ecosystem.” 

  

  For some context, Apple’s current iPhones use 4nm chips. The introduction of new iPhone 15 models will likely be powered by 3nm next week. Even though there is a sizeable gap between Huawei’s 7nm powered smartphone and Apple’s 4nm, it demonstrates the possibility that sanctions have been an ineffective weapon by Washington against China. 

  Dan Hutcheson, the vice-chair of TechInsights, told FT that Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro “demonstrates the technical progress” the country’s chip sector has made despite being limited to the latest ultraviolet lithography tools due to Western sanctions. 

  Hutcheson warned the development could spark another wave of Western chip sanctions on China to “curtail China’s access to critical manufacturing technologies.” 

  … and this development has caused a stir in Washington, as Bloomberg’s Annmarie Hordern reported Wednesday morning:

  When asked about whether SMIC violated trade sanctions by supplying Huawei with a new smartphone chip, @RepMcCaul said SMIC “warrants investigation” and it “looks like” they violated sanctions by supplying Huawei. SMIC continues “to try to get our intellectual property.”

  When asked about whether SMIC violated trade sanctions by supplying Huawei with a new smartphone chip, @RepMcCaul said SMIC “warrants investigation” and it “looks like” they violated sanctions by supplying Huawei. SMIC continues “to try to get our intellectual property.”

  — annmarie hordern (@annmarie) September 6, 2023

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

  Meanwhile, the Global Times, a state-run communist newspaper in China, posted this meme on X, saying, “Huawei breaks free from US tech blockade.” 

  

  Ming-Chi Kuo, analyst at TF International Securities, told clients in a note that Huawei’s new smartphone could revive its handheld business. 

  Goldman told clients via its GS Global Equities Call this morning to “Keep an eye on AAPL today following a WSJ report that China ordered officials not to use iPhones and other foreign – branded devices for work or bring them to government offices. ( WSJ ) On this note, semi/chip names were bid overnight following introduction of a new Huawei phone sparking hopes for the domestic semiconductor industry.” 

  This development is an ominous sign that Washington’s global arsenal of sanctions to prevent other powers from rising is failing (read: here) amid the emergence of a multi-polar world that is likely here to stay.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 18:45

• The Next Crisis Is Anyone's Guess, But The Government Is Ready To Lockdown The Nation
  The Next Crisis Is Anyone’s Guess, But The Government Is Ready To Lockdown The Nation

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

  – H.L. Mencken

  First came 9/11, which the government used to transform itself into a police state.

  Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which the police state used to test out its lockdown powers.

  In light of the government’s tendency to exploit crises (legitimate or manufactured) and capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state, one has to wonder what so-called crisis it will declare next.

  It’s a simple enough formula: first, you create fear, then you capitalize on it by seizing power.

  Frankly, it doesn’t even matter what the nature of the next national emergency might be (terrorism, civil unrest, economic collapse, a health scare, or the environment) as long as it allows the government to lockdown the nation and justify all manner of tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

  Cue the Emergency State.

  Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”: the government has been anticipating and preparing for such crises for years now.

  As David C. Unger writes for the New York Times: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.”

  Here’s what we know: given the rate at which the government keeps devising new ways to establish itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems at taxpayer expense, each subsequent crisis ushers in ever larger expansions of government power and less individual liberty.

  This is the slippery slope to outright tyranny.

  

  You see, once the government acquires (and uses) authoritarian powers—to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the military, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process—it does not voluntarily relinquish them.

  The lesson for the ages is this: once any government is allowed to overreach and expand its powers, it’s almost impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.”

  Indeed, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. To put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.

  In this way, every crisis since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government.

  Each crisis has also been a test to see how far “we the people” would allow the government to sidestep the Constitution in the so-called name of national security; a test to see how well we have assimilated the government’s lessons in compliance, fear and police state tactics; a test to see how quickly we’ll march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, no questions asked; and a test to see how little resistance we offer up to the government’s power grabs when made in the name of national security.

  Most critically of all, it has been a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—could survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.

  Unfortunately, we’ve been failing this particular test for a long time now.

  Indeed, the powers-that-be have been pushing our buttons and herding us along like so much cattle since World War II, at least, starting with the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, which not only propelled the U.S. into World War II but also unified the American people in their opposition to a common enemy.

  That fear of attack by foreign threats, conveniently torqued by the growing military industrial complex, in turn gave rise to the Cold War era’s “Red Scare.” Promulgated through government propaganda, paranoia and manipulation, anti-Communist sentiments boiled over into a mass hysteria that viewed anyone and everyone as suspect: your friends, the next-door neighbor, even your family members could be a Communist subversive.

  This hysteria, which culminated in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where hundreds of Americans were called before Congress to testify about their so-called Communist affiliations and intimidated into making false confessions, also paved the way for the rise of an all-knowing, all-seeing governmental surveillance state.

  By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government used the USA Patriot Act to claim greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.

  By way of the National Defense Authorization Act, Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.

  Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the NDAA.

  Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to expand the reach of the border police, empower the military to “assist” with border control, and essentially turn the country into a Constitution-free zone.

  That so-called immigration crisis then morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government has been eager to use in order to expand its powers.

  Joe Biden, in turn, has made every effort to expand the reach of the militarized police state, pledging to hire 87,000 more IRS agents and 100,000 police officers, and allowing the FBI to operate as standing army.

  What the next crisis will be is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure that there will be a next crisis.

  So, what should you expect if the government decides to declare another state of emergency and institutes a nationwide lockdown?

  You should expect more of the same, only worse.

  More compliance, less resistance.

  More fear-mongering, mind-control tactics and less tolerance for those who question the government’s propaganda-driven narratives.

  Most of all, you should expect more tyranny and less freedom.

  Given the government’s past track record and its long-anticipated plans for using armed forces to solve domestic political and social problems in response to a future crisis, there’s every reason to worry about what comes next.

  Mark my words: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if and when another crisis arises—if and when a nationwide lockdown finally hits—if and when martial law is enacted with little real outcry or resistance from the public— then we will truly understand the extent to which the powers-that-be have fully succeeded in acclimating us to a state of affairs in which the government has all the power and “we the people” have none. 

  In the meantime, if all we do to reclaim our freedoms and regain control over our runaway government is vote for yet another puppet of the Deep State, by the time the next crisis arises, it may well be too late.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 18:25

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