Jul 09

Today’s News 9th July 2024

  • Soccer Star Toni Kroos: Germany's No Longer The Country It Was 10 Years Ago Thanks To Mass Migration
    Soccer Star Toni Kroos: Germany’s No Longer The Country It Was 10 Years Ago Thanks To Mass Migration

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news

    Football star Toni Kroos told a ZDF podcast that Germany is no longer the country it was 10 years ago due to mass migration and that he is staying in Spain because he is afraid to let his daughter go out at night in German cities.

    Kroos, who won 114 caps before retiring from professional football on Friday night after his country’s defeat to Spain at Euro 2024, made the comments during an appearance on the ‘Lanz & Precht’ podcast.

    The man dubbed Germany’s most successful ever player has been living in Spain for the last decade while playing for Real Madrid.

    Kroos said he will be staying in Spain with his family despite his football career there coming to an end because Germany is no longer the same country that “it was ten years ago when we left.”

    Compared to Spain, Kroos said he felt more uneasy about letting his daughter go out “at 11pm in a big German city.”

    The former World Cup winner said the issue of mass migration was “constantly present” in Germany and that it had become too “uncontrolled”.

    Kroos said that some immigrants were good people but that, “If you cannot distinguish them from those who are not good for us, it will be difficult in the end. Then the attitude of the Germans will become more and more divided.”

    Podcast host Markus Lanz agreed with Kroos that, “There are problems everywhere. It’s too crowded, there’s too much,” and that people shouldn’t be vilified as racists for talking about it.

    As we previously highlighted, foreign migrant suspects are responsible for nearly 6 in 10 violent crimes in Germany according to new figures released by the federal government.

    Despite comprising roughly 14.6 per cent of the population, foreign migrants were responsible for 58.5 per cent of all violent crimes.

    High profile figures, including politicians, have been prosecuted by German authorities for comments drawing attention to the problem, while the political establishment is continuing in its efforts to ban the anti-migration right-wing AfD party in the name of ‘saving democracy’.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 07/09/2024 – 02:00

  • We Were "Deceived & Gaslit For Years", All In The Name Of "Democracy"; Then "Poof", It Collapsed Overnight
    We Were “Deceived & Gaslit For Years”, All In The Name Of “Democracy”; Then “Poof”, It Collapsed Overnight

    Authored by Alastair Crooke,

    The Editor at Large for the Wall Street Journal, Gerry Baker, says: ‘We’ve been “gaslit’ and deceived” – for years – “all in the name of ‘democracy’”. That deceit “collapsed” with the Presidential debate, Thursday’.

    “Until the world saw the truth … [against] the ‘misinformation’ … the fiction of Mr. Biden’s competence … suggests they [the Democrats] evidently thought they could get away with promoting it. [Yet] by perpetuating that fiction they were also revealing their contempt for the voters and for democracy itself”.

    Baker continues:

    “Biden succeeded because he made toeing the party line his life’s work. Like all politicians whose egos dwarf their talents, he ascended the greasy pole by slavishly following his party wherever it led … Finally—in the ultimate act of partisan servility, he became Barack Obama’s vice president, the summit of achievement for those incapable, yet loyal: the apex position for the consummate ‘yes man’”.

    “But then, just as he was ready to drift into a comfortable and well-deserved obscurity, his party needed a front man … They sought a loyal and reliable figurehead, a flag of convenience, under which they could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life — on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery. There was no more loyal and convenient vehicle than Joe”.

    If so, then who actually has been ‘pulling America’s strings’ these past years?

    “You [the Democratic machine] don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years about how this man was both brilliantly competent at the job and a healing force for national unity – and now tell us, when your deception is uncovered, that it’s ‘bedtime for Bonzo’ – thanks for your service, and let’s move on”, Baker warns.

    “[Now] it is going horribly wrong. Much of his party has no use for him anymore … in a remarkably cynical act of bait-and-switch, [they are trying to] swap him out for someone more useful to their cause. Part of me thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. I find myself in the odd position of wanting to root for poor mumbling Joe … It’s tempting to say to the Democratic machine frantically mobilizing against him: You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years”.

    Something significant has snapped within ‘the system’. It is always tempting to situate such events in ‘immediate time’, but even Baker seems to allude to a longer cycle of gaslighting and deception – one that only now has suddenly burst into open view.

    Such events – though seemingly ephemeral and of the moment – can be portents to deeper structural contradictions moving.

    When Baker writes of Biden being the latest ‘flag of convenience’ under which the ruling strata could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life – “on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery” – it seems probable that he is referring to the 1970s era of the Trilateral Commission and the Club of Rome.

    The 1970s and 1980s were the point at which the long arc of traditional liberalism gave place to an avowedly illiberal, mechanical ‘control system’ (managerial technocracy) that today fraudulently poses as liberal democracy.

    Emmanuel Todd, the French anthropological historian, examines the longer dynamics to events unfolding in the present: The prime agent of change leading to the Decline of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident), he argues, was the implosion of ‘Anglo’ Protestantism in the U.S. (and England), with its entailed habits of work, individualism and industry – a creed whose qualities were held then to reflect God’s grace through material success, and, above all, to confirm membership of the divine ‘Elect’.

    Whereas traditional liberalism had its mores, the decline of traditional values triggered the slide towards managerial technocracy, and to nihilism. Religion lingers on in the West, though in a ‘zombie’ state, Todd avers. Such societies, he argues, flounder – absent some guiding metaphysical sphere that provides people with non-material sustenance.

    However, the incoming doctrine that only a wealthy financial élite, tech experts, leaders of multinational corporations and banks possess the required foresight and technological understanding to manipulate a complex and increasingly controlled system changed politics completely.

    Mores were gone – and so was empathy. Many experienced the disconnect and the disregard of cold technocracy.

    So when a senior WSJ editor tells us that the ‘deception and ‘gaslighting’ collapsed with the CNN Biden-Trump debate, we should surely pay attention; He is saying the scales finally fell from peoples’ eyes.

    What was being gaslighted was the fiction of democracy and also that of America declaring itself – in its own scripture – to be the trailblazer and pathfinder of humanity: America as the exceptional nation: the singular, the pure-of-heart, the baptizer, and redeemer of all peoples despised and downtrodden; the “last, best hope of earth”.

    The reality was very different. Of course, states can ‘live a lie’ for a long period. The underlying problem – the point Todd makes so compellingly – is that you can be successful in deceiving and manipulating public perceptions, but only up to a point.

    The reality was, it simply was not working.

    The same is true of ‘Europe’.

    The EU’s aspiration to become a global geo-political actor too, was contingent on gaslighting the public that France, Italy and Germany et al could continue to be real national entities – even as the EU scooped up all national decision-making prerogatives, by deceit. The mutiny at the recent European elections reflected this discontent.

    Of course, Biden’s condition has been long known. So who then has been running affairs; making critical daily decisions about war, peace, the composition of the judiciary and the boundaries of state authority? The WSJ piece gives one answer: “Unelected advisers, party hacks, scheming family members and random hangers-on make the critical daily decisions” on these issues.

    Maybe we have to reconcile to the fact that Biden is an angry, senile man who yells at his staff: “During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction”.

    “It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s very difficult and people are scared sh*tless of him.” The official added, “He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it”.

    Seymour Hersh, the well-known investigative journalist reports:

    “Biden’s drift into blankness has been ongoing for months, as he and his foreign policy aides have been urging a ceasefire that will not happen in Gaza whilst continuing to supply the weapons that make a ceasefire less likely. There’s a similar paradox in Ukraine, where Biden has been financing a war that cannot be won – yet refusing to participate in negotiations that could end the slaughter”.

    “The reality behind all of this, as I’ve been told for months, is that Biden is simply ‘no longer there’ – in terms of understanding the contradictions of the policies he and his foreign policy advisers have been carrying out”.

    On the one hand, Politico tells us: “Biden’s insular senior team are well acquainted with the longtime aides who continue to have the president’s ear: Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed, as well as Ted Kaufman and Klain on the outside”.

    “It’s the same people — he has not changed those people for 40 years … The number of people who have access to the president has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. They’ve been digging deeper into the bunker for months now.” And, the strategist said, “the more you get into the bunker, the less you listen to anyone”.

    In Todd’s words then, decisions are made by a small ‘Washington village’.

    Of course, Jake Sullivan and Blinken sit at the centre of what is called the ‘inter-agency’ view. This where policy mostly is discussed. It is not coherent – with its locus in the National Security Committee – but rather is spread through a matrix of interlocking ‘clusters’ that includes the Military Industrial Complex, Congressional leaders, Big Donors, Wall Street, the Treasury, the CIA, the FBI, a few cosmopolitan oligarchs and the princelings of the security-intelligence world.

    All these ‘princes’ pretend to have a foreign policy view, and fight like cats to protect their fiefdom’s autonomy. Sometimes they channel their ‘take’ via the NSC, but if they can, they will ‘stovepipe’ it directly to one or other ‘key actor’ with the ear of one, or other, Washington ‘village’.

    Nonetheless, at bottom, the 1992 Wolfowitz doctrine which underscored American supremacy at all costs, in a post-Soviet world – together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge” – still today remains the ‘current doctrine’ framing the ‘inter-agency’ baseline.

    Dysfunction at the heart of a seemingly functioning organization may persist for years without any real public awareness or appreciation of the descent into dysfunctionality. But then suddenly – when a crisis hits, or Presidential debate misfires – ‘poof’ and we see clearly the collapse of the manipulation that has confined discourse to within the various Washington villages.

    In this light, some of the structural contradictions that Todd noted as contributory factors to western decline become unexpectedly ‘illuminated’ by events: Baker highlighted one: The key Faustian bargain: the pretence of a liberal democracy operating in tandem with a ‘classic’ liberal economy versus the reality of an illiberal oligarchic leadership sitting atop a hyper-financialised corporate economy that has both sucked the life from the classic organic economy, and created toxic inequalities too.

    The second agent of western decline is Todd’s observation that the implosion of the Soviet Union rendered the U.S. so cock-a-hoop that the latter triggered a paradoxical unleashing of global ‘Rules-Based Order’ expansion of empire versus the reality that the West was already being consumed from its roots upwards.

    The third agent to decline lay, Todd argues, with America declaring itself to be the greatest military nation on earth – versus the reality of an America that has long rid itself of much of its manufacturing capacity (particularly the military capacity), yet elects to clash with a stabilized Russia, a great power returned, and with China which has instantiated itself as the world’s manufacturing Behemoth (including militarily).

    These unresolved paradoxes became the agents of western decline, Todd maintained. He has a point.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 23:40

  • No Remedy For Censorship: The Perils Of Murthy
    No Remedy For Censorship: The Perils Of Murthy

    Authored by Philip Hamburger via RealClearPolitics,

    Last week, in Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court hammered home the distressing conclusion that, under the court’s doctrines, the First Amendment is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable against large-scale government censorship. The decision is a strong contender to be the worst speech decision in the court’s history.

    (I must confess a personal interest in all of this: My civil rights organization, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, represented individual plaintiffs in Murthy.)

    All along, there were some risks. As I pointed out in an article called “Courting Censorship,” Supreme Court doctrine has permitted and thereby invited the federal government to orchestrate massive censorship through the social media platforms. The Murthy case, unfortunately, confirms the perils of the court’s doctrines.

    One danger was that the court would try to weasel out of reaching a substantive decision. Months before Murthy was argued, there was reason to fear that the court would try to duck the speech issue by disposing of the case on standing.

    Indeed, in its opinion, the court denied that that the plaintiffs had standing by inventing what Justice Alito calls “a new and heightened standard” of traceability – a standard so onerous that, if the court adheres to it in other cases, almost no one will be able to sue. It is sufficiently unrealistic that the court won’t stick to it in future cases.

    The “evidence was more than sufficient to establish” at least one plaintiff’s “standing to sue,” and consequently, as Alito’s dissent pointed out, “we are obligated to tackle the free speech issue.” Regrettably, the court, however, again in Alito’s words, “shirks that duty and thus permits … this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.” The case gives a greenlight for the government to engage in further censorship.

    A second problem was doctrinal. The Supreme Court has developed doctrine that encourages government to think it “can censor Americans through private entities as long as it is not too coercive.” Accordingly, with painful predictability, the oral argument in Murthy focused on whether or not there had been government coercion.

    The implications were not lost on the government. Although it had slowed down its censorship machine during litigation, it revved it up after the court’s hearing emphasized coercion. As put by Matt Taibbi, “the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reportedly resumed contact with Internet platforms after oral arguments in this case in March led them to expect a favorable ruling.”

    The First Amendment, however, says nothing about coercion. On the contrary, it distinguishes between “abridging” the freedom of speech and “prohibiting” the free exercise of religion. As I have explained in great detail, the amendment thereby makes clear that the Constitution’s standard for a speech violation is abridging, that is, reducing, the freedom of speech, not coercion. A mere reduction of the freedom violates the First Amendment.

    The court in Murthy, however, didn’t recognize the significance of the word “abridging.” This matters in part for the standing question. It’s much more difficult to show that the plaintiffs’ injuries are traceable to government coercion than to show that they are traceable to government abridging of the freedom of speech. More substantively, if the court had recognized the First Amendment’s word “abridging,” it would have clarified to the government that it can’t use evasions to get away with censorship.

    Other doctrinal disasters included the court’s casual indifference to listeners’ or readers’ rights – the right of speakers to hear the speech of others. The court treated such rights as if they were independent of the rights of speakers and therefore concluded that they would broadly invite everyone to sue the government.

    But listeners’ rights are most clearly based in the First Amendment when they are understood as the right of speakers to hear the speech of others, as this is essential for speakers to formulate and refine their own speech. The right of speakers to hear what others say is, therefore, the core of listeners’ rights. From this modest understanding of listeners’ rights, the plaintiffs’ rights as listeners should have been understood as part of their rights as speakers – an analysis that would’ve avoided hyperbolical judicial fears of permitting everyone to sue.

    The court’s concern that a recognition of listeners’ rights would open up the courts to too many claimants is especially disturbing when the government has censored millions upon millions of posts with the primary goal of suppressing what the American people can hear or read. When the most massive censorship in American history prevents Americans from learning often true opinion on matters of crucial public interest, it should be no surprise that there are many claimants. The court’s disgraceful reasoning suggests that when the government censors a vast number of Americans, we lose our right of redress.

    The greatest danger comes from the court’s tolerance of the sub-administrative power that the government uses to corral private parties into becoming instruments of control. Administrative regulation ideally runs through notice-and-comment rulemaking. In contrast, sub-administrative regulation works through informal persuasion, including subtle threats, regulatory hassle, and illicit inducements. By such means, the government can get the private platforms to carry out government orchestrated censorship of their users.

    The federal government once had no such sub-administrative power, and it therefore had little control over speech. It could punish speakers only through criminal prosecutions – that is, by going to court and showing that the defendants’ speech violated the criminal law. Now, however, federal officials can subtly get the platforms to suppress speech – often covertly, so an individual won’t even know he is being suppressed. Thus, whereas the government traditionally could only punish the individual, it now can make his speech disappear.

    Even worse, the court’s tolerance of this sub-administrative privatization of censorship reverses the burden of proof. Government once had to prove to a judge and jury that a speaker’s words were illegal. Now, instead, the speaker must prove that the government censored him.

    What’s more, there’s no effective remedy. The court’s qualified immunity doctrine makes it nearly impossible for censored individuals to get damages for past censorship. And the obstacles to getting an injunction mean that it’s nearly impossible to stop future censorship. For example, the government can claim, as it did in Murthy, that it’s no longer censoring the affected individual. Then, poof! The possibility of an injunction disappears. Moreover, because of the court’s indifference to listeners’ rights – even to the right of speakers to hear the speech of others, an injunction can protect only a handful of individuals; it can’t stop the government’s massive censorship of vast numbers of Americans.

    The court thus puts Americans affected by censorship in an unenviable position. It reverses the burden of proof and denies Americans any effective remedy.

    So, for multiple reasons, Murthy is probably the worst speech decision in American history. In the face of the most sweeping censorship in American history, the decision fails to recognize either the realities of the censorship or the constitutional barriers to it. In practical terms, the decision invites continuing federal censorship on social media platforms. It thereby nearly guarantees that yet another election cycle will be compromised by government censorship and condemns a hitherto free society to the specter of mental servitude.

    Philip Hamburger teaches at Columbia Law School and is CEO of the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 23:00

  • 'Bring A Trailer' Data Shows Early Adopters Of EV Trucks Hammered By Price Plunge
    ‘Bring A Trailer’ Data Shows Early Adopters Of EV Trucks Hammered By Price Plunge

    Some early adopters of electric vehicle trucks who bought on secondary markets during the EV mania in recent years have been hammered by price collapses. 

    Using Bring A Trailer data, we analyzed auctions of four EV trucks: a GMC Hummer EV, a Ford F-150 Lightning EV, a Rivian R1T, and a Tesla Cybertruck. All of these trucks have seen sizeable price declines on the auction website. 

    Let’s start with the GMC Hummer EV, which was heavily hyped and initially sold for a staggering $275k on the auction website in April 2022. Fast forward to today, and used Hummer EVs are now selling on the same site for around $100k, aligning near GMC’s listed MSRP.

    Even though a Ford F-150 EV has not sold or been listed on Bing A Trailer in about a year, the price collapse from around the $120k mark in the summer of 2022 to about $60k in the summer of 2023 is breathtaking. It’s just a devastating price collapse for early adopters who paid a hefty premium on secondary markets. MSRP for Lightnings ranges from $55k to $93k, depending on trim. 

    It is more of the same for the Rivian folks who purchased the R1Ts on the secondary market after the initial launch. Prices have plunged by about 50% from the spring of 2022 to the present day. MSRP for Rivian R1T is around $70k. 

    The big question is what happens with used Tesla Cybertruck prices. Since March, one auction has been completed at $160k, with one selling last month for about $100k. Tesla does have a penalty for owners selling their trucks in the first year. MSRP for the Foundation Series of the Cybertruck is around $100k. 

    The takeaway here is clear: don’t buy into the hype.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 22:40

  • Edith Wilson Biden (Née Jill Giacoppo)
    Edith Wilson Biden (Née Jill Giacoppo)

    Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

    This is not the first time that an invalid has occupied the Oval Office. After apparently exhausting himself in behalf of the “War to Make the World Safe for Democracy” and orchestrating the “peace conference” at Versailles that guaranteed the carnage of WWII, Woodrow Wilson succumbed to a nearly fatal stroke in October 1919 while barnstorming the nation in behalf of the League of Nations Treaty.

    As it happened, America was than blessed with a perfectly serviceable Vice-President, Thomas R. Marshall, who had been a famous Midwestern lawyer, governor of Indiana, outspoken “progressive” and contender for the Democrat nomination in 1912. Wilson won the nomination on the 46th ballot but only after his advisers secretly promised Marshall the vice presidency in a very smoked-filled room in the wee hours of the Dem convention.

    Perhaps that is why Marshall’s most famous quote is known to almost everyone more than 100 years later. Thus, observed America’s #2 leader—

    “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.”

    Notwithstanding Marshall’s status as a second term almost-president, Edith Wilson was having none of a succession plan. And that’s despite the fact she did not have a degree in “education” nor did she answer to the “Dr. Edith” title.

    But she had proven herself around Washington as no mean hostess when she slipped into the First Lady role during and/or after (it’s disputed!) the illness and death of Wilson’s first wife in 1915. Either way, Edith Wilson was not about to disembark from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue solely because her husband was virtually paralyzed on the entire left side of his body.

    Indeed, the extent of her intrigues and deceptions designed to hang on to power are now legendary. As medical historian, Howard Markel, has told,

    Everything changed on the morning of Oct. 2, 1919. According to some accounts, the president awoke to find his left hand numb to sensation before falling into unconsciousness. In other versions, Wilson had his stroke on the way to the bathroom and fell to the floor with Edith dragging him back into bed. However those events transpired, immediately after the president’s collapse, Mrs. Wilson discretely phoned down to the White House chief usher, Ike Hoover and told him to “please get Dr. Grayson, the president is very sick.”

    Grayson quickly arrived. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the presidential bedroom and the doctor’s diagnosis was terrible: “My God, the president is paralyzed,” Grayson declared.

    What would surprise most Americans today is how the entire affair, including Wilson’s extended illness and long-term disability, was shrouded in secrecy. In recent years, the discovery of the presidential physicians’ clinical notes at the time of the illness confirm that the president’s stroke left him severely paralyzed on his left side and partially blind in his right eye, along with the emotional maelstroms that accompany any serious, life-threatening illness, but especially one that attacks the brain. Only a few weeks after his stroke, Wilson suffered a urinary tract infection that threatened to kill him. Fortunately, the president’s body was strong enough to fight that infection off but he also experienced another attack of influenza in January of 1920, which further damaged his health.

    Protective of both her husband’s reputation and power, Edith shielded Woodrow from interlopers and embarked on a bedside government that essentially excluded Wilson’s staff, the Cabinet and the Congress. During a perfunctory meeting the president held with Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock (D-Neb.) and Albert Fall (R-N.M.) on Dec. 5, Grayson and Edith even tried to hide the extent of Wilson’s paralysis by keeping his left side covered with a blanket.

    As it turned out, the immobilization of the presidency during the last 18 months of Wilson’s term was one of history’s great serendipity’s. Absent Wilson’s tireless promotion, the abominable League of Nations Treaty died aborning. America was thus given one more chance to return to its ways as a peaceful Republic untroubled by the petty intrigues of nations beyond the great Atlantic and Pacific Ocean moats.

    Needless to say, that reprieve has long since been kicked away. America is now a dangerous Empire and its president is virtually the helmsman of the planet. So the fact that Jill Biden has apparently read and copied the entirety of professor Markel’s account of America’s first Spousal Regency is troubling indeed.

    It was evident beyond a shadow of a doubt last Thursday night that a second Spousal Regency is now underway. “Joe Biden” would have received his gold watch from Washington’s grateful ruling apparatchiks long ago, save for the obvious fact that Jill Biden has said that absolutely “nyet means nyet”.

    At this point, of course, it would be helpful if Jill did speak a bit of Russian because the minions helping her conduct this unauthorized, unlawful and constitutionally- repugnant Regency have gotten her marooned in what amounts to an helacious Moscow Winter. Alas, however, it appears that her second language lies elsewhere.

    That is to say, Jill Jacobs Giacoppo’s tribal ferocity did not originate from the bucolic hills of Willow Grove Pennsylvania or the classrooms of Upper Moreland High School or even the instructors at Brandywine Junior College. Her father’s family had emigrated from the Sicilian village of Gesso, losing the “Giacoppo” part within days of passing Lady Liberty, but hanging on to the blood loyalty part even unto the present fraught hour.

    That is to say, Edith Wilson Biden is a clear and present danger to the American Republic. She has spent the last 47 years marinating in the self-righteous hypocrisies, follies and evil-doings of the Washington ruling class—without ever once have been called to accountability by any kind of electorate at all.

    Like Edith Wilson, she was apparently an able spouse and hostess – who taught classes at Northern Virginia Community College on the side and was pleased to call herself “doctor” owing to a quasi-honorary degree from the Biden family’s political sinecure at the University of Delaware.

    And yet and yet. Jill Giacoppo is an utterly unqualified usurper, who has even less excuse for her blatant power grab than did Edith Wilson back in the day. At least in Edith’s time there was no 25th Amendment to regularize, organize and legitimize the transfer of power to the constitutionally prescribed role of Vice President.

    To be specific, section 4 of the 25th Amendment addresses the precise case of a President unable to fulfill his constitutional role but who cannot or will not step aside.

    In that event, it provides both a decision-maker and a procedure. The deciding group is the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet. If this group declares a President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” the Vice President immediately becomes Acting President; and he remains so unless a two-thirds majority of both chamber reinstate the former president.

    So why was “Joe Biden” still in the Oval Office last Thursday night making a spectacle of his very disabled self before a global audience of 51 million?

    It’s plain as day that there is one reason and one reason alone as to why Kamala Harris and the timorous men and woman of the Biden cabinet have not activated the 25th Amendment: They are scared to death of Jill Giacoppo!

    Then again, this election is allegedly about saving constitutional democracy from the prospect of an illegal coup.

    And while the DNC and its megaphones in the MSM may resolutely deny it, that’s exactly what is now dangerously underway in their own backyard.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 22:20

  • You Can Soon Bid On Kevin Spacey's Baltimore Mansion 
    You Can Soon Bid On Kevin Spacey’s Baltimore Mansion 

    Actor Kevin Spacey, known for his lead role as Frank Underwood in the Netflix series “House of Cards,” is facing numerous sexual assault accusations, all of which he denies. Recently featured on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Spacey revealed he is on the brink of bankruptcy and is set to lose his Inner Harbor mansion in Baltimore City after amassing millions of dollars in legal bills.

    Sixty-four-year-old Spacey told Morgan during the June interview that his five-story mansion at Pier Homes at Harborview “is being foreclosed on.” He continued, “My house is being sold at auction. So I have to go back to Baltimore and put all my things in storage. So… I’m not quite sure where I’m gonna live now.”

    “I can’t pay the bills [legal bills] that I owe,” Spacey said, adding he has been able to “dodge” bankruptcy for now. 

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    We doubt Spacey will be homeless, but his Harborview home is certainly slated for the auction block later this month. 

    Local auctioneer Alex Cooper is preparing to auction off Spacey’s 9,069-square-foot condo built by the late developer Leroy Merritt on July 25 at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. 

    A $100,000 initial deposit is required to bid, and there will be no bidding online. The opening bid starts at $1.5 million. 

    Here are more details on Spacey’s home from the auctioneers:

    ***SUGGESTED OPENING BID $1,500,000***

    Description from previous listing: Expansive 9,069+ square foot waterfront mansion. Property features 5 levels, 6 bedrooms, 7 full baths and 3 half-baths.  Upgrades include an elevator, sauna, home theatre, rooftop terrace, multiple verandas and a four-car garage. (The above description and pictures are from a Realtor’s listing on Multiple List when the property previously was sold and transferred for $5.65 million in 2017.  There are no warranties or representations as to its accuracy. 

    Under a power of sale contained in a certain Deed of Trust from Clear Toaster, LLC, dated September 5, 2017 and recorded in Liber 19497, folio 56 and re-recorded in Liber 26452, Folio 181 among the Land Records of Baltimore City, MD, default having occurred under the terms thereof and at the request of the parties secured thereby, the undersigned Substitute Trustees will offer for sale at public auction at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, at the Clarence M. Mitchell Court House, 100 North Calvert Street, Court House Door, Calvert Street entrance, Baltimore, MD 21202, on JULY 25, 2024 AT 9:15 AM.

    The new owner of Spacey’s home should really consider hiring a cleaning service equipped with blacklights before moving in.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 22:00

  • 2 Years After Burn-Pit Law, Veterans See Improvements But Challenges Persist
    2 Years After Burn-Pit Law, Veterans See Improvements But Challenges Persist

    Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    It’s been nearly five years since Gina Cancelino lost her husband—U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Cancelino—to his battle with cancer.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, courtesy of Gina Cancelino, Courtesy photo by Rosie Lopez Torres, courtesy of Paul McMillin)

    She, like many other military spouses and family members, struggled to understand what caused her husband’s illness when it first manifested. Eventually, they began to realize it likely had to do with the open-air burn pits the U.S. military used for years to dispose of plastics, electronics, refuse, and medical waste during deployments throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa.

    Gina Cancelino began her search for answers even before her husband’s death and filed multiple claims for benefits as a surviving spouse after his death. She saw one claim denied in the spring of 2021, and another in July 2022 before the Department of Veterans Affairs approved her third request in January 2023.

    What changed between her second and third claims was that Congress had passed and President Joe Biden had signed the Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act in August 2022.

    A Journey of Advocacy

    The PACT Act’s passage followed years of advocacy by some of the very same veterans and family members directly affected by illnesses from exposure to burn pits and other sources of toxins. One group at the forefront of this advocacy effort has been Burn Pits 360.

    Retired U.S. Army Reserve Capt. Le Roy Torres and his wife Rosie Lopez Torres formed Burn Pits 360 after Mr. Le Roy returned from a 2007 deployment to Iraq with difficulty breathing. He was eventually diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis and brain injuries resulting from exposure to toxins, but he and his wife faced challenges getting the VA to accept that his illness was service-connected and that the department had an obligation to support him.

    “What really forced us into this journey of advocacy was just basically us dealing with our own injustice,” Rosie Lopez Torres told The Epoch Times in a recent phone interview.

    Burn Pits 360 formed in 2009 as a way to connect with other veterans facing similar struggles and to organize the advocacy effort. The advocacy group worked for another 13 years before the PACT Act passed, partnering with other veterans organizations, meeting with lawmakers, and repeatedly returning to Capitol Hill as Congress took incremental steps to address the illnesses veterans faced.

    Since the PACT Act’s passage, the VA has established a presumption of a service connection for 23 cancers and respiratory illnesses veterans have experienced after deployments to 16 Middle Eastern and African countries since the Gulf War in 1990, and following the 9/11 attacks. The VA also added new service-connection presumptions for illnesses veterans have encountered after being exposed to a chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange during the ‘60s and ’70s.

    (L-R) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) looks on as Rosie Torres (C) holds up a photo of her husband Le Roy Torres on her phone at a news conference with veterans and their families, after the Senate passed the PACT Act, at the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 2, 2022. Mr. Le Roy Torres suffers from illnesses related to his exposure to burn pits in Iraq. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Within about a week of the PACT Act’s passage, Ms. Cancelino began preparing her third claim for survivor benefits for her and her two children. About five months later, the VA had approved the claim and eventually began paying out a survivor benefit for her family.

    When he learned of his late-stage cancer diagnosis in 2017, Mr. Cancelino had been primarily worried about making sure his family would be cared for and would receive some of the benefits he earned through his years of military service. Ms. Cancelino told The Epoch Times that her late husband would be very proud to know that his family is being cared for after his death, and that his case can “maybe make somebody else not have to go through all of the things that we had to go through.”

    In May, the White House assessed the VA has processed more than 1 million PACT Act-related claims, approving about $5.7 billion in benefits to veterans and their survivors.

    “Generations of patriots have stood on the frontlines of freedom, each one a link in a chain of honor stretching back to our founding days,” President Biden said in a May 21 address. “Just as you have done your duty to America in the past—we’re now, finally, beginning to do our duty to you.”

    Zero Percent Disability for Some Cases

    While constrictive bronchiolitis is one of the conditions addressed under the PACT Act, some veterans don’t see much benefit after processing VA claims for that illness.

    Constrictive bronchiolitis occurs when fibrosis, or scar tissue, compresses the small airway branches of the lungs.

    The current VA guide for assessing disability ratings from service-connected illnesses and injuries bars evaluators from combining constrictive bronchiolitis with other respiratory conditions to determine a higher disability rating. In turn, some VA evaluators may record in a veteran’s file that their constrictive bronchiolitis is service-connected, but that their condition warrants a zero percent disability rating, granting them no compensation.

    Le Roy Torres, whose experiences helped kickstart Burn Pits 360, is just one of those veterans still struggling with how the VA’s rating system addresses constrictive bronchiolitis.

    “The VA still hasn’t fixed the issue of the one lung disease that started this movement,” Rosie Lopez Torres said of her and her husband’s experiences since the PACT Act passed.

    U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough in Arlington, Va., on Nov. 11, 2022. Eighteen senators in April wrote a letter to Mr. McDonough, urging him to expedite a new disability rating guide for constrictive bronchiolitis. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Paul McMillin, who deployed to Iraq with the Army and National Guard and who’s dealing with constrictive bronchiolitis, has been able to get some VA benefits for other respiratory illnesses he’s experienced. He’s hoping a change to the constrictive bronchiolitis rating guide will upgrade his disability rating after undergoing invasive thoracic surgery in 2015 and continuing to have troubled breathing ever since.

    “We’re definitely not at the end of that road yet, and I think it’s fair to say that for most of us who have served, all we want is just to be treated with dignity and as people,” Mr. McMillin told The Epoch Times. “And I don’t think that that’s too much to ask at Veterans Affairs.”

    Sixteen Senate Democrats and Sens. Angus King (I-R.I.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) addressed VA Secretary Denis McDonough in an April letter, urging him to expedite a new disability rating guide for constrictive bronchiolitis.

    “Veterans have waited decades for benefits and recognitions for health conditions related to their toxic exposure,” the lawmakers wrote. “Outdated VA regulations should not deny them earned benefits the PACT Act has provided.”

    The Epoch Times reached out to the VA about what changes the department may be considering for rating constrictive bronchiolitis but it did not respond in time for publication.

    The Veterans of K2

    Many of those still struggling to get their toxic exposure concerns addressed are veterans who deployed to the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan from 2001 to 2005. The base, known as K2 or Camp Stronghold Freedom, was built on a derelict Soviet-era military installation and served as a launch point for the earliest U.S. military operations in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. The soil around K2 was contaminated with radioactive material, spilled jet fuel, and asbestos left by those Soviet tenants.

    The VA lists Uzbekistan as a presumptive location for burn pits-related illnesses, but K2 veterans face other illnesses more unique to where they deployed, including neurological, autoimmune, endocrine, blood, and bone disorders.

    Jennifer Pressey, who deployed twice to K2 with the U.S. Air Force’s 16th Special Operations Squadron between 2001 and 2002, helped run the burn pit at the base while encountering the other toxins endemic to that austere posting.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 21:40

  • Dark Side Of 'The Next AI Trade': Seizing Private Property For Transmission Lines 
    Dark Side Of ‘The Next AI Trade’: Seizing Private Property For Transmission Lines 

    There’s a dark side to ‘The Next AI Trade’—at least for some landowners.

    Powering up America and upgrading power grids for artificial intelligence data centers, onshoring trends, and the electrification of the economy will require thousands of miles of new transmission lines nationwide. Existing lines will be upgraded, but new lines will also be needed, resulting in the seizure of private property via eminent domain.

    According to Fox 45 Baltimore, the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) is a new plan to build a 70-mile 500,000-volt transmission line across three counties: Frederick, Baltimore, and Carroll. The line will connect a substation in southern Frederick County and supply the area with additional load capacity to handle surging power demand from AI data centers.

    MPRP’s website explains that the new transmission lines will require the acquisition of private property through the use of an eminent domain, or government-mandated seizure to complete the construction.

    “If PSEG and a property owner cannot agree on mutually acceptable value, PSEG may seek to use the power of eminent domain using the process set forth by the state of Maryland to acquire the necessary property rights,” the developer’s website states.

    A local conservation group, The Valleys Planning Council, explained on Facebook that the new transmission system, which will tear up forests and farmland, is only being planned because lawmakers in Annapolis “do not allow new fossil fuel power stations, Maryland must import electricity from surrounding states.”

    It’s becoming clear that the dark side of powering up America for AI data centers will be land grabs by the government through eminent domain. 

    In Maryland’s case, residents who do not comply with MPRP will see parts of their farms and forests snatched up for the infrastructure project.

    However, the only reason the new transmission line plan exists is because of the so-called state managers in Annapolis, lawmakers, who are truly awful at their jobs. The genius in Annapolis waged war on fossil fuels and banned any new development of fossil fuel power plants at a time when power demand is rising.

    So, instead of building clean NatGas power generation plants near the AI data centers, Maryland must import power from other states. Real efficient, eh?

    In a recent report from ESG Legal Solutions, LLC, titled “Maryland’s Energy Crisis: The Critical Need to Boost In State Electricity Generation,” the authors state, “Maryland consumes about 40% more electricity than it generates.”

    To sum up, the dark side of the next AI trade will involve land grabs of private property. That’s likely to happen in Maryland and elsewhere. But also, we have to point out that the only reason this is happening are the progressives in Annapolis who push green policies. 

    Sigh, for the Maryland residents who have to deal with progressives not rooted in reality.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 21:20

  • Who's Running The Country?
    Who’s Running The Country?

    Authored by Daniel Greenfield via The Gatestone Institute,

    The 2016 presidential election was going to come down to two candidates, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, whose ‘turns’ had come.

    And then Donald J Trump rode down an escalator, took their ‘turn’ and the establishment has never been the same since. Because it was their ‘turn’.

    In 2020, it was the ‘turn’ of Joe Biden, a man whose only political credential was that he had stuck around long enough to stick to things, like the Senate and the Vice Presidency.

    Now in 2024, it’s Joe Biden’s ‘turn’ again. No one in his party was under the impression that he was the best candidate, the best campaigner or the best president, but damn it, it was his ‘turn’.

    And now the Democrats are panicking because the candidate taking his ‘turn’ is imploding.

    Biden’s debate meltdown has frightened Democrats, but they still have no answer for how to stop the car accident that everyone else could see coming from miles away. And no good strategy beyond getting the party leaders to confront their candidate and ask him to step down. But how do you take away Biden’s ‘turn’ when turns are the most sacred thing in politics.

    It’s not an exclusively Democrat problem. The GOP put up Bob Dole against Bill Clinton and John McCain against Barack Obama because it was their ‘turns’. They let Mitt Romney go up against Obama a second time because it was his ‘turn’. And after Republicans lost two straight presidential elections because they ran establishment candidates taking their ‘turn’, voters were so sick of it that they did what they would have never done before and picked Trump.

    Because it wasn’t his ‘turn’.

    ‘Turn’ politics mostly still rules.

    Candidates past their prime go up to bat because they have the biggest networks of fellow politicians, donors and party activists. It’s as if Major League Baseball favored players on the basis of seniority and how well they networked, not based on how well they can pitch or hit.

    But unlike sports, politics isn’t a meritocracy, it isn’t even a democracy, it’s an oligarchy.

    Voters self-importantly think of elections as the big political competition, but that’s like judging companies based on the keynote addresses of their CEOs. Elections are the least important part of politics. All the really important parts of politics happen behind closed doors. What politicians do isn’t run for office, they network, they cut deals and they plan their careers.

    That network, which we occasionally call by wholly inadequate names like the “establishment” or “D.C. insiders” is the reason Biden is up again in 2024. And why he can’t be gotten rid of.

    People who naively think that Obama is secretly running the Biden administration don’t understand the network or how it works. Obama took on Hillary when it was her ‘turn’ in 2008. He won and brokered a deal that moved the Democrat network further leftward. And he did the same thing again in 2020, bringing in Bernie Sanders’ people and Elizabeth Warren’s people (and his own people) so that the Biden administration is even more radical and extreme than his was.

    But where did Obama come from? He came out of that network of radical activists, donors and government personnel now running the country. Obama is not a brilliant genius or one-man dynamo, he was a lazy and unoriginal activist lawyer, one of tens of thousands of Ivy Leaguers who join the political side of the network, who wanted to live out his egotistical ambitions.

    And the leftist networks gave him the opportunity to do it in exchange for seeding it deeper across the Democrat Party, the government and the country. Then his time came.

    Obama did not want Biden to succeed him. He pushed Biden out in favor of Hillary, and then tried to bring in a surprise candidate to run against him in 2020. But some things are sacred and not even Obama, especially once out of the White House, could take away Biden’s ‘turn’ twice.

    It’s not really Biden’s ‘turn’ though. It’s the turn of the strategists, lobbyists, staffers, donors, allies and more nebulous figures known as ‘friends’ whom he accrued over the years. They’re invested in his success, and they’re profiting from it. And they won’t easily give it up.

    Trying to replace Biden with Gavin Newsom (aside from the legal and logistical issues) would be a clash of two networks that would require either careful negotiations or outright civil war. It’s done all the time with primary rivals who become vice presidents or cabinet members, but displacing a sitting president who also won the nomination and has raised and spent a massive fortune would require a level of delicate negotiations akin to bringing peace to an African civil war.

    Especially if that president is unstable, prone to fits of anger, and is insulated by the same political allies whose wealth and power depend on Biden winning a second term in office.

    It’s not just about Jill and Hunter Biden. Joe Biden has tens of thousands of political mouths to feed. Money has been collected, favors promised, people have bought homes in D.C. bedroom communities, lobbyists have secured fat contracts and donors have opened up their wallets.

    Replacing Biden with another candidate would upend much of D.C., put tens of billions of dollars in flux and create massive instability in this corrupt local economy. Much of D.C. would rather ride it out (especially since the campaign people will make just as much money if Biden loses) and preserve the integrity of the networks and the illicit pinkie swears that allow special interests to buy influence without having to worry if their man will suddenly be swapped out.

    That is what “it’s his turn” really means.

    It’s not impossible for the Democrats to replace Biden but despite all the ‘Orange Man Bad’ alarmism that is their only campaign slogan, none of them view him as enough of an existential threat to disrupt a political way of life which allowed a mediocre grifter like Biden to get this far.

    People who don’t understand that were baffled that Biden would run and that he would get the nomination. After his disastrous debate showing, much of the party panicked and outsiders assumed that they would dump Biden. The truth is that the Democrats wish they could.

    ‘Turn’ corruption once again threatens the survival of the party and yet they can’t break away from it because parties are vehicles for careerism and cash.

    The networks around powerful politicians build careers and move money. And those networks are running the country.

    When people ask “who’s been running the country” after Biden’s debate performance, the answer is that it’s the same people who run most of the government. And have all along.

    Politicians in a state of obvious mental decline like Biden or Senator Dianne Feinstein who go on introducing bills, signing legislation, tweeting and expressing strong opinions on issues in their press releases are not aberrations, they’re symptoms of a much bigger problem.

    Not just Biden, but many, if not most, elected officials are figureheads who exist to broker favorable arrangements between their personal networks of donors and staffers, and those of other elected officials, and the ones in the bureaucracy that actually make policy. The revolving door between staffers, personnel, appointees and lobbyists who move between administrations, offices, boards, corporations, think tanks and firms is the actual force that runs the country more than most elections. Politicians play their part, meeting, greeting and signing off on what they’re told will be good for their careers within the networks they’re part of.

    And if they build up enough cachet, one day it will also be their ‘turn’ to be at the top.

    That’s why Democrats can’t solve their Biden problem. The issue isn’t one man’s decline, but a systemic crisis. Biden embodies what the Democrats (and the two-party system and politics really is) and while getting him out may fix the immediate problem, it won’t fix the system.

    Biden is a test of how much the system is willing to risk and how high a public implosion it’s willing to tolerate to protect the sacred right of the ‘turn’. Will Democrats let their party go down to protect the system? Will they go on lying to their voters and their donors? Will the media, which briefly broke away from the lies after the debate, resume going along with the scam?

    Other ‘Bidens’, some elderly, confused and inept like Joe, others middle-aged, confused and inept, like Kamala, and some even young, confused and inept like AOC, fill the system because they are how the system works. It’s not a meritocracy that elevates the best, a democracy chosen by the people, but an oligarchy that runs the system and is also the system.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 21:00

  • Images Show Iranian Warship Capsized At Port 
    Images Show Iranian Warship Capsized At Port 

    Images posted on X show the Iranian Navy’s “Sahand” destroyer capsized at Bandar Abbas, a coastal city in the Strait of Hormuz. This is an embarrassment for Tehran as tensions in the Middle East remain elevated. 

    IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News agency reported the 315-foot frigate capsized and sank during repairs at a port on Sunday. The cause was likely due to water infiltration into the ship’s ballast tanks. 

    “As Sahand was being repaired at the wharf, it lost its balance due to water ingress. Fortunately… the vessel is being returned to balance quickly,” the official news agency IRNA reported, citing a statement from the country’s navy. 

    Images of Sahand were posted on X. 

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    “The frigate recently led a flotilla of Iranian vessels deployed to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden amid attacks by Iran-backed Houthis on commercial ships in the region,” Iran International said, adding, “This is the third incident of an Iranian warship sinking in the past six years.” 

    Here’s what X users are saying about the incident:

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 20:40

  • Battery Majors Suffer Profit Drop On Lower-Than-Expected EV Sales
    Battery Majors Suffer Profit Drop On Lower-Than-Expected EV Sales

    By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

    LG Energy, one of the biggest players in the EV battery space, reported a 58% drop in operating profits for the second quarter of the year, attributing the figure to the slowdown in EV sales.

    The news came a day after another South Korean battery major, SK On, declared an emergency after 10 consecutive quarters of losses stemming from trends in EV demand that have missed analyst and company expectations.

    LG Energy and SK On are, respectively, the world’s third- and fourth-largest EV battery manufacturers.

    Reporting on the LG Energy results, which are preliminary, Bloomberg noted a tax credit under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that helped the company stay in the black, Excluding that credit, LG Energy dipped into an operating loss of some $180,000.

    SK On, for its part, has had worse luck than its bigger rival, without IRA tax credits to help it through the rough times. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that the company had seen its net debt swell to about $10 billion over the last two years and a half, which was a fivefold increase in the period. The reason: EV sales have fallen short of projections—well short.

    “We have our back against the wall,” chief executive Lee Seok-hee wrote in a letter to employees. “We should all pull together.”

    The company appears to have made a string of sub-optimal decisions to get to this point, namely aggressive investments in Europe and the United States in anticipation of an EV boom, according to the Financial Times.

    Unlike the South Korean battery makers, the two world leaders—BYD and CATL—are mostly exposed to their home market where EV sales are the strongest in the world, so they have been shielded by the disappointing sales numbers on the other two key markets for the vehicles.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 20:20

  • DC Enforces Youth Curfew "To Keep Young People Out Of Trouble" 
    DC Enforces Youth Curfew “To Keep Young People Out Of Trouble” 

    Earlier this year, the DC Policy Center, a non-partisan research and policy organization committed to promoting policies for a vibrant economy in the District of Columbia, reported that juveniles in the DC area have committed crimes at twice the national average. This alarming crime statistic underscores how the radical leftists running the nation’s capital have possibly lost some control over the youth.

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    In response to surging youth crime, DC officials enforced a summer curfew between 12:01 am local time and 6 am local time, seven days a week, for everyone under the age of 17. 

    According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the curfew went into effect on July 1 and runs through August 31. 

    “The Juvenile Curfew Act of 1995 (DC Code 2-1541 et. seq.) states that persons under the age of 17 cannot remain in or on a street, park or other outdoor public place, in a vehicle or on the premises of any establishment within the District of Columbia during curfew hours, unless they are involved in certain exempted activities,” Metropolitan Police wrote on their website. 

    A person under 17 violating the curfew could face upward of 25 hours of community service. Parents or guardians could also face up to $500 fine or be required to perform community service. 

    DC police wrote that there are several curfew exemptions for minors, including running an errand for a parent, returning from work, and being involved in an emergency (view here). 

    The curfew comes as “data show juveniles make up the majority of arrests in DC for crimes like robbery and carjacking,” CNN noted in a recent report, adding, “For carjackings, which nearly doubled in 2023, the average age of those arrested was 15 years old. Guns are used in about half of carjackings, police data show.” 

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    Meanwhile, leftist corporate media outlets have been championing the latest FBI crime stats that show murder, rape, robbery, theft, and property crime are sliding in major cities. However, as we noted in “Admission Of Failure? Democratic Cities Stop Reporting Crime Stats To FBI,” some Democratic cities are just no longer reporting crimes to the FBI. 

    Do yourself a favor: Avoid Democratic cities where the failed progressive experiment has sparked crime and chaos.  

    If the socialist utopia of DC were actually working – which it never will – there would be no need for a youth curfew. Just north of DC, crime-ridden Baltimore also has a youth curfew. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 20:00

  • Post-Debate USA Today-Suffolk Poll Has Grim News For President Biden
    Post-Debate USA Today-Suffolk Poll Has Grim News For President Biden

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    I created some charts from a new post-debate poll that shows Biden is weakening fast. I also tie in the latest economic data.

    All data for these polls courtesy of USAToday/Suffolk Poll 2024-07-02. Here are the Poll Questions and Marginals.

    Candidates

    • Democrat: Joe Biden

    • Republican: Donald Trump

    • Green Party: Jill Stein

    • Independent: Robert Kennedy

    • Independent: Cornel West

    • Libertarian: Chase Oliver

    First and Second Choice

    • First Choice: Trump Leads Biden by 3.9 percentage points (PP) on first choice, 41.4 to 37.5
    • Second Choice: Trump Leads Biden by 8.4 PP on second choice, 25.2 to 16.6
    • Combined: Trump Leads Biden by 12.3 PP on second choice, 25.2 to 16.6

    This seems to suggest the that the combination of undecided voters and alternate voters prefer Trump over Biden.

    Candidate Preference by Political Party

    How Many Independent Voters Are There?

    30.1 percent seems like a huge number. But only 18 percent are undecided.

    Here’s the math: 0.31 * 0.18 = 5.6 percent of voters. And the second choice seems more likely to be for Trump than Biden. Some will vote for Kennedy and some won’t vote at all.

    Is Your Mind Made Up by Political Party

    Republicans are very unlikely to change their minds. This is a potential edge for Biden, depending on how independents break.

    Republicans are already in the fold. Democrats for Kennedy may switch. And independents may break toward Biden. This is Biden’s best shot (Harris if she replaces Biden).

    But the mind changers could also break to toward Trump leading to a rout.

    Is Your Mind Made Up by Political Party

    This chart seems to favor Biden but the math is not overwhelming. Blacks are about 14 percent of the population. Even if 100% of them switched to Biden that’s only 0.22 * 0.14 maximum. In practice, the potential is far less because most of them are already in the Biden camp. And some of them may switch from Biden to Kennedy or sit the election out.

    Candidate Preference by Race

    This chart likely shocks nearly everyone, especially the Democratic party. But it makes perfect sense to me.

    In general, these are hard-working US citizens. I saw this first hand in trade groups that helped build our new house. So I am not the least surprised by the chart.

    Moreover, Hispanics are more concerned about the economy than whites, even republicans! I will show that in a subsequent post on issues.

    Anecdotes are not data. Regardless, and contrary to widespread allegation, the illegals are not voting. There will be a Republican election judge going over every name.

    Nothing above implies I am for open borders. I am explicitly not in favor of what’s happening.

    Is Your Mind Made Up by Age Group

    Given that age group 18-34 is for Trump, perhaps there is some sort of advantage here for Biden if this group switches. But it’s not quite that simple. To see why let’s turn back to candidate preferences.

    Candidate Preference by Age Group

    An amazing 41 percent of those 18-34 are for Trump with only 30 percent for Biden.

    That’s an unprecedented 11 percentage point gap for Republicans. In 2020 this age group voted overwhelmingly for Biden.

    It poses an opportunity but one that could backfire for Democrats if they try to get more young voters to vote.

    This age group has the smallest turnout historically. Do Democrats try to get the youth vote more active? If so, who is the beneficiary?

    I suspect it is Republicans who should go after these voters. I can explain why in an economic chart.

    Unemployment Rate by Age Group

    • Overall: 4.1 Percent

    • 16-19: 12.1 Percent

    • 20-24: 7.5 Percent

    • 25-34: 4.4 Percent

    • 35-44: 3.3 Percent

    • 45-54: 2.7 Percent

    • 55+ 2.8 Percent

    Unemployment is up sharply in the 18-34 age group. More on that in a moment. First let’s discuss race.

    Unemployment Rate by Race

    Data from the BLS, chart by Mish

    Unemployment among blacks is up from 4.8 percent to 6.3 percent. This shows up in the above poll. 63 percent support Biden but that down from normal ranges well above 80 percent.

    What’s Going On?

    I have been talking about this since February. Let’s go over some more recent posts instead.

    On April 20, I commented People Who Rent Will Decide the 2024 Presidential Election

    Q: Who is it that rent?
    A: Young adults and blacks.

    Why Angry Renters Will Decide the Election, Take II

    Data from the BLS except for the Case-Shiller housing index , chart by Mish

    On June 19, I commented Why Angry Renters Will Decide the Election, Take II

    Economists say wages are now rising faster than the CPI. That’s not true for those who rent or wish to buy a house.

    Those renting have seen the price of rent go up at least 0.4 percent every month for 33 consecutive months.

    Meanwhile, the cost of a home has skyrocketed.

    Renters (mainly young adults and blacks), have been left behind and it shows up in the polls.

    Also see The Unemployment Rate Bottomed a Year Ago, Who’s Impacted the Most?

    The leftwing media and economists don’t understand the polls. But there’s the explanation in pictures.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 19:40

  • Another Extended July 4th Weekend Of Historic Violence In Chicago: 109 Shot, 19 Fatally
    Another Extended July 4th Weekend Of Historic Violence In Chicago: 109 Shot, 19 Fatally

    In what could come close to a record-setting weekend of Chicago violence, 109 people were shot over the extended holidays since July 4th, local media reports.

    “One hundred and nine people have been shot, 19 fatally, in gun violence across Chicago since Wednesday during the extended Fourth of July holiday weekend, police said,” ABC7 Chicago writes. The casualty count rose throughout the day as more police and hospital data was tallied, and came across news desks.

    ABC News

    Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson condemned the uptick in violent crime. “We have to really stop and think about the mindset of someone who will shoot a child, a helpless child an unarmed mother and think that that’s okay. And go about their days,” Snelling said. “Those people have to be taken off the street. They have to be put away if we’re not doing that. Then we’re failing other families.”

    The victims were teens as well as men ranging in age from 16 to 36 years old, police data indicates. The demographic strongly points to most of these being gang-related shootings.

    By comparison, there were 33 people total that died from violent crime across the entire nation, thus deaths in Chicago alone made up the bulk.

    July 4th and the weekend closest to it tends to be the single deadliest holiday on the calendar year in Chicago, according to past data. This year’s Chicago violence is far and above that of last year’s. 

    The 2023 extended holiday weekend went from Friday night to Tuesday, during which time 57 people were shot and eight were killed.

    “When we look at what happened this weekend, we always like to say that it’s a police issue,” Snelling continued during a press conference. “This is a societal issue. The police cannot be in everybody’s backyard. They cannot be in everyone’s home. They cannot invade every single gathering where there’s a possibility that someone may show up with a gun.”

    For a sampling of some of the tragic weekend shootings via a local news affiliate…

    • Two people were shot, one fatally at about 11:51 p.m. in the 700-block of East 89th Place.
    • Minutes before that, one person was shot an killed in the 200-block of North Central Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood.
    • A man died in an exchange of gunfire Saturday night in South Shore.
    • A 26-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were walking on the sidewalk when a white SUV pulled up and someone inside fired shots, police said.
    • A woman, shot in her leg, was taken to the same hospital in good condition.

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    Mayor Johnson on Monday noted the racial aspects to the crimes: “Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time.” He said further: “Let’s tell the full story of how we got here because if you skip a chapter, it won’t give us the ability to actually make the proper adjustments so that we can ensure that stronger and safer becomes a reality.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 19:20

  • New York City Hotels Housing Illegal Aliens Receive Over $1 Billion In Taxpayer Funds; Report
    New York City Hotels Housing Illegal Aliens Receive Over $1 Billion In Taxpayer Funds; Report

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    In New York City, hotels that have converted into shelters for hordes of illegal aliens have been given over $1 billion in taxpayer money to keep them in business.

    As reported by Fox News, the average hotel room for an illegal costs $156 per night, with some costing over $300 per night. As such, the city government has already spent at least $1.98 billion on housing for illegals, with 80% of that amount going to hotels or inns that have been converted into shelters, rather than to shelters operated by the city. Overall, the city has spent at least $4.88 billion on the mass migration crisis.

    Some of the contracts agreed upon between the city and various hotels include a deal for $5.13 million per month with the Row NYC hotel, located in Midtown Manhattan. In South Jamaica, Queens, the Crowne Plaza JFK is being given $2 million per month to continue renting out its 335 rooms to illegals.

    In September of 2023, the city secured a contract with the Hotel Association of New York City (HANYC) for $1.3 billion over the next three years. In January, another deal was signed between the city and HANYC for $76.69 million to provide “last resort” shelters to illegals at 15 different hotels across the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn through July.

    Business owners in the surrounding neighborhoods have noted the decline in economic revenue for their businesses and others around them, as the tourists that would normally stay in such hotels and subsequently patronize their own businesses have been replaced by illegals who have no money.

    “Our taxes are being used to pay for the migrants, and where are we supposed to make revenue?” asked William Shandler, manager at the Iron Bar located across the street from the Row hotel.

    “How as a business could we function?”

    Republican Councilwoman Joann Ariola also criticized the gutting of the tourism industry in favor of illegals, pointing out that hotels were built to be used by tourists, “not for sheltering the masses of people pouring over our borders every day.”

    “These locations were meant to boost the economy of this city,” Ariola continued, “but instead they’ve become a net drain and are costing us enormously.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 19:00

  • Watch: Chaos Erupts During White House Press Briefing Over Biden-Parkinson's Questions
    Watch: Chaos Erupts During White House Press Briefing Over Biden-Parkinson’s Questions

    White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre got into a heated exchange with multiple reporters, where she declined to answer why a Parkinson’s specialist had been to the White House at least nine times in the past year.

    Jean-Pierre admitted that Biden had seen a neurologist three times during his presidency as part of his annual physical, but then began to demur when asked for specifics about the visitor logs.

    “Ed, I also said to you for security reasons, we cannot share names. We cannot share names,” she told CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe, who said she should be able to answer questions regarding Biden’s health.

    “You cannot share names of others he would’ve met with, but you can share names in regards if someone came here in regards to the president,” O’Keefe shot back.

    “We cannot share names of specialists broadly. From a dermatologist to a neurologist. We cannot share names,” she replied. “There are security reasons—Ed, I hear you. I cannot from here confirm any of that because we have to keep their privacy. I think they would appreciate that too.”

    Watch:

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    Jean-Pierre then went on the offensive…

    Meanwhile…

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    As we noted on Saturday, evidence has emerged that Dr. Kevin R Cannard traveled to the White House’s medical clinic at least nine times, meeting with either President Joe Biden’s personal physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, or a naval nurse who coordinates care for the president and other senior officials. O’Connor notably gave Biden a clean bill of health after his February annual physical.

    The visits spanned July 28, 2023 with the latest being March 28 of this year, according to visitor logs.

    According to Cannard’s physician profile page, he is a “neurologist and movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center” who specializes in treatments for “early Parkinson’s disease.” Since 2012, he has served as the “neurology specialist supporting the White House Medical Unit,” per his LinkedIn page.

    His most recent paper was published in August 2023 in the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, and focuses on the “early-stage” of the crippling disease.

    Since Biden’s health is O’Connor’s primary responsibility, it is highly probable the meeting was about the commander in chief, according to Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tx), the doctor for both Presidents Obama and Trump.

    “It’s highly likely they were talking about Biden,” Jackson told The Post. -NY Post

    “He should only be [regularly] treating the president and the first family,” Jackson continued.

    Walter Reed cardiologist Dr. John. E. Atwood was also present during a Jan. 17 meeting, the NY Post reports.

    According to Jackson, who has never treated Biden, O’Connor and Biden’s family are trying to “cover up” Biden’s declining cognitive health.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 18:40

  • 100 Miles South Of Salt Lake City, A New Type Of Off-Grid Community
    100 Miles South Of Salt Lake City, A New Type Of Off-Grid Community

    By Allan Stein of The Epoch Times

    The big pickup truck went rolling down the dirt road, kicking up dust as Phil Gleason drove past workmen in hardhats and yellow vests digging a well for a new solar-powered home.

    Miles away from any strip mall or cookie-cutter subdivision, the off-grid community known as Operation Self-Reliance bloomed with housing construction in the Utah desert.

    “Think of all the dependencies when we’re in the cities,” said Mr. Gleason, 74, the community’s founder. “We have to drink the water they give us. We have to deal with trash pickup and pesticides.”

    “I’m not saying it’s all bad. It wasn’t what I wanted. I needed to do something else.”

    Operation Self-Reliance is both a plan of action and a work in progress, Mr. Gleason said with pride. It is a trumpet call for people yearning to break free of the bonds of city life.

    Years ago, Mr. Gleason envisioned such a place for like-minded people, built on the time-honored idea of “sustainable self-sufficiency” like the early settlers.

    It would be a place where people could live closer to nature, feel safe, raise families, and grow food.

    The initial challenge was that “essentially, we had no money,” Mr. Gleason said. “We had no land. We just had a concept.”

    But it was a valid concept nonetheless, he said—one based on solid principles of individual self-sufficiency and years of detailed research.

    In 2018, Mr. Gleason presented his idea at a boating party on Lake Powell. Three guests stepped forward and offered to invest in the project.

    After months of searching for the right place to build, Mr. Gleason discovered a 1,240-acre property was up for sale in a remote location about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City.

    The land had once been a working farm used for growing corn, barley, winter wheat, and alfalfa, but it now mainly lay fallow, waiting for someone to infuse it with new life.

    Around the middle of 2019, Mr. Gleason broke ground on the project, and the first few homesteaders moved in.

    Today, there are 140 people in 50 families—75 of them children—living off the grid in passive solarized homes made out of brick, concrete, or compressed blocks of earth.

    When fully built, the model community will accommodate more than 200 homesteads, each with a two-acre plot for raising animals and growing fruits and vegetables.

    “We’re building a self-reliant community of agricultural producers,” Mr. Gleason told The Epoch Times. “Part of the agreement is they’ll become agricultural producers.”

    Becoming a producer could be as simple as having a small garden, he said.

    (Top) A view of the southern side of Operation Self-Reliance in Utah on June 28, 2024. (Middle) Phil Gleason, founder of Operation Self-Reliance in Utah, walks through an active vegetable garden on June 28, 2024. (Bottom) Phil Gleason shows the beets he grew inside the greenhouse, on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    “You could have a greenhouse. But you’ll need the infrastructure. If you’ve got a one-foot garden and a tree, you’re an agricultural producer.”

    However, before joining the community, each prospective homesteader must agree to a set of terms and conditions, the most important of which is developing a three-year transition plan for using their two acres productively.

    On that small plot of land, they will agree to build a minimum 600-square-foot passive solar house, barn, greenhouse, freshwater well, and sanitation system approved by the local health department.

    Mr. Gleason said the price of a two-acre parcel is $25,000; it costs about $200,000 on average to develop fully in alignment with the contract.

    Even so, the contract does not allow for simply purchasing the land and locating a recreational vehicle. The aim is to build a community of permanent homes for agriculture.

    “We’re more like gardeners. We’re not farmers,” said Jesse Fisher, the community’s social media and events organizer. “We encourage everyone to have their little cottage industry.”

    Unlike survivalists or “preppers,” estimated at some 20 million strong, Operation Self Reliance isn’t waiting for doomsday or interested in riding out the apocalypse. It’s about immersing oneself in a self-contained and sustainable community as a way of life, Mr. Gleason said.

    “We’re not preppers but we lean in that direction,” he said.

    “Some of us don’t even like to be called preppers. The bulk of us—we want a sustainable lifestyle. You’ve got to work with the Earth.”

    Still, “prepping is big business,” according to a recent Finder study.

    It found that 29 percent of the adult population in the United States spent $11 billion on emergency supplies in 2022. The most commonly purchased items were food and water.

    Two-fifths (40 percent) of Generation Z said they “spent money on doomsday supplies in the last 12 months,” and nearly the same number of Millennials (39 percent) said the same, according to the study.

    The pandemic undoubtedly brought home the need for stockpiling supplies.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported a 50-percent jump in the number of people who were capable of surviving an emergency for 31 days from 2017 to 2020.

    A bunker at Fortitude Ranch in Mathias, W.V., on March 13, 2020. Fortitude Ranch members, a group of survivalists, have up to two weeks each year to use the rural retreat, enjoying nature, hiking, or trout fishing in the Lost River. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

    Though not a prepper in the cataclysmic sense, Mr. Gleason said he learned to appreciate the preparedness mindset half a century ago.

    At the time, he was working as a building contractor in Idaho, living with his wife and three young daughters in a 29-foot recreational vehicle that ran on propane as winter was fast approaching.

    “What we hadn’t counted on was that it had turned bitter cold. It was almost zero degrees outside and inside the RV. The water froze. The food froze,” he said.

    He said the family had little experience with off-grid living, but they had an electric blanket.

    “So we put the three babies between us and the electric blanket on us. We took other blankets and coats, put them on us, and turned the blanket on high. We were OK,” Mr. Gleason said.

    At 3 a.m., the entire RV park suddenly lost power, leaving the family shivering in the cold.

    “That experience rewired my brain,” Mr. Gleason said. “I wasn’t worried about world events. I was worried about keeping my babies warm and fed and able to drink. I felt helpless.”

    That sense of utter vulnerability would turn into a wellspring of inspiration years later.

    Dante Vicino, executive director and operations manager of Vivos xPoint, located on a former military base near Edgemont, S.D., points out some of the unique features of his personal bunker home. The Vivos Group, which owns 575 bunkers, plans to convert them all into liveable homes. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Gleason eventually came up with the idea of Operation Self-Reliance, an agricultural cooperative combining individual resources and talents for the good of the community.

    Once an agricultural co-op surpasses 200 members, it can continue “generationally.”

    And as rising crime and inflation make city life less tenable, he said, more people now view off-grid living as a workable alternative.

    Among the more popular off-grid communities in the United States are Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon, Earthaven in North Carolina, and Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri.

    Vivos xPoint is another off-grid community comprised of 575 survival bunkers built by the military during World War II near the Black Hills area of South Dakota.

    Mr. Gleason said he has plans to build another Operation Self-Reliance project on 1,300 rural acres located in Snowflake, Arizona.

    He said the important thing is understanding what his off-grid community projects are not.

    “We’re not a political statement,” he said. “We’re not a religious statement. We don’t have a militia.

    “I think we’re pretty run-of-the-mill families. We’ve got contractors, engineers, educators, health care, professionals—a lot of IT people—salesmen, mechanics.”

    Mark Miller, 65, is a retired federal government first responder who’s been living off the grid at Operation Self-Reliance in Utah for the past three years.

    He and his wife built their 5,000-square-foot home out of compressed concrete form blocks. They are now working to create a park and gathering space for the entire community to enjoy.

    “I like the idea of working for myself. Doing agriculture—maybe having a bed and breakfast out here,” Mr. Miller said. “It’s the freedom to be able to do what I want for my property.”

    That includes having the freedom to grow as much food as he needs in a 100-by-300-foot garden—whether it’s corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, or in the greenhouse he plans to build.

    “The dirt out here is terrible, so we have to bend it to our will … and make it work,” he said.

    As a government first responder, Mr. Miller said he went to video document “man’s inhumanity to man” inside the athletic dome in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

    “And I mean, I saw the worst of the worst”—murders, rapes, looting, beatings, he said.

    “And I’ve been everywhere you can think of.”

    Far from the horrors of Katrina and American cities in decline, Mr. Miller said he finds peace in the company of neighbors at Operation Self-Reliance.

    “Sometimes, I think they’re too close. Other times, I think they’re not close enough,” he said. “I’ve become friends with 50 families. I love every one of them.”

    Mark Miller, 65, a retired federal government first responder, lives in an off-grid home he built at Operation Self-Reliance in southern Utah, on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Tyler Ellingson, 35, is a software developer from Eagle Mountain, Utah, who recently decided that living off the grid at Operation Self-Reliance was the way to go.

    He now spends every weekend building an 800-square-foot solarized home that he, his wife, and their three young children plan to move into next year.

    At Eagle Mountain, the Ellingsons enjoy all the luxuries of modern city life—air conditioning, plumbing, a lovely house, and a nice yard. What they lack is “authenticity” from those around them.

    “Everybody out here is authentic and willing to help,” Mr. Ellingson said. “If you get stuck in the snow, in town, you call somebody and pay them to help you. Out here, it’s your neighbors.”

    He said that living in a small community of like-minded people is about building close relationships, even if it means suffering together.

    “When you suffer with people, it builds unity—it builds community,” he said. “I have tons of neighbors” in Eagle Mountain. “We say ‘hi’ to each other. That’s the extent of it.”

    Out here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and wild rye, his neighbors are more like an extended family.

    “Out here, it’s all about the community working together to build something bigger than ourselves,” Mr. Ellingson said.

    Tyler Ellingson carries an armful of tool as he works on his solarized home at Operation Self-Reliance in southern Utah on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    For Brandon Wilson, 44, a man of deep faith, “the short answer” for why he made the move to Operation Self-Reliance is, “God led us here.”

    Though living off the grid intrigued him, he said, it was a distant cry from city life in South Weber, Utah, with his wife Shari and six young children.

    “We had no intentions of moving,” said Mr. Wilson, a pediatric and family chiropractor in Ogden, Utah.

    “We thought that would be our place for the next 40 years. In a lot of ways, it made little sense to us to come here. We felt strongly this was where we were supposed to go—especially after we found it. It became clear we have a purpose being here.”

    He said that raising and homeschooling five boys and a daughter in a safe and wholesome environment is central to that purpose.

    “Our culture has shifted away from that one-on-one interaction with our neighbors. Here, you have to rely on your neighbors because there are so many challenges to face,” Mr. Wilson said.

    “Part of being out here is that it reintroduces kids to boredom. They’ve got to create their fun.”

    Along with the peace of mind the Wilsons enjoy, there is the improved physical health that comes with life in a small community of resilient people.

    “We feel better being out here. It’s a lot calmer,” Mr. Wilson said.

    Since October 2023, the Wilsons have been living in a temporary 300-square-foot “tiny house” at Operation Self-Reliance.

    The plan is to build a 1,200-square-foot homestead out of blocks of compressed earth.

    Mr. Wilson said he still maintains a chiropractic office in Ogden, driving nearly 200 miles to and from work three days a week.

    At home, he loves being with his family and watching his children grow up in a world where material possessions are less important.

    “There’s no traffic. You can actually see the stars out here—the Milky Way,” said his oldest son, Bron, 13.

    Brandon Wilson stands next to the solar panel array that will power his family’s new home at Operation Self-Reliance in Utah on June 28, 2024. (Bottom) Brandon Wilson watches his son Bron, 13, climb a rope on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Tom and Kathy Barnes said they have no regrets about giving up 530 acres of agriculturally productive land in Payson, Utah, to work on just two acres at Operation Self-Reliance.

    The couple now grows fruit trees and raises pigs, turkeys, chickens, and goats, living on the bounty in relative comfort.

    “We had a lifestyle like this on 530 acres,” Mr. Barnes said. “This is two acres, so we downsized. We decided it was better to be out here.”

    On their tiny parcel, the couple built their 3,000-square-foot solarized home, a red barn, and 17 raised garden boxes.

    “Hopefully, we’re going to get citrus in this greenhouse. These grow boxes alone can grow what you want,” Mr. Barnes said.

    How much food can they grow?

    “All we need,” Mr. Barnes said.

    “Plus some,” Mrs. Barnes added.

    “It was a lifestyle choice,” she said. “We have a goat to milk every day—not too bad.”

    One advantage of living off the grid is “people, people, people,” Mr. Barnes said. “The project is the community.”

    “For us, this is not intimidating. We understood the principles” of living off the grid.

    Another upside is having no monthly utility bill thanks to the 4,000-watt solar power array the couple had installed.

    Mr. Barnes said that solar power alone is enough to run two freezers, two refrigerators, and two air conditioning units, with plenty of wattage to spare.

    “So far, I’ve already covered $6,700 in the last 18 months,” he said. “It’s not going to take long to pay off the $35,000 cost of solar panel installation.

    Tom and Kathy Barnes built their 3,000-square-foot solarized home at Operation Self-Reliance in Utah about two years ago, on June 28, 2024. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    A short drive up the dirt road, Rebecca and Bill Sampson, formerly of Colorado Springs, Colorado, are in the process of building their new home.

    “We’re going to build our house out of stabilized compressed earth block,” Mrs. Sampson said.

    Recently married, the Sampson’s had been looking to move into a more rural setting to escape the “craziness” of the city.

    “We were looking at possibilities. My niece sent me the information about here,” Mrs. Sampson said. “As we contemplated it and prayed about it, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

    “If we want to get into the state of the world, I feel so grateful to have been led out of the cities. I think the cities are going absolutely crazy.”

    Mrs. Sampson said there’s a definite learning curve to growing fruits and vegetables inside her new greenhouse.

    Continue reading at The Epoch Times

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 18:20

  • Five Most Affordable Housing Markets For Non-Homeowner Households 
    Five Most Affordable Housing Markets For Non-Homeowner Households 

    House hunters are keeping a close eye on the 30-year mortgage rate, trending over 7%, as home prices continue rising to new record highs. The combination of high rates and elevated home prices has sparked the worst affordability conditions in nearly four decades, a harsh reality for millions of Americans.

    A new report from real estate research firm ResiClub analyzed Zillow data, revealing the five most affordable and unaffordable housing markets among the fifty largest metro areas. 

    Let’s begin with the five markets with the highest percentage of non-homeowner households who can afford the purchase of an average-priced home in their market:

    1. Pittsburgh, PA (25.6%)

    2. Detroit, MI (23.1%)

    3. St. Louis, MO (22.6%)

    4. Oklahoma City, OK (22.5%)

    5. Cleveland, OH (22.4%)

    Pittsburgh and Detroit might not be glamorous metro areas—full of deindustrialization and crime—but a family may have a better shot at finding an affordable home than many metro areas located on the West Coast. 

    As for the five markets that have the lowest percentage of non-homeowner households who can afford the purchase of an average-priced home in their market… Many are located in California: 

    1. San Diego, CA (2.6%)

    2. San Jose, CA (2.7%)

    3. Los Angeles, CA (2.8%)

    4. San Francisco, CA (3.7%)

    5. Salt Lake City, UT (3.8%)

    ResiClub pointed out that a whopping 52.3 million out of 134 million US families do not own a home. Given the tight lending conditions, only 7.9 million, or 15.1%, can afford to buy an average-priced home in their local market. 

    We must note that the supply of available homes recently increased to 481,000, which is still the highest level since 2008.

    And noted a week ago, “The Housing Tide Starts Turning: National Inventory Rose 4% In Q1 2024,” as well as numerous notes about rising housing inventory, including this one: “Housing Downturn in Austin, Texas Is “Remarkable” As Inventory Spikes To Record High.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 18:00

  • "Our Finest Hour": Democratic Insiders Support "Blitz Primary" After Blocking Primary Competition
    “Our Finest Hour”: Democratic Insiders Support “Blitz Primary” After Blocking Primary Competition

    Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

    A proposal is circulating in Washington to dump President Joe Biden and hold a “blitz primary” to choose a replacement. The proposal is the work of Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations, and Ted Dintersmith, a venture capitalist and education philanthropist. The proposal is gaining support with party insiders and repeats the hyperbolic claim that this is essential to avoid a “democracy-ending defeat.” It is disappointing to see a law professor repeating this unfounded alarmist claim. Yet, the most glaring contradiction is found in the stated desire to give delegates a choice after the party worked to prevent any choice for voters in state primaries.

    The authors promise an “uplifting” path in which candidates would pledge not to attack each other. They would then have a few weeks as named celebrities like Oprah and Taylor Swift would moderate discussions. Delegates would then use ranked voting before the August 19th convention.

    The authors proclaim that “we can limp to shameful, avoidable democracy-ending defeat. Or Democrats can make this Our Finest Hour. While we hope for help from Lord Almighty, the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

    One wrinkle is that Biden himself spent Sunday pledging again that he is not stepping aside. He also continued his penchant for bizarre statements like stating that “even when I was running for Senate, each time I ran – quite frankly, not a joke – Philadelphia, in particularly, got me across the line. No, I’m not joking. No, I mean it, seriously. Organizationally and in terms of fundraising, the whole deal.”

    Either Biden was confessing to using Pennsylvania votes to win elections in Delaware or he was hopelessly confused. Seriously.

    The “finest hour” for the party is coming a bit late given the concerted effort of the Democratic establishment to strip away opposing candidates from ballots and crush anyone offering an alternative to Biden. At the same time, both the press and pundits attacked those who raised the President’s infirmity, including calling unedited videos “cheap fakes.”

    For the last year, Democratic secretaries of state were trying to remove Trump from 2024 ballots and Democratic leaders in Florida, North Carolina and other states were refusing to allow other candidates to run against Biden in their primaries. For those voters, the primary might have seemed like a “democracy ending” election.

    At the same time, the Democratic establishment opposed any debate where Biden’s infirmities might have been observed when there was still time for voters to make another choice. They did so even though every poll showed the majority of Democratic voters thought Biden was too old and wanted an alternative choice. (Notably, I also favored a debate in the GOP primary. While Trump did not participate in any debate, he was widely available for media questions and pressers).

    Now, after quashing opposing candidates when the public would have had a chance to make a state-by-state choice, insiders are calling for an “uplifting” blitz election by the party establishment and activists.

    I am still curious how this will work. Donors gave money to the Biden-Harris ticket. That money would now have to be used for different candidates. Absent a formal acceptance to the alternative slate, it could raise tough questions under federal election laws. Likewise, the DNC is coming up on a number of states with drop-dead dates for ballot changes. Finally, there is the rather awkward problem of a President who is still very much alive and running.

    As Biden objects over and over again that he will not step aside, Brooks and Dintersmith are already planning his political eulogy where Biden would be celebrated as a “modern-day George Washington.”

    Once again, the Democratic Party seems to be channeling Monty Python in planning for a departure of a president who does not want to go.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 07/08/2024 – 17:40

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