Today’s News 9th December 2022

• Whitehead: The Constitution Has Already Been Terminated
  Whitehead: The Constitution Has Already Been Terminated

  Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary.”

  – Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

  If there is one point on which there should be no political parsing, no legal jockeying, and no disagreement, it is this: for anyone to advocate terminating or suspending the Constitution is tantamount to a declaration of war against the founding principles of our representative government and the rule of law.

  

  Then again, one could well make the case that the Constitution has already been terminated after years on life support, given the extent to which the safeguards enshrined in the Bill of Rights—adopted 231 years ago as a means of protecting the people against government overreach and abuse—have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.

  Consider for yourself.

  • We are in the grip of martial law. We have what the founders feared most: a “standing” or permanent army on American soil. This de facto standing army is made up of weaponized, militarized domestic police forces which look like, dress like, and act like the military; are armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment; are authorized to make arrests; and are trained in military tactics.

  • We are in the government’s crosshairs. The U.S. government continues to act as judge, jury and executioner over a populace that have been pre-judged and found guilty, stripped of their rights, and left to suffer at the hands of government agents trained to respond with the utmost degree of violence. Consequently, we are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.” With alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by the government’s standing army of militarized police who shoot first and ask questions later.

  • We are no longer safe in our homes. This present menace comes from the government’s army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized SWAT teams who are waging war on the last stronghold left to us as a free people: the sanctity of our homes.

  • We have no real freedom of speech. We are moving fast down a slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts. In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American who criticizes the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

  • We have no real privacy. We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. This government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

  • We are losing our right to bodily privacy and integrity. The debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws and forced breath-alcohol tests to forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, and forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no real privacy, no real presumption of innocence, and no real control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. The groundwork being laid with these mandates is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race.

  • We no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Hard-working Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have allegedly been associated with some criminal scheme.

  • We have no due process. The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

  • We are no longer presumed innocent. The burden of proof has been reversed. Now we’re presumed guilty unless we can prove our innocence beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Rarely, are we even given the opportunity to do so. The government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database. Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government coupled with artificial intelligence will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

  • We have lost the right to be anonymous and move about freely.  At every turn, we’re hemmed in by laws, fines and penalties that regulate and restrict our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our movements. Likewise, digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

  • We no longer have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

  • We have no guardians of justice. The courts were established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the courts have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests.

  • We have been saddled with a dictator for life. Secret, unchecked 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—now enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

  Unfortunately, we have done this to ourselves.

  We allowed ourselves to be seduced by the false siren song of politicians promising safety in exchange for relinquished freedom. We placed our trust in political saviors and failed to ask questions to hold our representatives accountable to abiding by the Constitution. We looked the other way and made excuses while the government amassed an amazing amount of power over us, and backed up that power-grab with a terrifying amount of military might and weaponry, and got the courts to sanction their actions every step of the way. We chose to let partisan politics divide us and turn us into easy targets for the government’s oppression.

  Mind you, the powers-that-be want us to be censored, silenced, muzzled, gagged, zoned out, caged in and shut down. They want our speech and activities monitored for any sign of “extremist” activity. They want us to be estranged from each other and kept at a distance from those who are supposed to represent us. They want taxation without representation. They want a government without the consent of the governed.

  They want the Constitution terminated.

  “We” may have contributed to our downfall through our inaction and gullibility, but we are also the only hope for a free future.

  After all, the Constitution begins with those three beautiful words, “We the people.” Those three words were intended as a reminder to future generations that there is no government without us—our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, when we forget that, when we allow the “Me” of a self-absorbed, narcissistic, politically polarizing culture to override our civic duties as citizens to collectively stand up to tyranny and make the government play by the rules of the Constitution, there can be no surprise when tyranny rises and freedom falls

  Remember, there is power in numbers.

  There are 332 million of us in this country. Imagine what we could accomplish if we actually worked together, presented a united front, and spoke with one voice?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 23:40

• Self-Service Kiosks Are Crawling With Fecal Bacteria: Study
  Self-Service Kiosks Are Crawling With Fecal Bacteria: Study

  A new study has found both feces and vomit-inducing pathogens all over the surfaces of self-service checkout kiosks.

  British scientists took swabs from every day items touched by multiple people – and found thousands of bacteria on the frequently used payment machines, according to Study Finds.

  Present on nearly all surfaces was E. Coli, while fecal bacteria and microbes associated with urinary tract infections (UTIs) were also found on the self-service screens.

  

  A bug commonly found in the vagina, mouth, throat and gut called Candida albicans, which can cause yeast infections, was also discovered on an escalator handrail.

  And shoppers may also be at risk if they share their desk with others at work, as intestinal microbes that can cause a range of infections, including UTIs, were found on computer keyboards. The findings were confirmed by scientists at the Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON) in Liverpool, England, which led the study. -Study Finds

  According to iiCON chief researcher Dr. Adam Roberts, self-checkouts have a particularly high viral load.

  “The self-checkout samples had one of the highest bacterial loads, as we found five different types of potential disease-causing bacteria surviving on them,” he told the South West News Service. “This included Enterococcus which is found in human feces and, while this is usually harmless, it can of course lead to disease, particularly in those who may have weakened immune systems.

  “This included Enterococcus which is found in human feces and, while this is usually harmless, it can of course lead to disease, particularly in those who may have weakened immune systems,” he continued. “While both exist naturally in feces and intestines, given the right environment, they are able to cause quite severe diseases in humans, so it’s vital that we wash our hands before and after eating when working at the computer.”

  According to Dr. Roberts, shoppers need to minimize risk by washing their hands regularly, especially after using the bathroom.

  

  “It’s vital to try to minimize their effects in terms of infection prevention and control, so when we touch our mouths or go to the toilet and don’t wash our hands, we’ve likely got bacteria from these places on our hands which can then transfer to other things – and subsequently to other people,” he said. “If those individuals are more susceptible to infection than you are, there may be a problem.”

  Previous research confirms the common suggestion that it’s best to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds to get rid of infectious bacteria. A mathematical model concludes that it takes that long for bacteria to escape from the “valleys” in the surface of the skin that requires a heavy stream of water and fast scrubbing. Other studies suggest only 5.3 percent of people spend 15 seconds or longer washing, rubbing and rinsing, with the average time spent being only six seconds. -Study Finds

  Liverpool Director of Public Health, Matt Ashton, said that those with vulnerable family members should take are to wash their hands. “Our results showed that there are multiple bacteria living on objects that we touch every single day. These bacteria are completely invisible to the naked eye – surfaces may look clean but can be covered in bacteria,” he said. “But there are simple things we can do to prevent the spread of them and stop the transfer completing its cycle”

  “This is particularly important if you are visiting vulnerable relatives in hospitals and care homes, for example. Hospital admissions for illnesses like Norovirus and flu always spike at this time of year, but we can take steps to reduce how quickly germs transfer from one person to another, by simply keeping our hands clean – washing them after going to the bathroom and before and after.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 23:20

• Johnstone: I Don't Want A Sci-Fi Future
  Johnstone: I Don’t Want A Sci-Fi Future

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

  I don’t desire a future for humanity like the ones imagined by our culturally designated future-imaginers. I don’t want humans living in Elon Musk Mars colonies or Jeff Bezos space cylinders. I don’t want us to fly out into the stars, to disappear into virtual reality universes, or to move away from our humanness by becoming cybernetic organisms.

  

  Not yet anyway. Not for a long time. Not until we’ve done what we need to do here first.

  Have you ever noticed that most books, shows and movies set in the future tend to depict a humanity that’s more technologically advanced than our own, but thinks and behaves in basically the same way? In the average sci-fi story people are still waging wars, still fighting, conquering, subjugating, toiling and surviving just like today, except they’re doing it out in space surrounded by a bunch of aliens (who are also oddly entangled in the same egoic patternings as humans in the 21st century).

  In this common vision for the future, we have mastered space travel but still haven’t mastered basic psychological health. Our technology has enabled us to kill, enslave, manipulate and exploit among the stars so that we are no longer confined to killing, enslaving, manipulating and exploiting down here.

  This tendency is partly due to the limits of imagination; it’s easy to imagine more advanced versions of our own technology, but trying to imagine a mindframe that’s very different from your own is like trying to imagine being twice as intelligent as you are. Trying to imagine living in a conscious civilization while your own civilization is deeply unconscious is like a dream character trying to imagine life outside the dream. It’s not hard to extrapolate upon existing patterns, but envisioning the complete dissolution of patterns can be much more difficult.

  This tendency is also due to the fact that science fiction writers are telling stories for an immature civilization full of restless minds who would be easily bored by tales of a peaceful future without any major problems. But that’s the kind of future that I want for humanity. A peaceful one without any major problems. One that wouldn’t make a good Hollywood blockbuster.

  And it’s actually kind of a problem that the future which humanity is mentally pointing itself toward is one in which all our restlessness and dysfunction persists. Our steps into the future will be guided by our collective vision for it, and when those visions are about space colonization, virtual reality and transhumanism, our collective compass is going to be skewed toward dysfunction.

  Right now for example most human innovation goes toward generating profits and/or military dominance, which puts us on a trajectory toward more and more technologically advanced personal doodads to buy at the store and more and more ways of killing large numbers of people at a time. It doesn’t put us on a trajectory toward finding ways to make sure everyone has enough, to helping people have more leisure time, to helping humanity move in harmony with our ecosystem. All of those innovations would do infinitely more to create a more pleasant future for humanity than spaceships and laser guns, but our systems do not give rise to them, because they are not profitable and don’t help increase a government’s military power.

  There are so many assumptions baked in to our collective visions for the future and the systems we’ve set up to carry us there. Assumptions like we’ll never have peace; we’ll always have violence, conflict and domination; we’ll always have poverty and the need for endless toil; we’ll never be able to stop consuming our biosphere to death so we’d better get out into space so that capitalism can keep expanding. All of those assumptions point us away from a healthy and harmonious future.

  And of course that’s what you’d expect from a deeply unconscious species, which is what we still are currently. We’re still largely operating on autopilot like any other animal, whipped about by the forces of conditioning patterns that have been reverberating from the most distant reaches of our evolutionary ancestry. A collective history of trauma and fear combined with our newly evolved capacity for abstract thought has left us confused and disoriented in ways we haven’t yet gained lucidity on; an adolescent species in an awkward transition phase.

  And I can’t help but think how productive it would be if, rather than spending our energy trying to dash off into outer space or bury our heads in virtual reality, our movement into the future was focused more on resolving all that? If rather than feeding into our unconscious restlessness by giving ourselves more and more places to try and escape to, we set about learning to simply be here now?

  What if instead of trying to be anywhere but here, humanity made a mad push for enlightenment? What if instead of spending the next centuries trying to get away from the present reality, our society began emphasizing things like meditation and self-enquiry to help us finally truly meet the present reality? What if our science became less focused on profit and destruction and more on trying to find ways to help people be okay with themselves? What if psychedelic institutions were set up around the world to help everyone explore their inner realms and bring the unconscious into consciousness using skillful methods and entheogenic compounds?

  I mean, most of us can’t even sit still in meditation for an hour without their mind racing all over the place and doing everything except what it’s asked to do. Does that sound natural to you? Does that sound like a conscious, healthy species? Or does it sound like a species that, if handed paradise on a golden platter, would immediately destroy it out of boredom?

  A lot of what we see the most influential minds envisioning for our future just looks like restlessness to me, a relentless compulsion to be anywhere but here, much like the mental fidgeting of an individual attempting to meditate. We don’t even have any evidence that humans can live completely independent of Earth’s biosphere, yet it’s taken as a given that we’ll be running off into the stars so we don’t have to make the drastic changes in ourselves that will be necessary to sustain human life on this planet. The idea of simply settling down and learning to be here sounds unthinkably hellish to a mind enslaved to restlessness, to such an extent that it will concoct unrealistic fictions about the future rather than facing reality.

  Even if we did succeed in colonizing space, it wouldn’t solve any of our problems, and it wouldn’t make our future any more pleasant. We’d just be moving our restless, violent, insatiable, discontented minds offworld, where we’ll immediately recreate all the same problems we created down here except we’ll be doing it in artificial bubbles surrounded by deadly black desert on all sides. I mean, you think Thanksgiving is hell? Imagine cooped up with your family all day every day in what’s essentially a mall that you can never leave. Is your head really ready for that?

  A head rattling with mental chatter would be incapable of experiencing any wonder in space exploration, and would be incapable of experiencing joy in the creation of virtual worlds. A serene mind experiences wonder and joy walking across a parking lot. What we really want is equanimity, not space colonization and VR. Deep down we don’t really want to be somewhere else, we want to be able to truly be here.

  I’d really like to see humanity begin recalibrating its visions for the future away from these pathways toward glorified escapism, and toward the creation of a healthy and harmonious world. It might not sell books and movie tickets (at least not right away), but it will point us toward where we all really want to be in our heart of hearts.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 23:00

• China Quietly Launches QE: Beijing Orders Large Insurers To Buy Bonds To Contain Selling Panic
  China Quietly Launches QE: Beijing Orders Large Insurers To Buy Bonds To Contain Selling Panic

  At its core, when stripped away of all rhetoric and technicalities, the Fed’s QE is just one big bond-buying operation by the so-called Lender (and Buyer) of Last Resort, an operation meant to stabilize the market and restore order and price transparency even if it means creating an artificial market (as the Fed found out the hard way 12 years of QE will do). And if one goes by that simple definition, last night China – which has so far been against replicating the Fed’s repertoire of market intervention amid concerns it would exacerbate the country’s giant debt bubble – quietly  launched QE.

  According to Bloomberg, Chinese regulators asked the nation’s biggest insurers to buy bonds being offloaded as retail customers pull their cash from fixed-income investments. At a meeting on Wednesday, Chinese regulators told top insurers to backstop the market and buy bonds sold by wealth management units at banks to prevent further volatility. Some banks also proposed to use their proprietary trading desks to scoop up bonds, one source said.

  Of course, in China where virtually every major financial enterprise is a SOE – i.e., state -wned – there is no such thing as “big independent insurers”: they are all essentially government entities, and just one-step removed from official state apparatus to preserve some semblance of a private market (with state characteristics). But at the end of the day, what the regulators just greenlighted is nothing shy of QE, and what’s more, unlike the US where at least there is some pretense of an asset swap as banks exchange bonds for reserves, in China the flow of funds is much simpler: someone, anyone, buys bonds to calm down the market. And since this is a step that is usually taken as a last-ditch resort, one can confidently say that we may have very well seen the bottom in Chinese assets.

  The guidance, handed down at a meeting that was also attended by big (state-owned) banks and lenders, comes as Chinese traders and retail investors have been ditching fixed-income assets and pouring money into stocks on growing economic optimism as China rolls back its strict Covid Zero approach. The turmoil last month, which saw large withdrawals from bond-backed wealth management products, earlier also prompted regulators to ask banks to report on their liquidity situation.

  According to the report, some insurance firms, whose investment products are less vulnerable to short-term redemptions, have already heeded the call and “purchased bonds on a positive market outlook” even before the latest guidance. The biggest insurance firms include China Life Insurance Co. and Ping An Insurance Group of China. The asset management arms of just those two manage a combined 8.74 trillion yuan ($1.3 trillion), according to their websites. Both are, of course, majority state-owned, and thus all that is taking place, is China’s state now actively buying up bonds to stabilize the market.

  Some more background: in an effort to increase transparency of risks and instill more discipline in China’s 29 trillion yuan wealth management market (yes, don’t laugh), authorities had embarked on a multi-year reform to have banks ditch a fixed-return model and move to mark-to-market pricing. However, this spooked investors who for years have been used to steady, guaranteed returns, causing large outflows and forced selling by money managers.

  As a result, China’s benchmark bond yields surged the most in six years on Nov. 14 as signs China is loosening its Covid Zero policies caused a rapid shift into stocks. Yields continued to climb since, before easing a bit on Wednesday as news of the unofficial QE spread. China’s one-year government bond yield has risen to near the highest this year at 2.25%, after a spike of more than 50 basis points since November.

  And, lo and behold, as always happens central bank/state buying of bonds commences, the market immediately stabilized and Chinese bond futures surged on Thursday, posting their biggest gain in two weeks.  Futures contracts on the 10-year note rose as much as 0.4% to 99.855, the most since Nov. 23. Yields on 10-year and one-year notes both declined after having blown out in the past month alongside repo yields.

  

  Meanwhile, daily redemptions on largely bond-backed wealth management products could have peaked at as much as 200 billion yuan, according to an estimate from Everbright Securities.

  

  In other words, those insurance giants will be busy. Or may not: after all, the mere hint that the state will buy bonds if they drop enough should be sufficient to prevent further selling: we saw just that in March 2020, and we saw it all again in September, when the BOE scrambled to restart QE following the liability-driven investment crash when all fixed income assets were dumped after the mini-budget fiasco.

  And if that’s not enough, Beijing slapped even more measures to preserve market stability: Banks and asset managers have also moved to limit redemptions. Bank of China, one of the four big state banks, has set a daily quota on what customers can redeem at 10,000 yuan starting mid-December. Suyin Wealth Management and Bank of Guiyang have also capped real-time redemption on some products at 10,000 yuan per day, according to their latest mandates.

  More than 95% of outstanding wealth management products sold by banks and asset managers are marked to market, according to official data as of the end of June. Bonds account for about 68% of the total underlying assets.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 22:40

• Major Economic Contraction Coming In 2023… Followed By Even More Inflation
  Major Economic Contraction Coming In 2023… Followed By Even More Inflation

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  The signs are already present and obvious, but the overall economic picture probably won’t be acknowledged in the mainstream until the situation becomes much worse (as if it’s not bad enough). It’s a problem that arises at the onset of every historic financial crisis – Mainstream economists and commentators lie to the public about the chances of recovery, constantly giving false reassurances and lulling people back to sleep. Even now with price inflation pummeling the average consumer they tell us that there is nothing to worry about. The Federal Reserve’s “soft landing” is on the way.

  

  I remember in 2007 right before the epic derivatives collapse when media pundits were applauding the US housing market and predicting even greater highs in sales and in valuations. I had only been writing economic analysis for about a year, but I remember thinking that the overt display of optimism felt like compensation for something. It seemed as if they were trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public in the hopes that if people just believed hard enough that all was well then the fantasy could be manifested into reality. Unfortunately, that’s not how economics works.

  Supply and demand, debt and deficit, money velocity and inflation; these things cannot be ignored. If the system is out of balance, collapse will set its ugly foot down somewhere and there’s nothing anyone including central banks can do about it. In fact, there are times when they deliberately ENGINEER collapse.

  This is the situation we are currently in today as 2022 comes to a close. The Fed is in the midst of a rather aggressive rate hike program in a “fight” against the stagflationary crisis that they created through years of fiat stimulus measures. The problem is that the higher interest rates are not bringing prices down, nor are they really slowing stock market speculation. Easy money has been too entrenched for far too long, which means a hard landing is the most likely scenario.

  In the early 2000s the Fed had been engaged in artificially low interest rates which inflated the housing and derivatives bubble. In 2004, they shifted into a tightening process. Rates in 2004 were at 1% and by 2006 they rose to over 5%. This is when cracks began to appear in the credit structure, with 4.5% – 5.5% being the magic cutoff point before debt became too expensive for the system to continue the charade. By 2007/2008 the nation witnessed an exponential implosion of credit, setting off the biggest money printing bonanza in US history in order to save the banking sector, at least for a time.

  Since nothing was actually fixed by the Fed back then, I will continue to use the 5% funds rate as a marker for when we will see another major contraction. The difference this time is that the central bank does not have the option to flood the economy with more fiat, at least not without immediately triggering a larger stagflationary spiral. I am also operating on the premise that the Fed WANTS a crash at this time.

  As I noted in my article ‘The Fed Is Taking The Punch Bowl Away – But The Inflation Crisis Will Continue To Grow’, published in May:

  “Mainstream financial commentators want to believe the Fed will capitulate because they desperately want the party in stock markets to continue, but the party is over. Sure, there will be moments when the markets rally based on nothing more than a word or two from a Fed official planting false hopes, but this will become rare. Ultimately, the Fed has taken away the punch bowl and it’s not coming back. They have the perfect excuse to kill the economy and kill markets in the form of a stagflationary disaster THEY CAUSED. Why would they reverse course now?”

  My position is that the central bank has a global agenda that eclipses any national loyalty, and that it requires the decline of the American economy in order to expedite the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) linked together through the IMF. So far they are getting exactly what they want and they are perfectly aware of what they are doing.

  The Fed is expected to slow rate hikes to 50bps in December, but this is not assured with the jobs market still running hot from $8 trillion in covid stimulus the past two years (mostly lower paying retail and service sector jobs). By the February meeting of 2023 the Fed will be at or very near 5% interest rates, which I believe will help trigger a considerable plunge in markets and mass layoffs.

  There are other factors to consider, though. One lesser known issue is the new 1% excise tax on stock buybacks planted within Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The measure, which goes into effect in January of next year, will not reduce prices on goods. That said, stock buybacks are still the primary means by which equities are kept afloat by major corporations. Over the past decade, buybacks have been funded by money borrowed from the Fed at near zero interest – essentially free money. Now, the easy money party is about to end.

  The 1% excise tax added on top of a 5% Fed funds rate creates a 6% millstone on any money borrowed to finance future buybacks. This cost is going to be far too high and buybacks will falter. Meaning, stock markets will also stop, and drop. It will likely take two or three months before the tax and the rate hikes create a visible effect on markets. This would put our time frame for contraction around March or April of 2023.

  Inflation is not going anywhere anytime soon, however. The underlying problem of energy prices needs to be considered as they contribute to further supply chain stress.

  Think about this for a moment: The current reduction in oil prices and energy is artificial and government driven, not supply and demand driven. Oil prices in the US are being kept down by Joe Biden’s constant supply dumps from the strategic reserves. Eventually Biden is going to run out of oil to drop on markets and he will have to replenish those reserves at a much higher cost.

  Furthermore, oil and energy prices are being kept down because of China’s suspiciously bizarre Zero Covid policy, which is slowing their economy to a crawl and reducing oil usage to a minimum. With public riots escalating, the CCP will probably seek to ease conditions as a means to placate dissent, playing a game of release the steam valve. A reopening by early next year is on the way, with a number of controls still in place of course.

  As soon as China reopens, oil prices will skyrocket once again on the global market.

  Then, there is the war in Ukraine and the ongoing sanctions against Russia. Europe is about to face the worst winter in decades with natural gas supplies severely limited and the cost of power for manufacturing no longer tenable. Their only hope is for mild temperatures for the rest of the season. If the current trend continues, production in Europe will be throttled, causing chaos in the global supply chain.

  High energy prices and supply chain disruptions will mean ongoing inflated prices in goods and services well into 2023, even with a contraction in jobs markets and stock markets. I will be publishing an article soon with a working theory on how the US could actually stop inflation without crushing the rest of the economy. The model would require cooperation from leaders at the state level, though, along with a number of business interests that focus on necessities. In the meantime, I suggest readers stock provisions whenever possible and organize within their local communities before next April.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 22:20

• New Zealand Takes Baby From Parents Demanding "Unvaccinated" Blood For Heart Surgery
  New Zealand Takes Baby From Parents Demanding “Unvaccinated” Blood For Heart Surgery

  New Zealand’s High Court on Wednesday took custody of an infant whose parents demanded he only receive blood from donors who are unvaccinated against Covid-19 for an urgently needed heart surgery to repair a congenital defect.

  

  “He remains in urgent need of an operation, and every day that the operation is delayed his heart is under strain,” reads the order, citing one of his doctors.

  The parents, Cole Reeves and Samantha Savage, rejected doctors’ assertion that using blood donated from outside normal channels was “impractical” for the child’s circumstance, and that surgery without donated blood was “not an available option.”

  Apparently an unvaccinated volunteer with the same blood type is not ‘an available option.’

  Judge Ian Gault ruled that it was in “Baby W’s best interests” for the court to take temporary custody of him so the surgery could be performed. The infant was placed under the guardianship of the court from Wednesday until he recovers from surgery, but not beyond January 31st, the Washington Post reports.

  The surgery, which is set for Friday morning, is estimated to take 48 hours to complete. Two doctors were appointed as Baby W’s legal representatives for the purpose of consenting to surgery, and Reeves and Savage were appointed as his representatives for “all other purposes.” Doctors said they would “take the parents’ views into consideration” whenever possible — as long as doing so wouldn’t compromise “Baby W’s interests.”

  The decision followed a tense period of several weeks fraught with baseless claims, according to the order. -WaPo

  Reeves and Savage how now tried to stop doctors preparing the infant for the operation on Friday – which the High Court responded to by ordering the parents not to obstruct staff at Starship Hospital.

  Te Whatu Ora has asked for the police to step in and also asked the court if officers are entitled to use reasonable force to remove the baby from the parents.

  In his decision yesterday, Justice Gault also said doctors from Te Whatu Ora had been made agents of the court to carry out the surgery, including the adminstration of any blood products.

  In a minute issued this evening, Justice Gault said he had been informed by the lawyer acting for Te Whatu Ora that the baby’s parents had prevented doctors from taking blood tests, performing a chest X-ray and performing an anaesthetic assessment.

  The lawyer understood the parents had threatened to lay criminal charges against medical staff if they went ahead, Justice Gault said. –RNZ

  “You touch our child and we will press criminal charges against you,” the parents told hospital staff, according to the filing.

  The parents’ lawyer, Sue Grey, petitioned the judge, asking for the opinions of two US doctors to be considered, adding that it would be “extreme overreach” if police were called in to remove the baby from his parents in order to perform the surgery.

  Justice Gault denied the request, saying Grey was effectively seeking to re-open the case he had already ruled on.

  “Baby W urgently requires surgery and, as I concluded in my judgment, an order enabling the surgery to proceed using NZBS [New Zealand Blood Service] blood products without further delay is in Baby W’s best interests,” wrote Gault.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 22:00

• The Monopoly-Labor "Let It Rot" Death Spiral
  The Monopoly-Labor “Let It Rot” Death Spiral

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  The only rational response to this reality is to opt out, lay flat and let it rot.

  

  In my previous post, The Bubble Economy’s Credit-Asset Death Spiral, I described the self-reinforcing feedback of expanding credit and soaring asset valuations and how the only possible result of this financial perpetual motion machine was a death spiral of collapsing debt service, collateral and credit impulse.

  But this didn’t exhaust the destructive dynamics of this self-reinforcing wealth-creation machine for the few who own the vast majority of the assets. As longtime correspondent T.D. explains, this concentration of the benefits of financialization in the hands of the few also concentrates political power and the wealth to distort every function of the economy to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

  This concentration of wealth and corruption isn’t cost-free. As I’ve discussed here many times, capital siphoned $50 trillion from labor via hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization:

  The Bill for America’s $50 Trillion Gluttony of Inequality Is Overdue (September 21, 2020)

  Our Phantom Middle Class (December 23, 2020)

  Monopolies and cartels focus on self-enrichment, not social or economic stability. Concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the most self-serving few and their entrenched interests has crushed the ladders of social mobility. Assets such as a family home are out of reach in many locales for all but the few. Inflation, high taxes and the corruption of student loans, etc. have stripped all but the top 10% of any hope of gaining middle-class security.

  The only rational response to this reality is to opt out, lay flat and let it rot: stop the self-exploitation of working to make the already-rich even richer. Direct resistance is easily suppressed by force. But “letting it rot” by withdrawing one’s labor and conformity cannot be reversed with force. Once a critical mass of the workforce opts out of self-exploitation and “lets it rot,” the system of financialization / exploitation of labor can no longer sustain itself and it collapses in a putrid heap.

  Here’s T.D.’s explanation of these dynamics:

  Don’t forget the ‘monopolization effect’ promoted by the cycle you describe.

  Large organizations in any industry use their inflated valuations as leverage to acquire whatever resources are needed to bully their smaller competitors out of the game.

  They can buy off politicians, regulators, talent, and competitors to ensure their market dominance.

  It’s happened in every industry–including healthcare.

  It’s also left every industry dominated by a small number of colluding Potemkin organizations reliant on financialization to generate stakeholder value. They are formidable appearing but bereft of talent and mission. When challenges appear they simply do more of the same, becoming ever more reliant on their financialization to keep their systems churning.

  In healthcare we are left with consolidating providers and payers who deliver just enough ‘care’ to create the simulacrum of a ‘health system’ but in reality they are completely unable to cope with their putative mission.

  Need proof? Imagine what health care would look like if there were no Federal dollars of any kind.

  There would be no more palaces of healing, no indecipherable bills, and no onerous pricing.

  Just a service priced on value as judged by the purchaser.

  Through inflation, speculative price swings, regulatory opacity, and preferential access to capital, the system described in your post is quite intentionally designed to use ever-inflating capital valuations to take the value of labor from the wage-earner and place it in the pocket of those who have the capital.

  That’s why it’s so vulnerable to those who withdraw their labor. They work outside the system, they limit the excess value they create by ‘laying flat.’

  Without the labor, there’s nothing to steal.

  And all the IRS agents in the world won’t change that.

  We’re seeing a huge labor shift in healthcare. Last year the big news was the mass migration of nurses to the Agency model where they could earn 2-3 x their hourly wage–you read that right, wages had been suppressed for so long, a freer market was able to treble them.

  There was significant regulatory pushback, as health systems accused agencies and the nurses they represent of price gouging (heh).

  That didn’t last long though.

  It quickly became clear that those nurses weren’t going to return to their jobs at their previous pay, even if the agency option was regulated away.

  So now, needing those nurses on the floor, the dominant model is a hospital staffed with agency nurses earning far more (and happier!) than they would have as full-time employees

  Through using complexity to capture each industry and reducing the individual rewards of overcoming that complexity, the system you describe has sowed the seeds of the labor shortage which will result in its own destruction.

  And all the anxiety, distraction, and division they sow only accelerates the very thing they seek to prevent.

  And those of us who can see it simply need to prepare, sit back, and watch.

  Well said, T.D. Thank you for the explanation.

  *  *  *

  My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

  Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 21:40

• TSA Plans Nationwide Rollout Of Biometric Machines For Airport Travelers
  TSA Plans Nationwide Rollout Of Biometric Machines For Airport Travelers

  Traversing Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines is already stressful enough at airports. All travelers are screened during the security process by technology or an invasive pat-down. One such machine currently being tested in more than a dozen airports with a possible nationwide rollout next year is one where travelers look straight into a camera, according to The Washington Post.

  The TSA is quietly testing a biometric machine called the next generation of Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) to verify the identity of travelers via their face. CAT scans the traveler’s photo ID and then compares that with the Secure Flight database. 

  

  CAT machines are currently at 16 major airports with plans to expand nationwide, according to WaPo, adding, “Kiosks with cameras are doing a job that used to be completed by humans: checking the photos on travelers’ IDs to make sure they’re not impostors.” 

  

  The controversial tech is currently opt-in for passengers (at the moment). It’s so controversial that several cities, such as San Francisco, have banned it.

  There’s a lot to worry about if TSA is given the green light for a nationwide rollout next year. One thing is, how can anyone trust this federal agency to handle biometric data properly? 

  TSA recently said, “Photos captured by CAT units are never stored or used for any other purpose than immediate identity verification.” But still — with trust in government at low levels, who actually believes that statement. 

  The expansion of biometric verification data for travelers is a sign that the US is following down a terrifying path that China took to become a surveillance nation. 

  So what does this all mean? Well, it’s a warning of the dystopic future where biometrics will be used to identify citizens across all facets of society. Think about Amazon’s palm-reading payment technology that allows customers at some Whole Foods locations to pay with their fingerprints. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 21:20

• Call For Investigation Into Mortality Rates As Australia Sees Death-Rate Spike
  Call For Investigation Into Mortality Rates As Australia Sees Death-Rate Spike

  Authored by Victoria Kelly-Clark via The Epoch Times,

  Australia has seen a spike in its mortality rates in 2022, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) stating that by the end of August 2022, 128,797 deaths had been registered, which is 18,671 deaths, or 17 percent, more than the historical average.

  In the data release on Nov. 25, the ABS noted that of registered deaths; there had been a rise in the number of Australians dying from dementia (18.9 percent above the baseline average), diabetes (20.8 percent higher than the baseline average), cancer, and COVID-19.

  

  Karen Cutter, a spokesperson for the Actuaries Institute of Australia (AIA) said in a media release (pdf) that even after the Institute’s COVID-19 Mortality Working Group removed all “from” and “with” COVID-19 deaths, it was not clear why Australians were dying in larger numbers from other diseases such as ischaemic heart disease, cancer, and cerebrovascular disease in 2021 and 2022.

  In an analysis (pdf) from Nov. 3, the AIA noted that 1,200 more Australians had died from ischaemic heart disease than expected, while cerebrovascular disease had 450 more deaths than normal. Meanwhile, mortality rates from diabetes increased by 400 deaths, and dementia saw an extra 800 deaths.

  According to the ABS, between January and August this year, 7,727 Australians died from COVID-19.

  “It is not clear what might be driving this, although we expect that at least part of the excess will be in respect of people who otherwise may have succumbed to respiratory disease in 2020 and 2021,” said Cutter.

  They also said that diabetes deaths have generally been higher than expected throughout the pandemic.

  Cutter noted that the AIA had also noticed that of the excess deaths in the 0-44 and 45-64 age bands were small, and the number of women dying was higher than expected.

  She has called on the federal government to launch an inquiry into the cause of the spike.

  “The differences are worth investigation, although the small numbers mean that there is considerable natural variation,” she said.

  Spiking Mortality Rates a Global Phenomenon

  The spike in mortality rates is being experienced globally, with the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, as well as Sir Patrick Vallance, the country’s Chief Scientific Adviser, declaring the country is facing a “prolonged period” of excess deaths after people differed treatment during the initial stages of the pandemic.

  Meanwhile, the UK’s health secretary Steve Barclay said that the government needed to come clean about the excess deaths.

  In a speech to the Spectator Health Summit in London on Nov. 28, Barclay said that the government must share the scale of the COVID backlog, which he estimated was now “around now 7.1 million patients.”

  “We know from the data that there are more 50-to 64-year olds with cardiovascular issues. It’s the result of delays in that age group seeing a GP because of the pandemic and, in some cases, not getting statins for hypertension in time,” he said.

  “When coupled with delays in ambulance times, we see this reflected in the excess death numbers. In time, we may well see a similar challenge in cancer data,” Barclay said.

  COVID-19 Lingering Effects

  The AIA agrees that delayed medical treatment may be a cause behind Australia’s rising death rate.

  In an analysis of the pandemic in 2022, they said that it was highly likely that delays in medical care was a contributing factor to the excess death rates from other diseases.

  “Pressure on the health, hospital and aged care systems, including ambulance ramping and bed block, could lead to people not getting the care they require, either as they avoid seeking help, or their care is not as timely as it might have been in pre-pandemic times,” they said.

  “There is some evidence that this may be affecting cancer deaths. It may also be a factor in higher deaths from other causes, such as ischaemic heart disease, diabetes, and the large ‘other’ category.”

  They also noted that COVID-19 lingering health effects could also be contributing to the increased rates.

  Studies show that coronavirus is associated with increased mortality risks from heart disease and other causes. However, because doctors certifying the death would not necessarily know of the infection if it had occurred months prior, this could demonstrate a causative link several months after recovery from COVID-19.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 21:00

• Chinese Health Official Admits 80-90% Of Population May End Up With COVID
  Chinese Health Official Admits 80-90% Of Population May End Up With COVID

  After just within the past week China’s government dramatically pivoted from its ultra-harsh ‘zero Covid’ policy – a policy which had triggered unprecedented widespread protests against communist authorities and health officials as in some instances they barricaded whole neighborhoods into strictly controlled quarantine zones – toward what appears a full embrace of a more lax ‘Swedish model’ type approach, national health authorities are prepping the population for the coming Covid wave, which could impact an estimated 80 to 90% of the Chinese population, according to a fresh projection by Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

  “It’s going to be inevitable for most of us to get infected once, regardless of how the Covid-fighting measures are adjusted,” Feng said Tuesday during a virtual conference discussing the zero Covid offramp at Tsinghua University in Beijing. As a senior health official, Feng is part of the central government’s task force in implementing new policies which has moved away from the ‘one size fits all’ mentality that guided Beijing’s health response since the pandemic began.

  “Some 60% of Chinese people may be infected in the first wave, before the curve flattens, Feng predicted,” as cited in Bloomberg. “By comparison, about 58% of the US population had been infected by February this year, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released in April. That was up from 33.5% in December.”

  

  So it seems two years too late, China is learning the lessons of a number of countries that embraced a more flexible stance based on understanding herd immunity early, also centered on protecting the most vulnerable demographic, the elderly and the infirm, while not shuttering the economy wholesale.

  Further, as of Thursday morning in China (local time), health authorities are reporting “more than 20,000 new cases a day at the moment, as outbreaks flare from Beijing to the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou. That’s up from less than 100 a day in June, and zero for long periods of 2020.”

  But China says it’s ready amid its more localized approach which will seek to prep hospitals, civic authorities, and the citizenry on “proper protective measures” – such as greater deployment of at home rapid antigen test kits. “It is better to direct the flood than block it,” Lu Jiahai, a senior expert at the state drug regulator National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), said.

  As for this approach looking more like a Swedish model policy (though don’t expect anyone in Beijing to call it that), Caixin Global recently captured the following quotes which illustrate an astounding about-face in thinking on the pandemic among Chinese officials: 

  Although there are challenges in the implementation of home quarantine, the infection risks should not be exaggerated, said University of Hong Kong’s Jin.

  “Scientific guidelines should be provided for everyone to follow with a clear accountability mechanism, as there have been many examples that even couples in the same room didn’t infect each other,” said Jin, citing the experience in Hong Kong, where home isolation has been widely adopted after the worst outbreaks hit in the spring.

  One resident in Beijing agreed. “I think it is more important to eliminate the irrational fear of being infected, and at the same time learn how to reduce the risk of cross-infection,” Ma Qiao, who has studied preventative medicine, told Caixin.

  Some of the new measures from the communist government call for isolating asymptomatic or mild Covid cases at home rather than in quarantine camps or hospitals for seven days. Anyone in contact with the infected would have to quarantine at home for five days instead of eight days at a camp and then at home.

  The State Council further disbanded the rule for people to show negative Covid tests before entering public places. As the SCMP summarized of the new approach this week: “The new policy stressed that basic social and medical services need to be provided. People’s movements, work and production should not be restricted in low-risk areas.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 20:40

• Federal Pandemic Program Forgave $809 Million In PPP Loans To White-Shoe Law Firms: Watchdog
  Federal Pandemic Program Forgave $809 Million In PPP Loans To White-Shoe Law Firms: Watchdog

  Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Federal officials forgave $809 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans handed out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to more than 100 of the nation’s top law firms and another $635 million given to hundreds of elite accounting offices, according to a new analysis of government spending to be made public on Dec. 2.

  

  As described by the Department of Treasury, the PPP was established in 2020 to provide “small businesses with the resources they need to maintain their payroll, hire back employees who may have been laid off, and cover applicable overhead.”

  The program was administered by the federal Small Business Administration, which made $787 billion in federal loans to companies and firms spanning all industries. The vast majority of the “loans” were subsequently turned into grants, which didn’t require repayment.

  An investigation by Open the Books found that hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars went to top law and accounting firms even though most of them didn’t qualify as small businesses and didn’t have to lay off employees.

  Open the Books is a nonprofit watchdog that uses public information laws such as the federal Freedom of Information Act to make government spending public, including “every dime online, in real time.”

  The Epoch Times obtained an advance copy of the investigative report.

  Auditors “found an astonishing $1.4 billion in forgiven PPP loans that flowed to the largest and most successful law and accounting firms across America,” the report stated.

  “Today, it is an open question whether many of the firms needed a taxpayer subsidy to ‘save’ any jobs during the Covid-pandemic. Many racked up record revenues while their equity partners made millions of dollars.

  “For example, in the years 2020 and 2021, we found equity partners individually received $7 million in profits while their law firms received $10 million in forgiven PPP ‘loans.’ The Guam office of Ernst & Young, a Big Three accounting firm with 365,000 employees, took a $750,000 forgiven loan.

  “In 2020, millions of mom and pop businesses on Main Street had to shut down during the forced economic lockdown [occasioned by the pandemic]. So, Congress created the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) to compensate those businesses for their economic losses.

  “Firms with 500 employees or fewer met eligibility requirements. However, Congress didn’t anticipate that Biglaw and the largest accounting firms would cash in so profitably.”

  Among the biggest winners was Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, the New York City-based law firm of Democratic superlawyer David Boies, which received a forgiven $10.14 million PPP loan.

  Boies first came into national prominence in 2000, when he headed Vice President Al Gore’s legal team during the Florida presidential election recount. The election wasn’t decided until the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision, which put Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the Oval Office.

  Boies also gained national notoriety by representing the Department of Justice in its successful prosecution of Microsoft, and he headed a legal team that challenged California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages. The proposition was approved in 2008 by voters, but the Supreme Court effectively nullified it in a 2013 decision.

  His firm’s PPP debt was forgiven in October 2021 under the Biden administration, even though during the period covered by the loan “the firm’s equity partners earned $4.5 million each in profit compensation—receiving $2.219 million (2021) and $2.283 million (2020). The firm billed clients $480 million during this two-year period,” Open the Books found.

  The second-biggest law firm beneficiary of PPP loans was the Birmingham, Alabama-based Maynard Cooper & Gale, which received $10.13 million under the pandemic relief program. Even so, the firm’s workforce increased from 247 in 2019 before the pandemic, to 260 in 2020 during the pandemic, and 283 in 2021.

  No. 3 among the white-shoe law firms getting tax dollars via the PPP program was the New York-based Kasowitz Benson Torres. The firm’s “revenues grew from $216.8 million (2019), to $219.4 million (2020) and then $238.4 million (2021). In April 2020, the firm received a $10.13 million PPP loan that was forgiven in July 2021—while profit per equity partner averaged $2.418 million (2021),” according to Open the Books.

  Among the big accounting firms getting tax dollars, Prager Metis CPAs in New York City received $10.2 million, which was forgiven in June. Revenues for 2021 reached $139 million, an increase from 2020’s total of $123.9 million.

  Withum’s of Princeton, New Jersey, was next, getting a PPP loan worth $10.1 million that was forgiven in June 2021. Withum’s revenues were $425.3 million in 2021, up significantly from its 2020 total of $257 million, according to Open the Books.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 20:20

• House Democrat Claims Her Children Had 'Nightmares' About Climate Change
  House Democrat Claims Her Children Had ‘Nightmares’ About Climate Change

  As Nancy Pelosi and other aged House Democrats seem to be backing away from the political stage, a new crop of Dems are trying to make their mark by one-upping the ideological insanity of their predecessors. 

  Incoming House Democrat Whip Katherine Clark claims in a recent interview with NBC that she is politically inspired because she remembers her middle child “waking up with nightmares” about climate change, and her family going to movie theaters with the expectation and fear that a mass shooter would appear.

  One’s immediate reaction to these claims, if one has common sense, is to laugh. 

  Children don’t have nightmares about climate change or worry about mass shooters unless their parents or other adults have conditioned them to obsess over such things. 

  Climate change is a non-issue, with the Earth’s overall temperature increasing by less than 1°C in the past 100 years.

  While mass shootings are highly publicized by the media (unless they end up involving an ethnic minority or a member of the LGBT community and then the story disappears), such events make up only 0.4% to 0.8% of all gun related deaths in the US according to RAND Corporation.

  This kind of commentary is built on agenda and exaggeration, to be sure, but it tells us a lot about the Democrats in that their political and social policies are rooted in a foundation of irrational fear.  Everything they do is motivated by a need to quell these fears in themselves or to inspire those same fears in the public (and our children) in order to gain more power. 

  Clark goes on to suggest that the GOP is going to “take down the economy” by opposing budget initiatives.  She does not explain why a constantly growing federal budget should have anything to do with the overall economy, likely because she does not understand the basics of the issue.  Massive government spending (and Federal Reserve money printing) is in fact a key trigger for the ongoing inflationary crisis. 

  The national debt doubled in the eight years Barack Obama was in the White House, with the central bank creating tens of trillions in fiat to artificially prop up “too big to fail” banks.  Inflation in the US today is a direct result of this historic spending blitz, along with the $8 trillion in covid money injected into the system over the past two years.  The Democrat solution to the problem is even more spending.

  Another interesting new narrative is also touched on in terms of the DNC being tied up with the FTX scandal, including over $40 million donated to the party in preparation for the 2022 mid-term elections.  The latest argument from Democrats is a direct parallel to the argument used by central banks and globalist institutions, which is that the fall of FTX should be used as a springboard for government regulation of the crypto space (leading to CBDCs).  Clark ignores the fact that money stolen by FTX flooded into Democrat campaign coffers and distracts from the bigger question.

  The outgoing Dem House is seeking to pass as many bills as possible before they exit in January, with even more funding for Ukraine and the passage of the NDAA at the top of their list.  The NDAA in particular is about to become a central House issue with Republicans saying they will not provide more military funding until the Pentagon abandons their covid vaccine mandates for soldiers.  The Dems will be a House minority after a number of losses in the mid-terms, making Clark and her cohorts a political footnote for at least the next two years.      

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 20:00

• THE TWITTER FILES, PART II – Twitter's Secret Blacklists
  THE TWITTER FILES, PART II – Twitter’s Secret Blacklists

  After nearly a week’s delay on the second installment of “THE TWITTER FILES” – Twitter’s internal correspondence surrounding their decision to censor the New York Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story – Journalist Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) has begun releasing more information via Twitter.

  

  The second installment – which was released days after Musk fired former deputy General Counsel James Baker for ‘filtering’ the first release, is titled: “Twitter’s Secret Blacklists“

  1. A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.

  — Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022

  2. Twitter once had a mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.

  3. Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending.

   

  

  4. Or consider the popular right-wing talk show host, Dan Bongino (@dbongino), who at one point was slapped with a “Search Blacklist.”

  

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

  5. Twitter set the account of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) to “Do Not Amplify.”

  

   

  7. What many people call “shadow banning,” Twitter executives and employees call “Visibility Filtering” or “VF.” Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning.

   

  8. “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” one senior Twitter employee told us.

   

  9. “VF” refers to Twitter’s control over user visibility. It used VF to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet’s discoverability; to block select users’ posts from ever appearing on the “trending” page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches.

   

  10. All without users’ knowledge.

   

  11. “We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do,” one Twitter engineer told us. Two additional Twitter employees confirmed.

   

  12. The group that decided whether to limit the reach of certain users was the Strategic Response Team – Global Escalation Team, or SRT-GET. It often handled up to 200 “cases” a day.

   

  13. But there existed a level beyond official ticketing, beyond the rank-and-file moderators following the company’s policy on paper. That is the “Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support,” known as “SIP-PES.”

   

  14. This secret group included Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust (Vijaya Gadde), the Global Head of Trust & Safety (Yoel Roth), subsequent CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others.

   

  15. This is where the biggest, most politically sensitive decisions got made. “Think high follower account, controversial,” another Twitter employee told us. For these “there would be no ticket or anything.”

   

  16. One of the accounts that rose to this level of scrutiny was

  @libsoftiktok

  —an account that was on the “Trends Blacklist” and was designated as “Do Not Take Action on User Without Consulting With SIP-PES.”

  

  17. The account—which Chaya Raichik began in November 2020 and now boasts over 1.4 million followers—was subjected to six suspensions in 2022 alone, Raichik says. Each time, Raichik was blocked from posting for as long as a week.

  18. Twitter repeatedly informed Raichik that she had been suspended for violating Twitter’s policy against “hateful conduct.”

  19. But in an internal SIP-PES memo from October 2022, after her seventh suspension, the committee acknowledged that “LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy.” See here:

  

  20. The committee justified her suspensions internally by claiming her posts encouraged online harassment of “hospitals and medical providers” by insinuating “that gender-affirming healthcare is equivalent to child abuse or grooming.”

  21. Compare this to what happened when Raichik herself was doxxed on November 21, 2022. A photo of her home with her address was posted in a tweet that has garnered more than 10,000 likes.

  22. When Raichik told Twitter that her address had been disseminated she says Twitter Support responded with this message: “We reviewed the reported content, and didn’t find it to be in violation of the Twitter rules.” No action was taken. The doxxing tweet is still up.

  

  23. In internal Slack messages, Twitter employees spoke of using technicalities to restrict the visibility of tweets and subjects. Here’s Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then Global Head of Trust & Safety, in a direct message to a colleague in early 2021:

  

  24. Six days later, in a direct message with an employee on the Health, Misinformation, Privacy, and Identity research team, Roth requested more research to support expanding “non-removal policy interventions like disabling engagements and deamplification/visibility filtering.”

  

  25. Roth wrote: “The hypothesis underlying much of what we’ve implemented is that if exposure to, e.g., misinformation directly causes harm, we should use remediations that reduce exposure, and limiting the spread/virality of content is a good way to do that.”

  26. He added: “We got Jack on board with implementing this for civic integrity in the near term, but we’re going to need to make a more robust case to get this into our repertoire of policy remediations – especially for other policy domains.”

  27. There is more to come on this story, which was reported by @abigailshrier @shellenbergermd  @nelliebowles @isaacgrafstein and the team The Free Press @thefp. Keep up with this unfolding story here and at our brand new website: http://thefp.com.

   

  /Fin

  And some replies:

  “This is deeper than censorship. This is about propaganda and mind control, and the control of the American public. Twitter, and the social media aps have been rigged to control our minds”…@JasonWhitlock sums it all up on @TuckerCarlson tonight #TwitterFiles pic.twitter.com/F3SRldi35X

  — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) December 9, 2022

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

  Gotta love seeing a “direct messages” tab on this screenshot where I’m assuming any staffer could read your DM’s 🤣🤣

  — Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) December 9, 2022

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  I’ll just leave this here @jack @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/49dnI1Ik9h

  — TONY™️ (@T0NY_X2) December 9, 2022

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

  Former head of censorship at Twitter was perhaps not entirely unbiased … pic.twitter.com/yynb9whc5S

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022

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

  Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 19:51

• Judge Orders Pro-Life Flight Attendant Re-Hired At Southwest Airlines
  Judge Orders Pro-Life Flight Attendant Re-Hired At Southwest Airlines

  Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Texas federal judge has ordered Southwest Airlines to reinstate Charlene Carter, the flight attendant who made headlines after a jury ruled that she was unlawfully fired for expressing pro-life views and for criticizing her union.

  

  In a decision filed on Dec. 5, five months after a jury decided in Carter’s favor, Judge Brantley Starr remarked, “Bags fly free with Southwest. But free speech didn’t fly at all with Southwest in this case.”

  Starr granted Carter $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Southwest; $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from the flight attendants’ union, Transport Workers Union of America Local 556; $150,000 in back pay, and $60,180.82 in prejudgment interest.

  Although the jury voted that Carter deserved more than $5 million, laws and rules limit the amount that can be awarded in such cases.

  “The jury also awarded front [or future] pay, but Carter would rather have her job back,” the judge wrote. “The Court reinstates Carter to her former position … If the Court opted for front pay over reinstatement, the court would complete Southwest’s unlawful scheme. Reinstatement is appropriate.”

  Further, the judge explicitly ordered Southwest and Local 556 to share the jury’s verdict and Starr’s decision with all members of the union via email and to post the documents in conspicuous places for a 60-day period.

  Starr’s order also forbids both the company and the union “from discriminating against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs, including—but not limited to—those expressed on social media and those concerning abortion.”

  Southwest and Local 556 are required to inform employees that federal law prohibits such discrimination.

  Both entities also must “reasonably accommodate Southwest flight attendants’ sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, and observances,” Starr wrote.

  The judge’s rulings and rationale are contained in three documents totaling 43 pages in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.

  Carter, who now lives in Colorado, fought for five years after she was fired. As The Epoch Times previously reported, Carter had become an outspoken opponent of abortion after she suffered physical and emotional effects from terminating a pregnancy years earlier, when she was 19.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 19:40

• Remote-Work Revolution Has Wiped Out $453 Billion In Commercial Real Estate Value
  Remote-Work Revolution Has Wiped Out $453 Billion In Commercial Real Estate Value

  Leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, roughly 95% of commercial office space was occupied across the United States, according to US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) – a nonprofit, non-government organization. By March 2020, occupancy plummeted to 10%, and has only recovered to 47%, according to a new NBER report which claims $453 billion in office commercial real estate value has been wiped out in an “office real estate apocalypse.”

  

  Around the US, that resulted in a 17.5 percent decrease in lease revenue between January 2020, and May 2022, and not only because fewer offices were being occupied, but also because those that are being rented are going for shorter terms, lower prices per month, and a lot less floor space is needed as staff are told they can work from home for most or all the week.

  Prior to the pandemic, 253 million square feet were rented per year; as of May 2022, just 59 million square feet had been rented, NBER’s data indicates. “This indicates a massive drop in office demand from tenants who are actively making space decisions,” NBER said. –The Register

  

  What’s more, while vacancy rates have hit a 30-year high, 61.7% of in-force commercial leases haven’t come up for renewal since the pandemic – meaning that “rents may not have bottomed out yet.”

  

  What this means is that commercial real estate – a popular choice for pension fund managers and investors alike – may not be the best idea for the foreseeable future, given the continuing work-from-home options adopted by corporate America.

  A common method used to invest in office real estate is commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), which are managed and traded via commercial mortgage-backed indexes (CMBX) made up of pools of CMBSes. 

  According to NBER, more recent CMBXes tend to include a higher percentage of office collateral than earlier vintages. Those newer, office-heavy CMBXes, NBER said, are what’s losing the most money. -The Register

  NBER says that in 2019, commercial real estate assets topped $4.7 trillion – offices being the largest component.

  

  Read the report below:

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 19:20

• The Ongoing COVID Deceptions: How Ruling Elites Lied About Masks And Mask Mandates
  The Ongoing COVID Deceptions: How Ruling Elites Lied About Masks And Mask Mandates

  Authored by Lipton Matthews via The Epoch Times,

  The mishandling of the covid-19 pandemic by global elites has severely eroded confidence in expert opinion. New information is emerging that senior officials doubted policies that were foisted upon the American public. By sharing the results of his deposition with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Missouri attorney general Eric Schmitt exposed Fauci’s advocacy of face masks as insincere:

  Another tidbit from the Fauci depo: In Feb 20 he emailed a friend advising her that masks were ineffective.

  Confirmed again on Mar 31.

  On April 3 he’s adamant masks should be worn even though he couldn’t cite a single study to prove it.

  Mandates followed—Lives ruined.

  Numerous studies disputed the efficacy of face masks, yet mask mandates rose to national prominence. During the apex of pandemic hysteria, the American Institute for Economic Research ran a series of scathing articles debunking the usefulness of face masks. In fact, one prominent 2020 study boldly admitted that mask use is primarily symbolic:

  We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes…

  The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflective reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.

  Not even children were spared from the covid-19 hysteria. Masks became commonplace in schools across America and the wider world, despite the large volume of research arguing that they could harm minors. One study from Germany noted that parents raised concerns about mask use having adverse effects on children. Moreover, evidence suggests that mask use limits the expressive capacity of children. Reading the facial expressions of teachers and peers aids a child’s language development, but unfortunately, masks were even required during intergroup conversations.

  

  A recent paper published in the journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications argues that mask use has hindered face recognition abilities in children. The researchers posited that impaired face recognition abilities have negative consequences for the emotional development of children, saying that “changes in face recognition performance and alteration in the processing of partially occluded faces could have significant effects on children’s social interactions with their peers and their ability to form relationships with educators.”

  Widespread mask mandates failed to benefit children, and instead of averting covid-related deaths, they led to people dying. According to Dr. Zacharias Fogen of Germany, “Mask mandates actually caused about 1.5 times the number of deaths or [approximately 50 percent] more deaths compared to no mask mandates.” Dr. Fogen theorized that the re-inhalation of hyperconcentrated droplets caught by masks led to worse ailments and fueled fatality rates.

  The scandal of covid-19 has demonstrated that elites deliberately misinformed the public at every corner. Citizens were scolded for ignoring mask mandates, even though the evidence was clear that they don’t work. The vilification of those who refused to endorse covid-19 vaccines was even more egregious.

  Vaccines are usually successful, but covid-19 vaccines were imposed on the public without proper research. Contrary to the claims of politically motivated actors, the latest research on covid-19 vaccines is astoundingly negative. Scientific research shows that rates of myocarditis are higher among the vaccinated and that natural immunity offers great protection against the virus. Moreover, there is overwhelming evidence that the highly touted lockdowns were a disaster. After the ruling elite’s orchestrated deception of the public, we would be foolish to trust their proposals.

  The pandemic has rightly taught us that governing elites will fabricate evidence and misuse data to promote their agenda at our expense, and it is unlikely that they will ever be able to regain our trust.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 19:00

• Xi Inks Tens Of Billions In Deals With Saudis, From Huawei Cloud-Computing To Expanded Military Ties
  Xi Inks Tens Of Billions In Deals With Saudis, From Huawei Cloud-Computing To Expanded Military Ties

  On the first full day of his visit wherein he was lavishly greeted and given full red-carpet treatment after arrival in the kingdom (clearly more so that Biden’s summer trip to Jeddah), Chinese President Xi Jinping met with King Salman and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday, and wide-ranging economic and tech trade agreements were signed to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, along with pledges to expand military cooperation. 

  Among the commercial deals made, one name that featured prominently is sure to raise eyebrows in Washington, given the blanket ban and years-long controversy in the states: Huawei. Among the over $29 billion in agreements signed, The Wall Street Journal reports the Saudis are “setting up a Huawei cloud-computing region, building an electric-vehicle manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia and supplying green hydrogen batteries for a futuristic smart city the prince wants to build.”

  

  Little in the way of official statements fully detailing the process of the discussions and joint agreements have been issued as talks with Xi and his top aides have occurred entirely behind closed palace doors.

  The WSJ continues, “Missing from the leaders’ public statements was any mention of the more controversial aspects of a relationship that have raised the hackles of U.S. officials—such as advanced military sales, expansion of 5G and 6G telecommunications networks and pricing some Saudi oil sales in yuan, which accelerated this year.”

  Among other areas of cooperation include urban development, housing construction, high tech complexes, as well as health, environmental, and energy-saving building projects, all related to the Saudi Vision 2030 and Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative.

  Concerning the latter area, the WSJ details that “One of the agreements involves a top Saudi renewable energy company, Acwa Power, and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.—China’s largest commercial bank, which is a direct participant in CIPS, the Chinese version of SWIFT—hinting at deepening financial cooperation between the countries.”

  🇸🇦🤝🇨🇳The royal family of Saudi Arabia personally came to meet President Xi Jinping at the airport. pic.twitter.com/I8dOLHbkl4

  — AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) December 7, 2022

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  It goes without saying that the China-Saudi summit is being held against the backdrop of strained Saudi relations with Washington, also as Saudi officials likely increasingly see America as a superpower in decline. This theme has also been on display with apparent cozier coordination with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, despite the Ukraine war, which has seen MbS firmly rebuff Biden’s pleas to produce more oil.

  Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of media commentary in the West over just how “lavish” Xi’s reception in the kingdom has been, and for good reason. The below greeting included much more than a fist bump…

  HRH Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦, Mohammed Bin Salman Al-Saud, welcomes the President of China 🇨🇳 , HE Xi Jinping, to the Arab world. 🤝

  pic.twitter.com/n39D0hTYph

  — Ebrahim Hashem 李思瑞 إبراهيم هاشم (@EbrahimHashem) December 8, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 18:40

• State Attorneys General Say FedEx And UPS Help Feds Track Gun Sales
  State Attorneys General Say FedEx And UPS Help Feds Track Gun Sales

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, together with 17 other state attorneys general, has demanded that shipping companies UPS and FedEx explain their newly implemented policies to track and record Americans’ firearms purchases, and disclose whether these policies have been coordinated with the Biden administration.

  

  In letters sent on Nov. 29 to FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam and UPS CEO Carol B. Tomé, Knudsen and co-signers wrote that the shipping companies’ policies “allow your company to track firearm sales with unprecedented specificity and bypass warrant requirements to share that information with federal agencies.”

  “What both of these companies are saying is that they’re doing this so they can better cooperate with law enforcement,” Knudsen told The Epoch Times. “That’s all fine and well, until you find out that that’s a violation of federal law.”

  Based on reports from gun stores, Knudsen’s letter states, FedEx and UPS are now requiring Federal Firearms License holders (FFLs) to provide details of each shipment to the shipping companies, including the contents and recipient, allowing them “to create a database of American gun purchasers and determine exactly what items they purchased.

  Citing the new policies, the letter states: “Perhaps most concerning, your policies allegedly allow FedEx [and UPS] to ‘comply with … requests from applicable law enforcement or other governmental authorities’ even when those requests are ‘inconsistent or contrary to any applicable law, rule, regulation, or order.’ In doing so you—perhaps inadvertently—give federal agencies a workaround to federal law, which has long prevented federal agencies from using gun sales to create gun registries.”

  “The ATF is hoping they’re not going to have a warrant problem,” Knudsen said. “They could just go get this information from UPS and FedEx.”

  FedEx and UPS’s new gun-tracking policies follow on the heels of efforts by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to also monitor purchases from gun stores, with the intention of handing this information over to federal law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from conducting searches of U.S. citizens without a warrant and “probable cause” that a crime was committed. Increasingly, however, banks, credit card companies, and now shipping companies are conducting those searches on the government’s behalf.

  The letter demands that the shipping companies respond within 30 days, clarifying their policies and explaining whether or not they acted in coordination with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), or any other government agency. It also asks them to clarify a reported “gag order” under which they directed gun shops not to disclose the terms of this policy to the public.

  Is There Possibly Collusion?

  The two attorneys general letters to UPS and FedEx were virtually identical because the policies the two shipping companies implemented appear to be strikingly similar, raising the additional issue of possible collusion between companies that hold an oligopolistic position in shipping. Collusion in restraint of trade has long been illegal under U.S. antitrust laws, including the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

  “It’s either collusion, they’re working together, or what I suspect is, it’s probably originating out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or the Biden administration,” Knudsen said. His letter recommends that the shipping companies “consider taking actions to limit potential liability moving forward, including the immediate cessation of any existing warrantless information sharing with federal agencies about gun shipments.”

  If the shipping companies don’t answer his questions within 30 days, Knudsen said, “I’ll probably start with an actual formal civil investigative demand where we’ll ask for some some documentation. That’s short of a subpoena and an actual lawsuit,” he said, “but, ultimately, if they don’t want to cooperate, a lawsuit is where we’re going to end up.”

  In response to the letter, FedEx issued a statement to The Epoch Times that “FedEx is aware of the letter from the state attorneys general. We are committed to the lawful and safe movement of regulated items through our network.”

  UPS responded that it “has not bypassed any laws to provide customer information to the Biden administration or federal agencies related to the shipment of firearms. UPS will only provide information about our customers or shipments when required to do so by law, such as in response to a subpoena or a warrant.”

  UPS added that it “will respond to the letter sent by several state attorneys general to answer their questions and clarify misinformation. UPS will continue to abide by all applicable laws in providing service for firearm shipments.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 18:20

• House Passes Record $858 Billion Defense Policy Bill
  House Passes Record $858 Billion Defense Policy Bill

  Update(1358ET): On Thursday the House passed the massive, record-setting annual defense authorization bill, which will now see the $847 billion measure go to the Senate, which has to be voted on before the year-end deadline. 

  It passed in a vote of 350-80 along largely bipartisan lines. According to The Hill, “It was approved under suspension of the rules, an expedited process to pass legislation in the House that requires a two-thirds majority.”

  One interesting measure which will be welcomes across the Department of Defense is a 4.6% pay raise for both military members and the DoD’s civilian workers. 

  

  * * *

  As Dave DeCamp of AntiWar.com previously detailed, the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday narrowly voted down a bill that would audit the tens of billions of dollars that Congress has approved to spend on the war in Ukraine. The bill was rejected by the Democrat-led panel in a vote of 26 to 22. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and a small group of Republicans who oppose US aid to Ukraine, but it received strong support from more hawkish Republicans.

  Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Matt Gaetz (FL), Barry Moore (AL), and Andrew Clyde (GA) cosponsored Greene’s bill. Greene has said that she will reintroduce the measure in the next Congress when Republicans have a majority in the House. “It’s official the Democrats have voted NO to transparency for the American people for an Audit for Ukraine,” Greene wrote on Twitter after the vote. “But we take over in January! This audit will happen!”

  

  Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who is expected to head the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the next Congress, has come out in favor of the audit bill. “The era of writing blank checks is over,” McCaul said, according to The Washington Post.

  McCaul has been critical of the Biden administration for not sending longer-range weapons to Ukraine and wants to encourage Ukrainian strikes on Crimea despite the risk of escalation. But he represents the mainstream Republicans who want to keep arming Ukraine but agree there should be more oversight.

  Democrats have been critical of the growing Republican calls for more oversight of the Ukraine aid. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the head of the House Armed Services Committee, even dismissed the concerns as “Russian propaganda” and said the calls from Republicans to increase oversight “makes me a little crazy.”

  Meanwhile also on Tuesday night, Congress unveiled the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), worth $858 billion, $45 billion more than what President Biden requested for the military spending bill. The House is expected to vote on the legislation this week, and it could be brought to the floor as soon as Thursday. Once the House approves the bill, it will be sent to the Senate, then to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

  Biden’s initial defense budget request: $813 billion
  House Armed Services Committee version: $839 billion
  Senate Armed Services Committee version: $847 billion
  Final version, just released: $859 billion

  Oddly, this one budgetary process always seems to go in the same direction

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 7, 2022

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  The massive $858 billion bill represents an 8% increase from the 2022 NDAA, which was also larger than what Biden requested. The $858 billion includes $817 billion for the Pentagon, and the remaining funds go toward military spending for other departments.

  Notable amendments packed into the NDAA include $10 billion in military aid for Taiwan that will be dispersed over five years. The aid is in the form of Foreign Military Financing, a State Department program that gives foreign governments funds to purchase US-made military equipment.

  The NDAA also includes $800 million in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a program that allows the US government to purchase weapons for Ukraine. But the vast majority of spending on the Ukraine war will come through emergency funding, and the White House is hoping Congress approves a new $37.7 billion tranche of Ukraine aid during the lame-duck period.

  Rep. Gerry Connolly was one of the Democrats who shut down @RepMTG’s resolution to audit the 80 billion+ taxpayer dollars flowing into the pockets of Ukrainian warlords.

  “I support transparency and accountability,” Connolly claimed, “but not now.” pic.twitter.com/pkrPbU9vQY

  — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 7, 2022

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  The NDAA includes $11.5 billion in new investments for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, a program to build up in the Asia Pacific to confront China. The Pentagon has identified China as its main focus, and the NDAA includes investment in new technology research and development that US military leaders say is meant to counter Beijing.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/08/2022 – 18:11

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