Today’s News 8th June 2023

• BBC Is Biased "On Occasion", Admits UK Culture Secretary
  BBC Is Biased “On Occasion”, Admits UK Culture Secretary

  Authored by Evgenia Filimianova via The Epoch Times,

  The UK Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has told a group of MPs that the BBC is biased on occasion, but refused to give any specific examples.

  In her first appearance before the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee since she took up the post in February, Frazer said that she was a supporter of the BBC and the content it produces.

  “But it does need to understand its duties in relation to partiality,” she told the committee.

  The BBC, headed by Director General Tim Davie, is currently undergoing a review of the company’s compliance with editorial standards and effectiveness in representing audiences from working class backgrounds.

  “I think that it is really important that the BBC takes its responsibility in terms of editorial standards and impartiality very seriously… I think Tim Davie takes that responsibility very seriously and I think we should ensure that the BBC, as a public service broadcaster which is meant to be there to provide impartial news to the public, fulfils that duty, and I think unfortunately it doesn’t always get that right,” Frazer said.

  Media monitoring group News-Watch has called the BBC “unfit for purpose,” reporting (pdf) that out of 1.7 million complaints between 2017 and 2022, the broadcaster upheld only 126. In its survey submitted to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport in April, News-Watch argued that the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit was biased against complainants’ points of view.

  “I’m not going to give any specific examples of the examples of bias, but I think there are often complaints about the BBC, some of which have been taken up by Ofcom, which have been shown to be biased,” Frazer told the committee.

  The culture secretary said that her department was looking into issues of future sustainability of the broadcaster.

  

  Pedestrians walk past a BBC logo at Broadcasting House in London, Jan. 29, 2020. (Reuters/Henry Nicholls/File Photo)

  Funding and Controversy

  Asked about alternative ways of funding the BBC, apart from license fee payments by UK households, Frazer said: “The license fee isn’t the only way to fund it. One issue that faces the BBC is the number of households with TV license has fallen by 1.2 million since 2017 to 2020. There is an issue with how much the license fee can raise and does raise.”

  In response to a question on defunding the BBC, Frazer said she was “definitely a supporter of the BBC” and her department would look into the ways the broadcaster is funded “very carefully.”

  The committee asked several questions about the ex-BBC Chairman Richard Sharp, a former banker with Goldman Sachs, who helped former Prime Minister Boris Johnson secure an £800,000 loan facility.

  “People outside this country look at this and they really think it’s shoddy, the idea that you can give hundreds of thousands of pounds to a political party and can end up getting a plumb public service job, even if, as in the case of Mr. Sharp, you have no experience whatsoever of broadcasting,” the SNP’s John Nicholson told Frazer.

  Frazer said he met Sharp in person after his resignation and spoke to him about the direction of the BBC and called him “knowledgeable.” The secretary added that she would like “the broadest possible field” of candidates for the role of BBC chairman.

  Since Sharp’s resignation, the Commissioner of Public Appointments has launched an inquiry (pdf) into the appointment process for the chair of the BBC Board, to be led by Adam Heppinstall, KC.

  Frazer told the committee that she has “lots of views,” when questioned about the controversy caused by a Twitter post by BBC presenter Gary Lineker. However, she didn’t give any details, adding she would wait for the BBC’s report on the matter.

  Lineker was temporarily taken off air earlier this year after saying the language used by the government to promote its asylum plans was not dissimilar to that used in 1930s Germany.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/08/2023 – 02:00

• Rule By Decree: The Emergency State's Plot To Override The Constitution
  Rule By Decree: The Emergency State’s Plot To Override The Constitution

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”

  – Justice Neil Gorsuch

  We have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency.

  

  Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

  COVID-19, for example, served as the driving force behind what Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch characterized as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

  In a statement attached to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Arizona v. Mayorkas, a case that challenged whether the government could continue to use it pandemic powers even after declaring the public health emergency over, Gorsuch provided a catalog of the many ways in which the government used COVID-19 to massively overreach its authority and suppress civil liberties:

  “Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too. They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct. They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent.

  “Federal executive officials entered the act too.  Not just with emergency immigration decrees. They deployed a public-health agency to regulate landlord-tenant relations nationwide. They used a workplace-safety agency to issue a vaccination mandate for most working Americans.  They threatened to fire noncompliant employees, and warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement.  Along the way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social-media companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which they disagreed.

  “While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a furious pace, state legislatures and Congress—the bodies normally responsible for adopting our laws—too often fell silent.  Courts bound to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the intrusions upon them. In some cases, like this one, courts even allowed themselves to be used to perpetuate emergency public-health decrees for collateral purposes, itself a form of emergency-lawmaking-by-litigation.”

  Yet while the government’s (federal and state) handling of the COVID-19 pandemic delivered a knockout blow to our civil liberties, empowering the police state to flex its powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., it was merely one crisis in a long series of crises that the government has shamelessly exploited in order to justify its power grabs and acclimate the citizenry to a state of martial law disguised as emergency powers.

  These attempts to use various crises to override the Constitution are still happening.

  It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be: civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”

  They have all become fair game to a government that continues to quietly assemble, test and deploy emergency powers a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution and can be activated at a moment’s notice.

  We’re talking about lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level): the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die.

  While these are powers the police state has been working to make permanent, they barely scratch the surface of the far-reaching powers the government has unilaterally claimed for itself without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

  As David C. Unger, observes in The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs:

  “For seven decades we have been yielding our most basic liberties to a secretive, unaccountable emergency state – a vast but increasingly misdirected complex of national security institutions, reflexes, and beliefs that so define our present world that we forget that there was ever a different America. … Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.”

  This rise of an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security is all happening according to schedule.

  The civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters,” the government’s reliance on the armed forces to solve domestic political and social problems, the implicit declaration of martial law packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security: the powers-that-be have been planning and preparing for such a crisis for years now.

  The seeds of this ongoing madness were sown several decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.“

  Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), which do not need congressional approval, provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”

  Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president.

  The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.

  Essentially, the president would become a dictator for life.

  It has happened already.

  As we have witnessed in recent years, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.

  The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.

  Yet according to documents obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public.

  Remember, these powers do not expire at the end of a president’s term. They remain on the books, just waiting to be used or abused by the next political demagogue.

  So, too, every action taken by the current occupant of the White House and his predecessors to weaken the system of checks and balances, sidestep the rule of law, and expand the power of the executive branch of government makes us that much more vulnerable to those who would abuse those powers in the future.

  Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.

  The Executive Branch’s willingness to circumvent the Constitution by leaning heavily on the president’s so-called emergency powers constitutes a gross perversion of what limited power the Constitution affords the president.

  As law professor William P. Marshall explains, “every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.” Moreover, it doesn’t even matter whether other presidents have chosen not to take advantage of any particular power, because “it is a President’s action in using power, rather than forsaking its use, that has the precedential significance.”

  In other words, each successive president continues to add to his office’s list of extraordinary orders and directives, expanding the reach and power of the presidency and granting him- or herself near dictatorial powers.

  All of the imperial powers amassed by Obama, Bush, Trump and now Biden—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects (including American citizens) indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to wage wars without congressional authorization, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to establish a standing army on American soil, to operate a shadow government, to declare national emergencies for any manipulated reason, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—have become a permanent part of the president’s toolbox of terror.

  These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

  This is what you might call a stealthy, creeping, silent, slow-motion coup d’état.

  As an investigative report by the Brennan Center explains:

  “There are currently 41 declared national emergencies, most of which have been in place for more than a decade… Some of the emergency powers Congress has made available to the president are so breathtaking in their vastness that they would make an autocrat do a spit take. Presidents can use emergency declarations to shut down communications infrastructure, freeze private assets without judicial process, control domestic transportation, or even suspend the prohibition on government testing of chemical and biological agents on unwitting human subjects.”

  If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.

  We must recalibrate the balance of power.

  For starters, Congress should put an end to the use of presidential executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements as a means of getting around Congress and the courts.

  At a minimum, as The Washington Post suggests, “all emergency declarations [s]hould expire automatically after three or six months, whereupon Congress would need to vote upon any proposed extension. It is time for both parties to recognize that governing via endless crises — even when they are employed to implement broadly popular policies that win plaudits from key political constituencies — subverts our system of constitutional government.”

  We’ve got to start making both the president and the police state play by the rules of the Constitution.

  As Justice Gorsuch recognized:

  “Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces. They can lead to a clamor for action—almost any action—as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. A leader or an expert who claims he can fix everything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove an irresistible force. We do not need to confront a bayonet, we need only a nudge, before we willingly abandon the nicety of requiring laws to be adopted by our legislative representatives and accept rule by decree. Along the way, we will accede to the loss of many cherished civil liberties—the right to worship freely, to debate public policy without censorship, to gather with friends and family, or simply to leave our homes. We may even cheer on those who ask us to disregard our normal lawmaking processes and forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.”

  Unfortunately, the process of unseating a dictator and limiting the powers of the presidency is far from simple but at a minimum, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it must start with “we the people.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 23:40

• Two Tiers Of Justice: Kash Patel
  Two Tiers Of Justice: Kash Patel

  Authored by Kash Patel via RealClear Wire,

  The elite set of individuals that sit atop our federal agencies have completely weaponized our entire government apparatus. It is no longer a one-off “mistake,” but rather the intentional creation of a two-tier system of justice that has gone unchecked. The resulting impact is a death knell for American faith in all three branches of government. 

  

  Allow me to preface with one important factor: This is not an indictment of the men and women who are our “boots on the ground.” They remember every day why they signed up to serve. They investigate real crimes, protect the public from acts of terror, and root out rampant corruption. These men and women across the country serving in all agencies remain heroes and are equally as frustrated with the leadership at the top of our federal government.   

  The two-tier system of justice is not Democrats vs. Republicans. It is anyone who is part of the administrative state and the D.C. beltway versus those who seek to destroy this political demon of the deep state. It is government gangsters against everyone else.

  When it comes to the U.S. government, there are no coincidences. Anything that masquerades as such is a strategic move to protect the upper echelons from ceding power to the proletariat they once rose from. Whether it’s Russiagate, Impeachment #1, Impeachment #2, Jan. 6 Committee, Hunter’s laptop, classified docs, or an intel letter from 51 of our highest “servants,” they layered this two-tier system of justice by doing the same thing at each level – breaking the law. Illegal surveillance, unlawful congressional overreach, and judicial hustling have joined forces, and the result is a destruction of justice. 

  Case in point: Christopher Wray, a stunning example when it comes to the dual standard of justice and hypocrisy. Wray violated a congressional subpoena. By doing so, the director of the FBI has continuously broken the law and simultaneously destroyed the leadership reputation of the FBI. The days of justice and accountability within our federal government are fleeting, at best. What if you violated a congressional subpoena, what are the ramifications? No need to wonder, just ask Steven Bannon and Peter Navarro. Don’t count on this DOJ to police its own, especially when the narrative being put forth by the document in question nukes the radical left’s pyramid of Jenga justice.

  Yesterday, he had one final out, and showed his true lack of institutional control, or better yet its hijacking. He told Chairman Comer to pound sand, so now Congress must hold the line. Ransack these agencies and departments, and hold those who exploit the two-tier system of justice accountable – every single one of them. For starters, take their money, take their fancy government toys, and take Wray’s government-funded G5 jet. You must produce these critical documents and show them to the world, then do it again and again. 

  Congress’ oversight authority is the last bulwark against the total erosion of justice. When you have leadership at DOJ, FBI, and the intelligence community all bending the knee to radical agendas to feed their own egos for the sole purpose of maintaining power, someone must answer the call. Some in Congress have shown exceptional leadership with their steadfast approach to exposing criminality and government corruption. They must stay the course and utilize Congress’ budgeting process to bring our agencies back into the fold. The only thing these corrupt leaders yield to is money, our taxpayer dollars. And so now, it must be taken, in part. No overcorrection, just enough to remind them they serve the American people, and to restore respect for each coordinate branch of government.

  I’d sum it up, but Sen. Chuck Grassley’s recent assessment of Director Wray that he is treating Congress like “second-class citizens” resonates impactfully enough. Will it shake loose congressional hammers, or will we continue to live in two-tier systems of justice? America’s constitutional mandate to return to a single system of justice is at stake.

  Kash Patel is an attorney and author and served as the chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller in the Trump administration.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 23:00

• Comparing Military Spend Around The World
  Comparing Military Spend Around The World

  One of the easiest ways to identify a nation’s priorities is by tracking its expenditures, and military spend is no different.

  Usually spending is measured, and ranked, in absolute amounts. For example, countries around the world collectively spent $2.1 trillion on their militaries in 2021, with the most coming from the U.S. ($800 billion), China ($293 billion), and India ($77 billion).

  But, as Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, these eye-popping figures are best understood in the context of each country’s economy. Using data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Varun Jain has visualized 158 countries’ military expenditures, both as a percentage of their total GDP as well as in average per-capita spend.

  

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  Countries’ Military Spend as a Percentage of their Economy

  To begin, Jain identified three categories of military expenditure as a percent of GDP, using the five-year (2018‒2022) average for more consistent data:

  

  Under this categorization, the stand outs are the countries spending an outsized amount of their economic output on military, rather than the highest total spenders in absolute terms.

  At the top of the table is Ukraine, which has earmarked a staggering average of 9.46% of its total economic output on defense over the past five years. That’s well ahead of second-place Saudi Arabia, which is slightly above 8%.

  In Ukraine’s case, its high ranking shows how quickly priorities can change. From 2018 to 2021, the country spent 3.2-3.8% of its GDP on its military, but the outbreak of war with Russia saw its expenditures jump to one-third of economic output.

  Other countries from the Middle East and North Africa follow in this tier, with Oman third at 8.11% and Qatar fourth with 5.88%. Rounding out the top seven high spenders are Algeria, Kuwait, and Israel.

  Rank	Country	Military Spend	% of GDP
  1	🇺🇦 Ukraine	High	9.46%
  2	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	High	8.19%
  3	🇴🇲 Oman	High	8.11%
  4	🇶🇦 Qatar	High	5.88%
  5	🇩🇿 Algeria	High	5.70%
  6	🇰🇼 Kuwait	High	5.66%
  7	🇮🇱 Israel	High	5.09%
  8	🇯🇴 Jordan	Medium	4.81%
  9	🇦🇲 Armenia	Medium	4.53%
  10	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	Medium	4.53%
  11	🇱🇧 Lebanon	Medium	4.01%
  12	🇷🇺 Russia	Medium	3.98%
  13	🇧🇭 Bahrain	Medium	3.79%
  14	🇵🇰 Pakistan	Medium	3.75%
  15	🇲🇦 Morocco	Medium	3.72%
  16	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	Medium	3.56%
  17	🇺🇸 U.S.	Medium	3.48%
  18	🇨🇴 Colombia	Medium	3.24%
  19	🇬🇷 Greece	Medium	3.15%
  20	🇳🇦 Namibia	Medium	3.09%
  21	🇧🇳 Brunei	Medium	3.09%
  22	🇸🇸 South Sudan	Medium	3.05%
  23	🇹🇬 Togo	Medium	3.03%
  24	🇲🇱 Mali	Medium	2.90%
  25	🇨🇺 Cuba	Medium	2.88%
  26	🇸🇬 Singapore	Medium	2.86%
  27	🇧🇼 Botswana	Medium	2.86%
  28	🇲🇲 Myanmar	Medium	2.76%
  29	🇧🇫 Burkina Faso	Medium	2.70%
  30	🇮🇶 Iraq	Medium	2.69%
  31	🇰🇷 South Korea	Medium	2.69%
  32	🇨🇬 Republic of Congo	Medium	2.68%
  33	🇹🇩 Chad	Medium	2.66%
  34	🇮🇳 India	Medium	2.58%
  35	🇹🇳 Tunisia	Medium	2.58%
  36	🇪🇨 Ecuador	Medium	2.34%
  37	🇮🇷 Iran	Medium	2.32%
  38	🇻🇳 Viet Nam	Medium	2.28%
  39	🇰🇭 Cambodia	Medium	2.26%
  40	🇲🇷 Mauritania	Medium	2.24%
  41	🇳🇪 Niger	Medium	2.21%
  42	🇧🇮 Burundi	Medium	2.21%
  43	🇹🇷 Turkey	Medium	2.19%
  44	🇵🇱 Poland	Medium	2.17%
  45	🇱🇻 Latvia	Medium	2.14%
  46	🇱🇹 Lithuania	Medium	2.13%
  47	🇪🇪 Estonia	Medium	2.13%
  48	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	Medium	2.12%
  49	🇺🇾 Uruguay	Medium	2.11%
  50	🇷🇸 Serbia	Medium	2.06%
  51	🇺🇬 Uganda	Medium	2.02%
  52	🇭🇷 Croatia	Low	1.97%
  53	🇦🇺 Australia	Low	1.93%
  54	🇨🇱 Chile	Low	1.92%
  55	🇫🇷 France	Low	1.91%
  56	🇨🇾 Cyprus	Low	1.90%
  57	🇷🇴 Romania	Low	1.87%
  58	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	Low	1.85%
  59	🇸🇿 Eswatini	Low	1.82%
  60	🇳🇴 Norway	Low	1.81%
  61	🇨🇫 Central African Republic	Low	1.78%
  62	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	Low	1.77%
  63	🇵🇹 Portugal	Low	1.77%
  64	🇹🇼 Taiwan	Low	1.76%
  65	🇨🇳 China	Low	1.72%
  66	🇬🇪 Georgia	Low	1.71%
  67	🇸🇰 Slovakia	Low	1.67%
  68	🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau	Low	1.65%
  69	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	Low	1.62%
  70	🇬🇳 Guinea	Low	1.61%
  71	🇫🇮 Finland	Low	1.60%
  72	🇸🇳 Senegal	Low	1.58%
  73	🇭🇳 Honduras	Low	1.56%
  74	🇬🇦 Gabon	Low	1.56%
  75	🇲🇿 Mozambique	Low	1.56%
  76	🇱🇸 Lesotho	Low	1.56%
  77	🇲🇪 Montenegro	Low	1.54%
  78	🇫🇯 Fiji	Low	1.54%
  79	🇯🇲 Jamaica	Low	1.49%
  80	🇦🇴 Angola	Low	1.48%
  81	🇮🇹 Italy	Low	1.48%
  82	🇭🇺 Hungary	Low	1.48%
  83	🇧🇴 Bolivia	Low	1.46%
  84	🇸🇨 Seychelles	Low	1.43%
  85	🇳🇱 Netherlands	Low	1.41%
  86	🇸🇩 Sudan	Low	1.39%
  87	🇷🇼 Rwanda	Low	1.39%
  88	🇳🇵 Nepal	Low	1.36%
  89	🇩🇰 Denmark	Low	1.36%
  90	🇦🇱 Albania	Low	1.34%
  91	🇪🇸 Spain	Low	1.34%
  92	🇹🇭 Thailand	Low	1.33%
  93	🇦🇫 Afghanistan	Low	1.33%
  94	🇳🇿 New Zealand	Low	1.32%
  95	🇨🇦 Canada	Low	1.32%
  96	🇩🇪 Germany	Low	1.31%
  97	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	Low	1.30%
  98	🇧🇷 Brazil	Low	1.29%
  99	🇧🇿 Belize	Low	1.28%
  100	🇸🇻 El Salvador	Low	1.28%
  101	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	Low	1.26%
  102	🇿🇲 Zambia	Low	1.25%
  103	🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea	Low	1.24%
  104	🇬🇾 Guyana	Low	1.22%
  105	🇨🇮 Cote d’Ivoire	Low	1.22%
  106	🇪🇬 Egypt	Low	1.20%
  107	🇵🇪 Peru	Low	1.20%
  108	🇧🇾 Belarus	Low	1.18%
  109	🇸🇪 Sweden	Low	1.17%
  110	🇰🇪 Kenya	Low	1.13%
  111	🇸🇮 Slovenia	Low	1.10%
  112	🇹🇱 Timor Leste	Low	1.08%
  113	🇹🇿 Tanzania	Low	1.05%
  114	🇨🇲 Cameroon	Low	1.04%
  115	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	Low	1.03%
  116	🇯🇵 Japan	Low	1.03%
  117	🇧🇪 Belgium	Low	1.02%
  118	🇱🇷 Liberia	Low	1.00%
  119	🇲🇾 Malaysia	Low	0.98%
  120	🇵🇭 Philippines	Low	0.96%
  121	🇵🇾 Paraguay	Low	0.95%
  122	🇽🇰 Kosovo	Low	0.95%
  123	🇿🇦 South Africa	Low	0.94%
  124	🇲🇼 Malawi	Low	0.92%
  125	🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina	Low	0.84%
  126	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	Low	0.83%
  127	🇦🇹 Austria	Low	0.78%
  128	🇬🇲 Gambia	Low	0.76%
  129	🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago	Low	0.75%
  130	🇮🇩 Indonesia	Low	0.74%
  131	🇨🇭 Switzerland	Low	0.73%
  132	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	Low	0.71%
  133	🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	Low	0.70%
  134	🇲🇳 Mongolia	Low	0.69%
  135	🇲🇬 Madagascar	Low	0.68%
  136	🇨🇩 Dem. Rep. of Congo	Low	0.64%
  137	🇳🇬 Nigeria	Low	0.64%
  138	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	Low	0.64%
  139	🇸🇱 Sierra Leone	Low	0.64%
  140	🇦🇷 Argentina	Low	0.63%
  141	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	Low	0.61%
  142	🇲🇽 Mexico	Low	0.61%
  143	🇳🇮 Nicaragua	Low	0.60%
  144	🇨🇻 Cape Verde	Low	0.54%
  145	🇧🇯 Benin	Low	0.54%
  146	🇲🇹 Malta	Low	0.48%
  147	🇬🇹 Guatemala	Low	0.45%
  148	🇬🇭 Ghana	Low	0.43%
  149	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	Low	0.38%
  150	🇲🇩 Moldova	Low	0.36%
  151	🇮🇪 Ireland	Low	0.27%
  152	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	Low	0.26%
  153	🇻🇪 Venezuela	Low	0.20%
  154	🇭🇹 Haiti	Low	0.17%
  155	🇲🇺 Mauritius	Low	0.16%
  156	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	Low	0.00%
  157	🇮🇸 Iceland	Low	0.00%
  158	🇵🇦 Panama	Low	0.00%

  The medium group consists of 44 countries and is led by four nations (Jordan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Lebanon) that all spend more than 4% of their GDP on their militaries. Other familiar countries known to have large military budgets, like Russia, Pakistan, the U.S., India and the UK, are also in this category.

  The low spend group has a total of 107 countries, but also contains some surprises. For example, China, France, and Germany—all in the top 10 countries by absolute military spend—actually have similar amounts of military spend as a percent of GDP as Georgia, Cyprus, and North Macedonia respectively.

  At the bottom of the table are countries with either low military importance, or strange technicalities. For example, Mauritius is one of the countries with the lowest military budgets because it doesn’t officially have a standing military, instead relying on two paramilitary forces (a special mobile force and a Coast Guard).

  Similarly, Iceland allocates 0% of its GDP towards military spending. In place of a standing army, the country maintains a specialized peacekeeping force, a substantial Coast Guard, and relies on security alliances within NATO, of which it is a member and provides financial support to.

  Ranking Defense Spending Per Capita

  While the measure above equalizes military spend on economic strength, per-capita military spending shows how much countries allocate while accounting for population size.

  On a per-capita basis (again using a five-year average), Qatar leads the ranks with a per-capita spend of $4,564, well-ahead of Israel at $2,535, and Saudi Arabia at $1,928.

  Rank	Country	Per Capita Spend ($)
  1	🇶🇦 Qatar	$4,564
  2	🇮🇱 Israel	$2,535
  3	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	$1,928
  4	🇸🇬 Singapore	$1,837
  5	🇰🇼 Kuwait	$1,815
  6	🇺🇸 U.S.	$1,815
  7	🇳🇴 Norway	$1,438
  8	🇴🇲 Oman	$1,254
  9	🇦🇺 Australia	$1,131
  10	🇧🇳 Brunei	$959
  11	🇬🇧 UK	$913
  12	🇰🇷 South Korea	$894
  13	🇧🇭 Bahrain	$863
  14	🇩🇰 Denmark	$861
  15	🇫🇷 France	$811
  16	🇫🇮 Finland	$801
  17	🇳🇱 Netherlands	$765
  18	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	$694
  19	🇸🇪 Sweden	$662
  20	🇨🇭 Switzerland	$647
  21	🇨🇦 Canada	$645
  22	🇬🇷 Greece	$629
  23	🇩🇪 Germany	$623
  24	🇳🇿 New Zealand	$610
  25	🇪🇪 Estonia	$535
  26	🇹🇼 Taiwan	$495
  27	🇮🇹 Italy	$494
  28	🇧🇪 Belgium	$487
  29	🇷🇺 Russia	$467
  30	🇱🇹 Lithuania	$463
  31	🇵🇹 Portugal	$417
  32	🇱🇻 Latvia	$405
  33	🇨🇾 Cyprus	$399
  34	🇯🇵 Japan	$398
  35	🇪🇸 Spain	$395
  36	🇦🇹 Austria	$393
  37	🇵🇱 Poland	$359
  38	🇺🇾 Uruguay	$354
  39	🇸🇰 Slovakia	$334
  40	🇱🇧 Lebanon	$334
  41	🇸🇮 Slovenia	$302
  42	🇺🇦 Ukraine	$302
  43	🇭🇷 Croatia	$294
  44	🇨🇱 Chile	$292
  45	🇷🇴 Romania	$258
  46	🇭🇺 Hungary	$248
  47	🇮🇪 Ireland	$235
  48	🇸🇨 Seychelles	$230
  49	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	$226
  50	🇩🇿 Algeria	$219
  51	🇦🇲 Armenia	$217
  52	🇧🇼 Botswana	$215
  53	🇯🇴 Jordan	$207
  54	🇹🇷 Turkey	$199
  55	🇨🇴 Colombia	$197
  56	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	$194
  57	🇨🇳 China	$183
  58	🇲🇹 Malta	$175
  59	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	$175
  60	🇮🇷 Iran	$169
  61	🇳🇦 Namibia	$159
  62	🇮🇶 Iraq	$145
  63	🇪🇨 Ecuador	$138
  64	🇲🇪 Montenegro	$137
  65	🇷🇸 Serbia	$133
  66	🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago	$131
  67	🇬🇦 Gabon	$124
  68	🇲🇦 Morocco	$122
  69	🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea	$112
  70	🇲🇾 Malaysia	$109
  71	🇧🇷 Brazil	$107
  72	🇹🇭 Thailand	$97
  73	🇬🇾 Guyana	$92
  74	🇹🇳 Tunisia	$91
  75	🇫🇯 Fiji	$83
  76	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	$83
  77	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	$82
  78	🇵🇪 Peru	$81
  79	🇬🇪 Georgia	$80
  80	🇧🇾 Belarus	$80
  81	🇯🇲 Jamaica	$77
  82	🇦🇱 Albania	$76
  83	🇸🇿 Eswatini	$72
  84	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	$69
  85	🇦🇷 Argentina	$66
  86	🇧🇿 Belize	$60
  87	🇲🇽 Mexico	$59
  88	🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	$58
  89	🇻🇳 Viet Nam	$58
  90	🇿🇦 South Africa	$56
  91	🇸🇻 El Salvador	$54
  92	🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina	$54
  93	🇮🇳 India	$53
  94	🇨🇬 Republic of Congo	$53
  95	🇵🇾 Paraguay	$52
  96	🇧🇴 Bolivia	$51
  97	🇵🇰 Pakistan	$49
  98	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	$44
  99	🇦🇴 Angola	$43
  100	🇽🇰 Kosovo	$42
  101	🇲🇷 Mauritania	$42
  102	🇭🇳 Honduras	$42
  103	🇪🇬 Egypt	$41
  104	🇰🇭 Cambodia	$36
  105	🇲🇲 Myanmar	$35
  106	🇵🇭 Philippines	$33
  107	🇲🇳 Mongolia	$33
  108	🇮🇩 Indonesia	$31
  109	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	$27
  110	🇹🇱 Timor Leste	$27
  111	🇲🇱 Mali	$26
  112	🇸🇳 Senegal	$24
  113	🇨🇮 Cote d’Ivoire	$23
  114	🇹🇬 Togo	$21
  115	🇰🇪 Kenya	$21
  116	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	$20
  117	🇧🇫 Burkina Faso	$20
  118	🇬🇳 Guinea	$19
  119	🇱🇸 Lesotho	$19
  120	🇨🇻 Cape Verde	$19
  121	🇬🇹 Guatemala	$19
  122	🇹🇩 Chad	$18
  123	🇸🇸 South Sudan	$18
  124	🇸🇩 Sudan	$18
  125	🇺🇬 Uganda	$18
  126	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	$17
  127	🇿🇲 Zambia	$16
  128	🇲🇺 Mauritius	$16
  129	🇨🇲 Cameroon	$16
  130	🇳🇵 Nepal	$15
  131	🇳🇬 Nigeria	$14
  132	🇳🇮 Nicaragua	$12
  133	🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau	$12
  134	🇹🇿 Tanzania	$12
  135	🇨🇺 Cuba	$11
  136	🇷🇼 Rwanda	$11
  137	🇲🇩 Moldova	$11
  138	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	$10
  139	🇳🇪 Niger	$10
  140	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	$9
  141	🇨🇫 Central African Republic	$8
  142	🇲🇿 Mozambique	$8
  143	🇬🇭 Ghana	$8
  144	🇧🇯 Benin	$7
  145	🇧🇮 Burundi	$7
  146	🇦🇫 Afghanistan	$6
  147	🇬🇲 Gambia	$6
  148	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	$5
  149	🇻🇪 Venezuela	$5
  150	🇲🇼 Malawi	$4
  151	🇸🇱 Sierra Leone	$3
  152	🇲🇬 Madagascar	$3
  153	🇨🇩 Dem. Rep. of Congo	$3
  154	🇱🇷 Liberia	$3
  155	🇭🇹 Haiti	$2
  156	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	$0
  157	🇮🇸 Iceland	$0
  158	🇵🇦 Panama	$0

  Measured this way, we get a perspective of how small defense budgets can be per person, even if the total expenditure is large.

  For example, India has the fourth-highest total defense expenditure in 2022, but because of its massive population only sets aside $53 per resident for its military, putting it solidly at the bottom third of the per-capita rankings.

  Patterns Revealed By Measuring Military Spend

  Changing how we look at a country’s military budget can reveal a lot more than just looking at absolute numbers.

  For example, the Middle East is the region with the highest spenders on defense as a percentage of their GDP, giving us insight into regional security concerns.

  Countries from the medium group of military spending—including parts of Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia—highlight past or recent conflict zones between neighbors, countries with internal strife, or countries wary of a regional aggressor. Ukraine’s average per capita military spend, for example, was just $122.4 from 2018 to 2021. The next year, it jumped nearly 10 times to $1,018.66 per person after Russia’s invasion.

  In fact, European military spending saw its sharpest one-year jump in 30 years as a direct result of the war.

  Alongside European anxieties, ongoing tension between China and Taiwan has also contributed to increased military spending in Asia and Oceania. Will these budgets continue their dramatic ascent or will they rise evenly alongside their relative economies in 2023?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 22:40

• Nurse Injured By COVID-19 Vaccine Heading To Trial Against Former Employer
  Nurse Injured By COVID-19 Vaccine Heading To Trial Against Former Employer

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

  

  A nurse diagnosed with a COVID-19 vaccine injury is headed to trial in a case against her former employer.

  Danielle Baker, 43, is trying to compel Ohio’s Hospice Inc. to pay worker’s compensation for her COVID-19 vaccine injury, suffered after she went to get vaccinated in June 2021 because she believed the company would mandate vaccination.

  A state officer rejected the claim, finding that Baker did not show her injury came “in the course of and arising out of her employment” because Ohio’s Hospice had not yet mandated vaccination. The Ohio Industrial Commission refused to hear the appeal.

  But a judge intervened in May, scheduling a trial date that sets up the possibility a jury could side with the nurse.

  “It was a win,” Baker told The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD, recounting when she learned of the development. “I cried. We’ve been fighting this for a while.”

  Baker hopes to receive a large award based on lost wages and medical bills.

  New Developments

  Baker said she knew Ohio’s Hospice would eventually mandate vaccination for employment—it did so in August 2021—and she did not want to lose her job, so she went to get Pfizer’s shot.

  Baker quickly began experiencing symptoms such as severe back pain and went to the hospital. She eventually suffered loss of feeling in her extremities and was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, or spinal cord inflammation. Multiple doctors have assessed that the condition was caused by the vaccine.

  Ohio’s Hospice Inc., which did not respond to requests for comment, has said in court filings that Baker’s complaint was barred by statutes of limitations and that she has failed to “declare an injurious event that occurred at work and/or a diagnosis for any such event that occurred at work.”

  Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, has also opposed the legal action, arguing no valid claim has been offered.

  But Miami County Common Pleas Judge Jeannine Pratt disagreed, at least for now. The judge has scheduled a trial that would start on Jan. 31, 2024, if the case is not thrown out or settled.

  Baker said she is not inclined to accept a settlement.

  “Unless they give something that I can’t refuse I plan on taking it all the way,” Baker told NTD.

  James Gardner, a lawyer representing the nurse, said via email that “most cases are resolved, but the diverse positions taken by the parties in this case might make settlement difficult.”

  Nurse for 20 Years

  Baker was a nurse for 20 years, primarily working in hospice care. She worked for 17 years at Ohio’s Hospice.

  After suffering the vaccine injury, she went on short-term disability, which eventually turned into long-term disability.

  Ohio’s Hospice ultimately said that there were no reasonable accommodations that could be made, so Baker was let go, though she was deemed eligible to rejoin the company at a later date.

  Baker has continued receiving disability payments as she’s unable to work because of her symptoms.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 22:20

• Israel Responds To Iranian Claim Of Achieving Hypersonic Missiles
  Israel Responds To Iranian Claim Of Achieving Hypersonic Missiles

  Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has responded to reports that Iran has achieved an ‘invincible’ weapon, namely Tehran’s first hypersonic missile, called the ‘Fattah’. He stressed that Israel can stop any threat coming from Iran, and that the Israeli military will always retain the technology edge. 

  “I hear our enemies boasting about weapons they are developing. To any such development, we have an even better response – whether it be on land, in the air, or in the maritime arena, including both defensive and offensive means,” Gallant told journalists at a northern military base on Tuesday.

  

  “We will know how to protect the citizens of Israel, and how to strike our enemies with a crushing blow if, God forbid, they start a war against us,” he said in a video statement.

  Iran on Tuesday claimed it has joined the club of those very few nations which have hypersonic weapons in their arsenal. Currently, it’s believed only Russia, China, and the United States possess them.

  Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attended the unveiling ceremony, wherein he touted “Today we feel that the deterrent power has been formed.” He said: “This power is an anchor of lasting security and peace for the regional countries.”

  While much of the world has been focused on the crisis of the war in Ukraine, Israel has been raising the alarm over what it says is a steadily advancing Iranian nuclear program. Israel has even been running emergency preparedness drills simulating major attack by Iran and its regional allies like Hezbollah.

  According to The Times of Israel: 

  On Sunday night, the high-level security cabinet convened at the military’s main operational command bunker in Tel Aviv to simulate political decision-making during a potential multifront war.

  While the drill and the cabinet meeting were pre-planned, they came during escalated tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and Israeli warnings that a broad conflict could break out over the issue.

  Both sides are meanwhile presenting their ‘readiness’ actions as defensive in nature.

  New banner in Tehran showcasing the Fattah, which #Iran claims is a hypersonic missile, reading “400 seconds to Tel Aviv.” pic.twitter.com/WeJeWFylG5

  — Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) June 7, 2023

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

  Revolutionary Guard aerospace program commander Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh said Tuesday that the Fattah hypersonic missiles possesses a range of up to 870 miles and that “there exists no system that can rival or counter this missile” – as it can also reach speeds of up to Mach 15, according to Iran’s claims.

  However, there’s yet to be independent confirmation that Iran has actually achieved a hypersonic weapon that its ready to be deployed. But there is consensus that the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missiles program has long been sophisticated and advanced. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 22:00

• Twitter Files: FBI Helps Ukraine Censor Twitter Users And Obtain Their Info, Including Journalists
  Twitter Files: FBI Helps Ukraine Censor Twitter Users And Obtain Their Info, Including Journalists

  Authored by Aaron Maté via Substack,

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation has aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to censor social media users and obtain their personal information, leaked emails reveal.

  

  In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

  The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for “inauthenticity” but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other “American and Canadian journalists.”

  The FBI’s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files, a cache of leaked communications from the social media giant.

  The FBI’s censorship request was relayed in a March 27th, 2022 email from FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the Assistant Legal Attaché at the US Embassy in Kyiv, to two Twitter executives. Four FBI colleagues were copied on the exchange.

  “Thank you very much for your time to discuss the assistance to Ukraine,” Kobzanets wrote. “I am including a list of accounts I received over a couple of weeks from the Security Service of Ukraine. These accounts are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation. For your review and consideration.”

  

  The document, drafted by Ukraine’s SBU, contained 163 accounts, including mine. (The list is numbered to 175, but some accounts have two corresponding numerical lines).

  The listed Twitter profiles, the SBU alleged, have been “used to disseminate disinformation and fake news to inaccurately reflect events in Ukraine, justify war crimes of the Russian authorities on the territory of the Ukrainian state in violation of international law.”

  In order “to stop Russian aggression on the information front,” the SBU continued, “we kindly ask you to take urgent measures to block these Twitter accounts and provide us with user data specified during registration.”

  The SBU expressed its “gratitude for the existing level of interaction.”

  

  If granted, the users on the list would not only have been banned from Twitter but had their phone number, date of birth, and email address disclosed to both the FBI and SBU.

  In response, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then-Head of Trust and Safety, informed Special Agent Kobzanets and his FBI colleagues that Twitter would “review the reported accounts under our Rules.” But he warned that the list included “a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate).” Therefore, Roth said, Twitter’s review would “focus first and foremost on identifying any potential inauthenticity.”

  In response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts but raised concerns about its inclusion of “American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate).” pic.twitter.com/VOzzL3Vz9W

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

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

  Roth then suggested that he would be open to suspending authentic accounts if it could be proven that they have a hidden tie to a foreign government. Journalists “who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules absent other context that might establish some kind of covert/deceptive association between them and a government,” Roth wrote. “Any additional information or context in those areas is of course welcome and appreciated.”

  

  In his reply, Kobzanets did not directly acknowledge Roth’s concerns about Ukraine’s FBI-abetted effort to censor journalists. “Understood,” Kobzanets told Roth. “Whatever your review determines and action Twitter deem[s] is appropriate.” He also indicated that the FBI would not meet Roth’s request for any “context” that might establish ties between journalists and a foreign government: “Unlikely there will be any additional information or context.”

  Inside Twitter, Roth forwarded the FBI request to two colleagues. “This is the output of our meeting with the FBI last week,” he wrote. “The list of accounts is a mixed bag – there’s some state media mixed in with a bunch of other stuff – but given the context, I think a deep dive here warranted.” (Roth left Twitter in November 2022).

  FBI SBU Twitter Emails (pdf)

  In an email, I asked Special Agent Kobzanets if he had vetted Ukraine’s censorship request list before sending it to Twitter. I also asked Kobzanets if, after being informed by Twitter’s Roth that the FBI was trying to censor journalists on the SBU’s behalf, whether that had prompted any review or revision of his assistance to Ukrainian intelligence. Kobzanets did not respond.

  The FBI’s National Press Office also declined to answer questions. Among several queries, I invoked Twitter’s warning that the FBI’s “assistance to Ukraine” entailed censoring journalists, and asked if that has prompted any changes to the bureau’s collaboration with Ukrainian intelligence.

  “While we appreciate your inquiry, as a matter of practice we do not confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on specific interactions nor confirm the veracity of correspondence,” an FBI spokesperson wrote.

  The FBI officials copied on the Kobzanets’ exchange with Twitter include Elvis Chan, an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the FBI’s San Francisco field office, where he manages its Cyber Branch. Chan was active in the FBI’s contacts with Twitter when the social media giant’s censorship of reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop shortly before the November 2020 election. (As I recently reported, he was also involved in FBI’s decision to forego a direct inspection of the DNC servers and instead rely on the Hillary Clinton-funded cyber firm CrowdStrike in the bureau’s probe of alleged Russian hacking in 2016).

  Of the 163 accounts named by the SBU, 34 were suspended and 20 no longer exist. The rest remain active.

  The FBI declined to answer my questions about its aid to Ukrainian intelligence censorship efforts.

  “While we appreciate your inquiry, as a matter of practice we do not confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on specific interactions nor confirm the veracity of correspondence,” FBI…

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

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

  Those marked for censorship by Ukraine but remain online include Russian politicians Gennady Zyuganov, a longtime member of Russia’s Communist Party and parliamentarian who lost to Boris Yeltsin in Russia’s 1996 president election; Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s former Deputy Prime Minister; and Sergey Mironov, a Russian politician and parliamentarian. The list also includes Russian journalists Vladimir Solovyov, a television news host; and Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled network RT. Several Russian government agencies and media outlets were also listed.

  The Ukrainian nationals targeted by the SBU’s suppression request include Anatoly Shariy, a video blogger and politician who fled Ukraine in 2012 and subsequently received European Union asylum; and Andriy Portnov, a Ukrainian lawyer and politician who served as a senior official under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych until the latter’s ouster in the February 2014 Maidan coup. (Both Shariy and Portnov’s Twitter accounts remain active).

  The disclosure of a collaboration on censorship between the FBI and SBU is the latest documented instance of Ukrainian state-tied attempts to target foreign voices. A Ukrainian website known as Myrotvorets maintains a list of what it calls “enemies of Ukraine.” I was recently added to that list along with The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil, as well as the comedian and YouTube host Jimmy Dore. The Myrotvorets database was co-founded by Anton Gerashchenko, former deputy minister at the Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he now serves as an advisor.

  Last year, the global tech/media conference Web Summit withdrew a speaking invitation to The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and I after Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, demanded our cancellation. (Another Grayzone colleague, Kit Klarenberg, was recently detained and interrogated about his journalism by British authorities).

  News of the FBI’s work with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Twitter users also follows reporting from journalist Lee Fang that the FBI has pressured Facebook to remove accounts and posts deemed by the SBU to be Russian “disinformation.” According to Fang, a senior Ukrainian official in regular contact with the FBI defined “disinformation” in such broad terms that it could mean viewpoints that “simply contradict the Ukrainian government’s narrative.”

  For those asking, here’s the SBU’s list of targeted accounts that the FBI sent to Twitter: https://t.co/yUBK77gEPG

  And here’s the Twitter-FBI email correspondence: https://t.co/OHTZdBHUlx

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

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

  *  *  *

  And as Fang (leefang.com) wrote in April…

  New internal Twitter emails confirm, show Ukrainian intelligence pushing to ban American journalists via FBI https://t.co/29drH0Xccl

  — Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 7, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 21:40

• Disney's Little Mermaid Sinks As Spider Man Swings To New Heights
  Disney’s Little Mermaid Sinks As Spider Man Swings To New Heights

  Turns out nobody needed a live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid,” which sunk in comparison to Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” when it came to the weekend box office.

  

  According to Deadline, The Little Mermaid raked in $40.6 million between over the three-day Memorial-day weekend, a 57% decline from its May 26th opening weekend, bringing the movie to a total gross of $186.2 million in the two weeks it’s been out.

  Spider Man, meanwhile, earned $120.5 million over Memorial Day weekend, the best start for a summer blockbuster year-to-date, with opening day raking in $51.7 million – the best single-day gross to date for a movie this year.

  Back at Disney, The Little Mermaid’s overseas numbers may do even worse – with the film expected to gross around $300 million in the US and Canada vs. $260 million abroad.

  According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie has already tanked in China and South Korea – grossing just $3.6 million in 10 days in China, and $4.4 million in South Korea.

  The movie cost a reported $250 million to produce, and has a $140 million global marketing campaign – making it likely that The Little Mermaid will only break even, or even take a loss of close to $20 million.

  Controversy has surrounded Disney’s The Little Mermaid for the last couple of years as some have criticized the live adaptation’s “woke” story changes. Those criticisms have included alterations to the lyrics from classic songs (specifically actress Awkwafina’s rap song The Scuttlebutt) to the racial recasting of what was the original fair-skinned character of Ariel from the original Danish story. Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago, Mary Poppins Returns) this Disney interpretation stars Halle Bailey as Ariel, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Jonah Hauer-King as Price Eric.

  Strong reactions to the movie have even led the film/television online database IMDb (Internet Movie Database) to step in and post the following warning label: “Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.” -The Epoch Times

  That said, while many expected The Little Mermaid to be extremely woke, it turns out not to be the case.

  “The run-up to the film’s release suggested another Disney woke-a-thon, but the film doesn’t live down to that description,” said right-leaning critic Christian Toto in a statement to the Washington Times. “Yes, the film tweaked a song or two, but the story never stops to lecture us about the patriarchy or other modern ills. There’s a brief suggestion of environmentalism, but it’s woven gently into the story’s fabric.”

  “This live-action yarn isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t stop cold to lecture us or push the kind of strained, girl-power shtick that immediately wears thin,” he continued in his review.

  More via The Epoch Times;

  Controversies have plagued The Walt Disney Company and its brand for the last couple years, with many lifelong Disney fans exclaiming their dislike of the company’s burgeoning “wokeness.” As a longtime family-friendly brand, critics have accused the company of being too inclusive and including adult-themed sexualization and homosexuality in their films. This, they say, devalues the Disney brand. A specific example of a “woke” move in its movies includes the company’s decision to incorporate a same-sex kiss in Pixar’s latest Toy Story installation.

  Political infractions have also swirled around Disney in recent years. In 2022, following the passage of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, Disney’s now-ousted CEO Bob Chapek stepped back from his stance to not give in to woke demands after Disney employees demanded the company condemn the legislation. That was followed by a string of box office disappointments and the re-appointment of its former CEO Bob Iger. All this has led the watchdog organization the New Tolerance Campaign to include The Walt Disney Company in its 2022 ranking as the “Worst of the Woke” for the second year in a row, according to a report by Fox News.

  Meanwhile, it’s clear that big studio franchise films can still thrive in an age of streamers and on-demand releases. For its part, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse put spider mania in full gear both domestically and internationally. Besides drawing huge crowds, it earned an A from market research firm CinemaScore and an 82 percent definite recommendation from polling service Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak audiences.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 21:20

• Shareholder Proposals On Social Issues Are 'Not In The Public Interest'
  Shareholder Proposals On Social Issues Are ‘Not In The Public Interest’

  Authored by Bernard Sharfman via RealClear Wire,

  Shareholder activists on both sides of the political spectrum have increasingly been using shareholder proposals to debate the most pressing and divisive social issues of our times.  Issues such as abortion, gun rights, and climate change.  This increased usage has been facilitated by the SEC taking the position that it has broad authority to compel public companies to include shareholder proposals on social issues in their proxy statements. While these issues need to be addressed, their resolution is to be found in the political arena.  That is how our democracy works.  They should not be and will not be resolved by a vote of shareholders. 

  

  Responding to these proposals cost corporations tens of millions of dollars each year, not to mention the loss in efficiency caused by distracting management from their focus on company business.  Most importantly, they pressure management to take stands on divisive issues.  For a public company to thrive, it must provide a big tent that covers millions of customers and employees who reside on every possible point of the political spectrum.  Antagonizing a significant number of these stakeholders by forcing management to take sides on social issues is not how a public company is going to maximize profits.  

  This is why the National Association of Manufacturers (“NAM”) recently petitioned a federal appeals court to intervene in a lawsuit involving a shareholder proposal submitted to Kroger Co. (National Center for Public Policy Research v. SEC, 5th Cir., No. 23-60230):

  [NAM] moves to intervene to raise a fundamental threshold issue addressed by neither party but affecting every publicly traded company in the United States: Whether the First Amendment and federal securities laws allow the SEC, through its Rule 14a-8, to compel a corporation to use its proxy statement to speak about abortion, climate change, diversity, gun control, immigration, or other contentious issues unrelated to its core business or the creation of shareholder value.

  NAM’s petition was granted.  As NAM points out in its petition, nothing in Section 14 of the Exchange Act of 1934 (“34 Act”) the statutory authority governing the SEC’s regulation of the proxy process, grants the SEC with such power:

  It shall be unlawful for any person, by the use of the mails or by any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce or of any facility of a national securities exchange or otherwise, in contravention of such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors, to solicit or to permit the use of his name to solicit any proxy or consent or authorization in respect.

  So, why does the SEC think it has the authority to compel the insertion of shareholder proposals on social issues, not only when they are not significant to a company’s business, but also when there is not even a “nexus” between the social issue and the company? The only explanation is that the Commission is interpreting the statutory terms, “in the public interest” and “for the protection of investors” (investor protection), to mean that it has almost unlimited discretionary authority to compel shareholder proposals. 

  If so, the SEC has totally misunderstood the term “in the public interest.”  This term does not give it broad authority to act as it wants.  As stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in NAACP v. FPC: “This Court’s cases have consistently held that the use of the words ‘public interest’ in a regulatory statute is not a broad license to promote the general public welfare.  Rather, the words take meaning from the purposes of the regulatory legislation.” In essence, the term is an empty shell, with no real meaning, until it is filled up with the identifiable policy objectives and constraints that Congress writes into a statute.  

  What fills up “in the public interest” in the 34 Act is investor protection, promoting “efficiency, competition, and capital formation,” and the constraint of “materiality.” Investor protection is the primary mission of the 34 Act.  Like the Securities Act of 1933, its focus has always been on protecting “investors from fraud, an unlevel informational playing field, the extraction of private benefits from the firm by firm insiders, and investors’ propensity to make unwise investment decisions.” Thus, being informed of the risks of buying, selling, and the holding securities in their investment portfolios is how investor protection is defined under our securities laws.  There is no connection between this definition of investor protection and shareholder proposals on social issues.      

  Compelling such shareholder proposals does not promote “efficiency, competition, and capital formation.” These proposals can do nothing but cause financial harm to a company and result in a reduced ability to compete with private and foreign companies who do not have to deal with these proposals. In regard to materiality, a shareholder proposal on a social issue which is not significant to informing shareholders of a company’s investment risk is not a matter “to which there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor would attach importance in determining whether to buy or sell the securities registered.”  

  The interpretation of the two statutory terms presented here does not support the argument that the SEC has broad authority to compel companies to insert shareholder proposals on social issues into their proxy statements. On the contrary, it demonstrates the unreasonableness of trying to interpret the terms as if they do.  In sum, it is simply not “in the public interest” for the SEC to have such authority.  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 21:00

• Russia Blames Ukraine For Ammonia Pipeline Sabotage, Civilians Injured
  Russia Blames Ukraine For Ammonia Pipeline Sabotage, Civilians Injured

  Moscow has accused Ukraine of blowing up the Tolyatti-Odesa pipeline in a new act of “sabotage” targeting vital Russian infrastructure. It is the longest ammonia pipeline in the world, at some 2,500km, and Russia utilizes it to export the industrial chemical, which is a core component of fertilizer, among other products.

  A Wednesday statement by the Russian Defense Ministry said “A Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group blew up the Tolyatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline” outside the village of Masyutovka in the northeastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

  

  The sabotage reportedly occurred Monday evening, with photos and footage subsequently appearing on social media which show a chemical leak and thick, white haze of smoke leaking from the pipeline.

  The defense ministry cited injuries from the dangerous chemical leak:

  “As a result of this terrorist act, there are victims among the civilian population. They received the necessary medical care,” the MoD said.

  Ukrainian officials have acknowledged the damaged pipeline, but have instead put the blame on Russia, alleging its forces shelled it.

  The Russian statement added: “Currently, the ammonia remnants are being drained through the damaged pipeline sections from Ukrainian territory. There are no casualties among Russian army personnel.”

  According to a Dept of Labor OSHA fact sheet, “Ammonia is considered a high health hazard because it is corrosive to the skin, eyes, and lungs. Exposure to 300 parts per million (ppm) is immediately dangerous to life and health. Ammonia is also flammable at concentrations of approximately 15% to 28% by volume in air.”

  Additionally, “When mixed with lubricating oils, its flammable concentration range is increased. It can explode if released in an enclosed space with a source of ignition present, or if a vessel containing anhydrous ammonia is exposed to fire. Fortunately, ammonia has a low odor threshold (20 ppm), so most people will seek relief at much lower concentrations.”

  Toxic gas clouds….

  💬#Zakharova: On June 5, there was an explosion at the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline section controlled by the Ukrainian army.

  The Kiev regime has made it impossible to supply ammonia to the global market and also undermined efforts to fight hunger & help countries in need pic.twitter.com/h7iFxoItCr

  — MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) June 7, 2023

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

  Currently all eyes are on the bigger disaster unfolding in southern Ukraine and also greatly impacting Crimea – the Tuesday explosion and breach of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River. Like with other major incidents throughout the war, both sides are blaming the other – but tellingly, the Biden administration has in this case been reluctant to quickly cast blame on Russia, given it would have no incentive to blow up the very dam it was occupying and overseeing, and which supplies water to Crimea. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 20:40

• "Literally Impossible": Trucking Companies Brace For California's Electric Mandate
  “Literally Impossible”: Trucking Companies Brace For California’s Electric Mandate

  Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Logistics companies are scrambling to meet California’s upcoming Jan. 1, 2024 mandate that all new trucks purchased for servicing ports, rail yards, and distribution centers in the state be zero-emission vehicles, with experts questioning limited access to charging stations and the viability of switching from diesel to electric fleets.

  

  Availability of electric semi-trucks is a concern, as is the price of the vehicles, the number of miles they can go on a charge, and the cost of maintenance and replacement parts, all of which currently remain unknown variables, according to industry experts.

  “We need to know all of these things in order to plan,” Nelson Sibrian—owner of Sibrian Trucking based in Wilmington, California—told The Epoch Times. “If we don’t know the actual range, it makes it impossible to schedule, and they can’t give me a straight answer on how long [trucks] will take to charge.”

  

  Charging is problematic on several fronts, as trucks require special charging stations, and with limited infrastructure at and near ports, experts say the frequent need to recharge, and the wait times expected with more trucks than charging ports, add to the time and cost of operation.

  Traditionally, maintenance accounts for the majority of expenditures with diesel trucks, and the lack of information regarding similar requirements for electric vehicles presents unique challenges for logistics companies, according to experts. Some say they’ve heard costs could be tenfold for electric as compared to diesel trucks.

  “Nobody has real numbers when we ask for details about maintenance and replacement costs,” Sibrian said. “With diesel, we know our cost per day to maintain the vehicle.”

  Entry Price Substantially Higher for Electric Vehicles

  The price of most electric semi-trucks is approximately $500,000, based on listings for new models, and Tesla is seeking to gain market share by undercutting the price, with models ranging from $180,000 and up.

  Availability is considerably different between electric and diesel. Fleet owners have their choice of manufacturers for traditional trucks, while extremely limited production has electric counterparts on backorder in many instances.

  “Even if I had the $500,000 to buy a new electric truck, there aren’t any for sale,” John Williams, a trucking professional servicing Oakland ports, told The Epoch Times.

  With 10,000 drayage trucks—those that access ports and railyards—reportedly replaced on average each year, the newly imposed mandate will create demand that manufacturers will be unable to supply, based on current production standards, according to trucking company owners. Distributors additionally say only a handful of trucks are available at a time, with supply substantially trailing demand.

  

  Efforts are underway to increase production at facilities in Southern California and Nevada, but transportation professionals expect difficulty buying or leasing the trucks by the time the laws take effect.

  “This is a bigger problem than people realize because we’re being forced to do something that is literally impossible,” Williams said. “There are not enough trucks, not enough charging stations, and not enough information that we can rely on.”

  Weight and Range Limitations Could Impact Profitability

  Industry experts say the estimated 10,000-pound battery pack installed in Tesla trucks is also potentially an issue because replacements would be difficult and costly and lead to less cargo being carried due to laws pertaining to weight limits. They additionally report no success when requesting details from the manufacturer regarding specifics.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 20:20

• China Auto Sales Jump 55% Year Over Year As Price Cuts Continue To Move NEV Metal
  China Auto Sales Jump 55% Year Over Year As Price Cuts Continue To Move NEV Metal

  Retail sales of passenger vehicles scorched higher in May, with 1.76 million units sold, according to preliminary data from the China Passenger Car Association released this week. 

  The sales figure represents 8% growth from the month prior. As has been the case over the last several years, new energy vehicles continue to grow disproportionately to the rest of the sector, driving sales higher.

  Last month 557,000 NEVs were sold, growth of 55% year over year and 6% sequentially, according to a Bloomberg wrap up of the data. 

  The sales boost comes as the country slashed prices to move metal throughout the first 5 months of the year. In late May we noted that China’s auto industry association was urging automakers to “cool” the hype behind price cuts that were sweeping across the country. 

  The price cuts were getting so egregious that the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers went so far as to put out a message on its official WeChat account, stating that “a price war is not a long-term solution”. Instead “automakers should work harder on technology and branding,” it said at the time.

  

  Recall we wrote in May that most major automakers were slashing prices in China. The move is coming after lifting pandemic controls failed to spur significant demand in China, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. Ford and GM will be joined by BMW and Volkswagen in offering the discounts and promotions on EVs, the report says. 

  At the time, Ford was offering $6,000 off its Mustang Mach-E, putting the standard version of its EV at just $31,000. In April, prior to the discounts, only 84 of the vehicles were sold, compared to 1,500 sales in December. There was some pulling forward of demand due to the phasing out of subsidies heading into the new year, and Ford had also cut prices by about 9% in December. 

  A spokesperson for Ford called it a “stock clearance” at the time. 

  Discounts at Volkswagen ranged from around $2,200 to $7,300 a car. Its electric ID series is seeing price cuts of almost $6,000. The company called the cuts “temporary promotions due to general reluctance among car buyers, the new emissions rule and discounts offered by competitors.”

  China followed suit, and thus, now we have the sales numbers to prove it…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 20:00

• Lawmakers Call For Transparency After Whistleblower Alleges US Has Recovered Alien Craft
  Lawmakers Call For Transparency After Whistleblower Alleges US Has Recovered Alien Craft

  Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The American people have a right to know whether elements within the intelligence establishment have withheld information on crashed UFOs that were recovered by the government and may be used to develop weapons, according to Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

  

  Perry reacted strongly to allegations from a whistleblower, who has claimed that information about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP, formerly called UFOs) has been kept secret to “intentionally thwart legitimate congressional oversight of the UAP Program.”

  “The truth, whatever it is, regardless of what the subject is, belongs with the American people, not in these halls, not in some other place in some building in downtown Washington, D.C.—out with the American people,” Perry told The Epoch Times on June 6.

  “This is their government, not the people that work in D.C. They’re the custodians of the information.”

  The allegation comes at a time when public trust in the federal government has eroded, adding weight to a claim that, just a few years ago, might have been met with skepticism.

  Covert UAP Programs

  David C. Grusch, a former intelligence official and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, claimed on June 5 to have provided Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General classified information about covert UAP programs. That information proves that the United States has collected intact and partially intact craft of nonhuman origin, according to Grusch.

  

  Grusch claimed to have experienced retaliation for his actions, leading him to file a whistleblower complaint.

  The story was first reported by The Debrief, which states that other intelligence officials have provided similar accounts and corroborating information. Grusch also stated his claims in an interview on NewsNation on June 5. Reporters for both outlets said they hadn’t seen the evidence Grusch claimed to possess.

  Grusch formerly worked in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office and was a member of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019 to 2021, according to The Debrief.

  The United States and its allies have recovered partial and intact remains of aircraft of nonhuman origin for decades, according to Grusch, including the remains of aliens.

  “Well, naturally when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots. And believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it’s true,” Grusch told News Nation. “We’re definitely not alone.”

  Grusch claimed to have seen evidence of “quite a number” of devices of nonhuman origin provided by unnamed intelligence officers who, he said, were part of a secret program.

  Research and Development Value

  The discovery of technology developed by other life forms could have a profound effect on human development, according to Garry Nolan, a professor at Stanford University.

  “What might be represented here could be hundreds of technology revolutions ahead of us. It could be more transformative for humanity than what the microprocessor accomplished. Imagine what we could do with even a grain of knowledge about how they operate,” Nolan said, according to The Debrief.

  That knowledge could have implications for the defense industry, too.

  The National Defense Authorization Act of 2023 directs the secretary of defense to establish a “secure mechanism for authorized reporting of—any event relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena,” including “material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement.”

  The law further states that the secretary must “prevent the unauthorized public reporting or compromise of classified military and intelligence systems, programs, and related activity, including all categories and levels of special access and compartmented access programs.”

  Certain members of Congress and other officials have been briefed about UAP, including exotic recovered materials, since 2019, according to The New York Times.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 19:40

• Hunter Biden Could Face Prison For Contempt Of Court: Judge
  Hunter Biden Could Face Prison For Contempt Of Court: Judge

  Hunter Biden – who’s been fighting responsibility for the child fathered with a stripper – could do time in prison if he’s held in contempt of court by an Arkansas judge.

  

  The First Son was ordered to hand over information about his finances, and has been asked by attorneys for his baby mama, Lunden Alexis Roberts, to hold him in contempt if he doesn’t according to a May 18 motion alleging he failed to fully answer questions regarding his ability to pay child support.

  On June 5, Judge Holly Lodge Meyer issued an order (pdf) requiring Hunter Biden to appear on July 10 at the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville to explain “why he should not be held in contempt.”

  If he fails to do so, it’s a Class C misdemeanor punishable by fines and prison time.

  In her order, Meyer said that she would consider “punishment or sanctions” against Hunter Biden, including “incarceration for civil contempt until such time as the defendant fully answers discovery for a period of up to six months” and “incarceration for criminal contempt for a period of up to six months.” -Epoch Times

  Roberts sued Biden for child support in 2019. After initially denying the child was his until a DNA test proved otherwise, the two settled for an undisclosed amount in 2020. The terms of the agreement remain sealed due to the inclusion of sensitive personal data – including the amount of monthly support, as well as each party’s source of income.

  Then, Biden asked the court to revisit the child support arrangement because he says he was broke, leading to the current case being considered before the court.

  More via the Epoch Times;

  He appeared before Independence County Circuit Court in Batesville on May 1.

  During that hearing, his attorney said that Biden had been paying $20,000 per month in child support, for a total of up to $750,000 since the support order was signed.

  At that hearing, the judge ordered Biden to provide information on his income from his artwork, investments, employment, gifts from friends, and other sources.

  The judge also said she couldn’t rule on the amount of child support because neither side had provided enough information in the discovery process to move forward.

  Roberts’s attorneys have complained that the Biden team was dragging its feet in the discovery process and filed a motion on May 18 for Biden to be held in contempt.

  Clinton Lancaster, a lawyer for Roberts, argued in the motion for contempt that Biden had been ordered to do something but didn’t and that this “is a habit and a game for Mr. Biden.”

  Lancaster continued that Biden doesn’t want to disclose his income and “says that he is somewhat financially destitute” despite living in an oceanfront home in Malibu and going on foreign trips.

  During the hearing in early May, the judge said she would press Biden’s legal team to fulfill their commitments in the discovery process.

  In the June 5 order, she wrote that she was hereby giving Biden notice to appear in person at the Independence County Circuit Court on July 10 and “show cause, if any exists, why he should not be held in contempt.”

  Meanwhile, rumors have swirled that Biden could face federal charges on allegations of tax- and gun-related violations.

  Rumors of Federal Charges

  The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware has been investigating Hunter Biden’s tax affairs.

  The president’s son said in 2020 that he was taking the investigation “seriously” but was confident of a favorable outcome.

  “I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors,” Hunter Biden said in a statement issued by the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris transition team in December 2020.

  Hunter Biden has acknowledged that he has made mistakes, but he has insisted that he didn’t commit any crimes.

  A report by The Washington Post in October that cited anonymous sources indicated that prosecutors believed there was enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and allegations that the president’s son put false information on paperwork relating to his purchase of a handgun.

  President Joe Biden was asked in an interview on MSNBC in early May how his presidency would be impacted if his son were charged.

  “First of all, my son has done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him,” the president said.

  Michael Clements contributed to this report.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 19:20

• Some Of Nation's Largest Pediatric Hospitals Will No Longer Offer Children Gender Modification
  Some Of Nation’s Largest Pediatric Hospitals Will No Longer Offer Children Gender Modification

  Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Potentially thousands of Texas children seeking to change their gender identity will no longer have access to puberty blockers, sterilization, and permanently disfiguring “gender-transition” surgeries in the state under a new law signed by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott.

  

  The Republican governor signed Senate Bill 14 on June 2, making the Lone Star State the most populous state to prohibit sex-change “treatments” for children. 

  The new law stands to be a major roadblock for advocates of transgender medicine.

  

  It will stop the nation’s largest pediatric healthcare provider, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, from offering “gender-modification” procedures to minors.

  And it will prohibit three more of the country’s largest pediatric hospitals from offering services to children who want to change their gender.

  Both Texas Children’s Hospital, with 973 beds, and Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, with 490 beds, currently offer gender-altering services to youths.

  Halting Surgeries in Texas

  The new law just signed by Abbott bans surgeries that sterilize children by removing parts of their reproductive systems. It outlaws mastectomies for girls hoping to live more like boys.

  It disallows the prescribing of drugs that induce temporary or permanent infertility, such as cross-sex hormones. And it prohibits removing any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part.

  The Lone Star State joins 17 other states now restricting “gender transitioning” for children. The Texas law will go into effect on Sept. 1.

  Almost 30,000 Texas teens—from age 13 through 17—likely have a “gender identity” different from their biological sex, according to a study by the Williams Institute, part of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law.

  And nearly one in five people in the United States who identify as transgender are minors as young as 13, the study says.

  Under the new law, children in Texas currently on hormones for gender dysphoria will have to be weaned off those drugs.

  Doctors who perform gender modification on children stand to lose their medical licenses in Texas. The bill gives the Texas attorney general the ability to enforce the law.

  The Republican-led effort to pass SB 14—a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican—met stiff resistance from Democrats as it was debated in May.

  GOP advocates of the bill said cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and surgery could cause irrevocable health problems or sterility in children.

  Their Democrat counterparts argued that the decision to put children on hormone treatment and surgery should be left to parents, their children, and doctors.

  Journalist Chris Rufo, an outspoken opponent of “woke” gender ideology and gender modification for children, posted an undated internal email from Texas Children’s Hospital CEO Mark Wallace on Twitter in May.

  ‘Immensely Heart-Wrenching’

  In the email, Wallace announced an “immensely heart-wrenching” transition to modify “gender-affirming care” offered to children.

  Action will be taken over the next few months to comply with the new law that will “prohibit procedures and prescription treatments for gender transitioning, gender reassignment, and gender dysphoria” for children, Wallace wrote.

  He wrote that the hospital would “work with patients and their families to manage the discontinuation of hormone therapies or source appropriate care outside of Texas.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 19:00

• When The Atlantic Council Pens An Op-Ed On Achieving 'Peace' In Ukraine
  When The Atlantic Council Pens An Op-Ed On Achieving ‘Peace’ In Ukraine

  Not the Babylon Bee, but this is what happens when a pair of writers at the Atlantic Council get op-ed space in The Washington Post. 

  It also proves that Neocon tentacles still have a firm grip on beltway thinking. Yes, they actually argue that peace can be achieved – or “the key to ending the war in Ukraine” – is by “attacking Crimea”…

  

  Translation: only nuclear war can help us avoid nuclear war.

  It’s as if the absolute disasters of US interventions and wars from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Syria–the latter where there’s still an indefinite occupation in the war-torn country’s northeast, never happened. 

  But this is what still passes for “respectable” foreign policy in the among the beltway blob, apparently. 

  It is interesting that the think tanks, heavily funded by the arms industry, always see escalation as the only path to peace.
  War is peace, diplomacy is treason! https://t.co/VlmO4hmtPM pic.twitter.com/ktDoWpCbV8

  — Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) June 7, 2023

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  “War is the health of the state,” wrote political dissident Randolph Bourne (he was called a “radical” in his day) in the midst of the First World War. And later, Major General Smedley D. Butler agreed that “War is a racket” – according to the title of his famous book.

  The Ukraine war is on track to be the most profitable conflict in all of human history, from the perspective of the major defense contractors at least.

  Death, destruction, and mayhem in Eastern Europe as Lockheed & Raytheon and friends celebrate good times…

  NEW: Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet called the debt ceiling deal’s defense spending increase “as good an outcome as our industry or our company could ask for,” @EliClifton reports in @RStatecraft. https://t.co/HFQhpbGcUO

  — Quincy Institute (@QuincyInst) June 1, 2023

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  It’s no wonder that peace talks have proven elusive. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 18:40

• Radical Climate Group Deflating SUV Tires, Says It Has 'Active Groups' In 18 Countries, Including US
  Radical Climate Group Deflating SUV Tires, Says It Has ‘Active Groups’ In 18 Countries, Including US

  Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Under cover of darkness, activists from a radical left-wing group unscrewed the valve caps on tires, placed lentils or other pulses into the valve cap, and then screwed them back on. Tires of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) are covertly deflated.

  In the name of combatting “climate change,” the group that encourages people to carry out sabotage activities on SUV owners claimed its operations had been expanded to 18 countries, including the United States.

  “Reports [are] coming in of very angry #CarShaggers who are upset they can’t drive their massive tanks around Lisbon. Oh no!” the group said on its website on June 1. The group, calling itself the Tyre Extinguishers, announced its campaign had reached Lisbon, Portugal.

  Tyre Extinguishers claimed that it now has “active groups” in 18 countries, including the United States, the UK, Canada, Austria, New Zealand, and Germany. According to the group’s Twitter account, on the night of May 31, more than 40 vehicles were “disarmed” by activists in Potsdam, Germany.

  The group said it wants to make it impossible to own an SUV in urban areas.

  “To do that, we need people everywhere deflating 4×4 tyres, week-in, week-out,” the group said on its website.

  In its first reported tire-deflating operation in the UK in March 2022, the group said that “SUVs are unnecessary ‘luxury emissions’, flaunted by the wealthy,” condemning the vehicles as “a climate disaster.”

  Its website released instructions on how to deflate tires and also pamphlets and stickers that activists could print at home and leave on targeted vehicles’ windshields.

  “ATTENTION – Your gas guzzler kills. We have deflated one or more of your tires. You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car,” read the leaflets.

  “We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others,” it continued. “We’re taking actions into our own hands because our governments and politicians will not.”

  The group encourages activists around the world to target SUVs in “posh/middle-class areas.”

  In April, the group said its members “deflated the tires of 43 luxury SUVs around the neighborhood of Beacon Hill” in its “first action” in Boston.

  Press release from TX Boston on our website here: https://t.co/XKUdBvcGOy pic.twitter.com/CWvqwJFOee

  — The Tyre Extinguishers (@T_Extinguishers) April 20, 2023

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

  Tyre Extinguishers said they only targeted “large, luxury” gas-powered SUVs, noting, “no tires were deflated on electric or hybrid vehicles nor any vehicles with handicap signage.”

  But local residents were frustrated by the vandalism.

  “I’m all for taking action to save the environment but I just don’t know that destroying people’s personal property or damaging people’s personal property is the way to go about doing it,” a local resident named Lauren told Boston 25 News. Lauren said her parents’ vehicle was targeted.

  “My parents didn’t need to go anywhere immediately this morning, but I know another person in the neighborhood who’s a firefighter and couldn’t get to the fire station,” Lauren told the news channel on April 20. “There are plenty of people who work at the hospital and couldn’t get to work on time.”

  Another resident reportedly missed a medical appointment due to the deflated tire.

  The Boston Police Department interviewed 10 victims on April 20 and made no arrests, according to local media reports.

  Tyre Extinguishers activists also carried out vandalism in other cities in the United States. Last year, the campaign claimed credit for deflating tires in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, New York, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

  Describing itself as a “leaderless” group, Tyre Extinguishers claimed it had deflated the tires of more than 10,000 SUVs since March 2022. Last November, they claimed they had let down the tires of 900 SUVs in one night, with vehicles in New York and 7 European nations targeted.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 18:20

• First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were
  First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were

  Authored by Patrick Lawrence via Scheerpost.com,

  I tell you, serving as a New York Times correspondent these days cannot be easy. You have to convey utter nonsense to your readers while maintaining a straight face and a serious demeanor.

  

  You have to suggest the Russians may have exploded a drone over the Kremlin, that they may have blown up their own gas pipeline, that their president is an out-of-touch psychotic, that their soldiers in Ukraine are drunkards using faulty equipment, that they attack with “human hordes” (Orientalism, anyone?) and on and on – all the while affecting the gravitas once associated with the traditional “Timesman.” You try it sometime.

  I am reminded of that pithy passage in Daniel Boorstin’s regrettably overlooked book, The Image.

  “The reporter’s task,” Boorstin wrote in 1962, “is to find a way of weaving these threads of unreality into a fabric that the reader will not recognize as entirely unreal.”

  Boorstin reflected on America’s resort to imagery, illusion, and distortion as Washington geared up its gruesome follies in Vietnam. The reporter’s task is a whole lot harder now, given how much farther we have wandered into illusion and distortion since Boorstin’s day.  

  And now we have the case of Thomas Gibbons–Neff, a square-jawed former Marine covering the Ukraine war for The Times—strictly to the extent the Kyiv regime permits him to do so, as he explains with admirable honesty. This guy is serious times 10, he and his newspaper want us to know.  

  Tom’s job this week is to persuade us that all those Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia, idolizing Jew-murdering, Russophobic collaborators with the Third Reich, gathering ritually in Nazi-inspired cabals, marching through Kyiv in Klan-like torch parades are not what you think. Nah, our Tom tells us. They look like neo–Nazis, they act like neo–Nazis, they dress like neo–Nazis, they profess Fascist and neo–Nazi ideologies, they wage this war with the Wehrmacht’s visceral hatred of Russians—O.K., but whyever would you think they are neo–Nazis? 

  They are just regular guys. They wear the Wolfsangel, the Schwarze sonne, the black sun, the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head—all Nazi symbols—because they are proud of themselves, and these are the kinds of things proud people wear. I was just wearing mine the other day. 

  The slipping and sliding starts early in “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History,” the piece Gibbons–Neff published in Monday’s editions. He begins with three photographs of neo–Nazi Ukrainian soldiers, SS insignia plainly visible, that the Kyiv regime has posted on social media, “then quietly deleted,” since the Russian intervention began last year. “The photographs, and their deletions,” Gibbons–Neff writes, “highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II.”

  Complicated relationship with Nazi imagery? Stop right there, Mr. Semper fi.  Ukraine’s neo–Nazi problem is not about a few indiscreetly displayed images. Sorry. The Ukrainian army’s “complicated relationship” is with a century of ultra-right ideology drawn from Mussolini’s Fascism and then the German Reich. As is well-known and documented, the neo–Nazis who infest the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU—among many other national institutions—have made idols of such figures as Stepan Bandera, the freakishly murderous nationalist who allied with the Nazi regime during the war.

  This history is a matter of record, as briefly outlined here, but Gibbons–Neff alludes to none of it. It’s merely a matter of poor image-making, you see. In support of this offensive whitewash, Gibbons–Neff has the nerve to quote a source from none other than Bellingcat, which was long, long back exposed as a CIA and MI6 cutout and which is now supported by the Atlantic Council, the NATO–funded, spook-infested think tank based in Washington. 

  “What worries me, in the Ukrainian context, is that people in Ukraine who are in leadership positions, either they don’t or they’re not willing to acknowledge and understand how these symbols are viewed outside of Ukraine,” a Bellingcat “researcher” named Michael Colborne tells Gibbons–Neff.

  “I think Ukrainians need to increasingly realize that these images undermine support for the country.”

  Think about that. The presence of Nazi elements in the AFU is not a worry. The worry is merely whether clear signs of Nazi sympathies might cause some members of the Western alliance to decide they no longer want to support Nazi elements in the AFU. I am reminded of that Public Broadcasting news segment last year, wherein a provincial governor is featured with a portrait of Bandera behind him. PBS simply blurred the photograph and ran the interview with another of the courageous, admirable Ukrainians to which we are regularly treated.

  I hardly need remind paying-attention readers that the neo–Nazis-who-are-not-neo–Nazis were for years well-reported as simply neo–Nazis in the years after the U.S.–cultivated coup in 2014. The Times, The Washington Post, PBS, CNN—the whole sorry lot—ran pieces on neo–Nazi elements in the AFU and elsewhere. In March 2018, Reuters published a commentary by Jeff Cohen under the headline “Ukraine’s Neo–Nazi Problem.” Three months later The Atlantic Council, for heaven’s sake, published a paper, also written by Cohen, titled, “Ukraine’s Got a Real Problem with Far–Right Violence (And no, RT Didn’t Write This Headline).” I recall, because it was so surprising coming from the council, that the original head on that paper was “Ukraine’s Got a Neo–Nazi Problem,” but that version now seems lost to the blur of stealth editing. 

  Then came the Russian intervention, and Poof! There are no more neo–Nazis in Ukraine. There are only these errant images that are of no special account. And to assert there are neo–Nazis in Ukraine—to have some semblance of memory and a capacity to judge what is before one’s eyes—“plays into Russian propaganda,” Gibbons–Neff warns us. It is to “give fuel to his”—Vladimir Putin’s—“false claims that Ukraine must be de–Nazified.” For good measure Gibbons–Neff gets out the old Volodymyr-Zelensky-is-Jewish chestnut, as if this is proof of… of something or other.

  My mind goes to that lovely Donovan lyric from the Scottish singer’s Zen enlightenment phase. Remember “There Is a Mountain?” The famous lines went, “First there is a mountain/ Then there is no mountain/ Then there is.” There were neo–Nazis in Ukraine, then there were no neo–Nazis, and now there are neo–Nazis but they aren’t neo–Nazis after all.

  There are a few things to think about as we consider Thomas Gibbons–Neff’s story, other than the fact that it is horse-droppings as a piece of journalism. For one thing, nowhere in it does he quote or reference any member of the AFU—no one wearing a uniform, no one sporting one of these troubling insignia. Various image-managing officials speak to him about the neo–Nazis who-are-not-neo–Nazis, but we never hear from any neo–Nazi-who-is-not-a-neo–Nazi to explain things as a primary source, so to say. I wager Gibbons–Neff never got within 20 miles of one: He wouldn’t dare, for then he would have to quote one of these insignia-sporting people saying that of course he was a neo–Nazi. Can’t you read, son? 

  For another, Gibbons–Neff resolutely avoids dilating his lens such that the larger phenomenon comes into view. It all comes down to those three unfortunate insignia in those three deleted photographs. The parades, the corridors of neo–Nazi flags, the ever-present swastikas, the reenactments of all-night SS rituals, the glorification of Nazis and Nazi collaborators, the Russophobic blood lust: Sure, it can all be explained, except that our Timesman does not go anywhere near any of this.

  Gibbons–Neff’s story follows by 10 days an even more contorted piece of pretzel-like rubbish published in The Kyiv Independent, a not-independent daily that has been supported by various Western governments. This is by one Illia Ponomarenko, a reporter much-lionized in the West, and appeared under the headline, “Why some Ukrainian soldiers use Nazi-related insignia.”

  This is the kind of piece that is so bad it tips into fun. “No, Ukraine does not have ‘a Nazi problem,’” Ponomarenko states flatly, and this is the last flat sentence we get in this piece. “Just like in many places around the world, people with far-right and neo–Nazi views, driven by their ideology, are prone to joining the military and participating in conflicts,” he writes. And then this doozy, where begins a riot of irrationality:

  It is, of course, true that, for instance, the Azov Battalion was originally founded by neo–Nazi and far-right groups (as well as many soccer ultra-fans), which brought along with it the typical aesthetics—not only neo–Nazi insignia but also things like Pagan rituals or names like “The Black Corps,” the official newspaper of Nazi Germany’s major paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (SS).

  But worry not, readers. It is merely an aesthetic, part of a harmless, misunderstood “subculture”: 

  In the oversimplified memory of some around the world, particularly within various militaristic subcultures, symbols representing the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s Armed Forces, and the SS are seen to reflect a super-effective war machine, not the perpetrators of one of the greatest crimes against humanity in human history.

  But of course. SS insignia, Wehrmacht iconography: Seen it everywhere people admire super-effective war machines. Remember this logic next time some liberal flamer proposes to persecute a MAGA supporter who partakes of this “subculture.”

  Has Tom Gibbons–Neff given us a rewrite job? Having been around the block for a good long time, I have seen this kind of thing often enough—correspondents scoring off the local dailies to look deep and penetrating back on the foreign desk. It is also possible, assuming for a moment Gibbons–Neff’s editors still read other newspapers, that they asked him for just such a piece after seeing Ponomarenko’s. Either way, we get this in Ponomarenko’s recognizably illogical style:

  Questions over how to interpret such symbols are as divisive as they are persistent, and not just in Ukraine. In the American South, some have insisted that today, the Confederate flag symbolizes pride, not its history of racism and secession. The swastika was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis. 

  If you are going to reach, Tom, may as well reach for the stars.

  We have a New York Times correspondent quoting Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and Bellingcat, an intel cutout that is part of a NATO think tank, and then rather too closely, I would say, aping a Western-supported newspaper in Kyiv. Yes, Virginia, I believe we all got ourselves one of them there echo chambers, just the way the Deep State likes ’em.

  Last March, Gibbons–Neff was interviewed by The New York Times. Yes, they do this sort of thing down there on Eighth Avenue, where they simply cannot get enough of themselves. It is enlightening. The unfortunate Times reporter assigned as the straight man asked, as our intrepid correspondent self-aggrandized, “What have been the biggest challenges in covering the war?” Gibbons–Neff’s reply is pricelessly revealing. 

  “Wrestling with access and being allowed to go certain places to see things that you need the press officer for, or permission from the military unit,” the fearless ex–Marine explains.

  “Ukrainians know how to manage the press fairly well. So navigating those parameters and not rubbing anyone the wrong way has always been tough.”

  Forget about bombs, missiles, gore, the fog of war, courageous sergeants, trench stench, grenades, or any of the other horrors of battle. Gibbons–Neff’s big problems as he pretends to cover the Ukraine war are maintaining access, getting the Kyiv gatekeepers’ permission to go someplace, and avoiding annoying the regime’s authorities. 

  Does this tell you everything you want to know about our Timesman or what? 

  It is always interesting to ask why a piece such as this appears when it does. Dead silence for months on the neo–Nazi question, and then suddenly a long explainer that does its best to avoid explaining anything. Always interesting to ask, never easy to answer. 

  It could be that a lot of stuff on these awful people is sifting out from under the carpet. Or maybe something big is on the way and this piece is preemptive. Or maybe either Gibbons–Neff or his editors saw the Ponomarenko piece as an opportunity to dispose of one of the Kyiv regime’s most embarrassing features. 

  Or maybe the larger context counts here. As mentioned in this space last week, The Times’s Steve Erlanger recently suggested from Brussels that NATO might do a postwar Germany job with Ukraine: Welcome the west of the country to the alliance and let the eastern provinces go for an indefinite period, unification the long-term objective. Late last week Foreign Affairs ran a fantastical piece by Andriy Zagorodnyuk, formerly a Ukrainian defense minister and now, yes indeedy, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. It appeared under the headline, “To Protect Europe, Let Ukraine Join NATO—Right Now.” 

  Zagorodnyuk’s argument is as loopy as his subhead, “No Country Is Better at Stopping Russia.” But these kinds of assertions, dreamily hyperbolic as they may be, have a purpose. They serve to enlarge the field of acceptable discourse. They inch us closer to normalizing the thought that Ukraine must be accepted in the North Atlantic alliance for our sake, the sake of the West, no matter how provocative such a move will prove.

  This suggest that Gibbons–Neff’s piece, along with the one he followed in the Kyiv paper, are by way of a cleanup job. The Western press, working closely with intelligence agencies, did its best to prettify the savage jihadists attempting to bring down the Assad government in Damascus, you will recall. Remember the “moderate rebels?” Maybe Gibbons–Neff is on an equally dishonorable errand. 

  Semper fi, huh? Always faithful to what?

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 17:40

• "Price Erosion" Weighs On Used Car Prices For Second Consecutive Month
  “Price Erosion” Weighs On Used Car Prices For Second Consecutive Month

  Wholesale used-vehicle prices cooled for the second consecutive month. Sales of used vehicles have slumped as the price affordability crisis persists due to elevated prices and high borrowing costs. 

  According to figures from Cox Automotive, the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index (MUVVI) fell by 2.7% in May from April to 224.5. This marks the second consecutive monthly decline and the lowest level in the index since January. 

  

  “Price erosion continued in May, with another month-over-month drop in the index bringing it 0.3 points below our January result,” said Chris Frey, senior manager of economic and industry insights for Cox.

  

  “Taking a longer view, May’s year-over-year decline accelerated from April and March,” Frey pointed out. 

  

  However, he noted, “The rate of decline might slow over the next several months as we encounter the lower prices seen at auction from May through November last year. Two consecutive reads in either measure do not a trend make, as used retail inventory is still below last year, and that tends to keep buyers at the auction, supporting prices.”

  Cox showed used car sales slid 11% year-over-year in May as affordability wanes. Consumers are forking out an average of $28,381 for a used car in the first quarter, which is considerably higher than the $19,657 level five years ago. And many Americans are stuck with $1,000 monthly payments (some of which can’t afford). 

  

  Based on Bankrate data, borrowing costs for used cars have spiked to an average rate of 7.69%, the highest level since September 2009. 

  

  The declines in sales and wholesale prices signal continued cooing of the used vehicle market. A win for the Federal Reserve’s battle against high inflation but comes at the cost of many consumers who have been priced out of used and new car ownership. As noted before, purchasing a new car is becoming a luxury for only the wealthy. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/07/2023 – 17:20

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