- NATO: It's Time To Cull The Snake In America's Garden
NATO: It’s Time To Cull The Snake In America’s Garden
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
This week’s brouhaha in Brussels saw the Foreign Ministers of NATO emerge from their holes in the ground looking for food now that things are finally warming up for Spring.
And they had a message for us: more for them and less for us. They were ready to steal the food from our mouths, our children from our homes, to give Ukraine the aid it needs to beat Russia in a war only they seem to want.
They would strangle the political process at home to make this so. They would betray their basic roles as diplomats, speaking with forked tongues, to confound the conditions for dialogue with Russia and end the fighting.
In fact, with all the war mongering going on you would have thought this was a convocation of military commanders, not diplomats. But that’s where we are in this process.
The message of NATO’s foreign policy is simple, “War first. Talk later.” Facts on the ground don’t matter. Budget deficits don’t matter. Plunging public support for Ukraine doesn’t matter. All that matters is what these people want.
And they want war. But at the same time, they won’t admit that that is exactly what they are waging.
The doublespeak has gotten to the point where even Pinocchio is looking at outgoing General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg going, “Dood. Your schnoze!”
Then again, Stoltenberg is a year past his ‘use-by’ date. He’s even more a lame duck than French President Emmanuel Macron at this point. The problem for those who actually run NATO, they can’t agree on who to replace him with… a British Neoconservative or a Dutch Neoliberal?
In the same week where the French and Russian Defense Ministers had a frank conversation about Ukraine, the attack in Moscow on civilians, and how quickly Russia will vaporize French troops sent into the fighting, we’re treated to the complete abandonment of all diplomatic pretense.
And even then, that discussion was more of a diplomatic endeavor than anything coming out of Brussels, if Mark Wauck and Alex Mercouris are correct.
Mercouris, of course, has a lot more to say, but that’s the long and the short of it. It was all a pathetic game, transparently so. The Russians were forced into this war, but now that they’re in it they’re in it to win. Mercouris sums it up:
The Russians are not under any pressure to negotiate. They are winning the war and they know they’re winning the war. The West, if it wants to avoid a spectacular geopolitical disaster—which is what a defeat in Ukraine would be— in its own interests needs to talk to the Russians. But coming up with half baked proposals such as a return to Istanbul or a Frozen Conflict is going to get nowhere. It is only going to annoy the Russians even more. The logical and right thing to do is to ask the Russians what it is, exactly, in Ukraine that they want to achieve, and see whether it might be possible for the West to meet them halfway. I would have thought that is basic obvious diplomacy.
It’s been so long here in the US where we’ve had a Secretary of State who wasn’t hell bent on a war with Russia, Iran, or China (or all three consecutively and concurrently) we’ve forgotten what having diplomats looks like.
I mean think about it. Antony Blinken’s sad dog-eye technique makes you wistful for the days of Condoleeza Rice’s angry diversity hire routine.
The difference between then and now is Putin hadn’t quite told NATO to “piss off.”
Again, can anyone remember that as late as 2007 Vladimir Putin was invited to speak at the annual Munich Security Conference. Back then he was just as willing to tell the West what they needed to hear rather than wanted to hear as he is now, but at least we put up the pretense of listening to him.
Blinken is only competent in the role of anti-diplomat. And why he’s worse than Rice or even *shudder* Hillary Clinton, is that he’s not even consistent. One week looking for an off-ramp after the terror attack in Moscow. This week mouthing words about Ukraine joining NATO knowing that that’s the road to a US war with Russia.
But, Mercouris and Wauck both believe this is some kind of bluff by Blinken. I’d like to believe they are correct. Nat. Sec. Adviser Jake Sullivan cracking a rib canceling his trip to Saudi Arabia may speak to that. I mean, there’s a high probability of that when you “fall down the stairs” or whatever excuse he gave.
As is this morning’s rumor that the US has told Iran they won’t be upset if Iran hits Israel hard in retaliation over the attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus earlier this week. Israeli citizens seem to believe this rumor, looking for the exits, stocking up on toilet paper, etc.
Today we can see what’s fundamentally wrong with NATO in this clearly over-produced shite with an extended steady cam shot that would make Stanley Kubrick green with envy… or just green.
NATO’s 75th … a Foreign Ministers’ meeting … and what needs to happen next pic.twitter.com/bvat4wu84C
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 4, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
With all respect to Macron’s right hook, who else is producing this level of propaganda? Who is always driving this bus towards the edge of the cliff? Who is going to put more pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson to pass a Ukraine aid bill that he’s held at bay from these vipers for nearly 6 months?
Exactly who you would expect if you still have three functional brain cells and a passing acquaintance with something known as ‘history.’
The only good thing I have to say about David Cameron’s political resurrection is that he’s no Winston Churchill.
I don’t know about you, but I get tired of writing and saying that NATO hasn’t been fit for purpose since the end of the Cold War. If that’s the case then why did they just get shiny new headquarters, new members, and every Western leader screaming for them to have more money?
We all know why. And that’s the fundamental problem.
NATO is the entangling alliance that the Founders warned us about back in the 18th century. And it’s high time we crafted a way out of the trap that membership in it represents. As a deterrent against future aggression NATO can be seen as a necessary thing. But, like all organizations facing the end of its lifespan, it had to find new ways to retain its relevance after we bled out the USSR with a deft combination of defense spending and $8 per barrel oil.
This is also why the Cold War never really ended. It just shed its skin and NATO along with it. The problem with most of the analysis about the current conflict is that we’re all stuck (including myself at times) within the nation-state framework.
The US needs this. The UK needs that. Russia needs something else.
But that framework is inadequate to describe the everything that’s going on unless you map the geographic unit to the dominant globalist faction within each region of the West. And they each have very different agendas and goals with respect to Ukraine and Russia.
I wrote about that last week, quoting this month’s GGnG Newsletter. It bears repeating this week:
Ukraine became the battleground physically for this. To the EU, the US and the UK, through their influence in Poland and the Baltics, were used to foment this war. Bankrupting them {and Russia} through war forces them back to being subjugated sources of raw materials while exporting EU laws and rules to those places which have the privilege (from their perspective) of doing business with them.
From all three players’ perspectives if Ukraine beat Russia, then they win. Putin is eventually deposed, Russia is humiliated, and the long-desired breakup of their land-based empire would commence. Europe gets their Great Reset. The UK gets to maintain control over the maritime empire, reclaiming NATO
control over the Black Sea, and forcing the Arab oil producers back in line. The US gets to leverage a fallen Russia to weaken China and stop the further integration of the BRICS into a competitor.In short, the world would go back to the 1990’s when guys like Bill Browder were running around buying up everything and the Russian oligarchs Putin beat would be restored to power. Fukuyama would finally be right.
But, as I said, the real goal of this war wasn’t just getting Russia, they had to maneuver the US into a terminal state as well, through the costs of fighting a war we weren’t capable of sustaining. And that was the bridge too far for US interests not beholden to the ghost of Trotsky and the tears of Bill Kristol.
NATO cannot and should not survive these stresses if its intended victims, Russia/China/Iran, fight even remotely competently.
And they are. They all understand that this is a race against a political and economic clock in the West that is quickly counting down to zero. All Russia has to do is keep grinding out territorial gains in Ukraine, Iran to not over-react to Israel’s provocations, and China to ignore the yapping over tariffs and Taiwan.
And all the Americans who are tired of this have to do is keep the money spigot to NATO and Ukraine closed off as much as is politically possible.
So, this is why we’re seeing the full court press from both the UK and EU to get the US re-focused on the task at hand in Ukraine. It’s why everyone on Capitol Hill hates Speaker Mike Johnson and why the knives are out from all sides, including his own party.
Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you Marjorie Taylor Greene….
Because the US is clearly looking for a way to extricate itself from this mess, even if all the puff adders on K Street want to do is pivot towards China.
The cost/benefit analysis for the US, especially in an election year, just doesn’t add up. And there is zero real leverage Europe can apply to the US other than through their bought and paid-for politicos in D.C. for more money.
The heart simply isn’t willing anymore. Why? For all the reasons I’ve been talking about for six years here, the memories of WWII are fading. The generations of Americans imprinted with the post-WWII Pax Americana lie are dying off (Boomers) or no longer care, if they ever did (Gen X).
The Millennials and ‘Zoomers’ aren’t invested in this mythology. They know they’re the heads are on the chopping block.
They can see that none of this is in their best interests. The US, as a nation at war with itself, will try one last time this fall to vote its way out of Europe before it gets ugly here. Listen again to Cameron’s harangue carefully. There is an implicit threat not just in the language but the staging of it.
Make no mistake, folks. These people are the enemy of all that’s good and decent in the world. We have plenty of snakes here in the US doing their bidding, selling us the old lies repackaged as new ones, and acting outside the bounds of the law. There’s plenty of blame to spread around here.
But what’s becoming obvious is that the era of extra-curricular US warfare is over. A lot of people refuse to look at the cover of the TPS report for fear of ‘getting the memo.’
Sadly, most of them work at NATO, and we’re not skimming fractions of pennies here.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 04/08/2024 – 02:00 - What's So Great About The Great Reset, Great Taking, Great Replacement, Great Deflation, & Next Great Depression?
What’s So Great About The Great Reset, Great Taking, Great Replacement, Great Deflation, & Next Great Depression?
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
“At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move all the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.”
“In the past few years, you have been living within an escalating hybrid war. Globally, we have witnessed overt media control and propaganda campaigns; censorship, including arrests of people speaking in public; monitoring of all electronic communications and physical contact tracing; brutally enforced lock-down and masking requirements, with people being beaten, handcuffed, and arrested, even in their homes; suspension of healthcare services and weakening of healthcare systems; invasive testing requirements for employment and travel; forced quarantine of travelers; and coerced quarantine and “vaccination” of the healthy, general population.
Governments dropped all pretense of democracy and were emboldened to open despotism. There were no functioning checks on this power. The courts provided no effective recourse to the public. Governments broadly abused fundamental human rights using as justification prevention of the spread of infectious diseases, which are, in truth, a great many, ever-present, and continually evolving. And so, this justification, if allowed to stand, assures the end of democracy and installation of openly despotic government.”
After being fortunate enough to participate in a two hour zoom call with David Rogers Webb, author of The Great Taking, I was intrigued enough to download his free book and read it over the course of two days. I found David to be a humble, intelligent, thoughtful man who is deeply concerned about the future of mankind, leading him to write a book, putting him and his family at great personal risk. Using his decades of experience in the financial world and undertaking painstaking research regarding the systematic long-term rewriting of codes, laws, and regulations by those who constitute Bernays’ invisible government (aka Deep State), Webb makes a strong case the Ruling Elite/Deep State/Shadowy billionaires in smoke filled rooms have set the groundwork to crash the global financial system and abscond with all that remains of our accumulated wealth. I could feel his angst and anxiety about the future as he explained the details of their plan. After reading the book, I found myself agitated, angry, and feeling helpless.
You can’t help but be depressed that everything you’ve worked for over the last forty years could be “legally” stolen by those controlling the levers of our financial system in an instant. My first reaction was, how can they do this and expect to succeed. Wouldn’t the citizens across the world react violently and start hanging the culprits? And then I remembered how the masses reacted to being locked down, masked, forced to not earn a living, censored for questioning the government, arrested for swimming alone in the ocean, imprisoned for protesting a rigged election, and being coerced and threatened into getting jabbed with a toxic gene altering concoction which neither protected you from contracting, spreading or dying from the annual flu (sold and marketed as the greatest deadly pandemic in history).
The covid scandemic was nothing but a dry run to see how far they could push their agenda, using authoritarian measures and the full power of the surveillance state and regime media, in scaring the masses into compliance. It worked like a charm, with the vast majority of the global population proving to be nothing more than scared compliant sheep. The ruling elite are feeling their oats and no longer feel bound to follow any laws, constitutions, or moral code.
They have shifted from relying on Huxley’s dystopian vision of a populace enslaved by pleasure, drugs, and technological distractions to Orwell’s surveillance, fear, and boot on the face dystopia, where the masses will do as they are told, or else. The caressing is over, and the crushing has begun. When the Great Taking commences, it will be done ruthlessly, enforced by those with truncheons and automatic weapons, sold to the masses as the only way to save humanity, and enforced through the legal machinations they have surreptitiously put in place over the last two decades.
“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”
As David Webb lays out in painstaking detail in his book, using factual provable data and documentation, as opposed to the false narratives and propaganda spewed by those who have hatched this decades long diabolical plot to abscond with all of your hard-earned wealth, the ruling oligarchy have designed a financial system which will absolutely self-destruct when they choose to pull that lever. It has been premeditated and solidified in legal code that their scheme, through central banks and their co-conspirator financial institutions, will sweep all of your collateral (aka your financial wealth) into their grubby little hands, in order to save “the system”.
We will be left destitute, desperate, and indebted. With no means to service your debt, they will “legally” take the assets associated with that debt. Any rational critical thinking person who has been watching its government add $1 trillion to the national debt every 100 days, driving our annual interest on that debt to $1.6 trillion by the end of 2024, encouraging and aiding millions of third world diseased mutts to stream across our borders and be shipped to cities across the country, and purposely creating massive inflation while sabotaging our energy, food, and transportation systems, has to be asking what possible purpose could there be for these insane policies and actions. It only makes sense if their plan is to crash the global financial system on purpose.
David Webb is convinced that is the plan:
“Inevitably following the “Everything Bubble” will be the “Everything Crash.” Once prices of essentially everything crash and all financial firms rapidly become insolvent, these collateral management systems will automatically sweep all collateral to the Central Clearing Counter-parties (CCPs) and Central Banks. The trap, into which all nations have been herded, is ready and waiting to be sprung. There will be an epic end point to the decades of seemingly out-of-control financialization, which served no beneficial purpose for humanity, but the devastating effects of which are apparent even now. It has been a deliberate strategy executed over decades. This was the purpose of inflating the global bubble entirely out of proportion with any real-world thing or activity, which must end in disaster for so many, with no pockets of resilience allowed to remain in any country.”
Your cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias tells you they could not and would not initiate such an evil plot. I know I don’t want to believe this could or will happen, because as a working professional for the last 38 years I’ve followed the rules and believed if I saved for my retirement, lived beneath my means, and invested my savings carefully, I would be rewarded with a relatively comfortable retirement. It is extremely difficult for me to comprehend how these psychopaths in suits, pulling the levers of this world, could hatch such a malevolent conspiracy, designed to cause so much misery and pain to so many.
But then I realize what they have done since 2019 with their totalitarian lockdowns, death jabs, surveillance mechanisms, imprisonment of dissenters, stealing of elections, destruction of societal norms, perpetuation of an invasion on our southern border, and provocation of global conflict designed to start World War 3. And yes, I do believe these traitorous billionaire scum would do this. David Webb shows how they did it before in 1933.
FDR shutdown all banks in the United States on March 6, 1933. Then Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 on March 9. According to William L. Silber, who was an economic advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Fed miraculously and suddenly in March of 1933 had the means “to supply unlimited amounts of currency to reopened banks”, which were, of course, only the banks selected by the Federal Reserve System.
The key point is the Fed chose which connected banks would survive and which banks would be permanently put out of business, resulting in millions losing their life savings. The Fed had the resources to keep thousands of banks open and avoid the pain and suffering for millions of Americans, but they purposely inflicted pain upon millions. Why? David Webb contends the Fed created the panic, provided a solution that benefited them and their crony banks, destroyed the lives of millions, and took their assets (homes, cars, farms, appliances) on a grand scale. This was done to inflict pain, vanquish the masses and foster a facade of power, which is as true today as it was then. Webb asks the relevant questions and provides the answers:
“Did “the bankers” need to take this property? What was the real purpose? Can you get past the idea that they were trying to help? Ask yourself: if they don’t want your money, and they don’t really want or need your stuff, and they’re not trying to help you, what do they want? What’s the point of all of their efforts? This may be difficult to hear: It was a deliberate strategy. It was about ultimate, complete power, allowing no centers of resistance. And so, it was about deprivation. It was about subjugation—and it still is, in more ways than we know. It was not about helping people then, and it’s not about helping people now. It is all part of the same deliberate herding of humanity and elimination of any pockets of resilience, which plagues us still.”
The Federal Reserve is owned by the Too Big To Trust Wall Street Behemoth Banks and does the bidding of the Deep State. The Fed is indemnified by the government (aka you and me) for any losses they incur, as they are currently sitting on $1 trillion of unrealized losses. They were a shadowy privileged institution in 1933 and have only become more powerful, shadowy, and corrupt today. They set the precedent of taking bank deposits from average Americans in the 1930s and will do it again without the slightest hesitation.
They have rigged the regulatory system in a way that makes anyone holding cash in banks an unsecured creditor with no enforceable claim to their own cash when they decide to crash the system. They won’t bail out the banks the way they did in 2008/2009. Too messy and time consuming. They will conduct a bail-in by “shifting” all your deposits from what you thought was your safe bank account to the accounts of a “protected class” created through legal machinations by our Deep State rulers. They did a test run in Cyprus in 2013. This is what is coming.
Since 2008 the Mega-Banks and Mega-Corps, with the patronage of the Fed, have achieved tremendous success in their endeavors to enrich themselves, while driving small businesses and small banks into bankruptcy, and impoverishing the masses they feign to embrace. Everything they do is built upon a foundation of lies, misinformation, disinformation, and propagandized narratives spun by their regime media co-conspirators.
Today’s “Everything Bubble” was created by the Fed, using the justification of “saving the world” during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008/2009 and “saving the world” again from the Great Flu Virus of 2020/2022 by lowering interest rates to zero for the most part of 15 years. The major Wall Street banks were all effectively bankrupt in the Fall of 2008 and should have been liquidated using our existing bankruptcy laws. Stockholders and bondholders would have been wiped out, while depositors would have been made whole. Their assets would have been sold off to smaller banks who did not take world destroying risks and leverage themselves 30 to 1.
Everything that has happened since 2008 has been nothing more than a vast pillaging operation disguised as saving humanity from a never-ending series of crises created by the very psychopaths who purposely created the crises in the first place. So why would it be so inconceivable to think they would initiate their final take down of the financial system, siphoning the remaining wealth of the masses?
How else can we explain the seemingly insane measures undertaken by the captured and controlled politician puppets, along with the central bankers (owned by Wall Street), and sold to the masses as normal by their regime media mouthpieces? They have secretively put all the pieces in place from a legal and regulatory standpoint to drain the remaining wealth from the financial accounts of tens of millions when they initiate the next planned and executed financial “crisis”.
Amidst the global chaos, as a wave of insolvencies sweeps the across the developed world, bloodshed from the ensuing global and civil wars scars the earth, wailing and gnashing of teeth by the victims reaches a crescendo, the Fed and their owners will not only survive, but thrive. We’ve seen this show before. During covid we needed to follow their orders so we wouldn’t die or kill our neighbors. It was all a lie. This time, with your money, investments, and assets purchased with debt in the hands of the few connected financial institutions, the fear will be putting food on the table, obtaining healthcare, and trying to survive.
Those in control will use their regime media propaganda outlets to paint the narrative, everything they have done is to insure the survival of our system. They will act like noble caretakers of humanity, doing whatever it takes for mankind, while initiating the entire financial system demolition in the first place. They are counting on the ignorant masses to remain ignorant, fearful, and terrorized, willing to do whatever they are told to survive. According to David Webb, the CBDCs will be their solution. It’s all about power and control, just as it has always been.
“The focus of the Atlantic Council is military strategy, not economics. And what is the Atlantic Council focusing on now? Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which is virtual money backed and issued directly by central banks. All G7 economies have now moved into the development stage of CBDC, and 18 of the G20 countries are now in the advanced stage of development. Why is this happening now globally? Is it really a desire to bring “financial inclusion” to the disadvantaged? Why would The Atlantic Council, a military strategy think tank, focus on CBDC? We are living within a global hybrid war, a component of which will be the collapse of the banking, money, and payments systems globally. War aims will be achieved by means other than kinetic war. The foremost aim of the people who have privately controlled the central banks and money creation is that they will remain in power, forever. They can risk no pockets of resistance.”
They have been setting up the infrastructure for CBDCs, just as they rigged the financial system to abscond with your wealth, for over a decade, as they plan to force you into their new totalitarian electronic gulag. When they are confident their CBDC scheme is ready to launch, they will push the demolition button on the debt saturated house of cards, known as our financial system. When you wrap your head around their evil blueprint to enslave the world, you can make sense of what you see happening with your own eyes. What is happening is not normal. It makes no sense to any normal critical thinking person, but the majority of the population are addicted to their phones and believe whatever they are told by their government, regime media, Tik Tok influencers, and Facebook friends.
How could our “elected” leaders be adding $1 trillion to the national debt every 100 days, while jacking the interest on that debt to $1.6 trillion per year, unless they want to crash the financial system. How could our “president” (his handlers) encourage, sponsor, and facilitate the invasion of our country by millions of 3rd world, tuberculosis ridden, mutts, drug dealers, child traffickers, and terrorists, unless they want to collapse our cities and social welfare system?
How could our government medical agencies promote the poisoning of the masses with a gene altering Big Pharma jab, the mutilation of children because they were brainwashed by mentally ill left-wing teachers who told them they can be whatever sex they choose, drugging young boys who act like boys in an effort to make them like girls, and doling out anti-depressants like candy to middle aged unhappy cat ladies who bought the entire feminism narrative hook, line and sinker, unless they wanted to create a nation of physically and mentally damaged, easily manipulated drones?
In addition, they are attempting to destroy our energy infrastructure, our farmers, and small businesses, while attempting to ignite a civil war within our borders and a global war with Ukraine and the Middle East, to further spur a global collapse. First collapse, then controls through CBDCs.
“The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also, we will have the technology to enforce that. In other words: CBDC means absolute control and so, if the “old” money system somehow collapses, new money will be provided by the central banks in the form of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the new and improved control system. Imagine . . . it is chaos. You have lost everything but your smart phone (If you don’t have one, don’t worry—you will be issued one.) You will download an app. You will click boxes agreeing to everything. You will become increasingly indebted with each payment you make using the CBDC you are “given” on your phone. You will be told what to do and what not to do from then on. You will comply if you want to eat.”
Deprivation and subjugation are their goals and being they are evil psychopaths; they have no empathy for you or your plight. They have moved into the Orwellian stage of power for its own sake and a boot stomping on your face forever. Webb contends the “Great Reset” is anti-human and will introduce a modern-day techno-feudalistic system, built upon a foundation of fear, scarcity, surveillance, and threats of violence for non-compliance.
A caste system more extreme than currently exists will separate the lords of the manor from the enslaved serfs. The first Great Depression was caused by the Fed, benefited the favored Wall Street banks, created a decade of deflation, bankrupted businesses, and destroyed the lives of the poorest. This Greater Depression will be far worse, as the immense consumer credit and mortgage credit bubbles will result in tens of millions losing their homes, automobiles, and various electronic gadgets bought on credit. Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it.
“When the “Everything Bubble” is imploded, we will face a deflationary depression, which will span many years, even decades. This coming Great Deflation is intrinsic to the Great Taking. The Architects of the Great Taking have planned and prepared to use this dynamic fully, secure in their knowledge that, as night follows day, massive and prolonged deflation will certainly follow the epic debt expansion super cycle, which they created. The Architects have assured that they alone are positioned to take everything, and that you and your children are positioned on the other side of that, i.e., to lose everything, to be enslaved and even destroyed by it. People will be knocked down, and not be able to get up again. That is intentional, as the populace has been systematically encouraged to go deeply into debt.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first cause to borrow at low rates of interest! As in the Great Depression, prolonged deflation will ensure that people who are in debt will not be able to make payments on their debts, let alone repay them. They will be trapped. All property and businesses financed with debt will be taken. With profound and persistent deflation assured to stretch over many years, debt becomes a powerful weapon of conquest. Debt is not a real thing. It is an invention, a construct designed to take real things.”
Ever since reading Webb’s book my mind has been unsettled, trying to grasp how this could possibly happen, while trying to convince myself it won’t. We’ve muddled along for years and all predictions of collapse due to unsustainable debt growth have failed to materialize. My mind tells me Webb is right, while my heart hopes he’s wrong. But I know hope is not an option. No one in my financial position, or likely 99.9% of the population, will be able to avoid this accelerating train coming down the track.
Every non-insider on the planet will be negatively impacted by the Great Taking. The best we can do is prepare and prep based on our resources, location, family situation, abilities, and attitude. Eliminating debt, having cash-on-hand, having precious metals on-hand, being heavily armed, creating a local network of like-minded people, having no cash or investments in Wall Street banks, and even owning bitcoin in your private wallet, could help alleviate some of the pain from the “Great Taking”.
Webb recognizes we are already in a hybrid war against these psychopathic billionaire totalitarians bent on implementing their Great Reset, simultaneously with their Great Taking. It is a multi-front war waged on the financial battlefield, demographic battlefield, culture battlefield, technological battlefield, and ultimately will need to be settled on traditional battlefields across the globe. The level of malevolence required to perpetrate these heinous crimes against humanity is incomprehensible to the average person, therefore the masses don’t believe anyone would commit such acts. Webb knows these people exist and are capable of the vilest atrocities.
“Wars have always been not so much about taking things as about subjugation of populations on all sides. Vast destruction and death are acceptable to their planners. You might ask, how could the people plotting and executing such insane schemes be held together? I suggest that it has something to do with the binding power of shared guilt, of the criminal pact. The perpetrators are each and all bound, whether explicitly or unconsciously, by evidence of shameful, treasonous acts committed against their own people. The commission of crime is a power totem among them. The more heinous the crime, the more powerful is the binding force.”
Based on my observations during the zoom call with David Webb, he struck me as a mild-mannered guy who is obviously nervous about the future of the world and can identify the culprits, based on their actions. Despite understanding their level of psychotic behavior and disregard for the future of humanity, he seems to think they can be defeated through non-violent means. I think that is a false hope, as you can only defeat power through superior power on a physical, intellectual, and spiritual level.
I do believe they are losing control, resulting in an acceleration of their plans, ramping up of violence, blatant disregard for laws or the Constitution, and mistakes and missteps on their part. Based on their need for an accelerated collapse, I have a hard time believing we make it to the November elections without a triggering event initiating the dominoes toppling, and all hell breaking loose financially, militarily, and on a societal basis. Their deceptions are being revealed and an increasing number of citizens are angry and unwilling to comply.
The “Great Taking” is a well thought out plan, but it is still just a plan. It can be thwarted and resisted if enough people awaken from their normalcy stupor. The odds are not in our favor, as the masses remain ignorant of what is coming, but the more people who can be awakened, the better our chances. We know the Deep State billionaire brain trust behind these schemes are heavily guarded and protected from us commoners. But these aren’t the heavily compensated apparatchik front men doing the day-to-day dirty work. These vile cogs in this machinery of destruction have names, addresses, and families. Fear works both ways. The good guys also have tech savvy individuals capable of throwing electronic monkey wrenches into the gears of the Deep State machinery.
This entire episode is playing out during the second half of this Fourth Turning, where chaos and bloodshed reach a crescendo, as we approach the climax. The battle between good and evil couldn’t be any starker. Everyone will be forced to choose a side. I’ve spent the last sixteen years of my life trying to convince as many people as possible this nation has been on a burning platform of unsustainable choices. Instead of trying to extinguish the flames, our so-called leaders have sprayed gasoline onto the burning platform.
We are closer than ever to seeing that platform collapse and sink to the bottom of the sea. The Great Reset and Great Taking schemes must be prevented from happening at all costs. Our moment of truth approaches. We need to meet the challenges ahead with no fear and no doubts. It’s time to channel our inner Josey Wales if we want to win. Good luck and Godspeed.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 23:20 - UCLA Med School Forces Students To Attend Hamas Supporter's Lecture On "Housing Injustice"
UCLA Med School Forces Students To Attend Hamas Supporter’s Lecture On “Housing Injustice”
First-year medical students at UCLA were mandated to attend a lecture by Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, a supporter of Hamas, who criticized modern medicine as “white science” and urged them to worship “mama Earth”, according to a new report from the New York Post.
During the presentation, which was part of the school’s curriculum, Gray-Garcia covered her face with a keffiyeh and drew parallels between homelessness and the situation in the Gaza Strip, as shown in a video posted online.
The lecture titled “Housing (In)justice in LA: Addressing Unhousing and Practicing Solidarity” was delivered at the medical school’s Geffen Hall. Naturally, it triggered a complaint by the university’s Jewish Faculty Resilience Group.
Gray-Garcia has, on social media, claimed that the October 7 attack was justified the next day.
She wrote: “As we hold our relatives in Occupied Palestine, and all of Mama Earth in prayer and love, we need to make connections. For us houseless, indigenous, swept/evicted people — we [are] not separate from this struggle — we suffer from the same settler colonial terror.”
The “lecturer” / Photo: Facebook She then wrote on November 1: “When you resist after decades of relentless policing, killing and terrorizing, that’s not ‘terrorism,’ that’s justice.”
Gray-Garcia said during her totally normal, well-adjusted speech: “Mama Earth was never meant to be bought, sold, pimped or played.”
The New York Post reported that Gray-Garcia posted on Tik Tok stating: “Not only are our bodies considered unclean in public, not only are our lives criminalized for being outside without a roof, but politricksters use us for their campaigns.”
The Post, citing the Washington Free Beacon wrote:
Gray-Garcia went on to note that California spent $30 million “on the removal of our houseless bodies” and asked students to think about how many homes could be built with that money “even in these inflated, ridiculous prices of commodified Mama Earth.”
At another point during the lecture, Gray-Garcia is said to have called modern medicine “white science” and said they were in “what the settlers call LA,” according to the Free Beacon.
She also reportedly led students in a chant of “Free, free Palestine,” the report says. Riveting stuff.
Fox News spoke with some students about the event, one of which called it “crazy” and added: “I was very deeply offended and disgusted…I think even probably all students who stood up [during the prayer], a good number felt unsettled regardless of your religious persuasion.”
“I think a lot of the students have the sense that this is weird or out of place.”
The Jewish faculty group wrote to UCLA’s Chancellor, saying it should have “never” taken place, according to the report: “If anything of that ilk managed to occur on campus notwithstanding efforts to avoid it, the immediate obligation of all administrative staff should have been to end it immediately and to support the students who have been mistreated.”
“Instead, staff acted exactly to the contrary of their duties.” They wrote that Gray-Garcia also once came to campus wearing a “terrorist-themed costume.”
Tell us again how this helps doctors solve medical issues?
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 21:35 - The Geopolitics Of Chaos: Apocalypse Scenario IV
The Geopolitics Of Chaos: Apocalypse Scenario IV
Submitted by Tuomas Malinen
In this entry I will expand the analysis we presented in the March Deprcon Outlook of GnS Economics. Issues discussed:
- ‘Craziness’ driving the world towards WWIII is increasing.
- Geopolitics is dominating in the background, but people tend to forget it’s a two-way street and that there’s no “right or wrong”.
- Chaos sowed across the globe does not fit any standard analytical framework.
- Major escalations could be just around the corner.
The craziness deepens
On 3rd April, Presidents of Finland and Ukraine, Alexander Stubb and Volodymyr Zelenskyi, signed a defense pact with Ukraine. Finland has not signed such bilateral pacts with a war-going country since our President Risto Ryti signed a Ryti-Ribbentrop-pact in June 1944. The “pact” was actually just a personal letter from President Ryti to the leader of the Nazi-Germany, Adolf Hitler, where he vouched that he would not pursue peace with the Soviet Union (Russia). In exchange, Finland continued to receive military support and grain from Nazi Germany, which was crucial for her efforts to stop the ongoing major attack of the Soviet Union. President Ryti made the pledge under extreme pressure, as Finland was facing an imminent threat of invasion, and paid a heavy price. He was imprisoned for three years by a war crimes court (demanded by the Soviet Union) in 1946.
So, Finland signing a defense pact with a country in a direct conflict with Russia is utterly unheard-of, since WWII. It makes absolutely no sense for the security of Finland. It’s actually a threat to her security. Some could even call it an act of high treason. The most worrying part is the statement by President Stubb, when he was asked whether Finland would be sending troops to Ukraine. His answer was: “At this point there’s no need to send troops”. This opens a door for future deployment of Finnish forces to Ukrainian soil. What could possibly be the motive for this?
On Thursday, there was another major escalation, when the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that “Ukraine will become a member of NATO”. This was exactly what President Putin warned against in 2008, when he (allegedly) said to President Bush that if Ukraine ever becomes a member of NATO, the country would cease to exist. Why an earth are western leaders deliberately pushing against a known red line of the Kremlin?
Europe crumbles
The European security structure has been based on unification and stopping conflicts in their tracks through negotiations since WWII. It was highly effective during the Cold War, while we’ve seen one major regional conflict in Europe since the Second World War, i.e., the Yugoslav Wars fought from 1991 till 1999, caused by the fall of the Communist Bloc. In 2004, we had the Georgian conflict and in 2014, the Ukrainian conflict begun.
What was notable in both Georgian and Ukrainian conflicts, was that they were caused by NATO and the EU coming too close to Russian borders in countries the Kremlin considered unstable. Simple-minded people assume that geopolitics is about fairness and justice. It’s not. It’s about security, period. China, Russia and the U.S. play ruthless geopolitical games. Just think, what would happen if Mexico would try to join a military alliance with Russia?
Yet, what we know from history is that when the European security structure crumbles, the world should tremble in fear. WWI and WWII, the most destructive wars ever fought, got started from failure of politics in Europe. Now we are on the path to failure, yet again. The question is why? Two plausible explanations rise above others.
Geopolitical realities
The most plausible geopolitical explanation that I’ve seen on the Ukrainian conflict is that the U.S. wanted to eliminate the threat of the Eurasian alliance, which was forming between China, Europe and Russia. While it was a loose alliance, it was deepening. Russia provided ample raw energy, China was the production hub (factory) and Europe provided capital and know-how. Overtime, this could (would) have developed into a deeper alliance, which could very easily have risen to threaten the global hegemony of the U.S.
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most influential geopolitical scholars ever lived (he passed away on the 26th of May 2017), noted in the conclusions of his magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997), that:
The time has come for the United States to formulate and prosecute an integrated, comprehensive, and long-term geostrategy for all of Eurasia. This need arises out of the interaction between two fundamental realities: America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe’s central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America’s global primacy and to America’s historical legacy.
This aim was achieved with the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian war in late February 2022 (read update on 24/12/2022 on the controversy of who actually started the war). This could also explain, why the war continues. A peace between Russia and Europe would, most likely, re-start the construction of the Eurasian alliance. Perpetual war will guarantee that this does not occur, but this requires deepening escalation. We now seem to be on that road. However, the “Eurasian strategy” does not explain what is happening in the Middle-East.
Chaos as the aim?
Actions of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the Middle-East have been highly escalatory of late. The strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus cannot be considered as anything other than a deliberate act of escalation. Embassies are sanctuaries everywhere, and striking one simply cannot be a “mistake”. The IDF leveling hospitals is also nothing short of a war crime. Yet, the world stands idly by. Why? Moreover, on Thursday, several Iranian military bases were struck by a Jaish al-Adl, a Baluchi militant group, allegedly funded by the U.S., Saudi-Arabia and Israel. Iran has threatened to retaliate (understandably), which would lead to a deepening circle of escalation and, eventually, to a regional war, likely with very dire consequences. The United Arab Emirates also just announced that it will cut all diplomatic ties with Israel.
The deepening escalation, by Israel and some U.S. backed forces, makes absolutely no sense, unless the aim is to ignite a regional war. One could argue that Israel could be looking to crush all threats it sees in the region in a regional war. However, the devastation to the world would likely be cataclysmic, leading to wide-spread chaos. Who could possibly want that?
Divide et Impera
In December, I floated the idea of a ‘group-over-groups’ pulling strings above our democratic and supranational institutions. My analysis was based on the Occam’s Razor principle, which states that when you seek a solution to any problem, you should only include the least amount of assumptions. A dark agenda by a very powerful group is a theory with the least amount of assumptions. It simply ticks all the boxes. From my piece:
[…] behind every political decision is a force, which pushes it through. In the ideal situation, it’s the will of the people. A majority of the populace in a country want something, a majority of politicians want to get re-elected (and not to upset their supporters) and so they push the legislation through, more or less representing the will of the people. This is the ideal.
However, during the past three years, political leaders have made decisions that have been very detrimental to and/or objected to by the general populace on a global scale. These include multiple Corona lockdowns, money printing (leading to the inflation shock), two wars, sanctions hurting economies, the woke-agenda, and the de-farming agenda (see, e.g., this and this). Their combination makes no sense in a national-political sense, because they create havoc. It’s also difficult to trace all of them to the motives of any of the major hidden lobbyist groups, like the military-industrial complex on which U.S. President Dwight D. Roosevelt warned already in 1962.
I speculated that the aim of such a group could be Divide et Impera. This ancient principle, or strategy, translates as Divide and Rule (Conquer). The main idea is to create such large divisions between political parties, or whatever dominating parties, so that they cannot rise to challenge the rule subjected upon them, usually by an outside force. Ancient Romans used this strategy many times to enforce and cement their rule over their provinces. The strategy has four key elements (from Wikipedia):
- Creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects to prevent alliances that could challenge the sovereign and distributing forces so that they overpower each other.
- Aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign.
- Fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers.
- Encouraging meaningless expenditures that reduce the capability for political and military spending.
We can see all in play in our western societies. Ordinary people have been divided based on artificial conditions, like vaxed/un-vaxed, pro-Ukraine/pro-peace, woke/conservative and those supporting all government actions vs. those opposing (this latter has existed in human societies for quite a while). Those that obey the agendas set by governments have been given full access to societies (during, e.g., Corona times), while those criticizing have been silenced and even imprisoned. In Europe, leaders of countries that followed the orders of unelected leaders of the European Union (Commission) received high positions in the EU power structure, while dissidents are discarded and even their careers sometimes destroyed. All local rulers, who rise to challenge the commands by the EU (like Victor Orb
án in Hungary), have been defamed and even blackmailed. European nations have decades long histories of neglecting their defense spendings and now propositions are being made to fund the re-armament of Europe through the EU. “Meaningless” expenditures have of course been on the rise in western societies for a very long time.When we subject the strategy of Divide et Impera to policies enacted across the globe, we can seen similar developments everywhere. This enforces the view that there could actually be very an influential ‘group-over-groups’ spreading its agenda of chaos (Divide et Impera) across the globe.
Conclusions
Forecasting has become extremely speculative in recent years. This is because the developments we are witnessing do not fit to any standard analysis framework. It’s also really strange how intelligent people seem to have forgotten the brutal realities of geopolitics. Fairness and “right and wrong” simply do not fit into it, but that’s how the western propaganda is marketing things currently (Russia naturally has it’s own war propaganda). The propaganda operations run in the West since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war have been so effective that even Josef Goebbels would have envied them.
The question we should be asking is: while geopolitical realities are dominating developments, at least in Ukraine, is there a global agenda of Divide et Impera being played in the background? If there is, who is pulling the strings? This need not be so, but if we do not ask these questions, we risk being played by forces seeking our demise. This is no time to be small-minded and/or naive.
The most frightening scenario is that the wars in the Middle-East and Europe will flare up within the next few months (or even weeks). Rallies in gold, oil and stocks of weapons companies suggests that something is up. Be prepared for extreme events.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 21:00 - DOJ Seeks Prison For Ashley Biden 'Showers With Dad' Diary Culprit
DOJ Seeks Prison For Ashley Biden ‘Showers With Dad’ Diary Culprit
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking prison time for a woman who stole the diary of Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter, before selling it to Project Veritas prior to the 2020 presidential election (and after an unsuccessful attempt at selling it to the Trump campaign).
Aimee Harris, 40, and Robert Kurlander, 58, admitted they took part in a conspiracy to transport stolen materials from Florida, where Ashley Biden had been living, to New York.
“Harris and Kurlander stole personal property from an immediate family member of a candidate for national political office,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
And while Veritas – which was raided by the Biden DOJ in 2021 – elected not to publish the diary, the National File did – revealing a passage in which Ashley Biden writes that she shared “probably not appropriate” showers with her father, Joe Biden.
Entries in the diary include the author revealing she believes she was sexually molested as a child and shared “probably not appropriate” showers with her father, some that detail the author’s struggle with drug abuse and the author’s crumbling marriage with multiple affairs, along with entries showing the family’s fears of a potential scandal due to her brother’s new home, and those that show a deep resentment for her father due to his money, control, and emotional manipulation. –National File
DOJ Cracks Down
In a Tuesday letter to Judge Laura Swain, federal prosecutors sought 4-10 months in prison for Harris, followed by three years of supervised release. Prosecutors had previously sought six months of home confinement followed by three years of supervised release.
Prosecutors cay Harris delaying her sentencing hearing date 12 times for ‘inadequate’ reasons.
Defending Daddy Biden?
With the diary back in the news, leftist influencer Ed Krassenstein took to X to defend the Bidens’ shower habits.
Ashley Biden’s Diary FACT CHECK
– We don’t know if the Diary was unedited.
– The Diary doesn’t accuse Joe Biden of doing anything illegal to her. It merely says “probably not appropriate,” referring to being in the same shower as him at an unknown age.
– Yes, people who find and… pic.twitter.com/8PdpqGDwlO— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) April 4, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Stay classy Ed.
How Was The Diary stolen?
In the spring of 2020, as Joe Biden was in the process of clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Ashley was living in Delray Beach, FL with said friend “who had rented a two-bedroom house lined with palm trees with a large swimming pool and wraparound driveway,” according to people familiar with the matter.
In June, however, Ashley visited the Philadelphia area as Joe’s campaign was ramping up.
“She decided to leave some of her belongings behind, including a duffel bag and another bag,” according to the report.
Several weeks after Ashley left the Delray house, the friend who hosted her invited an ex-girlfriend named Aimee Harris and her two children to move in. Harris, in the middle of a custody dispute and financial woes, appears to have been a Trump supporter according to ‘social media postings and conversations.’ She learned that Ashley Biden had stayed there, and that some of her things had been left behind, according to two people familiar with the mater.
Exactly what happened next remains the subject of the federal investigation. But by September, the diary had been acquired from Ms. Harris and a friend by Project Veritas, whose operations against liberal groups and traditional news organizations had helped make it a favorite of Mr. Trump.
In a court filing, Project Veritas told a federal judge that around Sept. 3, 2020, someone the group described as “a tipster” called Project Veritas and left a voice message. The caller said “a new occupant moved into a place where Ashley Biden had previously been staying and found Ms. Biden’s diary and other personal items.”
The “diary is pretty crazy,” the tipster said on the voice mail, according to a Project Veritas court filing. “I think it’s worth taking a look at.” -NYT
Harris and Kurlander each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property from an immediate family member of a former government official who was running for national office.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 20:25 - Appeals Court Vacates 'Disinformation' Monitoring Of Jan. 6 Defendant’s Computer
Appeals Court Vacates ‘Disinformation’ Monitoring Of Jan. 6 Defendant’s Computer
Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A sentencing requirement that Jan. 6 defendant Daniel Goodwyn have his computer monitored by the government for “disinformation” has been vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Courtesy of J6 Patriot News) The court on March 26 published a mandate sending the case back to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton to remove the computer monitoring requirement he issued as part of the sentencing judgment in the case on June 15, 2023.
“Judge Walton had no legal basis to issue the special condition,” Carolyn Stewart, Mr. Goodwyn’s attorney, told The Epoch Times in an April 3 email.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the judge “plainly erred” in imposing the computer monitoring. Judges Gregory Katsas, Naomi Rao, and Bradley Garcia issued a per curiam order vacating the monitoring provision.
Judge Walton, when imposing a 60-day jail sentence in June 2023, said Mr. Goodwyn spread “disinformation” during a broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on March 14, 2023. Judge Walton ordered that Mr. Goodwyn’s computer be subject to “monitoring and inspection” by a probation agent to check if he spread Jan. 6 disinformation during the term of his supervised release.
The judge also referred to Mr. Goodwyn spreading alleged “misinformation,” using the term interchangeably with “disinformation.”
Mr. Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas, pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. The charge could have meant up to a year in prison.
60 Days Behind Bars
On June 6, 2023, Judge Walton sentenced Mr. Goodwyn to 60 days in prison, a year of supervised release, a $2,500 fine, and a $500 restitution payment.
Federal prosecutors had asked for 90 days in jail, 36 months of supervised release, a $25,676 fine, and $500 in restitution. The recommended fine amount represented proceeds of a GiveSendGo web page Mr. Goodwyn uses to raise funds for his legal fees.
Mr. Goodwyn asked for a sentence of time served with three months of supervised release. He received credit for three weeks he spent in pretrial detention, but not for the 13 months he spent in home detention. He completed his incarceration at the Federal Correctional Institution at Bastrop, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2023.
Daniel Goodwyn of Corinth, Texas, speaks with live-streamer Baked Alaska inside the Senate Wing Door at just before 3:33 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Capitol Police/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) Mr. Goodwyn said the Court of Appeals made the correct decision.
“Judge Walton’s imposition of the computer monitoring restriction is inconsistent with American law and tradition,” Mr. Goodwyn told The Epoch Times. “It’s unbelievable, in my opinion, that he would unlawfully order feds to spy on me in direct violation of the First and Fourth Amendments, under threat of locking me back up in prison.”
Mr. Goodwyn was arrested on Jan. 29, 2021, in Sherman, Texas. He was charged in a superseding indictment on Nov. 10, 2021, with obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
Mr. Goodwyn said he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 as a citizen journalist for StopHate.com. He entered the building through the Senate Wing Door at 3:32 p.m. and spent 36 seconds inside the Capitol, security video shows.
Prosecutors and the judge faulted Mr. Goodwyn for using a bullhorn on Jan. 6 “to incite other rioters to go into the Capitol,” and saying “we need critical mass for this to work.” They said Mr. Goodwyn evaded a police officer’s attempt to stop him from entering and initially ignored the officer’s command to exit the building.
Ms. Stewart said her client was inside the Capitol for less than a minute, did not assault anyone or vandalize property.
During the sentencing hearing, Judge Walton criticized Mr. Goodwyn for having the “false impression” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from President Donald Trump. “And there is just no proof whatsoever that that was, in fact, the case,” the judge said, according to the official court transcript for the June 6 portion of the hearing.
It was Mr. Goodwyn’s appearance on Mr. Carlson’s Fox News program that drew some of the sharpest fire from Judge Walton. He called Mr. Carlson a “lightning rod” who “has said and done things that I think clearly have been divisive.”
Mr. Carlson gave the impression “that individuals who have been charged in reference to the events on January 6th of ‘21 have been treated unfairly,“ the judge said. ”And I see no evidence that, in fact, was the case.”
When being interviewed by Mr. Carlson, Mr. Goodwyn “made no attempt to correct the record,” Judge Walton said. “And when Carlson suggested that all the defendant did was go into the Capitol and walk around for less than a minute and leave, that just wasn’t correct. And that misinformation that is disseminated to the American public has contributed to the discord that now exists in our country in reference to the presidential election and what occurred on January 6th.”
The judge said Mr. Goodwyn “could have come clean and indicated exactly what he did when Tucker Carlson was minimizing the extent of what he did. Because he did more than what Tucker Carlson indicated. And he didn’t say anything to correct that.”
Protesters clash with police and security forces at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images) ‘Monitoring and Inspection’
The judge said Mr. Goodwyn should be monitored during his supervised release to determine if he is spreading disinformation on social media.
“…Since he has used social media in order to provide what I consider to be disinformation about this situation,” the judge said, “I would require that he permit his computer use to be subject to monitoring and inspection by the probation department to see if he is, in fact, disseminating information of the nature that relates to the events that resulted in what occurred on January 6th of 2021.”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 19:50 - Russia Finally Says 'Nyet' To Continued North Korea Sanctions Enforcement
Russia Finally Says ‘Nyet’ To Continued North Korea Sanctions Enforcement
Authored by Joseph D. Terwilliger via AntiWar.com,
Last week, a United Nations Security Council resolution to extend the mandate for the UN Panel of Experts on DPRK sanctions was vetoed by the Russian Federation, effectively disbanding the primary enforcement mechanism for the nine rounds of sanctions that have been imposed on the DPRK since 2006, in response to their repeated nuclear and ICBM tests.
On October 9th, 2006, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted their first successful test of a nuclear weapon. In response to this, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1718, condemning the DPRK for the test, and imposing a harsh regime of sanctions on the regime. Subsequent to a second test on May 25, 2009, they unanimously passed resolution 1874, which tightened the sanctions regime significantly and established a “Panel of Experts” to “gather, examine and analyze information…regarding the implementation of the measures imposed”, for an initial period of one year. As more and more sanctions resolutions were passed in response to further nuclear and ICBM tests, the mandate for this Panel of Experts was unanimously extended each year until last week.
Via AP Leading up to the vote, China and Russia had proposed a compromise to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts for one year, conditional on adding a sunset clause to the sanctions regime, as the Chinese delegate said “Sanctions should not be set in stone or be indefinite”. The Russian delegate argued that the situation in Korea had changed enormously since 2006, and that continuing the sanctions in the name of preventing the DPRK from becoming a nuclear power was “losing its relevance” and was “detached from reality”.
It is rather ironic that the United States and its allies have been criticizing the Russia veto of an otherwise unanimous Security Council resolution as destabilizing, given that the US routinely uses its own veto power, as most followers of this site are well aware. This Russian application of its veto power has been described as a crisis for the “broader functioning of the UN Security Council and the post World War II international order”, even though it is completely obvious that we would have used our veto against any Russian or Chinese resolution to relax or discontinue the sanctions regime.
The sanctions imposed on the DPRK obviously did not have the desired effect of deterring them from becoming a nuclear power. It is fair to ask why they failed to achieve the desired outcome, and whether continuing sanctions are likely to alter that reality. When I accompanied retired NBA superstar Dennis Rodman to North Korea, Kim Jong Un personally explained his logic to us. He remarked that Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi had given up his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in 2003, in exchange for sanctions relief and security guarantees that weren’t worth the paper they were written on. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, in Spring 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joyfully bragged that we had killed Qaddafi.
Furthermore, Saddam Hussein had allowed weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency into his country, and they failed to find evidence of WMD programs (as there were none), and yet despite this, the US launched a war of regime change in 2003, which subsequently led to the death of Saddam Hussein. He concluded his argument by pointing out the fact that although Pakistan harbored America’s number one enemy, Osama bin Laden, the US never attempted a war of regime change there. In his mind the main difference was obvious – Pakistan was a nuclear power.
Given that the United States government has never been subtle about its desire for regime change in North Korea, and has refused to take first use of nuclear weapons by the United States off the table in the event of war with the DPRK, Kim Jong Un’s rationale is quite compelling. I certainly had no counterargument.
One must remember that the number one goal for the North Korean regime is their own survival, and Kim Jong Un’s strategic decisions (like those of any other political leader) should be evaluated in that context – obviously his priority is to stay alive and keep his job! With that in mind, the continued pursuit of a nuclear deterrent seems like the most rational option. Of course he wants a better life for his people, and relief from economic sanctions, but not at the cost of risking the regime’s collapse.
It is important to clarify that long before the DPRK developed its nuclear program, the US had already nuclearized the peninsula. Although Paragraph 13 (d) of the Korean War Armistice Agreement forbade the introduction of any new weapons into Korea, in 1958, the Eisenhower administration deployed nuclear weapons to South Korea, in clear violation of this agreement.
This was not an isolated incident either, as the US has a long history of breaking negotiated deals with rival nations. In 1994, Bill Clinton negotiated the “Agreed Framework” in which the DPRK would shut down their graphite-moderated nuclear reactors, to be replaced with light water reactors (LWRs) to be provided by the US, with supplies of heavy oil being provided to them to provide energy in the interim. George W. Bush then slow-walked providing the LWRs and stopped the shipments of fuel oil, leading the DPRK to restart the reactors to supply energy to their people.
Bush then made the aforementioned WMD deal with Qaddafi, which the Obama administration failed to honor. Obama then negotiated the JCPOA deal with Iran, which Trump backed out of. Trump then opened dialogue with the DPRK, but the Biden administration quickly returned to “strategic patience” (i.e. giving them the silent treatment).
No wonder they feel the need for a nuclear deterrent when our policy changes so dramatically every four years, making any negotiations effectively pointless. As Kim Jong Un told us, the DPRK policy is always consistent, but the US changes all the time, adding that if they don’t like what is happening, they just wait four years. After we brought a team of NBA players to Pyongyang in 2014, he further remarked that in doing so, we were the first Americans who ever kept their word. No wonder they don’t trust any security guarantees the US has offered them.
Sanctions have been referred to as war by other means (with apologies to Clausewitz), and the US now has sanctions in place against more than 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The most comprehensive sanctions are currently imposed against Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, with sanctions against China growing at an alarming rate. At the same time, the Chinese Yuan is being used increasingly for international trade instead of the US dollar as a result of sanctions prohibiting many countries from using the US financial system.
North Korea says it test-fired new solid-fuel hypersonic missile.
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch, state media says, hailing the “important military strategic value” of the new weaponhttps://t.co/DWjQp1JuLj pic.twitter.com/xQk3fTy5My
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 3, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The height of the sanctions absurdity was best illustrated when the DPRK was alleged to have sold ammunition to Russia in early 2024. In response to this allegation, the US complained to Russia that they were violating sanctions against the DPRK, and the US complained to the DPRK that they were violating sanctions against Russia. Does the United States expect other countries to just starve to death under sanctions regimes because we said so?
Is it perhaps more rational to imagine that our overuse of economic sanctions will inevitably create trading blocs and alliances among the countries subjected to them? Iran, Russia, China, and the DPRK have plenty of reasons to dislike one another. China and Russia have had a complex hostile relationship for centuries, with Chairman Mao seeking a better relationship with the US partially because he feared a Soviet invasion. Both China and Russia repeatedly voted in favor of all the sanctions imposed on the DPRK since 2006, because they did not want a nuclear North Korea in their backyard. Iran and Russia have a long history of tensions, as do Iran and China. And Iran and DPRK have only worked together in a partnership of convenience for the last 35 years because of their shared status as pariahs in the eyes of the USA.
Despite the historical tensions between Iran, Russia, China, and DPRK, the sanctions regime has forced these countries into an alliance and trading bloc of convenience, and the US has nobody to blame but themselves. It should surprise nobody that China and Russia want to get the UN out of the DPRK sanctions business. That Russia finally vetoed the continuing mandate for the Panel of Experts should come as no surprise – the only surprise is that it took them 18 years to get there.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 18:40 - Fast Feud: Shootings At Wendy's, Chipotle Go Viral
Fast Feud: Shootings At Wendy’s, Chipotle Go Viral
Two shootings at fast food restaurants in Democrat-run cities went viral last week, after enraged customers went off on employees during arguments.
On Friday night, a trigger-happy customer got into an argument with a Chipotle employee near Detroit, reportedly over guacamole.
According to Fox2, customers were eating when they heard an argument break out between another customer and an employee. When the employee went to the back of the restaurant, the customer walked around the counter and tried to shove food in his bag, when the employee intervened.
“Then the employee came back, and they started fighting, and then we heard a gunshot and just ran out as quickly as we could,” one witness told the outlet.
The employee was shot in the leg.
A customer who recorded the incident said that the suspect “took his time getting out” after firing the gun.
“I was in my car and I saw him walk out to his car, close the door, and just drive off — he didn’t speed off or anything, it was weird to see,” he said.
The victim was transferred to a local hospital where he was listed in stable condition with a non-life-threatening injury, Fox News reports.
The suspect, a 33-year-old male from Detroit, was arrested near the restaurant and the firearm recovered by police.
Customer shoots Chipotle employee in the leg after a “guacamole dispute.”
Now, I can see shooting someone in the leg for those baby scoops of meat Chipotle likes to do when you’re not watching but doing so over guacamole is taking it too far 😎
‘news’ story on the video:… pic.twitter.com/VigvRFgUXv
— Mrgunsngear (@Mrgunsngear) April 7, 2024
Meanwhile at a Chicago Wendy’s, an employee was injured when a disgruntled DoorDash driver opened fire because the restaurant didn’t have any record of the order, CBS News Chicago reports.
Via CBS News When the unidentified worker involved in the incident told the driver that the order did not exist, the two began arguing. When the worker notified her manager about the dispute, the driver shot into the building – during which bullets shattered the drive-up window and left the female worker with a wound to her right arm.
The suspect in the Wendy’s shooting remains at large.
20-year-old woman working the Wendy’s drive-thru in West Chatham, Chicago was shot at around 1 a.m. over arguing with a customer.
No one is in custody and police are looking at footage.
This violence in Chicago will be ignored by the media because it doesn’t fit the narrative. pic.twitter.com/bn6qu9CYVB
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) April 4, 2024
Know who won’t get shot (with all food behind plate glass windows and a prison-style slot delivery)?
this is insane
cashier is literally zooming into nyc from the philippines pic.twitter.com/opAyS8AYUs
— brett goldstein (@thatguybg) April 6, 2024
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 18:05 - California Bill Would Create A Legal Right To Ignore Boss's Emails After-Hours
California Bill Would Create A Legal Right To Ignore Boss’s Emails After-Hours
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
California Progressives seek a right ‘Right to Disconnect’ from corporate communications during nonworking hours…
Right to Disconnect
Please note that a California proposal would guarantee a Legal Right to Disconnect.
The Assembly bill would grant employees a legal right to ignore an employer’s communications during “nonworking hours” except for emergencies or work scheduling.
All employment contracts in the state would also have to clearly delineate working and nonworking hours.
California’s Labor Commissioner could fine employers who violate workers’ “right to disconnect.”
If an employer or a client experiences a problem on a weekend, tough.
Managers couldn’t ask workers to help unless the problem is an “unforeseen situation that threatens an employee, customer, or the public; disrupts or shuts down operations; or causes physical or environmental damage.”
The Labor Commissioner and courts would presumably define what is “unforeseen.”
Matt Haney, the bill’s sponsor says “workers shouldn’t be punished for not being available 24/7 if they’re not being paid for 24 hours of work.”
The WSJ comments “Progressive ideas that originate in Sacramento have a habit of becoming mainstream in the Democratic Party, which is why we have to cover them.”
If California wants to drive more businesses out of state, this would surely do it.
California’s Deficit Is $222 Billion and the State is $1.6 Trillion in Debt
Meanwhile, please note California’s Deficit Is $222 Billion and the State is $1.6 Trillion in Debt
Governor Gavin Newsom bragged of a surplus, but California is seriously underwater.
The next recession will hit the state extremely hard, and deservedly so.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 17:30 - A Market Chart Or A Rorschach Test
A Market Chart Or A Rorschach Test
By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities
A Market Chart or a Rorschach Test?
In one way, the week was quite simple. The S&P and Nasdaq dropped around 1% while 10-year yields popped 20 bps. Rate cut projections were slightly reduced and the likely start time was pushed back a touch. All seemingly “normal.” Then why the heck did we get a chart like this?
I’ve produced some ugly charts in the past, but this is in the running for the worst of all time. I thought about trying to fix it up, but then figured, after a week like this, why not go for the full Rorschach test?
There are three things that I see in this chart (I am a little bit scared about what a psychologist would make of my interpretation, but here goes):
-
There was no consistent narrative between stocks and bonds. At times we saw correlated moves, but then we saw just as many inversely correlated moves. Just like the Mag 7 is dead as a rule of thumb, the “bonds and stocks are correlated” rule of thumb might also need to be put away.
-
We had a legitimate “flight to safety” trade. The Nasdaq 100 was briefly down 3% from intraday high to intraday low (which had me feeling good about my fears that we could see 10% downside far more easily than 5% upside). The plunge in stock prices, accompanied by a rally in bonds, seemed to be spurred by fears about an imminent escalation by Iran. Since the initial fighting began last fall, this is the first time that I can really point to a moment where the geopolitical risk immediately and undoubtedly impacted markets significantly. I expect more geopolitical “shocks” in the coming days and weeks, so long as the market seems to by and large not be pricing in significant risk (the oil market is ahead of stocks and bonds on that). The rally in oil, which I expect to occur on any escalation or expansion, is why I don’t think that we will see a “true” flight to safety move, because I think that yields will come under inflationary pressure.
-
Liquidity is not deep. Whatever good mood I was in, after Thursday’s rapid decline, was undone. The day started fine, as overnight we reversed a little of Thursday’s move as nothing extraordinary happened with regards to Israel and Iran. Then payrolls beat the highest expectation (which I was leaning towards), and bond yields had the good sense to go higher (again, I think now that we’ve breached 4.4%, we go towards 4.6% on 10s). But stocks, after some early gyrations, decided to rally on the strength of the economy. Reasonable, but certainly bucking the theme that higher bond yields push stocks lower. At least that was how it worked until near the end of the day. From the trading on Thursday and Friday, with fairly large moves, I take away that there is very little depth to markets (and the day traders, 0DTE options, etc. are all amplifying moves).
That is what I get out of that messy chart!
What I Learned Last Week
I learned a few things:
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Geopolitical Risk may be back, and it isn’t being priced in. See Saturday’s SITREP – Iran Prepares to Retaliate.
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The economy, at least based on jobs, has the potential to surprise to the upside.
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Earthquakes, even “minor” ones, are really disturbing!
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Guest Hosting TV is difficult.
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The U.S. seems to believe that we can come to some resolution with China on trade, where we get the trade and benefits that we want, while limiting their access to high tech and other things that we don’t want them to have. I just don’t see that happening as discussed Thursday on Bloomberg TV.
-
There seem to be far more bond bulls than bears, as we breach 4.4% (good news as a contrarian).
Bottom Line
I am still nervous about equity risk, and still doubt that we will get any overall rotation (Russell did far worse than the S&P 500 this week). Energy is my favorite sector as I think that there are many tailwinds, plus you get the geopolitical tail risk for “almost” free (since I don’t think much is being priced in yet).
I think that the 10-year is now moving into the 4.4% to 4.6% range. Maybe higher as the bulk of the move to this level has been due to diminished rate cut expectations, rather than an increase in risk premium. That should be coming, and I would like to see 2s vs 10s back to -20 or even closer to 0 than that.
Credit will likely remain dull. No obvious catalysts for a big widening in spreads, but it is also difficult to see a reason for anything more than a small pullback in spreads. I do owe readers a “rotation” report on private credit, which got delayed with the craziness of this week.
As Seargent Esterhaus liked to say, “let’s be careful out there” as the risks are mounting, and we’ve shown how susceptible we can be to them. On that note, please see the link to register for our Academy Securities Geopolitical and Macro Strategy Webinar on Tuesday April 9th at 1pm ET.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 16:55 -
- Georgia Students Shut Down Congressman In Latest "Deplatforming"
Georgia Students Shut Down Congressman In Latest “Deplatforming”
We have another successful “deplatforming” of a speaker at a university this week after Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) had to be removed from an event at the University of Georgia.
This follows incidents discussed this week involving student protests at Tulane and Maryland.
Rep. Collins was invited to speak on campus by the University of Georgia Turning Point USA chapter and College Republicans. His remarks, however, were drowned out by protesters screaming profanities and insults.
Collins attempted to discuss the recent death of Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant while jogging at the University of Georgia.
One student yelled “How dare you come on this campus and exploit Laken Riley’s death to push your xenophobic, fascist, racist, agenda…people are in this country legally and your f–king cops are gonna get them arrested and deported.”
Others just shouted profanities like “F**k you, you’re a b***h” or told the congressman to “take your white supremacist rhetoric elsewhere, your neo-nationalist rhetoric elsewhere.” Others attacked him for his support of Israel.
Some were led out of the event by police, but the coordinated interruptions succeeded and the congressman was reportedly escorted off campus.
Some groups like the College Democrats had called for protests but it is not clear whether these groups participated in the disruptions during the events.
Once again, this was done by students who were shown on videotape preventing opposing views from being spoken or heard on campus. The question is whether the University of Georgia will take steps to discipline the students and any groups who coordinated this effort. As discussed in a column this morning in the Hill, preventing free speech is not an act of free speech.
The argument that stopping free speech is free speech is nothing more than a twisted rationalization. Protesting outside of an event is an act of free speech. Entering an event to shout down or “deplatform” speakers is the denial of free speech. It is also the death knell for higher education in the United States.
The motto of the University of Georgia is Et docere et rerum exquirere causas, or “To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.”
That inquiry cannot occur through a filter of screaming profanities and abuse. It is good that the university had security to remove disrupters but that is not enough. These coordinated efforts often involve students who stand up in succession to keep an event from being held.
If these “deplatformings” are to end, the university has to suspend or expel those responsible for such actions.
Georgia must choose whether it will stand with free inquiry and free speech or whether it will yield to this entitled mob of speech-phobic students.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 16:20 - Iran Threatens Israel's Embassies: "No Longer Safe"
Iran Threatens Israel’s Embassies: “No Longer Safe”
The Iranian government is apparently seeking to capitalize on the Israeli public and leadership being on edge due to continuing fears that an Iranian retaliation attack is imminent after last week’s Israeli airstrike on Iran’s embassy complex in Damascus.
An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday has threatened to attack Iran’s embassies, or at least strongly suggested it could happen. “The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said according to ISNA news agency.
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP He added that the Islamic Republic views confrontation with Israel as a “legitimate and legal right” — given that Israel has just escalated through an unprecedented attack on a sovereign country’s diplomatic facilities.
Iranian state media in conveying Safavi’s words also featured graphics showing nine types of Iranian missiles that possess ranges capable of hitting Israel (see below).
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on the same day announced that Israel is prepared and is ready to respond. Israel has “completed preparations for a response against any scenario that would develop against Iran,” he said. Israel’s embassies and consulates around the world continue to be on a high state of alert.
Meanwhile, an analyst from the Middle East Institute, Jason Brodsky, observed on Friday:
There are reports Iran’s regime may be eyeing hitting an Israel diplomatic compound in a third country via drones & missiles. Israel maintains embassies in Bahrain; UAE; Jordan; Egypt; Azerbaijan; & Turkey. I would keep an eye on Jordan.
Currently, Israel is bracing for an inevitable response, and is reportedly calling up extra reserve forces. Hezbollah could also open up a bigger war front:
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said on Friday that Iran would inevitably retaliate after a strike — widely blamed on Israel — destroyed its consulate in Damascus this week, killing two generals.
“Be certain that Iran’s response to the targeting of its Damascus consulate is inevitable,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech marking Quds (Jerusalem) Day — an annual day of pro-Palestinian rallies held by Iran and its allies.At least so far, the daily tit-for-tat fighting along Israel’s northern border has remained contained, but perhaps just barely. Israeli leaders have warned that all of Lebanon could be bombed back to the ‘stone age’ if Hezbollah starts a full war. Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier spelled out that if a retaliation attack should be launched on Israel from Iranian soil, then Israel would hit back directly at Iran with a “stronger” response. This scenario would likely spiral into a major regional war, something the Biden administration says it is seeking to prevent.
ISNA has published an infographic of 9 Iranian-made missiles that it says are capable of hitting Israel. pic.twitter.com/EK1IjNaUJA
— Saeed Azimi (@SaeedAzimi1772) April 7, 2024
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Meanwhile, in Gaza there’s been a surprise development Sunday. “The Israeli military says it has withdrawn its ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip, including Khan Younis, amid conflicting reports about the scale and duration of the disengagement,” writes Al Jazeera.
“Today, Sunday April 7th, the IDF’s 98th commando division has concluded its mission in Khan Younis. The division left the Gaza Strip in order to recuperate and prepare for future operations,” the army said. One brigade has remained, and it’s unclear precisely what this means related to the planned Rafah assault.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 15:45 - Elon Musk Says X Will Defy Order From Brazil's Supreme Court After Twitter Files
Elon Musk Says X Will Defy Order From Brazil’s Supreme Court After Twitter Files
Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times,
Owner of X Corp. Elon Musk said on the platform Saturday evening that the company had decided to lift all restrictions on Brazilian accounts targeted by an order from the nation’s Supreme Court.
“We are lifting all restrictions. This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to 𝕏 in Brazil. As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit,” Mr. Musk posted, notifying of X’s decision.
The announcement came in response to reporting by investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger, and colleagues David Ágape and Eli Vieira, titled, “TWITTER FILES BRAZIL.”
In his reporting, Mr. Shellenberger cites records released by X, formerly Twitter, during Mr. Musk’s 2022 takeover that allegedly show that “Brazil is engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice.”
This is all accurate. https://t.co/auqZnICkd7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024
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Sitting members of Brazil’s Congress and journalists were among those named by Brazil’s highest court for censoring, Mr. Shellenberger said of his findings, which he has shared on X.
He named lower house members Carla Zambelli of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party and Marcel van Hattem of the NOVO party as targets of orders targeting posts the court deemed misinformation.
According to the internal files Mr. Shellenberger shared, Twitter in Brazil was threatened with a $30,000 fine. The company had one hour to remove the Congress members’ posts or pay the court for noncompliance.
The article reports that the justice had even been jailing individuals without trial for things posted on social media.
According to Mr. Shellenberger, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes allegedly made demands to Twitter to allow access to its internal data, in violation of Twitter’s own policies on the handling of user data.
Brazil’s Darth Vader!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024
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He also allegedly ordered that Twitter deplatform the individuals responsible for the specific posts that he wanted censored, “without giving users any right of appeal or even the right to see the evidence presented against them.”
Coming shortly, 𝕏 will publish everything demanded by @Alexandre and how those requests violate Brazilian law.
This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached.
Shame @Alexandre, shame.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024
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Brazil’s “Twitter Files” also show that the justice “sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies against supporters of then-president @jairbolsonaro,” Mr. Shellenberger said—a similar trend to what the “Twitter files” revealed was happening to former President Donald Trump and conservative voices in the United States.
The origin of the order to censor Brazilians’ posts was also revealed in the internal Twitter files, Mr. Shellenberger said.
Mr. Shellenberger said Justice de Moraes, Brazil’s Supreme Court (Supreme Federal Court), and Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) declined to respond to the report.
Last year, Justice de Moraes also ordered an investigation into executives at social messaging platform Telegram and Alphabet’s Google, who were in charge of a campaign criticizing a proposed internet regulation bill.
The bill put the onus on internet companies, search engines, and social messaging services to find and report illegal material, instead of leaving it to the courts, and charged hefty fines for failures to do so.
‘Aggressive Censorship’
Mr. Musk said of Brazil’s Twitter Files, which he released to Mr. Shellenberger, “This aggressive censorship appears to violate the law & will of the people of Brazil.”
CIA has entered the chat https://t.co/9AYJGoUSdl
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 7, 2024
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Journalist Paulo Figueiredo, who is a contributor to The Epoch Times and censored by the court order, replied, “You’re going to save my country. We could never repay you.”
He had replied to an earlier post urging X not to comply with the court order, saying that the independent platforms Rumble and Locals did not comply.
“You’re powerful enough to make a difference,” he said.
Mr. Musk describes himself as a free speech absolutist. He said at the time when he bought Twitter that it was to create a platform where “a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.”
Shortly after telling Brazil’s Supreme Court that his company would not comply with its order, he posted to X an image “For the people of Earth” of an X comprising of “FREE SPEECH.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 15:10 - Millions Of New Illegal Immigrants Mask True State Of US Economy
Millions Of New Illegal Immigrants Mask True State Of US Economy
Authored by Emel Akan and Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Economists are expressing concern over the increasing number of illegal immigrants in the United States, who they believe are obscuring the actual condition of the jobs market and the U.S. economy.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images) For the last few years, the headline employment figure has been impressive. The country has recovered the lost jobs from the government-imposed shutdowns during the pandemic and added a few million more, despite a climate of high inflation and rising interest rates.
In 2023, the economy added approximately 3 million new positions. To kick off 2024, more than 800,000 new jobs have been added.
The labor market data is critical as it helps determine the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said on March 20 that the central bank is monitoring the labor market “very carefully” and isn’t observing any “cracks.”
“We follow all the possible stories that are out there about there being cracks, but the overall picture, really, is a strong labor market,” he noted. “Things are returning more to their state in 2019.”
However, a closer look at the household survey of the employment report reveals a more gloomy picture. Employment for native-born Americans has been in decline over the past four years. This means that all of the job gains have gone to foreign-born workers, including both legal and illegal immigrants.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of immigrants—legal and illegal—working in the United States grew by 3.4 million between February 2020, shortly before the onset of COVID-19, and February 2024. The number of U.S.-born workers, however, declined by 78,000 during the same period.
In addition, during the Biden administration, there have been approximately twice as many illegal immigrants as legal immigrants entering the country, according to a study by the Brookings Institution.
“That’s a big problem,” says economist Stephen Moore.
“What we’re interested in is how the economy is working for American citizens. So, we’re distorting the jobs market with all of the illegal immigrants,” he told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Moore, who served as an economic adviser to former President Donald Trump, criticized the Biden administration for turning the U.S. immigration system “upside down.”
He argued that the U.S. economy “desperately needs” more legal immigrants, who possess high skill levels or special talents, rather than illegal immigrants, who tend to be less educated.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of immigrants—legal and illegal—working in the United States grew by 3.4 million between February 2020, shortly before the onset of COVID-19, and February 2024. The number of US-born workers, however, declined by 78,000 during the same period.
Construction workers help build a residential building in Miami on Jan. 5, 2024. (Joe Raedle, Getty Images) ‘Very Troubling’
The BLS includes illegal immigrants in the labor statistics, identifying them as “undocumented workers.” However, the agency doesn’t disclose the data publicly and instead groups legal and illegal immigrant job data together.
Many economists have been surprised by the growing employment gap between native- and foreign-born workers since October 2019.
The contrast in the past year is even more striking. According to the BLS, native-born employment fell by 651,000 in March 2024 from the same period last year, while foreign-born employment climbed by nearly 1.3 million.
According to Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), it is hard to know the exact number of illegal immigrants who have recently entered the country and found employment.
However, he estimates roughly half of the job gains among foreign-born workers have gone to illegal immigrants over the last year.
Mr. Camarota notes that the government should know all economic activity and job creation in America, so counting illegal immigrants is not a problem.
“What I do think is problematic is that you can see a low unemployment rate and more importantly, lots of job growth, but almost all the job growth is going to the immigrants. That’s the distortion,” he told The Epoch Times.
There were a total of 31 million immigrant workers as of March 2024, constituting nearly 20 percent of the U.S. labor force. Mr. Camarota estimates that at the beginning of this year, roughly 9 million of these workers were illegally present.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the number of “immigrants with a nonlegal or pending status” increased by 2.4 million in 2023.
This group includes individuals who have been apprehended and released into the country, individuals who have managed to evade the Border Patrol, officially known as “gotaways,” and individuals who have overstayed their visas. The figure is modified to account for deaths, legalizations, and departures.
According to Mr. Camarota, the rise in illegal employment conceals the true state of the U.S. jobs market. There has been a concerning decline in the labor force participation of U.S.-born working-age men from the 1960s to the present. And this decline is more pronounced among the less educated.
Globalization, outsourcing of jobs overseas, generous welfare and disability policies, and wage stagnation are among the factors that have contributed to this drop over the years, Mr. Camarota said.
“That decline in labor force participation, particularly among U.S.-born men, is linked to many social problems, from overdose deaths to crime,” he said.
Hence, he argued that the government is missing the overall picture by focusing on headline data and reporting strong job growth, and not saying it’s fueled primarily by low-wage illegal immigrants.
“That’s very troubling,” he said.
Another issue with more illegal immigration is that it drives down wages for American workers.
According to EJ Antoni, an economist and research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, one of the key reasons President Joe Biden is polling so poorly among voters is “because they are not the ones getting the jobs.”
As a result of the flood of cheap labor, American workers also earn less than they would otherwise, he told The Epoch Times.
The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, rejects the notion that illegal immigrants are hurting U.S.-born workers.
Experts Heidi Shierholz and Daniel Costa at the Institute wrote in a recent report that “the idea that immigrants are making things worse for U.S.-born workers is wrong.”
“The reality is that the labor market is absorbing immigrants at a rapid pace, while simultaneously maintaining record-low unemployment for U.S.-born workers,” they stated.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 14:00 - Goldman Offers "Burst Of Bullish Coverage" On Soaring Uranium Stocks
Goldman Offers “Burst Of Bullish Coverage” On Soaring Uranium Stocks
As we have been harping on for the last couple of years, uranium stocks – at the center of the thesis for the very common sense solution of nuclear power – are continuing their long awaited ascent.
As Bloomberg noted last week, the sector has experienced a significant boost, with spot prices surging 40% over the past year due to production challenges faced by Kazatomprom, the world’s largest miner, and potential U.S. restrictions on Russian supplies.
The price soaring has come on the back of a “burst of bullish coverage from banks including Goldman Sachs”, Bloomberg writes.
The rise comes as nations increasingly embrace nuclear power to reduce emissions, as we have been saying would happen here on Zero Hedge every time we got the chance.
Recently, the sector witnessed further demand, evidenced by the Global X Uranium ETF, which jumped 6% for its best performance since early February, driven by advances in companies like NuScale Power Corp. and Mega Uranium Ltd. Cameco Corp., the largest uranium miner in North America, saw a 14% increase after receiving a buy rating from Goldman.
Michael Alkin, chief investment officer at Sachem Cove Partners said: “Goldman’s initiation opens the whole universe up.”
Alkin launched his fund focusing on uranium miners and physical uranium in 2018, a period when the sector was largely overlooked. Alkin notes that interest has since expanded beyond the major miners to include mid-sized and exploratory firms.
Sachem Cove, holding stakes in Cameco and Denison Mines, also supported Premier American Uranium’s IPO in 2023, with the stock surging nearly 70% this year. Moreover, analysts are broadening their coverage to encompass a wider array of uranium stocks, even those yet to establish their first mines.
For instance, Scotia Capital initiated coverage of NexGen Energy Ltd. with an outperform rating on April 1, as the company advances towards developing Canada’s forthcoming uranium mine, the report says.
Recall we noted just days ago that uranium projects were jumping back online and that uranium’s price was set to soar. Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a nuclear industry research firm told Bloomberg on March 22: “We have reached a bottom. The fundamentals are still strong, with increased demand and supply that hasn’t fully responded.”
According to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Mike Kozak, there’s evidence to suggest that uranium prices have stabilized. Kozak forecasts a resurgence of fundamental buyers in the market, which is expected to propel prices upwards once more, Bloomberg wrote this week.
Optimistic investors are focusing on uranium’s future, driven by an increasing supply shortage and higher demand, as nations (finally pull their heads out from their a** and) seek nuclear energy solutions for climate change.
In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, uranium mining in the United States, particularly in Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, and Utah, experienced a significant downturn.
This decline wasn’t helped by uranium prices plummeting and nations such as Germany and Japan moving away from nuclear energy. However, as global efforts to reduce emissions renew interest in nuclear power, and as leading uranium producers face challenges in meeting demand, prices for the metal have risen sharply, a new Bloomberg report says.
This resurgence in prices is offering previously unprofitable American uranium mines an opportunity to re-enter the market and address the supply shortfall.
According to the report, as the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada’s annual meeting takes place in Toronto, attracting thousands from the mining industry, uranium will be a key focus.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 13:25 - People Are Not Inflation Idiots
People Are Not Inflation Idiots
Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
(BearFotos/Shutterstock) Commentary
There’s something about employed intellectuals. When they are trashing popular wisdom and perceptions of regular people, they are truly in their element.
They love nothing better. It’s a way for them to show off their superior understanding, flash their credentials, and dazzle others with the merit of their time and expense in schooling. It justifies their social standing and income. And it assures their jobs.
Where would we be without them? Wallowing in ignorance, no doubt.
The trouble is that very often the popular wisdom is correct whereas the intellectuals are wrong.
We’ve seen many examples of this recently with regard to inflation. It seems that most people think it is getting worse and going in the wrong direction. A recent poll of swing-state voters shows that 74 percent of people say exactly this.
By wrong direction, plain English means: prices are not going down but rather still going up faster than one would desire.
In fact, the commodities markets seem to agree. Look at the record gold and Bitcoin prices. Even the Federal Reserve is worried.
But the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) Greg Ip explains that the notion that inflation is still bad and even worsening is “simply not true. I’m not stating an opinion. This isn’t something on which reasonable people can disagree. If hard economic data count for anything, we can say unambiguously that inflation has moved in the right direction in the past year.”
He goes on to explain that over 12 months, the pace at which inflation is worsening is getting worse at a slower pace than previously. This is what Ip calls moving in the right direction. You can tell yourself that as you put on less weight this month than last, but it would not be a good idea to confuse this with losing weight.
As for prices going down, Ip sniffly dismisses that idea: the price level “rarely goes down.”
Oh.
And if someone asks how your diet is going, you can do the same and tell them with absolute certainty that actually losing weight is out of the question.
Mr. Ip is certain that a move from 6 percent to 3 percent inflation is a fall, even though it is really only a slower pace of rising and therefore not really an improvement. He would see this if the numbers were different. What if inflation were running at 40 percent and then rising only 35 percent? Would Ip dare go to print with an article claiming that inflation is improving? Not likely.
Sorry but most people think that an improved and even repaired inflation would restore prices to their 2020 level. That’s not going to happen but that’s actually what most people would like. And I agree. My own sense is that many people are only coming around now to the realization that what happened to us has done permanent damage to purchasing power.
It’s not a good sign that the Biden administration seems to think that the solution is jawboning package sizing back up!
In any case, it’s not even necessarily true that the pace of increase is improving. The latest read of the official CPI (consumer price index) shows that it is going up higher than it did in June 2023. So even by that standard, the popular wisdom is more correct than the experts. By some measures, inflation is worsening at a faster pace.
Also, we are all a bit gun-shy. Who is to say that the next round of brutal inflation is not waiting just around the corner, in a repeat of the 1970s?
(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker) And have a look at food prices, up 35–50 percent since 2019 and still rising. It’s not even of this world to tut-tutting people for feeling that this much of an increase in 5 years amounts to getting worse.
(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker) Or just have a broad look at prices generally. No matter what the experts say, we are daily slammed with sticker shock. Remember that people do not buy all the products and services in the CPI daily. They encounter each price increase only in the course of their usual buying habits. It it has been nothing but bad news every time you take out your wallet.
(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker) When major journalistic venues come out and say “Oh it’s not that bad, so stop complaining,” it only discredits them.
In addition, Ip complains as follows: “By more than 2-to-1 (56 percent to 25 percent), respondents said the economy had gotten worse rather than gotten better over the past two years. That is difficult to square with robust employment growth, unemployment near its lowest in half a century, or growth in gross domestic product, which actually accelerated last year.”
Here again, the popular wisdom is smarter than the experts.
The jobs data has already experienced a major debunking. Full-time positions are giving way to part-time positions, mostly held by immigrant populations. This is a major factor as to why the establishment and household surveys have diverged so much over the last several years. The job market is not healthy. It is sick, with a continued lack of labor participation and worsening conditions for professional workers.
It’s not obvious from a superficial look at the data but it is clear from a deeper look.
Even the WSJ admits this in a separate piece: “the household employment figures haven’t just shown slowing job growth in recent months, but outright deterioration.”
Oh!
Another corrective comes from the Philadelphia Fed: “In the aggregate, 10,500 net new jobs were added during the period rather than the 1,121,500 jobs estimated by the sum of the states; the U.S. CES estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period.”
By now, you surely also know that the GDP data cannot be trusted. It is ginned up by government debt and spending, without which the United States would likely already be in recession. This little tool of analysis was invented in the 1940s and heavily informed by bad economic theory but it somehow survives as a credible estimate of output. It absolutely is not.
Let’s return to inflation now.
It’s not just that rising prices are bad and eat into the standard of living. It’s also the case that the current CPI is wildly underestimated. Adding in the interest-based cost of borrowing puts last year’s inflation rate at 18 percent, which is far worse than we ever saw in the late 1970s. If we add to that the way inflation used to be calculated complete with a correct estimate of health-insurance costs, we are going further still. We could be looking at 20-plus percent on an annualized basis.
All the assurances we get from official economists that life is great achieve absolutely nothing in terms of convincing the public that what they are seeing all around them is not true. The instincts of the public are absolutely correct, contrary to the one thousand articles pouring out of the legacy media that say otherwise.
I’ve always enjoyed Greg Ip’s writing simply because he is a trained economist and speaks the language well. It’s sad (to me) to see his writing go the direction of becoming straight-up Biden administration propaganda.
Remember that line about how inflation was merely “transitional?” They are still saying that after three years.
Let’s face it: many such voices have disappointed us over these past few years, as many journalists and intellectuals have put career over integrity in their jobs.
We know this and see this every day. Still, it never stops disappointing me. Regardless, the public is not listening. Indeed, they have stopped reading, which is why the payrolls of mainstream venues keep shrinking more and more.
Meanwhile, as the intellectuals scribble their excuses, public fury is on the rise.
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
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 12:50 - Intel Community Warns Of "Possible Threats To Public Gatherings" Across US
Intel Community Warns Of “Possible Threats To Public Gatherings” Across US
In early March, FBI Director Chris Wray warned a Senate panel that dangerous individuals had entered the United States illegally at the southern border.
“We have had dangerous individuals entering the United States have a variety of sources,” Wray said at the annual “Worldwide Threats” congressional hearings.
Fast forward to Friday, an ABC News report citing a US intelligence bulletin warns that “radicals in the US might respond to ISIS calls for similar attacks in the wake of last month’s deadly terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow.”
The bulletin said “lone wolves” might be compelled to attack public venues following the attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow last month. It warned that individuals who are not members of ISIS could also unleash attacks.
In a bulletin to law enforcement obtained by @ABC News, the FBI, DHS and National Counterterrorism Center warned of “possible threats to public gatherings” in the U.S. from “threat actors” inspired by the ISIS attack in Moscow. @PierreTABC has details. https://t.co/wIixdvC4aq pic.twitter.com/0Oej1GoRQ2
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) April 6, 2024
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Given this new warning, and what has the national intelligence community up at night, is President Biden and Democrat’s disastrous open southern borders that flooded the nation with millions of unvetted migrants – some of whom are military-aged men from countries that deeply hate America.
Donald Trump speaking on #BidensBorderBloodbath in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He highlights the fact that many single military aged men from China are coming here. #Invasion pic.twitter.com/DZQZrzESXB
— Jenna Fredo (@LynkLuv) April 2, 2024
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The hearing last month with Wray emphasized how the nation is more vulnerable than ever because open southern borders have allowed bad actors to infiltrate deep within the borders under the guise of ‘migrants.’
In late March, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned ABC’s “This Week” that human smuggling group with reported ties to ISIS will “most certainly use [their network] to move operatives into the United States.”
Just days ago, a US counter-terrorism official told the New York Post that ISIS-K terrorists are growing “bolder,” and its members could be preparing to flood the nation through the southern border.
The source warned: “An attack on US soil is definitely a possibility.”
Meanwhile, a rogue Iranian assassin is already roaming the US, hunting for current and former government officials.
And, remember last month when New York Governor Kathy Hochul mobilized 1,000 National Guard troops and State Police officers, some of whom were armed with machine guns, to patrol NYC’s subway system. This kind of response by the government wasn’t due to migrants but likely terror threats.
All of this is happening right before the elections…
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 12:15 - Former Hunter Biden Associate Tony Bobulinski Sues Rep. Dan Goldman For Defamation
Former Hunter Biden Associate Tony Bobulinski Sues Rep. Dan Goldman For Defamation
Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Tony Bobulinski, a former Biden family business associate and witness in an ongoing Republican-led impeachment investigation, has filed a lawsuit against Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) accusing the lawmaker of defamation.
(Left) Tony Bobulinski, on Oct. 22, 2020. (Right) Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) on Jan. 27, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington and first reported by The Daily Caller on Friday, accuses Mr. Goldman of repeatedly lying about Mr. Bobulinski following a heated exchange at a recent congressional hearing. According to Mr. Bobulinski’s complaint, Mr. Goldman defamed the former Biden business associate in a series of posts on social media by alleging Mr. Bobulinski “has used a Trump campaign-paid lawyer to make false allegations” and that his testimony before Congress was “Russian disinformation.”
Mr. Bobulinski’s complaint says he has spent over $500,000 of his own money on legal fees and neither former President Donald Trump nor any Trump-affiliated entities “have ever paid” for any of those legal fees, contradicting Mr. Goldman’s assertion. The complaint also insists Mr. Bobulinski has not made any false allegations before Congress, as claimed by Mr. Goldman, nor have his claims originated from Russian disinformation.
The lawsuit follows through on a threat Mr. Bobulinski made last week that he would seek recourse through the courts if Mr. Goldman didn’t delete his offending social media posts and publicly retract his statements about Mr. Bobulinski. The legal filing on Friday states Mr. Goldman neither responded to, nor complied with the request for a retraction.
Mr. Bobulinski worked with President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on a business venture involving a Chinese energy firm called China Energy Company Limited. He has alleged the elder Biden was aware of his son’s foreign business dealings and even personally benefited from those dealings, despite the elder Biden’s repeated public statements to the contrary. Mr. Bobulinski has shared these allegations with House Republicans leading an impeachment inquiry into whether President Biden had engaged in influence peddling to advance his family’s business dealings.
The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Goldman made the contentious claims about Mr. Bobulinski to discredit him and the impeachment inquiry. Mr. Bobulinski’s legal team argues the lawmaker’s statements constituted defamation per se for falsely claiming Mr. Bobulinski lied before Congress, and defamation by implication for suggesting President Trump has paid for Mr. Bobulinski to bring claims about the Biden family before Congress.
Mr. Bobulinski’s lawsuit alleges he has suffered personally from mental anguish and has endured reputational harm impacting his business ventures and professional work as a result of Mr. Goldman’s claims. He is seeking an award of compensatory, special, and punitive damages totaling $20 million.
NTD News reached out to Mr. Goldman about the lawsuit but did not receive a response by press time.
Bobulinski Goes on Legal Offense
The lawsuit against the New York congressman is just one of three defamation claims Mr. Bobulinski is advancing.
Mr. Bobulinski filed a lawsuit on March 4 against former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, alleging she had defamed him by claiming former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had handed him a folded-up note or envelope at a secretive meeting outside a Trump campaign rally in Georgia in 2020.
Mr. Bobulinski has denied claims that Mr. Meadows had handed him anything during the 2020 encounter and argued Ms. Hutchinson’s claims were meant to cast “an innocuous interaction” between the two men as an illicit, immoral, or even illegal encounter.
The businessman also filed a defamation complaint against liberal political strategist and Fox News commentator Jessica Tarlov last week. That complaint alleges Ms. Tarlov, who works as a rotating co-host on Fox News’ “The Five” program, defamed Mr. Bobulinski during a March 20 episode by saying a Trump Super PAC had played a role in covering Mr. Bobulinski’s legal fees.
Ms. Tarlov modified her original claim in a March 21 follow-up.
“During an exchange with my colleagues about the hearing, I said that Mr. Bobulinski’s lawyers’ fees have been paid by a Trump super PAC as recently as January. What was actually said during the hearing was that the law firm representing Mr. Bobulinski was paid by a Trump PAC,” she began. “I have seen no indication those payments were made in connection with Mr. Bobulinski’s legal fees and he denies that they were.”
Mr. Bobulinski’s lawsuit argues Ms. Tarlov’s March 21 clarification was “half-hearted, incomplete, and unacceptable” and called on her to issue a more clear-cut apology but that she refused.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 11:40 - Fixing FDR's Biggest Blunder: From Gold Standard To Fiat Folly And Back
Fixing FDR’s Biggest Blunder: From Gold Standard To Fiat Folly And Back
Authored by Jp Cortez via The Epoch Times,
Today, states across the country are beginning to actively embrace pro-sound-money legislation, inviting a critical examination of how America abandoned the gold standard of money and racked up $34.5 trillion in debt. To understand how we got here, it’s important to understand the policy that initiated our monetary decline.
More than ninety years ago today, April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, forever reshaping America’s monetary system.
This controversial order marked a pivotal moment in the nation’s financial history. Executive Order 6102 banned private ownership of gold coins, bullion, and gold certificates with the penalty for noncompliance being up to ten years in prison, a fine of $10,000, or both. This draconian edict also signaled the effective end of the gold standard.
America did not always have unbacked paper money. In fact, America’s founders spilled a lot of ink warning against the risks and ravages of fiat currencies.
In 1786, George Washington wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”
James Madison wrote that “paper money is unjust” and “unconstitutional.”
To enshrine honest money, they considered gold and silver to be the foundation. Gold and silver are notably the only form of money mentioned in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 10): “No State shall . . . make any Thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”
The Coinage Act of 1792 established the US Mint and regulated the coinage of gold, silver, and copper coins. The dollar was defined in terms of a specific weight of silver or gold, providing a tangible link between the currency and precious metals.
Under the gold standard, the US dollar was directly convertible to a fixed amount of gold. This system provided stability and confidence in the currency, as the value of money could not be printed ad nauseam but was tied to a tangible and finite resource.
As the nation expanded and industrialized, the gold standard emerged as a cornerstone of America’s economic might, and the gold-backed US dollar would eventually become the world’s reserve currency. The gold standard buttressed the Gilded Age of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing a necessary, if not sufficient, condition to unseen leaps forward in economic stability, international trade, and human prosperity.
In response to the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt banned private ownership of gold with Executive Order 6102, marking an important nail in the coffin of the gold standard in the United States.
In 1933, Congress passed the Gold Reserve Act, which granted the president the power to further manipulate America’s currency by adjusting the gold content of the dollar.
Subsequently, President Roosevelt devalued the US dollar by increasing the price of gold.
In 1934, the Gold Reserve Act allowed the government to hold gold at a higher price, effectively devaluing the dollar and further detaching it from its gold-backed origins.
Toward the end of World War II, a new international monetary system was created at an international conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, pegging major currencies to the US dollar, which remained convertible to gold. However, mounting economic pressures and trade imbalances eventually led to the “temporary” abandonment of the gold standard in 1971 under President Richard Nixon.
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
Today’s Federal Reserve note is printed endlessly and spent haphazardly, unshackled from any restraint. As a consequence, the national debt is now growing at a rate of $1 trillion about every 100 days.
According to economist Michael Bordo, the gold standard provided long-term stability, evidenced by an average annual inflation rate of 0.1 percent between 1880 and 1914 as compared to the average inflation rate of 4.1 percent from 1946 to 2003.
The abandonment of sound money principles allowed for unprecedented government spending, particularly during times of war. With the ability to print fiat currency unconstrained by the discipline of a gold standard, the government financed World War II and subsequent conflicts through inflationary measures.
The government’s ability to print endlessly has enabled endless war. This unchecked power to create currency out of nothing has not only led to an expansion of the national debt but also facilitated increased expansion of controversial and fiscally unsustainable policies, such as the literal Ponzi scheme that is America’s entitlement programs.
Restoring sound money is an uphill battle, but significant victories are being won across the country. In 2023, the Sound Money Defense League effectively helped pass sound money legislation in Tennessee, Mississippi, Oregon, Arkansas, and Florida.
So far in 2024, governors in Utah and Wisconsin have signed prosound money legislation into law. Other sound money legislation has already been introduced and advanced in Oklahoma, New Jersey, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, Georgia, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia.
April 5, 1933, may be a somber chapter in American history, but one hopes for a brighter future ahead.
Today, states themselves are actively engaged in the pursuit of sound money and its underlying principles of freedom, stability, and fiscal responsibility for a more prosperous tomorrow.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 04/07/2024 – 10:30
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