Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

A Neo-Nazi with the nom de guerre “Ukrainian Autonomous Revolutionary Racist” (UARR) claimed credit for assassinating fellow fascist Irina Farion on 19 July. This ex-MP was an infamous “linguistic nationalist” who was investigated by the SBU for defaming the armed forces after claiming late last year that Russian-speaking members of the Azov Battalion aren’t real Ukrainians.

Their video manifesto, which was reported on by Ukrainian media here and summarized here, sheds some light onto the motive.  

The author condemned her as a “wrecker and racial traitor”, the first presumably in connection to her above-mentioned scandal that inadvertently served to divide the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the second in response to her teaching Ukrainian to Africans, which they showed a clip of in their video. They also promised to “punish everyone who sold the country after the Maidan”, thus implying that she was one of those who they deemed guilty of this crime.

The UARR is allegedly connected to the “National Socialism/White Power” group, which the previously cited Ukrainian media report conspiratorially speculated is run by Russian intelligence. That’s a kooky theory though which is only being circulated to deflect from the fact that Ukrainian fascists just killed one of their own icons. It also builds upon GUR chief Kirill Budanov’s narrative that the culprits, which he strongly implied are linked in some way or another to Russia, “try to use any tools to divide our nation.”

The reality is that the Western-backed spree of urban terrorism and associated coup in early 2014, which are collectively known as “EuroMaidan”, were what irreparably divided Ukraine. The rise to power of fascist forces provoked the Crimeans into breaking away from Ukraine and reuniting with Russia, which was then followed by their ethnic Russian kin in Donbass. Ukraine’s substantial Russian minority that remained under Kiev’s control then lost a lot of their rights and began to live as second-class citizens.

Even though leading Ukrainian officials claimed in late November that no Russian minority exists in Ukraine anymore, and those that still do supposedly deserve to have their rights infringed upon, they’re still objectively present in the country in large numbers. The top state language official lamented in early July that many schoolchildren still speak Russian, while Le Monde reported in late February that front line soldiers do too, which the armed forces are now trying to change by giving them Ukrainian lessons.

While the majority of these troops were forcibly conscripted against their will, a few are volunteers, and it’s fitting to remember that the zeal of a convert is stronger than a born believer’s. What’s meant by this is that those Russians who decided to identify as Ukrainians instead of continuing to identify as Russians in Ukraine are predisposed to radicalism. Accordingly, it’s not surprising that some might have felt deeply offended by Farion’s attack against them, thus explaining why they wanted her dead.

An 18-year-old from Dnipropetrovsk named Vyacheslav Zinchenko was arrested Thursday afternoon, but it’s presently unclear whether he was the author of the UARR’s manifesto and if he acted entirely alone, not to mention whether he’s a native Russian speaker like his home region would suggest. The working theory as suggested thus far in this piece is that those behind Farion’s killing are Russian-speaking Ukrainians and/or ethnic Russians who consider themselves Ukrainians, which will now be elaborated.

The SBU understands the strategic importance of entertaining this radical minority’s delusions since they’re spun to allege that: Russians aren’t oppressed; they don’t even exist anymore after deciding to become Ukrainian; and some of those who made this choice now want to kill Russians. That’s why they decided to investigate Farion for what she said last November about how Russian-speaking members of the Azov Battalion supposedly aren’t real Ukrainians because that risked letting the cat out of the bag.

An average Ukrainian fascist would agree with what she said because they have an exclusive view of their ethno-national and linguistic identity, but a Russian that’s converted to it would disagree since they have a comparatively more inclusive view thereof. The first is the conventional understanding while the second is relatively new and has been weaponized since 2014 for recruiting Russians in Ukraine as cannon fodder for their cause by convincing them that Ukrainians are the so-called “real Russians”.

It's beyond the scope of this analysis to elaborate on their hateful ideology, but it basically claims that the inhabitants of modern-day Ukraine are the real heirs of the former Kievan Rus, not their fellow East Slavs who successfully regathered that lost polity’s lands over the centuries under Moscow’s leadership.

Additionally, Ukrainian ultra-nationalists allege that they’re “pure Slavs”, while Russians (who they smear as “Muscovites”) are allegedly too mixed with Finns, Tatars, and other groups to still be considered Slavs.

Farion gave voice to what her fellow fascists believe, who look down upon ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, even those who consider themselves Ukrainian.

It’s therefore unlikely that one of her own ethno-linguistic kin killed her, with it being much more probable that those who fit the aforesaid criteria were responsible and 18-year-old Zinchenko is just their patsy.

Such fascists are trying to be “more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians”, but they’ll only ever just be their cannon fodder against Russia.

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The world’s first climate-related social rewards scheme came into being two weeks ago, when the city of Copenhagen officially launched it’s new “CopenPay” system.

Through the CopenPay scheme, tourists visiting the city will be rewarded for “green actions” – such as using public transportation or cycling – with access to “cultural experiences”, free meals etc.

For example, arriving at the CopenHill dry ski slope by foot or on a bike will get you 20 free minutes of ski time, while anyone who volunteers at an organic urban farm will get a free lunch (vegetarian, naturally).

The official CopenPay website describes the purpose of the system as follows:

…to encourage sustainable behaviour and enrich the cultural experience of visitors and residents in Copenhagen by transforming green actions into currency for cultural experiences.

WonderfulCopenhagen.com adds:

There is a need to change the mindset of tourists and encourage green choices […]Through CopenPay we therefore aim to incentivize tourists’ sustainable behaviour while enriching their cultural experience of our destination. It is an experimental and a small step towards creating a new mindset […] The hope is not only to continue the pilot project, but also to inspire other cities around the world to introduce similar initiatives.

Now, complimentary organic meals and free windsurfing lessons might seem benign enough, but any talk of “changing mindset” and/or “encouraging behaviour” makes my brain itch.

It’s pretty easy to see through the happy-clappy tone of the promotion to the heart of the issue, it’s right there in their own words: Transforming green actions into currency.

This is climate change based behavioral modification. This is a social credit system. Small scale and optional, sure, but there’s no denying that’s what it is.

For now it’s optional and only for tourists. They are testing the waters. Barring a catastrophic failure it won’t stay that way for long. They likely won’t ever make it mandatory to take part, rather – like bank accounts and cellphones – opting out will simply be too difficult for most people to bother with.

Eventually “rewarding green actions” will segue into “punishing non-green actions”. The currency of “cultural experiences” replaced with actual currency.

This isn’t guesswork.

We don’t have to guess where this leads, because we know. They told us.

They laid out the world they want to build, and this is just one of the first bricks.

Authored by Andrew Lowenthal via The Brownstone Institute,

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

- George Orwell, 1984

For years the media, “fact-checkers,” and “anti-disinformation” initiatives told the public there was nothing wrong with Joe Biden. A few weeks ago, in the space of five minutes, they flipped. Rapid-onset dementia had struck the President and it was time for change.

The people who claim they can sort truth from fiction spent years lying despite the crippling obvious. What is more baffling is why so many people went along with it for so long. Was it fear? Complacency? Cowardice? An incredible level of discipline was enforced – that has thankfully now unraveled.

Rather than debunking “misinformation,” Biden’s protectors often spread it.  

In August 2020 the Aspen Institute coordinated a Hunter Biden laptop pre-bunk exercise that sought to suppress a true story to protect Biden’s wayward son and shield the President from major corruption allegations. A swathe of major media and Big Tech participated in that exercise, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Twitter, Facebook, and many more. Claire Wardle, former director of “anti-disinformation” NGO First Draft (now the Information Futures Lab at Brown University) also participated.

In a letter allegedly organised by Anthony Blinken, 51 former intelligence agents claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was a “Russian information operation” and Facebook, Twitter, and others suppressed the story on their platforms. Almost everyone now admits the laptop was real.

Or take Biden’s claim that “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations.”

PolitiFact thought that may have been an “exaggeration” but reassured us that cases of the vaccinated getting Covid are “rare.”

The Party told you to reject the evidence not just of your eyes and ears, but your whole body.

However, perhaps the biggest lie was the years-long campaign to “debunk” suggestions that Biden was growing incapable of commanding the highest office in the land. PolitiFact was very diligent in “fact-checking” “cheap fakes” and other stories that alleged Joe Biden was senile, reassuring us that everything was fine.

The term “cheap fake” was coined by Britt Paris and Hunter Biden laptop denialist Joan Donovan. Donavan has long been a darling of the “anti-disinformation” field. 

In the words of Aspen Hunter Biden laptop pre-bunker Claire Wardle, the Biden cheap fakes are “the weaponization of context. It’s genuine content, but the context changes via minor edits. Anyone can be vulnerable with the right edit.” In fact, as recently as June 21 Wardle was carrying water for Biden. In a New York Times article that sought to debunk “misleading videos that play into and reinforce voters’ longstanding concerns about his [Biden’s] age and abilities,” Wardle explained that “This isn’t a new narrative, it builds on an existing one, which tends to be much more effective.” Yes, adding more true information to other true information tends to make an argument more convincing.

Or take Rebekah Tromble, Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs and the director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics at George Washington University. According to Tromble “Biden became a main target of deceptive edits.” “These clips draw on a common trope about President Biden that’s popular among his detractors: He’s old, bumbling, and senile, meaning he’s incompetent and incapable of doing this job.” His gaffes and inability to speak clearly are unrelated to his cognitive ability, and are instead because “Biden grew up stuttering.”

PolitiFact is a project of the Poynter Institute which coordinates the biggest network of fact-checkers in the world, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). IFCN is funded largely by Facebook but also by the “Craig Newmark Foundation, the Koch Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the National Endowment for Democracy, Microsoft, and the Washington Post.” This is not a small fringe “fact-checking” outfit; it is one of the leading organizations in the sector. 

Perhaps the name makes it clear – it is Politi(cised) Fact-checking. 

Newsguard, a “disinformation” ranking service that can punish a news site’s advertising revenue through its rating system, has also been active. Power Line, a conservative online news outlet, alleges they were contacted by Newsguard in 2021 about their claims of Biden’s cognitive decline. In an email, Newsguard asked:

We’ve noticed that the site has repeatedly stated as fact in its article[s] that Joe Biden has dementia, both during the 2020 election cycle and since he became president. Why does the site make this claim without providing credible evidence that he has dementia?

Newsguard’s approach is particularly concerning because of its ability to impact the revenue of media outlets, and due to its strong links to the State Department and intelligence agencies – its board includes former CIA Director Michael Hayden.

If all that fails you can always blame the Russians. EUvsDisinfo, a European Union project to “forecast, address, and respond to the Russian Federation’s ongoing disinformation campaigns” claimed reports of Biden being “senile” are “false” and are part of “pro-Kremlin disinformation.”

Mainstream media have also been a critical part of the lying machine, claiming recent videos that show Biden wandering off at a G7 event were “misinformation” or “cheap fakes” and are part of a concerted effort to “hammer the narrative that Biden is too old to be president.” PolitiFact also “fact-checked” the story with the usual line.

The list could go on and on and on but Matt Orfalea’s amazing “sharp as a tack” compilation puts the nail in the coffin. More “out of context” clips and “cheap fakes” according to the “anti-disinformation” “experts” no doubt.

What is the lesson?

On one hand, censorship and suppression only work for so long. Reality will eventually catch up with you. However, it also tells us that a lot of people can pretend the emperor does have clothes, even when he is stark naked and half the court is screaming and pointing at the top of their lungs – also known as “spreading misinformation.”

It seems there is an endless supply of “fact-checking” and “anti-disinformation” sycophants ready to bow and scrape before the mad king.

Ultimately it tells us just how corrupt the “fact-checking” and “anti-disinformation” industries are. Whilst there are an increasing number of people on the outside speaking up, internally cowardice and the silencing of critics have allowed a prolific level of corruption to grow. This is an across-the-board problem in the liberal and progressive spheres where pious bullies have shut down dialogue. This corruption has led progressives and liberals down a disastrous dead end. Barring a miracle, Trump is coming.

If there is any justice a reckoning is also coming for the “fact-checkers” and “anti-disinformation” “experts.”

*  *  *

Republished from the author’s Substack

Authored by Beige Luciano-Adams via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the scrubby Mojave desert north of Los Angeles, a sprawling encampment of decrepit RVs sits just off a dirt road separating the city of Lancaster from Los Angeles County’s unincorporated expanse.

In every direction, garbage spreads out like an algae super bloom—beyond that, endless sand and brush, baking in the summer sun.

“Keep your head on a swivel for dogs,” a member of the city’s public safety and emergency response unit tells us. Through the haze, we see two pit bulls and a German Shepherd under a tarp, but they are tethered, too hot to move.

Freddy, a resident, seems only moderately bothered by the 110 degree temperature. “I don’t have a car anymore, so I can’t get my own water,” he says, when asked how he survives out here. 

“Someone brings me water every two weeks,” he said, referring to a nonprofit. 

Pointing down at his legs, scaly and engorged beneath black shorts, he adds, “And I’m sick, too. They bring me medicine.”

There is no grid here, no power or water. RV residents dump their raw sewage in the desert, either right outside their vehicles, or sometimes with a hose that carries it a little farther out.

Such encampments, which are also a magnet for illegal construction dumping, appear as clusters on satellite maps, dotting the rugged terrain just past the county line. Officials say they stretch out as far as 10 miles into the desert, but most stay closer to town.

Freddy is one of thousands without housing in the northern part of the county, according to data released last month by the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority (LAHSA). 

On any given night, an estimated 6,672 people are homeless in the Antelope Valley—a 42 percent increase over the year prior. But only 1,057 of the region’s homeless people live in its two main cities, Lancaster and Palmdale, leaving the remaining 5,615 in smaller towns and the region’s rural unincorporated areas.

It’s surprising that so many people could be living in tents, under tarps, inside of old RVs, out in the middle of the high desert with no water or infrastructure.

But those familiar with the situation say the population was already high, and the dramatic jump simply represents a more thorough count this year.

“The count went up this year because the count was done wrong in previous years,” said a city official, who asked not to be identified by name. “This year we utilized a drone, and our teams went out to remote areas and did the count,” he said, estimating the actual increase over last year might be closer to 25 percent.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose 5th District includes the Antelope Valley, also suggested the increase may not be as straightforward as it looks.

“The Point In Time Count is not a perfect science and it’s rightfully evolving,” she said in an email to The Epoch Times, expressing uncertainty over whether the number reflects an increase or a better count. 

“Regardless, we will use those results to draw down more federal and state funding so that we can deliver more local housing and shelter options. The need in the region is real.”

Either way, the uptick is an outlier in 2024, when the county overall and most city homeless populations are either remaining stable or shrinking slightly.

The City of Lancaster’s overall homeless count went down in 2024, to 520 people from 590 the year prior, with fewer unsheltered homeless and more sheltered homeless individuals. Palmdale’s, meanwhile, rose from 177 to 537.

Inquiries to Palmdale city officials, including the mayor and city councilmembers, were not returned.

LAHSA also did not respond to a request for comment on the increase in the homeless population in Antelope Valley.

While many municipalities across the West stopped clearing homeless encampments after a series of Ninth Circuit Court decisions determined anti-camping laws violated the Eighth Amendment, Lancaster bypassed those restrictions with procedural caveats, by offering shelter before moving people. 

Since the Supreme Court reversed the lower court rulings earlier this month, officials say, enforcement is easier.

Critics of such enforcement, such as the ACLU, have long argued Lancaster is pushing people who have nowhere to go into dangerous, extreme conditions. But officials say there are beds available, and enforcement is attended by offers of services and shelter.

So why are thousands of people homeless in the desert?

End of the Line

Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris, an outspoken critic of what he says is the county’s neglect of the region, allows there are various factors that might contribute to an increase in homelessness—former inmates at California State Prison, in Lancaster, who end up in the community without services, along with a small percentage of people losing housing or falling on hard times.

Lancaster has always been a far more affordable bedroom community, but median rent is currently $2,595 a month—only about $200 cheaper than Los Angeles, according to real estate website Zillow.

But the main reason, Mr. Parris told The Epoch Times, is L.A.’s systematic tendency—not a conspiracy, exactly, more like a default setting—to send its problems north.

“I think it’s tied to the L.A. area pushing them up here,” he said of the homeless count increase. “They tend to push all of their problems up here, if they can. And now you’ve got the World Cup, and you’ve got the Olympics coming, and they’re in a mad rush to get rid of their homeless, and so they encourage them to come here.”

Mr. Parris says his teams are “constantly interviewing people who were given a ticket and told, “go to Lancaster, we’ll feed and take care of them,” but did not specify by whom. 

“It’s at the end of the Metro line, literally. This is not unusual.”

The county’s transit system, plagued by violence in recent months, has its own problems. Used as a de facto shelter by thousands during the day, its buses and trains are emptied for cleaning each night, which some end-of-line cities say has resulted in sharp increases in their transient homeless populations.

Lancaster, 60 miles north of Los Angeles and at the very end of the Metro transit system, is far more remote than other such cities.

Lt. William Kitchin, who oversees the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s (LASD) homeless outreach team for the entire county, said he has not personally seen evidence to support the idea that people are being directed to the region, but has observed migration to end-of-line cities.

However they end up there, once in Lancaster, civil rights groups say, authorities have routinely pushed homeless people out into the desert.

In a study based on interviews with 53 unhoused people in and around Lancaster from February 2019 to October 2020, the ACLU claimed the LASD “banished” people to remote county areas, combining the threat of criminal and civil sanctions with “suggestions” to leave town.

Such claims, the lieutenant said, are easily disproved by body cameras that record deputies’ interactions when enforcing local ordinances.

Lt. Kitchin’s team works with LAHSA to resolve encampments of more than five people, and he said such operations are always done with advance notice and offers of services and housing.??

“We can’t dictate or tell people where to go. We just say you can’t be here. We prefer you take the services that were provided, so you can go inside and get your life started on the right track, but we can’t force them into it,” he said.

Starting on July 22, his team plans to clear desert encampments in an area north of Lancaster and place an estimated 40 people in hotels as part of the county’s “Pathway Home” program.

“Prior to the pandemic,” the lieutenant said, “what we used to see is that people who were homeless in that area either grew up there or had roots there, parents or family. Now we’re seeing more people from out of state.”

Officials who asked not to be identified by name said they see a constant influx of new faces in Lancaster and the surrounding area. “We know everyone here and everyday we’re seeing new people. It’s not people losing their homes, there’s some of that, but mostly it’s not. They came from somewhere else, they moved here,” one said.

The city’s team has access to five beds for immediate shelter. After two weeks, they move people to Kensington, Lancaster’s sprawling homeless housing campus—so those five beds always stay open for people who might need them, officials said.

Mayor Parris told The Epoch Times that beds remain open at Kensington throughout the year, except when extreme weather drives occupancy up.

Opened in 2019, the campus has 153 interim beds and 150 permanent supportive housing beds, and receives more referrals than it has availability, a representative for A People Concern, the organization that operates the campus, told The Epoch Times in an email.

The representative said they are currently “nearing capacity,” with a “fluctuating occupancy as individuals may choose to transition between programs.”

Mr. Parris draws a hard line between what he characterizes as a minority of the homeless population in his city, who have fallen on hard times or been pushed out of housing—and an overwhelming majority, who refuse housing and choose the streets and drug abuse as a lifestyle.

“I was a drug addict, and I have been homeless. And I have been in jail,” Mr. Parris, a lawyer, said. “So none of this is foreign to me. You know, I think I probably have a better understanding of it than most. But I know the difference between a looter and someone who needs help—and wants help.”

Read more here...

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

The year was 1994.

Former NFL superstar OJ Simpson has just fled from police in the infamous low speed chase in his white Ford Bronco. Pulp Fiction was playing in the cinemas.

And 29 year old Kamala Harris began dating one of the most powerful politicians in the State of California— Willie Brown.

Brown had been in politics for decades at that point and has risen to become the Speaker of California State Assembly, then Mayor of San Francisco.

(And despite having spent his entire adult life in politics, Brown somehow managed to amass a collection of $6,000 suits and expensive sports cars.)

Willie Brown was also at 60 years of age back in 1994 (he’s 90 now), three decades older than his girlfriend Kamala.

Obviously she was in it for love. I’m sure that’s the case.

But it just so happened that, barely a few months into their steamy relationship, Speaker Willie Brown appointed Kamala to multiple, senior-level positions in the state, including a seat on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission.

I’m also sure that Brown appointed his girlfriend due entirely to her competence, and absolutely no other reason whatsoever.

These appointments, along with Sugar Daddy’s public support and endorsement, were integral in Harris’s later campaign to become San Francisco District Attorney, then Attorney General of California in 2010.

Willie Brown also endorsed her for Senate when she declared her candidacy in 2016, and was instrumental in securing her top endorsements, including from Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Again, all of this success was clearly due exclusively to Kamala’s tremendous competence and nothing more.

Now, a lot of people have been remarking lately that Kamala is a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hire.

But that’s completely unfair.

Talk about a low blow. I mean, Kamala’s critics have completely missed the point that this woman— who claims to embody female empowerment— got her start by having sex with a powerful California politician 30 years her senior.

So let’s give credit where credit is due: she slept her way to the top well before she became a DEI hire.

In fact it wasn’t until she was picked to be Joe Biden’s running mate that she started benefiting from the DEI obsession.

Curiously, it is now considered racist to even bring this up. CNN has decided that calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI Candidate” is a “pseudonym for the N-word” and “racist dog whistle”.

That’s absurd. Joe Biden’s entire presidency has been about promoting DEI candidates, and he admitted this himself recently when he said:

“To me the values of Diversity, Equality, Inclusion are literally— and that’s not kidding— the core strengths of America. That’s why I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history that taps into the full talents of our country. It starts at the top with the Vice President.”

Biden also made it perfectly clear in 2020 that he wanted to select a woman of color as his running mate.

So why exactly is it controversial to assert that Kamala was a DEI hire? Is it also controversial that the sky is blue, or that Michael Jordan was an exceptional basketball player?

But these people in charge have a way of acting offended about even the most basic and obvious truths. It’s quite a talent.

Speaking of talent, Kamala has none.

Whenever she opens her mouth, she is as incompressible as Joe Biden yet without the excuse of age and dementia. Like this gem:

“So I think it’s very important… for us, at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future.”

This is also the person that was put in charge of the border security, which has been a total disaster. But in her televised explanation, she justified having not been to the border by saying she hadn’t been to Europe either.

Wow, really racking up those foreign policy credentials!

And on the topic of foreign policy, check out this inspiring quote as Kamala showcased her encyclopedic understanding of European affairs:

“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine, so, basically, that’s wrong.”

Note that this wasn’t an interview on Nickelodeon or some event with elementary school kids. This was an actual response in a real interview about the war in Ukraine.

One of my favorite Kamala stories, though, is when she visited Puerto Rico earlier this year.

Protesters were in the streets of San Juan, singing in Spanish. Kamala merrily clapped along, until an aide quietly whispered that the song was protesting her visit as a representation of the federal government’s “colonization” of Puerto Rico.

Her track record as a prosecutor is also far from impressive.

As the Attorney General of California, she prosecuted and incarcerated cannabis users. But in 2019, asked if she herself had ever smoked weed, she cackled and said, “I have. And I inhaled.”

In 2014, Kamala’s office argued to keep non-violent inmates (including from minor drug convictions) locked up so that the state would have free prison labor to fight wildfires.

But Kamala would prefer that her Black Lives Matters voters forget about all that.

The Big Lie they are now force-feeding us is that the party of democracy is energized and united around Kamala Harris.

Personally I think they are terrified and desperate. Deep down they know this woman is an incompetent buffoon. And more importantly, they are still incredibly fractured.

Just look what the radical left has been doing this very week.

Their Marxist foot soldiers have been busy burning American flags, defacing public monuments, and hoisting Hamas flags, while chanting “Allahu Akbar!” in the streets. Curiously most of them are white atheist 20-somethings from upper-middle class upbringings.

And some of the Left’s most prominent politicians boycotted a speech given by the Prime Minister of Israel— one of America’s strongest allies during its time of war.

This continues to look like a group that is completely out of touch, but insists that they have everything under control… which is pretty much par for the course given the last few years under Biden.

Having said all that, it would be foolish to think they won’t pull out all the stops— continue to create all the propaganda, tell whatever lie, manufacture whatever hoax, and suppress whatever truth is necessary to win.

Authored by John Hilton-O'Brien via The Epoch Times,

There’s been a lot of noise about getting rid of standardized exams. Supposedly, minorities are at a disadvantage with them. Consequently, the argument runs, doing away with standardized exams will allow more minorities to enter into prestigious career paths, enhancing “social justice.”

If you look more closely at the history of standardized exams, however, this isn’t true.  Instead, getting rid of standardized exams serves the interests of an elite class—and will permanently lock minorities and entire classes of people out of social advancement.

Standardized tests have already been eliminated in a number of places. Oregon, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire no longer have bar exams. The University of California no longer uses Standardized Admission Tests as part of its entrance requirement, just like SUNY and an association of Ivy League universities. And in Canada, many provinces are decreasing the use of standardized tests.

But here’s the problem. Without the tests, how do we decide who gets admitted to university?

(Unless, as in the movie “Idiocracy,” we get rid of them.)

How do we decide who becomes a lawyer or a doctor?

The most famous example of a standardized exam is the Public Service Commission Test used to vet applications for government civil service. If we do away with those, how do we decide who is qualified to become a public servant?

Civil service examinations have been around for thousands of years. Imperial China used the examinations to allow young men from any social class or background to enter the imperial bureaucracy. Before that, and during dynasties where the exams were not used, entry into the patrician or bureaucratic class had been restricted by birth.

Of course, entry still wasn’t easy. In imperial China, even more than today, you wouldn’t have the resources to study for the difficult standard exams unless you had access to money. Then, as now, money was a good indicator of success.

But the point is that money wasn’t the only indicator. In fact, the imperial system came to run the exams as a double blind, going so far as to have exam responses copied out by another person, to ensure that nobody received favourable grading because a grader recognized their calligraphy.

The China’s worst times are instructive for us, too. When the Mongol Yuan dynasty took over, they did away with the exams. When they returned them, only 25 percent of the exam seats were allotted to the majority Han Chinese ethnicity. How did they decide which Han wrote the exams? Letters of reference, of course, from existing bureaucrats or their Mongol overlords. Without open standardized exams, in other words, advancement was based on who you knew.

That’s becoming true in the West today—complete with attempts at Yuan-style race-based admissions.

As anybody who has ever applied to an elite university knows, reference letters are already important. If you’re entering a profession like medicine or law, a good reference letter can mean the difference between getting that coveted residency and not. Reference letters already reinforce pedigree—what university or prep school you attended. Even admissions specialists who hate reference letters admit they make a difference—and expensive prep schools write much better reference letters.

In the absence of standardized tests and grading, reference letters will become even more important. And how are those rated? By who wrote them. The letter from an elite prep school is noticed as a letter from an elite school, regardless of content, and that tells the admissions expert what she or he needs to know.

Who decides who becomes a lawyer? The partners in the law firms. And how will they choose their candidates? In the absence of a standardized bar exam, admission will depend on who the partners know. The same is true for doctors.

If we wind up doing away with the public service admission tests, worse will follow.  Imagine a government whose civil service is hired based on who they know. The West has been here before—but not since the days of the absolute monarchs.

So, who benefits from ending standardized tests? We suspect it is not the students.

There is a sort of feedback loop inside the education industry, when the same people designing the curriculum are the ones testing for it. Internal tests such as “performance-based assessment” check only to see if the students can do what the teacher told them to do.  They don’t check to see if it will help the student in the environment that they are going to. In other words, little Suzy may consistently get top marks for her “holistic” language arts classes—but when she graduates, outsiders find that she can’t read or write.

Externally administered standardized tests are the best way to make sure that the education system helps anyone aside from the teachers’ unions.

You know who isn’t interested in dropping standardized test scores? Minorities who aren’t part of the “favoured” few. Part of the reason that elite U.S. universities are dropping standardized exams is that the U.S. Supreme Court told them that they couldn’t have race-based admission courses that left Asian-American students out in the cold. Dropping standardized tests allows universities to engage in discrimination without legal pushback. The racial policies of the Yuan and Qin dynasties live again in the Ivy League.

Today, the abandonment of standardized testing is done specifically to disadvantage poor whites, as well as Asian students. The official reason given is that institutions—which claim to be guided by the highest ideals—can favour African American and Hispanic students in the United States, and (hopefully) First Nations in Canada. In the name of social justice, of course.

But without standardized tests, admission decisions are arbitrary. Tomorrow, African-Americans, Hispanics, and First Nations may find that not all of them are favoured. Instead, favour will go to particular African American families, particular Hispanic families, and particular First Nations families. Skin tone doesn’t tell us the real story here.

The simple truth of North American society is that we are developing a class system.  Those trying to get rid of standardized testing tell us outright that their motive is to decide who joins their social class of educated functionaries. They are trying to restrict entry. They are trying to become a self-selecting aristocracy.

The only mechanism that ensures everyone with academic ability can have access to universities, professions, and civil service is standardized exams. We abandon them at our peril.

Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The United States continues to lead developed nations in maternal deaths, with some experts calling the recent rise unprecedented despite spending trillions on health care.

Mental health issues, racial disparities, and a shortage of specialized care providers all contribute to this “crisis,” according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research foundation that focuses on health care issues.

A Shortage of Health Care Professionals

The recent analysis showed that the United States had a maternal mortality rate of 22 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, significantly higher than other high-income countries—often more than doubling or even tripling their figures, according to the report. Half of the countries in the analysis reported fewer than five maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

The increase is “stunning and unprecedented,” Dr. James Thorp, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the Sisters of St. Mary’s Health System in Saint Louis, Missouri, told The Epoch Times, referring to an increase in maternal deaths over the past few years. “And it really went ... kind of unrecognized, kind of just slipped under the door, so to speak,” he noted.

Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of pregnancy’s end from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management, excluding accidental or incidental causes. About 75 percent of maternal deaths worldwide are caused by severe bleeding, infections, high blood pressure during pregnancy, complications from delivery, and unsafe abortion, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the United States, most maternal deaths occur during the postpartum period—especially the late postpartum period between 43 and 365 days after birth, as per the Commonwealth Fund’s research. This is a critical time when women face increased risks of severe bleeding, high blood pressure, and infection.

The analysis highlights a shortage of maternal care providers in the United States, with just 16 midwives and obstetricians per 1,000 live births. Comprehensive postpartum support, including home visits from midwives and nurses, is vital to address maternal and mental health concerns and assess social health drivers, the authors wrote.

The findings support those of a 2020 study published in The Lancet Global Health, which suggested that integrating midwives into health care delivery could provide 80 percent of essential maternal care, potentially reducing maternal deaths by 22 percent, neonatal deaths by almost 23 percent, and stillbirths by 14 percent.

Many Factors Contribute to the Increase

Several complex factors contribute to the high maternal mortality rates in the United States. These include an aging demographic, the ongoing obesity epidemic, and associated health problems.

Research shows that more people are having children later in life or are becoming pregnant with chronic conditions such as obesity or cardiovascular disease. These factors increase the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

The rising rate of cesarean sections may also play a role, as this procedure has been linked to increased mortality risks for both the mother (from blood clots or complications of anesthesia) and the child.

A report by the U.S. Centers for Control and Prevention (CDC), published in September 2022, found that mental health conditions were the most common underlying cause of pregnancy-related deaths where a cause was identified. These conditions, including death by suicide and overdose or poisoning linked to substance use disorders, contributed to 23 percent of fatalities, surpassing infection (9 percent), hemorrhage (14 percent), and cardiac conditions (13 percent).

There is also a disparity in health care outcomes relative to spending, according to Dr. Thorp.

The United States has higher maternal death rates than India despite spending far more on health care. While the United States spends about $14,000 per person annually, India spends only $21 per person. Yet India, with four times the U.S. population, has “a better grade than we do,” Dr. Thorp said.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Navy has agreed to correct the records of SEALs and sailors who declined to receive COVID-19 vaccines due to their religious beliefs, under a settlement approved by a federal court on July 24.

“Defendants agree to re-review the personnel records of all class members to ensure that the U.S. Navy has permanently removed records indicating administrative separation processing or proceedings, formal counseling, and non-judicial punishment actions taken against the class members solely on the basis of non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and adverse information related to non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” the settlement agreement states.

The review must be finished within nine months, according to the agreement.

The Navy has also agreed to review the records of class members discharged over refusal to receive a COVID-19 shot. Officials “will remove any indication from that service member’s records that he or she was discharged for misconduct” and make sure the discharged members are listed as eligible for enlistment.

The expungement of records must be completed within one year according to the agreement.

All Navy members who filed a religious request for an exemption from the Navy’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and were actively serving as of March 28, 2022, are covered by the settlement. That includes people who rescinded their accommodation requests in order to leave the military.

Some 4,339 individuals are affected by the settlement, according to court documents.

“This has been a long and difficult journey, but the Navy SEALs never gave up,” Danielle Runyan, senior counsel at the First Liberty Institute, said in a statement.

“We are thrilled that those members of the Navy who were guided by their conscience and steadfast in their faith will not be penalized in their Navy careers.”

The Navy declined to comment on the settlement.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021 by the institute on behalf of Navy personnel, prompted the court system in 2022 to block the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members seeking religious accommodation. In 2023, the Department of Defense rescinded the mandate for all military branches, including the Navy, per a bill approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden.

The settlement features the Navy committing to posting a statement on its website saying in part that the branch “supports diverse expressive activities, to include religious expression, and recognizes that through inclusion we are a better military and stronger nation for it.” The statement will say accommodating religious beliefs is “a pillar of the Navy’s commitment to treating all sailors with dignity and respect.”

The Navy has also agreed to list information advising members of their rights to request religious accommodations, create a training presentation for Navy supervisors and commanders, and pay $1.5 million in attorneys’ fees.

Individuals who believe they are part of the class to which the agreement applies can visit First Liberty Institute’s website for the settlement.

More than 16,000 military members filed religious accommodation requests as of January 2023. Many of the requests were denied. If members received a denial but still refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, they were often booted from the force. Branches discharged 7,705 members for not complying with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Navy discharged 1,566 members.

When the Navy discharged members, it gave them reentry codes that made them ineligible for reenlistment.

The Army and Air Force violated their own rules in handling exemption requests in a timely manner, the Pentagon’s inspector general said earlier this year, while the Marines and Navy generally met their timeline requirements.

The Navy, though, was among the branches that the watchdog found used incorrect codes for members who were granted exemptions. Officials attributed the incorrect codes to clerical errors.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

A proposal for a worldwide tax on the assets of the ultra-wealthy that’s being pushed by some countries within the G20 does not have the support of the Biden administration, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Ms. Yellen told reporters at a July 25 press conference during the G20 finance ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that the United States thinks that a global agreement on taxing ultra-high-net-worth individuals is neither practical nor a particularly good idea.

“Tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally,” Ms. Yellen said.

“We don’t see a need or really think it’s desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that.”

The new global tax on billionaires was proposed by the European Union Tax Observatory last year, and last month, the Brazilian G20 presidency asked its researchers to lay out their proposal in more detail.

French economist Gabriel Zucman, an architect of the proposal, has posited that individuals with more than $1 billion in net worth should be required to pay a minimum annual tax amounting to 2 percent of their wealth, according to a baseline version of what he calls an “ultra-high-net-worth tax.”

The reason the minimum is expressed as a fraction of wealth rather than income is that wealth is far more difficult to manipulate, according to the proposal.

Mr. Zucman estimates in his report to the G20 that the minimum tax on billionaires equal to 2 percent of their wealth would raise between $200 billion and $250 billion per year from about 3,000 individuals. If the tax is extended to individuals worth more than $100 million, that would generate an additional $100 billion to $140 billion a year.

Participating countries would coordinate their efforts at a global level to collect the tax through various domestic instruments, including by a tax on the broad notion of income, as well as a wealth tax.

Now is a good time to implement such a tax, according to the French economist, because bank secrecy laws have been curtailed over the past 15 years through increased global information exchange. A key obstacle to successful implementation is gaps in information exchange, which Mr. Zucman says could be overcome by enhanced surveillance to identify the beneficial owners of assets.

The global ultra-high-net-worth tax proposal is a way to make progressive taxation more effective, according to Mr. Zucman, who argues that contemporary tax systems fail to effectively tax the wealthiest individuals and so undermine tax progressivity and all its purported benefits.

“A progressive tax system strengthens social cohesion and trust in governments to work for the common good,” Mr. Zucman writes in the executive summary of his G20 report.

“It is critical to fund the public goods and services—such as education, health care, public infrastructure—that are engines of economic growth, as well as the investments needed to address the climate crisis.”

Ms. Yellen, in her remarks in Rio de Janeiro, threw cold water on the global ultra-high-net-worth tax, but not on progressive taxation.

“We think that all countries should make sure that their taxation systems are fair and progressive,” Ms. Yellen said.

The Treasury Secretary added that the Biden administration is “strongly supportive of progressive taxation, and making sure that very wealthy high income individuals pay their fair share.”

She highlighted policies proposed by President Joe Biden, such as a billionaires’ tax, which she described as “a very worthwhile initiative.”

President Biden has put forward a proposal for a billionaire’s tax that would set a minimum 25 percent tax for the nation’s billionaires, generating an estimated $500 billion in revenue over a decade.

Critics of a billionaire’s tax have argued it would face significant legal hurdles, including constitutional challenges on grounds of it potentially being recognized as a type of direct tax that is not permitted under the U.S. Constitution.

"Why are you allowing a shirt to be sold that seems to encourage lunatics to attempt to kill members of the Trump family?" commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck asked Amazon & founder Jeff Bezos on X, referring to Amazon allowing a seller earlier this week to offer merchandise with the slogan "The Only Good Trump Is A Dead One."

Hey @Amazon @JeffBezos,

Why are you allowing a shirt to be sold that seems to encourage lunatics to attempt to kill members of the Trump family? @DonaldJTrumpJr @LaraLeaTrump @EricTrump pic.twitter.com/8EBPFpGPo0

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 25, 2024

Starbuck said, "Just searched and @Amazon has hoodies too!" 

Just searched and @Amazon has hoodies too! pic.twitter.com/IgjXgnbKVk

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 25, 2024

Starbuck's post garnered nearly 800k reads by Friday morning. He said the anti-Trump merch was removed from the Amazon online store on Thursday evening. 

This is messed up

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 26, 2024

Elon Musk chimed in, "This is messed up." 

They’ve been removed now.

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 25, 2024

After a FOX Business investigation into the anti-Trump shirts on Thursday afternoon, Amazon told the media outlet that the shirts were removed "due to non-compliance with our guidelines."

"Amazon does not allow products that promote, incite or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views," Amazon stated on its website.

Here's what X users are saying about anti-Trump gear on Amazon:

The side of tolerance is actually insane ??
Say it ain’t so! pic.twitter.com/8EKqOfE0lJ

— One Bad Dude (@OneBadDude_) July 26, 2024

We've located where the crazy deranged rhetoric is coming from (not the right)

— ¦SourPatchLyds¦ (@sourpatchlyds) July 26, 2024

It's going to cost Amazon ...

— Brian Basson (@BassonBrain) July 26, 2024

Sigh, Amazon. Who vets these products internally? 

New quarterly smartphone shipment data in China reveal that domestic handset makers have secured all five top spots, pushing Apple from number 5 to number 6. 

Canalys research shows China's smartphone market recorded 10% year-on-year growth in the second quarter, with shipments exceeding 70 million units.

A further breakdown of the report:

Vivo reclaimed the number one spot by shipping 13.1 million units, capturing a 19% market share. This growth, a 15% increase over the previous year, was driven by strong performance in offline channels and robust online sales during the "618" e-commerce festival. OPPO held onto second place, shipping 11.3 million units, buoyed by the launch of its new Reno 12 series. HONOR was third, with shipments of 10.7 million units, marking a 4% year-on-year increase. Huawei followed closely, taking fourth place with shipments of 10.6 million units, though its growth has slowed slightly. Xiaomi saw a 17% year-on-year increase and re-entered the top five by shipping 10 million units. The significant marketing buzz this quarter surrounding Xiaomi's first electric car, the SU7, was one of the contributors to solid sales of its K70 and flagship 14 series.

Here's the focus: 

"Apple ranked sixth with a market share of 14%, a decrease of 2% from the second quarter of the previous year." 

Canalys Research Analyst Lucas Zhong said, "It is the first quarter in history that domestic vendors dominate all the top five positions." 

Despite Apple's aggressive discounts in the world's largest smartphone market, Tim Cook & company couldn't hold on to the number five spot as market share deteriorated in the quarter.

Apple faces intense competition from Huawei, and Chinese consumers are increasingly abandoning foreign brands for domestic ones as the tech war between Washington and Beijing intensifies.

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Overly optimistic investor expectations of market returns may be a problem. To wit:

“While consumers are not very confident about the economy, they are highly optimistic about the stock market. In that same consumer confidence report from the Conference Board, the expectations for rising stock prices over the next 12 months are near the highest on record.“

Of course, after a decade of 12% returns, why should they not be optimistic that the future will be much the same as the past? A good example came from a recent discussion with an individual wanting me to review the “financial plan” for their retirement goals. The plan was generated by one of the many “off the shelf” software packages that take all the inputs of income, assets, pensions, social security, etc., and then spits out assumptions of future asset values and drawdowns in retirement.

The problem is that the return assumptions were grossly flawed.

In the vast majority of these plans, the optimistic assumption is that individuals will have a rate of return of somewhere between 6-10% annually heading into retirement and 4-8% thereafter. The first major flaw in the plan is the “compounding” of annual returns over time, which does NOT happen.

“There is a massive difference between AVERAGE and ACTUAL returns on invested capital. Thus, in any given year, the impact of losses destroys the annualized “compounding” effect of money.

The chart below shows the difference between “actual” investment returns and “average” returns over time. See the problem? The purple-shaded area and the market price graph show “average” returns of 7% annually. However, the return gap in “actual returns,” due to periods of capital destruction, is quite significant.”

The second and most important is the future expectation of individual returns over the next 10-20 years.

This second point is what I want to address today.

There are two main reasons why returns over the next decade or two are currently overestimated. The first is a “you problem,” and the second is “math.”

It’s A You Problem

Back in 2016, I wrote an article discussing a Dalbar investor study explaining why investors consistently “suck” at investing. As I detailed in that article, one of the biggest impediments to achieving long-term investment returns is the impact of emotionally driven investment mistakes.

Investor psychology helps us to understand the thoughts and actions that lead to poor decision-making. That psychology drives the “buy high/sell low” syndrome and the traps, triggers, and misconceptions that lead to irrational mistakes that reduce returns over time.

As the Dalbar study showed, nine distinct behaviors impede optimistic investors based on their personal experiences and unique personalities.

The most significant problems for individuals are the “herding effect” and “loss aversion.”

These two behaviors tend to function together compounding the issues of investor mistakes over time. As markets are rising, individuals are optimistic the current price trend will continue to last for an indefinite period. The longer the rising trend last, the more ingrained that optimistic belief becomes until the last of “holdouts” finally “buys in” as the financial markets evolve into a “euphoric state.”

As the markets decline, there is a slow realization that “this decline” is something more than a “buy the dip”opportunity. As losses mount, the anxiety of loss begins to mount until individuals seek to “avert further loss” by selling.

As shown in the chart below, this behavioral trend runs counter-intuitive to the “buy low/sell high” investment rule.”

“In the end, we are just human. Despite the best of our intentions, it is nearly impossible for an individual to be devoid of the emotional biases that inevitably lead to poor investment decision-making over time. This is why all great investors have strict investment disciplines that they follow to reduce the impact of human emotions.

More importantly, despite studies that show that “buy and hold,” and “passive indexing” strategies, do indeed work over very long periods of time; the reality is that few will ever survive the downturns in order to see the benefits.”

The impact of these emotionally driven mistakes leads to long-term underperformance below those “goal-based” financial projections.

It’s Just Math 

“But Lance, the markets has returned 10% on average over the last century, so I will probably be okay.”

True. If you can contract “vampirism,” avoid sunlight, garlic, and crosses, you can live long enough to achieve the “average annual rate of return” over the last 124 years.

For the rest of us mere mortals, and why “duration matching” is crucial, we only have between today and retirement to reach our goals. For the majority of us – that is about 15 years.

And therein lies the problem.

Despite much of the commentary that continues to suggest we are in a long-term secular bull market, the math suggests something substantially different. However, it is essential to understand that when low future rates of return are discussed, it does not mean that each year will be low, but the return for the entire period will be low. 

The charts below show the 10- and 20-year rolling REAL, inflation-adjusted returns for the markets compared to trailing valuations.

(Important note: Many advisors/analysts often pen that the market has never had a 10 or 20-year negative return. That is only nominal and should be disregarded as inflation must be included in the debate.)

There are two crucial points to take away from the data. First, there are several periods throughout history where market returns were near zero and negative. Secondly, the periods of low returns follow periods of excessive market valuations. Such suggests that betting “This time is not different” may not work well.

As David Leonhardt noted previously:

“The classic 1934 textbook ‘Security Analysis’ – by Benjamin Graham, a mentor to Warren Buffett, and David Dodd – urged investors to compare stock prices to earnings over ‘not less than five years, preferably seven or ten years.’ Ten years is enough time for the economy to go in and out of recession. It’s enough time for faddish theories about new paradigms to come and go.”

History shows that valuations above 23x earnings have tended to denote secular bull market peaks. Conversely, valuations at 7x earnings or less have tended to denote secular bull market starting points.

This point is proven simply by looking at the distribution of returns as compared to valuations over time.

From current levels, history suggests that returns to investors over the next 10 and 20 years will likely be lower than higher. However, as I said, we can also prove this mathematically. As I discussed in “Rising Bullishness:”

“Capital gains from markets are primarily a function of market capitalization, nominal economic growth, plus dividend yield. Using John Hussman’s formula, we can mathematically calculate returns over the next 10-year period as follows:

(1+nominal GDP growth)*(normal market cap to GDP ratio / actual market cap to GDP ratio)^(1/10)-1

Therefore, IF we assume that GDP could maintain 2% annualized growth in the future, with no recessions ever, AND IF current market cap/GDP stays flat at 2.0, AND IF the dividend yield remains at roughly 2%, we get forward returns of:

(1.02)*(1.2/1.5)^(1/10)-1+.02 = -(1.08%)

But there are a “whole lotta ifs” in that assumption. Most importantly, we must also assume the Fed can get inflation to its 2% target, reduce current interest rates, and, as stated, avoid a recession over the next decade.”

In either case, these numbers are well below most financial plan projections, leaving retirees well short of their expected retirement goals. 

Conclusion

While most analysis assumes that individuals should “buy and hold” indexed-based portfolios, the reality is quite different.

Retirement plans have a finite period for asset accumulation and distribution. The time lost “getting back to even” following a significant market correction should be a primary consideration.

Unfortunately, most investors remain woefully behind their promised financial plans. Given current valuations and the ongoing impact of “emotional decision-making,” the outcome will not likely improve over the next decade or two.

Markets are not cheap by any measure. If earnings growth slows, interest rates remain elevated, and demographic trends impact the economy, the bull market thesis will disappoint as “expectations” collide with “reality.” 

Such is not a dire doom and gloom prediction or a “bearish” forecast. It is just a function of how the “math works over time.”

For optimistic investors, understanding potential returns from any given valuation point is crucial when considering putting their “savings” at risk. Risk is an important concept as it is a function of “Loss.“

The more risk taken within a portfolio, the greater the destruction of capital will be when reversions occur.

This time is “not different.” The only difference will be what triggers the next valuation reversion when it occurs. If the last two bear markets haven’t taught you this by now, I am unsure what will. 

Maybe the third time will be the “charm.”

In a story destined to be dramatized on the big screen, a major Mexican drug lord was tricked on Thursday into flying aboard a small plane that landed near El Paso, Texas, where federal agents greeted him on the tarmac with handcuffs. 

That big prize was 76-year-old Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who co-founded the infamous Sinaloa cartel with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in the late 1980s. El Chapo was extradited to America in 2017 and is serving a life sentence at the federal supermax penitentiary in  Florence, Colorado. El Chapo's son, Joaquín Guzman Lopez, may become his "so close and yet so far" neighbor at the Alcatraz of the Rockies, as he was also nabbed in the creative scheme -- and reportedly participated in it. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the arrests in a statement issued Thursday: 

“The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world...Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks." 

According the Wall Street Journal's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) sources, El Mayo was led to believe the small aircraft he was boarding would take him to survey covert airstrips inside Mexico. The scheme was months in the making, and was a joint project with the FBI.

Adding to the cinematic intrigue, a high-ranking cartel member is said to have tricked the two into boarding the US-bound airplane. Plot twist: The New York Times reports that it was Guzman Lopez -- El Chapo's son who was also aboard and arrested. Fox News' Bryan Llenas reports that a source tells him Guzman Lopez was said to have turned on El Mayo because he blamed him for his father's apprehension.  

While the DOJ and DEA statements didn't identify the airstrip, reports from Reuters and KTSM indicate the plane landed at Santa Teresa International Jetport, which is located in New Mexico, just across the state line from El Paso. "One worker at the Santa Teresa airport...[said] that he saw a Beechcraft King Air land on the runway, where federal agents were already waiting," Reuters reports. 

Since the Sinaloa Cartel is widely believed to be the foremost smuggler of illicit fentanyl, the twin-arrests represent a major triumph for federal law enforcement, and come at a time when Donald Trump and other Republican candidates are sharply criticizing the Biden administration's performance on that particular drug-war front. 

Another of Chapo's sons, Ovidio Guzman, was extradited to the US in January 2023. El Chapo's four sons are known as "Los Chapitos," and the same name is used by the criminal organization they've run, which is one of four that comprise the Sinaloa Cartel. In October, the Sinaloa Cartel reportedly banned fentanyl production and trafficking, but the DEA dismissed the announcement as "probably a publicity stunt," noting that the volume of fentanyl seized at the border was undiminished.  

"Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable," said Garland. Synthetic opioids -- including fentanyl -- were responsible for more than 74,000 deaths in the United States in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

While the DEA crowed that the arrest of El Mayo represents an "enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel," don't count on it to have a material impact on the flow of drugs into the United States. "We aren’t talking about a structure that depends on a few kingpins — it’s very diffuse and resilient to these kinds of hits,” International Crisis Group senior analyst Falko Ernst tells the Times. In the near term, he adds, the principal result will likely be violence as the cartel's succession competition plays out. 

It should also be noted that, in a grand example of unintended consequences of government market interventions, the rise of fentanyl is itself a product of the war on drugs. Per Richard Cowan's Iron Law of Prohibition, "As law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases." That's because high-potency drugs are easier to smuggle -- giving a 10-pound parcel of fentanyl a far better risk/reward/ROI profile than a truckload of marijuana.