Today’s News 9th November 2022

• Why Society Needs Conspiracy Theories & Conspiracy Theorists
  Why Society Needs Conspiracy Theories & Conspiracy Theorists

  Authored by Dan Fournier via Substack,

  “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.”

  – Matthew 10:26

  As this will be a comprehensive article, I’ve decided to split it up into the following sections:

  • Introduction

  • How did the term come about & become a tool for defamation?

  • A German journalist spills the beans

  • Same Playbook, Different War

  • The Council on Foreign Relations conspiracy

  • Conspiracy Theories that turned out to be true

  • Notable Unresolved Conspiracies

  • Conspiracies to Watch

  • Mini-Guide to Investigating Conspiracies

  • Conclusion

  

  Wernher von Braun walking along the lunar surface on an Apollo set replica during the Atlanta Southeastern Fair, September 5, 1969, credited to United Press International (UPI), image source

  Introduction

  It seems like you can’t catch a news headline or social media post these days without coming across the terms conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorist, or phrases like ‘spreading conspiracies’. One has to wonder: why are they so frequently employed?

  In my most recent published work, I referenced an article from Canada’s National Post which ran with the headline ‘CBSA says it’s investigating border officer spreading COVID conspiracies online.’

  The problem with these kinds of articles is that they are too often merely used as hit pieces to ridicule, degrade, and discredit any individual or group that goes against a certain narrative or disagrees with an author’s (or their publication’s partisanship or funders’) views.

  Moreover, their authors very seldom make specific references or claims as to why they label their targets when using such over-used and over-abused disparaging rhetoric. When this is the case, it leads me to believe that the overall purpose of their pieces is to disparage their targets more than anything else.

  Another recent example of this involves that from the article entitled ‘Network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified – study’ written by Mark Townsend from The Guardian (UK). In the article, the author claimed “journalist Aaron Maté at the Grayzone is said by the report to have overtaken Beeley as the most prolific spreader of disinformation among the 28 conspiracy theorists identified.” Maté had to refute the claim made against him which also involved contacting Townsend by phone. His counter article and the phone conversation appear on his Substack page (see ‘NATO-backed network of Syria dirty war propagandists identified)’ and is definitely an interesting case on how these ploys take place.

  Countless other instances could be cited, but suffice it to say that there is no shortage of them.

  But what is perhaps even more laughable with this phenomenon is the fact that these authors wantonly use these terms without even knowing their true meanings and where they actually originate from.

  Before looking into these, though, we must first and foremost examine the meaning of the word ‘conspiracy’ itself. Oxford defines it as:

  a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal

  Conspiracies have been an integral part of humanity ever since people have bonded together in groups for a better chance at survival.

  Lord knows that history is riddled with an abundant supply of conspiracies and we will look at some notable examples later on.

  How did the term come about & become a tool for defamation?

  Though the term ‘conspiracy theorist’ itself dates as far back as the 19th century, it became much more prominent in the years following the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

  Moreover, it’s really in the 1960s where it became more abundant and has taken on a negative connotation. This is in large part because of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America.

  The usage of ‘conspiracy theorist’ was principally brought about to discredit any person or outfit that questioned the findings of the Warren Commission regarding the official narrative of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

  

  The assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Image source: https://allthatsinteresting.com/famous-assassinations

  As to not be labelled a conspiracy theorist myself, here is some tangible evidence to support my claim that the CIA has been complicit with regards to the usage of the term as a means to disparage and discredit individuals with opposing views to an official narrative. An official DISPATCH (document number 1035-60) dated January 1, 1967 which was declassified and released following a FOIA request got published on the Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF) website – one which contains nearly 2 million pages of documents, government reports, as well as other materials. The first page of the dispatch appears as follows:

  

  COUNTERING CRITICISM OF THE WARREN REPORT, NARA Record Number: 104-10009-10022 from the Mary Ferrell Foundation, Dispatch 1035-960, Source: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=53510#relPageId=2

  Firstly, we can notice the term ‘PSYCH’ in the upper-left hand corner of the document which indicates that this relates to Psychological Operations. We can see from the first paragraph that their main concern is about speculation regarding the assassination of President Kennedy and how various writers are questioning the findings of the Warren Commission report. The end of section 2 on the first page states:

  “The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, …”

  Scrolling down to the second page under section 3 a. appears the following [emphasis added]:

  “To discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hand of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.”

  And shortly after under section 3 b., it continues:

  “To employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.”

  So, there you have it in black and white. The CIA specifically directs the use of their elite contacts which include politicians and editors – presumably of major newspapers and most likely of major broadcasters. Tactics suggested include writing feature articles (to counter the official narrative), writing book reviews – presumably negative ones, and further labelling dissenters as ‘Communist propagandists’ – a term that had much more of an accentuated defamatory effect back then than it does today.

  This raises the obvious question of why the CIA was so seriously concerned about media coverage with regards to the assassination. What’s it to them? Did they have something hide? Where they pressed to do so by the Lyndon Johnson administration? If so, why?

  To dig deeper about what they actually stated in their dispatch, we can ask: who are these “elite contacts” and “propaganda assets” they are referring to?

  American investigative journalist and author Carl Bernstein – famous for his work with Bob Woodward on the Watergate scandal – wrote a rather extensive (25,000-word) exposé entitled ‘THE CIA AND THE MEDIA: How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up’ that was published in Rolling Stone magazine on October 20, 1977, just over a decade after the infamous CIA dispatch was issued. Early on in the mammoth article, Bernstein lists categories in which the Agency (the CIA) partnered with journalists and the press. Two such instances appear as follows:

  “- Editors, publishers and broadcast network executives. The CIAs relationship with most news executives differed fundamentally from those with working reporters and stringers, who were much more subject to direction from the Agency. A few executives—Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times among them—signed secrecy agreements.”

  “- Columnists and commentators. There are perhaps a dozen well known columnists and broadcast commentators whose relationships with the CIA go far beyond those normally maintained between reporters and their sources. They are referred to at the Agency as “known assets” and can be counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks; they are considered receptive to the Agency’s point of view on various subjects. Three of the most widely read columnists who maintained such ties with the Agency are C.L. Sulzberger of the New York Times, Joseph Alsop, and the late Stewart Alsop, whose column appeared in the New York Herald‑Tribune, the Saturday Evening Post and Newsweek. CIA files contain reports of specific tasks all three undertook.”

  The CIA specifically refers to these widely read columnists as “known assets” they can count upon to perform undercover tasks. They also maintain ‘signed secrecy agreements’ with executives from the New York Times. Lovely!

  Bernstein then lists many well-known newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters used by the CIA and notes their most cherished ones as follows [emphasis added]:

  “By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.”

  Still today, these three media outlets are giants in the publishing, broadcasting, and entertainment industries. And who really knows the extent to which the CIA and other US government agencies still maintain relationships with their editorial and journalistic staff, and possibly many others in the United States and across the world. It would certainly come as no surprise if they did.

  War – and how it is covered by media – is a major recurring theme in all of this and it is no secret that the CIA has left its dirty footprints over many of them since its inception in 1947. This has been highly documented and revealed by whistleblower Kevin Shipp, a former CIA officer, intelligence and counter terrorism expert who held several high-level positions in the organization.

  Finally, the CIA’s reach beyond American borders goes without saying.

  A German journalist spills the beans

  “I was bribed by billionaires. I was bribed by the Americans not to report exactly the truth,” stated Udo Ulfkotte back in a 2014 interview with RT (original report); the late editor and journalist of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was quite outspoken in this particular interview.

  

  Screenshot of the 2014 RT interview with German journalist Udo Ulfkotte

  Ulfkotte explained how the CIA and other US agencies bought journalists across all major German newspapers. He starts the interview with the following revelation [emphasis added]:

  “I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years. And I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. But, seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return and I’m going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over Europe.”

  It’s funny how you could almost replace this assertion (from back in 2014) in the context of today’s 2022 Russia-Ukraine war, or as some would call it, a proxy war between NATO/Western Europe/United States and Russia.

  He continued:

  “I was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. Why? Because I should be pro- American. I’m fed up with it. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  ‘Non-official cover’ is a term the German journalist used to describe how he (and other journalists) were essentially working for or helping the intelligence agency, though not in an official capacity, conveniently leaving room for plausible deniability.

  Ulfkotte goes on to explain how the journalists are rewarded by the CIA.

  Statements like these really makes one wonder about the extent to which media outlets all around the world have been infiltrated not only by the CIA, but also by other powerful entities.

  But wait, Ulfkotte dives deeper into other supranational influences that help shape media organizations and their prevailing narratives [emphasis added]:

  “We are still kind of a colony of the Americans. And being a colony, it is very easy to approach young journalists through, what is very important here is, transatlantic organizations. All journalists from really respected and recommended big German newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations, they are all members or guests of those big transatlantic organizations. And in these transatlantic organizations, you are approached to be pro-American.”

  Ulfkotte then emphasizes that this phenomenon is even more the case with British journalists due to their special relationship with the US, and the French, to a lesser extent.

  One need not look far to see what he is talking about with regards to these transatlantic organizations than observe the writings and actions of outfits such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Atlantic Council think tank, both focused on American imperialism and interests. While the later is essentially a mouthpiece for NATO, the former holds an unfathomable grasp on Western media.

  Examining the historical and current membership into the Council on Foreign Relations is quite revealing, to say the least. Or, perhaps more fittingly: the elephant in the room. Moreover, the think tank holds tremendous influence through its network of elites and media pundits who are central in shaping U.S. foreign policy and public discourse.

  Back in 2017, an infographic emerged showing the extent of this network and how it possibly ties to the Bilderberger Group and the Trilateral Commission:

  

  Infographic showing the network of members of the CFR, full-resolution image: https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/cfr-media-network-hdv-spr.png

  Comparing current members with past ones, we can easily validate the authenticity of this elitist ilk and deduce that it is highly organized, highly interconnected, and what amounts to a highly influential network of thought leaders & shapers.

  Another infographic from Swiss Policy Research – an independent, nonpartisan and non-profit research group investigating geopolitical propaganda – shows the transatlantic network the German media is subject to:

  

  Swiss Policy Research – Media in Germany: The transatlantic network, full-resolution image: https://i0.wp.com/swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/netzwerk-medien-deutschland-spr-mt.png?ssl=1

  The data contained in these infographics validates German journalist Udo Ulfkotte’s claims to this effect.

  The infiltration of media, be it by the CIA, other intelligence agencies, or think-tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations or the Atlantic Council, is unmistakably a conspiracy in that their stealthily coordinated efforts control narratives the masses, including government officials, are exposed to on a daily basis.

  Same Playbook, Different War

  With the current war in the Ukraine, we can easily notice how the stances held by these transatlantic institutions are mostly one-sided. Here’s a recent tweet from the Atlantic Council regarding the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war:

  

  Tweet from the Atlantic Council, Sept. 15, 2022, Source

  The related article begins [emphasis added]:

  “Ukraine’s stunning counteroffensive success in the Kharkiv region has provided conclusive proof that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are more than capable of defeating Russia on the battlefield. Now is the time to end the war by providing Ukraine with everything necessary to consolidate these gains and secure a decisive victory.”

  “Victory requires a coordinated, multifaceted, and long-term approach with economic, diplomatic, humanitarian, and logistical support all needed in order to bolster the Ukrainian transition to NATO-standard weaponry. Above all, this means a full commitment by Ukraine’s partners to increase arms supplies to the country.”

  As you can see, they don’t hide which side they are representing while blatantly calling for NATO and partners to increase arms supplies and weaponry. Accordingly, if this is not an advertisement to further bolster the Military/Security Complex’s coffers, then I don’t know what else to say. That would be for another article altogether that would require its own investigation.

  Another recent tweet and article written by the CFR’s own President, Richard Haass, a Rhodes Scholar, from the Council on Foreign Relations rings the same bell:

  

  Tweet from the Council on Foreign Relations, also from Sept. 15, 2022, Source

  In it, the CFR President states [emphasis added]:

  “The West, for its part, should continue to provide Ukraine with the quality and quantity of military and economic support it requires. There are strong strategic reasons for doing so, including to deter future aggression by Russia, China, or anyone else.”

  The only difference is that this one makes a specific reference to China – the current frontrunner to be the next boogeyman-du-jour in our Orwellian perpetual state of war which assures gargantuan profits for the Military/Security Complex. But again, I digress, for this is yet for another behemoth of an article that would require an entire team of reporters.

  The extent to which this war has also been propagated on social media is, in itself, a whole other can of worms. Armies of bots, pundits and propagandists (from both sides of the conflict) along with the divided masses all contribute to the digital fog of war in the halls, hyperbolic and echo chambers of platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

  The Council on Foreign Relations conspiracy

  In a book aptly titled ‘None Dare Call It Conspiracy’ by Gary Allen and Larry Abraham published in 1971, the first paragraph of the introduction – written by former U.S. congressman John G. Schmitz reads as follows:

  “The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed to protect the guilty. This book may have the effect of changing your life. After reading this book you will never look at national and world events in the same way again.”

  I feel the same way, though I would also highly recommend the book The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin which focuses on the secretive events that lead to the formation of the private corporation knowns as the US Federal Reserve which has also changed the way I personally view the word.

  Griffin holds the distinguished honorary title of Conspiracy Theorist by the editors of Wikipedia and others. So, he must be doing something right. His claims about how the North American medical establishment essentially got usurped by billionaire interests certainly added credence to this title.

  Speaking of billionaires, a few passages from the book ‘None Dare Call It Conspiracy’ really stand out:

  “The American subsidiary of this conspiracy is called the Council on Foreign Relations and was started by and is still controlled by Leftist international bankers.”

  “According to his grandson John, Jacob Schiff (above), long-time associate of the Rothschilds, financed the Communist Revolution in Russia to the tune of $20 million. According to a report on file with the State Department, his firm, Kuhn loeb and Co. bankrolled the first five year plan for Stalin. Schiff’s partner and relative, Paul Warburg, engineered the establishment of the Federal Reserve System while on the Kuhn Loeb payroll. Schiff’s descendants are active in the Council on Foreign Relations today.”

  And under an old photograph of a building in New York city appears [emphasis added]:

  “Home of the Council on Foreign Relations on 68th St. in New York The admitted goal of the CFR is to abolish the Constitution and replace our ones [sic] independent Republic with a World Government. CFR members have controlled, the last six administrations. Richard Nixon has been a member and has appointed at least 100 CFR members to high positions in his administration.”

  And later on in the book:

  “The C.F.R. has come to be known as “The Establishment,” “the invisible government” and “the Rockefeller foreign office.” This semi-secret organization unquestionably has become the most influential group in America.”

  It’s most interesting to see how these billionaire actors also coincidentally have had a hand in the formation of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Perhaps, G. Edward Griffin was onto something after all.

  A more recent (1988) book provides similar allegations with regards to the CFR by providing a deep dive into the historical roots, connections, and linkages to the war machine of the notorious organization. Its title is ‘The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations And The American Decline’ by author James Perloff.

  I will leave it up to the reader to investigate more into this alleged conspiracy, for such an endeavor demands significant time, scrutiny, and attention.

  Conspiracy Theories that turned out to be true

  Though many conspiracies have been proven true over the years, I will merely showcase a few which relate to two recurring themes of this article, namely that of war and media corruption.

  Operation Mockingbird, 1950s+

  In light of the revelations listed earlier in this article, it is perhaps most fitting that we exhibit this particular proven conspiracy, for its overarching implications run far and wide – even in 2022 and beyond.

  In a nutshell, Operation Mockingbird was a large-scale clandestine program of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes.

  According to The Black Vault – an online archive that houses over 3 million pages of government documents, Operation Mockingbird was said to be initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA; and the organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA’s views, including worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns.

  In 1974, The New York Times had published an article by investigative journalist Seymour Hirsh who claimed that the CIA had violated its charter

  In the mid-1970s, the U.S. Congress had become concerned over abuses of the CIA, NSA, and FBI and called a committee (the Church Committee) to look over it.

  As per Everipedia, the final report of the Church Committee covered CIA ties with both foreign and domestic news media. Specifically with regards to the foreign news media, the report concluded that:

  “The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”

  And for domestic media, the report emphasizes the following:

  “Approximately 50 of the [Agency] assets are individual American journalists or employees of U.S. media organizations. Of these, fewer than half are “accredited” by U.S. media organizations … The remaining individuals are non-accredited freelance contributors and media representatives abroad … More than a dozen United States news organizations and commercial publishing houses formerly provided cover for CIA agents abroad. A few of these organizations were unaware that they provided this cover.”

  Apart from the staggering revelations outlined in the two passages above, the term ‘cover’ is of particular interest. German journalist Udo Ulfkotte, mentioned earlier in this article, stated that him and other fellow German journalists were basically operating as ‘non-official cover’, or in a ‘non-official capacity’ for the CIA. In other words, the CIA employed this pretext to cloak itself and adduce plausible deniability.

  Looking at the headlines and overt propaganda coming out of the European mainstream press over the last several years leaves us with little doubt that this operation (or a new version of it) is still alive and kicking.

  Operation Northwoods (re Cuban Missile Crisis) in 1962

  Operation Northwoods was a proposed ‘false flag’ (i.e., a covert/secretive plot intended to deceive) operation against Cuba originating from the U.S. Dept. of Defense calling upon the CIA and other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets in Guantanamo (Cuba) and blame them on the Cuban government which would serve as a justification for war against the Caribbean island nation.

  The gist of the proposed operation was to hoodwink President John F. Kennedy to declare war against Cuba in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  For those with a penchant for gripping movie dramas, the 2000 movie Thirteen Days starring Kevin Costner and Bruce Greenwood (as President Kennedy) serves as an absorbing illustration in which the Democrat president was placed in a mental crucible and tested to his limits.

  The declassified document (memorandum for the Secretary of Defense) from 13 March 1962 titled ‘Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)’ lays it bare for all to see.

  Documentarians Aaron and Melissa Dykes produced a top-notch work on this planned conspiracy.

  There are many reasons why I like Truthstream Media’s documentaries. Not only do they produce extremely well-researched works, but they also present them in a clear manner; and sometimes, such as with this particular work, they offer advice to their viewers on how to better educate themselves about world events. Near the start of this documentary, Melissa Dykes states [emphasis added]:

  “We thought we would look at this document for Operation Northwoods, it was declassified, because the problem with people forgetting history or failing to research history or failing to look into history is they forget these things ever happened. And history continues to repeat and people act like they have no idea why.”

  On that, I have to totally agree with Melissa Dykes. In today’s fast-pace society, people are more inclined to play with TikTok on their phones or watch movies than to read books – especially those related to history. It’s one of the main factors that has led to the lack of critical thought and discernment in society.

  

  Simple explanation of a ‘false flag’ operation. Source: https://www.falseflag.info/about/

  Gulf of Tonkin Incident (Vietnam), 1964

  Everipedia – a blockchain-based online encyclopedia (a better source of information than Wikipedia, in my opinion) prefaces the incident as follows [emphasis added]:

  “The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ), also known as the Maddox, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved one real and one falsely claimed confrontation between ships of North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The original American report blamed North Vietnam for both incidents, but the Pentagon Papers, the memoirs of Robert McNamara, and NSA publications from 2005, proved material misrepresentation by the US government to justify a war against Vietnam.”

  Among all wars fought by Americans, the Vietnam War ranked 4th just after the first two world wars and the U.S. Civil war. It’s economic and human costs epitomized human folly.  

  What is equally nefarious is the deceptive means by which this false flag event, or conspiracy, came about.

  Notable Unresolved Conspiracies

  While there are too many to even contemplate, let us have a look at some of the more controversial ones that still have an impact on society and our way of life.

  September 11 attacks

  Perhaps one of the biggest and most contentious ones is that of the events that relate to what happened on September 11, 2001.

  So much has transpired in the 21 years that have lapsed since the collapse of the World-Trade Center towers in New York City.

  Though a formal investigation has been conducted and published on these events, so many unanswered questions remain as to who exactly was behind it.

  We often hear some talking about this tragic event insisting that it was an ‘inside job’ (i.e., done by powers within the U.S. Government). And for this, they are immediately labelled conspiracy theorists. Actually, in this rare case I agree with the employment of the defamatory designation. For, with an event as complex as this one, one can readily make such a claim; but to back it up with convincing evidence would require an extraordinary enterprise.

  What is perhaps more useful here, though, would be to ask anew some of the most important and unaddressed questions relating to this event. For these questions which are listed below, links are provided for additional context/reference. A good refresher video (WTC7 and 9/11 Truth 14 Years Later: “People Still Want the Truth”) was published by documentarians of Truthstream Media.

  • How is it possible that WTC Tower 7, the 47-story building which was only affected by minor fires, collapse straight down in a free fall defying known laws of physics?

  • Why was the collapse of WTC Tower 7 reported by the BBC 20 minutes before it actually came down?

  • How come no large pieces of aircraft wreckage from United Airlines flight 93 were ever found at the alleged crash site in Stonycreek Township (Shanksville), Pennsylvania?

  • How come no large pieces of aircraft wreckage from American Airlines flight 77 were ever found on the ground near the West wall of the Pentagon?

  • Why was all the rubble and steel (evidence) from the site so swiftly collected (over the objections by fire marshals) and shipped overseas?

  • How was the Patriot Act (effective October 26, 2001) – a fairly long and complex legal document – drafted, reviewed, introduced, and enacted in merely 6 weeks?

  Of course, there are countless other unanswered questions. Perhaps the grander question is: will there ever be a fuller, more transparent official investigation surrounding these attacks?

  Who really killed JFK?

  Despite the findings of the Warren Commission, it remains to be solved as to whom exactly assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy since it is proven that a single gunman could not have acted alone per the additional evidence confirmed after the commission’s report.

  Many intelligence documents remained classified – even after 60 years since this tragic event took place in Dallas, Texas.

  Over the years, many have contributed to the investigation that never seems to end. Investigator Jim Garrison was perhaps the most prominent amongst them.

  Moon Landing Controversy

  

  Wernher von Braun at the lunar landing scene on an Apollo set replica during the Atlanta Southeastern Fair, credited to United Press International (UPI), image source

  The picture above (and the cover picture for this article) may seem as a conspiracy theory in itself, for it is difficult to authenticate and locate the original photograph from UPI. However, it is one that has been properly credited and attributed to the UPI. Accordingly, the cover photograph for this article can be viewed with its original header: 

  

  Image source

  And the Jacksonville Daily Journal published the photograph in its September 30, 1960 edition:

  

  Image source

  For those unfamiliar with Werner Von Braun, he was a brilliant aerospace engineer – the brains behind the development of the Saturn rockets used in the Apollo launches.

  Over the past several decades, there has been a lot of debate regarding many aspects of the moon missions. A tremendous amount of money, blood, sweat, and tears have flowed into the Apollo program and other related projects.

  Much pressure had been placed on the U.S. Government to ensure success – especially amidst the backdrop of the Space Race and larger Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

  Over the course of this colossal undertaking, it became apparent that some serious problems and challenges needed to be overcome. Many were overcome, but other major problems persisted.

  A three and a half hour 2017 documentary entitled American Moon (available on YouTube, Brighteon, and Odysee) outlined many of these problems along with a significant amount of anomalies – particularly in the Apollo moon missions. In the lengthy film, they disprove not only the debunkers (those who disprove the deniers) but also some of the deniers themselves regarding their false or flawed claims.

  American Moon is meticulously well documented with original (official) NASA photographs, films, interviews, technical documents, and so forth, and presented in a clear and understandable way for the average Jane or Joe.  

  Over 40 extremely well-formulated questions are presented and addressed to NASA itself as well as the greater debunker community. I have yet to locate a source which addresses all these key points; and this, despite nearly five years having elapsed since the documentary film came out.

  I certainly invite the reader to spend the three and a half hours to view this film; for, after doing so, you will never see the moon landing in the same light.

  I will only cite a few of the key questions that were put forward in this film.

  The first one relates to one of the most critical aspects of space flight, namely that of the dangers of radiation that are present beyond our planet, namely the Van Allen radiation belts. The belts protect our planet from harmful radiation originating from the sun and outer space.

  

  Van Allen radiation belts, source: NASA

  Here’s a simplified image to get a better idea of the range of these belts from Earth:

  

  Screenshot from American Moon (at the 01:00:20 mark)

  The problem, here, as pointed out in the film, is that modern scientists, including NASA Orion engineer Kelly Smith for that matter, have explained that no human could penetrate either of the two (inner & outer) belts without being exposed to high-energy radiation and cosmic rays which would biologically cause serious damage, if not death. In the March 1959 edition of Scientific American, the following was noted:

  “The discovery [of the Van Allen radiation belts] is of course troubling to astronauts; somehow the human body will have to be shielded from this radiation, even on a rapid transit through the region.”

  More recently, NASA Orion engineer Kelly Smith stated the following when talking about the Van Allen radiation belts [emphasis added]:

  “We must solve these challenges before we send people through this region of space.”

  In American Moon (around the 01:11:20 mark), NASA astronaut and commander Terry Virts says the following [emphasis added]:

  “The plan that NASA has is to built a rocket called SOS which is a heavy-lift rocket; it’s something much bigger than what we have today. And it will be able to launch the Orion capsule with humans on board … to destinations beyond earth orbit. Right now, we can only fly in earth orbit. That’s the farthest that we can go. This new system that we’re building is gonna allow us to go beyond and hopefully take humans into the solar system to explore. So, the moon, Mars, asteroids, there’s a lot of destinations that we could go to…”

  Further in the film, Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean responded the following when asked about whether he had suffered any ill effects from having passed through the Van Allen belts:

  “No. Now, I’m not sure we went far enough out to encounter the Van Allen radiation belts. Maybe we did.”

  One would think that as a crew member from Apollo 12 – the second mission to land on the moon – he would know about the location and existence of these belts through which he passed through.

  Strange.

  Very strange.

  What is also rather puzzling is the fact that NASA admits they lost the telemetry data related to the Apollo 11 moon mission.

  The Chief Flight Director for the Gemini and Apollo programs Gene Krantz (who was portrayed by Ed Harris in the 1995 film Apollo 13) admitted that NASA had lost the original tapes containing the telemetry data (alternate video link here). When asked by documentary filmmaker Aron Ranen about the tapes, Krantz stated the following:

  “I haven’t seen anything that indicates the telemetry data is even in existence. And, as I said, even if we had it, we don’t have the machines to play it back.”

  Ranen, the creator of the 2005 film Did We Go? then went to NASA’s Goodard Space Center and spoke with archivist Dr. David Williams who further asserted:

  “We’ve been unable to track it down. We don’t know where this telemetry data ended up. And we don’t know what path it may have taken. So, unfortunately I’m afraid I can’t give you much of a clue as to where this data ended up and whether it still exists or not.”

  So, let’s be clear folks here for a minute. The data that recorded what was perhaps the single most important event in human history has completely disappeared. Really? No backup copies have been made? And it would be “impossible” to re-create machines to play it back on?

  Absurd.

  While it is certainly possible that these tapes have indeed disappeared, the whole affair is rather questionable and pitiful, to say the least.

  The American Moon documentary further outlines anomalies related to the lunar module (LEM), telecommunications (between the earth and the moon), photographs & photography, cameras, videos, shadows, cosmic radiation, extreme temperatures, and more.  

  A large part of the documentary focuses on photographs taken and published by NASA. The producer of the documentary hired several top photographers in the world (who worked in the field during that period) to examine and analyze the official photos taken on the surface of the moon.

  These photography experts all pointed out many impossibilities found in them.

  For the most part, they disproved that the photographs could have been taken on the surface of the moon if the only main source of light was emanating from the Sun; they decisively contend that the photographs were produced on a set with artificial lighting. This segment is presented with meticulous detail and analysis which makes it extremely difficult to refute the assertions from the experts.

  A common counter-argument that people have regarding those who claim the moon landings were faked is how could thousands of people be on board with such a hoax without there being any whistleblowers. Firstly, there have been numerous credible whistleblowers who have come out and I will reference one below.

  As for the “thousands of employees” conundrum, the answer is quite simple. These thousands of employees would simply not be aware that this subset (i.e., the moon landings) of the Apollo missions were being deceptively presented. This was the case with the Manhattan Project whereby thousands of people worked on the development of the first atomic bomb without knowing about its ultimate goal. The project was carefully structured for secrecy by means of compartmentalization. Put simply, under compartmentalization, people work in their own respective groups (or, compartments) on specific tasks and are not privy to a lot of data or information about the overall project.

  Accordingly, it would not have been that difficult to structure the NASA project in such a way.

  In an April 12, 2020 confession, Gene Gilmore (born Eugene Reuben Akers), now deceased, appeared in a video (alternate links here, here, and here) disclosed what his father (Cyrus Eugene Akers who was stationed in Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico in 1968) had previously confessed to him on his death bed.

  Mr. Akers senior was in the Military Police for over 20 years and on his death bed in 2002 he made a recording of what he had witnessed.

  Gene’s father told him about project ‘Slam Dunk’ whereby there were two large hangars (at the Cannon Air Force Base) that were connected, dump trucks had delivered sand and stone, and cement powder that was applied on top of all that material to make it look like a lunar landscape.

  The surprised son continued listening to his father state that in front of the airplane hangars was pull framing with large canvas tents that were concealing the inside of the staging area. Inside the staging area, on flat bed trucks was created the lunar lander that was assembled, reassembled back inside the hangars. All of the walls were painted flat black as were the ceilings.

  Cyrus Eugene Akers was sworn to secrecy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

  Gene then recalled that when his father saw the moon landing on television, he cried.

  He said that what he witnessed on TV is exactly what they recorded in that hangar.

  Mr. Akers continued his death bed confession to his son stating that there were 3 guards at the entrance of the hangar and there was a list of 15 people who could enter, no one else was allowed by order of President [Lyndon] Johnson. Gene Gilmore then stated that he had given the list to Bart Sibrel.

  Gene Gilmore then enumerates the specific names of list of 15 people who had special access to the hangars which include President Johnson, Neil Armstrong, Edwin [Buzz] Alden, Werner Von Braun, Gene Krantz, James Webb, Dr. James Van Allen, among others.

  Gilmore continues on with what his father had confided in him. President Johnson was there only for the first day of filming. The filming lasted for 3 days. And then, everything was dismantled to bring the hangars back to their original states.

  Gilmore then states that since 2002, he verified a lot of the information his father had given him – including records from Cannon Air Force base that confirmed the presence of President Johnson and the astronauts at that time as well as the lunar lander. Apparently though, this information was subsequently removed from Cannon’s website.

  Lastly, Gene affirms that his father stated had to tell somebody about the incident before he died because it was too important; but he also warned him not to ever tell anybody.

  Regarding the authenticity of these testimonies, there is always the possibility that they are not entirely truthful. But people seldom lie during death bed confessions. They usually want to get truth off their chests before they meet their maker. The fact that Gene Gilmore instructed Bart Sibrel to only publish his confession after his death also adds credibility to his testimony.

  As recent as Sept. 22, 2022, Lead Stories published a fact check rebuke regarding this confession video. In it, they stated that they had contacted NASA regarding the video and posted their spokesperson’s reply in the article:

  “There is a significant amount of evidence to support NASA landed 12 astronauts on the moon from 1969 to 1972. We collected 842 pounds of moon rocks that have been studied by scientists worldwide for decades. From these rocks, we’ve learned that the moon was once part of the Earth, the moon is about 4.5 billion years old, and that most of the moon’s craters are caused by impact, not volcanism.”

  Anyone with half a brain could tell that this reply is totally unconvincing. Why mention moon rocks? It’s as if the spokesperson thinks this provides tangible evidence of the moon landings. One would also think that NASA would have come up with a much more thoughtful and convincing argument than the absurdity stated above.

  I digress.

  The conclusion of the American Moon documentary shows part of the Apollo 11 astronauts post moon mission press conference. They point out that the three astronauts were totally unenthusiastic.

  They were there to talk about the single most important feat accomplished by human beings and these men could barely crack a smile or convey their joy and enthusiasm about their monumental achievement. This goes without saying that it is all, indeed and utterly, extremely bizarre.

  Moreover, the very apparent levels of stress shown by the astronauts as per their body language at the beginning of the press conference is somewhat mind boggling. Keep in mind that these astronauts are test pilots who have experience handling extremely stressful situations, not to mention having [purportedly] flown an extremely dangerous mission to the moon. So, relatively speaking, simply talking to the public and press about their monumental achievement should not have been so challenging and stressful for these men. Rather, it should have been a cause for celebration and pride. What is the average person to make of this?

  American Moon ends with video clips of Bart Sibrel confronting each of the three Apollo 11 astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins) asking them to swear on the Bible that they walked on the moon. All three men displayed very uncomfortable stances and refused. Sibrel even offered $5,000 in cash to charity should Neil Armstrong agree, but he still refused. Buzz Aldrin actually punched Sibrel in the face when the interrogator persisted in his questioning. Even though Sibrel’s approach wasn’t particularly friendly, it remains odd that none of them agreed to do so.  

  As more and more inconsistencies surface regarding the Apollo moon missions along with mounting evidence which contradicts the official narrative, it is probably just a matter of time before NASA becomes obligated to admit what really happened in July of 1969. Undoubtedly, there is a lot at stake.

  Will history books need to be re-written?

  Time will tell.

  Conspiracies to Watch

  As practically all of the conspiracies stated below are highly controversial and subjective in nature, I will merely provide a short summary of each along with key links that provide some initial background information – selected specifically to exhibit why they are considered conspiratorial. Ultimately, it is really up to the readers to investigate them and draw their own conclusions as to the authenticity and legitimacy of their respective stated claims.

  Climate Change

  Though the very hot and contentious issue of ‘Climate Change’, formerly known as ‘Global Warming’, is complex and controversial, we must begin by examining its origins.

  Where did this really originate from? When was it first mentioned and put forward as an existential threat?

  Former Australian politician Ann Bressington shed a bit of light on the issue in a candid speech about Agenda 21 and the Club of Rome a few years ago. In the speech (alternate link) she stated the following [emphasis added]:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the origins of the environmental movement as we see it began back in 1968 when the Club of Rome was formed. The Club of Rome has been described as a crisis think tank which specialises in crisis creation. The main purpose of this think tank was to formulate a crisis that would unite the world and condition us to the idea of global solutions to local problems. In a document called The First Global Revolution, … it stated: ‘In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.’ …, that’s the origin of global warming ladies and gentlemen.”

  Her statement does indeed check out. On page 115 of the 1991 book entitled The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of Rome, you can clearly read the passage under the header ‘The Common Enemy of Humanity is Man’ [emphasis added in red]:

  

  Excerpt from page 115 of the book The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of Rome

  The Club of Rome is still actively involved in activities related to Climate Change. And at first glance it all seems quite legitimate. But the power and influence wielded by its well-connected membership leaves much to be scrutinized.

  Moreover, while the above information doesn’t serve as a smoking gun with regards to an alleged conspiracy, it does demonstrate that powerful and deeply connected think tanks (like with the Council on Foreign Relations mentioned earlier in this article) can influence many key players, including heads of state (even former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, father of the current Prime Minister).

  Credible scientific evidence contrary to the current climate change narrative does exist, yet very seldom appears in the mainstream press, for it goes against the ascribed (and undebatable) “the science is settled” mantra.

  One of these includes the recent (August, 2022) article entitled 1,200 Scientists and Professionals Declare: “There is No Climate Emergency” by The Daily Sceptic which challenges the ‘political fiction’ that humans cause most or all of climate change.

  The article also states that the scale to the opposition to the modern-day belief that the ‘science is settled’ [on Climate Change] is remarkable, even amidst the backdrop of academia which barely ever issues grants for climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. On a side note, a blunt revelation by the co-founder of The Weather Channel John Coleman offered a rather scathing (and highly entertaining) lecture towards Brian Stelter from CNN a few years back in which he stated that there was no real science behind climate change. Now, back to the article of interest from The Daily Sceptic. It makes reference to a declaration by over 1,200 scientists from all around the world who assert that there is no climate emergency. This declaration is formally known as the ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’. Here are a few key excerpts:

  “Climate policy relies on inadequate models

  Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.”

  “CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth

  CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.”

  “Global warming has not increased natural disasters

  There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.”

  “Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities

  There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are.”

  It should be obvious – even to a grade school student – that C02 is essential for life on earth and for the healthy functioning of our biological ecosystems. But our mainstream media and academia have been bamboozled and overtaken by powerful interest groups (as is the case in many other institutions such as those of finance and government) to pervert reality and propagate absurdities day in and day out. These compromised media outlets prefer to push the half-baked narratives from the likes of Bill Gates rather than invite real scientists that will challenge the ‘settled’ narratives and pundit talking heads.  

  To be fairer and more objective though, the onus really is on each and every one of us to properly inform ourselves about issues such as climate change. We should be open to listening to those with opposing views and seek the opinions of independents who are not subsidised or funded by special interest groups or who will somehow benefit in spewing pre-packaged, one-size fits all, narratives.

  The origins of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19)

  No other matter has consumed the collective thought of people from around the world over the last 2+ years than the Covid-19 Pandemic.

  Early on during the pandemic, many had contended that the virus was not of natural origin but was rather one that was altered in a lab setting; and after things had gone afoul, the virus was somehow spread out of the biosafety level 4 lab known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology into the public of the Chinese metropolis, and eventually to the entire world. This was in contrast with the original claim that the virus had originated in a wet market in Wuhan whereby the virus had crossed-over to humans from bats.  

  Those who made the contention that the virus could have been engineered in a lab were immediately dismissed as conspiracy theorists.

  But as more evidence has surfaced regarding a massive coverup by the Chinese government and apparent pre-pandemic linkages between US-funded labs an the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the theory gained traction.

  Anthony Fauci who is the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the leader in the United States regarding the handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic has repeatedly lied (to US Congress) about and denied that any gain-of-function research (specifically, a bat coronavirus research project by EcoHealth Alliance) had taken place under his US government-funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) lab in Wuhan.

  Surfaced letters have shone additional light on the matter demonstrating that funding from NIH to EcoHEalth Alliance did indeed occur.

  In addition, a report from The Intercept following a FOIA request produced 900 pages of materials relating to coronavirus research in China.

  Furthermore, an email letter from Peter Daszak from EcoHealth Alliance dated April 18, 2020, surfaced whereby Daszak thanked Anthony Fauci, the head of the Covid-19 response team, for his [false] public comments regarding the origins of Covid-19.

  News aggregator ZeroHedge ran an article on August 6, 2021 whereby virologist Shi Zhengli (also known as “Bat Lady”) of the Wuhan Institute of Virology – whose lab received US funding to make coronaviruses more infectious to humans – warned that the virus will continue to mutate producing new strains.

  

  Virologist Shi Zhengli (left), also known as “bat lady” photographed with Peter Daszak (right) from EcoHealth Alliance, source: ZeroHedge and DailyMail

  China expert Matthew Tye who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and goes by the YouTube handle Laowhy86 produced a very compelling piece (dated April 1, 2020, now with over 2.4 million views) on the source origins of SARS-CoV-2, even hypothesizing about who patient zero for this virus was; namely, Huang Yan Ling an employee of the infamous lab who went missing, along with her profile from the lab’s website.

  The World Health Organization (WHO) who is generously funded by Bill Gates – apart from sovereign nations, he is by far its top donor – is well known to have kowtowed to the Chinese government early on in the pandemic, was eventually compelled to conduct a formal investigation about the origins of the virus.

  Using relevant sources, Summit News reported that the WHO’s chief investigator, Ben Embarek (who also surmised that patient zero was likely a lab worker at the Wuhan Institute of Virology) essentially found nothing of material substance in the probe and was only permitted [by the Chinese government] to mention the possibility of a lab leak without being allowed to probe further. All of this, too, after having visited the lab for a period of only 3 hours.

  In addition, one might find it particularly inappropriate that Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance was chosen as part of the WHO’s investigatory team since he had previously worked in this same lab and given his obvious conflicts of interest in the matter at hand.

  In their defense, it is highly likely that the Chinese government had adequate time to remove any incriminating evidence that could have pointed to the gain of function research about coronaviruses and the inherent lab leak of the virus.

  As a substantial amount of time has elapsed since the Covid-19 pandemic began coupled with the concealment (deliberate or indeliberate) of critical direct and physical evidence regarding the real nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we may never know the true story surrounding its origins.

  

  Screenshot of John Hopkins University of Medicine’s Worldwide Covid-19 Dashboard, taken Sept. 27, 2022 (Total Cases: 615,673,638; Total Deaths: 6,538,656, Total Vaccine Doses Administered: 12,255,133,258)

  What remains, however, is that it is certainly worthwhile to not let this one drain down the funnel of forgotten history.

  The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Great Reset

  Though founded in 1971, it is really in the last couple of years that this elitist organization, commonly referred to as the WEF, started to gain attention by the general public (rather than business leaders, politicians, and state leaders) around the world. This is in large part attributable to the increase in the influence and power they have gradually exerted on nations over the years, and particularly since the Covid-19 Pandemic came about.

  In 2020, the WEF embraced the opportunity that this global crisis presented and not let it “go to waste.” And thus, seized it through a series of recommendations and actions which they stated as an opportune moment to “redefine” the world – particularly the traditional economic model into one of what they call ‘stakeholder capitalism’. Hence was born their proposed ambitious action plan known as the ‘Great Reset’.

  Two books accompany this endeavor, namely, the manifesto entitled COVID-19: The Great Reset (2020) written by WEF founder Klaus Schwab, as well as the The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016). Both serve as blueprints for what the well-connected elitist and quasi-supranational organization wish to impose on global citizens.

  The WEF’s founder Klaus Schwab has been characterised as kind of a Bond villain in the last few years – particularly over social media. A well-researched introduction about Klaus Schwab and the WEF was produced by YouTuber Sorelle Amore.

  While registered as a non-profit organization, the WEF does appear, at prima facie, to be one with benevolent intentions fostering public-private partnerships, that is not entirely the case. Many controversies have surrounded a lot of what has come out of their famous annual meetings referred to as ‘Davos’ which usually take place in the ski-resort town of Davos in Switzerland.

  For instance, many rich elites who’ve paid a hefty membership fee to join the WEF, make it to the annual event in their private jets while they call upon the masses and nation states to curve energy emissions and reduce their carbon footprints. In this year’s Davos meeting, one of their ilk, J. Michael Evans, president of the Alibaba Group, even proposed a new technology to measure one’s carbon footprint, stating [emphasis added]:

  “We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s, where are they traveling, how are they traveling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on the platform? … stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet – but this is something we’re working on.”

  While we all love the environment and want to do our part to protect it, this kind of scheme appears to be nothing less than a proposed taxation scheme targeted to partner governments eager and willing to implement it.

  Other controversial, some would say absurd, proposals have come out of their forums. Promoting the masses to eat bugs (as a high source of protein and great substitute for meat) is actually a thing now with celebrities such as Nicole Kidman helping to spark the trend stating how delicious they are. Insect processing plants, such as the cricket facility from Aspire Food Group in Ontario, are also starting to bolster this nascent industry.

  You would be stunned at witnessing the extent to which this is becoming widespread.

  Some, however, have expressed concerns about how insect-based ingredients are stealthily being added to the food we purchase and how they are not fit for human consumption and possibly even cancerous.

  

  Tweet indicating that President’s Choice (a leading food provider in Canada) is including insect components in this product, as per the label, purchased at a store in Saskatchewan.

  I suppose we are all going to have to more carefully read the ingredients lists of the foods we purchase.

  Another major concern with regards to the WEF is the amount of power and influence they hold over political officials, including heads of state.

  This became apparent in the recent riots that have occurred in the Netherlands where Dutch farmers have protested in masse against government diktats regarding reducing nitrogen (used in fertilizer) levels and possible farm land appropriation.

  Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also received criticism regarding the coziness of his ties with the WEF’s boss, Klaus Schwab, and his agendas. In fact, Rutte was blasted in the Dutch legislature by Gideon van Meijeren (MP) for this relationship and complicity in the WEF’s Great Reset (link includes the related video). Rutte responded to the young MP that he didn’t know about the book (COVID-19: The Great Reset) and ridiculed the young MP to “not look too much into these conspiracy theories.”

  In turns out, though, that a close relationship did exist between the Netherlands Mark Rutte and the WEF. Independent information outlet LeLibrePenseur.org (French for ‘The Free thinker’), published secret letters between the two. In a report titled Fuites de Klaus Schwab : lettres secrètes entre le WEF et des membres du gouvernement hollandais dévoilées ! (Klaus Schwab leaks: secret letters between the WEF and members of the Dutch government exposed!), they showcased (what many mainstream Dutch journalists had described as conjecture) how the Rutte government had indeed been subservient to the interests and agendas of the WEF. Following a request from deputy FVD Pepijn van Houwelingen to make public the letters addressed to Dutch cabinet members, it was confirmed that their contributions had helped in the realisation of the Great Reset, essentially bypassing the will of the people through their elected officials.

  While it is not necessarily conspiratorial to create linkages with the WEF, the secretive manner in which it was done is what proves alarming.

  Regarding Canada, Klaus Schwab has repeatedly boasted on how proud he was proud of his army of Young Global Leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Schwab even bragged about how his lieutenants had “penetrated” the Canadian cabinet stating [emphasis added]:

  “What we are very proud of now [is] the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, …, that we penetrate the cabinets. So, yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau and I know that half of his cabinet, or even more than half of his cabinet are actually young global leaders of the world.”

  That is a stunning admission from the leader of the WEF. Canadian opposition MP even inquired about this outside interference on behalf of a constituent of his during a parliamentary session, only to see the Speaker dismiss the question from the MP regarding this claim by provided a ridiculous excuse that the audio and video were “really really bad”. This was swiftly followed by an MP of the ruling party dismissing the question stating that the opposition MP was “promoting disinformation”. Really? I presume he didn’t hear the video in question that clearly stated otherwise. Regardless of the veracity of the claim itself, when an extremely powerful individual from an extremely powerful global organization such as the WEF makes a vivid assertion about who is controlling the Canadian cabinet, it should be taken seriously and further investigated.  

  At the very least, according to True North News, the Trudeau Government gave nearly $3 million to the WEF which raises a cause for suspicion regarding the relationship and its inherent motivations.

  Rigging of the Gold & Silver Markets

  At this point/stage, this is really no longer a conspiracy theory, but more of a conspiracy fact. As a financial author, I have followed the gold and silver markets on a daily basis for the past ten years and have witnessed and documented numerous cases of blatant price fixing – almost exclusively to the down side.

  The main reason for the suppression of gold and silver prices is to maintain the illusion of a strong US dollar; for, if prices of these metals get too elevated it raises alarm bells as to the weakness of an exponentially increasing money supply.

  Here is what I’m talking about:

  

  Gold smashed down more than $85 during London trading hours on November 9, 2020. Source: Kitco

  It is very typical for the price fixers (see below) to smash the gold price down (they do this by shorting large amounts of paper gold futures contracts) before the open of U.S. markets – either during Asian (Hong Kong) or London trading sessions.

  Former industry insider and highly credible Peter Hambro forthrightly explains how the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) in London, and the COMEX (the largest American commodities and futures exchange) in New York are complicit in the price fixing (almost exclusively to the down side) of gold.

  Over the past several years, precious metals analyst Roman Manly has also conducted extensive and thorough investigative work about the manipulation of gold and silver prices as has the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA).

  Regarding silver, an article entitled A Silver Price Manipulation Primer by Sprott Money and precious metals writer Craig Hemke offers a good introduction about the fixing of silver prices.

  Lastly, we cannot forget the unabashedly, unfiltered, and outspoken Canadian derivatives expert Rob Kirby who passed away earlier this year (a tribute to his work can be seen via YouTube’s Liberty and Finance channel) who has extensively reported on these illegal price fixing activities on various YouTube channels such as Liberty and Finance.

  Mass Censorship & Search Manipulation

  In 2021, Twitter completely banned and censored the sitting U.S. President, Donald J. Trump – who had over 88 million followers on the platform.

  If a Big Tech outfit like Twitter can outlaw a sitting U.S. President, you can rest assured that they can basically ban and memory-hole anyone. And that, they have done so unabatedly in the past several years.

  Google (the largest search engine in the world by far) who owns a slew of other extremely popular applications used by hundreds of millions of people and media platforms such as YouTube, has been known to employ very deceptive practices over the past several years.

  Many of these involve either directly or indirectly censoring websites and completely banning countless channels – particularly conservative and alternative ones – from their YouTube platform, not to mention shadow-banning. In regards to the later, whistleblower Zack Vorhies, a former Senior Software Engineer at Google, stated that the tech giant was a “highly biased political machine”. The former insider took a cache of documents that provided rather revealing information about the inner workings of their search algorithms, establishing a “single point of truth” for news, and preventing another “Trump situation” in 2020, from ever happening again.

  More recently – and quite convincingly, Dr. Robert Epstein, a Senior Research Psychologist from the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology gave an in-depth interview with The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek (Robert Epstein: Inside Big Tech’s Manipulation Machine and How to Stop It) revealing in a meticulously documented fashion how Google is indeed politically aligned to the left and how it manipulates the thoughts and minds of their users via “ephemeral experiences”. The April 2022 broadcast and podcast for this interview are definitely worth listening to. By listening to it, you will learn a lot about what exactly happens behind the scenes when you use Google search and its various products and services. Alternatively, you can read or consult Dr. Epstein’s full research paper entitled ‘GOOGLE’S TRIPLE THREAT, To Democracy, Our Children, and Our Minds‘ (51-page PDF) published earlier this year.

  

  Full research report by Dr. Epstein’s entitled ‘GOOGLE’S TRIPLE THREAT, To Democracy, Our Children, and Our Minds‘ (PDF)

  Slightly after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, Dr. Epstein had surmised that search engine bias shifted 2-3 million votes in Hillary Clinton’s favor and warned that the number could increase fivefold in the 2020 contest.

  Also back in 2016, it was revealed how Google had censored information about Hillary Clinton’s wrongdoings in their search results compared to other major search engines.

  Whether the call for censoring and shielding Big Tech from scrutiny and legal action comes under the guise of cracking down on misinformation or preserving their censorship power, it nonetheless remains clear that these media behemoths hold tremendous power on the levers of public discourse and the availability of information.

  The Biden Administration has been accused of employing an “army” of officials from multiple government agencies (specifically, the HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General, the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission) to censor information using their contacts in social media. A recent lawsuit – handled by the New Civil Rights Alliance – alleges that very claim. The lawsuit’s plaintiffs’ position begins with their claim and what it seeks [emphasis added]:

  “the Plaintiffs served interrogatories and document requests upon the Government Defendants seeking the identity of federal officials who have been and are communicating with social-media platforms about disinformation, misinformation, malinformation, and/or any censorship or suppression of speech on social media, including the nature and content of those communications.”

  In a recent interview with Joe Rogan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also openly revealed that he followed the censorship orders from the FBI to suppress information related to Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election; all this was under the guise of “Russian Disinformation” and the net effect was that Facebook ended up ranking the information further down their newsfeed which could certainly be seen as election interference and/or political partisanship.  

  I have mentioned in my initial post on Substack, that I espouse the notion that, in essence, there really is no such thing as misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation (or even ‘fake news’ for that matter) – for, it is ALL INFORMATION. If the public is not able to firstly access information and then analyse and discern it for themselves (even with regards to the complex issues of our day), then perhaps we have a bigger problem. Namely, that of a dumbed-down populous unable to critically think for themselves without been spoon fed pre-determined, unquestionable, narratives by “authority” figures.

  in a recent interview, author, journalist, senior editor for The New American, and Epoch Times contributor Alex Newman offers are rather insightful view of not just the current state of censorship, but also the worrying trend of the dumbing-down of population through our degrading school system. As one who has worked in the education sector for 35 years, I can certainly agree with his concern that our youth are not adequately being taught critical-thinking skills in our public school system.

  In Canada, the controversial Bill C-11 (an Act to amend the Broadcasting Act) has been passed by Parliament and is awaiting a second reading in the Senate. Though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that it would help “oppressed communities” and “strengthen trusted news sources in Canada”, many others contend that if passed as law, it will favor government-approved news organizations who are already (and will continue to) receive nearly hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, with the CBC reportedly receiving 1.4 billion in 2021 according to the National Post. Dr. Michael Geist, a law professor and Research Chair (in Internet and E-commerce Law) at the University of Ottawa categorized the government’s defence of the bill as “cartoonishly misleading”. The main concern is that this bill could silence freedom-loving content creators, reports mrcTV. Canadian journalist Dan Dicks from Pressfortruth.ca and social media personality Viva Frei (David Freiheit) have criticized the bill (and even its predecessor bill C-10). It remains to be seen if the bill will pass the Senate to become law.

  2020 Election in the United States

  The 2020 Election was one of the most controversial elections in American history. Coverage about the election varied greatly among major networks and news outlets in the country.

  In my opinion, I have found The Epoch Times coverage of the election to be most accurate and independent.

  All publications have bias in their reporting; that is inevitable due also, in large part, to opinion pieces which in today’s polarized society carry a lot of weight. That being said, I still believe that articles from The Epoch Times have been more objective than many others.

  One of their seasoned contributors, Sharyl Atkinson – an investigative journalist who has reported nationally for CBS News, PBS, CNN – ran an viewpoint article on Dec. 22, 2020 titled 2020 Election Screaming Red Flags That Deserved Criminal Inquiry. Though it was an opinion piece, she provided a fair analysis whereby she pointed out the many claims of election irregularities and fraud and how they should have been taken more seriously and investigated upon by government officials and law enforcement agencies. And since they haven’t been taken seriously, the integrity of the election results comes under great scrutiny. Her piece then lists eight examples of “screaming red flags” that should have prompted thorough criminal inquiries.

  Prior to the election, The Epoch Times had unveiled a very comprehensive exposé titled Spygate: The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump that was very well sourced and referenced. The investigatory work outlined in great detail the concerted plot whereby key members of the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice (DOJ), and officials from the U.S. State Department set up and accused President Trump of colluding with the Russians.

  Various official inquiries such as the very long and costly Special Counsel investigation of 2017-2019 (headed by the very corrupt and compromised Robert Mueller, former Director of the FBI) proved that no foul play had ever occurred between Trump and the Russians.

  What is stated in the previous paragraph is important, for it adds veracity to the claims made about election fraud to the detriment of the incumbent Trump. Why? Because it affirms the motivation by those in power to use the same type of unlawful activities (and collusive partners) to falsify and skew election data.

  Such manipulation of the data, demonstrable by statistical anomalies, (particularly with mail-in ballots) certainly became obvious and apparent during the morning hours following election day when, miraculously, Joe Biden’s numbers soared in key states where Trump was leading. Many outlets had cried afoul to this apparent fraud. Even the head of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Trey Trainor at the time said he believed there was widespread election fraud.

  In addition, the manner in which Big Tech platforms have shown favoritism – before, during, and after the election – is also to be considered in the disputed election results. It is no secret that Google has not been shy about supporting Democratic candidates such as Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden in the past several years; this has been highly documented – with some examples detailed in this work (above). Twitter has also blatantly censored and terminated accounts belonging to conservatives; a case in point here includes them suspending 2020 election audit accounts for multiple states.

  Dominion Voting Systems were used in many states for the election. And much controversy arose surrounding their reliability and accuracy in counting votes, along with hacking (including foreign) vulnerabilities. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) has pointed out that these could affect voting in multiple states. The state of Pennsylvania is suing Dominion Voting Systems alleging “severe issues” with voting data discovered after the 2020 election. And, more recently, the Biden administration is urging a court not to release a sealed report on Dominion Voting Systems. 

  Lastly, the fact that Joe Biden supposedly received 80 million votes – the most votes won by any presidential candidate in US history (which shatters the 69.5 million votes Barack Obama had received in 2008) – remains highly questionable. Even prior to election night, Biden himself was nowhere nearly as popular as his predecessor, Barack Obama. Perhaps there was a larger portion of the population that went out to vote and wanted to vote for the Democratic party regardless of its leader.

  While there still are ongoing investigations at the state level regarding these voting irregularities, it is highly doubtful that much will come out of them. The whole affair has been greatly politicized which taints the judicial review process and proper accounting of votes for the highly-disputed 2020 election.  

  Aerosol Spraying (Geoengineering)

  Of the many alleged conspiracies worth keeping an eye on, Aerosol Spraying (sometimes referred to as ‘Aerial Discharges’ or ‘chemtrails’) – which fits under the larger umbrella of geoengineering – is one of the most troubling and worrisome ones.

  For those not familiar with the subject, geoengineering generally involves modifying the weather for various purposes such as in climate engineering (e.g., cloud seeding to induce rain over drought-stricken areas) or as weather warfare for military purposes – which dates all the way back to the Eisenhower administration in the United States.

  For at least the past two decades, Dane Wigington has been on a crusade to alert the world about this troubling phenomenon due to its extensive use of harmful chemicals. His website GeoengineeringWatch.org contains a substantial amount of credible evidence regarding the dangerous effects that geoengineering practices have on our climate, environment, and populations. Whistleblower testimonies, government reports, and other evidence presented on the site – including numerous photographs and videos – prove that a lot of activities surrounding geoengineering is intended for nefarious and harmful purposes.

  This is not conspiracy theory, but rather indications of a conspiracy to harm populations through weather modification and jet sprayings – sometimes inadequately referred to as ‘chemtrails’.

  I myself have witnessed this phenomenon of jet sprayings over my region in the province of Quebec since my return to Canada in November of 2021. I never saw these spraying prior to the year 2008 before my departure from the country. Since my return, I’ve been witnessing massive spraying occurring over the skies of my region to the tune of three to five times a week, on average. And each day of spraying emanates from around a dozen or more flight by high-altitude aircraft.

  I’ve personally written to my city, the local airport authority in the city, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Transport Canada and none of them have provided concrete answers to my inquiries and to the nature of this phenomenon in general.

  Both my city and Environment and Climate Change Canada have replied to me that these sprayings are merely commercial passenger aircraft exhaust trails, i.e., condensation trails. Anyone who has taken a high-school level physics course will be able to debunk this ludicrous claim that these sprayings – that stretch over kilometers far and wide and that last hours – are due to condensation vapor trails.

  I had asked Environment and Climate Change Canada if these sprayings could be attributed to weather modification programs, and they replied me that none were in effect in the province of Quebec, but that there was one in effect in the province of Alberta. So, if these are not intended for weather modification purposes, then what are they for?

  My subsequent (and very polite, respectful) email inquiries to these Canadian agencies have been mostly ignored. This leaves me to conclude that they are not being forthcoming about the origins of these sprayings and thus appear to be hiding the facts surrounding them.

  

  Aerosol sprayings over the greater City of Sherbrooke (Quebec) area on January 30, 2022

  In addition, for this year alone, I have seen many photographs and videos shared online of these sprayings posted by many Canadians located in different provinces.

  In Canada there have been court cases filed regarding aerosol sprayings. Mass sprayings in the Calgary, Alberta region have lead to a mass-tort case that was filed in Federal Court (see related court documents) in 2016 along with a related appeal in 2018 also at the federal level. The appeal further alleges:

  “the ongoing dispersal into Canadian airspace of aerosols that are harmful to the Canadian public and that is polluting to the Canadian environment, and in respect of which aspects of the scientific community have only relatively recently evaluated in the scientific peer-reviewed literature.”

  The court case mentioned above appears to still be ongoing.

  What is particularly worrisome about these aerosol sprayings is that we don’t know exactly what chemicals are being used and dispersed over our skies.

  The team at GeoengineeringWatch.org has produced many excellent explanatory videos and documentaries, along with a cache of documents to inform the public of what these sprayings are really about and what chemicals are found in them. I highly recommend their introductory video Hacking The Planet: The Climate Engineering Reality.

  Evidence collected by GeoengineeringWatch.org has shown that chemicals and metals used in aerosol sprayings have included aluminum, barium, strontium, graphene, among others.

  

  Home page for GeoengineeringWatch.org

  What is also particularly troubling is that many of these metals and chemicals make their way to ground level from high altitude in the form of nanoparticles – which if breathed in, are tiny enough to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. They are especially harmful to elderly and infant populations whose brains are still in development. In this respect, I highly recommend the work of neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock who describes the harmful effects these chemicals have on the brain.  

  There is also a lot of evidence that suggests that geoengineering is used to modify the climate and could thus be a significant contributor to climate change, increasingly unstable weather systems, and droughts.   

  Lastly, what I find particularly disappointing as a Canadian is the position, albeit one from several years ago, whereby our very famous David Suzuki – one who I admired very much growing up and watching his show The Nature of Things – pretty much described the phenomenon as conspiracy theory posited by “wacky science deniers” in an article entitled David Suzuki on Chemtrails, Conspiracies fuel climate change denial and belief in chemtrails. There are many false assertions in this poorly formulated article, but here are the key ones [emphasis added]:

  “I recently wrote about geoengineering as a strategy to deal with climate change and carbon dioxide emissions. That drew comments from people who confuse this scientific process with the unscientific theory of “chemtrails””.

  Suzuki’s statement bolded above makes no sense. A theory is a theory. There is nothing unscientific about a theory. A theory is a hypothesis assumed for the sake of investigation which is formulated before science is conducted to verify it.

  He continues with the following later in his article:

  “I’m a scientist, so I look at credible science – and there is none for the existence of chemtrails.”

  “They’re condensation trails, formed when hot, humid air from jet exhaust mixes with colder low-vapour-pressure air.”

  Condensation trails? Condensation trails do not drag on over several kilometers and remain suspended for hours at a time; rather, they usually dissolve within several seconds, or a few minutes at the most.

  As for “credible evidence”, these aerosol sprayings have been highly documented over the past several years.

  So, these are the main arguments and explanations from one of Canada’s most renowned scientists?

  Really?

  Sorry Mr. Suzuki, I respectfully disagree with this very perplexing assertion, for it doesn’t hold water! (pun intended)

  And many of the 297 comments generated from this article are in disagreement with Mr. Suzuki’s assessment.

  Author note: I have contacted Mr. Suzuki by email to provide him with an opportunity to re-assert or update his assertions (especially since several years have elapsed since the article was written) but have not received a reply from him as of publishing time.

  Back to the condensation trails, I have personally filmed and photographed many instances of real condensation trails from commercial airliners including those at high altitude; and for these, the trails completely disappear within no more than a minute or so.

  I even have some that show these alongside other – likely non-commercial – aircraft which produce aerosol sprayings that last for kilometers and persist for much longer periods. And this, of course, under the exact same weather conditions.

  Also, I would invite the skeptics to try to find any photographs or videos prior to the 1960s that have these kinds of criss-cross patterns and lengthy and abnormal cloud dispersions over several kilometers in the sky. There are none that I know of; but if any are found, let me know. The oldest ones that I’ve been able to find appeared in a few episodes of the TV series Little House on the Prairie which began in 1974.

  Wouldn’t a scientist who is genuinely concerned about climate change such as David Suzuki (and all others, for that matter) want to consider all factors (including aerosol dispersions) which may contribute to the degradation of our natural environment?

  Questions that remain regarding this inadequately addressed phenomenon include:

  • What is the purpose of these aerosol sprayings?

  • Who is authorizing them?

  • Who is paying for them?

  • What substances (including chemicals) are they spraying?

  • Why aren’t Environment and Climate Change Canada and Transport Canada providing answers to these questions?

  Mini-Guide to Investigating Conspiracies

  “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” – Thomas Jefferson

  Actually, the header for this section is a bit of a misnomer, for it will comprise a broader range of tools and techniques that will enable individuals to do a better job at discerning and validating information.

  The internet is a vast ocean of information and knowledge. There is a lot to take in and it can all be quite overwhelming – especially when social media is included in the mix.

  Many labels such as ‘fake news’, misinformation, and disinformation have been thrown left and right to hastily characterize the validity of information provided by certain parties.

  Of course, this is very subjective and is influenced by many factors such as different kinds of biases, political affiliations, financial interests, and the like. One must judge what one reads based on its own merits without relying on these labels. In other words, begin by removing any of these labels or preconceived assumptions and tackle the information itself.

  I would recommend reading news and information from different sources – whether it be from mainstream media, alternative media, and everywhere in between. Each article or piece of information is unique, was written by an individual (or a few individuals) and should be treated and evaluated as such. Put another way, each article is like an antique. An antique collector will inspect and examine each piece on its own characteristics and merits. Depending on the qualities and flaws observed, the collector will be able to make an objective evaluation for authentication purposes (i.e., Is it real or fake?) We should use the same approach when encountering a piece of information – particularly if it is of a complex, controversial, or disputable nature.

  Another thing we can do is be wary of buzzwords. By buzzwords, I mean words or phrases like ‘right-wing’, ‘left-wing’, ‘conspiracy theorist’, ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, ‘MAGA Republican’, ‘anti-vaxxer’, ‘so-called’, ‘quasi’, and ‘pseudo’. Buzzwords are similar to labels and are often used by writers or TV personalities to indirectly (or subliminally) convey a pre-conceived notion about the subject matter of the information piece. Also be aware that buzzwords’ meanings can vary from one geographical region to another, similar to slang. The idea here is to detect their usage and become cognizant that they may be used to sway the reader’s opinion in a certain direction. So, look out for these – especially when reading headlines to articles or social media posts.

  In today’s very polarized and divided society filled with identity politics, blame and labels will be readily cast upon those who don’t “toe the line” (i.e., go along with a certain narrative, or accept the authority or views of a particular group, sometimes under pressure from that group). We’ve seen a heck of a lot of this in the past couple of years with the Covid-19 Pandemic. Prime examples include the likes of “trust the science”, or “he’s an anti-vaxxer”. For the later, the danger here is that such condescending comments or labels assigned to specific people or groups can not only be harmful, but will too often lead to incorrect assumptions about the target. For instance, if someone refuses to take the Covid-19 vaccine, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s an anti-vaxxer; perhaps, she is willing to take other vaccines, but just not the Covid-19 one. In another prime example we often hear the label “climate change denier” (as with the David Suzuki article referenced earlier) when someone doesn’t (either fully or in part) adhere to the notion of climate change. As this particular topic is very broad and complex, labelling one in such a derogatory fashion proves itself as quite foolish. Writers, TV personalities, news pundits, and social media figures may often attack a person when they cannot invalidate or counter the substance or merits of their claims. Some are very adept at it too which takes the victim by surprise and makes them appear stupid or weak. The trick here, is to not take it personal and let it get to you. Rather, either ignore them, or turn the situation around and ask them to elaborate on the merits of why they disagree with your claim or stance, pressing for facts and evidence to substantiate their assertions.   

  A great question to ask is ‘Cui bono?’ which is Latin for ‘who benefits?’ The phrase originates from the very famous Roman statesman Cicero. Cicero was a brilliant orator, lawyer, philosopher, and politician who lived during the boisterous early years of the Roman Empire when wars, politics, greed, and power dominated the social and political landscapes (as they still do today). One needed to be quite astute in assessing others’ motives based solely on their words and actions. Cicero would often ask this question, cui bono, to better understand the real motivation behind individuals’ or groups’ true intentions. We should do the same, as it seems everyone is out for something to gain. Put simply, we should take some time to question the possible motivations behind what we see, hear, or read.

  

  The Death of Caesar, 1874 steel engraving by J.C. Armytage after J.L. Gérome

  In similar fashion, we should also follow the money. This is particularly useful when looking at information related to the financial markets as well as political and geopolitical happenings. Similar to the previous tool, it guides us towards the underlying motivation(s) – most often of a financial nature – behind what someone is saying or doing. They may be saying one thing, but doing another through their actions, whether they are investments, supporting political candidates or causes, donating to charity, etc.

  Individuals who have received a classical education often fare much better in how they process information and interact with other people. There are key reasons for this. The first is that in this type of education system, students go through a three-step learning process, or system, which stretches from elementary school to middle-school to high-school. These three learning anchors are: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The grammar part is not of the ‘spelling & grammar’ kind; rather, it relates to how one inputs information from the outside world. The logic part refers to how one processes the information obtained. And the rhetoric part is the culmination – being able to communicate and express oneself persuasively. This third part is quite important. Many of the ills and divisions we see in society today is due to the lack of this particular ability. People are far more likely to debate with one another than to have a civil discussion about it.

  In classical education, which has its roots from the ancient Greek philosophers, students communicate using discourse (dialectic/Socratic method). In other words, they have a conversation and use logic and reason to arrive at truth. This is a much more constructive means than to debate or argue in a back-and-forth manner whereby each party wants to be right and win. If people in today’s society would be more respectful towards one another and accept differences in views and opinion, then we could find areas of common agreement and would thus have more peace and unity, as opposed to hatred and division.

  So, the moral of the story here is that we should make an effort to be polite and respectful towards the views and opinions of others, even if they vary from our own or sound crazy. In doing this, we have a much better chance of making allies and gaining the trust of others. Disagreeing with a person is much different than disagreeing with the contents of what they are saying.

  Lastly, here is one more tool that almost all those who receive a classical education learn about – logical fallacies. A logical fallacy, in its simplest form, is a flawed or weak argument or assertion. They are deceptive or false arguments that may seem stronger than they actually are due to psychological persuasion, but are proven wrong with reasoning and further examination. (source) There are many different types of logical fallacies. An example includes Blind Loyalty:

  “The dangerous fallacy that an argument or action is right simply and solely because a respected leader or source (an expert, parents, one’s own “side,” team or country, one’s boss or commanding officers) say it is right. This is over-reliance on authority, a corrupted argument from ethos that puts loyalty above truth or above one’s own reason and conscience. In this case, a person attempts to justify incorrect, stupid or criminal behavior by whining “That’s what I was told to do,” or “I was just following orders.”

  We’ve seen the Blind Loyalty fallacy a lot during the Covid-19 Pandemic. We’ve been told to ‘trust the science’, certain experts in the medical field, health organizations, and so on. Just because something comes from a given expert or an authoritative organization doesn’t necessarily mean it is correct. I remember when I came back to Quebec, Canada last November, the health pamphlets from the provincial health authority listed zero possible side-effect or risks associated with the Covid-19 vaccines. As all vaccines have inherent risks, this information provided by this respective authoritative source was not right, or completely accurate. Critical information was omitted.

  Guilt by Association is another common logical fallacy. Here, one tries to refute or condemn someone’s standpoint, arguments, or actions by evoking negative sentiments of those with whom they associate with. A classic example of this one came about during President Biden’s controversial speech he gave on Sept. 1, 2022 whereby he rendered a large portion of Americans as dangerous ‘MAGA Republicans’; in other words, he positioned many who consider themselves as Republicans to be Trump supporters and some kind of insurrectionists. In Canada, the mainstream media often associated and labelled those who supported the Freedom Convoy protest movement as far-right extremists.

  Many other logical fallacies are employed by those in the media and across social media. These are flawed arguments or assertions that you need to look out for. You need to be able to first recognize them and then you will be in a better position to defend yourself by addressing them for what they are.

  Conclusion

  So, why does society need conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists? Well, it‘s no secret that we’ve been lied to. We’ve been lied to about a lot. And we are still being lied to on a daily basis. This makes it much harder to get to the truth.

  Knowing more about how conspiracies actually work and how past ones have played out can help us to be more vigilant and question more about our perceived reality. Everything happens in the mind. The better we train our minds, the better we can sift through the rubbish and keep what’s real and authentic while discarding what is not.

  Conspiracy theorists are often labelled and demonized – usually because they have demonstrated the courage to speak out, to point out inconvenient or uncomfortable truths. They may lose the support of friends, family, and employers in the process. But they remain true to themselves and who they are at their very core. Therefore, we should encourage them and even strive to duplicate their courage and assertiveness.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/09/2022 – 00:05

• 'The Big One Is Coming': Top US Military Commander Warns American Capabilities "Sinking"
  ‘The Big One Is Coming’: Top US Military Commander Warns American Capabilities “Sinking”

  A top US military commander has warned that the power of America’s military deterrent is ‘fading’ – and that America might not be adequately prepared for a large-scale military engagement.

  “This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said at a conference last week, according to the WSJ Editorial Board.

  “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested” for “a long time.”

  According to Richard, things are getting worse.

  “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are,” he said, adding “as those curves keep going,” it won’t matter “how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are—we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.”

  Note that modifier “near-term.” This is a more urgent vulnerability than most of the political class cares to recognize.

  Adm. Richard noted that America retains an advantage in submarines—“maybe the only true asymmetric advantage we still have”—but even that may erode unless America picks up the pace “getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going.” Building three Virginia-class fast-attack submarines a year would be a good place to start. -WSJ

  Meanwhile, America was caught flat-footed last year when China tested a hypersonic missile that flew around the world. This means that Beijing can put any US city or facility at risk – perhaps without even being detected.

  

  As the Editorial Board aptly notes; How we lost the hypersonic race to China and Russia deserves hearings in Congress.

  Educating the public about U.S. military weaknesses runs the risk of encouraging adversaries to exploit them. But the greater risk today is slouching ahead in blind complacency until China invades Taiwan or takes some other action that damages U.S. interests or allies because Bejiing thinks the U.S. can do nothing about it. -WSJ

  “We used to know how to move fast, and we have lost the art of that,” said Richard, who says the military talks “about how we are going to mitigate our assumed eventual failure” to keep up when it comes to ballistic subs, bombers or long range weapons.

  “What’s it going to take? Is it money? Is it people? Do you need authorities?“

  Whatever it is, at least someone is speaking out.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 23:45

• US To Establish Another New Military Base In Northeast Syria
  US To Establish Another New Military Base In Northeast Syria

  Via The Cradle,

  The US-led international coalition forces operating in northeastern Syria intend to establish a new military base in their controlled areas in the countryside of Raqqa. Local sources said that a convoy of US forces, including several armored military vehicles, arrived in Raqqa city as part of preparations to install a new base in the area.

  On the field, the illegal troops began transferring the logistical equipment and necessary gear to the specified location, coinciding with heavy surveillance drone activity. The US army and international coalition occupy at least 28 declared military sites in Syria, distributed over three provinces, mainly Hasakah (17 sites), Deir Ezzor (nine locations), and Homs (two areas).

  

  The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) released photographs showing the construction of a new base near Al-Raqqa Bridge on the Euphrates River, south of the city. The distribution of Washington’s illegal bases resembles the cordon surrounding the sources of oil and gas located east of the Euphrates River, representing most of Syria’s underground wealth.

  The eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor hosts the most strategic military bases, including the al-Omar oil field base – one of the largest in Syria – and the Conoco gas field base, which are regularly subjected to violent shelling by armed groups affiliated with Iran.

  Nonetheless, the daily bombing prompted Washington to send massive military and logistical reinforcements aboard hundreds of trucks that crossed from Iraq into the US bases in Deir Ezzor, Hasakah, and Raqqa.

  According to the SOHR, US troops recently established another military post in Naqara village, just three kilometers from Qamishli in the northeastern province of Hasakah.

  Footage shows Deir Ezzor, Eastern Syria locals pelting US forces with rocks to make it known they’re no longer welcome in their oil-rich region, following suit of Syrian Arab Army earlier blocking U.S occupation troops from passing through a checkpoint pic.twitter.com/Tave8u5W9B

  — Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) November 6, 2022

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

  The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) constantly blocks US military convoys and patrols attempting to move through their checkpoints in multiple locations across the province, forcing them to turn tail. The Syrian authorities accuse the US of smuggling its oil and selling it abroad to deprive the Syrians of it in a flagrant violation of international law.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 23:25

• 'Arctic Silk Road' Comes Alive As Russia Sends Oil To China
  ‘Arctic Silk Road’ Comes Alive As Russia Sends Oil To China

  Western energy sanctions against Russia have helped Moscow achieve the second-ever sail of a crude tanker east through the Arctic Circle toward China, a route dubbed ‘Arctic Silk Road,’ that could one day revolutionize energy trade flows from Russia to Asia because it’s about half the time versus Russia’s Baltic ports through the Suez Canal. 

  Vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows the Vasily Dinkov, a specialized ice-breaking tanker, departed from Murmansk, a city in northwestern Russia, off the Barents Sea, hauling a cargo of crude. The vessel traversed Russia’s northern coast between Oct. 27 – Nov. 4 and entered the Bering Strait, a strait between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans that separates Alaska and Russia, on Nov. 5.

  

  As of Tuesday morning, the tanker is full speed ahead off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Its final destination is the Chinese port of Rizhao on Nov. 17.

  

  “The journey is the shortest passage between Europe and east Asia, taking half the time to reach China from Russia’s Baltic ports than the conventional route through the Suez Canal,” Bloomberg said. 

  Even before the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions on Moscow, trade flows were already in the beginning stages of shifting towards the Northern Sea Route. 

  In 2017, we noted, “transit routes through the Arctic will assume a certain level of importance vis-à-vis the global geopolitics of Russia and China.” 

  Visual Capitalist’s Nicholas LePan published a map of all the critical routes and resources in the Arctic in 2019. 

  

  In early 2020, we detailed how Russia, owner of the world’s largest fleet of icebreakers, can plow through Arctic waters, clearing the way for vessels to traverse the northern routes. 

  And last year, we cited Minister of National Resources and Environment Dmitry Kobylkin, who said cargo shipping in Russia’s northernmost territorial waters would top 80MM tons as early as 2024. 

  However, there are significant logistical hurdles that rely entirely on weather conditions. 

  Richard Matthews, head of research at E.A. Gibson Shipbrokers Ltd. in London, told Bloomberg that the Northern Sea Route is only viable in the warmer period of the year. 

  “It looks unlikely that any significant volumes could be shipped along this route until summer,” Matthews said.

  But Viktor Katona, a lead crude analyst at Kpler, said once spring arrives, the Northern Sea Route will be of “vital prevalence”: 

  “Europe is already sealed off.

  “If they’re not buying, why circumnavigate the entire universe if you can use the Northern Sea Route to get to China in 20 days?” Katona said.

  The first crude shipment across the Northern Sea Route took place in 2019. The second is currently underway. And as Western sanctions against Moscow rejigger global energy supply chains, Russia will have an advantage via the Arctic during warmer periods of the year in sending crude and crude products to Asia in an expedited fashion. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 23:05

• Court Orders Release Of 'True The Vote' Leaders From Jail
  Court Orders Release Of ‘True The Vote’ Leaders From Jail

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

  Two leaders of True the Vote organization will be released from jail after an appeals court overruled a judge’s order that they be locked up.

  

  Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips were ordered released by a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit late Nov. 6.

  “IT IS ORDERED that Petitioners’ opposed motion for release from detention is GRANTED pending further order of this court,” the panel said in the order, which was obtained by The Epoch Times.

  The panel consisted of Circuit Judges Catharina Haynes, a George W. Bush appointee; Kurt Engelhardt, a Trump appointee; and Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee.

  Engelbrecht and Phillips were expected to be released on Nov. 7, a spokesman for True the Vote told The Epoch Times via email on Monday morning.

  “They will be released when the paperwork is complete, probably sometime this morning,” the spokesman said.

  Engelbrecht and Phillips were imprisoned on Oct. 31 after U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Reagan appointee, found them in contempt of court for not revealing the identities of people who were with them when information was accessed from Konnech, a Michigan-based election management software company whose founder was recently arrested for allegedly stealing poll worker data and hosting it on servers in China.

  The order for confinement was to be in place until the defendants “fully comply” with an order that they reveal certain information, including the identities, Hoyt said.

  Engelbrecht and Phillips say they passed on information that was legally obtained from Konnech to the FBI. One of their attorneys named one of the individuals in question, Mike Hasson, during an October hearing. But they have declined to share the name of the second person. Both the individuals are FBI informants, Phillips said during one hearing.

  “Those who thought that imprisoning Gregg and I would weaken our resolve have gravely miscalculated. It is stronger than ever,” Engelbrecht said in a statement. “The right to free and fair elections without interference is more important than our own discomforts and even this detention, now reversed by a higher court.”

  “We are profoundly grateful for that. We will continue to protect and defend those who do the vital work of election integrity, and we will make sure that their findings become a matter of public record,” she added.

  The imprisonment order came after Konnech sued True the Vote and its founders for defamation.

  Hoyt entered a temporary restraining order against the defendants, ordering them to return all property and data to Konnech and identify people who were involved in accessing the company’s computers.

  In their filing for release from detention, Engelbrecht and Phillips said that Hoyt’s confinement order “represents a clear abuse of discretion and a manifest miscarriage of justice.”

  “Petitioners pray that this Court enter an Order releasing them from the district court’s draconian order of detention for refusing to identity a federal confidential informant in open court whose identity in any event has no bearing on the merits of this defamation case hinging on competing accounts of alleged historical events,” they added.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 22:45

• Lasers Can "Hack" Self-Driving LiDAR Sensors, Creating False "Blind Spots", New Study Reveals
  Lasers Can “Hack” Self-Driving LiDAR Sensors, Creating False “Blind Spots”, New Study Reveals

  In what is likely going to be another thorn in the side of Elon Musk, Tesla and Autopilot, it was revealed in a report last week that many self-driving features in vehicles can be “messed with” using lasers. 

  A brand new study that was put together and uploaded in late October, called “You Can’t See Me: Physical Removal Attacks on LiDAR-based Autonomous Vehicles Driving Frameworks” made the revelation, which was also reported on by Cosmos Magazine. 

  Researchers in the U.S. and Japan found that vehicles could be tricked into not seeing pedestrians (or other objects in their way) using lasers. These cars, which use LiDAR to sense objects around them, send out laser lights and then use the reflection back to judge how far away objects are. 

  The study revealed that a perfectly timed laser shone back into a LiDAR system can create “a blind spot large enough to hide an object like a pedestrian,” according to Cosmos. 

  The study’s abstract says: “While existing attacks on LiDAR-based autonomous driving architectures focus on lowering the confidence score of AV object detection models to induce obstacle misdetection, our research discovers how to leverage laser-based spoofing techniques to selectively remove the LiDAR point cloud data of genuine obstacles at the sensor level before being used as input to the AV perception. The ablation of this critical LiDAR information causes autonomous driving obstacle detectors to fail to identify and locate obstacles and, consequently, induces AVs to make dangerous automatic driving decisions”

  

  University of Florida cyber security researcher professor Sara Rampazzi commented: “We mimic the LIDAR reflections with our laser to make the sensor discount other reflections that are coming in from genuine obstacles.”

  “The LIDAR is still receiving genuine data from the obstacle, but the data are automatically discarded because our fake reflections are the only one perceived by the sensor,” she continued. 

  Any laser used in this manner would not only have to be perfectly timed, but would have to move with the vehicle, the report says. 

  University of Michigan computer scientist Yulong Cao, co-author of the report, said: “Revealing this liability allows us to build a more reliable system. In our paper, we demonstrate that previous defence strategies aren’t enough, and we propose modifications that should address this weakness.”

  The research will be presented at the 2023 USENIX Security Symposium, the report says. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 22:25

• Locomotive Machinists Narrowly Approve Ratification Of Labor Agreement
  Locomotive Machinists Narrowly Approve Ratification Of Labor Agreement

  By Joanna Marsh of FreightWaves

  Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 19 narrowly approved the ratification of a labor agreement that has been nearly three years in the making.

  Fifty-two percent voted in favor of accepting the agreement, IAM said Saturday. About 59% of IAM’s membership voted. Overall membership totals about 4,900 workers, who serve as locomotive machinists, roadway mechanists and facility maintenance personnel for the railroads.

  

  The union, which spoke to FreightWaves this week about the contract negotiation process, said it was “confident that this is the best deal for our members” while acknowledging that the contract didn’t have universal appeal. 

  “Our union recognizes that the agreement wasn’t accepted overwhelmingly, so our team will continue conversing with our members at our rail yards across the nation,” the union said in a statement Saturday. “This agreement is the first step in addressing some of the issues in our industry.”

  IAM also said leadership “worked night and day to communicate the agreement’s benefits and what would happen if it was rejected.”

  “Our fight was able to shine a light on the work-life balance issues as well as the lack of proper paid sick leave. Our union will continue to amplify the deficiencies in the carriers’ sick leave and attendance policies,” IAM said.

  The National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC), the group representing the freight railroads, said it was pleased with IAM’s voting results.

  “The IAM agreement, like the agreements with six other rail unions that have already ratified, implements the recommendations of Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) No. 250, including the largest wage package in nearly five decades, maintains rail employees’ platinum-level health benefits, and adds an additional day of paid time off for IAM-represented workers,” NCCC said.

  “The successful result announced today follows an initial unsuccessful ratification attempt by the IAM last month. The ratified agreement is consistent with the framework recommended by the PEB,” NCCC continued, noting that this latest agreement followed one that was rejected by IAM’s membership in September. Representatives for IAM and the railroads went back to the negotiating table after that to com up with this latest iteration. 

  According to IAM, the revised ratified agreement will include a cap in healthcare costs and addresses issues related to single-room occupancy and travel expenses and per diem. 

  The agreement also includes plans to conduct a joint study with the railroads on overtime and overtime policies, as well as a “me-too” clause in which IAM would receive the same provisions should there be another agreement that appears to improve upon IAM’s agreement. 

  A new labor agreement for each of the 12 unions has been in the works since January 2020, but negotiations between the unions and the railroads failed to progress. In July, President Joe Biden appointed three independent experts to serve on the PEB, which conducted hearings and received testimony from stakeholders about how the unions and railroads could resolve the impasse. PEB issued its recommendations, which were meant to serve as a jumping-off point for a new contract.

  So far, seven unions have ratified their agreements, while another three still need to vote on whether to ratify their tentative agreements, according to NCCC. Two of the three include the two biggest unions representing train conductors and engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division (SMART-TD). 

  Two other unions, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way-Employes Division (BMWED) and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, recently voted to reject their tentative agreements, and so both are back at the bargaining table with the railroads.

  BMWED could initiate a work stoppage as early as Nov. 19, but that would be before BLET and SMART-TD would have completed voting on their tentative agreements, NCCC said. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 22:05

• Sam Bankman "Fried" Nearly All Of His $16 Billion Fortune
  Sam Bankman “Fried” Nearly All Of His $16 Billion Fortune

  Binance’s Changpeng Zhao appears to have cast the death blow on competitor FTX and its “billionaire” founder/CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried’s fall from grace has been one of the more stunning losses of net worth in recent history. Despite there likely being issues under the surface prior to Tuesday, a massive $6 billion in withdrawals forced the company into a liquidity crisis. Its FTT token then crashed before SBF reached out to nemisis Zhao at Binance for a bailout. 

  The situation culminated in all of crypto crashing on Tuesday – including pulling down the entire stock market at points – and Bankman Fried losing a substantial portion of his net worth, according to Bloomberg. In fact, reports say he has lost 94% of his $16 billion fortune. 

  

  His fortune was $26 billion at its peak, the report says, but the future of it all is now “in doubt”. Now, in a eulogy out Tuesday afternoon, Bloomberg says his fortune “will be annihilated at the hands of his billionaire rival”. Going down with the SBF ship are investors like Softbank’s Vision Fund (of course), Temasek and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. which had $400 million invested in FTX at a $32 billion valuation. 

  SBF had a 53% stake in FTX that was worth about $6.2 billion prior to the week’s events. The other $7.4 billion of his fortune was tied up in Alameda Research, which now appears to be completely insolvent. Bloomberg’s prognosis was bleak, to say the least:

  “The Bloomberg wealth index assumes existing FTX investors, including Bankman-Fried, will be completely wiped out by Binance’s bailout, and that the root of the exchange’s problems stemmed from Alameda. As a result, both FTX and Alameda are given a $1 value. “

  They estimate that SBF’s remaining fortune will be about $1 billion, or a loss of 94%. We’re guessing SBF is going to need some of that remaining $1 billion for legal expenses, too. 

  Competitor Zhao – now at the top of the crypto heap, at least for the time being – had a fortune was as high as $97 billion back in January 2022. 

  Recall, we have followed the FTX/Binance story all day today – you can read our coverage and wrap up of the day’s events here. 

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 21:45

• New York Concealed Carry Law Ruled Unconstitutional Again
  New York Concealed Carry Law Ruled Unconstitutional Again

  Submitted by Gun Owners Of America.,

  Gun Owners of America secured a historic victory in the battle for gun rights on Monday when New York Judge Glenn Suddaby issued a preliminary injunction suspending many parts of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA). 

  This victory follows Gun Owners of America & Gun Owners Foundation securing a temporary restraining order against the aforementioned CCIA in October, which a federal appeals court then blocked.

  Happy Election Day Eve, Gov. Hochul. One loss today and hopefully another tomorrow!

  Both would be a win for the Second Amendment! https://t.co/ziOroPDjw3

  — Erich Pratt (@erichmpratt) November 7, 2022

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

  This ruling enjoins many of the worst provisions of New York’s ignorantly titled “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” such as the “good moral character” clause which allowed licensing officials to not only infringe on applicants Second Amendment rights, but also their First and Fourth Amendment rights by demanding they disclose social media accounts and personal relationships. 

  Judge Suddaby also struck down many of the so-called “sensitive location” gun bans including all places of worship, buses, public parks, and many more.

  Court strikes down gun bans at:
  – “public parks, and zoos”
  – “airports”
  – “busses”
  – bars
  – “theaters”
  – “conference centers”
  – “banquet halls” pic.twitter.com/NK7PweZgc4

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 8, 2022

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

  The entire ‘restricted locations’ applying to private property was enjoined, as well.. This law made it so that ALL private property was considered a gun-free zone. To allow concealed carry permit holders to exercise their rights, a private property owner would have been required to prominently display a sign that guns are welcome, the complete opposite of the rest of the country. This was government overreach on private property and was rightfully struck down.

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

  GOA’s attorneys of record, Rob Olson and Stephen Stamboulieh, took on an army of anti-gun lawyers to defeat New York in an uphill court battle spanning the past few months.  

  This decision also has national repercussions. New York has been a testing ground for ways to get around the NYSRPA v. Bruen Supreme Court decision since the High Court handed it down in late June. States like New Jersey have passed similar restrictions and have closely watched GOA’s legal challenge to New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act. Some states and localities are even waiting to pass such legislation pending the outcome of GOA’s challenge.

  This victory sends a clear message to those anti-gun states that the courts will overturn unjust laws that infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens.

  Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, had this to say:

  “Just like we warned politicians after the Bruen decision, fall in line, or we will force you to. We are excited to see Kathy Hochul finally served a plate of humble pie, and we are fully prepared to continue the fight should she again attempt to disarm the citizens of her state at a time when her party’s policies are only escalating the danger that everyday citizens face.” 

  They fail. pic.twitter.com/qKgSwRZaEN

  — Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 7, 2022

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

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  *   *   *

  [ZH: While Gun Owners of America rolled back most ‘sensitive place’ restrictions where people are barred from carrying concealed firearms, there are separate lawsuits concerning Times Square and subways, which weren’t included in this decision.]

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 21:25

• A Net 17 Percent Say They Will Spend Less This Holiday Season
  A Net 17 Percent Say They Will Spend Less This Holiday Season

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  17 percent believe they will spend less this year. Many are stressed over gifts and even the Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner…

  

  Graphic courtesy of Morning Consult

  A Morning Consult offers a First Look at Consumers’ 2022 Holiday Plans

  Key Takeaways 

  • Financial Service: To avoid going into debt this holiday season, consumers are being smarter about budgeting in advance and are more likely to favor a BNPL approach to cover holiday expenses over opening a new credit card. Though shoppers are feeling inflation’s pinch, spending levels will look similar to last year. 

  • Retail and E-Commerce: Consumers will be looking for the best deals and making compromises so they can keep their holiday spending in check. While that may have previously been good for Black Friday retailers, less than half of shoppers plan to to take advantage of the sale event. 

  • Travel and Hospitality: Travelers will need to make tradeoffs to combat cost concerns. Americans are looking forward to holiday travel after two years of scaled-back celebrations, but cost has replaced COVID as an influential factor. To avoid overspending, travelers plan to shorten trips, bunk with relatives and leverage points and rewards to cover costs. 

  • Food and Beverage: Purchasing holiday groceries will be a stressor for some, but most feel excited about celebrations. Despite inflation, most consumers plan on sticking to a consistent foods and drinks budget. Hosts from different generations approach their holiday celebrations differently, an important factor for brands to consider.  

  Stressed Over Groceries 

  

  Looking for Deals 

  • As a result of inflation, 82% of shoppers say they intend to look for more deals and discounts, while 72% plan to look for less expensive alternatives. 

  • Millennials, the generation most worried about their finances this holiday season, are most likely to seek these lower-cost tradeoffs.  

  56 Percent Plan to Give Gift Cards 

  

  Gift cards are practical. But cash is even more practical. 

  Regarding gift cards, I wonder “why bother?” 

  You give a gift card and get a gift card. Why not just stop the exchange and say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever greeting you prefer?

  OK , if its a targeted gift card to a sporting goods specialty store the money goes to an designated idea. But what if the recipient would rather have something else?

  Things like Harry & David fruit baskets, Omaha Steaks, and numerous cheese shops are ridiculously expensive for what you get. 

  My suggestion, other than gifts for your kids: Just stop. And tell your kids you don’t want anything other than to see them more often if that is indeed the case. 

  Buy Now Pay Later 

  

  BNPL vs Credit Card 

  I don’t understand this pairing at all. What does difference does a new credit card vs an old one make? 

  OK. For those who carry a balance, the initial purchase on a new card does not have interest for a month.

  But if you are carrying a balance month after month, you are already spending too much. 

  Will You Spend Less or More?

  Holiday Spending Plans vs 2021
  How much do you expect to spend?

  — Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) November 6, 2022

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

  Mish Suggestions and Tips

  If you routinely carry a credit card balance, then look in the mirror and admit that you are a sucker. 

  Instead of giving or getting presents pay down your debt.

  BNPL is a trap. You pay in installments, but with few exceptions you will be paying built-in credit fees that may be even worse than credit card fees. 

  Stressed over holiday groceries? Then make lasagna or stuffed shells or something you don’t normally cook to make it special. Jumbo shells stuffed with ricotta cheese and pepperoni bits would probably look special, be very inexpensive, tasty, and provide as many leftovers as you want. 

  Slice and cook the pepperoni first and drain the grease. You can put some pepperoni inside each shell or cover the tops of the shells with pepperoni and a layer of mozzarella cheese. 

  Want another food suggestion? Try Rock Cornish hens stuffed with rice instead of a big turkey. 

  If you are stressed over groceries, then you have to be stressed over everything else as well.

  My number one stress-reducing recommendation is simple: Just stop the gifts except for the kids, and then don’t splurge.

  Other than the kids, only buy what you can afford and would have purchased anyway. Then wrap it up if you want, and give it to yourself tagged from whomever. Then you get exactly what you want, no exchanges necessary. 

  For many, exchanging gifts is a stressful waste of time, energy, and money. So stop!

  But if you can afford to exchange and it makes you happy, then go ahead. Be happy.

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 20:45

• Citadel's Ken Griffin Touts Florida As "Great Environment And Streets Are Safe And Clean"
  Citadel’s Ken Griffin Touts Florida As “Great Environment And Streets Are Safe And Clean”

  Before we dive into the latest comments of Citadel’s billionaire founder, Ken Griffin, praising Florida for all its beauty after he moved his firm from the hellhole of Chicago. We want to remind readers about the events that led to Griffin’s decision. 

  In May, Griffin was becoming increasingly frustrated with the eruption in violent crime across Chicago and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inability to solve those issues. 

  At the time, he said, “We’re getting to the point that if things don’t change, we’re gone. Things aren’t changing.” 

  By June, Griffin sent a letter to Citadel employees that he had moved to Florida and that his market-making business, Citadel Securities, would also migrate to Miami. He noted in the letter that he views Florida as a better corporate environment, and though he didn’t specifically cite crime as a factor, company officials said it was a consideration.

  Later that month, Bloomberg reported the new headquarters of Citadel would be at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive. The secret deal to obtain the property closed in April and was shielded from the public by a limited liability company with a Chicago mailing address.  

  In mid-August, CNBC noted Griffin had already spent a billion dollars on Florida real estate. This includes the plot of land for the new headquarters building and a massive estate in Palm Beach. 

  

  On Monday, Griffin, now Florida’s richest man, spoke with Francis Suarez, Miami’s Republican mayor, who said the real reason he moved his market-making operation and residence to South Florida wasn’t because of taxes but the positive atmosphere, according to Bloomberg. 

  “It’s gonna get me thrown out of here, but taxes weren’t part of our decision to come to Florida.

  “When you’ve got great schools, a great environment and your streets are safe and clean, that’s when you’ve got a place you want to live in and call home.

  “There’s something very special about the government in Florida and their focus on delivering traditional values for the community,” he told Suarez in a conversation. 

  Griffin is one of the most high-profile individuals to pack up his bags and head to a conservative-friendly state after living in a progressive-run city that had social justice reforms backfire and spark even more violent crime. 

  The billionaire isn’t alone. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of everyday Americans have made the same decision to flee imploding liberal-run cities in the last few years because of high taxes and socio-economic collapses. Many have fled to more prosperous and safer conservative-run cities. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 20:25

• Oman's Energy Minister: It's Foolish To Assume Renewables Can Meet Global Demand
  Oman’s Energy Minister: It’s Foolish To Assume Renewables Can Meet Global Demand

  Authored by Svetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

  The world’s energy needs will only grow, and it would be “foolish” to think that rising demand can be met with renewables alone, Oman’s Energy Minister Salim Al-Aufi told CNBC on Tuesday.  

  Oman’s energy minister tells CNBC’s @_hadleygamble it would be “foolish” to assume that the world’s growing energy needs can be met with renewables. pic.twitter.com/BL0TUcWhFz

  — CNBC Middle East (@CNBCMiddleEast) November 8, 2022

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

  Energy needs to be affordable and this is the first pillar of energy supply when the energy transition is concerned, the minister said.  

  Oman’s official also defended, again, the OPEC+ decision to reduce the headline target oil production by 2 million barrels per day (bpd) as of this month, saying that the group is proactive in trying to balance the market.

  Al-Aufi also said that he wasn’t surprised by the U.S. blowback after the OPEC+ decision was announced.

  “It was expected,” he told CNBC.

  Referring to the energy transition and renewables, Oman, like many Middle Eastern oil and gas producers, believes that all forms of energy will be needed to meet the world’s growing energy demand in the coming years and decades.

  

  Back in September, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said that years of underinvestment, a lack of a backup plan, and alternatives not ready to step up and replace conventional energy are the real causes of this state of energy insecurity today.

  The world and policymakers need a more credible energy transition plan, which has to recognize that “supplies of ample and affordable conventional energy are still required over the long-term,” Nasser said in a speech at the Schlumberger Digital Forum 2022 in Switzerland. Aramco’s CEO reiterated the long-held view of Saudi Arabia that the world will need oil and gas for the foreseeable future and will need more investment in the industry just to keep supply steady amid declining output from maturing wells, and even more investment to boost production capacity to meet the world’s energy needs.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 20:05

• China Cancels Top EU Official's High-Profile Video Address For Ukraine War Comments
  China Cancels Top EU Official’s High-Profile Video Address For Ukraine War Comments

  European Council president Charles Michel was set to deliver an address at the opening day of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) hosted in Shanghai on Friday, but Chinese authorities have pulled the pre-recorded video address in a very brazen act of censorship of a top official and diplomat, Reuters reports.

  “As requested by the Chinese authorities, we had indeed provided a pre-recorded message which was ultimately not shown. We have addressed this through the normal diplomatic channels,” a statement from EC President Michel’s office confirmed. 

  

  The high-profile speech was likely canceled by Chinese authorities as it was expected to criticize Russia’s war in Ukraine while also provocatively urging the European Union to reduce trade dependency on China.

  What’s more is that he was expected to call on Beijing to pressure Moscow to halt the ongoing attack on Ukraine, and heap criticism of the Russia-China “no-limits” partnership declared just before the war’s start in February. 

  According to statements from diplomatic sources cited in Reuters, the rebuke of Russia was going to be scathing, at an event where President Xi Jinping is to speak as well: 

  Mr Michel’s speech included strong criticism of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. “In Europe, we want balance in our trade relations… to avoid over-dependencies,” his speech said, reported Reuters citing the diplomats familiar with what he was to say.

  “This is also true of our trade relations with China.”

  “China has a role in using its influence to stop Russia’s brutal war… through your so-called ‘no-limits’ partnership with Russia,” Mr Michel was to say, referring to a pact announced by Mr Xi and Mr Putin in Beijing before the war began.

  “You, China, can help put an end to this.”

  Xi and Michel are expected to meet in person next week at the G-20 summit in Bali. Biden will also meet with Xi – a moment that will drive headlines, likely overshadowing everything else.

  #Chinese authorities behind a major trade expo in Shanghai pull an address by the #EU chief #CharlesMichel that was set to criticize Russia’s “illegal war” in Ukraine and call for reduced trade dependency on China, diplomats say.https://t.co/qb3TIFz2lQ

  — Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) November 8, 2022

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

  But a Sunday report in the South China Morning Post noted that “Beijing has yet to officially confirm either Xi’s attendance at the summit or a meeting with Biden, who will be in Bali from November 13 to 16.”

  If it happens, it will be the first face-to-face meeting with Xi since Biden took office in 2021. According to the US side, via US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, “There’s an awful lot of issues for us to talk to China about. Some issues are fairly contentious and some should be collaborative.” The US confirmed ongoing intense discussions and planning with the Chinese side for the meeting.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 19:46

• Election Night Results: FL "Catastrophic" For Dems, Abbot Wins TX, Vance Takes OH
  Election Night Results: FL “Catastrophic” For Dems, Abbot Wins TX, Vance Takes OH

  Polls have now closed in a number of states and while the percentage of votes counted remains low, official media sources have called a number of seats. The Senate remains a tossup, but The House is swinging increasingly likely to the Republicans.

  

  Asked about what he thinks about the number of prospects he has endorsed in tonight’s race, former President Trump remarked with a smile on his face: 

  “Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.”

  Former President Donald Trump said if Republicans he backed win, he “should get all the credit… But it will probably be just the opposite.” Watch the interview tonight at 6p/5C — find your channel: https://t.co/ZH35VUp1Ik #Election2022 pic.twitter.com/nDTEM1uWOf

  — NewsNation (@NewsNation) November 8, 2022

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

  There were 45,920,446 early votes cast in the elections, according to the latest tally by the University of Florida’s United States Elections Project. That includes 20,487,803 in-person early votes and 25,432,643 mail ballots returned.

  If you’re looking for a Democrat bellwether, The NYC Board of Elections says about 1.4 million voters have been to a polling station, that’s down from 2.1 million voters in 2018, but there are still a few hours left to go.

  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins her NYC district, the AP says.

  Kemp is leading Abrams in the GA Governor race…

  

  Abbott dominated Beto in the Texas Governor race…

  

  NBC has called Ohio for JD Vance

  

  GA & PA are still too close to call…

  

   

  Something “odd” happening in PA…

  

  However, Florida is flashing a even brighter red warning signal for Democrats.

  • Fox, CNN, NBC all projecting Republican Senator Marco Rubio wins re-election in Florida.

  • CBS, NBC projecting GOP Governor Desantis Wins Re-Election in Florida.

  David Plouffe, the former Obama election chief, calls the Florida numbers tonight “catastrophic” – and hugely problematic for Democrats if this keeps up in 2024.

  “In Florida, it’s catastrophic. Obviously, we saw greater urgency in 20 in the presidential race. Let’s remember, Barack Obama won in 2012, basically tied the Cuban vote, got over 77% of Hispanic votes. The Obama coalition in Florida is gone. We have to rebuild it now,”

  The Democrats spent $70 million dollars to lose STATEWIDE by like 15 points!

  Are you claiming that when Spain drew the borders of Florida in the 1700s it was to help the GOP 300 + years later? pic.twitter.com/qlFMgNBybS

  — Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) November 9, 2022

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

  In the Senate:

   

  

  Source

  In the House:

  Based on their current race projections, Decision Desk HQ says Republicans have an 86% chance of winning a U.S. House majority.

  Republicans have already flipped a seat tonight — in Guam. The island territory elected Republican James Moylan to be its non-voting delegate, according to results from the Guam Election Commission. With all 67 precincts reporting, Moylan won with 52.19% of the vote, beating Democrat Judith T. Pat, who received 47.15%. The last time Guam was represented by a Republican was 1993.

  

  Source

  As a reminder, Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats in 1994, Barack Obama lost 63 in 2010 and Rabobank forecasts Democrats to lose 75 seats in this election.

  Watch live:

  What time do polls close?

  

  *  *  *

  Well, you’ve done your patriotic duty to uphold democracy across the union and now all that is left is to sit back and watch the completely error-free results of the Midterm elections quickly roll in as the billions of dollars spent on people and machines to enhance voting integrity and accuracy are shown as being well spent.

  Of course, that’s all ridiculous as the mainstream media and Democrat apparatchiks have already set the narrative that ‘we, the people’ should not expect the results tonight (like Brazil managed?) or in fact any time soon.

  I’d like to note once again that Brazil — with a population of similar size to the US (especially with mandatory voting and a voting age of 16) — counted all votes nationwide in every race within 3 hours after the polls closed. Every race was decided that night. https://t.co/8phpLUQA6j

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 7, 2022

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

  Around 44 million people had cast their ballots early for the midterm elections as of November 7. Of those, roughly 20 million people voted in person nationwide, while more than 24 million returned their ballot by mail. This is around a 13 percent increase from 2018, when the last midterms were held. Then, a total of 39 million ballots were counted, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Analysts claim that this could be interpreted as a good sign for Democrats, as in past years the party’s followers have been more likely to vote ahead. While even with these figures it is unclear what the midterm results will be, it does show that there is an increase in political engagement in several states. As The Washington Post notes, 2.5 million people had voted in person early on Friday in Georgia this year when early voting ended, far surpassing the 1.9 million who cast their ballot early in 2018.

  It is worth noting that in some states, for example in Vermont and Hawaii, early voting was much higher than in the last midterms because these states changed the law to make it easier to vote early by mail. In 2018, Hawaii moved to all mail-in, which explains the state’s high figures. Vermont in 2021 changed its law to mail out ballots to all active voters without the need to request.

  The U.S. Elections Project was last updated on 7 November, with states showing the latest available data.

  Remember this chart…

  

  As a reminder, in 2020, 42 states and Washington, D.C., had reported enough results for news organizations to project winners in the presidential race by about 3:00 a.m. Eastern.

  

  But eight states took longer. Six of them — all but Alaska and Michigan — have competitive Senate races this year that could determine the balance of power in Congress.

  

  Of course, before we get to what to watch for tonight, we can’t let the elephant in the room go.

  We have seen ‘voting issues’ across multiple states today with 20% of Maricopa County (AZ) machines non-functioning at one point.

  

  So, don’t hold your breath for any real final answers tonight. However, while there are a handful of key races to watch, we note that Axios details seven bellwethers which will help navigate the results as they drip-drip-drip in tonight to see whether Republicans are gaining a foothold in parts of the country that have long eluded them, for example, and the types of Democrats who can win even when the odds would seem to be stacked against them.

  1. The best early bellwether: Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s (D-Va.) race against Republican Yesli Vega, in the exurbs outside Washington, D.C., will offer a clear early signal of the national political mood.

  • A pragmatic Democrat with a national security background, Spanberger has condemned her party’s left wing early and often On Saturday, she was endorsed by vocal Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

  • Vega reflects the under-the-radar diversity of the GOP’s recruiting class — a Latina candidate who serves as a county supervisor and has a law enforcement background.

  • Polls close in Virginia early (7 p.m. ET) and the state typically counts ballots quickly. Spanberger’s early victory in 2018 foreshadowed the Democratic wave that year. If Republicans return the favor in 2022, it would be a sign of a wave in the opposite direction.

  2. The most important county: Miami-Dade, Florida.

  • Republicans are confident that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio will comfortably win their re-elections, but the bigger dynamic to follow is their margin of victory in the state’s most populous, majority-Hispanic county.

  • Miami-Dade County hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988 and hasn’t backed a GOP governor since 2002 (Jeb Bush). Rubio hasn’t won an outright majority in his home county for his Senate races, either.

  • But both have a chance to win in Miami-Dade — result that would signal a GOP landslide and provide rocket fuel for a potential DeSantis presidential campaign.

  3. The Democrat best-positioned to survive a red wave: Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who is still running neck-and-neck against Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett.

  • Even as many Democratic colleagues in bluer territory look awfully vulnerable, Slotkin is holding her own in one of the most expensive House battlegrounds.

  • If Slotkin runs against the tide, she’ll credit Liz Cheney’s endorsement for pushing some suburban swing voters her way. But if Barrett defeats the two-term lawmaker, he’ll be reflective of the new MAGA-aligned Republican majority.

  4. The upset to watch: The New York governor’s race.

  • It’s hard to imagine deep-blue New York electing a Republican governor — especially one who has been closely aligned with former President Trump.

  • But Gov. Kathy Hochul’s tone-deaf reaction to voters concerned about crime is giving Republican Lee Zeldin a fighting chance.

  5. Rare Democratic bright spot: Kansas.

  • Kansas was one of the first signs of a backlash to aggressive abortion restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling this past summer.

  • Even as Democrats are struggling in some deep-blue states, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is running competitively against Republican state Attorney General Derek Schmidt, according to strategists from both parties.

  • Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas), representing a suburban Kansas City district that Republicans drew to their favor in redistricting, is also in a strong position. A NYT/Siena poll this week showed Davids leading Republican Amanda Adkins by 15 points in a Biden +5 district.

  6. The races that will settle the Mitch McConnell-Rick Scott feud: Arizona and New Hampshire.

  • The cash-flush, McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund decided not to spend in Arizona and pulled out of the New Hampshire race in October. The super PAC’s reason: It was more important to spend in the races that will decide the Senate majority, rather than gambling on candidates who may be general-election liabilities.

  • Scott’s allies, meanwhile, view McConnell as overly cautious and worry Republicans will miss an opportunity to take advantage of the GOP wave in two swing states, even with flawed nominees.

  • If Blake Masters and Don Bolduc win without much establishment help, they’ll likely be thorns in McConnell’s side if he becomes majority leader.

  7. Biggest demographic shift: Working-class Hispanic voters.

  • Republicans are growing bullish that they’ll make significant inroads in Hispanic-heavy parts of the country, where concerns about crime and the economy are creating a wedge against their traditional Democratic affiliation.

  • “Everyone is seeing that the Hispanic districts have been two, three, four clicks to the right compared to their historical performance,” said one GOP official tracking House races. “They’re coming in red hot Republican.”

  • The American Enterprise Institute demographics tracker finds the Democratic congressional margin among Hispanic voters 7-9 points below its 2020 level and 17-19 points below its 2018 level.

  • Key areas to watch for as a sign of the Hispanic shift right: Nevada, the Rio Grande Valley in Texas (where Republicans are hoping to sweep three majority-Hispanic districts), and Colorado’s 8th district, a newly created seat outside Denver.

  Finally, while it sounds odd, Alex Berenson makes an interesting point as to why Democrats should be hoping they get crushed.

  Tactically, they need a loss so big that Uncle Joe has no choice but to announce very quickly that he will not be running in 2024.

  They need a wide open primary that will help them find the next generation of CENTRIST Democrats.

  What they do not need, under any circumstances, is for Biden to limp along until late fall 2023 and then bow to reality, creating a giant mess that will only help those Democrats with super-high name recognition.

  A close loss will not force that reckoning. But a bad one will (I hope). And a saner Democratic Party will be good for everyone.

  Having said all that, we are left thinking, just what do liberal Democrats do, if, in a free and fair election, US voters throw them out and replace them with people our elites routinely equate with fascists and Nazis?

  …and most importantly, who (or what) will get the blame?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 19:27

• World Dollar Hegemony Is Ending (And That May Be A Good Thing)
  World Dollar Hegemony Is Ending (And That May Be A Good Thing)

  Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

  The end of world dollar hegemony is coming and hardly anyone in government is taking notice or even understands what this means. Since the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the dollar has been the only currency accepted throughout the world for settlement of international trade accounts among nations.

  Prior to 1944, physical gold was used for international settlement. When an exporter in country A sold goods to an importer in country B, country B would pay with its own currency. But country A would have no interest in allowing country B’s currency to build up in its vaults beyond an amount required to settle its own importers’ needs. Thus, country A would demand that country B redeem its own currency in gold. Sometimes country B would ship physical gold to country A. Or perhaps gold held in safekeeping in a third country would be designated as now belonging to country A, a book entry transaction that is more convenient than physical movement.

  

  The Bretton Woods Agreement and Its Demise

  The Bretton Woods Agreement added the dollar as tantamount to physical gold at $35 per ounce. The reason was simple: at the end of World War II the United States had accumulated a preponderance of gold, due primarily to its role as the “arsenal of democracy.” Thus, central banks could exchange dollars for settlement rather than moving or redesignating the ownership of physical gold. The weakness of this system was that the world had to trust the USA not to create more dollars than it could redeem for gold at $35 per ounce. But central banks always had the option to demand physical gold from the USA and hence ensure that their trust in the measure of $35 per ounce was fully supported.

  After approximately twenty years of this arrangement the market became concerned that the USA was not living up to its obligations. The origin of this concern was centered in France. President Charles de Gaulle himself was a firm proponent of the classical gold standard as was his financial advisor Jacques Rueff. Starting in the late 1960s de Gaulle ordered the Bank of France to redeem 80 percent of its vast dollar reserves for gold. Other central banks followed suit, and a typical bank run developed.

  As USA gold reserves reached critically low levels, President Richard Nixon took the USA off the gold exchange standard, as the system of central bank redemption was called, in the fall of 1971. It did NOT devalue the dollar to gold, which it could have done, and promise to stop dollar expansion. Instead, the USA simply ended dollar redemption for gold, allowing the USA to create as many fiat dollars as the world market would accept.

  It turned out that the world market would accept a lot of fiat dollars. A major reason was that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, agreed to demand payment in dollars for its oil, thus creating worldwide demand for dollars.

  The Petrodollar Era Supplants Bretton Woods, but Its End Is Nigh

  This “petrodollar” arrangement is now breaking down, due to the ever-accelerating debasement of the dollar. The cause of the debasement is the unholy alliance of the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, and the US government. The Federal Reserve creates, out of thin air, all the dollars that the government needs to maintain its massive and ever-increasing spending deficit. The monetization of these deficits has led to a loss of dollar purchasing power at an accelerating rate.

  The purpose of explaining all this is to give background to the currently developing situation. For almost eighty years the federal government has been able to spend as much as it desired, knowing that the world either would hold its dollars or that the Fed would monetize whatever the market would not accept—i.e., the Fed would buy the government’s debt itself and (figuratively) print the money it would give to the Treasury. The Fed would then hold the debt on its own balance sheet. The sheer scale of its intervention is shocking. In 2008 the Fed’s balance sheet what slightly under $0.880 trillion. Today it is $8.816 trillion. (See this graph from the Fed’s own website.)

  So, what did the federal government do with all that newly printed money? It spent it on war and welfare, of course. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society welfare state is now firmly entrenched and constantly expanding. The American military has intervened in every corner of the world. It seems that all that is necessary for the USA to intervene militarily is for some local disputant on the other side of the world, with its own incomprehensible historical animosities, to claim that its neighbor is invading its sovereign territory and/or committing atrocities. The American people are whipped into a frenzy of righteousness and off we go to Timbuktu. The result is thousands of dead, billions squandered, and the local situation even worse than before.

  All this mayhem could only be funded by worldwide acceptance of the fiat dollar. But much of the world has had enough. There are several organizations that are cooperating to develop an alternative to the dollar for the settlement of international trade. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and the Eurasian Economic Union have formed a working group to develop a commodity based medium of exchange to replace the dollar as the premier means for the settlement of international trade. Goldmoney’s Alasdair Macleod has written extensively about this project. More countries—especially countries currently using the dollar, such as Saudi Arabia—have announced their intensions to join the project. More, many more, will follow Saudi Arabia.

  How to convey the importance of this development to the general public? It all seems complicated and probably years away. Plus, it may not work. That is the purpose of the next part of my article.

  The Magic Checkbook

  Let’s break this down to the individual level, so that everyone can grasp its full meaning. Let us assume that you were handed a checkbook and told that you could write as many checks as you wished in any amount you desired and, most importantly, no one would refuse to take your check, and no one would cash it because the checking account has no money anyway. Whoever receives the check can only pass it along, via ordinary trade, to someone else.

  First, you can see that once this money is created by you, it will never be destroyed. It will continue to grow every time you write a new check. In other words, the money supply will grow according to your propensity to spend. Now let’s assume that when given this magic checkbook, you had been a frugal and responsible person. That’s one of the reasons that you were given it in the first place. For some time, you continued to live frugally, but over the years your self-control breaks down and you start to spend.

  To placate your conscience, you spend some of the money on others—i.e., the poor, the elderly, the disabled, etc. But eventually you succumb to ever increasing DEMANDS for money to compensate the victims of all kinds of disasters. If you don’t send money to the suffering masses, you are condemned by all.

  So, you spend. Then you decide that you should spend money on rehabilitating humanity, exploring the solar system, funding higher education. The DEMANDS for money from your magic checkbook grow and grow. If you try to moderate your spending, you threaten to damage your reputation internationally.

  Things get out of hand. But this isn’t the end of the story. The spending from the magic checkbook has created massive price increases and has funded a class of sycophants, deadbeats, and megalomaniacs. A splinter group decides to spurn accepting checks from the magic checkbook and develop a new medium of exchange. It isn’t easy, and it takes quite a while. There are advances and retrenchments, but eventually honest money reemerges. Now more and more people refuse to accept your checks from the magic checkbook.

  Rise of a Competing Reserve Currency

  This is where the world is headed, because the USA cannot force sovereign nations to accept the dollar, especially if there is another and better choice. The USA has not lived up to its responsibility to protect the purchasing power of the dollar via controlling its supply. Lord Acton’s warning is as important today as ever—i.e., “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

  The new SCO currency will supplant the dollar as the world’s premier reserve currency primarily because it will be backed to a large extent by commodities and it will not be under the control of one sovereign country but a number of sovereign countries, all dedicated to its monetary health in ensuring the free flow of international trade and payments. It will be a loss for the dollar, of course, and for the USA, but frankly, the world will benefit overall.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 19:25

• North Korea Angrily Rejects US "Rumor" It's Supplying Russian Forces
  North Korea Angrily Rejects US “Rumor” It’s Supplying Russian Forces

  North Korea on Tuesday again lashed out at the United States, vehemently rejecting accusations that Pyongyang has been supplying artillery ammunition to Russian forces for the war in Ukraine. 

  A statement in KCNA refuted the charge as “groundless” – chalking it up to Washington spreading rumors and propaganda. “Recently, the US is persistently spreading a groundless ‘rumor of arms dealings’ between the DPRK and Russia,” North Korea’s vice director of military foreign affairs of the Ministry of National Defense said.

  

  The statement added that it’s part of an ongoing US “hostile attempt to tarnish the image of the DPRK in the international arena.” Tensions surrounding the divided Korean peninsula are at boiling point over last week’s record number of missile launches out of the north, and joint US-south war drills which were deemed a provocation. 

  “We once again make clear that we have never had ‘arms dealings’ with Russia and that we have no plan to do so in the future,” the statement from Pyongyang added.

  US officials have cited intelligence reports which allege a North Korea to Russia ammo transfer is the latest sign of desperation amid depleting Russian munitions after six months of war in Ukraine.

  Last week, National Security Council official and spokesman John Kirby told CNN, “In September, the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) publicly denied that it intended to provide ammunition to Russia.”

  “However, our information indicates that the DPRK is covertly supplying Russia’s war in Ukraine with a significant number of artillery shells, while obfuscating the real destination of the arms shipments by trying to make it appear as though they are being sent to countries in the Middle East or North Africa.”

  In the summer into early September, Western media outlets widely reported on accusations that North Korea was shipping weapons to the Russian military, including millions of rockets and artillery shells, which followed earlier unverified claims that Pyongyang said it was willing to send 100,000 of its troops to help Russia in Ukraine.

  While those allegations never saw any level of confirmation, the Pentagon and US intelligence continued harboring suspicions of large covert weapons and munitions shipments. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 19:05

• Seniors Feel Cheated As Inflation Dims Their Golden Years
  Seniors Feel Cheated As Inflation Dims Their Golden Years

  Authored by Andrew Moran and Emel Akan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  For close to 47 million Americans, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. Indeed, the current cost-of-living crisis devastating millions of seniors nationwide has forced many to look back at the choices they made throughout their prime working years.

  

  Did they save and invest enough? Did they clock in enough hours during their career? Could they have put more money aside for a rainy day?

  The last time inflation was this high, Dennis O’Connor, an 82-year-old retiree from Temecula, California, says he and his peers were able to weather the storm of rising prices. Today, however, they have limited options.

  “When the last events occurred 40 years ago, we were employed. The overriding concern is we cannot plan retirement a second time,” he told The Epoch Times. “When you are younger and working you can recover. Retirees will never have that option.”

  Before retirement, O’Connor served as councilman and mayor for City of Oak Forest. He also worked as a senior executive on some of California’s large infrastructure and environmental projects.

  “Like most retirees, we are from the Silent and Boomer generations, and many are children of the Greatest Generation who experienced World War II and the Great Depression,” he said.

  “We were told to save for retirement, don’t depend on Social Security as it may not be there, contribute to a company’s 401(k) or put money away,” he noted.

  Many retirees depend on a fixed income from their pension plans or Social Security checks and their investments and emergency reserves are being imbibed by inflation.

  “Like most of America’s retirees, I am frightened,” O’Connor adds, noting that many seniors have no experience dealing with inflation and recession during retirement.

  

  He’s especially worried about women from his generation.

  “They had greater challenges because of lower wages, lack of available retirement plans, and the breakdown of the family.”

  In addition, the stock and bond markets have had a rough year, and it could be a while before investors see a recovery in their portfolios. The bear market has led to investment valuations crumbling as much as 20 percent for O’Connor. His aggressive funds have tumbled between 35 and 40 percent.

  According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Americans lost $1.4 trillion in their 401(k) accounts and an additional $2 trillion in their individual retirement accounts (IRAs) in the first half of this year.

  Now that the specter of recession clouds over the nation, there is even more uncertainty for the markets.

  “Sadly, I and most retirees thought our futures would be comfortable, but now that is in doubt,” O’Connor said.

  A recent survey by Allianz found that more than half of Americans are being forced to reduce or stop their contributions to their retirement savings. Forty-three percent say they dipped into their savings, while 72 percent of Baby Boomers are concerned that growing living costs would affect their retirement plans.

  Back to Work

  Today’s generation of retirees is now seeing every aspect of their lives dented by broad-based and persistent inflation. Gas prices, grocery store prices, and electricity bills have all increased by double digits this year.

  KT Hundsen—she chose to use a pseudonym to protect her identity—62, lives in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She and her husband of more than three decades led responsible lives. They pay their bills at the end of every month and refrain from carrying debt. The couple paid off their mortgage last summer and saved money while never overspending.

  “We did the very best job we could to prepare for our senior years,” Hundsen told The Epoch Times.

  Her household lives on a few income streams, including Social Security, her husband’s pension, and an annuity that he withdraws a certain amount from each year. The issue is that the income has been less than they anticipated because a cost-of-living adjustment is not attached to the pension.

  Her husband, 67, retired last summer. But the inflationary economy has forced him to return to work as a janitor at church. Although he had intended to work only eight to 10 hours per week, he has doubled his hours to help cover the cost of his wife’s $600-per-month health insurance premium.

  The concept of “unretirement” has gained popularity this year. Like her husband, many older Americans are returning to the workforce or abandoning the concept of retirement altogether. According to data gathered by Bayard Advertising, a recruitment advertising agency, 64 percent of adults between 55 and 64 years of age returned to the workforce this past spring. About one-third of seniors think they will work through the age of 70 or never retire, a study by BlackRock discovered.

  While the extra money has been of tremendous help to the Hundsens, they receive some other perks from the church.

  “If they have an extra gallon of milk, he can bring it home, and then I make cheese with it,” she said.

  She also feels like she should be working, but employment prospects with her credentials are hard to find.

  Meanwhile, in response to growing food costs, Hundsen is making other changes, especially after seeing the steady rise in prices at the supermarket. She usually buys turkey meat, but it was $11.99 a pound at the deli, “so I didn’t buy it.” She is using her garden more often and putting the items in jars for canning.

  “I’m doing more of that than I have ever done before,” she said. “But there are limits to how many adjustments we can make.”

  When property taxes increase, gasoline prices go up, and other month-to-month fixed costs continually climb, everything start to add up.

  Doing Everything Right

  According to estimates from Bloomberg economists, inflation costs have added more than $5,000 a year to the typical family’s budget.

  “I feel kind of gypped because we thought we did everything right,” Hundsen said. “We weren’t extravagant. We didn’t buy too much. We drove our cars for 15 or 20 years. We didn’t do anything fancy. And, I don’t know, it’s kind of stunning.”

  “But I’m sure there are people who are much worse off than we are,” she added.

  According to Clara Del Villar, director of senior initiatives at FreedomWorks Foundation, 40 percent of Americans have no savings in their retirement.

  “So that means during these volatile times and during inflationary times, they do have to go back to work,” she told The Epoch Times. “Their skills may not be up to date. So, you do see them more in Walmart or other big box retail stores.”

  While Hundsen is hopeful conditions will get better, she is not optimistic about all the debt the U.S. government has saddled her two sons and their family with for years to come.

  “There’s no good solution. That will be painful,” Hundsen said. “It’s depressing to think, how will we ever dig ourselves out of that hole?”

  The national debt recently topped $31 trillion, while interest payments were approximately $400 billion last year. In other words, each taxpayer is on the hook for around $248,000 of the debt, and each adult is responsible for nearly $14,000 of the total interest paid.

  The Forgotten Americans

  Although their stories are all too common in this climate, O’Connor feels that retirees are the forgotten ones because their life challenges are not understood by the news commentators, editors, policymakers, and the social media crowd.

  “We have no spokesperson that understands the lack of control retirees are facing,” he said. “We have little margin for error, and how do you put a price tag on so many emotional issues?”

  

  “It is unfortunate we have media and political leaders that show little interest in our value,” O’Connor added.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 18:45

• "Monstrosities": New York Has Started Erecting Thousands Of Giant Gray 5G Towers
  “Monstrosities”: New York Has Started Erecting Thousands Of Giant Gray 5G Towers

  Look around, you can’t miss them.

  Giant ugly new 5G towers are starting to take over New York City and, despite attempting to look futuristic, many can’t help but notice just how much of an eyesore the additions to city streets have become. 

  The columns are gray and color and about 32 feet high, according to a new report by the New York Times, with some dwarfing three story buildings. And they’re popping up with little to no warning. 

  “We were shocked because we had no idea what it was,” one store owner in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn said. Marion Little, who owns Stripper Stain & Supplies, says that his customers and neighbors have asked about it. 

  He told the New York Times: “They’ve been emailing me, calling me weekends, Facebooking me, like, ‘Yo, what’s that?’ and I’m sitting there like, ‘I have no clue.’”

  

  “I wasn’t even quite sure what it was,” another resident told The Times about a tower popping up in his neighborhood. “The buses turn here. It’s going to be easy to miscalculate and hit the thing,” he said of the tower’s placement at a B26 bus stop.

  “Never have I heard one mention of residents asking for a tower to be placed where we live,” said Democratic liaison for the 57th Assembly District in Fort Greene Renee Collymore. “Before this tower came, I had fine service. What, a call dropped every now and then? So what. You keep going.”

  Another resident in Chinatown called the tower a “monstrosity,” asking “who wants to look at something like that?”

  Chelsea Formica, who lives on the Upper East Side, got a call from her husband about it while she was out: “He was like, ‘Hey, you know, they put something up outside of our window. I’m just laying here on the couch and it’s pretty big.’”

  When she returned home, she was in disbelief: “I was like, ‘Oh, my God,’ freaking out. It’s huge. It’s so big.”

  

  The towers are part of a deal that New York City has with CityBridge and LinkNYC, who is going to be installing 2,000 of the towers in the city over the next several years. Many of the towers are taking the place of where old payphones used to be. The towers have not been activated yet. 

  Other towers are going to be placed on top of traffic lights and street lamps, according to the report. 

  The Times notes that 90% of the new towers will be in “neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and above 96th Street in Manhattan”. They will provide residents with free access to digital calling and Wi-Fi. Carriers like AT&T and Verizon will also be able to use the towers to compliment existing infrastructure. 

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 18:25

• China's Headlines Increase Risk Of Market Whipsaws
  China’s Headlines Increase Risk Of Market Whipsaws

  By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and analyst

  There’s no way of knowing how long a full reopening of China could take, but with very few investors fully positioned for such an eventuality, a case is building for those sectors with most at stake such as miners and luxury.

  While China has denied speculation that it is set to shift away from its Covid-zero policy, some encouraging headlines out of the country have still fueled investor interest in industries that potentially have most to gain.

  The European mining sector, one of the most exposed to Chinese demand, is up 8.5% since the start of this month, outperforming the broader market. Luxury stocks have also been strong, with Kering and Swatch both showing advances of nearly 10%. What’s more, none of those industries trimmed any of their gains after China’s denial.

  According to JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka, sentiment toward the country has already hit “rock-bottom” and should improve from here. They are overweight miners, saying China’s economy is likely bottoming out and policy is set to become more stimulative. Resilient earnings, strong balance sheets and high dividends are other positives, they say.

  

  The mining sector gets about 27% of revenue from China, according to Goldman Sachs strategists, with Rio Tinto at 57%, Glencore at 40% and Anglo American at 26%. Luxury has about 26% exposure, they say.

  A basket of European stocks with the largest Chinese presence — including a bunch of miners and luxury shares, but also Volkswagen, BMW, HSBC, Infineon, ASML and Adidas — has underperformed the Stoxx 600 by nearly 10% this year, offering further catch-up potential on reopening chatter.

  

  Barclays strategists led by Emmanuel Cau are less optimistic and remain skeptical that any full reopening is near, pointing to a likely deterioration of the virus situation in winter, and health officials’ reiteration of China’s commitment to its Covid Zero policy. That said, Cau sees such a possibility as “a wild card into 2023” that investors aren’t yet positioned for.

  Chinese stocks halted a recent rally on Tuesday following a jump in Covid infections. The country reported 7,323 new local Covid cases for Monday, the highest daily number since April 30, according to data from the National Health Commission.

  On the longer term, Cau says China reopening would be positive for global growth, commodities, EU and German equities, cyclicals and value, with semiconductors, luxury, autos, chemicals and industrials the most sensitive. Positioning on cyclicals is currently very bearish, with Covid Zero “likely a key reason,” he says.

  

  Overall, a China reopening would be a boon for Europe, according to Goldman Sachs strategists, who say the Stoxx 600’s explicit sales exposure to China is about 8%, similar to that of the UK and Germany, and more than France, Italy or Spain.

  Still, any policy changes might be incremental before March and markets “may need to lower their expectations,” say Nomura economists including Ting Lu. Beijing is likely to stick to essential parts of Covid Zero for now, and a narrative shift to “living with Covid” may prove challenging, they say.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/08/2022 – 18:05

Digest powered by RSS Digest